Fluent Essays

Discussion 1 Individual and collectives Che Guevara, a major protagonist of the Cuban revolution, believed that revolutionary internationalism could change the world. Sergio, the fictional protagonist of Memories of underdevelopment, felt alienated by the revolution. This debate intends to reflect on and compare the points of view of Che and Sergio. The goal is to explore what a revolution is, how different people approach it, and how individuals and collectives can be transformed in the process. Here are some questions to inspire your initial reflection: How do the two films portray revolutionary change? In what sense Che and Sergio represent points of view that agree or disagree? How do they regard the masses (collectives) of the people? How do the films reflect the challenge of participating in radical social reform? How can individuals be personally transformed by social transformation? (250-300 words) reply to 3 classmate's post helpful information for writing this: https://vimeo.com/363347022 Discussion 2 "A complicated, contradictory place" A Canadian scholar describes today’s Cuba in the following way: “A complicated, contradictory place, a combination of capitalism, communism, Third World, First World, and Other World, all at the same time.” This debate intends to explore what we have so far learned about the Cuban approach to socialism and development through an analysis of its contradictions. Think of a contradiction relevant to understand Cuba. (It can be one mentioned in course materials or a formulation of your own). In your own words, explain what you understand by it. Connect your analysis with readings and other learning materials. Use examples to illustrate your point. Also, reflect on whether that contradiction is specific to Cuba or can also appear in different societies. (250-300 words) reply to 3 classmates's post I will provide 6 classmate's post after i upload the discussion post, classmates replys are around 30-40 words and should be exchange point and provide feedbacks ( Later  and which will be like a page) Classmates post 1. I think that these two films perfectly capture the constant divide between those in power and the citizens they govern. There is always a level of disconnect between any government and its people, and this is displayed using the contrasting point of views of Che Guevara: a major political figure, and Sergio: the average Cuban man. Che saw what needed to be done and took action; he was a philosophical and well educated man, and he was very passionate about the need for a new government in Cuba. Sergio on the other hand did not care as much. Even Elena said at one point that she didn’t think Sergio was for or against the revolution, he appeared to be indifferent either way. I think that Sergio likely represents the mindset that a lot of Cubans held during the revolution. Che (and Castro) emphasized the need for change, and the cries of the people for help and so on. Realistically, there would have absolutely been a lot of people actively speaking out for change, and others who were very against the revolution, but there also would have been a group of people in between (like Sergio) who were somewhat indifferent. I should note, there is an important distinction between being indifferent and not caring. I would not go as far as to say that Sergio did not care about what was going on around him, but I do think that he had a different perspective than most. How I understood it is that Sergio ultimately saw Cuba in one light: an underdeveloped country. I think that he was doubtful that there would be change regardless of who was in power. To me, Sergio conveyed a feeling of hopelessness, a feeling that Cuba would be frozen in time as this underdeveloped country. I can identify with both Che and Sergio as they both represent very common mindsets that one can have towards their home. Che is an optimist; he sees the potential in the people of Cuban and has a sense of pride for his country. He is motivated to make his home a better place for everyone. Sergio is a pessimist; he thinks that the revolution will not bring any change and that they people who believe so are fools. I think that politicians usually tend to be optimistic because they have big plans and they think they know how to make their country/town/province better. The average citizen might be less inclined to be optimistic towards their situation because they are the ones living through these problems. Sergio is living in underdeveloped Cuba and having to see and deal with the day to day issues, whereas Che is able to see what is happening but he does not have the same level of real experience that Sergio has. 2. I think both "memories of underdevelopment" and "Che, a new man" were similar in many ways and different in some. Both films seemed to focus mainly on the beginning and duration of what it is like to live during the time of a revolution. In the film "memories of underdevelopment", Sergio was not so much a revolutionary, but he was not opposed to change. This is where the films were dissimilar. In "Che, a new man", Che was most definitely a revolutionary. In the film starring Sergio revolution was portrayed as un-organized, at one point in the film it said that there was no accountability in this revolutionary change. The film did not seem to go into much detail of the revolution as a whole, but instead how the revolutionary change affected Sergio. The revolutionary change showed Sergio's friends, family and wife leaving because they were against revolution. Another interesting part in the movie that represented revolutionary change was when Sergio was accused of raping a woman, which he claimed was consensual. During the trial, Sergio said it was now "him versus the people." (memories of underdevelopment). I recall coming across that statement in one of the earlier readings. I find it interesting because in the western learning of socialism/communism (at least for me), studies seem to emphasis that the leader/state does not care about the people. In "Che, a new man" there is more of a sense of urgency for change in the revolution. The film also better portrays revolutionary change as being "for the people.". Not only does Che help his own country succeed in a revolution, he also helps Africa once Cuba is finished with the revolution. I think this film does a great job of displaying how important change is for many people. Che seemed to wholly appreciate the revolution while Sergio was not for or against it. As I remember from an early reading, "if you are not for the revolution, then you are against it.". I think that is shown when Sergio loses his apartment.  "Memories of underdevelopment" does not directly reflect the challenge of participating in radical social reform (in my opinion). It is more clear in "Che, a new man". In this film parents are seen offering their children to aid the revolution in war efforts, it does not show how hard it is on the families, but as we can imagine it is pretty difficult. A lot of the children were teens or young adults. What made it more difficult is that they had no military training yet they were up against real militaries with real training. I believe it mentioned at one point they were "outnumbered 9 to 1" (Che, a new man). I think individuals can be transformed by social transformation in the sense that it gives liberty and power to the people and they realize that. It may help them to strive for greater individual life goals. 3. Revolution is to me,  emancipatory action. However, the perceptions associated with revolution are as variable as the actors who seek to uphold any given revolutionary cause. Che Guvera’s brand of optimistic international communism illuminates contradictory perceptions of the Cuban revolution when contrasted with Sergio’s experience of alienation. More succinctly, revolution is wonderful for the beneficiaries of its social utility as an emancipatory project , though revolution is not without the potential for estrangement along socio-economic lines. As was the experience of the Sergio character in the film “Memories of Development” (1968.) Whether revolution is an exercise in collective emancipation, or undue tyranny over societies institutions likely relates to two factors: An individual's social dominance orientation  An individual's socio-economic status  Che’s formative years were categorized by a sense of duty to the poor, an affinity for collectivist literature and a middle-class lifestyle, which contrasts starkly with the “decadent” bourgeois upbringing and status enjoyed by Sergio. It is notable that these features of Che Guevera’s biographical information and life history strongly imply a low “social dominance orientation”, or the psychological predisposition toward the notion that no element of society is inherently superior to any other; while what can be gleaned of Sergio is much the opposite, strongly suggesting a high “social dominance orientation”.  Social dominance orientation or “SDO” is a measure of how invested an individual is in hierarchy attenuation.(Pratto, F.  et, al. 1994) For example: social workers have been shown to correspond to a Likert scale measurement of SDO of 1, while police officers often score near -or at- the upper limit of 8. Furthermore, high SDO scores have been shown to be strongly correlated with conservative political views. (Shibley, 2006)  I argue that Sergio maintains a well to do economic status in addition to an attitude of intellectual elitism which precipitates his sense of alienation. The supposition of innate group hierarchy suggests Sergio could be characterized as having a somewhat high SDO, or a belief system constituted by the notion that certain individuals or groups are innately superior to other individuals or groups. I believe this factor at least partially explains the disparate perceptions of revolution within Cuba and elsewhere. While socioeconomic differences are perhaps the most obvious factor related to perceptions of revolution, I believe individuals who correspond to a high to degree of hierarchy attenuating behavior (High social dominance orientation) will hold predominantly negative associations regarding communism and its revolutionary pretext, while those with a low SDO will maintain a more positive view of said revolution, as with Che Guvera’s infectious optimism toward the Cuban revolutionary project.  Cheers,  Tay                                                                                                                           References  Pratto, F., Sidanius, J., Stallworth, L. M., & Malle, B. F. (1994). Social dominance orientation: A personality variable predicting social and political attitudes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67, 741-763. Sibley, Chris G.; Robertson, Andrew; Wilson, Marc S. (2006). "Social Dominance Orientation and Right-Wing Authoritarianism: Additive and Interactive Effects". Political Psychology. 27 (5): 755–68. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9221.2006.00531.x. JSTOR 3792537. less Race and Inequality in the New Cuba: Reasons, Dynamics, and Manifestations Katrin Hansing Social Research: An International Quarterly, Volume 84, Number 2, Summer 2017, pp. 331-349 (Article) Published by Johns Hopkins University Press For additional information about this article Access provided at 26 Apr 2019 16:39 GMT from Dalhousie University https://muse.jhu.edu/article/668225 https://muse.jhu.edu/article/668225 social research Vol. 84 : No. 2 : Summer 2017 331 Katrin Hansing Race and Inequality in the New Cuba: Reasons, Dynamics, and Manifestations INTRODUCTION Few social transformations have attacked social inequalities more thor- oughly than the 1959 Cuban Revolution. Since the fall of the Soviet Union and Cuba’s subsequent economic crisis, however, the island’s celebrated social achievements of equality, full-scale public employ- ment, and high-quality universal education and health care have been seriously affected. Today, Cuban society is marked by rising levels of poverty and inequality, growing unemployment, dwindling social services, and continuous outward migration. Moreover, in the context of a changing economy, defined by the declining role of the state and the introduction of market mechanisms, new social stratifications are emerging—and doing so along clearly visible racial lines. Inequality and race, both dominant themes in pre-Revolutionary Cuba that the Revolution fought hard to eliminate, have once again become key over- lapping issues. BEFORE THE 1990S Racial inequality and racism have been integral to Cuban society since the early days of the Spanish conquest. Africans were brought to Cuba as slaves as early as the sixteenth century, but they came in especially 332 social research large numbers in the nineteenth century when Cuba turned into a prosperous sugar colony. The introduction of the sugar industry permanently changed the social composition of Cuba, shaping every- thing from property rights, labor systems, trade, and foreign relations to the island’s national culture and identity (Ortiz 1940). Above all, sugar influenced the formation of the island’s race, class, and social relations. Slavery rested on a number of ideological formulations, all of which had as their central premise the notion of unequal social evolu- tion: that whites were innately superior to nonwhites. Race served to justify not only slavery, but also the exclusion of people of color from political participation and the imposition of barriers to social mobil- ity (Knight 1970; Moreno Fraginals 1978; Scott 1985). After the abolition of slavery in 1886 and in the subsequent re- publican period, race continued to establish people’s legal and social rights, largely determined their economic situation, and played a de- fining role in how people were judged and treated (de la Fuente 1995, 1999; Helg 1995; Fernández-Robaina 1990). Afro-Cubans1 continued to be discriminated against and systematically excluded from higher positions in employment, public service, and politics and continued to make up the majority of the island’s poor and working classes (Mc- Garrity 1992). With the triumph of the Revolution in 1959, the race question was almost entirely subsumed under a broadly redemptive national- ist and subsequently socialist umbrella. The Revolution moved rap- idly to dismantle institutional racism and other forms of socio-legal inequality. The 1976 constitution explicitly prohibited any discrimi- nation based on race or skin color. Beyond this, the revolutionary government approached the issue of race from a strong structural perspective, coherent with its Marxist views of history and society. As such, it assumed that with the elimination of private property and class exploitation, racial discrimination would eventually disappear. Class privileges based on private property were eliminated in Cuba in the early 1960s. For the first time, the Afro-Cuban population Race and Inequality in the New Cuba 333 gained access to most workplaces and to education, as well as to rec- reational institutions. The economic, social, and political measures implemented mainly benefited people of humble origin and, thus, most Afro-Cubans (McGarrity and Cardenas 1995). Despite these achievements, the Revolution did not specifically target the society’s deeply ingrained culture of racism. Instead, the ideological rationale and revolutionary rhetoric of unity and equal- ity introduced an official silence toward race-related matters, which transformed the issue into a semi-taboo topic (de la Fuente 1998; Moore 1988).2 It is this silence that has, in