The Guardian of Liberty - Nemzetőr, 1983 (6. évfolyam, 1-6. szám)
1983-07-01 / 4. szám
12 Cuba: ’A Capitalist Hell’ Two articles recently published by extreme left-wing journals in the United States have surprised Latin American commentators by their forthright criticism of the Castro government. Both show that after 24 years of communist rule Cuba has far to go before achieving its “socialist revolution”. The first article, “Cuba is a Capitalist Hell," appeared in the International Communist Current journal, Internationalism. Its thesis is that Cuba’s revolutionary spirit has long since evaporated, to be replaced by a repressive form of “State capitalism”. The article says: “Any honest look at what has been reported in numerous books about the situation in Cuba, even by its supporters, since '59, reveals... unemployment, inflation, economic stagnation or decline, political repression greater than even under Batista and working conditions that are worse than before the Castroists took power.” (Fulgencio Batista’s discredited regime was overthrown in 1959 in a coup d’etat led by Dr. Fidel Castro. Batista himself seized power in a military coup in 1933. Becoming President in 1940, he was exiled in 1945 and reinstated in 1952 after a second coup.) The article adds that “economic problems in the industrial sector plagued the new regime of Castro from the beginning”. Disma'l economic performance, “disguised” unemployment and the drafting of the most skilled workers and technicians abroad so as to acquire reserves of convertible currency have caused “a sharp deterioration in the standard of living of most Cubans”. Shortages have led to the rationing of basic foodstuffs and consumer goods, and on the black marget which has developed: “Even clothing and some foodstuffs are unaffordable. For example: a monthly wage could be spent on one pound of cake, a pair of shoes, a meter of fabric, and a couple of pounds of beef.” The strongest criticism is reserved for Cuba’s education system, whidi is described as being “worthy of any Stalinist”: “In 1972 the Secretary of the Young Communist League complained that among the youth there was a ’. . . backward minority who neither study nor work—or do so only under pressure’. In April, ’71, out of the number of school-age youngsters 14—16, there were 300,000 who neither worked nor studied: 23 per cent among the 14- year-olds and 60 per cent among 16-year-olds. “The drop-out rate was worse: 88 per cent in rural areas, 66 per cent in the urban areas. In elementary schools, 69 per cent of those who attended classes in 1965 did not finish in ’71. “According to the Minister of Education, 50 per cent of the books sent to schools were lost each year.” Cubans much-vaunted health system also comes under attack. Mortality rates, the article states, were not brought down until the mid-1970s, and in reorganising health care: “Castro’s primary goal was increased efficiency of exploitation. In order to keep the workforce exploitable under the extreme conditions of the Cuban sugar fields, free health care was more profitable than the private health care of the Batista regime.” In conclusion the article questions the legitimacy of the Cuban revolution: “Castro’s ’revolution’ had nothing to do with the working class. In fact it was not a revolution at all but a palace coup. ■ "Not the workers, not even the peasants brought Castro to power, but the Cuban army, the generals who switched their support from Batista to Castro and delivered him Havana without a shot being fired. “No wonder Castro himself said ... 'The working class is not a truly revolutionary class ...’ ”. The second article appeared in an International Socialist Organisation pamphlet, Castro, Cuba and Socialism—the Economics of State Capitalism. It attacks Cuba’s dependence as a client State on the Soviet Uion—on whidi it is now wholly dependent for economic and military support. Moscow’s control over the Cuban economy was strengthened following the failure to achieve a 10-million-tonne sugar harvest in 1970. Since then the economy has been remodelled on collectivised Soviet lines (Cuba joined the Moscow-led economic grouping, the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, in 1972). As the article states: “In the 1980s it is hard to distinguish between the dependency of the Cuban economy before 1959, and its renewed dependency in the third decade of the Revolution”. In the trade union sphere the article goes on to say that, though unions exist in Cuba, they “play an important role, but a role as an arm of management”: “The organisation of production now resembles that in Russia quite closely. And the role of the 'unions’ is virtually the same: in both cases they are there to manage the workers and most emphatically not to represent them.” The article also includes s survey of the “mass organisations” such as the Committees for the Defence of Revolution, set up to watdi for “counter-revolutionary activity,” and the Federation of Cuban Women. None of these bodies “has been able or willing to do anything but to implement the already-fixed policy of the regime.” There is also strong criticism of the Cuban Communist Party, which is described as “a completely bureaucratised monolithic party (which) has held only one congress in its entire history and that was in 1975—ten years after it was set up”. But it is the analysis of Cuba’s foreign policy which demonstrates, according to the International Socialist Organisation pamphlet, the purely opportunistic motives of the Havana regime: “Castro has therefore turned full circle. From beginning with the notion that what was needed was a revolutionary foreign policy, he has now reduced that to support of an y regime that opposes American interests, however reactionary it i s.” Cuban intervention in Angola and the Horn of Africa is viewed as yet another example of Havana aoting in the Soviet interest in an attempt to thwart the Americans. This policy was pursued with complete cynicism in Ethiopia where in the mid-1970s the Cubans, following the Soviet withdrawal of covert support for the Eritrean guerrillas, began giving large-scale military assistance to the Mengistu government. THE GUARDIAN OF LIBERTY (NEMZETŐR) hoitfwriafcttofraadainof ltiuu||M.l<ni«iJi A/ticl» II, Univtnal Declaration of Human lights Edited by the Editorial Board Verleger, Herausgeber und Inhaber TIBOR KECSKÊSI TOLLAS Journalist, Schriftsteller, München Ferchenbachstraße 88, D-8000 München 50 GERMAN FEDERAL REPUBLIC Verantwortlicher Redak'eur (Editor): MIKLÓS VARY Ferchenbachstraße 88, D-8000 München 50 Druck (print): DANUBIA DRUCKEREI GMBH Ferchenbachstraße 88, D-8000 München 50 AFRICA REPRESENTATIVES A SALE CAMEROON: L. T. JOHNSON, Divisional Inspectorate of Education, NKAMBE, North Wesl Province, United R6p. of CAMEROON. EAST AFRICA: (2.— Sh, by tűr) (Kenya, Upoda, Tansania): General-Representative : International African Literary Agents. P.O. 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JULY-AUGUST, 1983 WOMEN JOINING MILITIA As part of Cuba’s continuing military build-up, more than 213,000 members of the Federation of Cuban Women have so far promised to join the Territorial Troop Militia (MTT) in four of the island’s provinces, according to a recent report in Granma, the Cuban Commuist Party daily. The MTT, formed in 1980, is a paramilitary force closely associated with Cuba’s Soviet-advised regular armed forces.