Public Attack on Capitalism’s Remnants : Castro Struggling to Put Revolution Back on Track

In the 28th year of his revolution, President Fidel Castro has cast a critical eye on Cuba, and he has seen that all is not well.

Things seem to get done badly, late or not at all. People don’t always work hard enough or well enough. Many are selfish, greedy or dishonest.

In short, there is not enough revolutionary fervor to suit the revolution’s leader.

And so Castro is demanding rectificacion . He is waging what he calls a battle, a “great crusade,” to rectify what is wrong with the Cuban revolution.

It is time to shape up, he says, to bear down. He is calling for a national struggle against managerial inefficiency, labor indiscipline, corruption, crime and capitalistic deviations.

Since April, in a series of public discourses and discussions, Castro has railed against “distortions and deviations” that he says must be rectified. He has shouted, gesticulated, pounded on tables. He has given example after example of what he says is amiss, and he has ordered Communist cadres high and low to find ways of setting things right. Cadres and workers, in turn, have held large, long meetings in all the provinces to discuss the problems.

All this has constituted an unprecedented public washing of the Cuban revolution’s dirty linen.

“We have to wash the dirty linen,” Castro told the Communist Party’s Central Committee in a speech that was aired on television in late July. “I am convinced that what is suffocating us, infecting us, choking us is not washing the dirty linen for fear that the enemy in Miami might find out, or the imperialists, and use it to attack us.

“I am convinced that discussing all these problems out in the open within a socialist, revolutionary exchange of criticism . . . gives us tremendous strength.”

Many of the problems that Castro has decried are remnants of small-scale capitalism in this socialist society.

In a speech to a meeting of agricultural cooperative leaders, he told of an unnamed farmer who owns two trucks and makes an “incredible” $150,000 a year from hauling fees.

“Plus what he must earn in all his dirty deals,” Castro added, calling the man an example of the “bourgeois enemy that has a mercantile mentality and wants to grow rich with the sweat of the revolutionary people.”

In another example of what Castro called neo-capitalistic abuse, he said another unnamed farmer had made $50,000 in a year selling garlic at “peasants’ free markets.”

In May, the government abolished those markets, where farmers had been allowed to sell excess produce for a profit since 1980. Now, all farm production, including what is grown on tens of thousands of private plots, must be delivered to the government. Castro said the private plots eventually will be merged into the government’s cooperative farm system.

“There are thousands of small farmers who have become rich,” he said in a June speech. “There are thousands of truck owners who have become rich. . . . There are tens of thousands of rich people in this country.

‘They Will Bribe Anyone’

“What are the consequences? They will bribe anyone; they will corrupt anyone.”

And in another speech, he warned, “Those neo-capitalist, neo-bourgeois who are attempting to get ahead can rest assured that the revolution will crush them.”

Castro said a “new caste of rich people” emerged in recent years as self-employed Cubans built businesses and small factories, often using government resources and stolen goods. In one case, he said, thieves stole a truckload of cigars and sold them “for a lot of pesos.”

“A growth in crime was noticed, but at the same time, of most concern is the noticeable yearning for money, a profit spirit, a spirit of enrichment that was really invading our working class,” he said.

Use of government property for personal gain must be stopped, he said. As an example, he told of a man who borrowed a 16-ton crane and two other government trucks to build a roof on a private house.

He said the man could sell his house for $40,000, “and he will have a buyer because those who steal money in one way or another, and those who have large incomes that do not come from work, buy a house very easily.”

Brisk Business in Houses

The buying and selling of homes flourished under a new housing law enacted last year. But under the new crusade, real estate transactions must now be made through the government.

Castro said the building, buying and selling of houses had become “an unbelievable business.”

The Cuban penchant for buying and selling was reflected in thick classified advertisement sections published until recently by the magazine Opina and the newspaper Tribuna. A few weeks ago, the want ads disappeared from both publications.

In his campaign, Castro has complained about abuse of “material incentives” for workers, such as excessive overtime pay and bonuses for surpassing artificially low production quotas. He said many workers illicitly make double pay and more.

Pay policies need to be revised and strictly enforced, he said, and the early revolutionary practice of voluntary extra work without pay should be brought back.

Bottlenecks, Loafing

Castro also has complained that too much work time is lost because of meetings, production bottlenecks and loafing. In many cases, he said, workers are putting in only four, five or six hours of productive labor a day.

Absenteeism is another serious problem, according to Castro. He cited a new textile factory in the city of Santiago where the absentee rate among workers is a “scandalous” 25%.

“We have not taught the people that the first duty of a revolutionary and of socialism, and the first duty of the citizen, is to work hard and produce, with responsibility and discipline,” Castro told the Central Committee.

Unfinished After 21 Years

The textile factory also has been used as an example of poor workmanship and long delays in construction projects. Castro said the factory took 21 years to build and still is not completely finished--and the roof is full of leaks.

Santiago has unemployment problems, Castro said, but “the more serious problem is building factories that we are not capable of building well. We are not capable of making it productive once it is completed. We are not capable of labor discipline.”

Speaking later of unfinished construction, Castro said the country has come to accept “the calamity of taking 10, 15, 20 years” to complete projects.

“It is as if we were stuck in a spider web, on taffy or in a swamp,” he said.

He blamed many of the problems on managers and administrators.

Easier to Be ‘Good Guys’

“They have fallen into demagogic practices, because it is always easier to approve things and play the role of good guys than it is to adopt a vigorous, serious, responsible, revolutionary and Communist attitude,” he said. “Firmness and determination have been lacking.”

Despite the somber picture that Castro has painted in his campaign, he has vowed repeatedly that the problems will be solved. “We are waging a battle and we must win,” he said.

But he has emphasized that the rectification drive will not be a radical movement.

“We do not want to carry out a Cultural Revolution here,” he said, an apparent reference to the upheaval in China that began in the mid-1960s. “We do not want to solve the problems through extremist methods and stir up the masses.”

A Western diplomat in Havana said Castro’s campaign shows a deep distrust of the kinds of market mechanisms and material incentives that are being used to stimulate production in some other Communist countries--China, for instance. And so Cuba’s Communists are emphasizing discipline, the diplomat said.

“I suspect they will continue to rumble and rumble on, and they will try much stricter regulations on workers, which is not going to make the workers very happy,” he said.

Another diplomat likened Castro’s rectification drive to a religious revival.

Part of the “theology of socialism,” this diplomat said, is to create a “new man” whose main objective in life is the common good.

“It’s revival time--political revival time, economic revival time,” he said. “The basic message is, ‘We must be better.’ ”