Toward the Party Conference (Part One)

By Jorge Gómez Barata

On Aug. 1, President Raúl Castro, Second Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba, announced the postponement of the organization’s Congress and issued a call to a Conference. Unlike other countries, where the citizenry is indifferent to what happens inside the parties, in Cuba those matters somehow involve the whole of society.

That decision was made in 1975, when, during its first Congress, the Cuban Party adopted a model of political system similar to the one in the Soviet Union and backed the inclusion in the republic’s 1976 Constitution of the following precept: “The Communist Party of Cuba […] is the highest ruling force for the Society and the State.” Consulted through a referendum, 98 percent of the voters approved both that definition and the text of the Constitution.

In the 34 years that have elapsed since 1975, the Cuban Communist Party held four other Congresses (1980, 1986, 1991 and 1997). Although CPC statutes direct that Congresses be held every five years, the most recent one was held 12 years ago.

During the first Party Congress, about 20 theses and resolutions were approved, and a Central Report was delivered by Fidel Castro, in his capacity as First Secretary. The accords made during the event, which would rule not only the Party but also the activities of the State and life of Cuban society, included: economic development, the ideological struggle, artistic and literary culture, educational policies, the raising of children and youths, women’s equality, and policies regarding religion, the church and the faithful.

In addition to the internal affairs of the organization, inter alia, the Congress stated its position regarding: international policy, the study of Marxism-Leninism, the mass communications media, educational policy, scientific policy and the farm issue and relations with farmers and peasants.

Although they were conceived as long-range directives, and despite the intensity and laboriousness of the preparatory period, which meant long days of analysis for the Party’s leadership and rank-and-file, as well as the social, student and juvenile institutions, those documents were rapidly overtaken by events, first, because of the dynamics of the Cuban Revolution itself, and later by the debacle that brought an end to the Soviet Union and the real socialist countries.

Except for the Central Report delivered by Fidel Castro and some other reports that dealt with concrete historical processes, the approved texts were inconsistent. Today, they are of little practical use and are not among the creations that made the Cuban Revolution an autochthonous and magnificent process.

The Congress gave a green light to the approval of the Socialist Constitution, the adoption of a new politico-administrative division of the country and the installation of a System of Direction and Planning for the Economy. Due to the absence of a program, which is something required in higher studies, it adopted a Programmatic Platform. The Party’s forum decided to move ahead in the “Nation’s Institutionalization,” ending 16 years of provisionality that began with the triumph of the Revolution, on Jan. 1, 1959.

The contents of the theses approved by the First Congress, the system of direction of the economy that was adopted, the structure of the central administration of the State, and the nomenclature of the Party itself, as well as certain elements of the political system, including the concept of a Parliament, were extracted from the Soviet experience. A happy exception was the electoral system, which combined universal elements with Cuban innovations that were original and even revolutionary. The other issues did not fare as well and became what Fidel Castro later critically described as “a copy.”

Despite certain adjustments, the deficiencies of the Soviet model translated into the Cuban society, along with the U.S. blockade, the tensions of an accelerated development that involved the participation of the whole of society, and errors in the Cuban leadership led to a kind of stagnation or induced crisis. Fidel Castro confronted this situation, launching a process called On the Rectification of Errors and Negative Tendencies, which began in 1986, before Mikhail Gorbachev launched his perestroika.

Perhaps to stress the difference, Fidel Castro chose to end the Congress in his own way, and summoned the people to Havana’s Revolution Square. Those were the initial moments of the epic campaign in Angola, which, 13 years later, with the defeat of the South African racists at Cuito Cuanavale, would powerfully contribute to the end of apartheid and the liberation of Namibia. In a speech made at the time, Castro said: “Whereas the Party Congress was held at the Karl Marx Theater, the Congress of the people is held here, on Revolution Square. […] We feel like drops of water in this sea of people.

Jorge Gómez Barata is a Cuban journalist. He lives in Havana.