The Twilight of Castroism (continued)

An Economy Derailed

These constraints are all the more burdensome because the difficult material conditions, stagnant or faltering for thirty years, are now aggravated by changes in the USSR and its former satellites. Cuba, through Castro's choosing, cut itself off from its former North American partner and then entered into conflict with it. In retaliation, the United States has enforced an embargo that the press has inappropriately called a "blockade." (Le Monde, 21 February 1990)¹⁵ The regime became, therefore, completely dependent on the East Bloc countries. Until 1989, eighty-five percent of Cuba's trade was with the USSR and the People's Republics.

The economic situation in Cuba is permanently characterized by rationing and by the scarcity of merchandise. The free-floating changes within agricultural policies, the failure of an industrialization policy "at a forced march" have rendered the economy lifeless. Castro constantly complains about absenteeism, idleness and the lack of productivity of the workers, whom he ceaselessly harasses by outrageous requests and broken promises. The people are weary and demoralized. White collar workers have fled because they cannot find satisfactory working conditions in their country. A special envoy from Le Monde summarized their problem very well: "The best situations go to the best militants," she wrote after speaking with a certified doctor working as a lab technician, who confirmed that "one is better off being a success at a militants' meeting than at an exam."¹⁶

After 28 years of uninterrupted rationing, Cuban society is now suffering the counter-coup of the changes in Eastern Europe. The USSR is less inclined to aid Cuba, and doubtlessly sees no reason to concentrate its efforts on such a cumbersome and critical ally. Its own very real difficulties and political evolution are leading the USSR to a new attitude toward its costly partner. Izvestia published in early March, 1990, the exorbitant figure of Cuba's debt to the USSR: 15 billion rubles, or $24 billion at the official exchange rate.¹⁷ Moscow News asked, "Just what is this variety of socialism that needs to be defended down to the very last drop of our blood?" In his description of Cuba, the journalist Vladimir Orlov emphasizes the militarization of the State, the immunity of the party's elite, the absolute rejection of a multi-party system and even of its possibility in the future. In other words: a bogged-down, archaic, Brezhnev-style socialism.¹⁸ Moreover, this unpopular, onerous little ally is no longer of any great interest to the USSR: pulling back in its involvements around the world, Moscow no longer has designs upon Central America.

Castro had announced in October 1989 that the coming times would be difficult. In December he announced that grain shipments from the Soviet Union would be late. Le Monde reported on February 21, 1990, that the long-awaited wheat had still not been received, and that this had a momentarily happy effect: the fruit destined to be traded to the USSR was put on the market "a little early, but so what!" This unexpected supply was enough to produce "an atmosphere of celebration." In the report that spurred his immediate expulsion, Michael Cermak, a correspondent for Radio Prague, described a clear deterioration of living conditions in Cuba, brought about in the space of a year: scarcity of meat, poultry, flour and milk, the virtual non-existence of fish and the sporadic appearance on the market of fruits and vegetables.¹⁹ If one adds to this picture the now constant scarcity of drinking water, the scene looks very bleak indeed. What's more, Castro is no longer making promises--they no longer stand a chance of being believed. Cubans have been aware, thanks to Radio Martí, of events in Eastern Europe. They have no hope, therefore, of material aid from that quarter. At the same time, however, they have learned that communism can be shaken off.

It has become clear to Cubans that their situation will not improve as long as Castro is in power. He has refused to step down in the manner of Pinochet (or Ortega). It is easy to understand why the worrisome and frightening possibility of a violent resolution is so widely discussed.

The Illusion of Socialist Gains

The last bastion of Castro supporters--and it is still a numerous bastion--raise the objection that the people have "gains" that must be preserved. Others, hardly staunch supporters of the regime, raise the fact that an effective opposition cannot be formed of groups struggling for differing causes (human rights, but also, for instance, environmental protection). They express alarm, even in the Miami press, that no Walesa or Havel has surfaced. This second point can be brushed aside: as remarkable as they are, Walesa and Havel are, first and foremost, courageous spokesmen; they were heralds, and would have been nothing without the movement behind them. Havel brings to the Czech experience his demanding sense of ethics, his particular tone and brilliance; but even without him, communism would have collapsed. The absence of leaders opposed to Castro could in fact be viewed as a positive sign: no "caudillo" is waiting in the wings to succeed him. It is also clear that those who united against Ceausescu in the twilight years of his cruel and grotesque regime and the masses who rose up against him in December 1989 did not reason in terms of succession. These regimes were either swept away or collapsed under their own weight; then, the transitional questions of free elections, candidates, political choices, etc., were raised. It is useless, therefore, to linger over such objections.

