BY MARTÍN KOPPEL AND MARY-ALICE WATERS
HAVANA - "We are open to all options and all experiences - all except surrendering, except giving up socialism, except renouncing the gains of the revolution and the power held by the people, except allowing others to be the masters of our country." Affirmation of this fundamental political course was at the center of Cuban president Fidel Castro's opening report to the Fifth Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba, held here October 8-10.

It was confirmed by the almost 1,500 delegates attending the gathering and was voiced repeatedly both in the congress discussion and on the street by working people who followed the deliberations on television and radio, which broadcast many hours of coverage.

The party congress "focused on the question we have all been discussing - the economy," said Juan José Iglesias, 51, a worker from a paint factory here. "Fidel was right in what he said. To get out of the `Special Period' there are no recipes or miracles. We have to keep fighting, working very hard, relying on the intelligence and creativity of every human being. What we won't do is go back to the old days of capitalism."

Iglesias made this comment as he stood in line with 60 of his co-workers and thousands of other people at the Plaza of the Revolution to pay tribute to Ernesto Che Guevara and his fellow revolutionaries who fell in battle in Bolivia 30 years ago (see accompanying article below). He was referring to the severe economic crisis in Cuba - known here as the Special Period - precipitated in 1990 by the abrupt loss of some 85 percent of the small island nation's foreign trade as the Soviet bloc regimes disintegrated.

The congress itself opened on the date commemorated as the 30th anniversary of Che's murder by the U.S.-backed Bolivian military. It closed on October 10, anniversary of El grito de Yara (the Cry of Yara), the call to arms that launched Cuba's first war of independence from Spain in 1868.

Delegates to the fifth congress adopted four major resolutions: a document titled "The party of unity, democracy and the human rights we defend"; a resolution on economic policy; a resolution approving the line of the main report given by Castro; and modifications to the party's statutes. They also elected a Central Committee, the decision-making body between congresses, and ratified the Political Bureau and the first and second secretaries elected by the new Central Committee.

The Communist Party had published and circulated "The party of unity, democracy and the human rights we defend" shortly after the congress was called in mid-April. The document was discussed over the past months by party members, members of the Union of Young Communists (UJC), and in thousands of meetings at workplaces and neighborhoods, organized by the trade unions and other mass organizations.

The document traces Cuba's revolutionary legacy - from the 19th century battles for independence from Spain, to the struggles against U.S. imperialist domination throughout the 20th century, to the 1959 revolutionary overthrow of the U.S.- backed Batista dictatorship - and reviews the gains of the socialist revolution. Answering the arguments by opponents of the revolution that the Cuban government and Communist Party are totalitarian, it defends the democratic character of Cuba's socialist revolution as one in which working people hold state power.

Concrete discussion on economy
The heart of the congress deliberations was a concrete discussion of the severe economic crisis Cuba has lived through since the last party congress took place in 1991, and a reaffirmation of the determination to find a collective, working-class road forward.

This discussion began with the opening report by Fidel Castro, the party's first secretary. Castro put aside the written report that had been prepared for him to read to the congress, and simply spoke to the delegates - and through them to the Cuban people - for almost seven hours. He detailed the conditions that Cuba has faced and dealt with over the past six years.

Between 1989 and 1992, Castro noted, Cuba's imports had dropped from roughly $8 billion a year to one quarter that amount. "What a brutal and sudden drop this was in food and other basic necessities of life for the country, for 10 million people, for the revolution."

By 1992, Cuba had lost most vital sources of supplies and markets, and had to look for new ones, the Cuban president said. "Hundreds of thousands of men and women were left practically with no work or raw materials in the factories. The amount of paper money in circulation expanded to startling proportions. Our currency was tremendously devalued. State subsidies expanded. The budget deficit grew, reaching 30 percent or more of the Gross Domestic Product." Castro added that even arms supplies and other defense- related equipment for Cuba's Revolutionary Armed Forces shrank to zero.

Given this drastic picture, made even more critical by Washington's economic war against Cuba, which time and again torpedoed new painstakingly negotiated trade agreements, capitalist spokespeople around the world "predicted the revolution's days were numbered. They predicted this small country would be unable to stand up to the United States," Castro noted.

But what did they think we were we going to do? he asked. "Go down on our knees? Surrender?.. That's what they demanded of Cuba: unconditional surrender, turning over the entire nation and people to the enemies of the nation and people, renouncing our gains, ideas, and ideals."

The Cuban revolutionary leadership took a different course, Castro said. They rejected going back to "the indignities of the past." In doing so, Castro noted, they have also had to wage a fight inside the country "against those who become disheartened, demoralized, those who have no principles, those who break laws at the expense of everyone else."

Refuse to go back to capitalism
Castro reviewed some of the most important measures taken to reverse the economic free fall and to revive production, such as allowing use of the U.S. dollar as a legal currency, developing tourism and encouraging foreign capitalist investment in Cuba. "Although we did not like this very much, development required capital, it required seeking new technology and markets," he said.

