congress can be an occasion for making a turn or for launching a political initiative. On the other hand, it can also be an occasion for drawing up a balance-sheet and for systematization. The first congress of the Cuban Communist party was clearly of the second variety. Fidel Castro himself stressed this when he hailed the fortunate timing of the congress. (1) Hence, neither the documents nor the discussions at the congress brought forth any new elements to suggest any revisions in the views expressed previously (2) Nevertheless, the general outlook of the Cuban Communist party now appears in a more organic form, with all its features better defined. Ir is thus worthwhile to examine some points in a synthetic manner. Historical context and the nature of the revolution Fidel began his long report with a historical excursion during which he established the links between the revolution of 1959 and the struggle for independence during the past century and the correspondence between the thought of Lenin and that of Jose Martf. In drawing these parallels, he did not introduce any ambiguity about the character of the revolution. He said: "Our struggle necessarily had to go beyond a purely national character and potential and had to link its fate to the world revolutionary movement. The domination of the richest and most powerful imperialist power could not be resisted solely with the strength of a small and isolated country. At the same time, with the development of capitalism in our country and the emergence of the working class, the content of our revolution, which under colonialism could not go beyond the limits of a national liberation movement inspired by the liberal principles of the past century, necessarily had to move toward a social revolution as well. The task of liberating the nation from imperialist domination was now indissolubly united with the task of liquidating the 14 by LIVIO MAITAN exploitation of man by man within our society. Both objectives were inseparable parts of our historical process, since the capitalist system, which oppressed us as a nation from outside, also oppressed and exploited us as : workers inside the country, and the social force that was able to liberate the country from oppression internally, that is, the workers themselves, was the only force that could sustain us on the external plane against the imperialist power oppressing the nation." In other words, Castro highlighted the permanent character of the revolution, with no concessions to the theory of the revolution by stages in either of its two forms. At the same time, Castro placed the Cuban revolutionary process in its real sociopolitical context, delivering a coup de gráce to the false or one-sided interpretations symbalized by the 1967 essay by Régis Debray, "Revolution in the Revolution." Castro recalled some precedents that were later to operate in depth, such as how the insurrectional general strike of August 1933 brought down the Machado dictatorship and led to the formation of "revolutionary soviets" in some of the centers of sugar production, and he recalled Cuba's internationalist traditions, again from the 1930s, evidenced by the approximately 1,000 Cubans who went to fight in Republican Spain. He returned to the origins and formation of the leading group of the July 26 Movement, some of the components of which were broadly influenced by Marxism-Leninism because of the continuity assured at the time by the youth and student cells organized in the Partido Socialista Popular (PSP — Popular Socialist party, the name of the old, Stalinist Cuban Communist party). (3) He forcefully confirmed the role of the working class in the final phase of the revolution. ("Our workers and peasants, integrated into the Rebel Army, with the support of the middle layers, pulverized the tyranny, destroyed the armed apparatus of oppression, and won the full independence of the fatherland. With its revolutionary general strike during the final battle, the working class made a decisive con-
tribution to the victory. ") He indicated that the relatively favorable international context was a precondifion for the victory, on the one hand because of imperialism's failure to understand the potential of the struggle under way in Cuba, and on the other hand because of the ability the USSR had acquired to act as a counterweight to North American imperialism. Castro's historical excursion certainly corresponded to his aim, which was to synthesize all the factors and their interconnections that had prepared the revolution and made its victory possible. But in at least one basic respect history was altered through a series of significant omissions. First, affer correctly noting that Balifo and Mella had an adequate understanding of the character of the revolution at the time of the founding of the Communist party (1925), Castro remained completely silent about the subsequent deviations of the CP, including the sectarian and adventurist ones typical of the third period, which weighed heavily in the events of 1933. Nor did he say a word about the subsequent right turns that were to make the Cuban Communist party one of the forerunners of Browderite revisionism, organize a bloc with Batista in 1939, and later