CUBA: SOCIALIST REALISM

By - - and Leonardo Padura Reprint | | Print |

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HAVANA, Jul 16 2008 (IPS) - Forty-six years after it was proclaimed, Cuban socialism seems to have finally revived the idea of the value of money as an economic regulator and social catalyst, writes Leonardo Padura Fuentes, a Cuban writer and journalist whose novels have been translated into a ten languages. In this article, the author writes that real life and political rhetoric are beginning to draw closer to one another. Realism has dawned on the upper echelons of Cuban decision-making, now led by Raul Castro, and was reflected in the President\’s July 11 speech, which focused on the quality and productivity of manual and intellectual labour. Even the government has recognised periodically over the last two years that the wages the state paid were too low. This is realism, and its manifestation can be reduced to this: the people can\’t live only on what the state pays them. The new Cuban government has issued three basic appeals to the country regarding work, saving, and discipline. This is the holy trinity that could provide the system with stability and durability.

In a clear sign that real life and political rhetoric are beginning to draw closer to one another, this realism has dawned on the upper echelons of Cuban decision-making, now led by Raul Castro, and was reflected in the President’s July 11 speech, which focused on the quality and productivity of manual and intellectual labour.

The days of socialist bonanza, when Cubans’ salaries allowed them the “luxury” of going out to dinner and even paying for a weekend in a hotel, ended in the 1980s. Since then working for the state has failed to provide all the income Cubans need to live. The economic crisis of the 1990s, euphemistically dubbed the “special period in times of peace”, brought the country dramatically face to face with reality in the form of poverty, a lack of resources, dwindling production, technological regression, disorganisation in business, and high levels of crime. Yet the rhetoric of sacrifice prevailed even when it was clear that the social fabric was being shredded.

Because people cannot eat rhetoric, workers fled to more lucrative lines of work: tourism, “mixed” enterprise (involving foreign capital), and self-employment, in addition to exile. This process completely decimated various sectors of the labour system, including education.

Even the government recognised periodically over the last two years that the wages the state paid were too low. This is realism, and its manifestation can be reduced to this: the people can’t live only on what the state pays them. Although citing what a Cuban worker would make in dollars or euros always drew the ire of Cuban official circles, there is no way to sidestep this issue when you walk into one of the so-called “currency recuperation shops” (which accept only foreign currency) and, in order to eat or take a bath you have to pay the equivalent of three dollars for a bottle of soy bean oil or half a dollar for a bar of soap. Despite the subsidies and various freebies offered by the state, and despite social security and free education and healthcare, there is no doubt that the average Cuban earns the equivalent of about 28 dollars per month.

In addition to the introduction of waivers that allow workers to earn more if they produce more, the end of salary caps, and the possibility of holding more than one job, the Cuban government has begun a crusade against what is euphemistically called “the diversion of resources”,

which the rest of the world calls stealing. Stealing everything that can be stolen is a daily practice in Cuba where state-issued rubbish bins are stolen, the wheels used to make carts, and the plastic melted down to make anything from hair accessories to construction materials to food. This diversion of resources allowed, and still allows, many people to get by, and explains how the people mentioned above could buy oil and soap.

The new Cuban government has issued three basic appeals to the country regarding work, saving, and discipline. This is the holy trinity that could provide the system with stability and durability. The world food and energy crises have created new economic dilemmas, and a country like Cuba, still today largely dependent on agriculture for its survival, cannot allow itself the luxury of leaving fallow large areas of land and has begun what might be called a new phase of agrarian reform.

While it is clear that many things people hope will change in Cuba haven’t, what is apparent is that the relationship between reality and political rhetoric is changing, and this, without a doubt, is a major development in a country desperate for urgent solutions that is beginning to sort itself out. Thus the restoration of money: in Cuba today there is talk of money, the lack of money, its presence, and its necessity as an essential reason for people to work and live. In socialist Cuba. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)