Fidel Castro, Perestroika, and workers' democracy

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what Gorbachev thinks is good for the Soviet Union is not necessarily good and ALAN BENJAMIN In his annual July 26 speech this year, Cuban President Fidel Castro centered his attention on the perestroika (economic restructuring) reforms pursued in the Soviet Union and other workers' states.

Castro, in a carefully worded speech commemorating the 35th anniversary of the assault on the Moncada barracks, did not openly oppose perestroika, but he rejected this policy for Cuba. He stated that "Cuba will never adopt methods of capitalism."

In sharp contrast to the top ideologues of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Castro stated, "Socialism and capitalism are diametrically different by definition and essence."

Castro's speech was a strong reaffirmation of the Cuban Communist Party's "rectification" campaign, which was launched at the Third Party Congress in 1986. This campaign developed in response to the perestroika-type economic measures introduced in Cuba in the late. 1970s.

These were measures that authorized private producers—mainly farmers—to sell whatever surplus they had left (after selling their quotas to the state at fixed prices) on the "free" markets. There the producers could obtain whatever price the market would bear.

The reforms, however, led to the proliferation of middlemen (often rich peasants) who made small fortunes selling farm produce in the towns. They did this by hoarding goods in order to speculate and price gouge.

Seeing the dangers to the revolution posed by the development of this privileged and parasitic social layer, the Cuban CP slammed on the brakes and resorted back to the campaign of moral and ideological incentives characteristic of the early years of the Cuban Revolution.

In response to those who argue that Cuba should abandon its "rectification" process and step in line behind Gorbachev's market reforms, Castro said:

4 SOCIALIST ACTION SUPPLEMENT made it clear that "Many capitalists believe that the socialist system will have no choice but to adopt methods, styles, and even motivations and a certain kind of idiosyncrasy of a capitalist nature. They're indulging themselves in wishful thinking... It has never occurred to us to think that we have to copy what the Soviets do."

Elsewhere he stated, "If someone is suffering from corns, why look for a remedy for a toothache?"

At one point, Castro alluded to one of the dangerous consequences of perestroika: unemployment. He rejected capitalist incentives for production (the threat of layoffs to increase productivity) and the introduction of unemployment in a "socialist" society.

"We don't want anyone jobless on the street," Castro said, "and the day we work well, with efficiency, and there is a surplus labor force, the solution lies in reducing the number of working hours."

The concept of guaranteed full employment and a shorter workweek in a highly industrialized socialist system is a far cry from Gorbachev's acceptance of the need for unemployment in the Soviet Union. (Gorbachev actually said that whoever finds the solution to unemployment should get a "Nobel Prize.")

Castro concluded one portion of his remarks on perestroika with a wish of his own. He said he hoped that Gorbachev and the Soviet leadership would "rectify" their current market-reform "mistakes," just as Cuba had done in 1986.

Castro lambasted the capitalists and their apologists who, "on the basis of the self-criticism now going on in the Soviet Union," are bent on discrediting the great achievements and gains of the socialist revolutions. "They're trying ... to detract from the historical merits of socialism and demoralize it," Castro said.

In response to the multiplying number of critics of socialism—all of whom are having a field day with what they call Gorbachev's confessions of the failures of Marxism and socialism—Castro spoke with great pride about the record of the Cuban Revolution.

He began by pointing out that the Cuban July 26th Movement carried out a socialist revolution in opposition to those who insisted that Cuba must first have a prolonged capitalist stage to gain independence from the United States.

"Cuba... was the first country to free itself from U.S. imperialism in this hemisphere ... and the first one to carry out a socialist revolution," Castro stated.

"This revolution was precisely characterized by a reluctance to copy from others," Castro continued. "Had we been willing to follow stereotypes, theory had it that no [socialist] revolution could be made here; ... that's what the books used to say, what the manuals used to say."

This was a direct reference to the Soviet leadership and to the Cuban Stalinists, then organized in the Cuban Socialist Party. Both were responsible for writing the manuals and books that promoted the "two-stage theory of revolution.' Cuba's agrarian reform Castro also described how the Cuban Revolution had carried out its successful land reform. The Cuban approach rejected forced collectivization and used education and patience to organize the poorer farmers to produce in a collective manner, while nationalizing the large private farms into state farms.