participate in the Batista government during the 1940s. (He limited himself to a fleeting allusion to the "tactical alliances with the left" promised by the dictator.) Consequently, in a completely one-sided manner he attributed the isolation of the PSP solely to the fact that for a long period, especially during the cold war, it was the main target of the bourgeoisie and imperialism and paid the price for the anticommunist mystification to which broad sectors of the masses were subject. In other words, Castro forgot the fundamental point: The Cuban Communists (who were applying the Stalinist themes of popular and antiFascist fronts) were in large measure thrust to the sidelines because of their collaboration with sectors of the ruling class and, in the final analysis, with Yankee imperialism itself. It was precisely this policy of the Latin American Communist parties that left big openings for a series of bourgeois and pefty-bourgeois national revolutionary movements that were to have a very broad mass influence for a rather long period. In Cuba this policy left an opening for the July 26 Movement, whose original character was not different, and for its victorious struggle. The absence of this element in Castro's historical synthesis thus constitutes a serious deformation from the standpoint of analysis; from the political standpoint it is a concession to the old leading group of the PSP and even more so to the bureaucracy of the USSR, which was principally responsible, through the Stalinized Comintern, for the decline and sterilization of the indigenous Latin American Communist movement. Castro's silence about the events around the Annibal Escalante affair and his negative presentation of the trade-union congress of 1966, which in fact marked an important stage in the battle against the old, bureaucratized leading group, have a similar significance. In truth, this tendentious rewriting of history is intermeshed with a self-critical rewriting of a whole series of positions that had been taken during the early years of the revolution for which the leadership is now attempting to find a common denominator. (We would suppose that this is pleasing to the talmudists of various bureaucracies, who had put forward similar arguments at the height of some of the antibureaucratic battles of the Fidelista group, not without provoking, as Castro himself indicated in his replies, more than a few negafive reactions from the Cubans.) According to Castro, both during the phase of the struggle against Batista and during the period following the victory of the revolution, there were a series of deviations that may be characterized as "self-sufficiency" and "overestimafion," caused by "the germ of chauvinism and the petty-bourgeois spirit" typical of those who took to "the road of revolution through purely intellectual paths." The most serious consequence of these positions, according to the report, was that "From the very beginning the Cuban revolution was unable to take advantage of the rich experience of other peoples in the realm of the building of socialism, peoples who had taken this road well before we did." That the Castroist group was of petty-bourgeois origin and therefore corresponded to other similar Latin American movements is a fundamental fact that is difficult to dispute. We may say in passing that this origin explains both some of the ideological motivations and political positions of the first phase of the revolution and the lack of reference to Marxism-Leninism, whereas the explanation advanced by Castro at the congress, which was that this was a deliberate tactical ruse, is rather less compelling. It is also incontestable that those who come to the revolution solely through intellectual development are particularly exposed to the danger of deformation, and not only in a country like Cuba. And it is true that right from the beginning the Cuban leaders did not try sufficiently to assimilate the experiences of other countries, making the necansary distinction between basic historical tendencies and the effects of specific factors.
15
On the other hand, it is not correct to adhere to or encourage interpretations that consider the various battles fought by the Cuban leadership against bureaucratic criteria and methods in the building of the transitional society and against the opportunist degeneration of the Communist parties to be petty-bourgeois deformations. When Castro launched his indictment against Staliniststyle historical falsification; when, in denouncing Escalante, he hit upon the concrete mechanisms of a fendency toward bureaucratization, even if only empirically; when, even while justifying the invasion of Czechoslovakia, he exposed the responsibility of a bureaucratic leadership; when the Cuban CP rejected the of the strategy of the Latin American CPs; when Che Guevard affirmed that the real choice was socialist revolution or caricature of revolution, the Cuban leaders were not succumbing to petty-bourgeois influences, but were instead acting on the basis of an analysis of real phenomena and were posing a perspective of revolutionary struggle for socialism from the standpoint of instransigent defense of the interests of the working class. Economic rectification