Daily Times

The visit of the US president Barak Obama to Cuba this week has been proclaimed as historic but the corporate media are giving it the notion that it is the beginning of the end of the last bastion of socialist system and restoration of capitalism in Cuba. In a period of deep capitalist crisis such a move is yet another attempt to discourage the masses from reaching clarity of an alternative course to their salvation. But the story is far from over.

Obama’s visit to Cuba, the first by a sitting US president since 1928, followed by restoration of diplomatic ties in December 2014 was described as bringing an end to half a century of hostility between the two countries. The rigorous trade restrictions have cost Cuba approximately 1.126 trillion dollars over more than 50-year period since the imperialists imposed the embargo.

Cuba still has a dominantly planned economy, and the United States still remains adamant to change its system, but now through a ‘soft-war’ strategy, a brainchild of President Barack Obama who arrived in Havana last Sunday on a three-day visit. Quite like President Calvin Coolidge, he too intends to “win hearts and minds” of the Cubans. Cuba’s President Raul Castro would like Americans to normalise socio-economic relations, without predicated by compromise on his political system — and to return the part of the island now housing the infamous Guantanamo Bay prison.

The US economic embargo remains in force, which President Obama wants to be lifted but the Republican-dominated Congress is opposed. Obama’s visit is rich in symbolism but lacks substance. Symbolically, it turns the page on a bitter past that prevailed for over half a century between the two countries. When Fidel Castro took over power in 1959 he expressed desire to meet his counterpart, Dwight D. Eisenhower, the request was denied. Then, there were attempts by the US agencies to assassinate him — sometimes by exploding his cigar and sometimes by toxic coffee. When all this failed the US-trained Cuban exiles were landed at the Bay of Pigs, only to be decimated.

The Cuban Revolution was triggered by an armed insurrection conducted by the 26th of July Movement led by Castro and Ernesto Che Guevara against the US-backed brutal dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. The revolution began in July 1953, and continued sporadically until the rebels finally ousted Batista on January 1, 1959, replacing it with a revolutionary socialist state. However, the victory of the revolution was ensured by the intervention of the proletariat in Havana and other main cities with their strike actions that paralysed the bourgeois state. The Cuban Revolution had powerful domestic and international repercussions.

Hundreds of Batista-era agents, policemen and soldiers were put on public trial for brutalities, abuses, war crimes, murder, and torture. Revolutionary tribunals were set up to punish those who brutalised ordinary Cubans and were convicted for crimes against the revolution. During its first decade in power, a wide range of socioeconomic changes was enacted. Laws were introduced to provide equality for black Cubans and rights for women, while there were radical improvements in communications, medical facilities, health, housing, and education. In addition, there were touring cinemas, art exhibitions, concerts, and theatres. By the end of the 1960s, all Cuban children were receiving education (compared with less than half before 1959), unemployment and corruption were almost eliminated, and revolutionary changes were made in water supply, hygiene and sanitation providing Cubans with universal healthcare.

Almost 75 percent of Cuba’s best arable land that was owned by large American companies was distributed to peasants as cooperatives. In February 1959 Cuba began expropriating land and private property under the auspices of the Agrarian Reform Law of May 17, 1959. Farms of any size could be and were seized by government, while land, businesses, and companies owned by upper and middle class Cubans were nationalised (including the plantations owned by Castro’s family). By the end of 1960, the revolutionary government had nationalised more than 25 billion dollars worth of private property owned by imperialists, capitalists and landlords. Government formally nationalised all foreign-owned property, particularly American holdings, on August 6, 1960. In 1961, the Cuban government nationalizsd all property held by religious organisations, including the dominant Roman Catholic Church. Education also saw significant changes; private schools and hospitals were banned and the socialist state assumed greater responsibility for children’s welfare. On October 3, 1965, Castro became First Secretary of the CP. Castro remained the Cuban president until his retirement in February 2008. His brother Raúl officially replaced him as president later that same month.

The post-revolutionary foreign policy had global repercussions. It supported poor countries during natural disasters, guerrilla struggles and revolutionary movements in the Caribbean, to Algerian rebels as early as 1960, independence movements in many developing countries such as Ghana, Nicaragua, Yemen and Angola, where 60,000 Cuban soldiers went to support the rebels. When the earthquake struck Pakistan in 2005 Cuba sent in some 2,600 doctors and paramedics who established field hospitals in Kashmir.

Following the American embargo in 1960’s, the Soviet Union provided economic and diplomatic lifeline. However, that had some negative impacts of crystallising the bureaucratic setup of the state on Moscow’s Stalinist pattern. The iconic leader of the revolution, Che Guevara, developed differences with Russian advisors on these issues and ultimately left Cuba to carryout revolutionary struggles elsewhere in Latin America. The end of Soviet economic aid after its collapse in 1991 led to a severe economic crisis known as the Special Period in Cuba. This put special pressures but Cuba was partially bailed out by the supply of oil and economic aid by Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez in the 2000s. But the crisis has erupted again due to the isolation of Cuba’s planned economy.

This prompted sections of the CP to adopt the Chinese bureaucracy’s ‘development model’ and give concessions to private ownership. Obama is playing on these sections. Such a departure would be disastrous for Cuban people who enjoy some of the best health and education facilities due to the planned economy inspite of Cuba being a poor country. But there are also strong factions in the leadership that adhere to the continuation of the planned economy.

Obama and Rahul Castro partially agreed to small steps including easing travel and starting small private businesses. But the USA officials said they didn’t make much progress this week, and would continue to try. However, the restoration of capitalism by Obama’s soft war policy is not guaranteed at all. The balance of power can easily tilt towards the pro-socialist factions rapidly as the severe crisis of the ‘Chinese Model’ explodes it and the recession of world capitalism creates an even deeper slump in the world economy. But ultimately the resistance and resilience of the Cuban masses and successful revolutionary transformations in the Americas and beyond can play a decisive role to salvage the Cuban revolution.

The writer is the editor of Asian Marxist Review and international secretary of Pakistan Trade Union Defence Campaign. He can be reached at ptudc@hotmail.com