Freedom Socialist • Vol. 27, No. 5 • October-November 2006

CUBA
Danger from el norte, but hope to the south

by Linda Averill

In Havana, workers count ballots cast in city council elections in April of 2000. Elections in Cuba have a higher turnout than most countries; in the municipal election shown about 90 percent of eligible voters participated.

For 47 years, Cuba has survived 90 miles off the coast of the world's greatest imperial power, unblushingly espousing socialism and providing an example to liberation struggles everywhere.

Since its 1959 revolution, Cuba has guaranteed its citizens healthcare, housing, and other basics that are still only dreamed of by U.S. residents — even though an economic embargo designed to strangle development has made life difficult.

This workers state is living proof that a planned, socialized economy, geared towards meeting people's needs, is not only possible but superior to a private-profit system. In sum, Cuba's existence is an ideological thorn in Uncle Sam's side, one U.S. rulers want removed. Given the recent upsurge of rebellion throughout Latin America, along with pressure for nationalization of major industries and the election of leftward-moving leaders, dealing with Cuba has moved up on the U.S.'s priority list.

So it's no surprise the White House, Congress, and corporate media are exploiting President Fidel Castro's recent illness to escalate their assault on Cuba's right to self-determination and socialist aspirations.

Waging war under the radar. With U.S. troops busy in the Middle East, Bush isn't well positioned to launch an outright military invasion that might well inflame all of Latin America. So funding covert activities, as is being done in Venezuela, is the method du jour for U.S. intervention.

In 2003, the Bush Administration, in collaboration with reactionary Cuban exiles, created the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba. This government body, chaired by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, issued its latest recommendations in July. The report's introduction, “hastening change in Cuba: transition, not succession,” is a toxic mix of delusion, fear, lies, and venom.

Reading between the doublespeak, CAFC concretely proposes to support and fund anti-communist, anti-Castro forces in Cuba, to bombard Cubans with pro-capitalist propaganda, and to ratchet up the blockade against Cuba. A major theme of the report is support for a “Transition Government” that will prepare for multiparty elections. How this will come about is “classified.” But the U.S. point person in Cuba right now, Michael E. Parmly, is a former professor of National Security Studies who specializes in “post-conflict situations.” He most recently served in Afghanistan, helping to engineer the sham presidential election there.

Another CAFC refrain expresses concern about Cuba's ties with left-moving governments in Latin America. “The current regime in Havana is working with like-minded governments, particularly Venezuela, to build a network of political and financial support designed to forestall any external pressure to change. This state of affairs highlights the urgency of working today to ensure ... that the Castro regime's succession strategy does not succeed.”

Again, specifics on this are kept secret from the public, which foots the bill. But likely it will include activities the U.S. has engaged in before. This includes funding counterrevolutionary groups within Cuba and giving money to reactionary exiles (gusanos) who want their former homeland returned to the days when the mob and U.S. big business ruled. In the past, gusanos have resorted to murderous violence, from blowing up jetliners to dropping bombs on Havana.

To give the CAFC's recommendations legs, Congress is poised to provide $80 million. This is in addition to the tens of millions it already gives to other agencies for subversive activity in Cuba.

The U.S. Agency for International Development is one such outfit. This year, it will receive $15 million in funds for its work around Cuba, most of it going to anti-communist groups and for university grants that promote private enterprise. In one report, U.S.AID mentioned a rise in civil dissent that it most likely helped to create. The report cited protests by small political parties and an initiative campaign by the “Varela Project” to Cuba's National Assembly, demanding a referendum on political and economic reforms.

In addition, Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte recently created a CIA team to manage intelligence gathering on Cuba and Venezuela. The only other nations to receive such attention are Iran and North Korea.

Cuba's planned transition. Taking U.S. designs into account, Castro has arranged for other colleagues to step in for him on various governing fronts, so that the country can run smoothly while he recovers.

Raúl Castro, Fidel's brother, has taken on the job of Commander in Chief. Like his brother, Raúl spent almost two years in prison after the 1953 Moncada uprising. He introduced Che Guevara into the Castro circle, and was key to transforming the guerilla forces into a professional revolutionary army.

Of course, Castro is now 80 years old, and commentators are speculating about leadership changes beyond Raúl — the inevitable passing of the torch to the next generation. What is actually known is that the immediate plan is carefully thought out, a good thing in light of Bush's plans to torpedo any transition under the guise of spreading democracy.

