Gomez, Maceo, Guevara, & Cienfuegos

CUBA:
100 YEARS
OF
STRUGGLE

A RESOURCE PACKET

CONTENTS

✓ Introduction..................Helen Ewer, Alice Hageman & Sonja Hedlund..................cherry

History: 100 Years of Struggle....................................................light green
"Cuba and U.S. Imperialism..................Edward Boorstein
U.S. Documents

"Cuba: 100 Years of Struggle"..................Sharon Krebs

✓ Statistics on the Cuban Revolution..................compiled by Patty Berens..................green

✓ "Man and Socialism in Cuba"..................Ernesto "Che" Guevara..................salmon

✓ Excerpts from Fidel's Writings............compiled by Helen Ewer & Sonja Hedlund............salmon

✓ "Moral Economy of a Revolutionary Society"..................Joseph Kahl..................white

✓ "Cuba: Services for All"..................Edward Rice..................white

✓ "Cuba and the U.N."..................Marcy Kerr..................dark blue

✓ "Pensamientos de Cuba"..................compiled by Helen Ewer..................blue

✓ "We Claim Our Future"..................Jorge Lara-Braud..................gold

✓ Philippine Cane Cutters..................Philip Shabecoff..................gold

✓ "The Revolution of Cuban Women"..................Barbara Rothkrug & Shari Whitehead..................orange

✓ "Fresh Air Blows Through Havana's San Carlos"..................Antonio Benitez Rojo..................orchid

✓ "Christian Participation in the Cuban Revolution"..................Sergio Arce-Martinez..................orchid

✓ "The Cuban Lesson"..................Rafael Cepeda..................orchid

✓ Do It!..................compiled by Alice Hageman & Sonja Hedlund..................cherry

# CUBA: 100 Years of Struggle

## INTRODUCTION

The decade just finished --- hopefully baptized at its outset "The Development Decade" by the United Nations --- is now referred to by some as "The Disaster Decade". During the past ten years it has become increasingly clear that throughout the world rich nations and people are growing richer, while poor nations and people continue to grow even poorer, despite numerous concerned statements and a great variety of well-intentioned, piecemeal efforts.

The roots of this situation are complex indeed. United States economic, military, and political influence abroad, especially in Latin America, are seen by many as the major force which prevents poor countries from shaping their own future and moving toward narrowing the presently widening gap between rich and poor.

Cuba is one exception to this general situation. An island of 8 million people, Cuba lies 90 miles off the coast of Florida. During the 11 years of its revolutionary life, the population has been able to mobilize itself to develop at a rapid pace. National resources have been re-utilized and the nation's wealth re-distributed for the benefit of the majority of the population. The result of these efforts, painful and arduous as they have been, is that the poor are getting richer and the rich poorer.

Even though there are differing opinions of these advances, and the sacrifices required to achieve them, the overall improvement of life for the majority of the populace cannot be denied. In order to become better acquainted with those advances --- their roots, goals, expressions, difficulties --- we have put together this resource packet on **CUBA: 100 YEARS OF STRUGGLE**.

Such a focused study seems now especially timely for North Americans. Many of our number, especially young persons, are vigorously questioning the ties the U.S. has cultivated with countries around the world. They ask: Why do we support dictatorial regimes in Brazil, in Greece, in Southern Africa, in Taiwan, in South Korea? Why do we try to export our patterns of consumer culture to the poor of the world, hoping they will become addicted to quenching their thirst with Coca Cola? Why are corporation profits more important than the health and well-being of people? Why must we impose our anti-communist phobias and middle-class values on the rest of the world? Cuba is a country which in 10 years has done away with its historic U.S. domination. This nation now provides a context for examining some of the issues of the relation of social and political change to the development of people.

It is our intention to present an overall view of the Cuban revolutionary struggle. The bulk of material available in the U.S. fits an image of Cuba shaped by Cold War needs. The sizeable Cuban exile community in this country and the North American business interests which were adversely affected by nationalization of their holdings in Cuba are largely responsible for this view. We have here tried to assemble materials which are more sympathetic to the Revolution and also less easily accessible to U.S. audiences.

