Cuba: The Castro Dream

By ALFRED SHERMAN THE day I left Havana the papers carried the text of a speech by President DorticOs telling Cubans to give up what he called the `naive illusion' that the victory of the Socialist revolution could mean immediate improvements in living standards. It would take decades of sacrifice, and hard selfless work, he warned, be- fore 'the generation which had the historic fortune to bring about the Socialist revolution could hand over to coming generations as their inheritance the proper material basis for the final construction of Socialism.'

His statement evoked much less attention than it deserved, partly because the appetite for Cuban speeches has been dulled by surfeit, partly because most Cubans have long since given up the illusions—sedulously fostered by the Gov- ernment till recently—that things are likely to improve, at least so long as the present regime stays in power. Its significance lay, I think, in that together with admissions and declarations by Castro earlier this year it set the seal on a i new stage in the regime's evolution. Cuba is now avowedly most of the way towards being a Communist State, in ideology, political struc- ture and international orientation, and effectively by its indefinite postponement of Jam today' in theory as well as in practice. This saves a good deal of argument, and allows us to go ahead with evaluation of Cuba as the first Latin- American Communist State.

The admission that workers and peasants Could expect years of sacrifices is an expression of Political confidence as well as economic weak- ness, a sign that the Government is aware of the wide discontent prevailing, but no longer fears its political consequences. For a while, Previously, official propaganda tried hard to Make the masses believe that they were, in fact, better off as a result of the revolution. This was bound to fail, since memories are not as short as all that. Everyone knows that under the Batista dictatorship the guajiros (agricultural labourers) lived in bohios (wooden huts with palm thatch), that they were unemployed for Part of the year, that their living standards were deplorably low and that they were often in debt. Today, under the Castro dictatorship, they still live in bohios—you see quite a number of new bohios, which are distinguishable by the colour of the wood. The guajiros are still Illider-employed, and their standard of living has fallen to such an extent that many regard the Batista regime as the good old days.

poverty is always depressing, but the con- '', nwns under which the guajiros live are particu- larly distressing by contrast with the ballyhoo and slogans in Havana. There, and in other towns, placards with big-brother Fidel twice the size of life look down on you promising, 'The revolution means food, clothes, shoes, houses, education for all.' But in the bohios the children have no shoes and the whole family arc dressed in tatters reminiscent of the old Bisto-kids ad- vertisements. The difference is that there is nothing appetising to smell in the kitchen. As °Ltelt as not you find them without any food

at all, no vegetables, none of the wide variety of tubers with which Cuba is endowed, not even bread and lard, just coffee and sugar and a packet of hard tack to keep down hunger pains.

`If only we had a little land of our own, we could grow yucas and malangas [tubers with a more interesting flavour than either the potato or sweet potato] for the children and maize for the chickens. But unfortunately all the land belongs to the co-operative.' Why could not the co-operative allocate part of the land to indi- viduals, instead of keeping it all under cen- tralised cultivation, I asked emaciated-looking guajiros. The answers were always the same: a gesture of resignation—`they' did not wish to, so what on earth could 'we' do about it? 'They,' for their part, quoted Lenin and Stalin on the iniquitousness of small-scale peasant cultivation, which gave birth to capitalist tendencies, besides being inefficient. In due course, they assured me. when they had assimilated Soviet methods and fully mechanised agriculture everything would be all right. Meanwhile, the guajiro should show deeper political consciousness.

In the old days, the guajiro lived partly on credit, which he repaid during the cane-cutting season, and partly by odd jobs out of season, often paid in kind. Now, the wages paid for cane-cutting are insufficient to buy food at its inflated prices, while there is no longer anyone to give him consumer's credit. The food shortage needs little explanation. It is broadly similar in nature and origins to the food shortages which seem to be a permanent feature of practically all Communist countries—except those receiving American aid. The main difference is that Cubans have not yet become accustomed to it.

A good deal of Cuba's food was grown on family-size farms, while some commodities, like food grains and lard, were imported from the US, which produced them much more cheaply. Now today those individual farmers who have not been collectivised or expropriated literally splutter with indignation against the Govern- ment's policies of compulsory purchase at low prices. They have answered like peasants in other

'Ye Gods! I've been voted "Most Likely to Succeed"!'

tion and deliveries to a minimum, and the Gov- ernment has found itself unable to force them to grow more, although it has met with some success in harassing free-market deals.

