by Will Podmore
In 2006, 36 per cent of the members of the National Assembly were women, the seventh highest proportion in the world. In 2008, 43 per cent of members were women and 36 per cent of members were between 18 and 30. After February 2013’s general election, 37.9 per cent of the Assembly’s members were people of colour. The average age of members was 48.
By 2014, 48.9 per cent of members were women, the fourth highest proportion in the world. Britain came 60th, with 22.6 per cent. The USA was 75th equal with Panama at 19.3 per cent. In Cuba, women held 66 per cent of professional and technical jobs. 49 per cent of judges were women.
In April 2011 Cubans elected a new Central Committee of the Communist Party. 48 of the 115 members were women, 41.7 per cent, triple the proportion elected at the previous Congress.
There were 36 blacks and mestizo members, 31.3 per cent, the highest ever, 10 per cent more than on the previous Central Committee. Cuba was the only country in the world in where blacks and mestizos had the state and the government as their ally. But they still needed to make more use of the state and the government as their allies to achieve full equality. The government and the party were not racist. But there was still some discrimination by some individuals.
The black and mestizo population in Cuba was the healthiest and best-educated mass of Afro-descendants in the hemisphere. No other country has done as much as Cuba to end racial discrimination and injustice.
Defending the revolution
US governments, Cuban exiles and ‘dissidents’ always told the Cuban people to abstain or to spoil their ballot papers in elections, without great success. In the 1993 National Assembly elections, 7.67 per cent abstained or spoilt their ballot papers, in 1995, 11.3 per cent, in 1998, 6.65 per cent, in 2003, 6.25 per cent, in 2007, 7.01 per cent, in 2010, 8.89 per cent and in 2012, 9.42 per cent.
Successive US governments have attacked, blockaded and bombed Cuba for 50 years. The US government funded the Cuban American National Foundation, a former board member of which publicly admitted that its leaders had created a paramilitary group to destabilise Cuba and to kill Fidel Castro.25 James Cason, head of the United States Interests Section (USIS), was told in 2002 to create so much ‘chaos’ that Cuba would expel him, causing a complete break in diplomatic relations. Cuba did not fall into the trap. Instead it arrested 75 Cubans for taking aid from a foreign power in order to engage in activities harmful to the country. Such acts were also deemed crimes in the USA and most other countries. But USIS had to admit that Cuba’s dissidents could show no proof of house searches, interrogations, detentions or arrests.26
Also, it was sheer hypocrisy for the US government to accuse Cuba of censorship: in 1971, the US Treasury Department closed down the First New York Festival of Cuban Cinema, seized all the prints and drove the co-sponsor of the festival, American Documentary Films, out of business. In January 2013, Cuba lifted restrictions on Cubans wishing to travel abroad. The USA still stopped its citizens from travelling to Cuba as tourists, threatening any such tourists with ten years’ jail.
USIS and some EU embassies in Havana openly backed subversion. The Polish diplomat Jacek Padee, in charge of political affairs, often attended opposition activities. The Dutch embassy provided the opposition with office supplies and Internet access. The Czech Republic gave the opposition appointments at the embassy to document their claimed violations of their human rights. Peter Brandel, an embassy official, played a leading role in these activities. Sweden’s delegation was also involved. The German embassy’s counsellor, Volker Pellet, came out on the street to support the damas en blanco, the Ladies in White, relatives of imprisoned opposition members.
President Bush wasted $166 million between 2001 and 2008 trying to restore capitalism in Cuba. In 2005, the USA’s National Endowment for Democracy (NED) paid the governments of Poland, Romania and the Czech Republic $2.4 million to fund their anti-Cuba groups, for example Poland’s Lech Walesa Institute. In 2006, the US government set up a ‘Cuba Fund for a Democratic Future’ with an $80 million budget for building an opposition in Cuba.