The section on Cuban history contains two papers discussing the development of the Revolution since 1868, as well as documents of U.S. relations with Latin America which specifically pertain to policies towards Cuba. Writings of Ernesto "Che" Guevara and Fidel Castro are included as essential for understanding Cuban socialism and the Cuban concept of the "new man". These materials lead naturally to information about changes in health care, the position of Cuban women since the Revolution, and views of Cuban Christians on the Revolution. In the section on statistics, we have attempted to give concrete evidence of the progress of the Cuban Revolution in areas such as education, health, and land reform. The booklet of Cuban poetry expresses something of the spirit and mood of contemporary Cuba.

Much about the Cuban Revolution has implications for and reverberations in the international scene; some of these aspects are dealt with in the article about Cuba and the United Nations. Finally, despite individual differences there are several similarities in the economic and political situation of all developing nations. We have included two articles on pre-revolutionary situations elsewhere in the world: one, by a churchman, on revolutionary ferment in Latin America; the other, by a New York Times reporter, on the life of a sugar cane cutter in the Philippines, a life which sounds remarkably similar to that of Cuban cane cutters 15 years ago.

We believe that this packet contains enough basic information on Cuba to enable you to begin to reassess your understanding of contemporary Cuba and the steps being taken to achieve the stated goals of the Revolution, and to draw your own conclusions about how and whether it is achieving these goals. We hope that your reading will lead you to further study and push you to action. For this purpose we commend to you the section of additional resources entitles DO IT!

Helen Erver

Alice Hageman

Sonja Hedlund

["statistics\non the\ncuban revolution", "prepared by Patty Berens", "North American Congress on Latin America\n(Box 57, Cathedral Station, N.Y., N.Y. 10025\nand Box 226, Berkeley, Calif. 94701)", "Utilization of Agricultural Land in Cuba. . .p. 2\nCuban Educational Growth. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

toward better health care

HOSPITALS IN CUBA

(Number of Units by Type)

NUMBER OF HOSPITAL BEDS IN CUBA

| Type of Hospital | 1958 | 1968 |
|---|---|---|
| Out Patient Clinic | 10 | 486 |
| General Urban | 3,264 | 15,045 |
| Other General* | 8,469 | 18,657 |
| Rural Medical Post | - | 26 |
| General Rural | 10 | 1,607 |
| Mutualism** | 10,937 | 8,207 |

* The "other general" category includes maternity, tuberculosis, orthopedic, psychiatric, leprosy, infant, neurologic, optimologic and oncologic hospitals.

** Mutualism was a type of health service for privately subscribing members. In 1962, 61 hospitals, formerly of this type, existed and had been transferred to the Ministry of Public Health. Some may have been in rural areas.

5

SOME RESULTS IN THE FIGHT AGAINST DISEASE

| | **Earliest Year Available*** | | **Before or Just After the Revolution** | |
|:---|:---:|:---:|:---:|:---:|
| | **Number** | **Year** | **Number** | **Year** |
| **Cases of Malaria** | over 7,000 | 1958 | 0 | 1968 |
| **Deaths from Acute Diarrhea** | over 7,000 | 1958 | 1,638 | 1967 |
| **Cases of Polio**\*\* | over 300 | 1958 | 0 | 1965 |
| **Cases of Diptheria** | 1,469 | 1962 | 435 | 1967 |
| **Cases of Yellow Fever** | 3,519 | 1962 | 46 | 1967 |

PERSONNEL in PUBLIC HEALTH

Number of Pharmacologists

Number of Dentists

Number of Technicians

Number of Doctors

Number of Nurses & Aids

IN 1958 ***

Number of Pharmacologists

Number of Dentists

Number of Technicians

Number of Doctors

Number of Nurses & Aids

IN 1966

*

Liebowitz warns that figures for 1958 must be considered rough estimates both because of poor record-keeping and reporting in areas covered by the old public health system and because of lack of information for the more rural areas.

**

Polio vaccine, which was not well-developed before the Revolution took power, has been used effectively.

***

The number of medical personnel who worked in the private sector is not available. However, service to those who lived in rural areas or could not pay was limited. The August 1968 Supplement to El Militante Comunista (Secretaria de Organizacion y la Cor del Comite Central del Partido Comunista de Cuba, pp. 30-31) reports that before 1959, 65 per cent of the 6,300 Cuban doctors were concentrated in the city of Havana. 2,386 doctors emmigrated from 1959-1966.

