Castro's Cuba: Stranger in a Strange Land

A soldier in khakis-- that was the first thing I saw, or at least the first thing I noticed. A machine gun strapped to his side, he had stationed himself by the exit of Cuba's Jose Marti International Airport, only a few miles from the base where a Soviet brigade allegedly practices its maneuvers.

His cold grey eyes scrutinized without recognition. In a glance, a number of half-truths about totalitarian societies coalesced in my mind. For even those who travel to a communist state with an "open mind" find themselves suspicious, expecting that the reports of a police state circulated so presumptuously by the American media will prove to be true.

Later, after a two-week tour across the island with total freedom to see whatever I wished as long as I stayed in the same city as the tour, I would spend a lot of time laughing at my initial impression and its outrageous incongruity with the rest of my experience. Except for a small group of soldiers guarding the national monuments in Havana, which the government fears may be targets for counter-revolutionaries, Cuban streets were generally unpatrolled, even by policemen. Even so, there was little rowdiness or theft and no sense at all of the menacing atmosphere that enshrouds so many American cities.

In Havana, it is not unusual to see a 1958 Chevy; in fact, it is rare to see a car that is any newer. To an American, much of Havana looks as though it has been preserved cryogenically for the past 20 years. The old Havana Hilton, built in the late fifties and a white elephant by our contemporary standards, is now the Free Havana and operates in the sweltering heat of the Caribbean climate without working air conditioning. Awkwardly heavy shoes, shapeless polyester pantsuits, and two-piece bathing suits that conceal instead of reveal make it obvious that the island has remained relatively insulated from the influence trends in the West since the U.S. broke off relations in 1962. Yet the appearance of stagnation is just that: a deceiving appearance that masks the profound revolutionary transformation of an entire society.

Two decades ago, the leader of that revolution, Fidel Ruiz Castro, was under attack at home and abroad. Today Cuban schoolchildren, when asked about their nation's leader, call him "padre," and he is one of the acknowledged, albeit controversial, leaders of the Third World.

The Cuban government now owns and runs just about every enterprise from the largest sugar refinery to the smallest poolside bar. It guarantees every citizen a job, free hospital and dental care, free education, a month's vacation, housing at low rent, or the opportunity to purchase a home. The work of the society is carried out by large organizations like the Federation of Cuban Women, which keeps the streets clean and provides volunteers for factories, microbrigades, factory workers who build housing for their fellow workers, and, of course, the Communist party.

"Todo es mejor" ("Everything is better"), says one old man, dismissing my question about life after the revolution with a wave of his knarled hand. For much of this century he tilled the land, and, like many Cubans, was able to work only sporadically. Now he is a member of the self-contained rural cooperative Jibacoa, a dairy farm outside Havana with its own shops, schools, and health care facilities. Farmers who decide to join these rural communities receive payment for the sale of their farms and move to the state farms, where they are paid by the state.

Private farmers are still a large force in Cuban agriculture, working 19 per cent of the land and producing 30 per cent of the tobacco, 25 per cent of the sugar, and 40 per cent of the fruit crop. So far, the decision to sell has been a totally voluntary one. Nevertheless, because an independent farmer can sell his produce only to the government, which unilaterally sets prices, the state can make a community like Jibacoa a farmer's only viable economic alternative. It seems clear that the state eventually plans to control all agricultural production.

The workers at Jibacoa live in apartments contained in four- and five-tiered slablike structures that dot the Cuban landscape like Levittowns, their mass-produced white facades disrupting Cuba's naturally palmy beauty and aesthetically appealing Spanish architecture. The country's massive new construction efforts have little to do with aesthetics and even building quality. Instead, their purpose is to provide minimum standard housing to all Cubans as quickly and cheaply as possible.

Improvement in social services, and not in material goods, has bettered the lives of the masses of Cubans. Cuba appears to have suffered enormously from the American trade embargo declared after Castro nationalized American enterprise without compensation. A simply dressed woman who works as a seamstress in central Havana said that although no one is starving, there are no high quality foods and inadequate supplies of what is available. Strict rationing provides her and her fellow workers three cans of condensed milk each month, five pounds of rice, and one pound of meat every nine days. Well into her sixties, she recalled the times when middle-class Cubans could purchase a touch of luxury. Today there are no perfumes, she lamented, no cosmetics, and no bathpowder. She said she has money, but there is nothing to buy.

Salaries in Cuba range from 200 pesos a month for the least skilled laborer to 1200 for top professionals. There is a rough-hewn egalitarianism based mainly on the universal availability of social services, the disappearance of the foreign elite, and the nationalization of luxurious private homes, which are now available at moderate rents to vacationing Cubans. Much of the egalitarianism is symbolic, but it still has a perceptible effect on attitudes. Senor and Senorita have been discredited as the preferred form of address in favor of companero[a], comrade. Castro is never seen publicly in anything other than army fatigues, and other government officials wear work clothes.

Although there is a certain homogeneity--from city to city, hotels are designed alike, restaurants often use the same china, waiters and waitresses wear the same austere black and white uniforms--the government maintains diverse economic establishments that cater to different Cuban clienteles. There is the local bar in the town of Trinidad in which the only barstool is a concrete stoop. And then there is the Tropicana nightclub, still perhaps the most lavish in the world, where dancers in glitter and feathers parade across an outdoor stage set amid a grove of palm trees.