Referring to the small peasants or sharecroppers who were given the land, Castro stated:

"We haven't forced any of them to join cooperatives. The process of uniting those plots has taken us 30 years. We've gone ahead little by little on the basis of the strict principle of it being voluntary. ... And yet more than two-thirds of their lands now belong to cooperatives, and all of them are making headway, they are prospering.

This approach by the Cuban leadership was identical to the one advocated in the Soviet Union by Leon Trotsky in the middle and late 1920s, prior to Stalin's forced collectivizations. [See Carl Finamore's article on the Soviet economy in this section.] Ninety miles from the U.S.

Castro went on to explain to the July 26 rally that the Cuban people have no one else but themselves to rely on to solve their economic problems and to defend their revolution from the threats and pressures of U.S. imperialism.

"Were imperialism to attack us," Castro said, "who is there to defend the island? No one will come from abroad

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revolution has relied on mass mobilizations of the population to discourage U.S. troops in Grenada. The Cuban revolution is constantly faced with the threat of U.S. invasion. The Cuban to defend our island; we defend the island ourselves. It isn't that someone might not want to defend us, the thing is that no one can, because this socialist revolution is not just a few kilometers from the Soviet Union; this socialist revolution is 10,000 kilometers from the Soviet Here Castro reveals his understanding of the new terms of "peaceful coexistence" worked out between Reagan and Gorbachev over the past few years. He is aware that the summit agreements involve settling "regional conflicts" across the globe and knows that he can be cut off from Soviet support at any time, leaving him vulnerable to the imperialist colossus to the north.

This is why Castro appealed so strongly for the Cuban masses to mobilize to defend the revolution.

Castro's veiled response to Gorbachev demonstrated the great strengths and achievements of the Cuban Revolution-and of socialism in general. But it also brought to light some of Castro's and the Cuban leadership's shortcomings.

These weaknesses center around two themes: the lack of institutions of workers' democracy in Cuba and the lack of a consistent proletarian internationalist perspective to defend and extend the Cuban Revolution.

Lack of socialist democracy In his speech, Castro indirectly rejected the limited glasnost/democratic openings Gorbachev has introduced in the Soviet Union-openings which Gorbachev justified on the grounds that "criticism is a bitter medicine, but the ills of society make it a necessity."

Castro categorically rejected the idea that Cuba had any ills which would make glasnost-type measures necessary. "We have created our own political way to suit the country," he said. "We have to rectify absolutely none of this. Ours is a superdemocratic system."

Elsewhere Castro stated, "It is not that we want to be more virtuous than anyone else, or more pure than anyone else. It's that we are 90 miles away from the most powerful empire on earth, and 10,000 miles from the socialist camp. ... That is why imperialism tries to weaken the revolution ideologically ... so that it can swallow us like a ripe apple."

In his speech, Castro said he would never allow what he called "pocket-size parties" to organize in Cuba. He repeatedly spoke of the need to maintain "ideological purity" and to prevent all those who would "sow dissension" from doing so. "We don't need capitalist political formulas," he said, "they're just trash."

Castro here confuses bourgeois democracy with example, Lenin and the early Bolsheviks tried to preserve the multiparty character of the soviet system. In fact, Menshevik and Socialist Revolutionary oppositionist parties functioned legally all through the civil war until they engaged in armed insurrection against the goverment.

Castro correctly points to the need for a Leninist combat party to lead a revolution against capitalism and to consolidate a workers' state. But he departs from Lenin and the early Bolsheviks when he upholds the prohibition of tendencies and factions inside the Cuban CP as well as the prohibition of any opposition political parties. [See article by Carl Finamore on soviet ....radesti aggression.

democracy in this section.] The prohibition of tendencies and parties makes it difficult—in fact, nearly impossible-to organize opposition against a mistaken policy.