Sources:

Compendio Estadístico de Cuba: 1968, Junta Central de Planificacion, pp. 43-44.

Michael Liebowitz, The Cuban Health Care System (School of Medicine, Yale Univ., dissertation, June 1969), pp. 38-42.

6

a letter to
carlos quijano
editor of
montevideo weekly marcha

DEAR COMRADE:

I am finishing these notes while traveling through Africa, moved by the desire to keep my promise, although after some delay. I should like to do so by dealing with the top-ic that appears in the title. I believe it might be of interest to Uruguayan readers.

It is common to hear how capitalist spokesmen use as an argument in the ideologi-cal struggle against socialism the assertion that such a social system or the period of building socialism upon which we have embark-ed, is characterized by the extinction of the individual for the sake of the State. I will make no attempt to refute this assertion on a merely theoretical basis, but will in-stead establish the facts of the Cuban exper-ience and add commentaries of a general na-ture. I shall first broadly sketch the his-tory of our revolutionary struggle both be-for and after taking of power.

As we know, the exact date of the begin-ning of the revolutionary actions which were to culminate on January 1, 1959, was July 26, 1953. A group of men led by Fidel Castro at-tacked the Moncada military garrison in the province of Oriente, in the early hours of the morning that day. The attack was a fail-ure, the failure became a disaster and the survivors were imprisoned, only to begin the revolutionary struggle all over again, once they were amnistied.

During this process, which contained only the first seeds of socialism, man was a basic factor. Man -- individualized, speci-fic, named -- was trusted and the triumph or

failure of the task entrusted to him depended
on his capacity for action.

Then came the stage of guerrilla warfare. It was carried out in two different environments: the people, an as yet unawakened mass that had to be mobilized, and its vanguard, the guerrilla, the thrusting engine of mobilization, the generator of revolutionary awareness and militant enthusiasm. This vanguard was the catalyst which created the subjective condition necessary for victory. The individual was also the basic factor in the guerrilla, in the framework of the gradual proletarianization of our thinking, in the revolution taking place in our habits and in our minds. Each and every one of the Sierra Maestra fighters who achieved a high rank in the revolutionary forces has to his credit a list of noteworthy deeds. It was on the basis of such deeds that they earned their rank.

## THE FIRST HEROIC STAGE

It was the first heroic period in which men strove to earn posts of greater responsibility, of greater danger, with the fulfillment of their duty as the only satisfaction. In our revolutionary educational work, we often return to this instructive topic. The man of the future could be glimpsed in the attitude of our fighters.

At other times of our history there have been repetitions of this utter devotion to the revolutionary cause. During the October Crisis and at the time of hurricane Flora, we witnessed deeds of exceptional valor and self-sacrifice carried out by an entire people. One of our fundamental tasks from the ideological standpoint is to find the way to perpetuate such heroic attitudes in everyday life.

The Revolutionary Government was established in 1959 with the participation of

2

several members of the "sell-out" bourgeoisie. The presence of the Rebel Army constituted the guarantee of power as the fundamental factor of strength.

Serious contradictions arose which were solved in the first instance in February, 1959, when Fidel Castro assumed the leadership of the government in the post of Prime Minister. This process culminated in July of the same year with the resignation of President Urrutia in the face of mass pressure.

With clearly defined features, there now appeared in the history of the Cuban Revolution a personage which will systematically repeat itself: the masses.

## FULL AND ACCURATE INTERPRETATION OF THE PEOPLE'S WISHES

This multifacetic being is not, as it is claimed, the sum total of elements of the same category (and moreover, reduced to the same category by the system imposed upon them) and which acts as a tame herd. It is true that the mass follows its leaders, especially Fidel Castro, without hesitation, but the degree to which he has earned such confidence is due precisely to the consummate interpretation of the people's desires and aspirations, and to the sincere struggle to keep the promises made.

The mass participated in the Agrarian Reform and in the difficult undertaking of the management of the state enterprises; it underwent the heroic experience of Playa Girón; it was tempered in the struggle against the groups of bandits armed by the CIA; during the October Crisis it lived one of the most important definitions of modern times and today it continues the work to build socialism.

