Post to the blog |
Edit your details |
Log in

Blog

On Cuentapropismo In Cuba

Marie Lynam
16th July 2011 at 20:16
0 comments

Hello comrades

In Cuba, the Communist Party initiative of ‘cuentapropismo’ was presented to the country by the Cuban Trade Unions. The recent Communist Party Congress adopted that initiative. It consists in allowing the setting up of small enterprises working on their own account. Some may be coops, others will be private. They will have the right to hire and fire. It is not clear how their production will fit in the overall plan. The Communist leaders have said that this initiative should give employment to the hundreds of thousands of workers whose State jobs are being suppressed.

I think it is worth recalling here that, when Lenin introduced the NEP and market incentives in the young USSR, he appealed to the Trade Unions and the Communist organisations to allow for the greater independence and intervention of the working class. In production, the economy and society.

In Lenin’s view, the workers of the Workers State were to be seen deciding in their Unions, and discussing in their Unions what was being produced, what for, and who for. The workers, said Lenin, should definitely retain the right to strike; they should elect their leaders and replace the Trade Union and Communist leaders who act as bosses. The workers should also have the right to discuss all the events of the world, the world economy, the struggles of the workers in other countries and the impact on the USSR.

In Cuba today, there already are self-interested social tendencies. Some corrupt and arrogant Communist leaders were sacked from the Communist Party relatively recently. For corruption, self-seeking, the personal use of State property. There are such people in non Communist administrations also, particularly those linked to export and tourism. Cuban political literature admits freely that such people exist and that they should be combatted.

The Cuban State has decided to encourage cuentapropismo in the hope that this will increase productivity. It is true that the mass debate around cuentapropismo was organised by the Cuban TUC, but the initiative came from the Communist Party. This indicates the kind of relationship which exists between the Unions and the Communist Party. It is the Party that guides the Unions, whilst it should be the other way round.

However, the way forward now is for the Cuban workers to be allowed to discuss, in public, and in mass meetings, the impact this is having on their lives. There will be no risk of this being an attack on the Communist Party and the Workers State, if the workers can see the Party and the State help in every way, care and defend the workers’ interests. Indeed, the more the Communist Party and the Workers State come under the public impulse of the working class, the better and more Communist the Party and the State will be.

The introduction of cuentapropismo, since it is now being implemented, needs to be accompanied with mass discussions, debates in the countryside and in the towns of Cuba. Public meetings between countryside and towns. Debates where the Cuban workers link the changes and problems to the need to come closer to the working class of Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador - and generally the whole of ALBA. Frequent and public meetings between the workers of Cuba and those of the rest of Latin America. Of the United States as well, and beyond.

In those debates, the Cuban working class needs to be seen as the leader. It, and its Trade Unions, must be seen as expressing themselves independently of the Communist Party. Their resolutions and initiatives must be made public, along with appeals to the workers of Europe, of Asia, of Africa and Latin America. The world working class needs to see the Cuban workers discussing China, the political conduct of China, the reasons for the economic strength of China; the loss of the USSR; the process in Hungary, the Czech Rep, Eastern Europe, etc - and the threatening spread of imperialist war in Pakistan, parts of India, Libya, Syria and Lebanon. Demands for the imperialists to withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan. Considerations about Guantanamo. Support for the Palestinians. All this, on the part of the Cuban working class; not just the Communist Party, and not just as part of the Communist Party.

Now this sort of thing is more needed than ever. Cuentapropismo may be an opportunity, but it is sure to be a menace. If the Workers State is to survive it, a political counterbalance will be needed against the rising war of what I would like to call: ‘the privately interest’.

It will surprise no-one if I say that, nowadays, the private interest is on the rampage. Look at the capitalist system at any level. Look at its wars! The private interest is at war with the common good, the world over, and no mistake! In every country, and hence - through ‘the capitalist crisis’ - in Cuba as well. Most dangerously in Cuba!

The remedy to this situation is political, not administrative. More political life in the working class. In all the Cuban Trade Unions, and particularly amongst all those workers attached to commerce, finance and the tourist industry. The workers must be those who decide whether loans are being taken, who is lending to Cuba, how much is the national debt, what to do with the national debt. They must discuss this separately from the Communist Party, and together with the Communist Party. The world working class, the British Labour movement, must be able to see the documents.

To care about Cuba is because to care for the construction of Socialism. If the Cuban workers can be seen by the British workers debating everything, on a regular basis, and with the involvement of all the population, the British workers will be inspired. They will learn in minutes what it takes months and years at the moment.

Productivity must not be allowed to become synonymous with the defence of the Cuban nation. Because, if there is not enough workers control, productivity will simply make life easier for a few, who will start demanding other political parties (pluralism they call it), less power for the Unions, and eventually no Unions at all.

Ring a bell all this?

The revenue of every aspect of productivity must be controlled by the workers. They must verify where it goes, at any moment, in any sphere, including exports, imports, trade, State loans, etc. They must decide whether and how land is be devolved to the cuentapropistas.

With collaboration with Venezuela, it should be possible to import the machinery needed to cultivate the as-yet undeveloped lands in Cuba. No leader in Cuba should propose to do this by hand! The world revolution, in the form of the Venezuelan Revolution, and others, offer to Cuba the political answer to a problem that must not be given administrative or arbitrary solutions.

If the Cuban people are allowed, they will return to the question raised by Guevara of the social incentive, as opposed to the material incentive. This question is now a burning issue, because the Soviet Union did not resolve it, and now the USSR has left the historic stage. China gives no lead in this matter at the moment either. Hence, it is left to human intelligence to unravel. Trotsky and Guevara dealt with this. In this matter, human intelligence needs Marxism.

This critique of cuentapropismo I am making is mindful of Cuba’s achievements. It shows its love for Cuba by offering it constructive ideas. We have reached a point in history where dear life, life itself, depends on the human ability to build between countries, and no longer on its own account.

Comradely greetings, Marie Lynam, GMB

Tags: lessons in socialist construction (1)