President Obama wasted $60 million between 2009 and 2011 trying to destabilise Cuba, much of it given to NGOs like Spain’s Solidarity with Cuba, which also got $615,000 from the International Republican Institute between September 2008 and December 2009. Payment of counter-revolutionary bloggers has also been privatised. Opposition blogger Yoanni Sanchez received $500,000 in international prizes awarded by corporate agencies. In 2010, the US Agency for International Development sent 50 people a month into Cuba to deliver technical and financial aid to opposition members. The Spanish government and the NED funded the opposition website Cuba Encuentro.27
Carlos Manuel Serpa, a Cuban security agent who infiltrated many of Cuba’s tiny, US-funded counter-revolutionary groups between 2001 and 2011, said that it was easy to organise an anti-Cuba media campaign. All he had to do was invent a piece of news and call Radio Martí. Without any confirmation or verification, they would put it out on air.28
Social progress
In 1990, Cuba spent 20 per cent of its GDP on social services (education, social security and health care all provided free of charge to all), as against other Latin American countries’ 10 per cent. By 1998, Cuba had raised this spending by 60 per cent (against a Latin American average rise of 30 per cent) to 32 per cent, again the highest proportion in Latin America.
Cuba maintained its comprehensive early childhood support programmes.29 Save the Children, an internationally-acclaimed children’s advocate organisation, annually ranked the best and worst places to be a mother. In 2010, it ranked Cuba number one of the 81 less developed countries. (It ranked the USA 28th of the 43 more developed countries.30)
In 2008, Cuba’s infant mortality rate, 5/1,000, was lower than the USA’s 7/1,000, and the same as Britain’s 2006 figure. In 1958 it had been 60/1,000. By 2012, on the CIA’s estimate, it was 4.83/1,000. Cuba’s child mortality rate in 2008 was 6/1,000, the USA’s 8/1,000. In the 1950s, the maternal mortality rate was 120 per 100,000 live births, by 1992, it was 32.
During the Special Period, the proportion of physically active adults doubled. Between 1997 and 2002, deaths from diabetes were reduced by 51 per cent, from coronary heart disease by 35 per cent and from stroke by 20 per cent. In 1958, Cuban life expectancy was 55 years. By 2011, it was 78, higher than in the USA.
Cuba’s success in achieving good health for its people was shown in its sporting prowess. In the 2012 London Olympics, Cuba came 16th in the medals table, the highest-ranked Latin American country.
But the US government persisted in attacking Cuba: in January 2011, it even seized $4.2 million in funds allocated to Cuba by the United Nations Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
Much has changed in Cuba. Several years ago, hardly anyone contemplated openly coming out on the island. Until the 1990s, gays were socially excluded: they got disapproving looks around the neighbourhood and even lost their jobs. But in 2010, Fidel Castro expressed regret for the government’s earlier attitude towards gays. Now the Cuban government rejects all discrimination against gays. Mariela Castro Espin, the daughter of Cuban President Raul Castro, heads the National Centre for Sex Education. She has campaigned for years for gay rights and called for same-sex marriage to be allowed. The Communist Party stated that it favoured allowing same-sex marriage, but the legislation had yet to be drafted.31 On 17 May 2013, Cuba held lectures and workshops to mark the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia.
Cuba made great strides in education. By 2012, its illiteracy rate was 2 per cent (the USA’s was 12 per cent.) Its literacy programme ‘Yo, sí puedo’ became a model for developing countries.32 Cubans assisted other countries’ literacy campaigns. In 2006, UNESCO awarded Cuba its Literacy Award for its contribution to literacy campaigns in 15 countries.
Cuba devoted 13 per cent of its GDP to education – more than twice as much as any other country in the wo
rld. Primary schooling and pre-primary schooling had become almost universal in Cuba by 1969. There were 300,000 enrolled in secondary technical schools in 1983-84. Every secondary school child could prepare for university entrance. Class sizes were constantly reduced. In the 1980s, women made up nearly half of all students attending high schools, 44 per cent of those at technical schools and more than half of all university students. Emulation, not competition, was the ethic. Racial and gender inequalities vanished as educational opportunities grew.
