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I know that Raul's speech at the National Assembly is long. Quite unusual
for him. Nonetheless, it is the most important political speech from the
Cuban central leaders for quite a few years and the best available
explanation and defense of the changes that are partly underway and those
that are proposed. It deserves close study by everyone interested in the
future of the Cuban revolution.
The speech and addenda are available, among other places, in the translation
by Marce Cameron, on the invaluable Cuba's Socialist Renewal website.
I am going to make a number of loosely-connected points on this. Forgive the
unsystematic form.
For me study and thought about this are still in progress, although I have
been roughly following the initial discussions and steps for several years,
and have tended throughout to identify with Raul's views.
Far from being primarily a retreat from policies directed toward socialism
and adoption of policies directed (whether intentionally or not, necessarily
or not) toward capitalism, the changes represent a concerted attempt to
advance socialist perspectives and methods under fire.
In the United States, the layoffs in Cuba are most often presented as though
they were primarily aimed at industrial workers, at their jobs, and at
reducing their real wages, and their social wage through a desperate
competition for jobs among the workers. It is pretty natural for people in
the US (and Canada) to view them that way.
The Cuban leaders deny this. They insist that their goal is to raise wages
and preserve the social wage while increasing the surplus produced by the
working class well above the current level. They say the workers affected
will go into other jobs, or establish independent self-employed operations.
And the state recognizes its obligation to organize and otherwise aid this
shift.
Raul is insistent that tbe working class and the peasantry need to produce
more surplus than they have been doing. Of course, at the word "surplus,"
theoreticians of state capitalism will raise the cry of "intensified
exploitation." The only beneficiaries, they insist, can only be the section
of the bureaucrats that support these measures.
The only system in which this would not be true, they seem to me to argue,
would be one based on workers' committees in the factories (and, in fact,
ONLY workers' committees in the factories - everything else dilutes pure
worker power).
The reference to increasing the surplus simply means that workers and
peasants have an obligation to not only provide for themselves and their
families, but to increase the common wealth of society.
In fact, I think the opposition to the new course is strongly rooted in the
bureaucracy, among those who have done alright in the past period and see no
reason to change anything except maybe for more moral exhortation and more
use of the police to enforce legal norms. That is certainly indicated in
Raul's speech.
As for the workers, the changes have not been sprung on them suddenly. A
long period of discussion and debate was organized around the proposals for
layoffs and self-employment by the trade union federation. After weeks of
discussion in factories and workplaces across Cuba, the federation felt on
strong enough footing to take on the task of announcing the changes in its
own name. From what I can tell from reports, the mood of the most workers
about the new course seems to be one of cautious optimism.
I only note here Raul (and Fidel's) constant insistence that Cuba's
socialism is not just a moral ideal or the interests of the workers, but the
ONLY way to preserve Cuba's independence and sovereignty.
Raul also reaffirms that the long-term solution to Cuba's problems lies
along the road of internationalism, and particularly efforts to advance
toward a Latin Anerican and Caribbean economic union, and stresses the
importance of ALBA in this context.
I see no evidence that any substantial section of the state apparatus -- any
substantial faction, tendency or trend -- advocates remodeling Cuba along
the lines followed by China since the mid-1970s. That is, a massive opening
of the economy to imperialist capital, privatization of large sectors of
industry, free buying and selling of land in the countryside and cities, and
the abolition of free medical care and education which had been at least
formally guaranteed before the mid-70s.
Under the concrete conditions that Cuba faces (which are far different from
those confronting China in the past or today) this would lead to much deeper
divisions among the people, the collapse of the revolution, and the
re-subjection of Cuba to US domination
We should also keep in mind the old Bolshevik slogan, which was aimed at
rallying the working class during the civil war: Those who will not work
also will not eat. The Cubans are nowhere close to those straits now and no
slogan this radical is put forward by Raul, but we should remember this when
ultralefts and social democrats try to portray this as a general US-style
assault on the workers.
Let's definitely not get caught up in the word "austerity" and assume that
since Raul calls for austerity in no uncertain terms, what is involved must
be austerity in the style of Britain and/or Obama's deficit commission.
Given the US embargo and its vast international ramifications, Cuba's
limited support from abroad, Cuba's limited domestic resources, and the
worldwide imperialist economic difficulties, the people must have austerity
to survive. In this context, austerity is quite defensible.
Is Cuba on the verge of dumping free mediral care or free education through
universities for the masses? I see no basis for interpreting Raul's comments
about free medical care or education for those who "need" them as
establishing the kind of humiliating, anti-worker means-test s testing that
takes place in the United States. (I recently went through a nightmarish
experience trying to get Food Stamps in Newark which was resolved favorably
only when I took steps to get a free lawyer. I don't think what Castro
projects is the extension of this to Cuba.)
I think what is involved is imposing the "need" standard on the privileged,
the new rich who already exist or may come into existence because of the
potentialities of some of the present proposals. I don't think that this is
intended at all for the working people or the unemployed.
And I find it justifiable under conditions that bar free spending and
require austerity.
Fred
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