effect, contributed to the survival, reproduction, and creation of racist ideologies and stereotypes. What disappeared from public discourse found fertile breeding ground in the private realm, where race continued to influence social relations among relatives, friends, and neighbors. Socioeconomically speaking, what this has done is turn race into a complex, often hard-to-pinpoint social phenomenon in which racial prejudices persist but are not openly acknowledged, whilst, at the same time, people of different colors mingle freely in many social and professional settings (de la Fuente 1998b). Nevertheless, by the 1980s Cuba was a relatively egalitarian so- ciety, with low levels of racial inequality in key areas of professional and social life. Moreover, the Revolution created an ideal of egalitari- anism that was shared by large sectors of the population. THE SPECIAL PERIOD Since the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, Cuba has been stuck in a deep economic crisis, known as the “Special Period.” After decades of generous Soviet subsidies and barter trade with COMECON states, extremely low domestic productivity, and the continued US embargo, Cuba was suddenly left both economically and politically isolated. The consequences were devastating, and many outside observers predicted that Cuba would be the next communist country to fall. 334 social research Former President Fidel Castro declared a national emergency and told Cubans to brace themselves for a time of extreme austerity and self-sacrifice. Simultaneously he opened the island up to foreign investment and mass tourism, allowed some forms of private busi- ness, and legalized the US dollar. The hope was to attract enough hard currency to revitalize the economy and save the revolutionary proj- ect. These capitalist-style reforms did keep the Revolution afloat, but they also produced fundamental changes in Cuban society and dealt a demolishing blow to the foundations of social equality on the island. For average Cubans, the Special Period has been defined by a daily struggle for survival. Apart from the many hardships caused by the severe material scarcities, constant blackouts, and failing public transportation, the dual currency and de facto double economy have most affected people’s lives (Eckstein 2004; Uriarte 2007). Since this time, two currencies have legally circulated in Cuba: the Cuban Convertible Peso (CUC), which replaced and is pegged to the US dollar, and the original peso cubano, which has become virtu- ally worthless.3 The problem is that the salaries of state workers, who until recently made up 80 percent of the workforce, are paid in pesos cubanos. However, since the early 1990s, Cuban reality is such that everyone needs hard currency or CUC to survive. Stores and state- run businesses have become almost exclusively CUC-based, as have the booming black market and all tourist-related services and venues. Moreover, prices are extremely high given that most consumer goods (including 80 percent of Cuba’s food supply) are imported. In this context, the average monthly state worker salary of 687 pesos cubanos4 (roughly US $25) is not enough to feed a family. As a result, most Cu- bans are looking for CUC to supplement their state incomes. Legal access to hard currency/CUC is, however, mostly limited to Cuba’s tourist industry, foreign joint ventures, the private small business sector, and/or family remittances from abroad. Many Cubans are thus involved in some form of illegal and illicit activity to make ends meet. Stealing from state enterprises, black marketeering, and prostitution are among the most common practices. In this economic Race and Inequality in the New Cuba 335 structure, the value of wages attributed to different professional sec- tors, in both the formal and informal economy, has not only altered the former socialist pattern of relative equity based on income but also devalued the meaning of education and professionalism. Prior to the Special Period, the highest-paid Cuban workers, who were pro- fessionals such as engineers and doctors, only received 4.5 times as much as the lowest-paid worker, a janitor or waitress. In the current economy a self-employed hairdresser or hotel waiter with access to hard currency tips earns at least 20, if not 50, times as much as a state-employed neurosurgeon, a phenomenon referred to as the “in- verted pyramid.” Due to these developments, Cuban society has become increas- ingly polarized between those who have, relatively speaking, easy ac- cess to CUC and those who do not. This has in turn increased levels of poverty and socioeconomic inequalities and contributed to the forma- tion of new social classes, which range from the rural and urban poor to the nouveaux riches.5 In fact, Cuba has an increasingly visible eco- nomic elite that includes owners of private businesses (largely linked to tourism), successful artists, and high-ranking officials, especially in the military. While the origins of the economic crisis may not be racially defined, some of the reforms introduced by the government in the 1990s have hit Afro-Cubans especially hard and given the crisis a racialized dimension. Apart from the divisive nature of the double economy, all the legal avenues of gaining access to the lucrative hard currency/CUC sectors are connected with race. For example, an estimated $2.6 billion in remittances is sent to Cuba every year (Morales 2012). Because the exile/émigré community is overwhelmingly white—in fact 90 percent of Cubans in the US are phenotypically white (Mesa-Lago 2005)—most of this money benefits white households on the island (Barberia 2008; Blue 2007). Afro-Cu- bans, who probably constitute the majority of the island’s population, only receive a small proportion of remittances (Blue 2004; Hansing and Orozco 2014) and are thus clearly disadvantaged.6 This is also true 336 social research for the large amount of material remittances—in the form of food, clothing, medicine, toiletries, home appliances, toys, and so forth— that are sent to families on the island. Moreover, as job competition in the lucrative sectors of the economy—especially tourism—intensified in the late 1990s, racist ar- guments were deployed to minimize black Cubans’ access to them (de la Fuente 1998a; 1998b). Racist ideas and concepts such as “buena presencia”7 have worked especially against Afro-Cubans in the tourism industry. Although this practice has been criticized and has begun to change over the past few years, there are still many more white Cubans employed in key positions in both tourism and joint venture corporations. Furthermore, due to Afro-Cubans’ relative concentration in areas with run-down and overcrowded housing, the opening of pri- vate businesses, such as family-operated restaurants (paladares) and bed-and-breakfasts (two of the most lucrative ways of earning hard currency legally), is not a viable option for most black families (de la Fuente 2011; Zabala 2008). Because of these diverse barriers, most Afro-Cubans have been forced to remain in the low-paying state sec- tor and/or participate in the informal and frequently illegal economy. As a result, race has become a major cleavage in Cuba since the 1990s (Espina and Rodríguez 2010). RAÚL CASTRO’S ECONOMIC REFORMS In an effort to lift Cuba out of its economic woes, President Raúl Castro introduced a set of sweeping economic and social reforms in 2011. As a result, a new mixed economy made up of state, cooperative, and private sectors is emerging. This new socioeconomic reality is taking shape through the cumulative introduction of measures, known as los Lineamientos de la Política Económica y Social (lineamientos for short), the most important of which include large state worker layoffs, seri- ous cuts in social spending, the expansion of the private sector in the form of small businesses, a comprehensive agricultural reform, a new tax code, and the legalization of the sale/purchase of private homes Race and Inequality in the New Cuba 337 and cars between individuals. Moreover, the much-criticized Cuban exit visa was eliminated in early 2013, giving Cubans the possibility to travel more easily (Domínguez et al. 2012). Although the reforms are being implemented slowly, they are already having a huge impact on the lives of ordinary Cubans. Af- ter decades of rigid economic centralization and travel restrictions, people are being granted more economic freedom as well as freedom of movement. These are, no doubt, important and exciting develop- ments. However, the reforms are also producing unemployment, fur- ther outward migration, and increasing levels of already existing pov- erty and inequality (Brundenius and Torres Pérez 2013). These negative trends are in part due to the state employee layoffs and cuts in social spending, as well as the continued low state wages and increasing food and gas prices. However, it is also because the Cuban state has so far failed to provide the population with the necessary credit system (i.e., loans, microcredit), infrastructure (wholesale markets), and resources (business training, etc.) to start small businesses. This is particularly surprising given that the gov- ernment’s own reform logic expects a large number of unemployed workers to join the private sector. As a result, it is mainly Cubans with access to private capital who can take advantage of the new eco- nomic opportunities. In Cuba’s new economy, several different types of private capital can be identified, including physical capital (private prop- erty, cars); financial capital (liquid cash); material capital (consumer goods); social capital (connections, networks, and influence); and/or transnational capital (mobility, citizenship). To become a player in the new economy, access to at least one but preferably several forms of private capital are needed. THE ROLE OF PROPERTY AND REMITTANCES Real estate has become a key asset in Cuba ever since renting out rooms to foreigners for hard currency and opening paladares were legalized in the 1990s. With the recent expansion of the private 338 social research sector, property has become increasingly valuable, given that almost all private businesses are located in private homes. Like anywhere else in the world, location matters. As such, most of the successful private businesses are situated in centrally located or upscale neigh- borhoods.8 Because most of the well-maintained properties in these neigh- borhoods are owned by descendants of the pre-Revolutionary upper classes and members of the current political and cultural elite, most of whom tend to be phenotypically white, most of the money being earned here is benefitting white families.9 Since the sale and purchase of property were legalized in Cuba in 2011, real estate prices in these neighborhoods have skyrocketed, and many new private businesses have been opening. Most of the financial and material capital needed to buy prop- erty and/or start a private business is coming from abroad, particular- ly from the Cuban diaspora; that is, Cuban families in South Florida and elsewhere are providing their relatives and friends on the island with monetary and material remittances to help them start private businesses and/or buy real estate and/or cars, etc. It is worth noting that most of this capital is being sent in the form of private loans or investments to finance real estate and other business transactions; that is, family and friends abroad are entering into business partner- ships with their relatives and friends in Cuba. In most cases, fam- ily members/friends abroad provide the capital, while the Cubans on the island take care of all the legal, logistical, and practical matters involved in buying property and/or starting and running a business. Because the right to own private property and/or a small business in Cuba is reserved for Cuban nationals who live on the island, these business partnerships are technically not legal. A visit to the airport in Miami, Cancun, Nassau, or any other gateway entry point to Cuba attests to the strength of these transna- tional, entrepreneurial ties. Long lines of Cubans and Cuban Ameri- cans can be seen checking in large amounts of consumer goods, rang- ing from ice makers to pizza ovens, flat screen TVs, gym equipment, Race and Inequality in the New Cuba 339 clothes, and beauty supplies bound for the island. It is these imported goods that are furnishing and decorating many of the new private businesses. Western Union is the main international company offering re- mittance-sending services to Cuba, although smaller, local businesses in Miami and other parts of the Cuban diaspora offer similar services. There are also people known as mulas—which literally means “mules” in Spanish, in this case referring to people crossing borders carrying money or goods—who travel to Cuba with large amounts of cash. Mu- las charge much less than Western Union and other remittance-send- ing services, and they deliver the money directly to people’s homes. Moreover, remittances sent with mulas are not registered by any bank or government. It is for this reason that the actual amount of yearly remittances flowing into Cuba is not known, although it is clearly much higher than the estimated US $2.6 billion (Hansing and Oro- zco 2014). Given the strong historical links between migration, race, and remittances, most of the financial and material capital is coming from and being sent to phenotypically white families. THE ROLE OF CITIZENSHIP AND MOBILITY Another key, albeit less well known, factor contributing to the grow- ing racial inequality has been the liberalization of travel and unequal opportunities for obtaining visas from other countries. In this, access to foreign citizenship has become particularly desirable. Cubans on the island with dual citizenship include a small group who are married to foreigners and have taken on their spouses’ citizenships, as well as Cubans who have immigrated and become naturalized abroad and then decided to repatriate to Cuba. This latter group, called “repa- triados” (repatriated), is a recent, growing phenomenon that includes Cubans abroad who are in part reclaiming their Cuban citizenship in order to buy property on the island, a right that is still exclusively reserved for Cuban residents. The largest group of dual citizens in Cuba, however, is comprised of Cubans of recent Spanish decent. 