As for the debate over the "gains" of the revolution, it is absurd: Can one truly conceive of a regime that cannot decently feed its population, but that has a huge surplus of quality medical care? Of a regime that hunts down its intellectuals and artists, strangling the culture as it is born, but provides top-level education? An overmilitarized regime exhausting itself in Africa, at the same time as it cares for the general well-being? Although the contradictions are obvious, this idea of "gains" must be examined carefully, because it is widespread and goes well beyond the circle of blind, fanatical supporters. Only a year ago, a man as careful as Mario Vargas Llosa spoke of Cuba as a regime that had put medical care within everyman's reach, that had done the most to guarantee education, health and jobs to the poorest.²⁰

Concerning Cuban medical care, it is common to read paeans, as lyrical, as wide-reaching and as false as those lavished for so long on the USSR. It took the Armenian earthquake, with its show of the shortcomings, gaps and backwardness of Soviet medicine, to stop some from spreading the myths disproven by numerous and trustworthy accounts. On this point, Reinaldo Arenas points out: "Granted, Cuban hospitals are free. . . .But the first thing that an ill Cuban must avoid is having to go into the hospital: for there is a great lack of modern equipment, of essential medicines and of intensive care facilities. Patients are required to furnish a blood donor for any surgical procedure." He also raised the fact that there are at least two categories of medical care: hospitals reserved for the ruling class, and those for the rest of the population. With common sense, he also notes that rigorous rationing of basic foodstuffs and the scarcity of water do not make for a healthy sanitary climate. Lastly, he expresses indignation at the creation of special sanitoria for quarantining AIDS patients and calls on the World Health Organization to intervene in this matter.²¹ Alas! Le Monde recently published an interview with Dr. Mann, the then number two man at WHO, who had conducted an investigation in Cuba. Far from denying their existence or attempting to downplay it, Dr. Mann praised these forced ghettos for AIDS patients: "The medical care and services provided to those hospitalized are of remarkable quality," he noted. Admitting that the policy implemented by the Cuban authorities "did not in any way conform to the world-wide strategy of the WHO," in his mind "the situation had evolved of late in a positive direction." But just exactly how was it "positive"? Was it the systematic testing? Or the investigations made into the "friends and possible sexual contacts of those person identified as zero-positive"? Or the fact that those patients identified as "responsible" are allowed to leave the sanitorium unescorted once a week?²² This example of the extent to which Cuba benefits from a privileged status must be emphasized. The idea of quarantining AIDS victims, raised in France by a politician from the far right, provoked passionate reprobation from the entire political spectrum. Put into practice in Cuba, it becomes not only acceptable, but reasonable and convincing.

In the realm of education, Arenas also decries apparent inconsistencies: education is "generalized" and "top level." Since 1971 (year of the poet Padilla's arrest and "self-criticism," resulting in the public schism between the regime and a number of writers--including Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir), all cultural debate has been totally stifled, and nearly all Cuban writers, the majority of whom are in exile, are banned from publication! Even if one accepts the affirmation that total literacy has been achieved (and this remains to be proven, especially given that Cuba is facing a demographic explosion) and that Marxist-Leninist teachings (with Soviet manuals, produced under Brezhnev and Suslov!) are, obligatory in all fields of study, good intellectual discipline, many questions remain unanswered. In our societies, academic selection based on money is certainly to be criticized, but other routes are available. In Cuba, selection is based on political beliefs, and on conformity. In 1971, Carlos Victoria, among many other students, was expelled from the University for "ideological diversionism," a liberal arts student, he was sent to work as an agricultural laborer in a forestry business. Since then he as been unable to resume his studies, to change jobs or, obviously, to publish his writings.²³ Such cases are common, and enough in themselves to counterbalance the praise of the Cuban educational system: Though indeed free, it is discriminatory, rigorously controlled and ideologically oriented. Moreover, a diploma per se is worthless if it is not accompanied by a good record of militancy.

Let us add that while knowing how to read is essential, so is access to one's own culture. The many exiled writers are all banned; individual authors of the past are at one moment censored, the next published. Execrated and ostracized at the end of their lives, José Lezama Lima and Virgilio Piñera²⁴ were later rehabilitated. A young reader therefore never knows if an author is banned or sanctioned; but in any case, the quality and the value of the work is not what is first examined. Having deprived itself of its best writers, the regime sporadically pushes its own bureaucrats into the limelight: in the past Lisandro Otero and Roberto Fernández Retamar, today Jesús Díaz. As always with socialist regimes, it promotes docile writers of "effective" works. What kind of education can there be if culture is hindered and banned? Even those journalists who hail Cuban education as the greatest feather in the cap of Castroism admit that Castro has stifled Cuban culture. Tad Szulc, former star reporter of The New York Times wrote recently, despite his attraction to the Cuban regime: "Castro's shameful cultural policy has eliminated all creativity in Cuba; as recently as 1986, the whole of the island was a creative desert and self-censorship reigned supreme."²⁵ What is the value of such an education? Can it not be reduced to the study of Soviet manuals, speeches by the commandante, the official press and "chosen" bits and pieces from the past? This is being satisfied with very little.

