Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0099/00992.txt

Text File | 1991-06-24 | 37KB | 574 lines

$Unique_ID{COW00992}
$Pretitle{352}
$Title{Cuba
Chapter 1D.   Radicalization of the System, 1963-66}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{James D. Rudolf}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{cuba
economic
castro
united
soviet
states
cuban
revolutionary
new
sugar}
$Date{1986}
$Log{}
Country:     Cuba
Book:        Cuba, A Country Study
Author:      James D. Rudolf
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1986

Chapter 1D.   Radicalization of the System, 1963-66

     The policies of the mid-1960s were marked by a major reshaping of the
country's political and economic life. The period witnessed massive
mobilization, new attempts at different ideological models, economic
dislocation, and social radicalism. Major changes took place in the
productive system, in land-tenure arrangements, and in the distribution
process. Institutions such as the army and the communist party went through
internal transformations. The political leadership in Cuba became imbued
with the idea that society's material base was responsible for shaping its
nonmaterial side, e.g., culture, morals, and the political framework. The
leadership, in short, became more idealistic. Militancy and revolutionary
consciousness were encouraged in politics, culture, and relations between
the state and the labor force as well as in party development. Coercion
was used as a weapon against dissidents and counterrevolutionaries.

     Failures in planning and development strategies, initially modeled on
those of the Soviet Union, led Cubans to reassess the effectiveness of the
Soviet system as applied to the traditional Cuban economy. The estrangement
in the Soviet-Cuban relations over the missile crisis led to closer relations
with China, whose revolutionary strategies were closer to Cuba's. In 1963 Cuba
followed the Chinese in refusing to sign the Limited Test Ban Treaty. The new
directions of Cuban economic development were left under the leadership of
Guevara, whose idealistic approach was influenced by Mao Zedong's ideology
at the time of China's "Great Leap Forward." There were three main
objectives: total elimination of the market of "commodity production,"
creation of a "new man," and export of the revolutionary model to other
Latin American nations (see The New Revolutionary Man, ch. 2).

     Elimination of the commodity-production market was to be achieved by
collectivizaton of the means of production. Efficiency was to be increased
through a highly centralized and automated planning system coupled with
government financing of all state enterprises and the elimination of material
incentives. The idealistic "new man" was to be an unselfish, self-sacrificing,
frugal, socialized, and egalitarian human being whose training would be
achieved through education, mobilization, voluntary labor, and moral
incentives. The combination of these would then lead to capital accumulation
and the economic development of society as a whole. It was hoped that the
last objective, the spreading of the revolutionary model to other countries
in Latin America, would guarantee the survival of socialism in Cuba. This was
to be achieved through the creation of rural guerrilla cells, such as those
that had existed in the Sierra Maestra.

     This was a period of intense ideological questioning of economic policy
and of the viability of the Soviet economic model for Cuban society. The
leadership was divided between radical guevaristas and a more pragmatic group
of cautious bureaucrats led by economist Carlos Rafael Rodriguez. The
guevaristas were extremely critical of the Soviet Union's domestic and
international policies on the ground that they did not represent real
socialism. They defended the principle of a continuous social revolution,
criticized institutionalization, appeared to have no process, and were
against unionization. As a result, the government de-emphasized the CTC and
created the Advanced Workers Movement. The group under Rodriguez, who
represented the old Soviet-line communists, supported the view of central
planning through computerization and advocated self-financing for one-third of
all government enterprises, whereby loans given by the central bank had to be
paid back with interest and enterprises were allowed to retain part of the
profits for reinvestment. Economic efficiency would be attained through
institutionalization, with the help of a skillful bureaucracy, and high
labor productivity, based on a system of work quotas and material incentives.
(In the Soviet Union, economic goals were established by a quota system, and
productivity above and beyond such goals represented material benefits to
workers, such as better pay and housing). As expected, Rodriguez' group
defended the need for a strong Communist Party, rapprochement with the Soviet
Union, and closer ties with the rest of Latin America (see National-level
Politics, ch. 4).

     During the second phase of the revolutionary process, the second Law of
Agrarian Reform, decreed in October 1963, eliminated 10,000 middle-sized
farms. Castro promised that this would be the end of expropriations for as
long as people kept cultivating their land under the control of ANAP. The
newly available lands were transformed into granjas del pueblo (people's
farms). The new organization of land tenure proved disastrous to middle
sized cattle and dairy farms, but once more, political considerations took
precedence over the economy. To make matters worse, Hurricane Flora hit Cuba
and caused great destruction to the island. According to Herbert Matthews,
"It was one of those years which proved that the Cuban Revolution did not
stand or fall on its economic performance."

     By mid-1963 economic experimentation had already failed. Castro's trip
to the Soviet Union and the trade agreement that followed had given him
enough incentive to change the policies of the previous phase. The Soviet
Union promised to purchase 24 million tons of sugar between 1965 and 1970.
Prospects for economic assistance and a market for Cuban products were better,
so Castro decided to accept the Soviet recommendation to increase sugar
production and postpone further industrialization. Back in Cuba, he announced
that by 1970 the country would produce a record 10 million tons of sugar and
that the effort to reach the goal would lay the cornerstone for Cuba's future
economic development. Results of the emphasis on sugar proved discouraging,
however. After experiencing a 9-percent growth rate in 1964, economic growth
fell to 1.5 percent in 1965 and plunged to rock bottom at - 3.7 percent in
1966.

     An important development of the period was the reorganization of the PURS
to form the PCC in October 1965. The party's mission was to orient and carry
out government policies, but not to govern. The structure of the new PCC
consisted of the eight-man Political Bureau; as the highest decisionmaking
body in the party, it included Fidel Castro as first secretary. Raul Castro as
second secretary, and President Dorticos, Armando Hart Davalos, and four other
fidelistas as members. The Central Committee consisted of 100 members, a
majority of them fidelistas. Above the party structure and all government
organizations stood Fidel Castro, who had his inner circle of devoted
fidelistas to interpret his wishes and carry out policies accordingly. Despite
the apparent fidelistas domination during the mid-1960s, a major power
struggle pitted the fidelistas, who were aligned with the guevaristas, against
the old communists and the technocrats. The special breed of Cuban-style
socialism was exemplified by Castro himself, who stated in a July 1966 speech
that "we do not pretend to be the most perfect interpreters of Marxist ideas;
we have our way of interpreting Marxism-Leninism, our way of interpreting
Communism." The newspaper Granma served as the official organ of the PCC.

     Cuban-Chinese relations had been in good standing for several years.
Initially, China provided Cuba with generous credits and economic aids.
Relations seriously deter