Castro Against the Tide
CHEPESIUK, RON
MEANWHILE, IN HAVANA Castro Against the Tide BY RON CHEPESIUK Havana It was a scene Cubans have witnessed often since the Revolution that ousted Fulgencio Batista 31 years ago: President...
...He is trying to use his considerable powers of persuasion to convince Cubans to work harder because he doesn't have much to offer them...
...Castro will use the same bait Batista and his crowd used to lure tourists to the island," said one resident Western diplomat...
...We have hard-working people fully dedicated to the task of dealing with problems, dedicated to advancing the Party and the Revolution...
...Havana alone has 1,014 such units, consisting of over 36,000 workers, according to Cuban officials...
...at present, because of travel restrictions, very few U.S...
...Communist youth groups boast thousands of members...
...and he has curtailed a popular program enabling those who could not otherwise afford it to own a home...
...Neighborhood Party committees ensure orthodoxy and stifle dissent...
...To attract much-needed foreign currency and replace sugar as the chief source of revenue, Cuba is using the most aggressive features of capitalist enterprise to develop its tourist industry...
...He needs the dollars, but the wave of tourists may upset the socialism he is trying to build...
...Thirty years of Revolution has made Cubans aware of their social responsibilities...
...It is not unusual for foreigners to be approached by Cubans trying to persuade them to serve as middlemen...
...I have a good job here compared with the average Cuban," he says...
...Ironically, if the regime's plans succeed, the island may well revert to its preRevolutionary identity as a capitalist playground...
...Prostitution, which is illegal, is already becoming more common, especially in the areas around tourist hotels...
...When the new hotels open, one official told me, long-established rules of Communist economic management will be broken: Incompetent employees will be fired, and tourist industry jobs will pay above-average wages...
...To make his point, he has recently shut down the private markets opened in the early '80s to stimulate production and ease chronic food shortages...
...These days the indefatigable Castro can be seen everywhere attacking capitalism and "bourgeois decadence," and exhorting the Cuban people to defend the Revolution...
...It's going to be interesting to observe the impact this will all have on the Cuban people...
...It looks forward to attracting hordes of European and Canadian vacationers, and is collaborating with entrepreneurs from Italy, Spain and elsewhere to build two dozen hotels within the next few years...
...It is against the law for most Cubans to carry dollars...
...I constantly have to think before I say anything," he complained...
...But I don't care what I have to do in the U.S...
...That effectively bars natives from entering the shops for visitors—the only source of the Western-style clothes and goods so popular here, particularly among young people...
...Indeed, words must be chosen with extreme care...
...Picking up the line laid down by Castro in his caustic introductory remarks before Gorbachev's address to the Cuban National Assembly, they stress the differences in size, culture, history and ethnicity between Cuba and the Soviet Union...
...The Party will not at any time stop being called the Communist Party of Cuba...
...The dictator still maintains a tight grip on the country through his security forces and the long tentacles of the Party...
...Prior to Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev's three-day visit to Cuba last April, there was widespread speculation that he would attempt to pressure Castro into making perestroika-like changes, perhaps by threatening substantial cutbacks in economic assistance...
...By 1992 the influx of visitors is expected to quadruple, reaching 1 million annually...
...pump gas, wait tables—I know the air will be free...
...MEANWHILE, IN HAVANA Castro Against the Tide BY RON CHEPESIUK Havana It was a scene Cubans have witnessed often since the Revolution that ousted Fulgencio Batista 31 years ago: President Fidel Castro making one of his personal tours of a new public facility...
...Before the Revolution, 8 5 per cent of the island's tourists came from the United States...
...We will never renounce the glorious title of Socialists and Communists," he promised a cheering crowd...
...Talking with outsiders is strongly discouraged...
...If there are close to a million tourists coming to Cuba each year, Castro is going to have a hard time keeping out the winds of change...
...There can be no doubt, though, that he will make the attempt...
...Another had planned to do the same two years earlier, but he made the mistake of telling his employer and instead went jobless for the next five years...
...You are going to see a lot of sexy nightclubs and other things one wouldn't expect to see in Communist Cuba...
...Castro is in a dilemma," asserts Smith...
...It wears youdown.You begin to feel like Sisyphus pushing the rock up the hill...
...The most visible sign of rectification is the "minibrigade"—construction units that are building factories, daycare centers, schools, climes, and apartment buildings throughout the country...
...Minibrigades," says Maximo Andren, head of the movement in the capital, "are a solution involving the masses...
...It is estimated that one-tenth of the population is involved in security or military work...
...The Cubans hope foreigners will shell out $500 to $700 million a year, roughly 20 times the tourist industry's income now...
...Instead, publicly at least, the two leaders reaffirmed their countries' "unshakable bonds of friendship...
...One undertaking, however, departs dramatically from the current austerity drive...
...He finally got out in 1985...
...Do you know how difficult it is to live like that...
...Given the epochal changes in Eastern Europe, he seems like a oneman army trying to stave off the course of history...
...They are made up of people drawn from offices and factories, where their former co-workers put in more hours to compensate for their absence...
...This approach (initially announced at the Third Party Congress in 1986) has been dubbed a "rectification," to make clear that it is an attempt to correct the "mistakes" of the past and in no way represents a deviation from the basic course of the Revolution...
...Officials here are fond of saying that makes sense...
...Several of the Cubans who agreed to speak with me despite the risk expressed resentment of the regime...
...But last October 28, when he inspected the Julio Trigo Medical School in Havana as part of the ceremonies honoring his comrade Major Camilo Cienfuegos, who died in the revolutionary struggle, Castro used the occasion to reaffirm his commitment to Marxism-Leninism...
...One of Ricardo's brothers emigrated to the U. S in 1982...
...Castro appears to be relying on his strength of will and charisma to transform the economy and to keep his Revolution going," says Wayne S. Smith, a former attaché at the U.S...
...Ron Chepesiuk teaches at Winthrop College in Rock Hill, South Carolina, and is Latin affairs editor of the Journal of Defense and Diplomacy...
...citizens find their way here, mostly via other countries like Mexico, where visas can be obtained...
...Castro has declared that his country will have none of the free market innovations currently being introduced in the East...
...Now Ricardo, too, has decided to go North...
...The average Cuban will probably gain little directly from the anticipated tourist bonanza...
...In addition to tightening economic centralization, the government has replaced material incentives—production bonuses, overtime pay—with the "moral" ones of volunteerism, hard work and self-sacrifice...
...Ricardo (not his real name), a university professor, explained that criticism of the Party is possible only if it explicitly accepts all the basic tenets of the Revolution...
...A mega-resort on the shores of Cayo Coco will have duty-free shops for cruise ships and private yachts...
...He has just returned from an extended stay in Cuba...
...All it reallymeans," explained one man I met, "is working more for nothing...
...In keeping with his approach to Eastern Europe, Gorbachev suggested that Cuba would have to choose its own path to reform...
...Russia has a dark Stalinist past to come to terms with, Cuba does not," notes Lazaro Medina, vice president of the Union of Cuban Journalists...
...he has outlawed cottage industries that were turning out everything from shoes to safety-glass windshields...
...Cuban Interests Section in Havana...
Vol. 73 • January 1990 • No. 1
