[LAAMN] Making Revolution in Cuba Today

[Cort Greene]

*- Havana Times.org - http://www.havanatimes.org -*

*Making Revolution in Cuba Today*

Posted By *Circles Robinson* On June 25, 2011 @ 5:41 am In *Interviews,Lead
Articles,Pedro Campos* | *2
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*Pedro Campos Interviewed by Dmitri Prieto *

**
 <http://www.havanatimes.org/?attachment_id=45637> [3]

Pedro Campos

HAVANA TIMES, June 25 —* *For some people in Cuba, Pedro Campos Santos needs
no introduction.  However for the majority of Cubans he’s still probably a
stranger.  What a shame, a consequence of the lack of horizontal flows of
information and ideas here on the island.

“Perucho” belongs to an informal group called SPD (Participative and
Democratic Socialism), which for the last several years has been devoted to
promoting the socialist path for Cuba’s and present and future.  This is a
socialist road based on a self-management model with freedom for all people
who form a part of it; it is socialism “with all and for the well-being of
all,” as Jose Marti wanted.

We conducted this exclusive interview with “Perucho,” in which he gives us
the details of his fascinating biography and the reasons for his political
commitment, as well as some background on his comrades in SPD.

*HT:  Perucho, you belong to a generation that participated directly in the
radical changes that occurred in Cuba after 1959.  What does it mean to you
to be revolutionary? *

PEDRO CAMPOS:  Each historical moment demands a specific attitude of its
revolutionaries.  In Cuba in the period 1953-58, it was to struggle against
the Batista dictatorship for democratic restoration.  In the early years
after the revolution of 1959, the struggle was for the consolidation of what
had been achieved, the cultural revolution, the real transfer of power
(economic power), the political/decision-making ability of the workers and
the people, and for basic socioeconomic transformations that would make
possible the advance toward socialism.  However, this was an epoch in which
statist deviations and centralization had already begun.

Today the basic goals of that stage remain incomplete, and these are — in my
opinion — to promote in all possible ways the process of the democratization
and socialization of the political and economic life of the Cuban people.

The revolution of 1959 did in fact free us from the tyranny of Batista.
However it also centered property ownership in the hands of the state.
Cuban and foreign capital; big, middle-sized and small capital, was
concentrated and centralized even more by the state.  Political
decision-making was also centralized.  It was believed that this was
socialism.  This was the typical centralization of Stalinist “socialism” and
its variants. People thought that this would facilitate the socialization of
property and the results of production as well as contribute to the
necessary democratization of political life.  However, in the long run this
form of centralization became an insurmountable obstacle.  That’s why it
failed both in Eastern Europe and here.

To consolidate itself, for some time the Cuban revolutionary process has had
the goals of advancing from statism to socialization [of economic power] and
from concentration of political power to its democratization.  What changes
to make, how to implement those changes while avoiding undemocratic
“decentralization” (leading to major privatizations and greater disillusion
on the part of the workers and people generally), are the tactics we are now
discussing in Cuba.  The capitalists’ mouths are watering hoping that the
“updating” of the model favors the development of national and foreign
large-scale private capital.

The history of the “socialist camp” left very clear lessons as to what
should *not* be done when the time comes to change the neo-Stalinist
system.  Proceeding slowly and tortuously in the process of the renovation
of state socialism (especially in the USSR and China, which are today aiming
at capitalist development), we witnessed the principal errors: These
included the inability to carry out transformations that facilitated direct
control by the workers over companies or the empowerment of the people to
make important decisions of all types, the deep penetration of big foreign
and national capital in combination with the transmutation of the
bureaucracy into the bureau-bourgeoisie, the absence of a clear program of
socializing transformations, the continuation of excessive centralization in
all types of decision-making, the permanency of top-down “verticalism” and
the anchoring of neo-Stalinist dinosaurs in important positions of
leadership in the party and the government.

By definition, Gorbachev’s perestroika sought to “renovate” the model, to
reform it, when what was needed was a change in its base.  As we don’t want
that same experience to take place here.  We have presented a program that,
while it certainly might be incomplete, doesn’t stop at “renovating” the
model of state monopoly capitalism — believed here to be socialism — but
proposes changing it for democratic socialism with the real participation of
workers and people.  In this, they are the ones who directly and
democratically make all the decisions that affect them.  To advance in those
two main directions (the socialization and democratization of the economy
and politics, with resolute steps and clear initiatives) is what I believe
is revolutionary in Cuba today.  To oppose that course is contributing to
counter-revolution.

*HT:  In your writings, especially in the latest ones, you’re very critical
of the political leadership of our country, including the new leadership
that emerged out of the Sixth Congress of the Cuban Communist Party (PCC).
In your opinion, doesn’t being revolutionary include loyalty to the
historical leaders of the revolutionary process? *

<http://www.havanatimes.org/?attachment_id=45638> [4]PEDRO CAMPOS:  I didn’t
note the specific difference that you’re pointing out between my current and
previous texts.  I’ve never criticized people; I criticize the methods,
enthroned sectarianism; the democratic, socializing and libertarian deficits
of the statist system that are presented as socialist.  I involve myself in
the world of ideas.  Most of my generation, me included, we’ve been loyal to
the revolutionaries who have headed the Cuban process.  We’ve put up with a
lot and have remained quiet so as not to negatively affect the cohesion
within the revolutionary ranks.

