CUBA'S WOES Fidel's Sugar- Ups and Downs of Revolution

GUERRILLAS IN POWER K. S. Karol Hill and Wang; 1970 550 pp.; $12.50 CUBA: SOCIALISM AND DEVELOPMENT Rene Dumont Grove Press; 1970 238 pp.; $1.75

SINCE last year's Venceremos brigades re-opened interest in the fate of the Cuban revolution, many books deluged the market to meet the new demand. Two of the most recent entries, both translated from French, Guerrillas in Power by K. S. Karol and Cuba: Socialism and Development by Rene Dumont, provide seriously interested readers with the most thorough studies of Cuba's revolutionary problems. Although sympathetic to the ideals of the Cuban revolution, both Dumont and Karol remain pessimistic about Castro's leadership.

These books raise significant questions: What was the relationship of Castro's non-communist July 26th Movement to the Socialist Party, PSP, and why was the Marxist orthodoxy in a back-seat position? Because Cuba's soil is so fertile, the island must have faced serious economic difficulty to make rationing a continuous part of revolutionary existence there. One must also examine present Russo-Cuban relations and its connections with the Cuban's attempt to export their revolution to Latin America.

Karol persuasively discusses these political problems and other decisions the Cubans have faced. Although the depth of his analysis cannot be disputed, his book gives no clear picture of the people's daily lives. While Karol criticizes Castro for not restructuring the social relationships, Karol, himself, neglects to delve into the nature of these problems. He only hints, for example, that education and male-female roles are still very backward. That these relationships have survived the revolution indicates some serious misjudgment in priorities.

Despite some of Dumont's arrogant posturing, Cuba: Socialism and Development gives a concise overview of the Cuban economy. Even though the book originated in French in 1964, two afterwards reasonably update the work. And Dumont covers the material with more knowledge than his predecessors. The book rewards, if only because its discussion of Cuba's economic development is in a field whose dearth of information endangers future experiments.

KAROL focuses on why Russian strategy as pursued by the Cuban PSP failed miserably. During the 1930's the Comintern line dictated Communist party coalitions with bourgeois groups, making a united anti-fascist front. Batista, then in power, at American urging welcomed the legitimacy brought by collaboration with the popular PSP. This work-through-the-system strategy, however, meant an ideological retreat for the militants as they had to accept Batista's policy with little power to criticize. Stalin repudiated the PSP, because he rightly felt that this interpretation of the Comintern strategy led to dangerous revisionist theories which would de-emphasize class struggle. Having lost its main support from Russia, the PSP found itself compromised and isolated. Cold war anti-communism and attacks on trade unions, the radical stronghold, dealt a final blow to the revolutionary potential of the floundering radicals.

Castro, surfacing politically around 1952-53, recognized the necessity of forging a completely new alliance based on social justice. The turbulence and speed which characterized Castro's rise to power was to make an important imprint on Cuba's revolutionary reconstruction. Unfortunately, Karol says too little on this struggle or of Castro's role of inspirator and catalyst.

These years of revolutionary activity, 1952 to 1959, culminating in the is land's liberation, clearly demonstrated the pathetic plight of Russia's influence in third world revolutions. In 1956 Khrushchev initiated the new Russian policy of peaceful coexistence with capitalist countries, especially America, and encouragement of the peaceful transfer to socialism in non-communist countries. Insurrection activities were out of the question for Russia's allies particularly in 1959 during the friendly Camp David phase of Russo-American relations. As a result, the PSP stayed in the background, viewing dimly Castro's armed uprising.

The Castroists found themselves in an unusually good position upon taking power. Their struggle was short and relatively smooth. In 1959 they occupied a fertile island undamaged by war. Yet the quick success of the revolution inclined the Castroists toward equally quick solutions to deeper problems. With past experience as a guide, Castro expected the building of socialism to be little more taxing: popular zeal and good will would surge the country forward in the first days of liberation. This optimism, though illusory in the long run, characterized Castro's new relations with Russia.

These countries became allied closely in '61 for misguided political and economic reasons. Khrushchev' diplomacy hit a new low in late 1960 after the embarrassing U-2 affair. Eisenhower supported his generals over his new ally, washing away the good will of Camp David. Khrushchev, in addition, had just repudiated the Chinese by withdrawing technical advisors. To retrieve his lost stature, Khrushchev was in need of a militant ally. There stood Castro in dire economic need and loudly proclaiming his country a member of the socialist community.