Looking at things from a superficial standpoint, it might seem that those who

3

speak of the submission of the individual to
the State are right; with incomparable enthu-
siasm and discipline, the mass carried out
the task set by the government whatever their
nature: economic, cultural, defense, sports,
etc. The initiative generally comes from Fi-
del or the high command of the revolution; it
is explained to the people who make it their
own. At times, local experiences are taken
up by the party and the government and are
thereby generalized, following the same pro-
cedure.

However, the State at times makes mis-
takes. When this occurs, the collective en-
thusiasm diminishes palpably as a result of a
quantitative diminishing that takes place in
each of the elements that make up the collec-
tive, and work becomes paralyzed until it
finally shrinks to insignificant proportions;
this is the time to rectify.

This was what happened in March, 1962,
in the presence of the sectarian policy im-
posed on the Party by Anibal Escalante.

DIALECTICAL UNITY BETWEEN
FIDEL AND THE MASS

This mechanism is obviously not suffi-
cient to ensure a sequence of sensible mea-
sures; what is missing is a more structured
relationship with the mass. We must improve
this connection in the years to come, but for
now, in the case of the initiatives arising
on the top levels of government, we are using
the almost intuitive method of keeping our
ears open to the general reactions in the
face of the problems that are posed.

Fidel is a past master at this; his par-
ticular mode of integration with the people
can only be appreciated by seeing him in
action. In the big public meetings, one can
observe something like the dialogue of two
tuning forks whose vibrations summon forth

4

new vibrations each in the other. Fidel and
the mass begin to vibrate in a dialogue of
growing intensity which reaches its culmina-
ting point in an abrupt ending crowned by our
victorious battle cry.

What is hard to understand for anyone
who has not lived the revolutionary exper-
ience is that close dialectical unity which
exists between the individual and the mass,
as a whole composed of individuals, is in
turn interrelated with the leaders.

Under capitalism, certain phenomena of
this nature can be observed with the appear-
ance on the scene of politicians capable of
mobilizing the public, but if it is not an
authentic social movement, in which case it
is not completely accurate to speak of capi-
talism, the movement will have the same life
span as its promoter or until the rigors of
capitalist society put an end to popular ill-
usions. Under capitalism, man is guided by a
cold ordinance which is usually beyond his
comprehension. The alienated human individual
is bound to society as a whole by an invisible
unbilical cord: the law of value. It acts
upon all facets of his life, shaping his road
and his destiny.

THE INVISIBLE LAWS OF CAPITALISM

The laws of capitalism, invisible and
blind for most people, act upon the indivi-
dual without his awareness. He sees only
the broadness of an horizon that appears in-
finite. Capitalism propaganda presents it in
just this way, and attempts to use the Rock-
efeller case (true or not) as a lesson in
the prospects for success. The misery that
must be accumulated for such an example to
arise and the sum total of baseness contri-
buting to the formation of a fortune of such
magnitude do not appear in the picture, and
the popular forces are not always able to

make these concepts clear. (It would be fit-
ting at this point to study how the workers
of the imperialist countries gradually lose
their international class spirit under the
influence of a certain complicity in the ex-
ploitation of the dependent countries and how
this fact at the same time wears away the mil-
itant spirit of the masses within their own
national context, but this topic is outside
the framework of the present note).

In any case we can see the obstacle
course which may apparently be overcome by
an individual with the necessary qualities
to arrive at the finish line. The reward is
glimpsed in the distance and the road is sol-
itary. Furthermore, it is a race of wolves:
he who arrives does so only at the expense
of the failure of others.

I shall now attempt to define the indi-
vidual, the actor in this strange and moving
drama that is the building of socialism, in
his two-fold existence as a unique being and
a member of the community.

I believe that the simplest approach is
to recognize his un-made quality: he is an
unfinished product. The flaws of the past
are translated into the present in the indi-
vidual consciousness and constant efforts must
be made to eradicate them. The process is
two-fold: on the one hand society acts upon
the individual by means of direct and indi-
rect education, while on the other hand, the
individual undergoes a conscious phase of
self-education.

