Havana Cuba. — If the dictatorship of the proletariat could not do something, it was to crush the private initiative of the Cubans. It has never been able to. Cyclically it gives them a break and the prosperity and greening of consumption and production is immediately noticeable. But shortly after, laws and measures are enacted to suffocate it through taxes, the seizure of goods, machinery, or the arrest and sentences of entrepreneurs to long years in prison.
The police campaigns “Pitirre en el alambre”, “Los Bandidos de Río Frío” and many others are there as witnesses in time.
The regime, according to its convenience, sometimes loosens its hand with the private initiative. In this sense, the development of small and medium-sized companies is not far from political ups and downs and international relations.
The last opening was linked to the restoration of relations with the United States and brought personal and family wealth through tourism and services. However, it was cut short when the communist orthodoxy fearfully understood that they would lose power, or “güiro, pumpkin and honey”, as the late street philosopher Chencho Amargura would say.
Now, in the midst of the deep economic and migration crisis, started with “the situation”, continued with the “regulation”, and catalyzed by 11J, the regime launched in 2021 to show certain signs of economic opening that were quickly tackled with a group of linguistic and practical insults that slow down the development of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs).
The euphemistic “productive linkage of the various productive forces” only remains for the verbiage of communist officials. The reality shows otherwise: the design is corseted in a model that seeks to control the socialist state company, MSMEs, cooperatives and self-employment. In this way, the basis of prosperity is slowed down by the bureaucracy with the chain of payments and defaults, low productivity and the diversion of resources assigned by the State.
At the end of 2022, the powerful Castro bureaucracy blocked the creation of broad spectrum MSMEs in the activities of its corporate purpose and questioned the business model of the investors. He also eliminated tax benefits for newly created MSMEs and those resulting from the reconversion of independent workers.
In addition to the above, the provincial governors regulated the utility rates, which slows down innovation, efficiency and promotes corruption, since it leads directly to the adulteration of figures and the payment of bribes to officials.
A concrete case of this fight against businessmen is that of Reinaldo González, a young construction contractor. They owe him, since September 2022, several hundred thousand pesos by the state-owned Empresa de Comercio y Gastronomía Municipal de Centro Habana. His job is to repair warehouses and butcher shops in the municipality, a constructive action promoted by the provincial government. The employer, faced with this situation, cannot pay his workers wages, social security or invest in improvement and business growth, as he had planned.
Waging war on entrepreneurs is not something new. It dates from when Fidel Castro, in his speech on March 13, 1968, which started the so-called Revolutionary Offensive, warned: “We did not make a Revolution to fill the country with timbiriches. Those parasites that inundate us will not return.
But life passed the bill to Fidel Castro. As Chencho Amargura said: “Never spit up, because it can fall into your eye.”
The Cuban fight against MSMEs is in full swing. Collateral damage is seen at the table, the dressing room and the services.
OPINION ARTICLE
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