Raúl the pragmatist

Reform in Cuba

Raúl the pragmatist
Bold changes intended to preserve Cuban communism may herald the
beginning of its end

Nov 11th 2010

SHORTLY after he took charge of Cuba from his ailing brother, Fidel, in
2006, Raúl Castro declared that his country's moribund communist economy
needed to change. But his failure to make anything more than marginal
adjustments disappointed hopes that he would follow Chinese and
Vietnamese communist leaders in combining capitalist economics and
growing social freedom with continued party control.

Now, at last, Mr Castro is showing signs of boldness. Over the past few
weeks he has launched some potentially far-reaching changes. By April
1st 500,000 Cubans will be laid off from their state jobs and encouraged
to make their own living in small businesses. Over the next two or three
years, another 800,000 are likely to join them. Eventually up to two
Cubans in five will no longer work for the state.

This week Mr Castro convened a much-postponed Congress of the Communist
Party for late April: its job will be to bless the new economic model
(see article). Meanwhile, the government has released more than 50
political prisoners. Two decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, is
Cuban communism finally on the way out?

Any answer must be hedged about with caveats. The economists advising Mr
Castro are barred from talking of "reform". In its guidelines for the
party congress, the leadership declares that "only socialism [ie,
communism] is capable of overcoming our difficulties and preserving the
gains of the revolution" and that in the new economy "planning will be
paramount, not the market." No Cuban official has matched Deng
Xiaoping's embrace of "market socialism", let alone his (perhaps
apocryphal) injunction that "to get rich is glorious". The welcome
release of prisoners seems merely to have been a move to deflect outside
criticism after the death of one of them in a hunger strike, rather than
a first step in dismantling the island's police state. Indeed the army
is playing a bigger role in the economy and in government.

Yet Raúl's reforms go much further than Fidel's reluctant acceptance of
foreign investment and limited self-employment after the collapse of the
Soviet Union, partially reversed on the appearance of a new benefactor,
Hugo Chávez's Venezuela. For the first time since the 1960s Cubans will
be able to employ other Cubans (even though the constitution bans such
"exploitation"). Many of the rules under which these new businesses will
operate are still being drawn up. But it seems that Cubans will now be
able to get loans and rent and buy property. Other changes are likely to
follow. Mr Castro talks of gradually eliminating the free food rations
that Cubans get, and moving towards targeted social assistance (as
elsewhere in Latin America). The corollary is that wages will have to go
up—and increasingly they will be set in the market.

In all this Mr Castro is bowing to reality. He has been withering in his
criticism of the featherbedding that has bankrupted the state. He has
also refused to blame the American economic embargo for problems which
he rightly says are self-inflicted. His pragmatism has finally won out
against his brother's doctrinaire Utopianism.

Apart from the economy, the other big task facing Mr Castro, who is 79
(and Fidel 84), is to start handing over power to a younger generation.
That may come after the party congress next year. In the meantime, his
new boldness represents an opportunity for those who hope that Cuba will
eventually join the rest of Latin America in accepting democracy and the
market economy, for once the market's green shoots appear they tend to
flourish.

How to help kill communism

Outsiders should take their lead from the common position that Europe
adopted in 1996, which allows it to help in "the progressive and
irreversible opening of the Cuban economy" while predicating closer
friendship on moves towards democracy. Offering training and credit—as
Brazil has done—to Cuba's incipient private sector would be a good move.
Rewarding Cuba for releasing prisoners who should never have been locked
up in the first place—as Miguel Moratinos, Spain's recently sacked
foreign minister, wanted—would not.

America's embargo remains as futile and counter-productive as ever.
Although Barack Obama has commendably reversed George W. Bush's
restrictions on visits and remittances by Cuban-Americans, Republican
control of Congress will make it even less likely that the embargo will
be dismantled. That's a great shame. The embargo has allowed the Castros
to pose as proud Cuban nationalists standing up to a bullying hegemon
and thus helped them cling to power. If change is at last under way it
is despite the embargo, not because of it.

http://www.economist.com/node/17463463?story_id=17463463&fsrc=rss