340 social research In 2007 Spain passed the so-called “Historic Memory Law.” This legislation offers Spanish citizenship to any person who can claim proof of a Spanish parent or grandparent. Due to strong Spanish im- migration to Cuba in the 1920s, and again under General Franco, the number of Cubans who can claim a Spanish grandparent and thus citizenship is staggering—of the worldwide 500,000 applicants under the law, 40.7 percent were Cubans (Golías Pérez 2014,16). Not unex- pectedly, most of these individuals are phenotypically white. For Cubans, a Spanish—and hence EU—passport is a key asset, especially now that they no longer need an exit visa to leave Cuba. Not only does it allow for virtually worldwide, visa-free travel, but it also gives them the possibility to legally live and work anywhere in Europe. Although some Cubans are immigrating, most are using their foreign citizenship as a way to start a small business in Cuba. Taking advantage of the island’s legitimate private sector, continued mate- rial scarcities, and people’s increasing consumer desires, many dual citizens are traveling to nearby countries (such as Mexico, Panama, and the US) and buying consumer goods that are hard to get in Cuba, which they then resell on the island with a handsome markup. Furthermore, with a Spanish or other foreign passport, it is much easier to open a bank account outside Cuba. This in turn allows for international banking and business transactions that most Cubans on the island are otherwise not privy to. For example, Cubans who are connected to the private CUC economy, such as artists or people who rent out their homes to foreigners, often ask their clients to transfer the payment directly into their foreign bank account. The same is happening with private property sales, in that a lot of the money is being paid into foreign bank accounts. Given the uncertainty of the Cuban economy, Cubans with this profile feel more comfortable keeping their earnings abroad in hard currency. Afro-Cubans are far less likely to have a relative in Miami who can offer start-up capital for a small business/property or a grandpar- ent in Madrid who can provide a Spanish passport. With Afro-Cubans having much less access to financial capital, goods, and mobility, Cu- Race and Inequality in the New Cuba 341 ba’s new economic opportunities don’t start out on a level playing field. Past and present migration patterns in combination with recent economic and legal reforms are thus having a clear impact on current social group formation and development in Cuba. MANIFESTATIONS OF RACIAL INEQUALITIES IN THE NEW CUBA The effects of these growing socioeconomic divisions have started to become clearly visible and are manifesting themselves in different ways. Today most successful, private businesses in Cuba—whether paladares, bed and breakfasts, beauty parlors, boutiques, or night- clubs—are not only owned but usually also managed, staffed, and frequented by white Cubans (as well as tourists). Interestingly, both the aesthetic and the atmosphere in many of these private establish- ments make it increasingly difficult to distinguish them from their counterparts in Miami Beach, New York, or Mexico City. Homes in exclusive neighborhoods continue to be bought and sold for exorbitantly high prices and restored to their former glory. A similar trend has also started in more rundown urban areas, where real estate is much cheaper, resulting in a process of gentrification. The new economy has not only created new privileges but also enabled new lifestyles and habits. Many people have more money to spend on themselves and more time for leisure and recreation. It is thus not unusual to see expensive, imported cars on the streets of Havana or well-dressed Cubans hanging out in many of the new chic and pricey restaurants and nightclubs. New high-end gyms, spas, and beauty parlors have cropped up, offering services such as yoga and Pi- lates, steam baths, and saunas, as well as specialized nutritional diets. Even plastic surgery has become popular. Among economically well-off Cubans, it is also common to have domestic help such as a housekeeper, nanny, gardener, and/or watchman. Unthinkable just a few years ago, it is also no longer un- usual for Cubans with disposable income to spend their summer vaca- tions in Europe or to go on cruises. 342 social research The Internet is another marker of privilege. Access to the In- ternet in Cuba is, generally speaking, still challenging and expensive and mainly available in public urban spaces. However, people with means are increasingly finding ways to have home-based wifi con- nections. This provides them with easier, faster access to private and professional related communication, international news, and social media while also offering conveniences such as online banking and shopping. Cubans who rent out their property to foreigners through an online website such as Airbnb, for instance, can conveniently man- age their bookings from home. With inexpensive commercial flights to Miami, more and more business owners are travelling there to go shopping. To save time, some even shop online beforehand, have the goods sent to a relative, and then pick them up when they are in Miami. What would have been considered ostentatious and at times even counterrevolutionary behavior under Fidel Castro has become acceptable under his brother Raúl. In the new Cuba it is no longer politically incorrect to show one’s goods—quite the contrary. These growing images of privilege stand in stark contrast to the growing number of people who can be seen begging and rummaging through piles of garbage in search of food or recyclable cans and bottles, or the increasing numbers of devastatingly poor urban shantytowns that are cropping up around Havana and provincial capitals along the north- east coast. Most of the people who live in these slum-like dwellings—re- ferred to in Cuba as lleg y pon, which comes from llegar (to come) and poner (to put down or squat)—are Afro-Cuban migrants who have come from the island’s even poorer eastern provinces. They come in search of work in the parallel, informal economies that have sprung up mostly where tourism is prevalent and where hard currency is in regular circulation (mainly the northwestern coast of Cuba). Most of these people live from day to day, making ends meet in whatever way they can. Because internal migration is not allowed in Cuba without permission from the state, these migrants are largely illegal, mak- Race and Inequality in the New Cuba 343 ing their situation even more precarious. Due to their illegal status, they cannot use the food ration card (libreta) that entitles every Cuban citizen to a certain amount of basic subsidized food supplies every month; a libreta is tied to a person’s home address. Migrants everywhere in the world tend to go to places where they already know someone. This is true for many internal Cuban mi- grants and is a reason many of the older shantytowns and tenement buildings (solares) in Havana and elsewhere are growing and becom- ing more overcrowded. The newer shantytowns that are mushrooming—particularly on the outskirts of cities and towns—are mainly made out of wood, old bricks, plastic, zinc, or whatever people can find to use as shel- ter. Many of them don’t have running water, and electricity—when available—is often pirated by tapping into a public streetlight cable. In fact, these slums look like slums found anywhere in the Global South, except that—and this is an important difference—children go to school, people have access to health care, and there is relatively little violent crime (especially when compared to neighboring coun- tries in the region). However, Cubans don’t like comparing themselves to their neighbors in the region. Rather, they prefer to compare their current situation to how things were in the past, especially before the Special Period. Moreover, they were brought up on a message of equality and social justice, and the social contract between the government and the people has been largely based on that expectation. There is no doubt that the Special Period changed many things and life became extremely difficult, but it was difficult for almost everyone. Now, with the increasing social divisions, particularly the overt signs of wealth and privilege, this is changing, and people—especially among the have-nots—are increasingly frustrated. The fact that these social divi- sions can also be witnessed in the public sector, such as in health and education, is particularly exasperating. In Cuba health care and education have been free, universal rights since 1959. In practice, however, Cubans with financial, mate- 344 social research rial, and social capital now have better access to quality health care and education. In the public health sector this is happening because health care workers continue to earn low state wages and are thus easily inclined to accept a “little gift” (un regalito) in the form of mon- ey and material goods, or help a friend who will reciprocate the favor in some useful way. Bringing a regalito or having a friend in the health care sector opens the door to quicker and better medical attention. For instance, if one needs an appointment with a specialist, an X-ray, or an operation, a regalito could help secure and speed up the neces- sary care. People who don’t have the means to offer a regalito or who don’t have connections to someone in the health care system usually have … 11 Between the Old and the New I The end of the Batista regime came amidst a revolutionary general strike on Jan- uary 1, 1959, summoning hundreds of thousands of Cubans to a final offensive against the old order, demanding nothing less than unconditional surrender to the new. But it was not immediately apparent that the resulting transition of power signified anything more than a turnover of personnel. The new provi- sional revolutionary government was unremarkable enough: a loose coalition made up of representatives of the established political parties, largely from the ranks of the Auténticos and Ortodoxos, mostly men from liberal professions who either in person or in kind had long governed Cuba. But it was also increasingly clear that authority in Cuba after January 1959 did not come from the new provisional revolutionary government or the old political parties, but originated in the 26 of July Movement, in its armed forces, and most of all in its leader, Fidel Castro. And herein lay the difference between what was new in this transition and what was old. The movement was led by a new generation—the “generation of the centenario,” they called themselves: on the centennial of José Martí’s birth (1853), Moncada was attacked (1953). For a new movement to proclaim itself charged with a mission of deliverance was not an unfamiliar phenomenon in Cuba. This was not the first time that youth had aspired to power in the name of the people, justice, and freedom and stepped forward to claim responsibility for redemption. The leader of the new genera- tion was different, however. To be sure, he, like others before him, aspired to the role of redeemer, in behalf of the people and, of course, in the name of jus- tice and liberty. But he also invoked history. It was to history that Fidel Castro appealed for absolution during his trial in 1953. It was from history that he sought the mandate and sanction for revolution—a self-conscious effort to rep- resent this new generation and this new movement as the fulfillment of unmet aspirations and unkept promises of the past. Revolutionaries were conscious of their role as liberators, and they played the part with alacrity. They declined to shed the trappings of armed struggle, so that to be revolutionary was often as much a function of one’s appearance as it was of one’s politics. Beards, long hair, and olive fatigues assumed powerful sym- bolic value, another way of distinguishing the new from the old, another way of saying that the struggle for redemption was not yet over. From the outset the 26 of July Movement contained elements that defined the purpose of armed struggle less in terms of destroying the old order and more 237 in terms of creating a new one. These tendencies were politically inchoate and programmatically incomplete. But if this ambiguity was a cause of potential weakness, it was also the source of actual strength, for it permitted improvisa- tion in response to rapidly changing circumstances. The success of Cuban arms carried the island over a threshold never before crossed. Not since the nine- teenth century had Cubans employed arms with such effect, and never before had the effects of Cuban arms been so complete. They had challenged a repres- sive regime on its own terms, and succeeded—unconditionally and unassisted. The armed struggle announced the rise of a generation that owed its success to its own resources and resolve. An unpopular government was displaced, its political allies discredited, and its armed forces defeated. But it was not clear that the traditional political opposition to the fallen regime, principally in the form of the Auténticos and Ortodoxos, stood to ben- efit from this triumph. Certainly, they had contributed to the fall of Batista, and in some instances at great sacrifice. In a larger sense, however, they also had con- tributed to the rise of Batista. Their years in power during the 1940s and early 1950s had ended in disgrace, and their years in opposition could not erase the memory of their years in office. In some fashion or other almost all political leaders after 1933, of all political parties, were implicated in misgovernment and malfeasance. Thus, an indictment of the accumulated ills of Cuban society was no less an indictment of past politicians in the aggregate, irrespective of their part in the struggle against the Batista government. And there was more, for the principal institutions of the republic, by virtue of association, had also failed and fallen into discredit: the presidency, congress, the courts, the army and police, the old political parties, the press, the church. The new provisional government, a mix of mostly liberals and some revo- lutionaries, understood the implications of these conditions, and took immedi- ate steps to make a substantive and symbolic break with past politics. The Batista congress was dissolved. Property owned by batistianos was confiscated, their safe deposit boxes seized, and their bank accounts frozen. The old political parties were abolished. All candidates who participated in the elections of 1954 and 1958 were proscribed from all future political activity. II Distinctions between the past and the present were drawn without difficulty, with almost celebratory unanimity. In 1959, Fidel Castro stood at the head of a movement of enormous popularity. Much of this was derived from his personal appeal. A gifted orator and charismatic personality, Castro emerged as a leader virtually without rival. He displayed almost unlimited energy, delivering spell- binding speeches hours in length, daily it seemed. Making full use of an exten- sive radio and television system, addressing mass rallies often numbering in the hundreds of thousands of people, Fidel Castro was a ubiquitous presence through the early months of 1959. He exhorted his followers and excoriated his foes; he explained his policies and expounded on his philosophies. He appealed 238 / CUBA directly to the Cuban people, raising revolutionary morale and summoning Cubans to heroic action. However great the part played by Fidel Castro in the triumph and consoli- dation of the revolution during the early years, it was also apparent that the source of his appeal and the success of his authority were in a larger sense a func- tion of conditions both historic and actual. Social structures were in disarray, the political system was in crisis, the economy was in distress. National institutions were in varying degrees of disintegration and disrepute, and because they had not served Cubans well, if at all, they were vulnerable. By attacking the past that had created these hardships, the revolutionary leadership struck a responsive chord that initially cut across lines of class and race and served to unite Cubans of almost all political persuasions. It aroused extraordinary enthusiasm for “la revolución,” and as ambiguously defined as it was, it could mean all things to all people. Aroused too was a powerful surge of nationalism, one summoned by the revolution and soon indistinguishable from it. Revolutionary leaders reached ascendency in spectacular fashion, and en route were endowed with proportions larger than life. Already in 1959 the lead- ers of the revolution had become the stuff of legends and lore, the subject of books and songs, of poems and film. Revolutionaries were celebrities, folk heroes, and the hope of the hopeful. There