Production on collectives and State farms pro- ducing foodstuffs is equally low. Many of the managers seem to be appointed for political re- liability rather than managerial qualities; cost- ing techniques are primitive, and what they do produce is generally earmarked for favoured sec- tors of the population—the army, police and `new class.'

Castro's assurance that he stood to gain rather than lose from the breaking off of US-Cuban economic relationships, and that the Communist bloc would provide a better trading partner, has been amply tested during the past couple of years. The effects of his miscalculation have been felt throughout the economy, but their most obvious impact has been on food supplies. The unfortunate guajiro, who depended most on cheap bread, rice, beans, lard and tinned foods imported from the US, has been the hardest hit. In Havana people spend a good deal of time scurrying round from shop to shop in search of food, at official and free-market prices. The guajiro seldom has the money or opportunity.

A striking result of rural discontent is the serious shortage of labour, although many people sit around idle. Cane-cutting by machete is arduous work (the trade unions opposed mechanisation), but in the old days it was well enough paid in real money to make it worth while. Now that the wage in debased pesos is insufficient to justify the effort, the macheteros fail to turn up if they can possibly avoid it. Some find work in the militia, as doormen, or any of the odd jobs which can be picked up round town; some work a few days for private farmers; others simply stay at home and plead illness, regaining their will to work when lighter jobs are available. For two years there have been too few macheteros for the zafra (harvest), although this year it was not more than two- thirds of its pre-Castro levels. Large numbers of `volunteers' had to be brought in—the decision to volunteer is often taken collectively, on behalf of an enterprise, study course or group of one sort or another. The volunteers looked impressive enough at the speech-making and on photographs, but they were not much use in the actual work.

The urban workers have been affected in much the same way as the guajiros and have reacted similarly. The Cuban worker, if he had a job, was quite well off by Latin-American standards. He had job-security guaranteed by law as well as by union pressure, his wages were at about North Italian level. He was hedonist and happy- go-lucky by nature; he rarely saved and never stinted where food, drink, clothes and amuse- ments were concerned. 'A building worker used to cat a kilo of pork at a sitting • • . think nothing of spending twenty dollars on a pair of new American shoes . . when a worker went out of an evening you could not distinguish him from a millionaire by his dress and spend- ing . . .' are comments you frequently heard, once the workers were satisfied that you were neither East European nor fellow-traveller. A bus conductor who was struggling for a phrase to describe the pre-Castro period, finally called it, 'The time when there was milk and meat.'

During the first months of the revolution, the workers seemed to be gainers. Their wages were raised by government decrees, often by as much as 50 per cent. But, since then, wages have been adjusted downwards again, by a number of expedients familiar in other Communist countries, including the abolition of overtime rates, some- times of overtime pay in general, unpaid 'volun- tary' labour decided on by the works committee and 'contributions' of one sort or another de- ducted at source.

Since the effective cost of living has risen two or three times over since 1959, the worker is undeniably worse off. The average take- home wage in industry is now just under a hundred pesos a month, if you include women's work, or a hundred and twenty if you take adult males alone. Now a skinny chicken costs five or six pesos at free-market prices, eggs were selling at four to the peso, when you could get them, and fresh fruit and vegetables from the mobile semi-legal barrows cost two or three pesos the pound. Since rations are inade- quate, and not always honoured, the worker is hard put to it to feed his family, even if he pays little rent and buys no new clothes for himself or his wife.

The impact of labour discontent and lack of incentives on the economy is matched by the impact of a decline in managerial efficiency, shortage and irregular supply of raw materials, poor quality of materials and replace- ments sent from the Communist countries, poor maintenance, shortage of spare parts and the erosion of overall economic criteria. A con- siderable part of the old managerial and tech- nical cadre has either left the country or been dismissed. Management is increasingly entrusted to `admini.stradores' appotntcd for their political reliability—many of them Communists—arro- gant, suspicious and unteachable. A glance at the shoes now on sale in the shops makes you think you are back in Moscow. Public transport is slipping down to East European levels. The inter-urban buses, which used to be Cuba's pride, are now seedy and dilapidated, air-con- ditioning has broken down, upholstery torn and dirty; many vehicles are olr the road, the re- mainder are overcrowded and hours behind schedule. Drivers and conductors are bitter : official statements frequently acuse them of de- liberately failing to collect fares, of sabotaging their buses or absenteeism.