These measures, the Cuban leader noted, have inevitably generated undesirable social differences. He went on to say that despite these negative consequences Cuba has been able to maintain the most basic conquests of the revolution. The plunge in the Gross Domestic Product bottomed out in 1994 and since then a slight economic recovery has been under way.

In contrast to "other countries that live in a permanent Special Period," Castro said, Cuba still has social indices such as life expectancy and infant mortality that are comparable to those of the industrialized nations.

He referred to the rise in infant mortality, decline in life expectancy, and other deteriorating aspects of life in the former Soviet Union. He said this demonstrated what it means to renounce a socialist course and follow a road toward capitalism, "a system that, while dominant, is prehistoric because it has nothing to offer humanity - a wolf trying to devour another wolf has nothing to do with human beings."

Washington is waging a full-fledged economic war against Cuba, Castro stressed. "That's why we must be soldiers and fight like good soldiers in the economic war." He emphasized the need for political leadership to fight these battles, noting that "special work is needed for the education of youth."

`Che and revolution are same thing'
Castro devoted the whole final part of his speech to the importance of Che Guevara's leadership qualities, his ideas, the role Guevara played in Cuba and the identity between Che and the Cuban revolution. Che and Cubans came together on the Granma, Castro explained, to begin the revolutionary war. Together they lived through the October crisis in 1962 when Washington threatened to annihilate the Cuban people in a nuclear confrontation. Together "they began the construction of socialism, this socialism that is as much ours as his." And together they fought and died in Africa and Bolivia. "Che and the revolution are the same thing," he declared.

The major discussion at the congress took place under the report on the draft Economic Resolution, which was given by Political Bureau member Carlos Lage, who is also secretary of the Executive Committee of the Council of Ministers. Despite increases in areas such as nickel production, light industry, construction materials, and tobacco -signs of the recovery - the Cuban economy has grown by only 2.1 percent so far this year. Last year's growth was 7.8 percent.

The main cause of the lower economic growth, Lage noted, was the fall in sugar production. While no official figures have been released on the size of this year's sugar production, the most common estimate is 4.2 million tons, down from last year's level of 4.45 million tons. In comparison, for several years immediately prior to the beginning of the Special Period, annual sugar production ran close to 8 million tons.

The biggest blow to this year's sugar harvest was the loss of $200 million in financing due to the U.S. government's implementation of the so-called Helms-Burton act. This law mandates sanctions against companies "trafficking" in property formerly owned by U.S. citizens in Cuba. The Cuban government lost these short-term, high-interest loans at the crucial time needed to finance imports of fertilizer, spare machine parts, and other supplies for the harvest.

Lage highlighted some of the problems facing the Basic Units of Cooperative Production (UBPCs), both those growing sugarcane and those producing food crops. According to the figures released in late September, at the National Conference of Non-Sugarcane UBPCs in Santiago de Cuba, some 69 percent of the non-sugarcane UBPCs in Cuba are operating at a loss, although overall it is a smaller loss than a year ago. Barely one out of four of these co-ops is self- sufficient in food today. These problems are even more critical in the cane-growing UBPCs.

The Cuban government began the transformation of the country's state farms into smaller cooperative units four years ago. In these UBPCs, which account for 42 percent of the arable land, cooperative members have the right to use the land and own the fruit of their labor.

The challenge in agriculture
The richest part of the congress discussion focused on the crisis in agriculture today. Numerous delegates gave clear and concrete assessments of the challenges faced, and in some cases described examples where workers and farmers had made important advances. The thread running throughout the discussion, as Castro emphasized in his report, was that there are no magical solutions, that what is needed is communist leadership to eradicate administrative, routinist methods, combined with just plain hard work.

Ramón Romero, president of the Primer Soviet de América (First Soviet of America) sugarcane-producing cooperative in Mabay, Granma province, described with a wealth of detail how the farmers there had consistently obtained good yields for the past 14 years. The Primer Soviet is a kind of cooperative, known as Agricultural Production Cooperative (CPA), that was organized much earlier than the UBPCs.

Romero explained their careful attention to cane varieties used, efforts to reduce costs, the active involvement of all members of the co-op, and the resulting high morale. They also work an average of 10 hours a day, he said, whereas the average on many newly formed UBPCs is reported to be closer to 5 hours a day.

The presidents of 39 other CPAs from provinces across Cuba have traveled to the Primer Soviet, Orlando Lugo Fonte, president of the National Association of Small Farmers (ANAP), told delegates, taking that experience back with them to generalize the example. Part of the discussion by congress delegates was on the role the Cuban army has played in helping increase agricultural production through the Youth Army of Labor (EJT).

The EJT, volunteer units of young army recruits, often takes on farms that are the most difficult challenge. They work alongside the civilian workers and set high standards of discipline and productivity.

Róger Delgado, from Matanzas, recounted the experience at the Victoria de Girón (Girón Victory) citrus orchard in Jaguey Grande, of which he is the director. On this farm, organized by the EJT, workers produced 400,000 tons of fruit in the last year, breaking their historic record set in 1989, before the Special Period. They did so with only half the cultivated land, fewer tractors, and less fuel consumption. They organize two daily shifts and have taken other steps to improve their efficiency.