and "poder popular" The economic self-criticism, dramatically initiated at the time of the failure of the ten-million ton sugar harvest in 1970, reached a plateau with the reports and resolutions on the system of management and planning. It is hardly necessary to recall that such self-criticism of tendencies and orientations of a utopian character, at the root of which was the conviction that stages begin to be introduced. (Mutatis mutandis, this error was analogous to that made by the Bolshevik leaders in their initial interpretation of war communism.) The present positions, however, are broodly influenced by the "models" of the USSR and the bureaucratized workers states closest to the USSR. The very choice of priorities moves in this direction, despite the fact that the formula "greater attention to agriculture" and" "major emphasis on industrialization" (a bit in the Chinese style!) attempts to maintain an overall balance. "During the next five years, " Castro said, "the process of industrialization of the country will accelerate considerably." Af the same time, the congress approved the adoption of a new system of management whose features were synthesized as follows: "The system being proposed takes great account of the economic laws that reign during the period of the construction of socialism and that exist independent of our will and desires. Among these laws is the law of value, the necessity of all the enterprises, including the state 16 enterprises, to maintain relations of income and expenditure and the necessity that in these relations and in general in the various relations that are generated in the economy, taxes, credits, interest, and the other market categories function as indispensable instruments in governing the use to which we put our productive resources and in determining to the last detail, to the last centavo, how much we are spending on everything we produce, in order to be able to decide which investments are most beneficial, to be able to judge which enterprises, which units, and which collectives are work-
ing best and which are working worst and to be able to take the appropriate measures. The resolution also seeks to offer a response to the greatest problems posed for a planned economy, from the problem of determining prices to problems of management of the enterprises and incentives. It is sufficient to note that in their concern to rehabilitate "objective economic laws" and to avoid falling into the previously proclaimed utopian idea of eliminating the law of value, the Cubans seem to err in the opposite direction, making an overly sweeping use of the category "monetary-market relations. "(4) As far as incentives are concerned, an effort was made to combine moral and material incentives, while on the other hand the system of production norms was reaffirmed. The adoption of such norms was not new, but their application has been slowed down by various obstacles. (At present, 48 percent of the work force work under production norms; 20 percent are paid according to piece work; significant productivity increases have been registered in a series of sectors.) (5) Finally, in the administration of the enterprises, "single responsibility linked to a collective leadership" was affirmed as the basic principle. The director, who is the supreme authority, will be designated by higher bodies and "advised" by a leadership council in which the trade-union organizations will be represented. The participation of the workers in the leadership on questions such as discussion of the economic plan, the analysis of the results achieved, the ufilization of the incentive funds, the tasks of socialist emulation, and so on, will be assured by various methods and in various forms.* In this area as well, then, the choice of the Cuban leadership is rather close to the Soviet "model" and quite different from the Yugoslav "model, " for example. The idea that the revolution has entered the phase of institutionalization was the central theme of an entire section of Castro's report and of the resolution on the organs of popular power. Many of the themes that have been broached during recent years were taken up again and certain central concepts were reaffirmed. At the same time, the stages of the application of the decisions that have been made were fixed. One important stipulation was that at least two candidates must be presented in each district during elections, with a second-round vote in the event that no candidate wins a majority in the first round. There will be some transference of functions as the process of instifutionalization takes effect. In particular, the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution will no longer have to fulfill "tasks that are by nature partially of a state character, Problems of the party On the question of the function of the party in transifional society, the congress more or less repeated formulas that have already been used in various documents during past years. For example, the resolution on popular power affirms that "the organs of popular power are the highest state authority in the areas in which they exercise jurisdiction and carry out the tasks of public administration. The party will orient, impulse, and control the tasks of the state organs, will control the policy of promotion and training of cadres and will work to perfect the mechanisms of the state, but must never supplant the powers and functions of these mechanisms." For his part, Castro, referring to the mass or-
