An outworn experience?

Toward the Party Conference (Part 7)

An outworn experience?

By Jorge Gómez Barata

While the Bolshevik Revolution and the advances of the people of the old Czarist empire in the construction of socialism, their battles and victories, as well as the actions of the progressive political forces in eastern Europe that, at the end of the Nazi occupation, assumed the Soviet model as an option, are part of universal history, their experience in the construction of socialism, their system of organization, their style of societal leadership, and their methods of political participation and direction were not very advantageous because they were contaminated and deformed by errors and deviations. There is no way to prevent the defects in the originals from being transferred to the copies.

Because it was a traditional event in extraordinary times, the Fifth Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba, held in 1997, probably cannot be repeated. The fact that in 12 years no other congress has been held could indicate the desire of the Cuban leadership not to recycle outworn procedures or incur in anachronistic formalities. Although Fidel and Raúl Castro lament the debacle in real socialism and the disappearance of the Soviet Union and have stated their views that that outcome could have been prevented, they cannot but act consistently vis-à-vis the actual events.

In reality, the Soviet revolutionary experience, including the practices for the construction of socialism, in an environment as peculiar as Czarist Russia and in a historical period that was clouded by World War II, was a concrete phenomenon that could be the motive for inspiration and praise but not an event with universal value, or even a model. Lenin, who had lived in several European countries, and Trotsky, who knew the United States and expected other revolutions to explode, never assumed that such revolutions would copy their example.

The process whereby the communist movement took as its model the Soviet experience is linked to the origin of the communist parties. That was a process sponsored by Moscow and led by the Communist Internationale, which, among other erroneous orientations, in 1920 imposed the well-known 21 conditions.

The fact that in Cuba, upon the fall of dictator Gerardo Machado in 1933, the Party, in compliance with those directives, proposed the creation of a government of workers and farmers and recommended the establishment of “soviets,” shows how far impositions and imitations could go. Fortunately, in the Cuban Marxist Party there were always voices that rejected those copies and tactics. Among those voices was Rubén Martínez Villena’s.

Cuba, Spain’s last colony, was the first nation occupied by the United States and the stage where imperialism and neocolonialism made their debut. It was a nation that overthrew two dictators in the same generation, the first nation in the West to stage a socialist revolution, to ally with the Soviet Union without being its satellite and survive it. And it was the only country to resist 50 years of U.S. hostility. No other nation has accumulated so many political experiences in such a short time. If instead of dying at 42, Martí had lived to be 80, Fidel Castro might have met him.

Stalin died in 1953, the same year that Fidel Castro attacked the Moncada army barracks. When the Cuban Revolution triumphed in 1959, three years had elapsed since the uprisings in Hungary and Poland and the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. One year later, in 1960, relations between China and the Soviet Union broke up. Already at that time, more than 40 years before Gorbachev, socialism in eastern Europe and the Soviet Union was going through successive crises. Rather than attempt to transfer their experiences to Cuba, they should have sought nourishment from the invigorating breezes of the Cuban Revolution.

At the Fifth Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba, the leader of the Revolution made the difference. His report, again departing from the outworn roads, was an exhaustive and awe-inspiring exposition of the economic situation in his country, in real time. Under those dramatic circumstances, when Cuba overnight lost its political alliances, its sources of supply and its markets, every opportunity for credit and assistance, when Cuba didn’t know to whom to turn, when it was caught in the vise of a double blockade, the Revolution opted to resist, betting on the people. “To confront that situation, we had the people, we had the Party,” Fidel said.

Nevertheless, there was a contributing certainty – a certainty that the leadership had reached in 1962 during the Missile Crisis – that Cuba should depend on its own means. As the Comandante recalled, it was very helpful that “long before the socialist camp collapsed and the Soviet Union disappeared, the Revolution looked for formulas, tried to plan ahead.”

Acting with dynamism and determination, the Cuban leadership maneuvered and, with a practical sense, worked to save whatever could be saved – primarily, its power and the socialist achievements. With the proper safeguards, without adventurism and without surrendering its principles, it opened its doors to foreign capital, and promoted tourism with foreign participation. Remittances were accepted, self-employment was authorized, farmers’ markets were again permitted, as were dozens of other measures that, while allowing the process to survive, contaminated it with the introduction of social inequalities and elements of corruption.

With discreet successes, the Party tried to adopt new methods and styles of work, to tighten its links with the bases and the provincial and municipal institutions. The State tried to relax its structures, to reduce bureaucracy, to increase the independence of companies and perfect the mechanisms of auditing and control. The struggle for efficiency and savings became priorities.

Some formulas worked better than others. Some, like the existence of a dual currency and the use of hard currency as a stimulus, have turned out to be problematic. Others have failed. It was impossible to keep the value of money from eroding, wages from losing their purchasing power. It was impossible to prevent the introduction of elements of corruption. In my opinion, since the survival of the Revolution was at stake, the price was not excessive.

With hits and misses, each of the congresses of the Communist Party of Cuba has responded to the ongoing situation, reflecting the state of social matters, the problems and goals derived from a concrete reading of the Cuban reality and the international environment at a specific moment. That is also expected from the upcoming events.

The event announced by President Raúl Castro, although with an agenda less ambitious than that of a congress, will probably be a preview of the changes that the Party may introduce to consult its bases with less formality and greater frequency, through acts, conferences and other effective organizational formulas.

Most certainly, the Revolution will not renege its own experiences and, although there may be self-critical elements, perhaps the idea will arise or prevail that the Cuban society, its institutions, State and Party, and the Revolution itself, have reached a new stage that requires new formulas, goals, spaces and institutions.

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