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THE UNIQUENESS OF CUBA

By Cliff DuRand

You can tell a lot about the character of a nation by the way it responds to an emergency.  That is because in situations of natural disaster, for instance, you use whatever resources you have available.  The Haitian earthquake is a good example.  How did Cuba respond to this emergency in its neighbor?  It sent doctors and other medical personal trained in emergency medicine.  That was possible because of Cuba’s Henry Reeve Medical  Brigade, a standing body of volunteer doctors prepared to respond quickly to such natural disasters.  It was originally organized to render help to the victims of hurricane Katrina, an offer that was ignored by the Bush administration.  Subsequently the Henry Reeve Brigade, named after a U.S. citizen who fought and died in the Cuban war for independence, responded half way around the world to the 2006 earthquake in Indonesia.  In fact Cuba’s medical teams there were greater than those of the U.S.  Cuba could do that because as a nation she is prepared with the trained personnel, the organization, and the cultural values of service for such humanitarian missions.  By contrast, how did the U.S. government respond to the Haitian earthquake?  It sent in the military.  Why?  Because that was what it had.  There was medical aid too, to be sure, as well as food and water.  I don’t want to belabor the point, but the predominant U.S. response focused on security because that was what the government was prepared for.  Cuba, on the other hand, was prepared for humanitarian assistance. 

HUMAN DEVELOPMENT: HEALTH AND EDUCATION 
Let me turn now to another unique feature of this nation of 11 million people.  Even though Cuba is a relatively poor country as measured by the usual economic indicators and classified as being in what used to be called the Third World, when you look at its human well being indicators, Cuba ranks high.  Take health for example.  Cuba has health indicators comparable to its far more wealthy neighbor.  For example, life expectancy in Cuba is 77.5 years, in the U.S. it is 78.  Cuba’s infant mortality rate is 5.3 deaths among 1000 live births in the first year, whereas in the U.S. it is 6.9 [according to 2003 figures].  In Mississippi infant mortality is 11.4 and as high as 17 among Blacks, and rising.  In our nation’s capital, infant mortality is 14.4 among African Americans.  In Cuba on the other hand, in 2009 out of 1000 births only 4.8 infants died in the first year of life, and basically the same low rate is found in every region and sector of the population, and continues to decline year after year. 

Even the World Bank has had to acknowledge Cuba’s achievements in health and education.  The Bank's 2001 edition of World Development Indicators (WDI) showed Cuba as topping virtually all other poor countries in health and education statistics.  Former Bank President James Wolfensohn congratulated Cuba for doing "a great job" in providing for the social welfare of the Cuban people.

How is this possible?  How is a poor country that lacks the sophisticated medical technology we have and even has difficulty getting basic equipment and medicines due to the U.S. blockade, how has Cuba been able to take such good care of the health of its population?  Part of the answer is: doctors.  Cuba has 5.3 doctors per 1,000 people –the highest ratio in the world and nearly double that of the U.S.  The secret to Cuba’s success is the 60,000 dedicated physicians and other health professionals plus a system based on the principle that health care is a right rather than a commodity for sale.  Cuba provides free universal health care accessible to all of its people.  Not only do doctors make house calls, they live in every neighborhood where they practice comprehensive preventative care.  In every neighborhood there is an easily recognizable two story house where the doctor lives on the second floor, the first floor being his office. So a doctor is available close at hand, 24-7, and he or she (half of the nation’s doctors are women) makes house calls too.  And not far away there is a polyclinic.  More specialized care is provided by larger municipal hospitals. 

How was Cuba able to achieve such remarkable results?  It is basically due to an activist state, a government that marshals societal resources, scarce as they may be, to meet the needs of its population.  A society does not have to be wealthy to feed, house, educate and keep its population healthy.  It only has to have the will to do so. (1)  That will was shown early in the Revolution when soon after taking power one of the first projects of the new government was to launch a mass literacy campaign.  Young people from the cities went into the most remote areas of the country to teach the illiterate to read and write.  In a very short time illiteracy was wiped out.  Cuba's alphabetizacion program is still today held up as a model by the United Nations because it required little in the way of material resources, building instead on the untapped human resources abundant in even the poorest of societies. 