was, during the early months, no creditable opposition, and what opposition did exist was either out of the coun- try or out of favor, or both. Between the Old and the New / 239 Fidel Castro, 1961. (Pedro Alvarez Tabío, ed., Cien imagenes de la revolución cubana, 1953–1996. Havana, 1996) But power of this magnitude, confined on this scale to the leadership of one revolutionary organization, did not long stay unchallenged. Those appointed to the provisional government believed themselves endowed with the authority to rule, and when they sought to exercise that authority, they clashed directly with the shadow authority of Fidel Castro. In early 1959, Prime Minister José Miró Cardona protested and resigned. Fidel Castro was his replacement. Some months later, President Manuel Urrutia resigned, and no longer was there any doubt about where real authority rested. Through 1959, moderates and liberals found themselves increasingly isolated, alienated and ultimately pushed aside by forces they could not comprehend, much less control. In part, the conflict was one of a clash of approaches. Liberals and moderates were appalled by what appeared to them as a flagrant disregard for due process, the fashion in which Fidel Castro and his supporters spurned legal forms and juridical procedures. When forty-four Batista air force pilots were acquitted on charges of bombing civilian centers, widespread popular indignation prompted Castro to denounce the verdict and demand a new trial. In a second trial the pilots were convicted and sentenced to long prison terms. Liberals and moderates were exasperated, and had growing doubts and suspicions about the intentions of the fidelistas. Those who defended law and legal form conflicted with those who demanded immediate justice. Liberals expected the state to uphold the rule of law and defend individual rights and private ownership. Castro insisted that the state dis- pense justice and defend the collective over the individual, the public over the private. Fidel found sanction in the moral imperatives of the revolution. “Rev- olutionary justice,” Castro insisted on the occasion of the pilots’ acquittal, “is based not on legal precepts, but on moral conviction.” But the source of the dispute was deeper than a disagreement over means. It was also about ends. Already in early 1959, Fidel Castro, among others in the 26 of July, spoke increasingly of the revolution as a “proceso”—a historical process that was underway, inalterable, and invincible. From the outset these metaphors were an essential part of the ideological baggage the fidelistas carried into Havana. They were in part historic—revolution as continuity with 1895 and 1933. These concerns had been addressed in the speech and in its expanded, published form, “History Will Absolve Me.” Again and again, during the revolutionary war, promises of the new Cuba—of social justice, economic security, political free- dom—were made. And the promises did not end with the victory. On the con- trary, they increased, if only because it was easy—perhaps necessary—to be rev- olutionary in early 1959. The language of revolution filled the airwaves and the news columns—moderates, liberals, and radicals alike dipped freely, and fre- quently, into the wellspring of revolutionary rhetoric. Revolution was in the air, and the atmosphere was rarified indeed. It was intoxicating and seemed to thrive on its own excesses. This was redemption by revolution, and conversions pro- ceeded apace. Under the circumstance, it could hardly be otherwise. The problem with these developments was that many of the political leaders who invoked the language of revolution were, in fact, either ill-prepared to be 240 / CUBA revolutionaries or ill-disposed toward the revolutionaries. This did not deter them from playing the part, however, or assuming supporting roles, so that they too contributed to creating an atmosphere that was at once revolutionary and could be calmed only by more revolution. The rhetoric of revolution awakened the imagination of hundreds of thousands of Cubans, creating a vast constituency for radical change. It raised expectations of revolution, and not since 1933 had Cuban hopes for change reached such levels. Pressure for immediate, deep, sweeping change was building from below and the invocation of revolution encouraged it to rise to the top. Organized labor mobilized to press demands on a wide variety of issues. The Confederación de Trabajadores de Cuba (CTC) demanded outright a flat 20 percent wage increase for all workers. Strikes increased in number and frequency. Six thousand workers of the Cuban Electric Company staged a slow-down strike to dramatize their demands for a wage increase. Unemployed electrical workers demonstrated at the presidential palace. Unemployed railway workers proclaimed a hunger strike, as did former employ- ees of a Havana paper mill. Construction workers called a wildcat strike at the Moa Bay Mining Company. Restaurant workers threatened to strike. Cane cut- ters marched. Labor protests disrupted sugar production in twenty-one mills. The pressure for dramatic action mounted. It originated from the sectors of the population most immediately mobilized, with the most to gain: an urban proletariat numbering approximately 500,000; a rural proletariat almost 600,000 strong; a peasantry numbering 220,000; and the vast legions of the unem- ployed/underemployed, who by the end of 1958 numbered as many as 665,000 men and women. This constituency for change made up almost 70 percent of the total labor force, a marginalized population of nearly 2 million people out of an employable labor force of 2.7 million. This was the social landscape confronting the new government. The revo- lution had the masses as its foundations, new populists as its leaders, and a charis- matic authority as jefe máximo. A mobilized population, hundreds of thousands of people, demanded redress and relief at a speed and scope that could not be reasonably accommodated within the ideological framework and legal struc- tures the liberal provisional government sought to preserve. The situation was not unlike that of 1933, when the provisional government of Ramón Grau San Martín, confronted with mounting pressure for radical change, had balked and collapsed. That marginalized groups would experience a rise in expectations after 1959 was not at all surprising. The revolution, they were given to under- stand, was made in their behalf, for their interests. This revolution was for all Cubans who suffered, Fidel Castro proclaimed as early as 1953, and repeated with regularity thereafter: for the unemployed “who desire to earn their daily bread honestly without having to emigrate in search of livelihood”; for rural workers who inhabited “miserable shacks, who work four months of the year and starve for the rest of the year”; for industrial workers “whose retirement funds have been embezzled, whose benefits are being taken away, whose homes are wretched quarters”; for peasants who “live and die working on land that is Between the Old and the New / 241 not theirs.” And to the young men and women of the beleaguered middle class, Fidel invoked a familiar and recurring theme—he promised employment for the “ten thousand young professionals . . . who come forth from school with their degrees, anxious to work and full of hope, only to find themselves at a dead end with all doors closed, and where no ear hears their clamor or supplication.” Vast numbers of Cubans projected their aspirations for social and economic change onto the one person they believed was endowed with unlimited power. Fidel had vast opportunities for manipulation, and indeed there was no small amount of circumlocution during the early months of the revolution. However, while he channeled popular hopes for change, he did not create them. Having once raised hopes for dramatic and substantive change, he could not risk alien- ating his source of power, which by the end of 1959 was also the principal source of the support for the revolution. Fidel became the object of popular importuning, both cause and effect of a style of personalismo that fostered direct dialogue between the leader and his fol- lowers. He listened to grievances, received petitions, considered complaints. Fidel’s effectiveness increased in direct proportion to rising popular confidence in it. As the belief took hold that Fidel could provide redress, immediately and easily, so too did his ability to do so. At every turn individuals and groups urged him to intervene on behalf of one demand or another. Fidel played the part deftly, and in so doing all but undercut the authority of the provisional govern- ment by depriving it of popular sanction. Fidel was becoming the government. More and more he responded directly to popular calls for action. It was a sym- biotic relationship of enormous vitality. Fidel propounded the goals of the rev- olution, the people demanded deeds of the revolution. This interplay gathered momentum, and soon assumed a logic of its own. There was much spontaneity in all this—improvisation from an exhilarated Fidel and impatience from an aroused population. These forces converged in powerful combination during the heady months of 1959, with predictable if not inevitable results. Fidel became the point of first appeal and the place of last resort. These convictions appeared confirmed almost immediately when Fidel Cas- tro joined the government as prime minister. Reform decrees provided imme- diate material relief to vast numbers of people. In March, the government enacted the first Urban Reform Law. One of the more popular early reform decrees, the law sought to discourage investments in real estate and construction of private dwellings, to which a considerable portion of national savings had been devoted. The law decreed a 50 percent reduction of rents under $100 monthly, 40 percent reduction of rents between $100 and $200, and 30 percent reduction in rents over $200. The newly established National Savings and Housing Institute (INAV) acquired vacant lots upon which it pledged to construct inexpensive public housing. Other measures soon followed. In the first nine months of 1959, an esti- mated 1,500 decrees, laws, and edicts were enacted. The government inter- vened in the telephone company and reduced its rates. Electricity rates were cut 242 / CUBA drastically.Virtually all labor contracts were renegotiated and wages raised. Cane cutters’ wages were increased by a flat 15 percent. Health reforms, educational reforms, and unemployment relief followed in quick order. Property owned by all past government officials, senior army officers, mayors and governors, and members of both houses of congress during 1954–58 was seized. The govern- ment restricted the importation of more than two hundred luxury items through higher sales taxes and special licensing requirements. It was a symbolic gesture, certainly, but also substantive, for in one year, Cuba saved as much as $70 million in foreign exchange. Television imports decreased from $3 million to $150,000. Automobile imports fell from $25 million in 1958 to $3.4 million in 1960. Few new Cadillacs were entering Havana. By far the most sweeping measure enacted in the first year was the Agrarian Reform Law of May 1959. By the terms of the new law, all real estate holdings were restricted in size to 1,000 acres, with the exception of land engaged in the production of sugar, rice, and livestock, where maximum limits were fixed at 3,333 acres. Land exceeding these limits was nationalized, with compensation provided in the form of twenty-year bonds bearing an annual interest rate of 4.5 percent. Payments would be based on the assessed value of land used for tax pur- poses. Expropriated lands were to be reorganized into state cooperatives or dis- tributed into individual holdings of sixty-seven acres, with squatters, sharecrop- pers, and renters receiving first claim to the land which they were working. The law also created the Agrarian Reform Institute (INRA) designed initially to supervise the reorganization of land systems and the transfer of land. In fact, the role of INRA expanded rapidly through 1959, and soon came to include respon- sibility for most programs in rural Cuba, including road construction, health facilities, credit enterprises, educational projects, and housing programs. III These were euphoric times in Cuba. Expectations ran high, were met, and then raised higher again. Cuba had become an aroused nation. Everywhere and, it seemed, continually, Cubans were marching in protest, meeting in mass rallies, dramatizing demands in public demonstrations. And somehow, Fidel seemed always in the thick of it. The early reform measures won the revolutionary government widespread popular support, instantly. Workers, peasants, the unemployed received benefits that were immediate and direct. Labor received wage increases, the unemployed received jobs. The urban proletariat received rent and utility rate reductions. Peasants received land and credit. That Afro-Cubans made up a disproportion- ate share of the uneducated, unskilled, and unemployed meant that they were among the principal and immediate beneficiaries of the early distributive poli- cies of the revolution. Moreover, in March 1959, the revolutionary government abolished legal discrimination, and scores of hotels, beaches, night clubs, resorts, and restaurants were opened to blacks. The reform measures were dramatic and Between the Old and the New / 243 historic, and all provided immediate relief to those sectors of Cuban society that demanded relief immediately. The effects were visible. A significant redistribu- tion of income had taken place. Real wages increased approximately 15 percent through a corresponding decline in the income of landlords and entrepreneurs. In the short space of six months, hundreds of thousands of Cubans developed an immediate and lasting stake in the success of the revolution. But support was not unanimous. Apprehension and misgivings increased among liberals in and out of government and among property owners in and out of Cuba. Cuba was seen moving toward government by decree and rule by one man. Many were growing increasingly suspicious of the phenomenon of fidelismo, which smacked of demagoguery and over which, they sensed correctly, they could exercise little restraint. Concern increased over the arbitrariness of government. On the matter of national elections, the revolutionary leadership was increasingly vague and noncommital and, on occasion, even hostile, as if mere inquiry into the subject suggested lack of confidence in the direction of the revolution. Elections had originally been scheduled to occur within a year. By March, elections had become more problematical, when Fidel Castro insisted upon the completion of the agrarian reform first, including the elimi- nation of rural illiteracy and the establishment of health facilities in the coun- tryside. “Elections will be held at the appropriate time,” Ernesto Che Guevara promised ambiguously in April 1959; “now the people want revolution first and elections later.” Nor was this rendering entirely a dissimulation. Recalled former President Manuel Urrutia: “The first time I heard the promise of elections repu- diated was when Castro and I attended the opening of the library at Marta Abreu University at Las Villas. At the end of the meeting, Castro mentioned elections and a large number of his listeners shouted against them. After his speech, Castro asked me, ‘Did you notice how they opposed elections?’” By the end of the summer, elections were deferred for two more years, and