Castro feels the pinch
CUBA LORD WALSTON
Lord Walston is a regular visilOr to Cuba and has just returned from the island.
Cuba today is a communist country. The Prime Minister, Dr Fidel Castro, says so. But it is not communist in the old-fashioned cold war sense of the 'fifties. It does not follow a doctrinaire marxist line, nor is it an unswerving satellite of the Soviet Union. Just as Ne Win is attempting to create the Burmese road to socialism, so is Castro attempting the same thing in Latin America.
When he and his friends overthrew the dic- tatorship of Batista in 1958 his aims were to abolish corruption and the gross inequalities of wealth and opportunity which then existed, and to free his country from the domination of the great sugar barons, both Cuban and American. The social injustices which then existed in as blatant a form as anywhere in Latin America he equated with this domination. He had no desire to replace dollar imperialism with rouble imperialism. Some of his supporters at that time were marxists, many were not. He himself was not.
Today, ten years later, most of his liberal col- laborators have left_him, and some are refugees from Cuba. The country's welfare is largely dependent on the goodwill of the USSR, which is said •to subsidise it at the rate of $1 million a day, and which buys a large part of its sugar crop at prices well above those of the world market—just as the us does in many countries, and as we do, through the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement, with all the sugar-producing members of the Commonwealth. Its military equipment and much of its other needs come from the Soviet Union, and many of its tech- nicians are trained there or in Central Europe.
For all that, Cuba retains a large measure of independence. It feels free to have contact with any foreign country that it chooses; it looks fop trade wherever it can find it (Britain is its third largest supplier). Marxist members of the government have recently been tried and sen- tenced for subversive activities. Above all, it disagrees violently and openly with the USSR over the correct policy towards Latin America. Cuba favours violent revolution and the USSR prefers a more diplomatic approach. When I tackled Castro on his 'export of revolution' his answer was that Latin America is very different from Western Europe. 'In England you have your revolution in a constitutional way, without violence: what is more, when you have had a social revolution, as in the nineteenth century, other European countries follow. In Latin America you can only do such things by violence. Batista could only be overthrown by violence. I shall help any other Latin American who tries to do the same in his own country.'
Castro has two driving forces, one providing the energy for his overseas policy, and one for his domestic reforms. Abroad he sees himself as the twentieth century Simon Bolivar, des- tined to lead the whole of Latin America in a' glorious social revolution. Coupled with this is his implacable, almost pathological, hatred of the 'United States. This his its roots in the role played by the us in the economy of Cuba for many decades, and in the support it gave to Batista and his no more admirable predecessors. It has been nourished by the Bay of Pigs, by the presence of Cuban opponents of the govern- ment on United States soil only ninety miles away in Florida, by the American base at Guan- tanamo, and above all by the economic blockade. This hatred colours the whole of Cuban foreign policy, though it is fair to point out that British friendship with the us has no adverse effect on either our political or eco- nomic relations with Cuba. But although anti- Americanism and the export of revolutions are prominent in Castro's speeches and talk, in Cuban newspapers and on the radio, their prac- tical effects are small, and the strain that they impose on the Cuban economy (apart from the effects of the United States economic blockade) are slight.
It is as a domestic reformer that Castro is most impressive. On the economic front his aim is to increase Cuba's wealth by making full use of her natural resources, her soil, her climate, her minerals and her sea. On the social front he aims at a society where eventually there will be no need for money, where everyone will give to the community according to his ability, in- spired only by love of the community; and where everyone will receive according to his needs. He is convinced that once the vicious incentive of the profit motive has been rooted out higher motives will take over.
For all that, private enterprise has not dis- appeared. There are still small businesses, and, in spite of land reform, farms of up to approxi- mately 100 acres are not only permitted but are actively helped. What is more, there is no evidence of the economic pressure on such farms to collectivise, as there was in Eastern Europe after the war. In fact shortage of re- sources is causing the government to refuse to take over farms offered to them by the owners.
The most striking progress is in education. Throughout the countryside are small modern village schools, and a growing number of secondary schools too. In Havana the villas left empty by rich Cubans when they left the coun- try, now serve as hostels for children from the countryside who are receiving higher education in the capital. There are now 78,000 students at universities and technical and administrative colleges compared with 15,000 in Batista's day. The majority of these study agriculture, veterin- ary science, engineering and medicine. Great store is set on the need to release mothers from the drudgery imposed by large families. Crèches and kindergartens are being built in the villages, as well as communal laun- dries and feeding centres and kitchens for those who wish to use them. But those who prefer to keep their children at home, and to wash and cook for their families, are free to do so.
As a further step towards escaping from a money economy, telephone calls have now become free, and in a few years all rents will be abolished.
On the economic side there is heavy invest- ment in agriculture, and especially in cattle- breeding (already meat is being exported to Europe); thousands of acres of coffee and citrus are being planted and much money is being spent on research on animal feeding and pasture production. Modern sugar-handling plants are being installed at the ports, a big fertiliser fac- tory is being built, factories of many kinds are appearing in the countryside, rural roads, always good, are being improved, and oil exploration has met with some success. Yet today there are heavy clouds on the Cuban scene. Petrol is now rationed, and since virtually no private cars are imported those that there are are mainly large old American vehicles with big appetites. Clothes, shoes, razor blades, lipsticks, almost all the small needs of life, are virtually unobtainable. And now food, never very plentiful, is shorter still. The queues out- side the foodshops are larger than a year ago. Bread is rationed .to one loaf per person and everyone must queue for his own loaf. Milk has almost disappeared, and meat is rationed. The grumbling is not only among the marxists: it is among the ordinary people. It is growing, and will grow until the shortages ease.
The government blames the shortages on the autumn drought: but there are other reasons too. One must be inefficiency, of which there is plenty—though little, if any, dishonesty. Another is undoubtedly because the govern- ment has deliberately decided to spend a large part of its resources on capital investment rather than on food and consumer goods. A further probable reason is that the USSR has decided to tighten the screw and cut down its aid to a country that refuses to be a satellite.
Castro has never been loved by the formerly rich, and those whose livelihood depended on the rich. He has disappointed many liberals who at first supported him. But to the poor, to the country folk, and above all to the young, to whom he has brought hope and opportunity, he has been an idol. I believe that his per- sonality, his idealism, his powers of leadership —and his ruthlessness—will carry him through this present crisis. Whether he is any more likely to succeed in his aim of bringing social progress to Latin America than is President Frei with his more democratic approach in Chile, is another matter.
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