Toward the Party Conference (Part Two)
The central report
By Jorge Gómez Barata
The most constant element of the Cuban Revolution has been the presence of Fidel Castro, who has filled an entire historical era and has led the Revolution through thick and thin. From Jan. 1, 1959 on, the cadres, the rank-and-file and all Cubans became used to seeing him on the front line and to receiving his guidance for each task and each challenge.
Because he said it many times and demonstrated it in his practical activities, Fidel’s disdain for formalities, for the duties of protocol, is well known, as well as his distaste for meetings set up years in advance, which sometimes create commitments and ties that are not consistent with the dynamism and ability to adapt to concrete situations that are characteristic of revolutions. Despite all that, Fidel could not evade the responsibilities that made him the central figure in the First Party Congress.
Despite his almost-daily appearances, his speeches, interviews, conversations and contacts of every type with the people, with the social organizations and the youth — added to an intense international activity and the step-by-step management of the confrontation with the United States — after some setbacks in the economic sector in the 1970s, it became necessary to make a greater reflection that might synthesize the experiences of the first and most decisive stage of the Revolution. That necessity was fully satisfied by the Central Report to the First Party Congress.
When the militants and the people heard its first reading, they understood that, even if nothing else happened during the Congress, the event was worthwhile. It can be justly said that the report submitted by Fidel Castro to the First Congress of the Communist Party figures among the political documents of the highest quality in the history of Cuba. Because of its depth and the timeliness of its content, the sincerity of the self-criticism, the maturity of the projections, it is comparable with “History Will Absolve Me,” the argument that became the program of the Revolution.
In its basic content, that document (which is still valid) filled a conceptual space, allowed a better understanding of the background and the existing situation, and facilitated the passage from one stage of the Revolution to another.
The report contains an impeccable historical analysis, and makes a detailed incursion through the economic sphere that includes all the branches and fundamental activities. It drafts some ideas about the System for the Direction of the Economy, and concludes with a serene and rigorous self-criticism, in which Fidel delves deep into the errors that were made, principally those involving an excess of idealism that mistook wishes for realities and set a level of aspirations that was much too high for the real possibilities of Cuban economy at that time.
When evaluating the optimism and the capacity to dream about ever-higher realizations and ever-more-ambitious goals, elements that characterized him better than anyone else, Fidel — as if he were alone with his conscience — said that “A revolutionary person also has the duty to be realistic, to adjust his actions to the historic and social laws. […] We need to learn from the facts and the realities, too.”
On that issue, as if joining a general trend, the Chief of the Revolution was categorical when he stated that “When it came to building socialism, the Cuban Revolution was not savvy enough to take advantage, from the start, of the rich experience of other people who, long before us, had taken that road.” That assertion is a reevaluation of the Soviet experience, some of whose lessons were present in the documents that our Congress was preparing to approve.
Anticipating what would later occur, as if to state for the record a deeply rooted credo, or to issue a particular vote, the Commander in Chief emphasized: “That did not imply a renunciation, not at all, of the serene analysis of the peculiarities of our situation and our economy, which enabled us to apply in each case what was useful and discard what wasn’t. It is not a question of making a clumsy copy but of applying many useful experiences in the field of economic direction.”
For various reasons unrelated to the performance of the Cuban Revolution, in the 1990s, when the country engaged in the rectification of errors related precisely to “the copy,” socialism and the world progressive movement were rattled by the disappearance of the Soviet Union and the European socialist camp. To Cuba, this meant falling into an economic crisis that it managed to withstand but has not totally overcome.
With that understanding, and more than a decade after those events, it was logical to expect that the now-postponed (sine die) Sixth Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba would offer a greater reflection on such events, would draw the pertinent conclusions, draft new strategic objectives and define the means to achieve them. Something like that might not be forthcoming from the announced Conference, which probably will have a more limited agenda, but some forward steps will be taken.
In any case, if a model or paradigm is needed for the forthcoming event, none will be more pertinent than the Central Report to the First Party Congress delivered by Fidel Castro.
Jorge Gómez Barata is a Cuban journalist. He lives in Havana.
Click below to read Part One: Toward the Party Conference