## COMPETE FIERCELY WITH THE PAST

The new society in process of formation
has to compete very hard with the past. This
makes itself felt not only in the individual
consciousness, weighed down by the residues
of an education and an upbringing systemat-
ically oriented towards the isolation of the

6

individual, but also by the very nature of
this transition period, with the persistence
of commodity relations. The commodity is
the economic cell of capitalist society; as
long as it exists, its effects will make them-
selves felt in the organization of production
and therefore in man's consciousness.

Marx's scheme conceived of the transi-
tion period as the result of the explosive
transformation of the capitalist system torn
apart by its inner contradictions; subsequent
reality has shown how some countries, the
weak limbs, detach themselves from the im-
perialist tree, a phenomenon foreseen by Len-
in. In those countries, capitalism has de-
veloped sufficiently to make its effects felt
upon the people in one way or another, but
it is not its own inner contradictions that
 explode the system after exhausting all of
 its possibilities. The struggle for liber-
ation against an external oppressor, the mi-
sery which has its origin in foreign causes,
such as war whose consequences make the pri-
vileged classes fall upon the exploited, the
liberation movements aimed at overthrowing
neocolonial regimes, are the customary fact-
ors in this process. Conscious action does
the rest.

## A RAPID CHANGE WITHOUT SACRIFICES IS IMPOSSIBLE

In these countries there still has not
been achieved a complete education for the
work of society, and wealth is far from be-
ing within the reach of the masses through
the simple process of appropriation. Under-
development and the customary flight of cap-
ital to "civilized" countries make impossible
a rapid change without sacrifices. There
still remains a long stretch to be covered
in the building of the economic base and
the temptation to follow the beaten paths of
material interest as the lever of speedy

7

development, is very great.

There is a danger of not seeing the for-
est because of the trees. Pursuing the chi-
mera of achieving socialism with the aid of
the blunted weapons left to us by capitalism
(the commodity as the economic cell, profit-
ability and individual material interest as
levers, etc.), it is possible to come to a
blind alley. And the arrival there comes
about after covering a long distance where
there are many crossroads and where it is
difficult to realize just when the wrong turn
was taken. Meanwhile, the adapted economic
base has undermined the development of con-
sciousness. To build communism, a new man
must be created simultaneously with the ma-
terial base.

That is why it is so important to choose
correctly the instrument of mass mobilization.
That instrument must be fundamentally of a
moral character, without forgetting the cor-
rect use of material incentives, especially
those of a social nature.

SOCIETY MUST BE A HUGE SCHOOL

As I already said, in moments of extreme
danger it is easy to activate moral incen-
tives; to maintain their effectiveness, it
is necessary to develop a consciousness in
which values acquire new categories. Society
as a whole must become a huge school.

The broad characteristics of the phenom-
enon are similar to the process of formation
of capitalist consciousness in the system's
first stage. Capitalism resorts to force but
it also educates people in the system. Di-
rect propaganda is carried out by those who
are entrusted with the task of explaining
the inevitability of a class regime, whether
it be of divine origin or due to the impo-
sition of nature as a mechanical entity. This
placates the masses, who see themselves op-

3

pressed by an evil against which it is not
possible to struggle.

This is followed by hope, which differ-
entiates capitalism from the previous caste
regimes that offered no way out. For some,
the caste formula continues in force: the
obedient are rewarded by the post mortem
arrival in other wonderful worlds where the
good are requited, and the old tradition is
continued. For others, innovation: the
division in classes is a matter of fate, but
individuals can leave the class to which
they belong through work, initiative, etc.
This process, and that of self-education for
success, must be deeply hypocritical; it is
the interested demonstration that a lie is
true.

In our case, direct education acquires
much greater importance. Explanations are
convenient because they are genuine; subter-
fuges are not needed. It is carried out
through the State's educational apparatus in
the form of general, technical and ideologi-
cal culture, by means of bodies such as the
Ministry of Education and the Party's infor-
mation apparatus. Education takes among the
masses and the new attitude that is praised
tends to become habit; the mass gradually
takes it over and exerts pressure on those
who have still not become educated. This is
the indirect way of educating the masses, as
powerful as the other structured one.

THE PROCESS OF INDIVIDUAL SELF-EDUCATION

But the process is a conscious one; the
individual receives the impact of the new
social power and perceives that he is not
completely adequate to it. Under the influ-
ence of the pressure implied in indirect ed-
ucation, he tries to adjust to a situation
that he feels to be just and whose lack of

9

development has kept him from doing so thus far. He is educating himself.

