Redefining Socialism in Cuba
September 18, 2015
Redefining Socialism in Cuba
by Garry Leech
US Secretary of State John Kerry travelled to Havana this past August for the flag-raising ceremony at the re-established US Embassy in Cuba. While this event was viewed as a landmark occasion by many in the United States, including the mainstream media, it was just the latest in a never-ending stream of landmarks for Cuba. From the victory of the socialist revolution in 1959 to emerging ties with the Soviet Union and the Socialist bloc during the 1960s to political and economic reforms in the mid-1970s to the disintegration of the Soviet Union and resulting “Special Period” during the 1990s to the far-reaching economic reforms of recent years. In other words, socialism in Cuba is not stagnant; nor is it reliant on US policy. To the contrary, Cuba’s socialism has constantly evolved as it has responded to both domestic and international conditions, and this constant redefining of the model continues today.
The recent changes in Cuba’s socialist model are perhaps most evident in the country’s capital city of Havana. While being a major draw for foreign tourists, Havana is also home to 2.2 million Cubans. Tourist Havana is evident in the newly-renovated buildings in various neighborhoods of the old colonial section of the city. These buildings host boutique hotels, restaurants, bars and shops. These neighborhoods have their own tourist currency (the convertible peso, CUC) and are filled with English-speaking Cubans. This is the side of Havana, indeed of Cuba, that most foreigners have experienced since the country opened up to tourism during the 1990s to obtain the hard currency required to import necessities it cannot produce itself. But there is another side to the city that constitutes a very different world, and it is the world in which most Cubans live.
Not far from the touristy parts of Old Havana is a neighborhood known as Belén. Its older buildings are not renovated and its streets are rarely traversed by foreigners. The convertible peso, or CUC, is largely useless here because everything is purchased using the national peso. In short, Belén is a typical urban neighborhood where Cubans go about their daily activities. What quickly becomes apparent in Belén though, are the social and economic changes that have occurred in Cuba’s socialist model over the past 20 years. At the root of these changes is a shift from state socialism to a more participatory model.
In the 1980s, Cuba more closely reflected the state socialist model that ultimately failed in the Soviet Union. As one resident of Belén stated: “We were so dependent on the state to do everything for us that we’d call the government if we needed a light bulb changed.” But with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the disintegration of the socialist trading bloc, Cuba had to become more creative if it was to survive both literally and figuratively as an island of socialism in an ocean of capitalism. And it was the creative survival strategies that emerged during the 1990s that have helped to redefine socialism in Cuba today.
The collapse of the Soviet Union, in conjunction with a corresponding tightening of the five-decades-long US blockade, meant that Cuba could no longer import sufficient food or oil. The country responded to the shortage of petroleum-based pesticides and fertilizers by becoming the world’s leader in organic agriculture. It responded to the shortage of fuel by becoming a leader in urban agriculture to diminish the need to transport food great distances to markets. As a result, more than 80 percent of the country’s agricultural production is now organic.
More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/09/18/redefining-socialism-in-cuba/
