‘Building a new society is the work of creative human beings’
https://themilitant.com/2021/01/30/building-a-new-society-is-the-work-of-creative-human-beings/
Vol. 85/No. 5
February 8, 2021
One of Pathfinder’s Books of the Month for January is In Defense of
Socialism: Four Speeches on the 30th Anniversary of the Cuban Revolution
by Fidel Castro, its central leader. The triumph of the Cuban people on
Jan. 1, 1959, opened the door to the first socialist revolution in the
Americas. Castro discussed the “tremendous historical challenge,” both
inside Cuba and internationally, to defend socialism against the
“selfish, chaotic and inhumane capitalist system.” He responded to use
of bureaucratic methods copied from the USSR by initiating the
rectification process, to mobilize working people to strengthen their
revolution. The excerpt is from the introduction by Mary-Alice Waters.
Copyright © 1989 by Pathfinder Press. Reprinted by permission.
BY MARY-ALICE WATERS
The rectification process, begun in 1986, is the context for much of
what is discussed in these pages. As Castro has explained in numerous
other speeches and interviews over the last three years, the
rectification process is a fundamental political reorientation. It was
initiated by the leadership of the Communist Party of Cuba in response
to evidence of a growing political demobilization and demoralization
among Cuba’s working people. These dangerous trends were registered by
increasing instances of bureaucratic mismanagement, indifference, abuse,
declining productivity and work morale, the growth of corruption and
fraud, and frustration over attempts to deal with such problems
piecemeal. More and more, Cubans began to see money as the solution to
all problems — whether providing incentives to work, or juggling the
books of a state enterprise to make it appear efficient and productive. …
Cuban women in construction minibrigade in 1988, part of rectification
process, as workers from workplaces and communities took part in
voluntary labor. They built 100 child care centers in Havana in two
years instead of a bureaucratic plan for less than one a year.
Rectification ended as tighter U.S. embargo exacerbated shortages.
FEDERATION OF CUBAN WOMEN
Cuban women in construction minibrigade in 1988, part of rectification
process, as workers from workplaces and communities took part in
voluntary labor. They built 100 child care centers in Havana in two
years instead of a bureaucratic plan for less than one a year.
Rectification ended as tighter U.S. embargo exacerbated shortages.
As Castro illustrated the problem … in November 1987, “those who
advocated reactionary ideas within the revolution argued that building a
day-care center was a social expense. Social expenses were no good,
investing in production was good; as if those who work in the factories
were bulls and cows, horses and mares, male and female mules and not
human beings, not men and women with their problems, especially women
with their problems. … Whenever they say no day-care center, you can be
sure there is a technocratic, bureaucratic, reactionary concept at work.
… It didn’t enter the technocrat’s head that day-care centers were
essential to production and the services, and that housing and day
boarding schools were also essential to production and the services, and
that housing and day boarding schools were also essential to
socioeconomic development.” …
[T]he “construction of socialism and communism,” Castro insisted, “is
essentially a political task and a revolutionary task, it must be
fundamentally the fruit of the development of consciousness and
educating people for socialism and communism.” Building a new society,
based on new property forms, new social relations, and new values cannot
be accomplished by administrative measures overseen by a growing (and
relatively privileged) bureaucracy. It is the work of creative and
productive human beings, women and men who are conscious of what they
are doing, communists who are organizing themselves and leading their
fellow workers to discover what they are capable of achieving,
transforming themselves in the process.
Two political measures have been central to the steps taken during the
first three years of the rectification process, and references to both
run through these speeches.
First, the Communist Party of Cuba has led a conscious effort to
incorporate a new and younger leadership on all levels and in all
organizations and institutions. Under the watchword of “renewal or
death,” the first session of the third party congress in February 1986
made sweeping changes in the composition of its leadership bodies. Forty
percent of those elected to the Central Committee and 50 percent of
those elected to the Political Bureau were new members.
Just as important were the guidelines under which the renewal took
place, with the conscious promotion of more workers, more Afro-Cubans,
more women, more internationalist fighters, and more young communists.
The result was a more working-class leadership, one closer in
composition and experience to that of Cuba’s working people today, and
one more capable of leading the profoundly revolutionary changes posed
by the rectification process.
The leadership renewal begun by the party congress has been pressed
forward since that time. It was deepened by the discussions around, and
response to, the congress of the Union of Young Communists in 1987. It
has been advanced by the demonstrated capacities of the Cuban troops and
other internationalist Cuban volunteers in Africa, who in their big
majority represent Cuba’s young generation. It has taken form in the
volunteer youth construction contingents and work brigades that have
been part of the rectification process.
The second measure central to rectification has been relaunching what in
Cuba is called the minibrigade movement. … Since 1986 these Cuban
working people have already put in millions of hours of volunteer labor.
This genuine mass response to the minibrigade movement has made it
possible to begin making inroads on problems such as the housing crisis
and child-care shortage, which had been worsening at an accelerating
pace for more than a decade.
In two years’ time, for example, more than 100 child-care centers were
built in the city of Havana alone — more than would have been built in a
century had the previous policies not been changed.
Similarly with regard to housing, progress is not being made by
appealing to people to work longer and harder to make more money to meet
their own personal needs while others go without decent shelter.
Instead, the shortage is being addressed through mass, revolutionary,
working-class action. … As Castro told a rally on July 26, 1987, the
minibrigade movement has the capacity to build a new Havana. It could
even build a new London or Paris, he said.
Cuban Revolution advances food production despite US embargo
Stepped-up measures imposed by the U.S. imperialist rulers as part of
its economic war against the Cuban people and their socialist revolution
are having a serious impact on the country’s agricultural production.
Sanctions on Venezuelan shipments of oil to Cuba,…
Minneapolis protest: ‘Defend the Cuban Revolution!’
MINNEAPOLIS — More than two dozen people joined a picket here Jan. 17 in
defense of the Cuban Revolution, an emergency response to the U.S.
government’s decision a few days earlier to once again place Cuba on its
“state sponsors…
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In struggle, workers advance unity, class consciousness
Workers win wage hike in NY produce market strike
‘Help us put the Socialist Workers Party on the ballot!’
Hundreds of thousands of farmers in India protest against gov’t attack
‘Militant’ readies fight after officials in Pennsylvania prison bar paper
US gov’t pushes assault on rights, claims target is ‘domestic terror’
Feature Articles
Cuban Revolution advances food production despite US embargo
Also In This Issue
Mass protests across Russia demand ‘Free Alexei Navalny’
Tunisian youth protest lack of jobs, police brutality
‘Stimulus’ fund for ‘Militant’ over $55,000!
SWP campaign helps win long-term readers to ‘Militant’
Minneapolis protest: ‘Defend the Cuban Revolution!’
New Zealand home workers protest boss attacks
New Biden directive is blow to fight for women’s rights
California protesters: ‘Free Carlos Harris!’
On the Picket Line
Oil workers strike against subcontracting, for safety
Rolls-Royce bosses back off plan to cut jobs at Barnoldswick plant
Books of the Month
‘Building a new society is the work of creative human beings’
25, 50 and 75 years ago
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Emmett F. Fields “ Atheism is more than just the knowledge that gods do
not exist, and that religion is either a mistake or a fraud. Atheism is
an attitude, a frame of mind that looks at the world objectively,
fearlessly, always trying to understand all things as a part of nature.
” ― Emmett F. Fields