then pushed back further to some undetermined point in the future. Discontent increased also among property owners. Large urban landlords denounced the reduction of rents. So did middle-class small property owners, many of whom had invested years of savings into small apartment houses, most of which were mortgaged. Rent reductions threatened these properties, for mortgages were based on higher rental income. Landowners protested the agrarian reform decree. The National Association of Cattle Ranchers freely predicted economic ruin as a result of the limitation on land ownership. The Sugar Mill Owners Association and the Association of Tobacco Planters agreed, and vigorously attacked the Agrarian Reform Law. Implementation of the decree, sugar mill owners warned, threatened to cripple national production. Newspaper editorials and radio commentaries also registered their disapproval. The church moved openly into opposition. By this time, too, alarm had reached official circles in the United States. In fact, the breach began early in 1959. That so many batistianos had found safe haven in the United States, beyond the reach of the revolutionary tribunals, and 244 / CUBA that some of these ex-officials were already engaged openly in counter- revolutionary activity, aroused no small ire in Havana. The work of the tribunals, in turn, including the execution of former Batista officials, led to diplomatic protests from the United States. Inevitably, too, given the magnitude of North American investments in Cuba, Washington reacted with a mixture of concern and consternation at the enactment of each new revolutionary decree. Interna- tional Telephone and Telegraph protested the reduction of its rates, as did the Cuban Electric Company. The Agrarian Reform Law strained relations even further. North American sugar companies and cattle enterprises denounced the measure as confiscatory. The 3,333-acre limit reduced the Pingree ranch in Ori- ente to one-sixteenth of its size. The King ranch in Camagüey lost nine-tenths of its holdings. By the end of the summer, an estimated 2.5 million acres of ranch land had been nationalized. The State Department expressed its “concern” at the rush of events in Cuba and insisted upon “prompt, adequate, and effective compensation” for all property nationalized by the Cuban government. In late 1959, U.S. officials alluded to the possibility of cutting the Cuban sugar quota in retaliation. Into this highly charged setting was introduced one more volatile issue. Members of the Cuban communist party, the Partido Socialista Popular (PSP), were moving in increasing numbers, into government positions, not high ones but certainly visible ones: in the armed forces, in the administration of INRA, at sub-cabinet levels, and in the provinces and municipalities. IV A critical threshold was crossed in the autumn of 1959. Despair spread among liberals who were, in any case, already disoriented and on the defensive. The emerging prominence of the PSP did nothing to calm their misgivings. For prop- erty owners in Cuba and the United States, the participation of the PSP in the government confirmed their worst fears. Opposition to government programs, in part spontaneous, in part organized, began to have a sobering effect on Fidel Castro and his closest advisors. Resistance to the agrarian reform program in par- ticular, both within Cuba and from the United States, served to draw sharply the ideological battle lines. Revolutionary leaders stood at a crossroad. “The great landowners,” Ernesto Che Guevara recalled later, “many of them North Amer- icans, immediately sabotaged the law of Agrarian Reform. We were therefore face-to-face with a choice . . . : a situation in which, once embarked, it is diffi- cult to return to shore. But it would have been still more dangerous to recoil since that would have meant the death of the Revolution. . . . The more just and the more dangerous course was to press ahead . . . and what we supposed to have been an agrarian reform with a bourgeois character was transformed into a vio- lent struggle.” The revolution had reached the limits of what it could accomplish through collaboration with liberals and countenance from the United States. To advance further required a fundamental realignment of social forces, no less than Between the Old and the New / 245 a reordering of Cuban international relations. For this, Fidel Castro needed the Cuban communist party, an organization of singular discipline and preparation, with historic ties to mass organizations and political connections to the socialist bloc. The PSP, Fidel Castro acknowledged to Herbert Matthews years later, “had men who were truly revolutionary, loyal, honest and trained. I needed them.” The effects were immediate. To domestic critics Fidel Castro vowed to pro- ceed with full implementation of agrarian reform, adding that opponents to the law were traitors to the revolution. He also rejected out-right North American demands for “prompt” compensation, reiterating the Cuban decision to com- pensate landowners in the form of twenty-year bonds. Personnel turnovers in the government, in part voluntary, in part forced, increased quickly thereafter. Liberals and moderates resigned, or were forced out, their places taken by loyal fidelistas and members of the PSP. The breach deepened, and the pace of liberal resignations and radical replacements quickened. Through 1959 the leadership of trade unions passed under the control of the PSP. At the same time, senior administrative positions in the Ministry of Labor were filled by the PSP. The presence of the PSP in the armed forces also increased. Party members received teaching appointments at various Rebel Army posts in Havana and Las Villas. The appearance of the PSP in the armed forces, in turn, led to wholesale resig- nation and, in some cases, arrest of anti-communist officers. In October Raúl Castro assumed charge of the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (MINFAR), and forthwith launched a thorough reorganization of the military, distributing key commands to only trustworthy officers. By the end of the year, anti-communism had become synonymous … I N T R O D U C T I O N : T H E P R O B L E M W I T H ‘ F I D E L-C E N T R I S M ’ One fundamental problem that confronts anyone seeking to under- stand the complex processes and trajectory of the post-1959 Cuban Revolution is the conceptual fog created over the decades by what has been called ‘Fidel-centrism’ (Kapcia 1996), i.e. the overwhelm- ing tendency of so much of the writing on the Revolution to focus exclusively on the person and personality of Fidel Castro. This is, of course, easily explained: while undoubtedly rooted in familiar traditions of ‘great men’ approaches to popular history, for which we must blame partly Victorian historians and partly the media’s sensationalising search for the human story or the ‘potted’ explanation, it also owes much to the effects of the February 1957 episode when the New York Daily Times reporter Herbert Matthews, having met the rebel leader, Fidel, in the Sierra, proceeded to report on, and talk up, both the guerrillas and their charismatic leader. Indeed, we should not ignore that supposed charisma, namely the impact that Fidel subsequently had on millions of Cubans of suc- cessive generations, and on many hundreds of thousands more non-Cubans, through his speeches and through the continuing re- porting on, and films of, his dynamic and mesmerising leadership. Quite simply, he has dominated so much newsprint and so much air time in documentaries and news broadcasts that we cannot ignore him, and thus we easily fall into the assumption that he, and he alone, created, engineered, determined and (according to many, on one side of the ‘for’ and ‘against’ dichotomy in judgements of the Revolution) perhaps distorted and destroyed the Revolution. In this, of course, it does not help that we have fallen into similar traps before and since – about Hitler, Stalin, Saddam Hussein, Gaddafi, or any other supposedly despotic leader – therefore assuming that successful revolutions or long-lasting regimes are always attribu- table to the leader’s strength and personality. Equally, it does not C o p y r i g h t 2 0 1 4 . Z e d B o o k s . A l l r i g h t s r e s e r v e d . M a y n o t b e r e p r o d u c e d i n a n y f o r m w i t h o u t p e r m i s s i o n f r o m t h e p u b l i s h e r , e x c e p t f a i r u s e s p e r m i t t e d u n d e r U . S . o r a p p l i c a b l e c o p y r i g h t l a w . EBSCO Publishing : eBook Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 5/28/2020 12:09 PM via SAINT MARY''S UNIVERSITY AN: 842009 ; Kapcia, Antoni.; Leadership in the Cuban Revolution : The Unseen Story Account: stmaryu.main.ehost 2 | introduction help that, since 1961 (when relations between the United States and Cuba were broken), US governments and policy-makers alike have repeatedly stressed that there could be no healing that break, or ending economic sanctions, while Fidel remained in power. Indeed, the 1996 Helms–Burton Act (which gave the embargo the force of a treaty, requiring a two-thirds majority of both Houses of Congress to reverse it) actually prohibits the ending of sanctions while a Castro is in power. So, if legal documents and formal US policies, as well as serious historical studies, continue to focus on Fidel, then we are unlikely to find ourselves straying away from that tendency. Nor, of course, is that focus totally unhelpful for understanding modern and contemporary Cuba. For it would be a foolish historian who blindly argued that Fidel has not had a fundamental role in the whole process: in decision-making, determining policy, commanding loyalty from those around him and from generations of Cubans, in direct person-to-person relations with foreign leaders, and so on. The evidence for that is clear. Moreover, the longer that the post-1959 system has lasted and the more complex it has become, the greater the likelihood that more and more Cubans would continue to see it in terms of the person who dominated it all from the outset, either seeing him as the more easily comprehensible personification of a system that had become too complex, and even too contradictory, to understand completely, or, alternatively, trusting in his record of finding a way out of difficulties and emerging unscathed from crises. Indeed, many Cubans continued to assume that, whatever problems the country might be facing, Cubans would have a greater chance of solving them with him at the helm – even though that very complexity meant precisely the opposite, namely his inability to be the sole source of power or decision-making. One only has to think of the contradictory emotions and motives that constituted the popular support for Margaret Thatcher in Britain after 1983, despite a general unease at her persona or even a considerable distaste for many of her policies, to realise that, even in a long-established and highly aware political culture, a dominant individual politician can command loyalty and admiration despite, as much as because of, positive feelings or even rational beliefs. So the point is not to deny Fidel’s influence, power and popularity; it is to put these factors into perspective, going beyond stereotypical EBSCOhost - printed on 5/28/2020 12:09 PM via SAINT MARY''S UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use introduction | 3 or superficial interpretations of the increasingly complex process as attributable mainly, or even solely, to one person – not least as the years since 2006 have demonstrated clearly that it did not depend on Fidel’s constant presence at the helm. In fact, as Domínguez observed long ago, Fidel was always aware of the need for an organisation beyond the leadership: ‘The politics of organization played a decisive role in the Cuban revolution from the very beginning’ (Domínguez 1978: 206). This was something that even a firm adherent of ‘Fidel- centrism’ such as Theodore Draper realised in the 1960s, when re- ferring to Fidel’s belief in the need for a united and ‘unbreakable body’, based on ‘ideology, discipline and leadership’ (Draper 1969: 8) – although, predictably, Draper focused more on the last element of that trio than on the underlying belief in a vanguard (i.e. more collective) leadership. Yet the problem remains that even relatively sophisticated and serious works – as opposed to either the hagiographic or demonising studies that have bedevilled the study of Cuba – have both created and perpetuated this mesmerising ‘Fidel-centrism’. Several early commen- tators, for example, were enchanted by, or suspicious of, his evident ‘charisma’, usually seeing it as evidence of either megalomania or collective gullibility. This fascination with charisma continued well into the later decades, as the Revolution’s survival continued to be attributed to such qualities. Generally, however, Fidel’s ‘charismatic authority’ (to take Weber’s phrase: Weber 1947) was seen as ephem- eral or time-limited and limiting (González 1979), although Valdés (arguing that charisma also depended on the legit imacy bestowed by benefits that Cubans associated with Fidel) observed later that such interpretations of charisma owed more to Machiavelli than to a correct reading of Weber (Valdés 2008). Early on, others wrote glow- ingly of the ‘direct democracy’ that they beheld in the relationship between Fidel and Cuban crowds (Sartre 1961). Political scientists then attempted to fit ‘fidelismo’ (or ‘Castroism’) into wider paradigms of either populist political culture or, more frequently, a new variant of what was seen as traditional Latin American caudillismo. While Draper argued that Fidel was ‘a new type of caudillo with a need to justify his power ideologically’ (Draper 1969: 49), he nonetheless, by using the term, saw a generic connection between Fidel and a Latin American stereotype. Thomas later took up this same stereotype EBSCOhost - printed on 5/28/2020 12:09 PM via SAINT MARY''S UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use 4 | introduction (Thomas 1971: 1292), and Horowitz saw Fidel’s leadership as ‘rooted in the Latin American tradition’ of caudillismo (Horowitz 2008: 36), although he also elsewhere wrote that that same leadership was akin to Stalin’s (ibid.: 3). Indeed, what Draper actually argued in the end was that ‘Castro- ism’ (a term that he was happy to use at first but that he then steadily discarded in the same study, seeing it simply as ‘the crea- tion of Fidel Castro’: Draper 1969: 16) should be seen as a variant of global ‘Communism’, seeing Fidel’s apparent fixation on power and his ideological commitment to Communism as part of the same totalitarian phenomenon: ‘Castroism gave Communism total power, and Communism gave Castroism an ideology of total power’ (ibid.: 50). Indeed, this totalitarian reading of what was increasingly called ‘Fidelism’ became a commonplace throughout the following half century. There were also some who argued that we should read Fidel as being akin to Franco and fascism, often seeing his Spanish Jesuit education as inculcating corporatist or fascist ideas (Pardo Llada 1988: 30; Thomas 1971: 1490); even Draper thought his ‘leadership principle’ related to fascism or Peronism, suggesting that, although it had become associated with Communism, at a different time it might have gone in other (presumably fascist) directions (Draper 1969: 9). The problem here was that, once this array of studies (mixing thoughtful political science analyses, serious historical works, pas- sionately partisan accounts and sensationalist journalism) had