We can see the new man who begins to emerge in this period of the building of socialism. His image is as yet unfinished; in fact it will never be finished, since the process advances parallel to the development of new economic forms. Discounting those whose lack of education makes them tend towards the solitary road, towards the satisfaction of their ambitions, there are others who, even within this new picture of overall advances, tend to march in isolation from the accompanying mass.

What is important is that people become more aware every day of the need to incorporate themselves into society and of their own importance as motors of that society.

They no longer march in complete solitude along lost roads towards far-off longings. They follow their vanguard, composed of the Party, of the most advanced workers, of the advanced men who move along bound to the masses and in close communion with them. The vanguards have their eyes on the future and its recompenses, but the latter are not envisioned as something individual; the reward is the new society where human beings will have different characteristics: the society of communist man.

## A LONG AND DIFFICULT ROAD

The road is long and full of difficulties. At times, the route strays off course and it is necessary to retreat; at times, a too rapid pace separates us from the masses and on occasions the pace is slow and we feel upon our necks the breath of those who follow upon our heels. Our ambition as revolutionaries makes us try to move forward as far as possible, opening up the way before us, but we know that we must be reinforced

10

by the mass, while the mass will be able to advance more rapidly if we encourage it by our example.

In spite of the importance given to moral incentives, the existence of two principal groups (excluding, of course, the minority fraction of those who do not participate for one reason or another in the building of socialism) is an indication of the relative lack of development of social consciousness. The vanguard group is ideologically more advanced than the mass; the latter is acquainted with the new values, but insufficiently. While in the former a qualitative change takes place which permits them to make sacrifices as a function of their vanguard character, the latter see only by halves and must be subjected to incentives and pressures of some intensity; it is the dictatorship of the proletariat being exercised not only upon the defeated class but also individually upon the victorious class.

To achieve total success, all of this involves the necessity of a series of mechanisms, the revolutionary institutions. The concept of institutionalization fits in with the images of the multitudes marching towards the future as that of a harmonic unit of canals, steps, well-oiled apparatuses that make the march possible, that permit the natural selection of those who are destined to march in the vanguard and who dispense rewards and punishments to those who fulfill their duty or act against the society under construction.

## PERFECT IDENTIFICATION BETWEEN GOVERNMENT AND COMMUNITY

The institutionality of the Revolution has still not been achieved. We are seeking something new that will allow a perfect identification between the government and the

11

community as a whole, adapted to the special conditions of the building of socialism and avoiding to the utmost the commonplaces of bourgeois democracy transplanted to the society in formation (such as legislative houses, for example). Some experiments have been carried out with the aim of gradually creating the institutionalization of the Revolution, but without too much hurry. We have been greatly restrained by the fear that any formal aspect might make us lose sight of the ultimate and most important revolutionary aspiration: to see man freed from alienation.

Notwithstanding the lack of institutions, which must be overcome gradually, the masses now make history as a conscious aggregate of individuals who struggle for the same cause. In spite of the apparent standardization of man in socialism, he is more complete; his possibilities for expressing himself and making himself heard in the social apparatus are infinitely greater, in spite of the lack of a perfect mechanism to do so.

It is still necessary to accentuate his conscious, individual and collective, participation in all the mechanisms of direction and production and associate it with the idea of the need for technical and ideological education, so that the individual will realize that these processes are closely interdependent and their advances are parallel. He will thus achieve total awareness of his social being, which is equivalent to his full realization as a human being having broken the chains of alienation.

This will be translated concretely into the reappropriation of his nature through freed work and the expression of his own human condition in culture and art.

## WORK MUST ACQUIRE A NEW CONDITION

In order for it to develop in culture,

12

work must acquire a new condition; man as commodity ceases to exist and a system is established that grants a quota for the fulfillment of social duty. The means of production belong to society and the machine is only the front line where duty is performed. Man begins to free his thought from the bothersome fact that presupposed the need to satisfy his animal needs by working. He begins to see himself portrayed in his work and to understand its human magnitude through the created object, through the work carried out. This no longer involves leaving a part of his being in the form of labor power sold, which no longer belongs to him; rather, it signifies an emanation from himself, a contribution to the life of society in which he is reflected, the fulfillment of his social duty.