Cuban society is similar to the Communist societies that have recently fallen, with some slight differences: the economy is in an even sorrier state and more dependent; the standard of living is even lower; restrictions more oppressive. Castro is not willing to accept mere passivity and submission. He wants a population that participates actively in its own enslavement. This explains why the pillars of his regime are the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution and the incessant call to militancy.

The specificity and the toughness of the regime are such that change cannot be thought about in terms of a simple reproduction of the fate met with by the people's republics in Europe. As we have shown, in this case, a brutal break is more likely than a reform of the regime.

1 Fidel Castro, speech of October 28, 1989 (anniversary of the disappearance of Camilo Cienfuegos) Granma, November 12, 1989. return to section

2 Jean-Pierre Clerc, Le Monde, January 18, 1990. return to section

3 Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Diario 16, Madrid, March 7,1990. return to section

4 Carlos Alberto Montaner, El Mundo, January 31, 1990. return to section

5 Open letter to Fidel Castro, First Integral Publication, El Pais, Madrid, December 29, 1988. return to section

6 AFP Report, December 31, 1988. return to section

7 See El Nuevo Herald, Miami, January 4, 1990. return to section

8 lsabelle Vichniac, Le Monde, March 1, 1989. return to section

9 Statement by Raúl Castro to Tribunal of Honor convened to analyze conduct of Division General Arnaldo Ochoa, 2 July 1989. return to section

10 Reinaldo Arenas, interview with Franz-Olivier Giesbert, Le Nouvel Observareur, September 19, 1981. Among the many novels by Arenas published in France are Le Monde hallucinant, Le Puits, Le Palais des trés blanches mouffettes, La plantation, Arturo: l'étoile Ia plus brillante, Encore une fois Ia mer, Le Portier and Fin de défilé. return to section

11 Carlos Victoria, La répression culturelle, 1989. Unpublished text translated by Liliane Hasson. return to section

12 See footnote 10. return to section

13 Cabrera Infante, Primera Plana, July 30, 1968. return to section

14 In the interview cited in note 10, Arenas summarized the situation: "If you don't bow down before the system, you have subversive ideas." return to section

15 A blockade would mean surrounding the entire island in order to isolate it, cutting off its communication and trade. Nothing like this has happened to Cuba, but the repeated bending of the truth has protected Castro, allowing him to justify the enormous failures of his policies. return to section

16 Marie-Claude Decamps, Le Monde, February 22, 1990. return to section

17 See the information published in Le Monde, March 9, 1990. return to section

18 Vladimir Orlov, Moscow News, March 7, 1990. return to section

19 Michael Cermak, El Nuevo Herald, January 14, 1990. Sugar itself is becoming scarce; according to El Nuevo Herald (January 31, 1990) Castro has bought French sugar in order to fulfill his obligations to the USSR. return to section

20 Mario Vargas Llosa, Diario 16, January 18, 1989. (Cuba is a regime which has expressed such intentions; most of the other regimes of Latin America have not. Hence, perhaps, this statement by Mario Vargas Llosa, who is otherwise very firm regarding the issue of personal freedom.) return to section

21 Reinaldo Arenas, Trente ans aprés Fidel Castro, une revolution éclate à Cuba, an open letter to the President of St. Mary's University, Sept. 20, 1989. Text translated by Liliane Hassan. return to section

22 Dr. Mann, comments reported by Jean-Yves Nau, Le Monde, March 18-19, 1989. return to section

23 Document cited in note 11. return to section

24 For more on the lives (as well as the isolation and fears) of Lezama Lima and Piñera, see Juan Goytisolo, Les royaumes déchirés (Paris: Fayard, 1988). For Lezama Lima, see also Jorge Edwards, Persona non grata à Cuba (Paris: Plon, 1976). return to section

25 Tad Szulc, Castro: Thirty Years of Absolute Power (Paris: Payot, 1987), p.568. For more on this problem see Reinaldo Arenas, "La represión (intelectual) en Cuba," in Necesidad de libertad (Mexico City: Cosmos, 1986), pp. 40-49. return to section

Jeannine Verdés-Leroux is Director of Research at CNRS. She is the author of Au service du parti: Le parti communiste, les intellectuels et la culture, 1944-56 (1983). This article is reprinted with permission from Politique Internationale, Paris. Copyright 1990, Politique Internationale.

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