17
CUBA ganizations, declared: "They are the link that assures the closest ties of the party to the broad masses. * Beyond the details of this or that formulation, the basic concept is that of the primacy of the party in the transitional society; in practice, this is guaranteed by the very mechanisms of institutionalization, by the composition of the apparatus, and by the clear predominance of party members in the leadership of society, a predominance that becomes virtually exclusive as one moves up in the hierarchy.(6) The congress confirmed the concept of the party as the vanguard and sanctioned the peculiar method of recruitment whereby all candidates for party membership are subject to the evaluation of their work mates. Nonetheless, masses of members have been taken into the party rapidly, the total membership rising from 50,000 in 1965 to about 100, 000 in 1970 to 186, 000 in 1974 and 202, 807 at the end of September of last year. Castro himself exhibited some concern over the social composition of the party, which, according to the statistics presented af the congress, is as follows: 52% of party members belong to cells in the work centers of agriculture and livestock, industry, and construction, "7,5% to cells in education, and 3% to cells in the health system, while nearly 40% fulfill "functions of political or administrative leadership. " This last factor is significant, and its importance is not diminished by Castro's observation that "the great majority of comrades working on tasks of political leadership or in administrative activities are of working-class origin. " Experience has demonstrated only too often that working-class origin in itself is not at all sufficient to prevent bureaucratic degeneration: The conditioning determined by the new position is far more decisive than the conditioning determined by the original position. (7) We do not possess all the elements needed for an overall evaluation of the conduct of the precongress discussion and of the wark of the congress itself. The leadership emphasized the very large number of people - both inside and outside the party - who had participated in the discussion of the draff resolutions and the text of the new constitution. There were criticisms and dissent, buf we do not know to what extent. For example; 6,200,000 people were said to have participated in the discussion on the consfitution, of whom 5, 500, 000 were said to have voted in favor of the text unconditionally, while 16,000, supported by a total of 600,000, are said to have proposed modifications or amendments. In the discussion of the document on the agrarian question, 212,000 peasants voted in favor, 901 against, and 228 abstained. In the big popular assembly at the end of the congress, which was described as the largest ever held, Castro once again resorted to his outright plebiscitary method, with the predictable result that everyone voted for the decisions of the congress; nobody voted against and there were no abstentions. The congresses of the various party bodies seem to have been pretty much occasions for rubber-stamping decisions and for asserting confidence in the major leaders. 18
As for the national congress, in itself it was an eloquent indication of the degree to which workers are involved.
Castro's report took up the entire first day and half of the second, while the remainder of the second day was largely reserved for greetings to the congress and various ceremonies. There were only four interventions:
from a hero of labor in the cane fields, a member of the leadership of Pinar del Rfo, an administrator of a nickel factory, and the poet Nicolas Guillen. The third day was taken up by the work of the commissions. During the first part of the fourth day, apart from additional greetings, there were five interventions, the speakers being chosen on the basis of the same criteria as were applied on the second day. The voting on various resolutions began on the afternoon of the fourth day and continued on the fifth day. Then the congress concluded with a summary by Castro. It is only too clear that the sole purpose of the congress was to officially ratify what had already been decided and worked out in all details.
SOME FACTS ABOUT CUBA
(according to congress documents)
Population: 6,763, 061 according to 1958 census;
9,296, 068 according to 1975 census.
Work force: Increased by 1 million (58.5%) between 1959 and 1969.
Composition of work force:
Cane-cutters: 1975: 180,000 (half of the prerevolutionary period)
Sugar refining and processing: 1970: 120,000
1975: 89,000
Machine industry: 1959: 4,000
1975: 29,000
Textile and shoe industry: 1959: 14,000
1975: 15, 395
Tobacco industry: 1975: 49,672
Construction workers: 1958: 83, 000
1975: 275,000
Teaching and health: 1975: 400, 000
Administrative officials: 1975: 200, 000
Countryside:
State sector:
70%
Private sector: 30%
Members of ANAP (the association of small peasants): 232, 358, of whom 162, 126 are owners of family farms.