As for the leaders, we’ve always respected them and we would like to see
them go down in history as people who have contributed to Marxist
socialism.  But that will depend on them.  Our criticisms and our private
and public proposals are examples of our loyalty – not the reverse.  Those
who are disloyal are the ones who prefer to opportunistically hide or
justify their misdeeds in order to preserve their positions in the
bureaucracy.

I don’t consider myself an independent actor outside the revolutionary
process.  I’ve been an active participant in the revolutionary effort and I
feel committed to it, even though I differ on more than a few actions and
policies.  As a historian I don’t confuse loyalty with ignorance or
unconditional positions, and much less with fear.  Nor do I believe that
being revolutionary is measured by loyalty to specific individuals; rather,
we should look at one’s adherence to principles, to methods, to the
objectives and contents of the revolutionary process.

Often shortsighted, political leaders make mistakes; even more so when they
don’t take others into account and they naturally disappear over time.  If
the revolution gets confused with its leaders, it could disappear with
them.  Leaders play important roles in certain historical moments to the
degree they’re consistent with the character of the revolutionary
processes.  When, for whatever reasons, they cease serving that process,
they lose legitimacy in the eyes of the people, in the eyes of history.
Leaders, in the old sense of the word, gradually lose their validity as
social movements increasingly are the principal players in revolutionary
processes.

*HT:  What thinkers, heroes, leaders and martyrs of our revolution have most
inspired your work? *

PEDRO CAMPOS:  Fidel and the Che, among the most recent, despite the fact
that I don’t agree with some of their actions and positions taken in the
face of certain events or conjunctures.  From them I learned how to be
consistent with my principles, without caring about the personal
consequences, to never trust imperialism, to always look for the truth and
to defend it.  Like all Cubans I was first a follower of Jose Marti, since I
was a little boy.  My parents, both elementary school teachers, instilled in
me the knowledge and the respect for the work of Marti as well as his life
of sacrifice and love of freedom.
 <http://www.havanatimes.org/?attachment_id=45640> [5]

Pedro Campos at a May Day rally. "Socialism is Democracy"

That’s why I believe that, on the whole, the figure that has always had the
most impact on me was Jose Marti, who I consider the most integral and
brilliant of all Cubans.  What’s more, his work remains relevant today
because some of his revolutionary objectives are yet to be achieved.  Marti
didn’t seek only our independence from Spain, he was seeking a society of
equals, “with all and for the well-being of all.”  He was ultra-democratic,
seeing the distribution of property as the basis of freedom.  He criticized
“socialism” early on for what he saw as the bureaucratic state, in “La
futura Esclavitud” (Future Slavery).  Although he was a figure who lived in
the 19th century, his intellectual role in the Cuban revolutionary process
transcended the 20th century and has now entered the 21st.

*HT:  What did Pedro Campos Santos do before becoming involved with the
socialist self-management movement in Cuba? *

PEDRO CAMPOS:  I have always dedicated much of my free time to studying the
history of Cuba, philosophy and Marxist political economy.  After leaving
the Foreign Service, during the most difficult years of the “Special Period”
crisis I worked in tourism, then in a pizzeria. I also drove a taxi, sold
books and worked as a street photographer.  But over all that time I kept
returning to studying Marx.  I researched the causes of the collapse of the
socialist camp. I tried to better explain to myself the phenomenon of
revolutionary Cuba as I was forming a collection of ideas on how to face the
complex internal situation in my country without forgetting that we are
confronted by that same imperial threat.  All this was aimed at guaranteeing
the continuity of the revolutionary process and our advance toward
socialism.

By the time of the Fourth Congress of the Cuban Communist Party (PCC) in
1991, I had presented to my party chapter an analysis of the country’s
problems and a group of proposals bearing more or less in the same direction
as now.   But these didn’t come only from me; there were many people
involved.  However in 2005, when Fidel said that revolutionaries themselves
could destroy the revolution if they didn’t face the serious problems of
corruption and bureaucracy, and he called on people to fight against these,
I believed we were moving along the same path and I prepared to make my
analyses and proposals public.

I wrote a book about enterprise and social self-management and I sent
digital copies to several comrades in the leadership of the party and the
government.  I tried to publish in Cuba what I had researched and when
denied space for my articles in the official press I began to distribute
them to international left websites (*Rebelion, Kaosenlared, Insurgente* and
others).  Each of my articles was sent to *Granma, Trabajadores
*and*Juventude Rebelde
*.  In short, before issuing our Programmatic Proposals in 2008, I carried
out extensive theoretical and practical work to clarify and popularize the
ideas of socialist self-management.