As stocks of goods imported before 1960 run down, the shops take on a familiar Com- munist appearance. Where the shelves are not actually empty, they are usually decorated with the new Cuban flag, pictures of Fidel, Guevara, Mao, Lenin and other patron saints, empty boxes, Chinese brie-k-brac and other symbols of Cuban Communism. Chinese brotherly aid helps considerably to enliven the shop windows: large quantities of mouth-organs, paper para- sols and lanterns, carved buddhas and other figures, electric fires (for which Cuba's climate provides no need), lengths of heavy brocade, equally unsuitable to the tropics, and endless piles of books and magazines extolling Chinese life in all its forms add a dash of colour if little else. In China's defence it should be added that a good deal of the goods sent from other Com- munist countries are put to no better use, and do not even tend colour. The warehouses and parks are full of machinery of one sort or another: bulldozers, cranes, machine-tools, elec- trical equipment. As one official complained. 'If they send any more the island will sink.' So far very little of it has been put to use; the only new factories built, or even under construction, appear to be a few small canning factories pur- chased from the Yugoslays in 1960 but now prac- tically idle for lack of vegetables and fruit, a pencil factory and a plant for assembling re- frigerators. Indeed, apart from the Communist oil and grain transported half-way across the world, Cuba has very little that is positive to show for Communist aid.

By now the economy has entered a vicious circle. Insufficient production and clumsy hand- ling of peasants and workers have led to a serious shortage of consumer goods, which in turn adversely affects labour supply and pro- ductivity. Economic weakness makes Cuba eco- nomically dependent on the Communist countries and this reduces her bargaining power. Though the Soviet leaders are determined not to let the regime founder for lack of economic support, they are both unable and unwilling to keep Cuba at the standards to which she was accustomed by proximity to the US, whatever the real short- coming of this relationship. A major reason for the present economic chaos has been over- spending on non-productive sectors and doc- trinaire interference in the workings of the eco- nomy. The State budget for 1962 stands at nearly five times the 1958, though the national income not only has not increased, but is esti- mated to have shrunk owing to the serious decline in sugar production and exports, and of food production generally. Military expenditure has been tripled, in spite of the famous slogan —'We replace barracks by schools.' Some 80,000 young people are in receipt of State scholarships, which usually entail free board and lodging, clothes and pocket-money. Many of their studies arc of questionable value: thousands of village sports and art instructors are being turned out. The qualifications for entry to these courses and teachers' training colleges are four years of ele- mentary school and a reliable class background.

These measures were easier to introduce than to reverse. Even though the Government talks about remedying the peasants' grievances in order to encourage greater production, it does not dare dispense with compulsory deliveries and cannot bring itself to allow free trade in food- 'What have I been doing all day? I've been pushing forward the frontiers of human know-: ledge. That's what I've been doing all day.'

stuffs for fear of further shocks to the State sector. Though it recognises that there are too' many scholarship students and that many of them will be unusable after graduation, it does not dare send large numbers back to their vil- lages and provincial towns because of the pos- sible political effect. Yet it is hard put to it to feed them, let alone meet the rising expectations aroused in them and their younger brothers and sisters.

The present critical state of education is in- structive. Castro's post-revolution propaganda made a good deal of low educational levels, prevalent illiteracy, lack of opportunity for the sons of the poor, etc., and promised to reverse this at once. But the highly publicised campaign to eradicate illiteracy has been a complete failure. Whenever I tried out villagers who had been allabetizado, it turned out that they had learned the alphabet and nothing more, not one could actually read. Other observers have had similar experiences. The closing down of the schools for a year in order to send the pupils out to teach in the campaign—as if education of adult illiterates is child's play—set back edu- cational levels all along the line, up to university intake, and many young girls came back preg- nant or diseased into the bargain. Since the schools have suffered from a mass exodus of teachers, and from withdrawal of all existing textbooks pending the introduction of ideologi- cally sound ones, general levels are down by some two years by official admissions.