Tractors: 1958: 9,000
1975: 54,000
Education: Overall number of students:
1958:
811,345
1975: 3,051,000
Party membership: 1965: 50,000 (approximate)
1970: 100,000 (approximate)
1974: 186, 995
1975: 202, 807
The decisive ideological influence of the Soviet bureaucracy comes through in various documents. In addition, Castro explained that "many cadres and functionaries of the party" in charge of the cadre schools had been trained in the USSR, others in East Germany or Bulgaria. We will not return to what we have already said elsewhere: Point by point, the report on ideological struggle took up the themes and style that have now become customary, with a virtually Zhdanov-like flavor, with stereotypic polemics against rightist and leftist revisionists, " the alleged identity of whom is regularly denounced. In his conclusions and in his speech to the mass rally, Castro used some arguments and tones in which a sense of unease could perhaps be detected, as hough he feared he would be accused of nepotism. He was concerned with justifying the elevation of his brother Raul to the second position in the hierarchy, claiming that the promotion was a consequence of Raûl's genuine merits. At the same time, he prepared to defend himself against possible criticism of a "personality cult, on the one hand by proclaiming that with the process of institutionalization individual men would have a less important function and that the danger of an excessive concentration of power would thus be countered more effectively, on the other hand by denying the very concept of individual genius. ("Among humanity, properly speaking, geniuses do not exist. There are brilliant men. But genius does not exist in these individuals; genius exists in the masses. ") Thus, he insisted on explaining that the existing unanimity was not the result of "mechanical discipline, " but was instead due to the fact that the documents had been widely discussed and altered in some cases. Finally, he exclaimed significantly: "This revolution has not devoured, and will never devour, its own sons. It can be assumed that this outburst was not pleasing to the bureaucratic delegations present. The Soviet bureaucrats in particular must at least have been moved to think that it would have been better not to have spoken of the rope in the house of the hanged. International policy and Angola The congress ratified the international policy based on adherence to the theses of the Soviet bureaucrats; this was also extended to more specific positions (on India, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh, for example). A series of self-criticisms were made (on the attitude Cuba adopted during the October crisis of 1962, and more generally, its attitude during an entire phase of the revolution). The desire to collaborate with the so-called nonaligned countries was confirmed, regardless of the social structures and political regimes of these countries. For Latin America, the analytical underpinnings of the orientation of the past several years were confirmed, that is, that "in Latin America today there are no immediate prospects for overall changes that would lead, as in Cuba, to sudden social transformations." This orientation has been recently concretized in initiatives directed toward Mexico and Panama, whose top leaders were triumphally received in Cuba, Such initiatives have not been limited to the diplomatic realm or to equally legitimate support to specific positions taken by the regimes in question; instead they have taken on a more general scope, entering into contradiction with the interests of the workers movements in the countries concerned. To give just two examples: The Cuban press has presented López Portillo, the ruling party's candidate for president in Mexico, in a favorable light, without bothering about the different position that has been taken by the Mexican Communists, who are presenting their own candidate; the Cuban leadership has also associated itself with the campaign the Panamanian government is waging to denigrate the revolutionary students and organizations like the Fracción Socialista Revolucionaria (Revolutionary Socialist Faction), which are not inclined to overlook the bourgeois character of the Torrijos regime. (8) But during the time of the congress itself, Cuban policy was subjected to important tests. For some time there had been much talk of Cuba's desire to reach a compromise with the United States, and some people, falling into hasty impressionism, had drawn the conclusion that the Cuban leaders were prepared to pay a very high price for such a compromise. It is now clear, however, that they were not prepared to pay the price of renouncing their courageous attitude of international ist solidarity. This had already been indicated by their position in support of independence for Puerto Rico. The intervention in Angola confirmed it brilliantly. Cuba's decisive commitment to a crucial anti-imperialist battle has few precedents in the history of past decades, and whatever the particular tactical reasons for the intervention may have been, it remains exemplary testimony to revolutionary, internationalism. (9) Problems in perspective If all the elements are considered, if account is taken of the economic advances registered during past years and of the political expectations created by the process of institutionalization, and if it is noted that the leading group has succeeded in preserving its own prestige among the broad masses, it is legitimate to predict relative stability for a certain period. But this does not mean that a series of tensions and contradictions do not exist, tensions and contradictions that in the long run could rise to the surface or could even explode if certain problems remain unsolved or are solved inadequately. Limiting ourselves to a few brief points, we may say that economic development continues to face serious problems. As we have pointed out elsewhere, the 6% growth rate called for in the five-year plan is insufficient for a country that is still in large measure underdeveloped. Castro has explicitly said that more modest rates will have to be set than those of previous years. The spectacular oscillation of the price of sugar on the