* * *

Cubans are a patriotic people, proud of the accomplishments of their revolution. But their feelings cannot be assessed only from the formulaic wall-posters which spout platitudes like "We confront the future with the experience of 20 years and the enthusiasm of the first day." One must witness, as I did many times during my visit, joyous occasions when audiences broke into spontaneous cheers and the singing of revolutionary songs. On July 25, the eve of the anniversary of the revolution, a boisterous nightclub hushed to a reverential silence as a popular singer began the national anthem. The audience displayed only rapt attention and, a moment later, spirited participation. To them, this obviously was not an empty ritual.

This sentiment is fostered by a constant barrage of revolutionary rhetoric in the press, schools, and other institutions. But Cubans have not turned their cultural heritage into a revolutionary bludgeon, preferring that classical ballet and folkloric songs and dances serve to link the revolution to the cultural roots of the past.

The government does not, however, miss opportunities to promote a Marxist interpretation of the island's past. Signs describing Morro Castle, a 17th century fortress in Santiago Bay and now a pirate museum, link piracy with present-day imperialism, which, they claim, is more pervasive and insidious. In addition to the rhetoric, the government offers financial incentives, such as the promise of a new car, to encourage Cubans to participate in revolutions in Nicarauga and Africa.

Even an eleven year old asked about her political beliefs will say she is a "marxista." Yet it is doubtful this enthusiastic patriotism would continue if the government were not significantly improving most people's lives.

But these improvements have sometimes been detrimental to what most Americans would consider inviolable political liberties. When the revolution took a turn to the left in the early sixties, the government changed the motto on the Cuban centavo from "Country of Liberty" to "Country or Death." Certainly, Cubans have lost at least several liberties; the freedom to travel to non-socialist countries, for example. This restriction was implemented in part for ideological effect, but mainly for the more practical reason that it is impossible to exchange Cuban currency in the West. The government also prohibits emigration of citizens who are of military age.

Although the government is officially opposed to religion and has dismantled the Catholic school system, it leaves the decision to the individual, and many churches remain open. Paintings of the madonna and crosses decorates many homes, but these are generally the heirlooms of pre-revolutionary generations. Most young people are atheists, a requirement for communist party membership. In addition, anyone who aspires to join a communist popular organization must show the "proper ideological development."

A heavyset black woman who did piecework and was barely able to survive financially under the Batista regime, does not suffer for lack of some freedoms. Today she is a singer in a cultural group, secretary of the union where she works, and a member of the Federation for Cuban Women. With the availability of day care and a guaranteed job, she says the Cuban women have more "liberty" than ever before.

Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDRs) are the primary grassrooots organizations; there is one on each block of every Cuban city, town or village. Each block elects a steering committee of 11 that is responsible for maintaining public health and combatting educational truancy. The committees also are charged with a vague responsibility known as "vigilance," a system, critics say, that leads to neighbor spying upon neighbor.

And yet, ironically, a woman who was a steering committee member of her CDR spoke vehemently against the Castro regime, saying that if it were not for her elderly mother she would prefer to leave. Although she lowered her voice when criticizing Castro, she apparently was not afraid to complain to a complete stranger who had wandered into her home accidently after seeing a CDR insignia on her door.

A woman sitting next to me by a pool at a Santiago hotel one day was an American --a Marxist-Leninist, she called herself. I asked her to watch my belongings while I went swimming. "Cubans don't steal," she said angrily, disgusted by my request.

Castro is less optimistic about the ability of any revolution to create a "new socialist man." He is also more of a realist. Publicly he has acknowledged the difficulty involved in supplanting old attitudes, which he calls "hangovers form the capitalist value system." Even though the revolution has managed to change the foundation of society from one of competition to cooperation, stealing from the government at the expense of fellow workers persists.

In a speech to the Cuban congress last July, Castro said that some Cuban workers, particularly in the service industries where performance is difficult to evaluate, have responded to the lack of immediate material incentives by simply goofing off: waitresses shuffle their feet while customers wait, and bus drivers omit stops. Despite the fact that some continue to exploit the system, Cubans are proud that they have "reclaimed their country" from the American interests that have dominated the region since 1898. Today Havana is a Cuban city. Havana in the fifties was an American sailor's brothel; a friend who was in the marines at that time told me that he and his friends considered Havana "one long chain of wild nights." Lest Cubans forget, a reminder is kept in the museum at the Moncada garrison, where the revolution lost its first men. It is a photograph of a drunken American sailor urinating on the statue of Jose Marti, Cuba's most revered hero.

But at what price has Cuba been reclaimed for Cubans? Every day Cuba receives nearly two million dollars in aid from the Soviet Union, which supplies the country with oil at half the world market price. Although Cuban society has been transformed internally, Cuba is still dependent on a foreign power. In fact, what has not often been mentioned in the recent furor over the presence of Soviet troops is that Cuba actually has forces of both superpowers on its territory: the U.S. continues to operate a naval base at Guantanamo. The native strength of the Cuban people and their achievements in only two decades seem to offer hope that this small island of 10 million will eventually be able to free itself from the role of shuttlecock in a super-powered game of badminton.