Havana Cuba. — In a rare and paradoxical twist of history, capitalism is returning to Cuba brought by none other than the Kremlin to try to save what is left of Castroism. Only that it is no longer the Kremlin of the hierarchs of the Soviet Politburo that financed Fidel Castro’s experiments with communism for 31 years, but the ultra-conservative Kremlin with a fascist odor of Putin and his oligarchs.
After six decades of sacrifices imposed by Castroism in order to build socialism, capitalism returns. And the one that comes upon us, is practically here, it couldn’t be worse. And it is that the Russian recipe to try to revive the Cuban economy is similar to the one applied after the collapse of the Soviet Union: privatizations and other economic reforms tending to a capitalism led by former members of the elite or communists transformed into oligarchs.
The Russian formula seems very good to the bosses of Castro’s continuity who begged for the help of the Kremlin requesting “comprehensive solutions” to get out of the impasse into which their clumsiness, stubbornness and fear of losing power have led them.
It does not matter that Díaz-Canel and the Minister of Economy and Planning, Alejandro Gil Fernández, continue to talk about strengthening and prioritizing the socialist state company. The Russians of Stolypin Institute recommend a reform program to develop private enterprise? Well come on. The military of the FAR and the MININT turned into businessmen, the communist bosses turned into millionaire oligarchs who will splash their relatives and the MSMEs to evade US sanctions fit perfectly into the recipe.
And the economic reordering, with all the bad things that went wrong for them, saved them from having to announce now the adoption of shock therapies: we Cubans have been feeling the blows in our pockets and stomachs for a long time. After all, the top brass of continuity, despite their discursive rhetoric, are not overly concerned with ideological questions. And much less the welfare of the people.
Russia, with so many problems that it faces, or precisely because of that, seems to be taking seriously the modification of Castro’s continuity in the most advantageous way for its geopolitical and economic interests. This is indicated by the deluge of high-ranking Russian officials who have come to Havana. Not even when the Soviets burst into Cuba for the first time, with Foreign Minister Anastáas Mikoyán at the helm, in 1960, was anything like this seen.
In recent months, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Maxim Oreshkin, Putin’s advisor; Viacheslav Volodin, Chairman of the Duma (Chamber of Deputies); Nikolai Patrushev, Secretary of the Security Council; Igor Sechin, CEO of the Rosneft oil company; Boris Titov, from the Stolypin Institute; and just a few days ago, Deputy Prime Minister Dimitri Chernishenko and Secretary of State and Deputy Minister of Science and Higher Education Pyotr Alexandrovich Kucherenko, to participate in the XX session of the Cuban-Russian Intergovernmental Commission for economic-commercial and scientific collaboration. technique.
And they come fast and voracious. Deputy Prime Minister Chernishenko requested “some changes in Cuban legislation.” Will it be in the Foreign Investment Law? In the Constitution? Do you want them to toughen the Penal Code even more? That they reverse the Family Code so as not to upset the homophobic Putin?
The bosses, desperate, with no other nail to hold on to, are determined to accept whatever is demanded and imposed. After the majority of Cubans were thrown into destitution for monetary unification, now they are going to put the ruble into circulation in Cuba. They maintain unconditional support for Putin’s criminal aggression against Ukraine. And to top it off: they granted land to the Russians for 30 years, so that they use it for who knows what. And they still dare to describe the governments of the Republican era as “surrenders” and “subject to Yankee capital”!
Despite his pro-Russian submission and the capitalist recipe book advocated by Titov and the Stolypin Institute for Cuba, it is highly improbable that the Russification of Castro’s continuity will turn out well for the bosses.
Will Russia, internationally isolated and bleeding to death in the bogged down war in Ukraine, be able to comply with Díaz-Canel’s request for “comprehensive solutions” by definitively canceling Cuba’s debt, resuming collaboration projects, modernizing the country’s infrastructure, supplying oil cheap, wheat, raw materials, machinery, weapons to modernize the FAR and guarantee that tourists come from Russia to vacation, many tourists?
Unlike Russia, where there was a lot to steal, in Cuba, in the state the economy is in after 64 years of nonsense and disasters, there will hardly be anything to share in the piñata. If anything, little more than remittances from emigrants, money from tourism and rented doctors. So we’ll see the piranhas fighting with their teeth.
If Fidel Castro were to be resurrected, he would probably advise his followers not to trust the Russians too much. If he would know them the Maximum Leader! They were very generous subsidizing his regime with 115 billion dollars between 1960 and 1991, but just as they failed him in October 1962 when they took the nuclear missiles without counting on him and many years later with Perestroika and then when they withdrew the Base Lourdes, could once again disappoint their Cuban allies in the future. If not long ago they canceled the collaboration projects with Cuba for non-payment!
Now Russia wants the complicity of Cuba to evade international sanctions and have a presence in the Caribbean in retaliation for NATO’s approach to its border and for US support for Ukraine, but if Uncle Sam becomes alarmed and rears, we would have to see what happens, because between superpowers, when they negotiate, you never know.
In any case, the Russification of Cuba begins with very bad auspices. The bad vibe is so great, the ossobbo of the neo-Castro bosses, that on May 21, when he was returning from Cuba, near Moscow, on board the plane that was carrying him, the 46-year-old Secretary of State Kucherenko suffered a heart attack and died. That is, if they did not poison him on Putin’s orders, because they say that Pyotr Alexandrovich was in disagreement and very depressed with the aggression against Ukraine.
OPINION ARTICLE
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