estab- lished the pattern, the die was cast. By the time scholarly attention turned to examining the system or the political culture analytically (Domínguez 1978; Fagen 1969), the literature on Cuba was already dominated by ‘Fidel-centrism’, and it proved difficult to ignore it or not be influenced by it. Moreover, once the endless series of bio- graphies began to be written, this tendency increased, and ‘Castro’s’ became the standard epithet applied to Cuba, as in ‘Castro’s Cuba’ or ‘Fidel Castro’s Personal Revolution’ (Goodsell 1975), to the extent that Horowitz saw the 1965 creation of the Cuban Communist Party as a ‘direct reflection of Castro’s personal will and charismatic authority’ (Horowitz 2008: 7) – although Jorge Domínguez came to precisely the opposite conclusion about that moment, seeing it as a ‘shift to a slightly more collective style of public leadership’ (Domínguez 1978: 197). EBSCOhost - printed on 5/28/2020 12:09 PM via SAINT MARY''S UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use introduction | 5 So what exactly is the problem with this? Most obviously, unless one believes in the power of regimes to indoctrinate whole societies for half a century (something which, given Cubans’ evident contact with outside ideas, relatives and societies for sustained periods since 1959, seems unlikely in this case), it seems difficult to attribute the remarkable survival of the Cuban system – beyond its repeated crises (1963, 1968–70), the collapse of the Socialist Bloc, fifty years of sus- tained sanctions, and periods of active US hostility, and also beyond Fidel’s retirement through ill health in 2006–08 – to the persuasive or coercive power of one man alone. Since most outside observers attest to Cuba’s high educational levels, and while most historians see pre-1959 Cuba as a highly politicised society, it seems unlikely that millions of Cubans would easily give up their power of reason to allow themselves to be swamped by all that they are told by el Jefe Máximo (the Commander-in-Chief ). For all that the Cuban media might be controlled by the party, and for all the restrictions on what can be published, such a perspective seems clumsy, belonging to the depths of the Cold War. There is, however, something of an obligation to look beyond the obvious, not taking the easy option of echoing popular, partisan and journalistic interpretations of a complex subject, not least because to treat Cuba as a Caribbean version of what we assume North Korea to be – isolated, indoctrinated, dominated by a personality cult, coercive and monolithic – does not correspond to the reality of an island only 150 miles or so from the US mainland, open to over 2 million tourists a year, trading in the world economy (to the extent that US sanctions allow) and receiving inward investment since the late 1980s, with a vast diaspora that, since 1977, has increasingly been able to bring news of the outside world, and with greater access to external television, radio and the internet. So, apart from the period between 1962 and the mid-1970s (when the regional ‘embargo’ began to disintegrate) and the early 1990s (when economic isolation resulted from the collapse of COMECON and the Soviet Union), isolation has not been anywhere near total, and, in fact, has been decreasing since about 1994. Classic assumptions: personality cults, coercion and the military As for the notion of a personality cult, one simply has to compare the visible Cuban signs with what was all too clear in Stalin’s Soviet EBSCOhost - printed on 5/28/2020 12:09 PM via SAINT MARY''S UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use 6 | introduction Union, in North Korea since 1952 or in Mao’s China. The Cuban authorities have studiously avoided any hint of a cult of any living person: no naming of places, airports, streets or squares, no statues and few portraits (apart from those in public offices and people’s homes). Instead, the ubiquitous ‘cult’ is to the 1895 independence hero José Martí (in his multiple representations in busts, paintings, place names, and so on), with lesser homages paid to other historic leaders of the independence struggles (Antonio Maceo, Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, Máximo Gómez) or activists of twentieth-century poli- tical struggles (Julio Antonio Mella, Antonio Guiteras). In fact, since 1968, the only cult-like reverence to anyone associated with the Revo- lution has been reserved for Che Guevara, with the massive stylised portrait in Plaza de la Revolución (now accompanied by a similar one of Camilo Cienfuegos) and the huge mausoleum in Santa Clara, much larger than that of Martí in Santiago. There is certainly no shortage of books by Fidel in bookshops, and, while he was leader, the agenda of most party meetings would include the need to analyse one of his recent speeches. Even so, however ‘Fidel-centric’ it may seem to be, Cuba has clearly not had a cult to match those others referred to. But what about coercion, a familiar accusation levelled at the Cuban system? There is little doubt that the Revolution took power with a ruthless determination to try, sentence and execute large numbers of active participants in Batista’s repression before 1959; Guevara oversaw many such executions at the Cabaña fortress in the first few days, and Fidel himself admitted that about 550 people had been executed at that time (Szulc 1986: 386). Thereafter, at times of external pressure and hostility (notably 1962–68, when the ‘siege’ was at its height and Soviet support was tentative and unreliable, and in the early 1980s, when Reagan began to re-heat the Cold War, identify- ing Cuba as the source of the Central American conflicts and as his Secretary of State, Haig, commissioned the first of many Pentagon reports to assess the feasibility of military action against Cuba: Habel 1991: 138), tolerance of internal dissent or even non-conformity has been seriously restricted. The mid-1960s certainly saw the notorious UMAP (Military Unit for Assisting Production) ‘work camps’, designed, clumsily and vindictively, to ‘re-educate’ those whose religious beliefs, sexuality or lifestyle were deemed unacceptable, until pressure from intellectuals led in 1968 to their closure as re-education camps for EBSCOhost - printed on 5/28/2020 12:09 PM via SAINT MARY''S UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use introduction | 7 intellectuals (they remained in existence into the 1970s as bases for normal youth military service: Mesa-Lago 1974: 104). That same period also witnessed the height of the systematic demonisation of those leaving the island (by labelling them gusanos or ‘worms’) and the start of what would become a growing pressure on some ‘aberrant’ artists and writers. The early 1980s saw the now shameful episode of the exodus at Mariel of some 125,000 Cubans (Olson and Olson 1995: 81), who were allowed to leave in a boatlift but excoriated publicly for their ‘lumpen’ and anti-social tendencies; this included many prisoners released for the purpose and a handful of ‘problem’ intel- lectuals, notably those offending the system’s assumed sexual mores. In addition, 1971–76 (and almost certainly beyond) saw the contentious quinquenio gris – the ‘grey five years’ – when certain writers and theatre people were marginalised and unable to find outlets for their work (Kumaraswami and Kapcia 2012: 101–7). That said, however, it is perhaps significant that, firstly, the UMAP episode ended after three years, following pressure from UNEAC (the Union of Cuban Writers and Artists), showing that body’s surprising level of autonomy (for what was assumed to be a Soviet-style state-run mechanism of control) and the leadership’s surprising willingness to listen. Also, the few days of the Mariel exodus saw a change in official thinking, as excoriation gave way to a new awareness that many refugees were no longer the old ‘political’ émigrés but simply economic migrants. Finally, what ended the ‘grey years’, in 1976, was the creation of a comprehensive and nationally regulating Ministry of Culture, of the kind that, in the Soviet Union, would have led to expectations of rigid cultural control. This issue is, of course, closely related to the notion that Cuba is a military-run system. This idea dates from the earliest days, as the ex-guerrillas continued to dominate political life, moving smoothly between ‘military’ and overtly civilian posts as what have been called ‘civic soldiers’ (Domínguez 1978: 341–78). Some later saw this attribute as fundamental to the Cuban system (Horowitz 2008: 104–41, 175–90), describing that system as a ‘highly militarized revolution and regime’ (Domínguez 1990: 47). However, the reality is inevitably more complex, as Klepak has shown eloquently (Klepak 2005): for all their profes- sionalism, technical development and Soviet-linked modernisation in the 1970s, the Cuban armed forces – the FAR (Revolutionary Armed EBSCOhost - printed on 5/28/2020 12:09 PM via SAINT MARY''S UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use 8 | introduction Forces) – actually resemble more of a hybrid between the historic liberation army (the Rebel Army of 1956–58) and a popular militia, enjoying considerable public legitimacy and constituting not an elite group with separate corporate identity (which would describe most Latin American armed forces) but rather an institution that, born in a guerrilla war, remained committed to a guerrilla defence of Cuba. Moreover, with compulsory military service, a large military reserve and two periods of popular militias, most Cubans have had some close contact with, or service in, the military, which contributes to the greater fusion between the FAR and society than might otherwise be the case. Indeed, Domínguez argues that the FAR so accurately reflects Cuban society that its legendary efficiency is very much a myth (Domínguez 1990). Finally, we should remember that the FAR has its own party cells and structure, belonging firmly and loyally to the party-led system. Returning to the issue of coercion, it is worth noting that the very point when coercion might have been expected (1991–95) actually saw drastic cuts in troop numbers (by around 50 per cent), thereby weakening any capacity to coerce (Klepak 2005: 61). A key element of the question of coercion is the vexed issue of political prisoners. Here we enter a minefield of partisanship, not least because the Cuban authorities and the US administration define that category differently: in Cuba it has long been an offence either to actively support the US embargo (since US sanctions were imposed under the Trading with the Enemy Act, the embargo became formally a declaration of war, as far as Havana was concerned), or, in com- mon with many other countries, to receive political funding from a foreign government. Hence anyone sentenced for such offences is officially simply ‘a prisoner’, while the US administration and entities such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International all define such people as political prisoners. In fact, the peak of such imprisonments for crimes deemed political outside Cuba was probably reached in the first six years or so; Fidel admitted in 1965 that there were some 20,000 such prisoners, a category ranging from those taking up arms against the Revolution to those organising illegal protests. In 1969, the scarcely neutral Spanish ambassador Jaime Capdevilla gave a total of over 55,000 (Suchlicki 1988: 227). However, in 1987, the Cuban authorities themselves admitted that around 400 were serving sentences for ‘crimes against the state’, with EBSCOhost - printed on 5/28/2020 12:09 PM via SAINT MARY''S UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use introduction | 9 Amnesty International confirming 455, including sixty-eight who had taken up arms in the 1960s (Habel 1991: 97). The state and the monolith? What, finally, of the notion of a monolithic Cuban state? At first sight, that notion seems accurate, given the tendency to centralisa- tion from 1960, domination by one single ruling party since 1961, and our knowledge of post-1945 Communist systems. However, on examination, a somewhat different picture emerges, creating a quite different set of problems to analyse. For, in the 1960s, a combination of processes worked against the creation of the powerful state which many Cubans felt that they needed after decades of neo-colonial rule and economic dependence. Firstly, within weeks, a process began to weed out unacceptable or batistiano (pro-Batista) office-holders in the civil service; by March 1959, some 50,000 out of 160,000 state employees had been expelled or replaced (Domínguez 1978: 234). This inevitably weakened an in- herited structure, already weakened by nepotism and low morale. Then the very process of revolution after 1 January 1959, transform- ing society totally within a few years, inevitably militated against such a state; whenever a state body seemed to be forming, the process of constant change proceeded to undermine that stability. Even if that had not been the case, the plethora of new institutions (including new ministries) that was set up in the wake of victory complicated the state structure at a time of profound change, each institution having its own, inevitably growing, bureaucracy. However, the rebel leadership itself encouraged a tendency against ‘institutionalism’; this was partly because of a growing and rad- icalised commitment, by January 1959, to making a real revolution rather than a revolution like the rhetorical ones of previous radical generations. However, it was mostly because, after 1961–62, when some in the pre-1959 Communist Party (the People’s Socialist Party, or PSP) sought to take advantage of the post-victory chaos and inex- perience to move the process in an orthodox communist direction (see later), many of the ex-guerrillas were determined to prevent a recurrence of that attempted takeover by encouraging a ‘revolu- tion in the revolution’, adopting guerrilla-style tactics of constant movement in the face of what were seen as bureaucratic obstacles EBSCOhost - printed on 5/28/2020 12:09 PM via SAINT MARY''S UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use 10 | introduction to that ‘real’ revolution. In 1966, Fidel argued that there was no rush to institutionalise, since eventual institutionalisation should reflect the changed social reality rather than precede it (Azicri 1988: 39). Thus, although the Revolution might have needed stability and structure in the mid-1960s (not least to distribute goods and services to all efficiently, and to allow for proper channels of communication on decision-making), the anti-bureaucracy campaign of that period (largely a political drive from 1964 to 1970 against the ‘dangerous’ elements who had threatened to take over) was also an anti-state campaign, weakening the morale of those loyal bureaucrats who were now often the target of committed activists and angry citizens (Domínguez 1978: 240). A further factor preventing the growth of a strong state, however, was the effect of the mass exodus from 1960, largely draining Cuba of its middle class. While this had political benefits (making real opposition external rather than dangerously internal), it also drained a post-1959 state of its human resources; the middle class’s education levels, experience and professional qualifications had made it the raw material for a national civil service to execute the government’s constant flow of policies. Instead, therefore, new funcionarios (civil servants) and professionals had to be created expensively, either laboriously (despite the urgency) or too quickly to generate the necessary confidence and experience. Hence, for several years the ‘new’ Cuba lacked the human infrastructure necessary for a new and powerful state. Meanwhile, the supposedly powerful single party refused to emerge. Plans were hatched early on, with the PSP’s Aníbal Escal- ante given the task, as organisation secretary, of merging the three leading rebel groups of 1959 – the guerrillas’ 26 July Movement, the communist PSP and the small student-based guerrilla group, the DR (Revolutionary Directorate – 13 March) – into one umbrella organisa- tion, the ORI (Integrated Revolutionary Organisations). However, the 1962 ‘Escalante affair’ so startled the rebels that its planned sequel, the United Party of the Cuban Socialist Revolution (PURSC), emerged without fanfare or inauguration, keeping a somewhat shadowy exist- ence for three years. However, the PURSC was not, as is sometimes suggested (Anderson 1997: 759), a response to the ORI crisis, since it was always planned as the next stage after the ORI; in fact, in 1961, EBSCOhost - printed on 5/28/2020 12:09 PM via SAINT MARY''S UNIVERSITY. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use introduction | 11 it was repeatedly mentioned as such in the press. The Escalante affair simply accelerated its appearance. Then when, in 1965, the planned Cuban Communist Party (PCC) emerged, while it might have looked like its partner parties in Eastern Europe, it never had a founding congress and only really existed at the top (among the ex-guerrillas) and the bottom (among grass-roots activists). In between, there was no linking structure or national infrastructure of political involvement. The effects of this weakness of the state were twofold. Firstly, the inchoate groupings that emerged, some organically and others haphazardly, often lacked control by an overarching state structure; instead, individuals or groups often exercised unrestricted local con- trol, unless they offended openly or conflicted with other groups or individuals. For example, until 1965 there were two major national newspapers, the PSP’s Noticias de Hoy (always abbreviated to Hoy) and the 26 July Movement’s Revolución, which finally merged to become Granma. Equally, the lack of a single national cultural policy arose from a ‘cultural state’ that consisted of discrete organisations, often working separately from, or against, each other; thus, the National Cultural Council (CNC) from 1961, run by PSP members (often with orthodox Communist views about socialist art), had no control over the powerful cinema industry (ICAIC), which, under Alfredo Guevara, had free rein to create a ‘Cuban’ revolutionary cinema, or over the new … Cuba's New Socialism: Different Visions Shaping Current Changes Author(s): Camila Piñeiro Harnecker Source: Latin American Perspectives, Vol. 40, No. 3, LATIN AMERICA'S RADICAL LEFT IN POWER: COMPLEXITIES AND CHALLENGES IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY (May 2013), pp. 107-125 Published by: Sage Publications, Inc. Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/23466007 Accessed: 26-04-2019 15:40 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected] Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms Sage Publications, Inc. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Latin American Perspectives This content downloaded from 134.190.154.148 on Fri, 26 Apr 2019 15:40:41 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Cuba's New Socialism Different Visions Shaping Current Changes by Camila Pineiro Harnecker Three main ideological positions are behind the debate over current changes in Cuba: the statist position, which seeks to perfect a top-down, state socialism; the economicist position, which defends market socialism; and the self-managementist position, which favors democratic socialism and worker participation in company decision making. These visions largely coincide in maintaining that Cuba's main long-term goal should be a more just society, liberated from economic hardship, but they differ markedly in the way they understand justice and freedom and thus socialism. Consequently, different Cubans tend to set different short- and medium-term goals and to propose different means for reaching them. All three make legitimate points that need to be considered in the making of strategic decisions. However, pursuing more democracy would appear more desirable than confer ring inordinate power on state functionaries who pledge to represent the interests of soci ety or on resourceful economic actors who direct from the shadows an "invisible hand" that affects us all. Tres principales posiciones ideoldgicas estdn detras del debate sobre cambios contem poraneos en Cuba: la posicion estadista, la cual busca perfeccionar un socialismo del Estado de arriba para abajo; la posicion economicista, que defiende el socialismo de mercado; y la posicion autogestionaria, que favorece el socialismo democratico y la participation de los trabajadores en las decisiones empresariales. Estas visiones coinciden en gran parte en mantener que el objetivo de largo plazo deberia ser una sociedad mas justa, liberada de apuros economicos. Pero se distinguen marcadamente en el modo en que se entiende la justicia y la libertad y por ende el socialismo. Por consiguiente distintos cubanos tienden a establecer diferentes metas de corto y mediano plazo, y a proponer diferentes caminos para llegar alii Todos los tres hacen puntos legitimos que se tienen que considerar en la elabo ration de decisiones estrategicas. Sin embargo, la busqueda de mas democracia pareceria ser mas deseable que el conferir poderes desproporcionados a funcionarios del Estado quienes prometen representar los intereses de la sociedad, o ponerlo en manos de adores economicos hdbiles quienes dirigen desde las sombras la "mano invisible" que nos afecta a todos. Keywords: Cuba, Socialist transition, Enterprise management, Macroeconomic coordination The shape of Cuba's "reformed," "updated," or "renewed" socialism depends on the relative influence of fundamentally different ways of under standing socialism and envisioning Cuba's future. These visions largely Camila Pineiro Harnecker is a professor at the Center for the Study of the Cuban Economy, University of Havana. Her research centers on alternative forms of economic organization such as self-management and democratic planning. LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 190, Vol. 40 No. 3, May 2013 107-125 DOI: 10.1177/0094582X13476006 © 2013 Latin American Perspectives 107 This content downloaded from 134.190.154.148 on Fri, 26 Apr 2019 15:40:41 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 108 LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES coincide in maintaining that Cuba's main long-term goal should be a more just society, liberated from economic hardship, but they differ markedly in the way they understand justice and freedom and thus socialism. Consequently, differ ent Cubans tend to set different short- and medium-term goals and to propose different means for reaching them. This paper identifies the main visions of socialism that are influencing current changes in a nation that, albeit for differ ent reasons, continues to be of great interest throughout the world. As a Cuban committed to our future, I shall analyze the internal debate from an objective standpoint. I start with a brief contextualization of recent developments in Cuba and then examine three currents of opinion that I call the "statist" (estatista), the "economicist" (economicista), and the "self-managementist" (autogestionaria). No more than analytical tools, these terms are used to characterize different approaches to what should be done in order to save Cuba's socialist project.1 I point to the main goals guiding these positions' visions of socialism, which permeate the problems they identify in current Cuban society and the solutions they propose.21 examine the differences among these positions with regard to social control, private enterprise, market relations, and worker participation in management, in particular whether to establish worker cooperatives in non strategic state enterprises. This discussion seeks to shed light on some of the assumptions on which these positions are based. I conclude with an assessment of the conditions that might cause one position to prevail over the rest in the "battle of ideas" that is currently taking place in Cuba and that will define its future. The study is based on an examination of public discourse (manifested in formal and informal debates and official declarations) and publications (aca demic, journalistic, opinion) in Cuba. Whereas in the past there was concern that public debate would undermine national unity and make it easier for the U.S. government to implement its destabilization programs, now Cubans are called upon to criticize problems openly and defend diverse solutions, and many are doing precisely that. Despite Cubans' known passionate extraversion and inclination to exaggerate, there is a surprisingly friendly confrontation of different positions. This is reflected in a rich exchange about theoretical con cepts and interpretations of reality that is taking place not only among policy makers and academics but also in newspaper letters to the editor, books and magazine articles, public workshops, Internet articles, blogs, films, and radio and television programs. While a few government officials, academics, journalists, and bloggers have made explicit their visions of Cuba's future or made statements that roughly correspond to one of the three positions, most people express aspects of all three. This paper seeks not to classify Cubans by position—which could result in polarization—but to contribute to a more productive and thus respectful and nonpersonalized debate that will facilitate achieving a new consensus about the society in which they all want to live. RECENT CHANGES IN CUBA The current changes can be traced to a speech given by former President Fidel Castro on November 17, 2005, in which he warned for the first time This content downloaded from 134.190.154.148 on Fri, 26 Apr 2019 15:40:41 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Pineiro / CUBA'S NEW SOCIALISM 109 publicly that the Revolution could be reversed. In contrast to the situation in the past, when the main causes of most economic problems in Cuba were attrib uted to U.S. economic sanctions and geopolitical warfare against Cuba,3 Castro said that the Revolution's major enemies were our own mistakes, especially unfair income inequality, vices such as theft, and lack of control and poor man agement decisions at high levels (F. Castro, 2005). Less than a year later, in July 2006, he became ill, and before undergoing surgery he ceded power to his legal successor and brother, Raul Castro. Soon after, Raul Castro began preparing for the deeper transformations that were needed to tackle those problems. In a speech on July 26,2007, Raul Castro referred to the need for "conceptual and structural changes" and proposed a national debate to identify the main problems besetting Cuban society. More than 5 million people participated in more than 215,000 meetings between September and November of 2007, and more than 1.6 million criticized the shortcomings of daily life, the under perf ormance of state institutions, and the behavior of public servants in bureau cratic posts. It was not the first time that this type of nationwide debate involving large numbers of people had taken place in Cuba. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, more than 80,000 "workers' parliaments" were held in workplaces, schools, and mass organizations in 1993,4 and more than 3 million people expressed concerns and put forward proposals on how to deal with the new situation. The 2007 debate served as a prelude to the Sixth Congress of the Cuban Communist Party, but the only official information that immediately resulted from it was what everyone knew: that low salaries and inadequate food, trans portation, and housing were Cubans' main source of concern and that people were tired of prohibitions regarding their daily lives. Only a few of the mea sures that were expected to follow materialized in 2008-2009: the ability to buy certain goods and services previously limited to foreigners, the turning over of idle agricultural land to individuals and cooperatives, the elimination of com mittees in charge of approving the use of hard currency by state institutions (known as the Comites de Aprobacion de Divisas), the creation of a national supervisory institution (Contraloria de la Republica), and initial steps toward reducing the size of ministries. Efforts were concentrated on dealing with the difficult financial situation that resulted from a series of costly hurricanes in 2008 and the international economic crisis. Since 2010, Raul Castro has more emphatically warned about the importance of overcoming serious economic obstacles. The preservation and sustainability of Cuba's socioeconomic system lay in the balance.5 Reflecting the need to solve long-standing problems with the management of the Cuban economy, the Sixth Congress was scheduled for April 2011 for the purpose of approving general guidelines to improve economic performance, including some social policies and other areas closely related to the economic sphere. The congress was preceded by debates in workplaces, neighborhoods, and social organizations over a document titled Draft Guidelines for Economic and Social Policy (PCC, 2010). People were encouraged to propose changes, express concerns, or simply make comments on it. The document was organized into chapters that listed expectations of what should happen in specific areas such as economic management, macroeconomic policies, external economic rela tions, investment, science, technology, and innovation, social policy, agro industry, industry and energy, tourism, transportation, construction, housing This content downloaded from 134.190.154.148 on Fri, 26 Apr 2019 15:40:41 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 110 LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES and water resources, and commerce. Many of the objectives listed, such as replacing imports and increasing exports, had been established in previous PCC congresses but remained to be achieved. Cubans were called on to reach consensus on the what, not the how. It was suggested that the more complex discussion about how to reach the goals agreed-upon would occur later on as institutions prepared new legislation and policies. So far, only a few have been passed and with little debate, possibly because they relate to completing ownership rights of personal property, about which there appears to be consensus.6 However, even before the debates in preparation for the congress began in December 2010, some measures were adopted and some experiments were car ried out with the idea of later applying them on a wider scale. The most conse quential economic measure, which has been equated with another agrarian reform, had been in place since 2008. From 2008 to mid-2011, nearly 15 percent of agricultural land (1.13 million hectares) had been given in usufruct to 146,000 individual farmers (70,000 new ones) and, to a lesser degree, to worker coop eratives, while recognizing that permanent (not only seasonal) wage labor was used by both.7 This process is redistributing land from ineffective state farms and cooperatives, mostly to private farmers. Resolution 9 of the Ministry of Labor and Social Security was passed in 2008 to link state workers' wages