‘Congress-in-arms’
Toward the Party Conference (Part 6)
By Jorge Gómez Barata
In the mid-1980s, as Fidel Castro criticized the errors and negative tendencies derived from the mechanical transfer of Soviet experiences and concentrated on the Cuban economy, he frequently asked me: “At what point should I allude to the state and political superstructure, which have also been copied, and – because it is difficult to criticize a copy without alluding to the original – for how long should I avoid mentioning the Soviet Union?”
The questions remained unanswered. In 1991, the Soviet Union ceased to exist; to criticize it would be idle, and it was not elegant to chop a fallen tree into firewood. Because a crisis of total proportions spread throughout Cuba, the leader of the Revolution made a call to resistance and discontinued his criticism. Under those circumstances, the Fourth Party Congress was held Oct. 10-14, 1991.
During the opening of the event, Fidel Castro disregarded the tradition of ruling Communist Parties of beginning their congresses with the presentation of a written report. To distance himself from that formality was a good beginning for an event that was held two years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, which symbolized the end of real socialism, two months after the illegalization of the Communist Party founded by Lenin, and 77 days before the liquidation of the Soviet Union. With good reason, the Comandante described that event as a “Congress-in-arms.”
Aware of the multiple significance of those processes, Fidel said: “Are we to assume that those real events have no bearing on our country? […] These events had not only material influence […] they also had ideological influence. […] The incredible evolution of the events affected the confidence, the spirit, the conscience of many people.”
Under the influence of the socialist debacle, the deterioration of the situation in the Soviet Union and the process of rectification, a Call to the Fourth Congress was issued in 1990. It was an all-encompassing document that exhorted the Party bases, the working class and all the people to take a critical look at the Cuban reality, a look that would allow the elaboration of a sort of diagnosis and an agenda for the perfecting of socialism.
Although the debate fulfilled all expectations, I had the impression that, due to the difficulties and dangers of the situation at the time, the exercise was not profitable enough. At a time when resistance was a priority, the Party itself promoted a massive catharsis that may have misdirect everyone’s attention. I believe that it may have been a good idea at the wrong time, and that led to the result that its conclusions were shelved.
Nevertheless, in the heat of the changes that the Party was forced to make in its statutes and the Constitution, some amendments were approved. Some were substantial, such as the admission of clergy to the Party, others were cosmetic.
In my opinion, the idea of the Call to the Fourth Congress was associated with the existence of a current of opinion that believed it was pertinent to deepen the rectification by extending it to the work methods and styles of the Party itself.
When closing the Congress, again before the people, that time at Antonio Maceo Square in Santiago de Cuba, Fidel Castro stressed the historic nature of the event. “This Congress is historic for many reasons,” he said. “Among others, because fate has made us the flag bearers of the Revolution of the humble, the Revolution of the workers, the Revolution of the exploited. […] We never aspired to such extraordinary honors, we never held such grandiose hopes, but history and life imposed them upon us and we shall know how to carry them out.”
Eighteen years later, as the Party prepares what will be its First National Conference, those words have essentially been kept.
Jorge Gómez Barata is a Cuban journalist. He lives in Havana.