By 1990, there were eight universities and 35 research institutes. There were 280,000 students, eight times the number in the late 1950s. By 2010, there were one million university students. There were universities in every province and education up to postgraduate school was free. Cuba focused on providing higher education courses in technology, medical sciences, pure sciences, agricultural sciences, economics and teaching, to meet the economy’s needs. Cuba achieved one of the highest educational levels in the world and one of the highest numbers of scientists per head of any country in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
The battle of ideas and the future
In 2014, the UN, for the 23rd year in a row, called for an end to the blockade. 188 countries voted to end the blockade; the USA and Israel voted against. Three small island states, the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, and Palau, abstained. The blockade had cost Cuba an estimated $1.1 trillion up to October 2014.
Yet Cuba continued to win support from countries around the world and to develop trade links with countries around the world, especially with Latin America.
Cuba developed its economy in such a way that it also cared for the environment. Cubans achieved the world’s largest conversion from conventional farming to organic, environmentally sustainable farming. The people stopped using costly, harmful petroleum-based pesticides. They adopted a soil management programme that helped to preserve the natural environment. They reintroduced traditional peasant practices where appropriate. They reduced tillage and rehabilitated the soil. They used green manures, biofertilisers and organic fertilisers rather than chemical ones. They used integrated pest-management methods, biological control and biopesticides. They used crop diversity, crop rotations and intercropping. They recycled waste and experimented in biotechnology. Cuba’s farming became the most organic in the world.
Cuba’s urban farming movement employed 326,000 people. They reared small animals in kitchen gardens. From home gardens in the cities they sold fruit, vegetables, meat, herbs, plants and flowers in farmers’ markets. Havana grew 90 per cent of its fruit and vegetables on more than 7,000 organiponicos, covering more than 80,000 acres. So there was no need for costly refrigerated transport, which saved energy, time and spoilage.
Gardener Monty Don judged that no other country in the world had organised its food production so effectively through gardens. He wrote that he was hugely inspired by this and full of admiration for the intelligence and dignity of the Cuban people.33
Cuba protected her environment through environmental education at all stages of schooling to enable people to take part in making decisions on the environment.34 Cubans understood the need for environmental ethics and aesthetics. They had a duty to protect Cuba’s unusually rich biological diversity. They worked hard to reforest Cuba – forest covered 15 per cent of the island in 1970, 23.6 per cent in 2004. Cuba was the only country in the Caribbean and Central America region to reforest.
Cuba’s socialist efforts reflected the people’s long-term care of nature for the good of future generations. As part of these efforts, Cuba developed eco-tourism. Sites included Sierra del Rosario, a UNESCO-declared biosphere reserve, the Viñalas Valley, the fish-and-game preserve in the Zapata Swamp, the Topes de Collantes Hills, the Turquino National Park and Saetia Cay.
The blockade forced the Cuban people to husband their energy sources. They had to achieve self-reliance, sustainability in one country. They had to develop and use a variety of energy sources.
A 2012 conference on renewable sources of energy praised Cuba’s use of alternative sources of energy. Enrico Turrino, founding member of Eurosolar and honorary member of CubaSolar, said that the island was a model other countries should adopt in order to make good use of clean sources of energy for the benefit both of people and of the environment. He highlighted the solarisation projects carried out in the municipalities of Bartolome Maso and Guama in the eastern provinces of Granma and Santiago de Cuba, where thermal, photoelectric, wind, water and biomass sources were used for the sustainable development of these communities.
So Cuba met its people’s needs using small amounts of natural resources. Cuba was the only country in the world that lived within its environmental footprint while achieving high levels of human development. This was due to its unique combination of good environmental management with excellent provision of health care and education.35 The World Wildlife Fund said that Cuba was the only country on Earth to meet the minimum requirements for sustainable development. It had both a quality of life above the Fund’s threshold of 0.8 on the Human Development Index and an ecological footprint that was sustainable.36
The Cuban people continued to work to improve their health, welfare, education and culture. The Battle of Ideas grew to encompass more than 170 educational, cultural and social programmes. These included cutting class sizes to 20 students at the primary-school level and 15 at the junior-high level; higher education campuses and youth computer clubs in the municipalities; and 15 new arts colleges which have graduated thousands of young instructors who teach music, dance and fine arts in schools and in the community. Two new TV channels were dedicated solely to educational programmes, including tertiary-level courses. An annual travelling book fair drew huge crowds in 35 cities and towns. Schools in remote areas, even those schools with just one or a few students, were fitted with solar panels to power TVs, VCRs and computers.