We are doing everything possible to give work this new category of social duty and to join it to the development of technology, on the one hand, which will provide the conditions for greater freedom, and to voluntary work on the other, based on the Marxist concept that man truly achieves his full human condition when he produces without being compelled by the physical necessity of selling himself as a commodity.

It is clear that work still has coercive aspects, even when it is voluntary; man has still not transformed all the coercion surrounding him into conditioned reflexes of a social nature, and in many cases, he still produces under the pressure of the environment (Fidel calls this moral compulsion). He is still to achieve complete spiritual recreation in the presence of his own work, without the direct pressure of the social environment but bound to it by new habits. That will be communism.

The change in consciousness does not come about automatically, just as it does not come about automatically in the economy.

13

The variations are slow and not rhythmic;
there are periods of acceleration, others are
measured and some even involve a retreat.

## COMMUNISM'S FIRST TRANSITION PERIOD

We must also consider, as we have pointed out previously, that we are not before a pure transition period such as that envisioned by Marx in the "Critique of the Gotha Program," but rather a new phase not foreseen by him: the first period in the transition to communism or in the building of socialism.

Elements of capitalism are present within this process, which takes place in the midst of violent class struggle. These elements obscure the complete understanding of the essence of the process.

If to this be added the scholasticism that has held back the development of Marxist philosophy and impeded the systematic treatment of the period, whose political economy has still not been developed, we must agree that we are still in diapers. We must study all the primordial features of the period before elaborating a more far reaching economic and political theory.

The resulting theory will necessarily give preeminence to the two pillars of socialist construction: the formation of the new human being and the development of technology. We still have a great deal to accomplish in both aspects, but the delay is less justifiable as far as the conception of technology as the basis is concerned; here, it is not a matter of advancing blindly but rather of following for a sizeable stretch the road opened up by the most advanced countries of the world. This is why Fidel harps so insistently on the necessity of the technological and scientific formation of all of our people and especially of the vanguard.

14

## DIVISION BETWEEN MATERIAL AND SPIRITUAL NECESSITY

In the field of ideas that lead to non-productive activities, it is easier to see the division between material and spiritual needs. For a long time man has been trying to free himself from alienation through culture and art. He dies daily in the eight and more hours during which he performs as a commodity to resuscitate in his spiritual creation. But this remedy itself bears the germs of the same disease; he is a solitary being who seeks communion with nature. He defends his environment-oppressed individuality and reacts to esthetic ideas as a unique being whose aspiration is to remain immaculate.

It is only an attempt at flight. The law of value is no longer a mere reflection of production relations; the monopoly capitalists have surrounded it with a complicated scaffolding which makes of it a docile servant, even when the methods used are purely empirical. The artist must be educated in the kind of art imposed by the super-structure. The rebels are overcome by the apparatus and only exceptional talents are able to create their own work. The others become shame-faced wage-workers or they are crushed.

Artistic experimentation is invented and is taken as the definition of freedom, but this "experimentation" has limits which are imperceptible until they are clashed with, that is, when the real problems of man and his alienated condition are dealt with. Senseless anguish or vulgar pastimes are comfortable safety valves for human uneasiness; the idea of making art a weapon of denunciation and accusation is combatted.

If the rules of the game are respected all honors are obtained -- the honors that might be granted to a pirouette-creating monkey. The condition is not attempting to escape from the invisible cage.

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## A NEW IMPULSE FOR ARTISTIC EXPERIMENTATION

When the Revolution took power, the exodus of the totally domesticated took place; the others, revolutionaries or not, saw a new road. Artistic experimentation took on new force. However, the routes were more or less traced and the concept of flight was the hidden meaning behind the word freedom. This attitude, a reflection in consciousness of bourgeois idealism, was frequently maintained in the revolutionaries themselves.

In countries that have gone through a similar process, endeavors were made to combat these tendencies with an exaggerated dogmatism. General culture became something like a taboo and a formally exact representation of nature was proclaimed as the height of cultural aspiration. This later became a mechanical representation of social reality created by wishful thinking: the ideal society, almost without conflicts or contradictions, that man was seeking to create.

