The Cuban revolutionaries

Nobody panic, the plan is moving forward. President Miguel Díaz-Canel’s words ring with truth and optimism; they convey a deep conviction and an ironclad commitment never to take a step back: “We have reached a moment of maturity, of reflection, typical of the debate that has unfolded over all these years, which tells us that we must continue defending socialism, but building it with some transformations.” The Cuban leader spoke like this shortly after Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz set out in Havana, a week earlier, a program condensed into 176 measures — which the reporter who covered the story for this outlet, Carlos S. Maldonado, called “drastic” — that will change the face of the island. Market expansion, opening the door to the creation of private banks, allowing private shareholders in state companies, currency devaluations, and an end to egalitarianism by eliminating universal subsidies. There is no doubt: the Cuban government will continue to defend socialism.

For a long time now, no one has been entirely sure which socialism the authorities who inherited the Revolution are talking about, but whatever it is, it is always authentic, solidaristic, forward-looking, and above all generous. That was the case with Fidel Castro at the beginning, when he set his sights on Guillermo Cabrera Infante until he broke him, thereby protecting the people from any deviation and freeing them from overly marked inclinations — in that writer’s case, for partying, joy, irony and even wordplay. Where is a revolutionary who goes around making puns headed? Nowhere.

In 1971, the State Security again staged an impressive display of its commitment to sweeping change and to building the new man, and allowed Heberto Padilla to incriminate himself for the gravest perversions into which he had fallen — feeling out of step with the Revolution, expressing a certain pessimism and disenchantment, being critical of some government initiatives — in the auditorium of the Writers’ Union. It all happened more than 50 years ago. The poet took the floor and immediately expressed his deepest gratitude for the Revolution’s generosity. And the State Security officials — of an intelligence that even astonished Padilla himself, as he proclaims in his long confession — had to do excellent work. A few of Padilla’s verses from that era betray him: “He does not enter the game / He does not feel enthused / He does not make his message clear / He does not even notice the miracles.” The revolutionary officials acted at once. Just where do you think you’re going, young man, with such a lack of enthusiasm? Apologize, damn it. And Heberto Padilla apologized.

Díaz-Canel has been very clear and said that none of the announced changes means “a renunciation of the revolution.” There may be some confused soul who reads the announcement of those measures as a gesture of surrender, of yielding to Trump’s bluster, as capitulation to the real-estate tycoon’s fierce offensive against the island. But that is not the case — so nobody panic. The package of 176 measures is only another step, the Cuban government says, to “do what is necessary to preserve what is essential.” Now we will have to see what Donald Trump considers “necessary” to do on the island to “preserve” what the U.S. president understands as “essential.” We will know soon.

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