On 17 December 2014, the USA and Cuba agreed to restore diplomatic ties that the USA severed 54 years before. President Obama called for an end to the embargo. He ordered the restoration of full diplomatic relations with Cuba. The US government acknowledged, almost uniquely, that its previous policy had failed and had been wrong.
Obama instructed Secretary of State John Kerry to begin the process of removing Cuba from the list of states that sponsored terrorism. Obama promised to ease restrictions on remittances, travel and banking, while Cuba said that it would allow more Internet access and would release 53 Cubans identified as political prisoners by the US government.
Cuba’s revolution was for liberty, equality and fraternity; for winning through their own efforts; for education, social awareness, organisation and public service; for clear thinking, intelligence and realism; for modesty, altruism, courage; for never lying or violating ethical principles; it is a profound conviction that no power can crush the power of truth and ideas. The revolution meant unity, independence, patriotism, socialism and internationalism.
In its struggle for national unity and sovereignty and in its efforts to develop its communist morals and ideas, the Cuban working class was taking responsibility for its future.
Notes
Introduction
1. Congress ’82, CPBML pamphlet, 1982, pp. 1-2 and 3.
Chapter 1 Russia, to 1927
1. See Nikolai Dronin and Edward Bellinger, Climate dependence and food problems in Russia, 1900-1990: the interaction of climate and agricultural policy and their effect on food problems, Central European University Press, 2006, p. 2.
2. Emile J. Dillon, The eclipse of Russia, New York: George H. Doran, 1918, p. 67.
3. Edward Acton and Tom Stableford, editors, The Soviet Union: a documentary history, Volume 1 1917-1940, University of Exeter Press, 2005, p. 84.
4. Cited p. 71, Adam Hochschild, To end all wars: how the First World War divided Britain, Macmillan, 2011.
5. 19 August 1914, cited p. 12, Paul N. Hehn, A low dis
honest decade: the great powers, Eastern Europe, and the economic origins of World War Two, 1930-1941, New York: Continuum, 2002.
6. See Christopher Clark, The sleepwalkers: how Europe went to war in 1914, Allen Lane, 2012, pp. 537, 538 and 557.
7. V. I. Lenin, The ‘United States of Europe’ Slogan, Collected Works, Volume 18, Moscow: FLP, p. 232.
8. The war programme of the proletarian revolution, p. 60, in Lenin on war and peace: three articles, FLP, Peking, 1966, pp. 58-72.
9. V. I. Lenin, Speech delivered at a joint meeting of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Moscow Soviet, 14th May 1918, Collected Works, Volume 23, Moscow: FLP, p. 9.
10. Cited p. 32, Peter Kenez, Civil war in South Russia, 1918, University of California Press, 1971.
11. Both quotations cited p. 106, Michael Hughes, Inside the enigma: British officials in Russia, 1900-1939, Hambledon Press, 1997.
12. Sir George Buchanan, My mission to Russia and other diplomatic memoirs, Volume II, Cassel & Co., 1923, p. 185.
13. Judiciary Committee (Senate) Hearings, 65th Congress, Third Session 1919, Bolshevik Propaganda, p. 780.
14. Report (Political and Economic) of the Committee to Collect Information on Russia, HMSO, 1921, p. 17.
15. Donald Raleigh, Revolution on the Volga: 1917 in Saratov, Cornell University Press, 1986, p. 323.
16. Evan Mawdsley, The Russian civil war, Allen & Unwin, 1987, p. 273.
17. Alexander Statiev, The Soviet counterinsurgency in the Western borderlands, Cambridge University Press, 2010, p. 15.
18. Ronald Suny, p. 175, ‘Revision and retreat in the historiography of 1917: social history and its critics’, Russian Review, 1994, Vol. 53, pp. 165-82. See Terence Emmons, ‘Unsacred history’, The New Republic, 5 November 1990, p. 36.