So how democratic is Cuba? Compared to the U.S., where two boss parties enjoy a monopoly at the ballot box and elections are frequently stolen, Cuba is a model. Voter turnout hovers around 90 percent, not the lackluster 60 percent of the U.S., as was the case in the last presidential elections.

Cuba provides automatic voting rights at age 16, allows for recall of representatives, and is free of money influence, unlike in the U.S. where the dollar dictates who wins.

The electoral system, at the municipal level, allows anyone to run for office. At the national level, unions and mass movement organizations nominate candidates from the local level who are the most capable leaders. While only one candidate is fielded for each race, they must receive at least 50 percent of the vote in order to serve. Fidel, himself, is elected.

One of Cuba's greatest strengths is that it is far more economically democratic than the U.S., where CEOs make more than 500 times the average worker.

If U.S. rulers think Cuba is an easy target, they are seriously mistaken. Islanders have defended their revolution repeatedly. They are also armed, highly educated, and trained in self-defense.

A weakness of Cuba is that it has only one legal political party, the Communist Party of Cuba, and Castro has served as leader for 47 years.

A multiple party system, that better reflects the rich diversity and needs of Cuba's working class, would vastly improve the political democracy that is a necessary part of realizing socialism. Yet the Freedom Socialist Party recognizes that such a move is unrealistic for Cuba at this time.

As the CAFC report makes clear, the U.S would use multiple parties in Cuba as a means to overthrow the workers state. Nicaragua provides one example of how the U.S. operates. The U.S. overthrew the Sandinistas through the electoral process, flooding the country with money, bribes, propaganda and threats to ensure victory for a new regime friendly to multinational corporations. Bush would love to see that scenario repeated.

Cuba would actually strengthen its revolution by establishing more control by workers over factories and hotels, and by establishing workers councils to more directly impact production, as well as state and social policy. Workers' control would especially help in the case of joint ventures, where foreign investors exert a repressive and regressive influence. Strengthening the power and voice of workers could also help generate solutions to the growing income inequality that exists between workers with access to tourism dollars and others who have been hard hit by harsher economic conditions since the fall of the Soviet Union.

Vital to bringing about these changes are the voices, opinions, and political participation of women, Afro-Cubans, and others who were at the bottom of society before the revolution — for they are its strongest defenders. Involvement by young people, who are the revolution's future, is also important.

For hemispheric solidarity. With all of its strengths, Cuba is still up against the capitalist world, which is determined to end its existence as an inspiring symbol of resistance to imperialist bullies, and the first country to proclaim and sustain a socialist vision in this hemisphere.

Cubans want a higher standard of living. But they aren't about to trade in hard-won gains for the inhumanity that capitalism offers. Still, Cuba can't hold out alone forever. To survive will take more than brains, determination, courage, and even a more humane economic system.

It requires the material and political support that only the spread of socialist revolution in the Americas can provide. What this means for Cuba is a foreign policy that boldly assists and urges this course among nations like Bolivia and Venezuela, who are already taking on the U.S.

In the past, Cuba's leadership has urged revolutionary leaders and movements in Latin America to go slowly, in the hope of avoiding U.S. wrath. This didn't work in Nicaragua or elsewhere.

Cuba's close relationship with defiant Venezuela now offers Cuba a fresh opportunity to defend its own precious revolution by openly advocating a socialist course hemisphere-wide. This is a do-or-die question: Venezuela faces the same capitalist forces that have overturned so many other revolutions.

“Permanent revolution” is a concept developed by Russian Revolutionary leader Leon Trotsky, which challenged the notion first pushed by Joseph Stalin — and so far accepted by Cuba's leadership — that socialism can be built on one island, or peacefully co-exist with capitalism. Trotsky's ideas are finding new expression in Havana and throughout Latin America. Hopefully, these ideas will find newly sympathetic ears among Cuban leaders, who have tremendous authority among progressives and radicals internationally thanks to the towering stature of the Cuban revolution.

Imagine an international discussion launched in Cuba about the role of the hemisphere's workers — especially those of the U.S. — in defending the island against capitalist restoration, and extending revolution north and south. U.S. hands off Cuba!