Seeking solutions to problems in Cuba
Seeking solutions to problems in Cuba
A national plan with creative implementation in local communities
The ninth episode of the Youtube program “Desde la Presidencia,” recorded on July 4, 2024, was dedicated to explaining the monthly visits of Miguel Díaz-Canel, First Secretary of the Communist Party and President of Cuba, and Roberto Morales Ojeda, Secretary of Organization of the Communist Party, to seventy-three local communities in the last six months, since January 2024. Díaz-Canel explained the guiding conception: the national plan for development is finalized and disseminated at the national level by the Party, the National Assembly, and the government; and the plan is made real in each local community by creative implementation, based on knowledge of local conditions. The purpose of the Party visits is to accompany and support the local community in the implementation of the plan, and to develop a deeper understanding of the policies that ought to constitute the national plan. The Cuban Economic Plan of 2024 includes increasing food production for domestic consumption; increasing sugar production for exportation; reducing corruption, crime, illegalities, and social indiscipline; strengthening mass organizations at the level of the base; and improving the ideological formation of youth.
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Díaz-Canel reported that during the seventy-six visits to seventy-three local communities, some 195 people’s councils and 986 places of work were visited, involving interchanges with more than 180,000 persons. Some interchanges were organized as part of the visit plan, whereas others occurred spontaneously with groups of persons, which were very meaningful to the Party team. The interchanges included discussions concerning the production of food, the fiscal deficit, inflationary prices, and social problems related to adolescence and youth, education, health, and attention to persons and families in marginal conditions. There was much discussion concerning the relation between the state and non-state enterprises in the economy. The functioning of mass organizations and the Party cells also was discussed, as well as the problems of corruption, crime, illegalities, social indiscipline, and youth engaged in neither work nor study. The Party team placed much focus on science and innovation in the resolution of problems.
Díaz-Canel noted that, as has been a custom of the Party, opinion surveys of the population were conducted, continuing a method utilized by Comandante Fidel Castro and the General of the Army Raúl Castro. There were very positive opinions with respect to the Party visits. Many of the respondents expressed appreciation that the Party and the government have an agenda that coincides with the aspirations of the people and are dedicated to addressing the problems that the people experience in everyday life.
But there were negative opinions concerning the visits, expressing the view that the visits do not provide solutions to any of the problems. Díaz-Canel read an opinion stating that the visits ought to be surprise visits, because in the days before the visit the garbage is collected, the hospital is repaired, the electric outages are reduced, the plazas are repaired and painted, the streets are repaired, and rice and chicken are delivered to the state distribution stores.
In response to these negative opinions, Díaz-Canel noted that the visits are designed to address problems that the Party and the government know exist, with the intention of determining how the State can support the local territories in the resolution of the problems, including critical reflection with respect to existing policies. He explained that when the Party team plans a visit, it identifies beforehand, with an intentionality of purpose, what problems in a particular province the team wants to address, to ensure the presence of relevant provincial specialists. But the Party team does not identify which cities, towns, or local territories in the province it plans to visit. This information is communicated to the provincial leaders when the Party team arrives in the province. So, the leaders in the province do not know until the day of the visit which local territories the Party team is going to visit.
Díaz-Canel reported that on some occasions the Party team heard that the intended locality of the visit was doing some dress-up tasks in anticipation of the visit, and when the Party team had suspicions in this regard, they suspended the visit and went to another locality instead. And they had pertinent conversations with the persons responsible. At the same time, Díaz-Canel recognizes that the problems are so complex, they could hardly be resolved in a short time prior to the Party team’s visit, as is the case, for example, with respect to a productive enterprise that has not been able to plant crops because of insufficient inputs. There are many problems and accumulated problems that the Party team is able to see, including a local leadership that is suffering from apathy or tiredness, or that lacks knowledge.
The First Secretary explained that in the month of January the localities were selected because they were functioning well. The Party team did so with the intention of showing that some localities can attain their goals, even though they have the same obstacles imposed on them by the intensified blockade as all the other localities in the country. In these well-functioning localities, the local leadership of the work collectives made the correct decisions that enabled the overcoming of obstacles; they created different ways of doing the work that attained results despite the obstacles. For Díaz-Canel, such localities are inspiring examples of good experiences. They have forged a creative resistance, drawing upon the talent and intelligence of the local people.
In February, Díaz-Canel noted, the Party team went to localities that were selected because they were functioning poorly, with the hope of inspiring them with the examples of the localities with good experiences. It was not a question of telling them the solutions, but of inspiring them to creatively find the solutions appropriate for their particular locality, utilizing their own resources.
During the course of the Party visits to the different localities, a consensus was reached with respect to the underutilization of land. There is land that eight to ten years ago was exploited for cultivation, but today has been lost to the Marabou weed (an invasive species). The Party team encountered this problem repeatedly in different localities, which led to the establishment of agricultural and animal enterprises that now are utilizing robust systems of local production to rescue land that had been vacated, because of insufficient inputs and resources necessary for cultivation.
The Party team seeks to function as educators, Díaz-Canel maintained, to show what can be done, and not to look for persons to blame. The Party team is committed to accompanying the local territories, demonstrating the commitment of the Party and the government to the attainment of the goals of the economic plan. The Party team goes to the localities to fight with them in the resolution of the problems.
Díaz-Canel maintains that going to the terrain of daily struggle brings the truth to light, and it facilitates informed critical reflection that enables the Party team to stimulate the work that must be done, led by the leaders in the localities in all the provinces of the country. Going to the terrain of daily struggle enables the Party team to learn, and to convey to all the people what has been learned from the good experiences in the localities. It provides the foundation to systematize understanding and to construct national consensus, confronting the distortions in the national economy (provoked primarily by the intensification of the blockade since 2019).
The First Secretary expressed a very positive attitude toward the people, saying that the visits were important because they involved arriving to the scenes of the “daily heroism of our people.”
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Díaz-Canel concluded:
We turn each visit into a workshop to build consensus on the basis of exchanges on work. We make criticisms, we promote solutions, and we disseminate solutions; and that is a tremendous learning. Each visit represents the possibility of appreciating reality; it is an opportunity to talk and exchange with the population. Because sixty-five years ago, Cubans learned to sustain our sacred independence against all odds.
Díaz-Canel possesses the deep conviction that the Cuban Revolution will prevail, overcoming the blockade without it being lifted through heroic and creative resistance, thus serving as hope for a suffering humanity for a more just and prosperous world. I stand with him.
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Charles - are you able to comment on the recent NACLA article - CUBA Three years after 11 J.
Always appreciate your insight