While it is correct and necessary for the Cuban Revolution to use any means necessary to prevent the exiled Cuban capitalists and their supporters inside the country from organizing against the revolution, it is not true, as Castro implies in his speech, that all forms of dissent in Cuba are pro-capitalist and counterrevolutionary.

Underground political currents

There exist in Cuba a number of political currents— made up mainly of intellectuals and artists-that firmly support the revolution but object to the one-party monopoly on political power by the ruling Cuban Communist Party. These currents, all of them underground, have also pointed to the failure of the revolution, now in its 30th year, to provide institutionalized channels for criticism, debate, and genuine participation by the masses in the major decisions affecting their lives.

These objections are justified. Cuban "people's democracy" is unquestionably more democratic than anything that ever existed in Cuba in the past. But the Cuban CP, the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, and the numerous other mass organizations are plagued with severe bureaucratic deformations.

The structures of all these institutions are vertical and top heavy. No organized opposition groupings are allowed. And no real decisions are made by the lower bodies or mass organizations; these are all made by the Central Committee of the party.

Close observers of the Cuban Revolution often point out that Castro regularly recognizes-and corrects— serious mistakes or abuses committed by leading party bodies. Although this is undoubtedly true, no revolution can rely on one person, however brilliant or committed to the revolution he or she may be, to correct the myriads of problems and mistakes inherent in any carbola genuine social transformation.

The existence of organized channels for genuine participation and debate-i.e., of genuine socialist democracy-is not a danger or liability to the Cuban Revolution. It is a vital necessity.

Limits to Cuba's internationalism The Cuban Revolution has been under intense pressures and attacks from its inception. Today, with Gorbachev's shift toward accommodation with U.S. imperialism, the revolution is more vulnerable than ever.

In his speech, Castro acknowledged that the next two to three years will be extremely difficult ones for the Cuban masses. He predicted economic hardships resulting from, among other things, the deteriorating terms of trade with Cuba's capitalist trade partners.

For nearly three decades, the Cuban leadership has been confronted with the difficult situation of increasing the well-being of its population within the confines of a beleaguered island. The economic support from the Soviet Union has been essential to its survival, but not sufficient to provide the capital and consumer goods which the Cuban people require to move the revolution forward.

The revolution has been successful in resisting the imperialist blockade and siege. But it cannot ultimately survive or deepen the gains it has made unless it breaks out of its isolation in the Western hemisphere. For this to happen, the Cuban example has to be extended throughout the rest of Latin America as the road for national independence.

Although Castro and the Cuban CP have demonstrated a willingness to materially oppose U.S. imperialism in Nicaragua and Africa, they have been unwilling to apply the lessons of the Cuban Revolution, which Castro acknowleged in his speech, to the rest of the colonial world.

Referring to Nicaragua, for example, Castro has repeatedly stated that the Sandinistas have not proposed to carry out a socialist revolution, and that he fully agrees with this view. Castro has strongly endorsed the Sandinista government's commitment to a capitalist mixed economy. In his July 26 speech he reiterated this view.

But the entire history of the 20th century-particularly in Latin America—has proven that there is no middle capitalist road between U.S. imperialism and the example of the Cuban socialist revolution that can lead to genuine national independence.

Uneven response

Castro's condemnation of Gorbachev's perestroika reforms reveals the healthy revolutionary character of the Cuban leadership and the Cuban Revolution. Castro's reaffirmation of Cuba's political structures and international policies, however, point to the important weaknesses of the Cuban revolutionaries.

Castro and the Cuban CP are not Stalinist. And while there are noticeable bureaucratic deformations, there is not a hardened bureaucratic caste at the helm of the revolution that must hold back the masses in order to preserve its material privileges.

The Cuban leaders can best be described as "revolutionaries of action"—i.e., revolutionaries who are genuinely committed to advancing the interests of the workers and peasants, but whose program for carrying out this objective contains severe limitations.

But whatever its weaknesses, Castro's speech represents a breath of fresh air at a time when the leaders of the Soviet Union, China, and the Eastern European workers' states are hailing the "virtues of the market economy" and the advantages of "peaceful coexistence.' Castro's speech will provide valuable ammunition for all those who want to respond to Gorbachev and uphold the road toward socialism.

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