Miguel Díaz-Canel acknowledged on Monday that the Cuban regime has had to resort to practices typical of capitalism to confront the economic crisis the country is facing, and he admitted that this decision creates a personal conflict for him because it contradicts the principles in which he was raised.
"Of course it hurts me, first because it goes against the concepts that one has built and been educated on," he stated during an interview granted to the Russian state channel RT in Spanish.
The confession came after journalist Oliver Zamora asked him if, similar to Fidel Castro during the Special Period of the nineties, he found it painful to adopt measures that increase social inequality.
Díaz-Canel responded by appealing to the legacy of the historic leader of the Revolution to justify the economic course that the regime is following today.
According to the explanation, Fidel Castro "unashamedly acknowledged how painful it was" to have to accept "practices typical of capitalism" during the Special Period, but he believed that the primary goal was to preserve the Revolution.
“Above all, it was about saving the revolution,” the leader recalled, adding that Castro believed it could be achieved “as long as there was unity among the people and as long as there was leadership, a control from the Party.”
Díaz-Canel recalled some of the decisions made in the 1990s that, as he said, then seemed like "a sacrilege."
Among them, she mentioned the decriminalization of holding foreign currency, which—she admitted—"started to create social inequalities," the opening up to foreign investment, and the boost to international tourism.
It also acknowledged that these measures had social effects that the regime considers negative.
"New types of drugs have emerged that we didn't have before, and we are still fighting against them. Prostitution has proliferated, which, for us, given the entire process of women's emancipation experienced during the revolution, is a very painful phenomenon that we are still confronting,” he stated.
During the interview, the leader also acknowledged Cuba's historical economic dependence on other international allies.
He first mentioned the former Soviet Union and later Venezuela and China, though he emphasized that the goal is for the country to be able to sustain itself with its own resources.
"To be capable, through our own efforts and our own talent, of not being dependent on anyone," he expressed.
In this context, it was also revealed the impact that the interruption of energy supply from Venezuela has had.
"It's been six months since a fuel ship has arrived; only a Russian ship came for humanitarian aid," he said.
Economic reforms without renouncing socialism
The statements come just weeks after the National Assembly approved the largest package of economic reforms since the Special Period.
The 176 measures include, among other changes, the authorization of private banking for the first time since 1959, the elimination of the 100-worker limit for small and medium-sized enterprises (mipymes), and the opening of new opportunities for foreign direct investment in the private sector.
Despite acknowledging the need to incorporate market mechanisms, Díaz-Canel insisted that the government is not abandoning the socialist model.
He defined reforms as "a creation, a creative process of resistance" and asserted that "the art of politics" involves finding "compensatory mechanisms to prevent the gaps of inequality from widening."
However, various economists have questioned the extent of the process. Mauricio de Miranda Parrondo, for example, has warned that the reforms could lead to a “patrimonial authoritarian capitalism” controlled by the Communist Party.
Díaz-Canel himself had already attempted to address those criticisms on July 4, during the Congress of the Central Workers Union of Cuba, stating that “there is no betrayal of socialist construction, neither by principle, nor by conviction, nor by action”.
According to what was revealed in the interview with RT, the Government hopes to start implementing 121 of the 176 approved measures before the end of July, amid a crisis characterized by power outages of up to 20 hours a day and an electricity generation deficit that reached a record 2,208 megawatts on June 26.
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