Not stopping there, a system of free universal education was constructed.  From that beginning, Cuba has gone on to build a strong educational system.  A 1998 UNESCO study of primary education throughout Latin America  (2) found that, in test scores, completion rates, and literacy levels, Cuban primary students are at or near the top of a list of peers from across Latin America. Indeed, the performance of Cuban third and fourth graders in math and language so dramatically outstripped that of other nations that the UN task force administering the test returned to Cuba and tested students again to verify the initial results:

There is free education through the university, graduate and professional levels.  As a result, today Cuba has the most highly educated and technically trained population in Latin America.  There are more than 700,000 professionals who have been educated by the revolution who work in Cuba today.  To achieve this does not require expensive imports of technology or the like.  It only requires that the human resources that are abundant in even the poorest of countries be mobilized for the common good.  As Fidel Castro has said, "perhaps the most useful of our modest efforts in the struggle for a better world will be to demonstrate how much can be done with so little when all of society's human and material resources are placed at the service of the people."

Even after Cuba lost most of its trade due to the collapse of its trading partners in the East and its economy fell into a deep decade-long depression in the 1990s, Cuba continued to raise the cultural level of its people by expanding higher education to all. (4) 14.2% of all governmental expenditures are on education. Spending for health, education, culture, sports, security and social assistance represented 69% of the 2007 budget.

The high quality of education in Cuba has been witnessed by the U.S.
students I have taken there. They have been "blown away" by the university
students they have met with, whom they find better informed, more articulate,
and better able to reason than their U.S. counterparts. That is not exactly what
they had expected to find in an "underdeveloped" society.

Each year the United Nations Development Program compiles a Human Development Index (HDI) for 182 countries. This combines measures of life expectancy, literacy, school enrolment and GDP per capita. (5) Cuba consistently ranks high by these measures. Her education index is among the highest in the world: 0.993 out of 1.0. Cuba tops the world in the ratio of female to male enrolment in primary, secondary and higher education: 121%. Cuba is 3rd in the world in a “gender empowerment measure” with 43% of the seats in parliament held by women. The U.S. figure is only 17%.

While Cuba ranks at or near the top in health and education measures,
its low GDP per capita reduces its HDI score. With that included Cuba ranks
51st in its overall HDI. This is because Cuba is 95th in the world in GDP per capita.
The gap between its low GDP and much higher HDI reveals its human development is significantly higher than its GDP per capita might indicate. Think about that. The difference between these two rankings shows the efficiency of converting a nation’s income into the health and education of its people. Cuba leads the world in this regard by far. For example, Mexico has more than double Cuba’s GDP, but has a lower HDI.
The U.S. is ranked 9th in GDP but falls to 13 in HDI ranking, demonstrating a relatively poor conversion of its wealth into health and education for its people. (6)

LIVING STANDARDS
Often times critics point to the material shortages experienced by the Cuban people. During its great depression, brought on by external forces, deprivation was severe. The rationing system sought to ensure that what there was would be shared by all.
But there just wasn’t enough. Daily caloric intake dropped well below UN international standards. With the recovery of the economy and trade, that has now been restored to what is needed.

Still, tourist and journalistic accounts remark on the low level of pay received by
Cubans – as little as $20 per month. But such figures are meaningless. Cubans don’t get paid in usd, nor do they buy goods at U.S. prices. They are paid in Cuban pesos and buy at Cuban prices. That $20usd figure is converted from a average Cuban salary of 430 pesos. What is omitted is the fact that the average monthly rent for the minority of people who do not own their own homes is 26.60 pesos, or $1.21usd. The average monthly electricity bill is 13.60 pesos, or $0.62usd. Telephone costs 6.25 pesos per month, or $0.28usd. Cooking gas is 7.63 pesos, or $0.35usd; water 1.30 pesos or $0.06usd. The food items available on the ration plan cost a total of 45.56 pesos a month, or $2.07usd. (7)

Further, Cuban’s real income is not measured solely by their paycheck. It also includes the free and subsidized goods and services like health care, education, food on the ration plan, transportation, housing, etc.

During the decade of the 1980s, the last period of economic normalcy, Cubans enjoyed what you might call a middle class lifestyle with a rising standard of living. In fact, in what was called “the lost decade” in the rest of Latin America, only Cuba and Costa Rica saw an increase in its GDP per capita. All other countries suffered economic decline. Of course, critics say that was because of the subsidies Cuba received from the Soviet Union. The CIA used to enjoy calculating how many millions of dollars that subsidy was. But they neglected to point out that while some of that was development aid (something most Third World countries receive gratefully), much of it simply represented the fair but below world market prices assigned to goods involved in their trade. For example, COMECON (the Soviet-led trading block) paid above world market prices for sugar from Cuba (just as the U.S. does for its foreign suppliers). And it charged below world market prices for the industrial and consumer goods it sold to Cuba. Further, when the price of industrial and consumer goods went up, it raised the price it paid for Cuban sugar. The Cubans considered this to be an equal exchange based on the actual labor content of goods, rather than market determined prices that usually disadvantage primary goods exporting countries, keeping them poor and enriching the already richer countries.