When it transpired that the workers and peasants were no better off, if not worse off, and that no propaganda campaign, however strident, could convince them otherwise, the line took a new tack.- 'Temporary' shortages and difficul- ties were attributed to the American economic boycott, the drought and problems of transition and organisation. But, as it turned out, blaming the Americans brought decreasing returns, since the regime simultaneously claimed that economic relations with the US had been a cause of poverty and backwardness, that economic rela- tions with the Communist bloc were much more fruitful, and that imperialism's plans were bound to be defeated. After all, if the Americans were so powerful, why go out of one's way to anta- gonise them? As for the drought, Cuba had droughts every few years. Then, spokesmen began increasingly to admit that 'we have made serious mistakes' which are now being remedied.

However, when things continued to get worse instead of improving, and the Government gave up hope of convincing the urban and rural workers, the new 'Spartan' line was introduced. It is meant to appeal to a far more limited sec- tion of the population: the students and scholarship-holders, the party activists, the new managerial classes, the army and police; in short, to 'the new class,' who are, in any case, partly shielded from the worst impact of the shortages which affect the helots. 'We may have lost the countryside politically,' a party cadre told one of the East European journalists, 'but so long as We control Havana, nothing is lost.'

Though this tacit admission of economic failure and prospect of low living standards for another generation does not constitute an im- mediate threat to the regime's political stability --forty-four years' experience of Communism has shown that- economic discontent in itself seems unable to overthrow a Communist dic- tatorship—it does entail many serious political consequences. During its early stages, the regime's main justification for the retention of Power and later for the establishment of a dic- tatorship and for its anti-capitalism and anti- Americanism was its claim that existing living standards were intolerable and that Socialism Could achieve a considerably quicker rise in Popular living standards than under Batista's second dictatorship. If return to the boom years of the Fifties, let alone progress beyond them, is to be indefinitely postponed, the regime will have to press heavily in other directions to justify its power monopoly and the many dis- advantages it brings. If Castro can no longer claim to bring 'liberty and bread without terror'--as he did during the romantic period— there is little left for him but to offer more cir- cuses, in way of compensation. One form of compensation — or over-compensation — very

`vigilance-syndrome': in evidence is increased use of the vigilance-syndrome': `committees for the de-

fence of the Revolution' are busy investigating all their neighbours, ferreting out spies, im- Perialists, bourgeoisie, speculators and the like. An intensified hate-campaign against the re- maining middle classes is under way. Castro has been denouncing them for leading an easy life under the imperialists, instead of 'working with their hands like cane-cutters and miners,' of hating the revolution and the people and looking for the first chance to betray them. Castro has already taken a number of spectacular measures against the middle classes whose object seems to be to hurt them rather than to help the `masses.' He is now threatening to confiscate their cars, telephones, villas and remaining Property, and to make it impossible for them to Make much use of what money still remains in their possession. (Some quarter of a million Cubans, mainly members of the white middle classes, but including a fair number of fisher- men and mechanics, out of a total population of under seven million, have left the country since 1959. They are leaving at the rate of some 2,000 a week, the limiting factor being trans- port. Since it now takes an average of a year from the first application for permission to leave the country till final emigration, and long queues of applicants for passports and exit per- mits are still in evidence, it may safely be assumed that there are some 100,000 more in the Pipeline, quite apart from those who are Planning to escape illegally by sea.) How far the anti-middle-class incitement will achieve its Political objectives in a country with so little social-class feelings as Cuba remains to be seen, but all the signs show that the campaign is tunderway, and Castro's last big speech on the July 26 anniversary celebrations gave it a further fillip.

But the main compensation seems to lie in the field of foreign affairs, with anti-Ameri- canism intensified to a really paranoiac degree, and Cubans offered the role of liberators of the whole Latin-American continent from US imperialist domination, which is now blamed for all the world's ills. It is a cause for great pride to be Cuban at this, hour—the public is told.