Socialism is young and makes mistakes. We revolutionaries often lack the knowledge and the intellectual audacity to face the task of the development of the new human being by methods different from the conventional ones, and the conventional methods suffer from the influence of the society that created them (once again the topic of the relation between form and content appears). Disorientation is great and the problems of material construction absorb us. There are no artists of great authority who also have great revolutionary authority.

The men of the Party must take this task upon themselves and seek the achievement of the principal aim: to educate the people.

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## SOCIALIST REALISM BASED ON THE ART OF THE LAST CENTURY

What is then sought is simplification, what everyone understands, that is, what the functionaries understand. True artistic experimentation is obliterated and the problem of general culture is reduced to the assimilation of the socialist present and the dead (and therefore not dangerous) past. Socialist realism is thus born on the foundation of the art of the last century.

But the realistic art of the 19th century is also class art, perhaps more purely capitalist than the decadent art of the 20th century, where the anguish of alienated man shows through. In culture, capitalism has given all that it had to give and all that remains of it is the foretaste of a bad-smelling corpse; in art, its present decadence. But why endeavor to seek in the frozen forms of socialist realism the only valid recipe? "Freedom" cannot be set against socialist realism because the former does not yet exist; it will not come into being until the complete development of the new society. But let us not attempt to condemn all post-mid-nineteenth century art forms from the pontifical throne of realism-at-all-costs; that would mean committing the Proudhonian error of the return-to the past, and straitjacketing the artistic expression of the man who is born and being formed today.

An ideological and cultural mechanism must be developed which will permit experimentation and clear out the weeds that shoot up so easily in the fertilized soil of state subsidization.

## TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY MAN

The error of mechanical realism has not appeared (in Cuba), but rather the contrary.

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This is so because of the lack of understanding of the need to create a new human being who will represent neither 19th century ideas nor those of our decadent and morbid century. It is the twenty-first century man whom we must create, although this is still a subjective and unsystematic aspiration. This is precisely one of the basic points of our studies and work: to the extent that we make concrete achievements on a theoretical base or vice versa, that we come to broad theoretical conclusions on the basis of our concrete studies, we will have made a valuable contribution to Marxism-Leninism, to the cause of mankind.

The reaction against 19th century man has brought a recurrence of 20th century decadence. It is not a very serious error, but we must overcome it so as not to leave the doors open to revisionism.

The large multitudes of people are developing themselves, the new ideas are acquiring an adequate impetus within society, the material possibilities of the 'integral development of each and every one of its members make the task ever more fruitful. The present is one of struggle; the future is ours.

## INTELLECTUALS NOT AUTHENTICALLY REVOLUTIONARY

To sum up, the fault of many of our intellectuals and artists is to be found in their "original sin": they are not authentically revolutionary. We can attempt to graft elm trees so that they bear pears, but at the same time we must plant pear trees. The new generations will arrive free of "original sin". The likelihood that exceptional artists will arise will be that much greater because of the enlargement of the cultural field and the possibilities for expression. Our job is to keep the present generation,

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maladjusted by its conflicts, from becoming perverted and perverting the new generations. We do not want to create salaried workers docile to official thinking nor "fellows" who live under the wing of the budget, exercising freedom in quotation marks. Revolutionaries will come to sing the song of the new man with the authentic voice of the people. It is a process that requires time.

In our society, the youth and the Party play a big role. The former is particularly important because it is the malleable clay with which the new man, without any of the previous defects, can be formed.

Youth receives treatment in consonance with our aspirations. Education is increasingly integral and we do not neglect the incorporation of the students into work from the very beginning. Our scholarship students do physical work during vacation or together with their studies. In some cases work is a prize, while in others it is an educational tool: it is never a punishment. A new generation is being born.

## THE PARTY: VANGUARD ORGANIZATION

The Party is a vanguard organization. The best workers are proposed by their comrades for membership. The Party is a minority but the quality of its cadres gives it great authority. Our aspiration is that the Party become a mass one, but only when the masses reach the level of development of the vanguard, that is, when they are educated for communism. Our work is aimed at providing that education. The Party is the living example; its cadres must be full professors of assiduity and sacrifice; with their acts they must lead the masses to the end of the revolutionary task, which means years of struggle against the difficulties of con-

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