Belén Peña, 37, from Santiago province, is the president of a coffee farm belonging to the Naranjal UBPC, as well as secretary of the Communist Party nucleus at that farm. She related how workers there had completely turned around coffee production on the farm, transforming it from the worst in the municipality to the best. Then she sparked surprise, laughter, and applause, when she described how she and other workers had replaced the entire executive board, including the UBPC administrator - who is her husband, she told the congress - for "cronyism."

Discussion on UBPC cooperatives
At the request of the congress presiding committee, several provincial Communist Party secretaries in major sugar- producing provinces addressed the political problems behind the economic difficulties faced on the UBPCs. Pedro Sáez, party first secretary in Sancti Spíritu, stated, "When the state farms were turned into UBPCs, many of the directors of the state farms went on to become presidents of UBPCs. There was no change in mentality - they still had the idea that there were limitless resources and no consequences."

Similarly, Jorge Luis Sierra, first secretary in Holguín province, said that in the reorganization of state farms "the structures changed but the cadres didn't."

The first secretary in Santiago province, Juan Carlos Robinson, argued that if there is no discipline, even a considerable productive potential will be frittered away. Other key factors, he stressed, are the use of the workday and the political leadership by the local party unit. In Santiago province, one of those that has registered real gains, "we have 100 percent of the cane-producing areas planted - there are no unused areas; that makes a big difference."

Leadership question
One of the most important points on the congress agenda was the election of the Central Committee. Raúl Castro, second secretary of the party, reported on the work of the commission that made nominations for the new body. The congress decided to elect a new Central Committee of 150, one- third smaller than the previous one. Castro explained that the last two congresses had elected a committee of 225, eliminating the category of candidate CC members. He said the committee had become overly large and that many did not really function as part of a collective working body.

In arguing for the size reduction, Raúl Castro pointed out that the Chinese Communist Party has a Central Committee of 300-plus even though the party membership is 58 million - compared with some 600,000 members of the Cuban Communist Party. The Central Committee, he argued, should not be based on representation, but on demonstrated leadership capacities.

He noted that "there exists a perception that someone who comes off the Central Committee will never be returned" to the CC, but that this is false.

Castro also spoke about the need for renewal and continuing the transition in leadership. The election of the Central Committee was seen by many as a way to advance this transition toward an increasingly experienced generation of Cuban leaders that grew up within the revolution.

The new committee includes a number of younger party cadres, including a significant number who were formerly central leaders of the UJC and are today taking on major day- to-day party and government leadership responsibilities.

The Political Bureau of 24 was also renewed. The six members who have not previously served on it include some of the younger provincial party secretaries, such as Sáez, Robinson, and Sierra, and Misael Enamorado from Las Tunas.

Of the congress delegates themselves, 16 percent were under the age of 35. Some 22 percent were women.

In a major speech closing the congress, Fidel Castro returned to the main political questions discussed. He emphasized the positive examples that delegates had described of working people taking control of decisions and organizing themselves to make gains in raising production while holding down costs.

In each case, there was nothing mysterious or unique about the reasons for their success, he noted. "We must turn the exceptions into the rule, we must turn efficiency into the rule."

Castro pointed out that in the name of efficiency, capitalists and their governments carry out policies against the interests of working people. "We are not going to privatize companies - we will not take that road," he said. In capitalist countries such moves have led to layoffs and speedup on the job. In a country where workers and farmers hold power, the struggle for efficiency and quality and against waste must be part of working people taking increasing control of the country's economy for the benefit of humanity.

`We can do it better than capitalists'
"If capitalists can manage a company efficiently, we socialists can do so better than the capitalists," Castro argued. "We have the obligation to become administrators, good administrators. Let us do it not only for our well- being. Let us do it for the beautiful ideas that we are defending [and] to fight this unsustainable and ruthless capitalist system that has no future."

In the early years of the Cuban revolution, "we had the spirit of `Homeland or Death, We Shall Win.' " Now, Castro added, "we must have that same spirit" in fighting to improve productivity.

Castro returned in his closing speech to the kind of leadership working people need. He underlined the capacity of human beings to transform themselves through revolutionary struggle, pointing to the thousands of Cubans who have taken part in internationalist missions in countries like Nicaragua and Angola. "This is what Che meant when he said that being a revolutionary is the highest expression of humanity," he emphasized.

Castro recalled the life of Roberto Rodríguez, a combatant in the Rebel Army better known as El Vaquerito (Little Cowboy) who rapidly became an outstanding fighter in Guevara's Column 8 and a leader of the celebrated "Suicide Squad," which took on some of the most dangerous military assignments. He was killed in Santa Clara on Dec. 30, 1958, on the eve of the revolutionary victory.

"Vaquerito himself could not have imagined what he became. Humans have more capacities than what people think, and our duty as communists is to discover, promote, and develop those qualities. That was Che's virtue - his ability to promote these capacities, mainly by his own example.

"Now, when we are commemorating the 30th anniversary of his death, we must bring back something more than his mortal remains. We must also bring back his immortal ideas and example."  
 
 
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