Evolving Cuba
Green, Gil
Evolving Cuba CUBA AT 25: THE CONTINUING REVOLUTION by Gil Green International Publishers. 117 pp. $3.75 paperback. Cuban communism has a certain Caribbean flavor that sets it apart from the...
...Despite these defects, Cuba at 25 contains a considerable amount of information we don't read elsewhere...
...Second, Green classifies everything in Cuba as good rather than as historically necessary...
...The book has two serious defects...
...Cuban communism has a certain Caribbean flavor that sets it apart from the rigid systems of the Soviet Union or East Germany...
...Unfortunately, Gil Green, one of the best writers in the American Communist Party, does not capture it in his new book, Cuba at 25...
...Sidney Lens (Sidney Lens is Senior Editor of The Progressive...
...There is no need to gild the lily...
...The same kind of approach might have been used to explain why 98 per cent of all Cuban workers "willingly" join unions...
...You must interpret the facts for yourself, but if you want them, Cuba at 25 is not a bad buy for $3.75...
...First, it reads like a travelogue, with Green describing what he saw here and there, or mentioning the questions he asked this or that person, rather than analyzing the subject from a distance and placing the facts in historical context...
...To illustrate: In his chapter on the Communist Party, Green notes that there is but one political party in Cuba, but nonetheless insists that "democracy is very much alive and well in Cuba...
...It tells us much about Cuba's new electoral system, changes in wage patterns, the campaign against machismo, the roles of women and blacks, and the substantial improvements in education...
...He would have been much closer to the mark if he had conceded that the absence of opposition parties, opposition caucuses, and opposition press inhibits protest and mars the democratic process...
...It may be necessary for a society under siege to prod its workers into unions where they can more easily be influenced, but there is no need to present a situation that obviously involves at least a degree of coercion as the ultimate virtue...
...yet, in a situation where Cuba is virtually under siege, with an American-imposed economic blockade and constant threats of American intervention, the curbing of dissent may be inevitable...
...Cuba has done remarkably well under the circumstances...
Vol. 48 • February 1984 • No. 2