ECONOMIC PHILOSOPHY
This point goes to the heart of the different economic philosophies of socialist
countries and capitalist countries. As we know, over the last 40 years in the U.S.,
the market has been seen as THE determinant of value and guiding force in social development. Since Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher in England, government has been seen as “the enemy”. “Get government off our backs,” intoned Reagan, lift regulations from the market, privatize public services, etc. These are the neoliberal policies that have dominated in the U.S. and most of the rest of the world as well. The result has been both success and failure. The success is measured by the increasing wealth of the few; the failure by the impoverishment of the many and the resulting slow collapse of the economic system.

Cuba, on the other hand, has held to a different economic philosophy, one that sees government as the instrument for promoting the common good of society as a whole. The function of the state is not to protect or promote the interests of an economically dominant class, but to move toward greater equality and social justice and promote the fuller human development of all members of society. It seeks to do this not by becoming a paternalistic “nanny state”, but by facilitating the participation of all sectors of society. I’ll return to this matter of democratic participation in a moment.

But first let me return to the matter of Cuba’s trade. As much as favorable terms of trade with COMECON helped the Cuban economy, the U.S. embargo handicapped it. For nearly a half century now, the U.S. has sought regime change by trying to strangle the country. After the collapse of Cuba's allies, sensing its increased vulnerability, the U.S. stepped up the pressure by turning the embargo into a virtual blockade, trying to prevent other countries from trading with it as well. The total cost of all this has mounted up to an estimated $70 billion (as of 2003), a high price for a poor country to have to bare. In spite of that, Cuba has been able to gradually rebuild its trade relations with a diversity of countries, among them Canada, the EU countries, Mexico, and recently increasingly Venezuela and China. In all of this Cuba has been careful to preserve the social accomplishments of the Revolution and, above all, its national sovereignty. Insertion into a global market governed by neoliberal principles is fraught with danger. But fortunately, Cuba has some comparative advantages that are serving it well in its trade. Thanks to the Revolution's investment in its people, she has been able to offer medical services, pharmaceuticals, teachers and other forms of what is often called "intellectual capital" as among its chief exports. In this it is unique among countries of the global South. No longer does it have to rely on labor intensive, low profit exports like sugar to earn foreign exchange.

At the same time, Cuba has invited foreign investment into the country, especially in tourism and related activities. But this has been in the form of joint enterprises with the state. This enables the state to protect the national interest as well as those of Cuban workers in these foreign enterprises. Foreign capital is not allowed into the country to dominate sectors of the economy for their own profit, as is the case in many parts of the global South where neoliberal policies prevail. Foreign firms that misbehave can be and have been thrown out of the country. That is possible because even large transnational corporations face a strong Cuban state able to protect the national interest. By way of contrast, elsewhere in the global South, neoliberal governments roll over and accept whatever is needed to accommodate transnational capital.

DEMOCRACY IN CUBA
But how democratic is this state? Currently this is the most hotly disputed question about Cuba, and the primary rationale for the continuing U.S. hostility. It should be noted that that wasn’t always the excuse given for the embargo. Originally it was that Cuba was a Soviet beachhead in our back yard. Then it was that Cuba promoted revolution in Latin America. Then it was that Cuba was militarily aiding progressive governments in Africa against apartheid South Africa. In each case it was said that Cuba had to stop doing those things before the U.S. would end its hostility. Well, now Cuba has only doctors and not soldiers in Africa, it long since ended support of revolutionary movements, and the Soviet Union doesn’t even exist any more. And yet the U.S. continues its blockade and has once again shifted the goal post. Now they say that Cuba must adopt a democratic multi-party electoral system like the U.S.

Well, Cuba says it already is democratic. But it has a different kind of democracy,
one suited to its own historical experience and situation as a country under siege for the last half century. It is admitted not to be perfect and is still in need of
perfecting. But as a matter of sovereignty and self-determination, it is not going to let the U.S. dictate what kind of political system is best for Cuba.