with productivity, following criteria approved by the ministry. These rules eliminated the cap on the amount workers could earn beyond their base salary, thus allowing for greater wage differentials. But their implementation has stagnated because, among many factors, the Labor Ministry has ended up imposing productivity-tied pay schedules that are not attractive to either workers or managers. In early 2010, several municipalities had begun to allow some barbers, beau ticians, and transportation workers to lease barbers' chairs and taxis, respectively, from the state enterprises that previously employed them. Under the terms, the former state employees were obliged to cover all the costs of operation that the state had previously assumed but could freely set prices and keep the profits after taxes, whereas before they had in effect set prices higher than the regu lated ones and kept the difference (in addition to their salaries).8 On October 25,2010, a number of regulations were made public with regard to the process of "availability" (disponibilidad), in which state institutions were expected to relocate "excess" workers who reduced productivity. Excess work ers were estimated at over 1 million or 20 percent of total employment, averag ing 30 percent of state enterprises' payrolls. These workers were to be offered alternative state jobs where there were openings, and if they decided to reject the offer they were to be laid off with only a few months' pay, depending on how much time they had worked. The process was soon suspended because it was impossible to fulfill Raul Castro's commitment that no one would be "abandoned to his fate" (Martinez and Puig, 2011).9 Other rules were passed that made independent work (cuentapropismo) more flexible, including the possibility of hiring wage laborers on a permanent basis. Independent workers are now able to rent spaces, establish economic transac tions with state institutions, and receive bank credit. The number of licenses for independent work more than doubled in less than a year, 10 in part because many simply legalized their status. In spite of high taxes, many have seen This content downloaded from 134.190.154.148 on Fri, 26 Apr 2019 15:40:41 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Pineiro / CUBA'S NEW SOCIALISM 111 benefits from legalizing their activities, such as access to retirement, security for disabilities and maternity, bank credit, and state contracts (Pineiro, 2011: 68-69). Noting that measures with such great consequences for Cubans' lives (land rights, wages, labor relations, etc.) had been approved in previous years, some argued that the Sixth Congress was only a "show" to ratify decisions already made. Nonetheless, there was massive participation in the discussion of the Draft Guidelines. From December 2010 to February 2011, a significant part of the Cuban population (9 million of a total population of about 11 million, but since most participated in more than one meeting they were counted more than once) discussed the document in their places of work and study, their neigh borhoods, and their social organizations. About 68 percent of the more than 200 guidelines were modified. Nevertheless, only a few of the changes, such as those related to market planning and prices, were substantial. Some have criticized the congress for concentrating on "economic" prob lems that in reality cannot be separated from political, cultural, and social ones (see, e.g., D'Angelo, 2011a). Given the complexity of the Cuban economic sys tem and the challenges it faces, the decision to concentrate efforts on that front is understandable. Nevertheless, one of the most important goals incorporated into the Guidelines—in addition to the expansion of nonstate enterprises (pri vate and cooperative), greater autonomy for state enterprises, and greater weight for market relations—is that local governments should play a guiding role in state and nonstate economic activities, creating new enterprises, collect ing taxes, and handling funds earmarked for local development. Other important political measures were announced at the congress. In his closing speech, Raul Castro proposed establishing a limit of two consecutive five-year terms for "fundamental political and state posts" and defended the current law establishing that being a party member is not a requirement for occupying public posts (R. Castro, 2011a). He suggested that substantial changes in the political system and a rejuvenation of the party national leader ship would take place at the PCC conference set for January 28,2012.11 Changes in the newly elected membership of the Central Committee, including greater representation in terms of gender, race, and, to a lesser extent, age could be considered a "first step."12 In contrast, the PCC Political Bureau continued to be dominated by men who came from the ranks of long-time leaders of the Revolution, especially the "historic generation" (those who had led the Revolution since the 1950s). The congress debate process has also been criticized on grounds that it did not include ideological or ethical issues (see, e.g., Campos, 2011c; D'Angelo, 2011a). Socialism, which was referred to only twice in the draft document, was defined in the final document as "equality of rights and opportunities" (PCC, 2010: 5). Nevertheless, there are plans for the executive commission that over sees implementation of the Guidelines to define the "integral theoretical concep tualization of the Cuban socialist economy" (R. Castro, 2011b; Murillo in Granma, December 24, 2011). Now that Fidel and Raul Castro have acknowl edged the unsustainability of Cuba's current "socialist model" and the need to update or change it, it is important to fill in this "ideological vacuum" so that socially minded Cubans can be less fearful about the future and help shape the new social pact that will emerge. There is also dissatisfaction with the way in This content downloaded from 134.190.154.148 on Fri, 26 Apr 2019 15:40:41 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 112 LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES which various statements from the debate process were synthesized by PCC functionaries and with the failure to establish a horizontal exchange of ideas among PCC nuclei, workplaces, and neighborhoods (see, e.g., Campos, 2011c; D'Angelo, 2011a). Despite these shortcomings, however, many have argued that the congress served to articulate long-recognized problems in the internal organization and management of the country and to craft a national consensus in favor of reforming Cuban socialism. Moreover, although some argue that the root causes of the inefficiency and ineffectiveness of the Cuban state have yet to be identified, this reform period can be distinguished from others in that self-criticism by government and state functionaries is more blunt and profound. There is an acknowledgment that the historic generation is obliged to rectify its errors and hand over a country in better shape to the next generation. Recent statements made by Raul Castro and opinions published in Granma13 have addressed concerns that it is not real istic to expect changes from the same people who put the current rules and practices in place and have argued that bureaucrats who create obstacles to change should be forced to resign. THE STATISTS: PERFECT STATE SOCIALISM The main socialist goal for the "statists" is a well-managed, representative state in control of society—a stronger state, not necessarily a bigger one but one that functions properly and ensures that subordinates perform their assigned tasks. They stress that such a state differs from a capitalist one in that it responds to the interests of working people, not private capital. In the statists' view, a centralized state with a vertical structure is best suited to providing all citizens with goods and services to satisfy their basic needs. Faced with the shortcomings of top-down planning, however, some statists have accepted a degree of market relations as inevitable. In their vision of socialism, horizontal coordination of autonomous individual or collective actors is impossible and will only generate chaos; democratically managed organizations are inefficient and conducive to social conflict and disintegra tion.14 At the center of the statists' strategy is bringing control to the Cuban economy, and the reduction of fiscal and commercial deficits is the number-one priority. This thinking has sometimes been translated into the cutting of ser vices, closing of enterprises, and levying of taxes that are too high for both state and nonstate enterprises. The statists deny that major changes are needed. They believe that with more control by state managers and the party,15 along with some decentraliza tion and consultation with the people, the current institutions can work properly. However, some accept that the state should withdraw from the man agement of small enterprises and that local governments should have their own resources to solve problems. They repeat Raul Castro's call for a "change of methods" but do not recognize a need to allow institutions to be more autono mous and democratic or to guarantee transparency by means of, for instance, the publication of information on the budgets of local governments and state enterprises.16 This content downloaded from 134.190.154.148 on Fri, 26 Apr 2019 15:40:41 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Pineiro / CUBA'S NEW SOCIALISM 113 The main problems of Cuban society according to the statists are lack of discipline; insufficient control; the low standards set by managers, ministry functionaries, and party members, which have led to low productivity; disor ganization; widespread petty theft; and corruption, which, although substan tially less serious than in other countries, is still considered unacceptable. Indeed, an unproductive informal agreement between workers and managers has been established: "We pretend to work, and you pretend to pay us." Control, discipline, and consistency are necessary for any project to be success ful, and they have not been common among Cuban workers and administra tors for decades. Although advocates of all three positions recognize a harmful lack of control in Cuban institutions, they differ in what they see as its root causes and there fore in the type of control methods they consider effective and fair. Statists stress the cultural nature of the problem and maintain that it could be solved with education by traditional means. A "change of minds/thinking" is pre sented as the key solution. In contrast, the economicists point to low wages and defend the need for adequate material incentives, while the self-managementists propose changing the way Cuban institutions are organized in favor of more democratic, less alienated forms of social relations.17 In short, the solution for statists is more control and supervision in the verti cal structure along with a modicum of autonomy and a wider scope of legal responsibility for managers.18 External supervisory bodies are expected to keep state institutions in check, with directors making sure that subordinates fulfill their responsibilities. There is little recognition of the limits of external and vertical supervision, the advantages of social control and self-monitoring by workers' collectives, or the importance of transparency and true accountability in public institutions. The statist position is well represented in state bureaucracies among those who fear losing their posts—not an unfounded concern, since state institutions are being reduced or "rationalized." This position is also supported by many ordinary Cubans who are tired of the social disorder that has arisen in recent decades. They want to restore order, and they reject more substantive changes because they are afraid of losing the social achievements of the Revolution. In addition, some intellectuals educated in Soviet-style Marxism reject any kind of decentralization and opening to any organization—whether private or col lective—that is not directly and closely controlled by a heavily centralized state. Some officers in the Cuban military may be close to statism because of their preference for order and control. ECONOMICISTS: MARKET SOCIALISM According to the "economicists," the main goal of socialism should be to develop society's productive forces in order to create more material wealth; thus they focus on productive capacity and overlook social relations. For them, economic growth generates an increase in purchasing power and in turn an improvement in the material conditions of people. They argue that socialism implies redistribution of wealth and that if there is no wealth there is nothing to distribute (Marquez, 2011).19 This content downloaded from 134.190.154.148 on Fri, 26 Apr 2019 15:40:41 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 114 LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES For those who support this position, current changes in Cuba should aim, above all, at improving the performance of the Cuban economy in order to satisfy the "ever-increasing material needs of the people." They argue that, with effective redistribution of wealth, all institutional arrangements that are efficient and productive are useful for building socialism.20 While for the stat ists private enterprises and market relations are risky but necessary evils to be tamed by the state and for the self-managementists they are evils that can be gradually overcome with the expansion of alternative organizations that fuse economic and social goals, for the economicists both privatization and a market economy are essential for economic development. Economicists attribute the serious underperformance of the Cuban economy to centralization, state monopoly of commerce and production of goods and services, soft-budget constraints, and lack of private entrepreneurship and market relations. Although it may not be publicly acknowledged, economicists believe that the private capitalist management model (based on autonomous, nondemocratic managers responsive to private interests) is the most effective way to run an enterprise and that markets are the most efficient form of coor dinating enterprise activity, allocating resources, and promoting efficiency and innovation. Economicists defend the notion that if economic actors are to behave opti mally and, specifically, managers are to make the right decisions and workers are to increase productivity, material incentives and the "discipline of the mar ket" are unavoidable.21 They add that producers should pay the consequences of their poor performance even if it is due to market changes or events beyond their control. They argue against paternalistic relations between Cubans and state institutions in which the former expect to have all their problems solved by the latter. The economicists play down warnings that their policies would aggravate inequality, the marginalization of social groups, the exploitation of employees in the private sector and in more autonomous state enterprises, and the dete rioration of the environment. These social concerns are to be dealt with at a future date and meanwhile should not be allowed to interfere with the advance of privatization and marketization.22 They point out that significant inequality in nonwage-related income is already a reality (see Marquez, 2011: 6, and Lambert, 2011). The economicists predict that their policies will produce "win ners" and "losers" depending on their ability to adapt to market imperatives, but they point out that some measures can be taken to limit the …