*HT:  Why did you issue that proposal?  Can you define its meaning in a
couple words? *

PEDRO CAMPOS:  My comrades and I have issued several proposals.  And not
only that, at the time of the Fourth Congress, in my party chapter I had
already presented a group of proposals pointing in the direction of the
democratization and socialization of the country’s political and economic
life.  In 2006 I presented a general plan of self-management socialism to
the Congress of the Cuban Federation of Workers (CTC), which was published
in *Kaosenlared* and other sites.  Then in 2007 I published “15 Concrete
Proposals for the Reactivation of Socialism in
Cuba.”<http://http//www.kaosenlared.net/noticia.php?id_noticia=40459>
[6] In 2008, anticipating the Sixth Congress of the PCC, we presented “Cuba
Needs a Participative and Democratic Socialism: Programmatic Proposals.”  In
2011, a new edition of those Programmatic Proposals, which contained many of
the suggestions that we received, was published under the title: “Proposals
for the Advance to Socialism in Cuba.”
 <http://www.havanatimes.org/?attachment_id=45641> [7]

Pedro Campos, left, at a May Day rally.

Our objective has always been to try to contribute to the national
discussion on the problems of the Cuban Revolution in the current stage and
to spread such ideas to all strata possible, and certainly to the
discussions in the Sixth Party Congress, where I spoke about the issue when
it was not being raised there.  How to define this in a couple words?:
Socialization and democratization, which would be incomplete without full
freedom.

*HT:  Can you tell us more about the SPD collective of “Pedro Campos and
other comrades?” *

PEDRO CAMPOS:  We are revolutionary fighters, workers and professionals of
different ages, with the majority having completed university studies and
lived active revolutionary lives.  We’ve all worked directly at the
grassroots, in the rank-and-file, as wage workers or independent laborers.
We have written works.

Some had mid-level responsibilities in the government and some have been
grassroots leaders of the Communist Party and the Young Communist League.
Some comrades ended up having responsibilities at the regional, provincial
and national levels as directors or sub-directors of press organizations.

With absolutely no organizational obligations, among us are people who were
in the old underground, members of the former Socialist Youth organization,
ex-employees of security agencies and the armed forces, internationalists,
diplomats, jurists, journalists, economists, theologians, historians,
philosophers, psychologists, poets, university professors, writers, other
artists, manual workers and people in other professions and occupations.

We are promoters of ideas and we have been gaining ground and expanding our
influence.  We don’t classify ourselves in any type of political sect, nor
do we seek unanimity or impose our points of view on anyone.  We are
anti-capitalists and support a type of socialism very distinct from what’s
known as “real socialism” or “state socialism”; we advocate a form of
socialism that has free and full human beings as its aim.

*HT:  Do you think that what you are doing has repercussions among Cuban
decision-makers and the academics who advise them? *

PEDRO CAMPOS:  I don’t know to what extent the work that several of us
comrades have been carrying out in this direction has influenced those
decision-makers or their advisors.  We’ve noted that they read what we write
and some of our proposals are being implemented, though I don’t believe
that’s because those came from us; rather, it was because reality itself
imposed it on them.

*HT:  And among the people? *

PEDRO CAMPOS:  Equally, my comrades and I don’t have a concrete means of
measuring our impact on people, but we have received e-mails commenting on
our articles and thousands of opinions from Cubans here and abroad, with
them discussing, supporting or criticizing parts or all of our writings.

We’re certain that our writings circulate widely over the Cuban *intranet *and
outside through cyberspace and other means.  We’ve noted that if at the
beginning we were a few voices speaking openly about the issue in the
international left press (in private, in academic and narrow political
circles, there were always those who dealt with self-management initiatives
and proposals) all that changed some time ago.  Now there are many of us.

Today to speak of cooperativism and workers’ self-management as socialism is
becoming more common in our country.  The Sixth Congress has just approved
the extension of cooperativism and self-employment, although still with many
limitations.  These limits are because of their state-centrist perspective
and the failure to understand that cooperativism and workers self-management
are the generic forms of production under socialism.

They do not grasp that for socialism to triumph, these forms of production
would have to prevail and be integrated into a system of economic solidarity
that tends toward equivalent exchange with democratic planning.  (Moreover,
this would have to be built on a communal base to overcome the isolation
that those productive forms are subjected to by the market, governments and
capitalist financial systems.)

Now I know that in practically all of the provinces there are comrades who
think similarly.  Certainly our work has served to bring them together, to
bring ideas closer, to clarify positions among others and within ourselves.
In this process we’ve learned a great deal.

*(To be continued…)*



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2 Comments To "Making Revolution in Cuba Today"

*#1 Comment* By *Julie Webb-Pullman* On June 25, 2011 @ 6:24 am

Great work – can’t wait to read the next installment!!

*#2 Comment* By *Cubano loco* On June 25, 2011 @ 8:58 am

Definitely the right and only way. With all the corruption happened just
under the eyes of the leaders and almost always justified by the higher ups
with their “posible” relation with them, many were afraid the denounce them.
I am glad that the yes men finally had been kicked out by Raul, better not
mention who brought them in… Lost 50 years of revolution and now on the edge
of changing it when the old revolutionary are almost too old to control it.
I hope the oppurtunist have no chance to convert it into capitalism, there
is still a very long list of corrupt individuals in the country.
------------------------------

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[6] “15 Concrete Proposals for the Reactivation of Socialism in Cuba.”: *
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