So what is Cuba’s political system like? You might be surprised to learn that there
are free, contested elections in Cuba. They begin at the local neighborhood level where citizens elect by secret ballots a delegate to represent them at the municipal level. Candidates have been nominated by their neighbors in an open public meeting. Their campaign consists of posting their biography and picture around the neighborhood. That’s it. No TV ads, no speeches, no campaign promises, no endorsements by a party, no campaign contributions from special interest groups. In fact, the only cost of a campaign is that of duplicating ones biography for posting. The Cuban’s have really taken big money out of elections. In fact, they have taken all money out of elections. They have also taken party partisanship out of elections. The Cuban Communist Party does not endorse candidates. It is not an electoral party. Each candidate runs on his own
individual merits, known to his neighbors by his active participation in community
affairs. To be elected, a candidate has to receive a majority of the votes. If no
one makes that, there is run off voting until someone does.

Above the municipal assembly there are provincial assemblies and a national assemble. The National Assemble, with is the legislative body or “congress’ for the nation, is particularly interesting. It too is elected directly by the citizenry by secret ballot. Half of its members must first have been elected as local delegates. Every effort is made to ensure that the National Assembly is representative of all sectors of Cuban society. That means there must be workers and farmers and students and women and minorities, etc. To insure that, there is a National Candidacy Commission that puts together a slate of candidates from a long list of nominees that have been made by the various mass organizations of workers, students, women, etc. To be elected, again a candidate must receive a majority of the votes cast.

In a parliamentary type system, it is this National Assembly that then constitutes a government. That is, they elect a Council of State from which the President and Vice Presidents are elected. This was where Fidel Castro was elected as President. But first he was elected by his home district in Santiago de Cuba.

The Cuban Communist Part is not an electoral party. Since 1992 it is forbidden by
law from participating in the nomination and electoral process. Its role is
"mobilization of resources, coordination, and guaranteeing the correct application of established norms and respect for the wishes of the voters." "It sets long-range goals for the whole society, including the government, and attempts to stimulate, guide, and promote the development of a socialist society and a populace with socialist consciousness." It no longer defines itself as the vanguard of the working class alone, but the vanguardof the Cuban people as a whole. (8)

It is out of the desire to maintain that unity that there is only one party. Cuba's
bitter experience with a multi party system that divided society and made it vulnerable to manipulation by the U.S. taught the people the value of a single party of national unity. This was the lesson Jose Marti learned in the 19th century and it is a lesson still being followed today. The Cuban political process is designed to promote unity and consensus. Consultation is used extensively, not only at the local level, but at the national level as well. For example, in developing the list of candidates for the National Assembly in 1997, 1.6 million people were consulted in order to come up with a slate that was a mirror of the nation. (9) Consultation is also used in putting out for grassroots discussion controversial legislative proposals, as was done with the issue of an income tax. Castro explained the rationale well: "We take months--it doesn't matter
that months go by--in assemblies of one type or another, gathering opinions of the workers,explaining again, persuading, illustrating things that are not well understood, in order to achieve a consensus on what we must do, and in this way we continue to succeed." (10)

You might wonder whether a local parliamentary system can be considered legitimate, representative, and effective in the absence of oppositional politics, electoral campaigns, and a multiparty system? The answer can be found in a 1990 Bohemia survey that asked, "Do you feel that you participate in the government of the country?" 60.7% of the respondents said “yes”, 26% said somewhat, and 13% answered “no”. (11) This suggests a high level of legitimacy in the eyes of the Cuban people.

So too do the high voter participation rates. Typically over 80% of the electorate
attend the nomination meetings. Although voting is not mandatory, voter turnout is typically in the high 90s%. This was the case even with all the economic hardships of the 1990s when right wing Cuban Americans in Miami launched massive propaganda campaigns encouraging Cubans to express their opposition to the government by either not voting or by casting blank or spoiled ballots. In spite of that, in 1995, 97.1% voted with 11.3% of the ballots not valid. Again in 1997, 97.6% voted, with only 7.2% invalid ballots. (12) While these results do show some opposition, even under the most unfavorable interpretation they demonstrate well over 80% support for the government. The U.S. government should do so well! Even with the unusually high U.S. turnout in 2008, only 56.8% of the voting age population went to the polls.

HISTORICAL UNIQUENESS OF THE CUBAN REVOLUTION
The 20th century saw many revolutions, starting with the 1910 revolution here in Mexico, the Russian revolution of 1917, the Chinese revolution of 1949, and the many revolutions against colonialism in the 1950s and ‘60s. But of all these, the Cuban Revolution that came to power in 1959 was unique. It was the first revolution against neocolonialism. Let me explain.

