The bell, the cat and the Party
By Aurelio Pedroso
First of all, I must clarify that the much-hackneyed phrase used for the headline was used by President Raul Castro less than 16 months ago, when he said that “the purpose is to bell the cat, identifying the principal problems as such.”
Later, as if implicitly acknowledging the ingrained evil of unanimity – a manifestation that, paradoxically, not always means absolute agreement but rather fear of saying what one thinks – he said: “A formal Party Congress would make no sense and have no meaning.”
As announced, the Party’s purpose in its upcoming congress next April will be limited to the economic issue. Thankfully, we’ll be focusing on an issue that will be Motherland or Death, not minor injuries, as some wag cleverly coined not long ago.
The only things that repeat themselves in life are history and fashion. It would be very sad if we copied that transcendental event known as the Paris Commune, when the revolutionary forces were literally surrounded and the brave communards argued about eight-hour workdays and vacations while the enemy gathered at the gates of Versailles.
For a long time now, I’ve been planning to write my “thesis” that in Cuba there are very few pure communists left. Let’s do a survey, a test of theoretical knowledge about the actual contents of that philosophy and its main leaders and we’ll find that not a few will ascribe to the late August Bebel a raging militancy in the ranks of the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF), or a notable proletarian activism in the eastern part of the island.
But this “doctoral” work must wait. Still, if we searched the ideological essence of the current communist activism in Cuba we’ll certainly find a strong Fidelist, nationalist, anti-imperialist and renovative component.
Little has been written about this topic. Perhaps the undersigned is totally wrong and was not aware that our members still spend the dawn hours thinking how to criticize the Gotha program.
Now then, what I have no doubt about is that a good part of the grass-roots members of the Communist Party of Cuba have their feet on the ground. They express their criteria, ideas and suggestions to the highest levels of government, saying that things as they are, are not working but rather they are destructive and have lethal and immediate effects for the country.
Again, the party leadership has called the membership to speak, to voice their opinions and criteria. Once before, similarly summoned, the population and Party militants produced more than a million suggestions that were carefully arranged by theme and subjected to a thorough analysis.
Soon we’ll return to it because everyone has been asked to opine about a document already on the streets that will be analyzed from snout to tail of the alligator island. And guess what? I have tremendous confidence that our “communist” communards will know how to plan what we need.
So far, the debate is well advanced at bus stops or on those stoic “almendrones” (antique American cars of the 1940s and ’50s) that criss-cross the city like rolling parliaments, carrying passengers who are never at a loss for words.
It’s all about belling the cat. And let no one surprise us by saying that the bell is missing, that it was stolen, or that some unscrupulous swine swapped it for half a pound of black beans.
