CUBA'S WAY IS UNMISTAKABLE
By Manuel E. Yepe

A CubaNews translation. Edited by Walter Lippmann.

An American friend of the Cuban Revolution who was visiting in Havana was telling me the other day that he was under the impression that Cubans were fooling the world pretending -with the reforms they were adopting- that there was a turn to capitalism, when in fact what they are trying to do is to continue moving forward towards socialism.

I explained to him that Cuban President Raúl Castro has repeatedly stated that “everything we do is aimed at the preservation and development of a prosperous and sustainable socialist society”. The campaigns promoted by Washington against Cuba are the ones using the sophism that the Island is turning to capitalism, and thus to sustain their claim that socialism has failed.

It is obvious that the deep transformations taking place in Cuba, in the shape of a readjustment of the economic system built from 1959, are meant to a certain extent to take advantage of some of the stimuli typical of the market.

If we look at the important changes that took place in Cuba in the year that has just ended – all resulting from the implementation of President Raúl Castro’s program for the updating of the economic model- we can see their great impact which corporate media hide or manipulate. 

A simple review of the transformations that took place in the year that just ended all resulting from the implementation of President Raúl Castro’s program for the updating of the economic model- allows us to see clearly that the nature of the changes is consistent with the public statements of the Cuban leaders and very far from the speculations of an inadmissible return to capitalism.   

In January 2012 the Conferencia del Partido Comunista de Cuba was held. It had been convened the year before in April by the 6th Congress of the Communist Party when the general guidelines of action to lead the economic and social reforms the country is carrying out were passed.

In the same month, the option to rent state owned buildings and spaces by private workers was expanded. This had been experimentally tried in small barber shops and hairdressing salons. Regulations to practice self employment trades were also made more flexible.

In July, the National Assembly passed a new tax law which includes taxes on rent, sales, services, labor force contracts and a compulsory contribution for social security.

In September, important measures were approved that widen the management and control autonomy of the Unidades Básicas de Producción Cooperativa (UBPC) [Basic Units for Cooperative Production] leaving in the hands of the state enterprises to which these are linked only the supervision of the technical norms of the contracted production.

In October a Decree-Law was passed that set the rules for the leasing of state-owned fallow lands to private farmers and authorized the building on those lands of family homes and other useful constructions for the protection of animals and crops.

The new law increases considerably the extension of the areas granted to private tenants, as well as the time period applicable to this legal procedure. More than 170,000 persons have benefited from this leasing of lands.

Also in October new migratory regulations were announced. These eliminated restrictions and simplified procedures. The new regulations will contribute to allow Cuba to continue practicing a policy that favors a legal, organized and safe emigration despite the hostility of its powerful neighbor.

Another decision of great impact has been the opening of sugar industry to foreign investments, granting privileges to those that would supply capital, technology and markets for the productions 

In the last month of the year, small cafeterias with up to five workers were experimentally transferred to a new management model that includes the leasing of the businesses to the workers who will manage them.

Also approved was the gradual creation of cooperatives in sectors such as transportation, gastronomy, fishing, housekeeping and personal services, construction and production of building materials.

In the same way capitalist economies resort to the state when there are difficulties the market cannot solve, a centralized economy such as the Cuban economy may resort, without fear, to market mechanisms that could be useful to consolidate its progress.

The transformations Cuba has been making are remarkable, but have nothing to do with a change of compass and much less with a return to an unfair system Cuba had suffered and rejected.

January 2013.