The emerging Cuban nation fought for independence against Spanish colonialism in the 10 Years War of the 1860s and then again beginning in 1898. It was on the verge of success when the U.S. intervened to finish off the Spanish. Denying the fruits of their victory to the Cuban people, the country came under direct U.S. control for a number of years. However, the U.S. did not want the burdens of a colony. So instead it constructed a political system and economic relations of dependency that allowed its continuous exploitation of the island while it was nominally independent, i.e. it had its own government, its own constitution (written by the U.S.) and its own flag. That independence was granted in 1902 with the establishment of what the Cubans call the pseudo republic. It thus became a neocolony of the U.S.

During the occupation it was U.S. policy to divide Cubans politically and promote
"respectable representatives" of U.S. interests who could form a stable government. What had to be avoided above all was, in the words of the U.S. military governor of Santiago de Cuba, Leonard Wood, political power falling into the hands of the "ignorant masses", the "unruly rabble" who advocated independence and self government. (13) General Wood candidly stated the U.S. aim as follows:

That aim continued to guide policy over the half century of neocolonial domination that followed. Under U.S. tutelage, Cuba had extensive experience with a multi-party electoralsystem. It was the total inadequacy of this system to achieve national dignity for Cubathat lead to the 1959 Revolution and the more participatory political system that has evolved since.

Under US tutelage, Cuba became a U.S. plantation, virtually a wholly owned subsidiary of North American businesses. As a neo-colony of the U.S., Cuba underwent a process of underdevelopment that in many ways modernized it into a dependent satellite of the U.S. economy. Cuba became a U.S. plantation producing sugar and tobacco with cheap labor and a Mafia dominated playground for North Americans who came for the beaches, the gambling casinos and the prostitutes.

The Cuban Revolution not only established political independence. It also opened the way toward economic development and social justice. This was possible only with an activist state that would promote the common good. In the face of imperialist opposition from the North, this was possible only with a turn toward socialism. As Fidel Castro said on Dec. 7, 1989: "In Cuba, the Revolution, socialism and independence are indissolubly linked." It was precisely because Cuba was a neocolony -- a highly underdeveloped U.S. plantation -- that it had a socialist revolution. (15)

In the present era of neoliberal globalization, Latin America has been subjected to a similar process of neocolonialism. Free trade has strengthened the dependency of many countries of the global South, impoverishing much of their population while enriching national elites and transnational corporations. In reaction to this, populist movements have been able to come to political power by electoral means and begin to build a 21st century socialism. The accomplishments of the Cuban Revolution have inspired and assisted them in their efforts at endogenous development. It has often been said that the Cuban
Revolution was a historical exception in its own time. With benefit of hindsight we might now say that it was just the first revolution of the 21st century, a little ahead of its time.

NOTES

1. Joseph Tharamangalam, “Why Pursuing the Public Good Matters: Lessons from Kerala and Cuba,” 2005 manuscript.

2. Daniel Schugurensky, “UNESCO Report Ranas Cuban Students First in International Math and Reading Tests” http://fcis.oise.utoronto.ca/~daniel_schugurensky/assignment1/1998cuba.
html

3. Christopher Marquis, “Cuba Leads Latin America in Primary Education, Study Finds” New York Times, December 14, 2001. http://www.globalexchange.org/countries/americas/cuba/uscuba/nyt121301.html

4. Cliff DuRand, “A Nation Becoming a University”
http://www.globaljusticecenter.org/articles/betterworld_cuba.htm

5. [http://www.undp.org]

6. Results of Human Development Report 2009 as cited by Jenny Francis in Green Left
Weekly, Oct. 31, 2009.

7. Figures from Francisco Soberon, minister-president of the Central Bank of Cuba,
September 30, 2008.

8. Peter Roman, People's Power: Cuba's Experience with Representative Government
(Boulder: Westview Press, 1999) pp. 110 and 90.

9. Arnold August, Democracy in Cuba and the 1997-98 Elections (Habana: Editorial
Jose Marti, 1999) p. 312.

10. ibid. p. 256.

11. ibid. pp. 160-161.

12. Roman, op. cit. pp. 122-125.

13. August ibid. p. 102.

14. quoted by August, ibid. p. 104.

15. Cliff DuRand, “Cuban National Identity” www.cubaconference.org

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