The friendship proved to be a mismatch. Russia poured in experts, goods and equipment with little idea what Cuba needed. The Cubans in turn expected miracles from their new ally and banked on fancy experts to solve their problems for them. But when Karushchev's new cane cutting-machines mangled every stalk they touched, it became obvious that these experts and their machines were just Russian bears. Their pre-set ideas of development based on an Eastern European model could not help agrarian Cuba.

Karol emphasizes that important detailed studies, that could have guided planning, were not made. In addition, this failure characterized the Castroist leadership. As a result, they relied on piecemeal reforms, never reaching the basic problems.

With relations strained, the missile crisis of 1962 marked the end of an era of Cuban domestic and foreign policy.

According to Karol, the Russians forced the missile crisis to make credible their de-Stalinization program based on peaceful coexistence at the international level. Khrushchev's main goal in this adventure was diplomatic recognition of East Germany, hoping, as Karol argues, "to force America to accept coexistence on a world scale." A show of strength on America's doorstep would bring concessions on Russia's border, or at least so Khrushchev thought. Karol emphasizes that Khrushchev lied to make Castro believe America was ready to invade again, scaring the Cubans into accepting Russian military protection. As a result of the fiasco, Cuban-Russian relations soon deteriorated.

To understand the problems Cuba faced alone in 1963 one must turn to economic questions so well covered by Dumont, one of the world's foremost socialist economic experts.

CUBA'S economic problems developed prior to its revolution. To its advantage, Cuba has very rich soil located in a "marginal tropical climate" mitigated by sea and good rain. The country's supply of raw materials severely limited industrial possibilities, for example, energy needs. For this reason, Castro's hasty industrialization efforts with Russian aid and ideology (not mentioned by Dumont) was unsuited to Cuba's particular conditions.

Before the revolution, Cuba's close proximity to America worked as a double edged sword. America supported the Cuban economy but in turn tied down the island. In the early 1900's U. S. trade took 40 per cent of Cuban exports. Later the American Tobacco Co. controlled 90 per cent of the tobacco exports. Reciprocal trade agreements forced Cuba to flood herself with imported products, primarily American consumer goods. With such a balance of trade, the agricultural specialization in sugar, geared toward the American market, prevented indigenous industrialization and development of an independent economy.

While purchase agreements kept cane cutting prosperous, the Cuban economy was only as healthy as the American. In 1932 Cuban unemployment registered an all time high of 50 per cent! It did not recover fully until the 1952 Korean boom when cane production reached a record seven million tons. This mark was surpassed only last year when eight and one half million tons were processed due to a national mobilization. In such a situation, America's termination of sugar contracts, under the Kennedy administration, dealt a particularly severe blow to the guerrilla government.

Dumont concludes that Castro inherited an economy based on under-utilization of land, managed by a weak corrupt bureaucracy that never channeled funds back into Cuban development, and relied on improvisational economic policies. This heritage, Castro has yet to overcome. According to the recommendations which Dumont submitted to Castro after his three trips to Cuba, the author suggested a policy based on national diversification accompanied with regional specialization of crops employing a plan of concentric circles to the capital: perishable fruits and vegetables would grow nearby and sugar in far out regions.

The guerrillas' lack of administrative and economic experience led to a weak granja, or co-op, system charac-

terized by low yield, high costs, poor management and ineffective incentive structure. Dumont concludes that Cuba's economic woes in 1963 were caused by "bad diffusion [information on] techniques of cultivation, insufficient effort, unsound organization of work, faulty pick up of produce, all of these on top of the harm done by the blockade." In 1964, Dumont claims, these problems were accelerated by an overcentralized economy run by a top heavy bureaucracy. As a result, he stresses the necessity of lower level autonomy or, in Karol's phrase, "grass-roots socialist democracy."

Dumont's neglect of realpolitik as a factor in decision-making leads the reader to believe that blind whim and guerrilla zeal govern Casaros administration. Dumont should have realized that many apparently irrational economic decisions can be understood by other, especially political, criteria: most notably the naive goal-setting which produced last year's sugar harvest fiasco.

This blind spot enables Dumont to gloss over the real angonies of policy decisions. With the effective aid of hindsight he can confidently, even arrogantly, quantify any situation. As predictability is a solid test of analytic accuracy. Dumont could have better conveyed his self-confidence with some forecasts about Cuba's sugar production. Instead he wavers, refusing to commit himself in this controversial area.

