AS SOON AS THE COMMUNIST REGIMES OF Europe began to tumble last year, bumper stickers predicting "Next Christmas in Havana" sprouted up along Miami's Calle Ocho, the center of the Cuban exile community. Florida's governor appointed a commission to study the impact of the fall of Fidel Castro on the state's economy. And Washington's stars of Cubanology, after nearly 32 years of laying bets not on whether but how soon, gloried in the imminent demise of the Cuban Revo- lution. Then, in December, Fidel Castro made public his pointed differences with Mikhail Gorbachev. He painted perestroika as tantamount to the resurrection of capital- ism, and swore that Cubans would remain on "the true path to socialism" even if they had to go it alone. While some on the Left were delighted, he was further ridiculed in this country-and in the U.S.S.R.-convincing even friends of the revolution that the Cuban leader would share the fate of Eastern Europe's communists. We can not expect the mainstream press to tell the truth about a country with which the U.S. government is at war. Fidel Castro's stance is more nuanced and the revolution more profound than their enemies like to portray. But the question is worth posing: Is Cuba's grand experiment-for three decades a beacon for progressive movements the world over-nearing an end? CUBA HAS NEVER BEEN AN EASY SUBJECT of debate for either North or Latin Americans. Even before 1959, U.S. intervention awoke violent passions ill- suited to frank discussion. And over the past 30 years, the symbolic power of "the rebel isle" has drowned most thoughtful criticism in a sea of flag-waving on both sides. For this issue, the first of two Reports on Cuba, we turned to researchers who have resisted the well-traveled paths of Cuba-bashing or Cuba-lauding, and asked them to go beyond the current mania for burying Fidel Castro. (The second issue, to be published in October, will look at Cuba and the United States.) They found that, indeed, Cuban socialism is in difficult straits: In the only nation which officially regards the market as anathema, the black market is the only thing booming; where material incen- tives have been eschewed for the high ground of moral commitment, most everyone breaks the law as a matter of course. Perestroika and glasnost in the East not only added to Cuba's longstanding economic problems, they brought to the surface the doubts many Cubans harbor about social- ism in their own country. Medea Benjamin, executive director of Global Exchange, lived in Cuba from 1979- 1983 and returned earlier this year to research this Report. She writes of a sense of confusion and isolation which could conceal significant disaffection. Despite the con- tinuing achievements of the revolution-outlined here by Smith College economist Andrew Zimbalist-the blind optimism of past years is gone, and the potential for upheaval is real. CCORDING TO MOST PRESS ACCOUNTS, Cuban history began and ended in 1959. But "Fidel Castro's strident opposition to reform," writes Marifeli P6rez-Stable, of the State University of New York at Old Westbury, "is perhaps only understood in the broad context of Cuban history and the lessons radical national- ists like Fidel draw from it." Nearly a century of struggle against domination by the United States and its wealthy Cuban allies teaches that unity, intransigence and resis- tance pay off; tolerance of diversity, compromise and moderation only give ammunition to the enemy. Valuable though this lesson may be, it is no longer sufficient. Cuban society has grown far too complex for patria o muerte (homeland or death) to be the sum total of its politics. The official hard line notwithstanding, the Communist Party has opened the door to reform. National Lawyers Guild president Debra Evenson writes about nationwide party-sponsored debates in which criticisms have flown fast and furious, setting in motion a dynamic that may well spill over the approved boundaries for protest (no ques- tioning of the socialist economy or the one-party state). Whether the revolution resists change or takes yet an- other plunge into uncharted territory, Fidel Castro is sure to remain at center stage. Colombian author Gabriel Garcia Mdrquez has written an insider's portrait of the person behind the legend, whose human strengths and frailties indelibly color the island's politics-and in whose hands the potential for reform lies.