19
CUBA world market will continue to represent a serious unbalancing factor. (After rising to a peak of USS. 60 a pound at the end of 1974, the price of sugar fell to USS.14 a pound in the course of several months.) Politically, the major problem is that of the real content of institutionalization. The previously existing vacuum had been one of the major factors fostering the the emergence and crystallization of a layer of functionaries and administrators appropriating the main tasks of management and leadership. Will institutionalization infroduce a radical change, with direct participafion of the masses, or, on the contrary, will it be limited to providing a new formal framework for the already existing middle and higher layers of administrators? The answer to this question in proctice will in large measure determine the future development of the revolution, will determine whether or not Cuba will suffer a bureaucratic degeneration. Similarly, only practice will be able to determine the precise content of certain formulas on the relation between the party and the institutions of popular power and between the party and the mass organizations. A Soviet- or Chinese-style application of the primacy of the party would make regression inevitable in the long run. In particular, tensions may arise in the management and leadership of the economic enterprises. The formulas that hu been adopted have hierarchical tendencies, and their application in practice will probably entail conflicts between the leadership personnel and the worker rank and file over which side will exert the greatest weight. As has happened in China, problems may also arise from what has been one of the major conquests of the revolution, the enormous increase in the level of education. Bottlenecks and dangerous imbalances may arise over the role to be played by graduates. And above all, the increases in cultural needs and the ever more massive advent of new generations for whom the importance of comparisons with prerevolutionary conditions is gradually declining will wind up introducing contradictory elements in the ideological monolithism and practices of unanimity that have been prevalent up to now. Finally, in the realm of international policy, differenfiations may arise in face of concrete choices that sharply pose the implications of certain theories and orientations. In particular, the policy of unconditional support to the so-called revolutionary nationalist regimes of Latin America, with the abandoning of the revolutionaries of these countries, will sooner or later stimulate critical reflection that could explode to the surface when important events take place. For all these reasons, the overall historic balancesheet of the first congress of the Cuban Communist party, despite its genuine importance, is far from definitive. February 22, 1976 20
FOOTNOTES:
1. Fortunate because the seventeen years that have elapsed since the seizure of power have permitted errors to be overcome and maturity to be acquired. It should be obvious that this argument cannot justify such a long delay in holding a congress; the practical consequence of the delay has been that during this long period fundamental decisions have been made by a rather small number of people.
2. For our evaluation, see the article that appeared in Quatrième Internationale, No. 22.
3. In an August 22, 1975, speech Castro had presented a piece of autobiographical information, recalling that he had bought his first Marxist-Leninist books in the CP bookstore on Calle Carlos III.
4. The resolution speaks of "market relations among enterprises.", If seems to forget that in a planned economy with nationalized industry the means of production are no longer commodities and thus the exchange relationships between the enterprises that produce them and those that acquire them are no longer determined by the law of value (which law does not disappear during the phase of transition, but whose field of action steadily narrows).
5. The following statistics on wages were presented at the congress: The average monthly wage is 136 pesos, an increase of 21% compared with the 1970 average. The mean income per family is 203 pesos. Fifty percent of families have only one wage earner; 30% have two; 12% have three; and 1.8% have more than three.
6. An interesting fact: 85 percent of the officers in the army are members of the party or of the Communist youth organization.
7. The percentages among the congress delegates indicate the danger even more clearly, in spite of Castro's claim that there was no attempt to organize a "meeting of leaders. " Thirty percent of the delegates were political leaders; 19% were administrative cadres; 19% were officials in the defense and security forces; 35% were militants working in production, education, and services. Participation by women was limited: About 15% of the delegates (and of party members) were women.
8. See, for example, the October 5, 1975, issue of Granma, the official organ of the Cuban Communist party. The Cuban congress also ratified the document of the conference of Latin American Communist parties held in June 1975. In various respects, this document represented a compromise between the Cuban conceptions and the traditional conceptions of the leading groups of the Communist parties. Let us take this opportunity to indicate our disagreement with the interpretation of the June 1975 conference advanced in the article by Pablo Rojas published in the November 20, 1975, issue of INPRECOR (No. 38).
9. The congress did not speak of China (or Albania), except to make fleeting reference to China's differences with Cuba. On the other hand, a rather vigorous polemic was waged in the press against the shameful Maoist position on Angola.
ANGOLA: