Property, decentralisation and participation

A fourth key issue in the debate, or really several closely related issues, come under the heading “property forms, decentralisation and participation”. Regarding property forms, many argue that a different balance of social and private ownership of productive wealth is needed. At one extreme are a few who think that most or all state property should be turned into autonomous producer cooperatives, a petit-bourgeois utopia that would quickly lead back to capitalism. 

A more common view is that a limited opening to private, and especially cooperative, property in non-essential services and small productive entities would be a step forward and a necessary retreat from the sweeping 1968 Revolutionary Offensive that expropriated the urban petit-bourgeoisie. We should note that the central leader of the Russian Revolution, Vladimir Lenin, argued in some of his last writings that cooperatives are not antithetical to socialist construction in economic sectors where labour is not objectively socialised, such as in peasant agriculture, small workshops, restaurants and the like.  

As one Granma reader argued, “From their nationalisation by the Cuban state in 1968, small businesses and retail firms were converted, little by little, into a source of illicit profit, the robbery of the state, inefficiency and maltreatment ... Arguably socialism, by definition, necessitates social ownership of the fundamental means of production, and this is not at odds with personal, family or cooperative property over some means of production or services. The state must free itself from the yoke of these entities which, far from being social property, have become a means for the enrichment of a minority group that exploits [the majority] to the detriment of the satisfaction of the needs of the client, that is, the people.” 

The opposing view is that expanding the scope of cooperatives and other small-scale private initiative is unnecessary and unwise. One reader, referring to the 1968 expropriations, wrote that “the counter- revolution, which has not ceased in its determination to obstruct the [revolutionary] process, found in those small proprietors an excellent breeding ground from which to forge their destabilisation and terrorist plans against the Revolution.” It is also pointed out that there seem to be fewer complaints about the quality of the services offered by the state outside of the capital, Havana, adding a geographic dimension to the debate.   

Regarding decentralisation and participation, what is referred to here is not participation in mobilisations or in carrying out the tasks of the revolution, but specifically participation in decision making. Decision making and administration have always been highly centralised in revolutionary Cuba, many would argue excessively so. In the early years of the revolution there was no alternative, given the turbulence of the confrontation with imperialism and the immaturity of the subjective factor, that is, of the cultural and political level of the mass of working people.

Moreover, the centralised allocation of resources and the mobilisation of people in conditions of siege, scarcity and national emergency are behind much of what we admire about revolutionary Cuba, from the energy revolution to hurricane evacuation and recovery. During the Special Period, centralised control over the use of scarce resources became even more important. Yet as Mariela Castro, Raul’s daughter and a leader in the fight for gay rights in Cuba told the Al Jezeera news service, “Cuban people are asking for a much more sustainable socialism, not a return to capitalism. They want a permanent system of consultation, better mechanisms of participation to work for a democratic socialism.”

All the democratic institutions exist in Cuba, from the Communist Party – a voluntary, selective organisation of around 800,000 of the most conscious and committed revolutionaries – to People’s Power, the mass sectoral organisations and the neighbourhood-based Committees for the Defence of the Revolution. But the democratic content of these institutions has rarely lived up to its full potential, and to most Cuban’s reasonable expectations. As Luis Sexto argues, “a hierarchical de-verticalisation of society to allow democratic horizontality” is needed. The recent devolution of agricultural decisions to the municipalities is a step in the right direction, and lessons learned here can be applied elsewhere.