By Marce Cameron

On New Year's Day, millions of Cuban revolutionaries and their supporters around the world celebrated one of the great historical turning-points of the 20th century – the triumph of the Cuban Revolution.

When Fidel Castro’s Rebel Army victory caravan entered Havana on January 8, 1959, there were scenes of joyous pandemonium. “It was one of those rare moments in history”, wrote the American journalist Lee Lockwood, “when cynics became romantics, and romantics became fanatics”.

That same day, a 32-year-old Fidel addressed the jubilant multitude. Somebody released white doves, one of which alighted and sat perched on Fidel’s shoulder as he spoke. Many Cubans saw this as an omen that he would lead them to a better future.

Fidel, gazing into that uncertain future, reminded Cubans of the difficulties that surely lay ahead: “The tyranny has been overthrown. Our joy is immense. However, much remains to be done. We shall not deceive ourselves believing that in the future everything will be easier, because perhaps everything will be more difficult.” Even in that moment of triumph Fidel cautioned against triumphalism. 

This Revolution could destroy itself

Fast-forward nearly half a century to the Great Hall of the University of Havana on the night of November 17, 2005, and Fidel once again warned against triumphalism. He shocked his youthful audience, and the nation, by candidly revealing that up to half the revenue from fuel sales was being lost to corruption at every point along the supply chain, from the refineries to the petrol bowsers – equivalent to the salaries paid by Cuba’s socialist state to the entire teaching staff of its world-class higher education sector.

Fidel gave other examples of what he described as “the general state of disorder” reigning in the country, and warned: “This country could destroy itself, this Revolution could destroy itself, they [US imperialism] cannot destroy it. We could destroy it ourselves, and it would only be our fault.” It was a wake-up call. Hundreds of young social workers had already been dispatched to monitor the refineries, ride the tankers and staff the petrol stations temporarily to re-establish order.

“In this battle against vice there will be no truce for anyone. We shall be thoroughly scrupulous. We will appeal to everyone’s sense of honour. We are sure of one thing; every human being possesses a healthy dose of honour. When one looks in the mirror, one is not always the harshest of judges, even though, in my opinion, the first responsibility of a revolutionary is to be extremely severe with oneself”, he said.

Criticism of errors and weaknesses should not be limited to small circles. “We never resort to criticism on a larger scale… We must carry out criticism and self-criticism in the class room, in the party cells ... in the municipality and finally in the entire country.”

Reflecting on the fate of the Soviet Union, Fidel asked: “Is it that revolutions are doomed to fall apart, or that people cause revolutions to fall apart? Can either man or society prevent revolutions from collapsing? I could immediately add to this another question: Do you believe that this revolutionary socialist process can fall apart, or not? Have you ever given that some thought? Have you ever deeply reflected on it?”

Before the Special Period – the deep economic crisis caused by the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba’s main trading partner at the beginning of the 1990s – Cuba was a relatively egalitarian society after three decades of socialist revolution infused with the radical humanism of Cuba’s revolutionary tradition. Alongside universal free health care and education, across-the-board state subsidies ensured equal access to most goods and services.

Today, those same subsidies allow what Fidel called the “new rich” – a substantial minority of Cubans that can live comfortably without having to work thanks to remittances, theft from the socialist state and other illicit activities linked to the black market – to pay next to nothing for these goods and services. In effect the working people are subsidising the new rich. “Did you know that there are people who ‘earn’ forty or fifty times the amount one of those doctors over there in the mountains of Guatemala?” Fidel asked, referring to Cuba’s international volunteer medical brigades. There were, he said, “several dozens of thousands of parasites who produce nothing” in Cuba.

The whole vast edifice of universal state subsidies would have to be dismantled, Fidel argued, in the name of social justice. “Subsidies and free services will be considered only in essentials. Medical services will be free, so will education and the like. Housing will not be free”, he suggested. “Can the country resolve its housing problem by giving away houses? And who will get them, the proletariat or the humble people? Many humble people were given houses for free and then they sold them to the new rich. How much can the new rich spend on a house? Is this socialism?”

The elimination of subsidies would allow the state to increase salaries, pensions and student allowances, putting more money in the pockets of the working people at the expense of the parasitic new rich. [E]veryone who works for the country and the Revolution will receive more. The abuses will end; many of the inequalities will disappear, as will the conditions that allowed them to exist. When there is no one left that needs to be subsidized we will have advanced considerably in our march towards a society of justice and dignity. That is what true and irreversible socialism demands”, Fidel concluded