That he is famous, socialist and rejected by Castro are all amply evident in the book. Where he lacks substantiation, he relies heavily on his reputation for authority. For Americans unfamiliar with his works who might not accept his word as truth, his style is both obnoxious and unconvincing. Only his obvious comprehensive understanding of Cuba and its economic problems might soothe them. One wishes Dumont could have accomplished his task with more humility and humanity for his readers.

THE Vietnamese war raised new questions about Cuban solidarity between third world peoples and relations with America and Russia.

Che Guevera left Cuba in 1965, according to Karol, on very amicable terms with Fidel. Che hoped to single handedly open a second front of Latin America to bog doyn the American imperialist machine and ease the pressure on the Vietnamese. The slogan "one, two, three, many Vietnams," summarized the new strategy of adopting the Sierra Madre experience to all Latin American revolutions.

The essence of Castroist thought as put by Che was to heighten the political consciousness and international brotherhood of all socialist countries and peoples oppressed by imperialism. While maybe a viable strategy for Cuba, to the Russian doctrine of peaceful coexistence, Karol stresses this was a heresy. The Castrcists also believed that "Latin America lacked the basis for the peaceful transfer to socialism": their second theoretical violation of Russian doctrine according to Karol. Regis Dubray who theorized the Cuban strategy in Revolution in the Revolution? emphasized that only a unique Latin American solution would liberate the area; in other words, the Russian orthodox model was as obsolete for aspiring Latin American revolutionaries as it was for Cuba earlier.

Che's death brought an abrupt end to Castro's hopes of local revolutions and catalyzed a revision of domestic policies. Yet, as in 1961 when Castro turned communist, he only partially rethought development problems. Chronic food shortages, bad distribution and grave imbalance between supply and demand due to the island's "socialist inflation" all pressed Castro in 1968 to decide upon a new era of belt tightening which after five years would bring the island out of underdevelopment. Karol remained pessimistic of this plan, pointing out that Fidel envisioned a quick political solution ignoring the real problem of changing social relationships to fit the demands of the people and instituting real "grass-roots socialist democracy."

Again Castro opted for programs based on economic growth instead of ones that would raise political consciousness. As a result of this lack of faith in the masses to know what is best for themselves, Karol argues that Castro and a handful of leaders have had to decide the most minute day-to-day problems.

Castro's return to the realm of pragmatism coincided with a reconciliation with Russia. Not only did Fidel abandon his ideas of active connivance in Latin American guerrilla movements, but, Karol argues through his fiercely anti-Stalinist perspective, Castro adopted the Russian model of development of the 1930's based on low consumption and high investment behind a centralized and vertical power structure operating in the name of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Karol indicates that, to justify this new position, Castro made several theoretical distortions, and abandoned his earlier anti-Stalinism and recognition that Cuba was not a proletarian revolution. Unfortunately Karol does not show why Fidel never adopted the Chinese model, one which he claims is more suited to Cuba. What was Fidel looking for by blindly returning to the fold of Russia's bloc?

A "sugar obsession" characterized Cuba's new line. Despite warnings of economists that a ten million ton zafra [harvest] in 1970 was unattainable (Dumont argued that 1975 would be a more realistic date for such a goal), Castro made it a matter of honor to fulfill the revolution's goals. Emphasizing political spirit and good will- a factor Karol ignored in his Russia 1930's comparison- the harvest brought temporarily renewed optimism, as any Venceremos will tell you. Yet the cost of the failure was staggering: serious dislocations in the economy resulted because most of the labor force was diverted to reach the pipe dream. This winter, serious food shortages were reported in Havana.

SOCIALIST revolution remains a bigger battle than liberation from oppression. For Cuba, the real task started when Castro took power. But Fidel has yet to realize that socialism is more than an alliance with friendly allies and five year belt tightening programs. Socialism can only liberate if the people create new institutions to serve their interests efficiently and honestly. Only then will social relationships change.

There is of course great hope for the Cubans. The era of patchwork reforms must soon end; this reality is staring in Castro's face. At the end of last year's sugar harvest, Fidel gave a humble, highly self-critical speech. Hopefully he will come to recognize in his revaluation that the people through their own institutions must control their own existence.