Castro May Not Be Open to Glasnost : He’ll Likely Resist Calls for Reform, and Get Away With It

If Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev gets around to visiting Cuba next year, it will be intriguing to see how he and Fidel Castro handle the question of glasnost and perestroika , the Russian buzz words that are used to describe Gorbachev’s policies of greater openness and relaxed state controls over the economy.

The Soviets have a long history of believing that they know what is best for lesser members of the Soviet Bloc, and have never been stingy with free advice. Gorbachev’s swing through Eastern Europe a few weeks ago fell into that pattern.

Although the Soviet leader and his entourage disclaimed any intention of “imposing” the Kremlin’s views on other Communist countries, Gorbachev talked openly about the need to give people more information and to move away from old-style centralized economic planning.

Gorbachev’s preachings were received coolly in East Germany and Romania, especially, both of which are run by hardline Communist leaders who fear that too much glasnost could trigger dangerous political unrest. But Bulgaria, as usual, is falling dutifully into line. And the Soviet leader was cheered by the man in the street everywhere he went--precisely because people hoped that he would influence their old-fashioned leaders to introduce the more relaxed style of communist rule that Gorbachev is promoting in the Soviet Union.

The same sort of gap between the leaders and the led is likely to show up when Gorbachev visits Havana, where Castro presides over an old-fashioned communist government that is in fact marching resolutely away from Gorbachev-type reforms.

Soviet publications have never been exactly best-sellers in Cuba--until lately. Now they are hot items. As an unemployed musician told a visiting Wall Street Journal reporter, “Everyone with half a brain is hoping for glasnost.”

Castro, however, in a recent speech to the Union of Young Communists, said pointedly that “we should have our own way of interpreting the revolutionary ideas of Marxism-Leninism.”

Moscow has plenty of reason not to pick a fight with the Cubans. The Soviets have benefited from Castro’s ego-driven determination to cut a major figure on the world stage. Cuban troops have served Soviet purposes in Angola and Ethiopia, among other places. Cuba’s strategic location gives the Soviets a valuable presence on America’s southern flank.

However, the Soviets also have plenty of reason to nudge Castro, if they can, toward a more effective system of economic management.

Cuba has been getting Soviet subsidies since the early 1960s, and shows no sign of getting off the dole. The Soviets buy Cuban sugar at far above the world price, and for many years sold the Cubans oil at well below the world price. The oil subsidy is smaller now, but Cuba is still allowed to resell some of its Soviet oil for hard currency with which it can buy badly needed Western goods and technology.

All in all, Soviet economic aid runs about $4 billion a year. According to some estimates, Cuba’s total debt to the Soviet Bloc may total a mind-boggling $22 billion--this on top of several billion dollars owed to Western creditors. Last year was disastrous for the economy, with foreign-currency earnings plunging nearly 50%.

Western experts are generally convinced that, while the Soviet Union is not about to abandon valuable allies like Cuba, Vietnam and Ethiopia, Gorbachev’s Kremlin is anxious to reduce the financial costs of empire. From where the Soviet leader sits, that translates into a need for greater efficiency, which in turn suggests a need for the sort of material incentives and neo-capitalist experiments that are under way in the Soviet Union.

Well before Gorbachev became the top man in the Kremlin, Castro did in fact tinker with reform.

In 1980 a peasant free market was established, allowing small farmers to sell surplus produce. Wage differentials and performance-based bonuses were increased to improve productivity. New laws were enacted in 1982 to encourage foreign investment.

Fifteen months ago, however, Castro threw the machinery into reverse. Outraged that some farmers had managed to get rich, he closed the peasant markets that had helped to alleviate chronic food shortages. In December he adopted an austerity program and went back to attacking “capitalist tendencies” and exhorting Cubans to work harder as a moral and patriotic duty.

As Castro told one American interviewer, “A society that solves problems with material incentives is capitalist, and we have no intention of going back to capitalism.” That could not have gone down well in Moscow.

Gorbachev believes that moral exhortations, in the absence of opportunities for better pay, are not enough to cure what’s wrong with the Soviet economy. According to conversations reported by Western visitors, many educated Cubans--trained, in many cases, in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe--are convinced that the same is true in Cuba.

However, Cuba’s captive newspapers have been noticeably slow to tell their readers about developments in the Soviet Union. The new Soviet law that encourages self-management and self-financing of state-owned enterprises has barely been mentioned. Self-righteous complaints are heard that Cuba’s economic relations with the Soviet Union have become too market-oriented.

Castro obviously sees himself as a better communist than the new, change-minded crowd in Moscow.

In light of the leverage created by its massive aid to Cuba, the Soviets could probably force Castro to fall into line. A reformist Cuba might well be easier for the United States to deal with, so we should hope that Gorbachev sees fit to turn the screws.

Moscow, however, probably doesn’t have an appetite for that kind of ideological confrontation, given Cuba’s importance as a Soviet strategic asset. If that is the case, then Castro, who is a senior citizen compared with the Soviet leader, can be expected to go right on running the kind of communist regime that Gorbachev believes is the problem rather than the solution.

Some pessimistic Cubans have told visitors that real change is impossible until Castro and his like-minded associates pass on. It’s probably true.

DR, GALLEGO & RAY, Diario 16, Madrid