Latin American perspectives II; Episode 22 of 38

Latin America perspectives a series of information and comment about Latin America with Dr. C. Harvey Gardner research professor of history at Southern Illinois University. These programs are recorded by station w s r u FM. Here now is Dr. Gardner. Despite the furor on the campuses and the turmoil in the streets the incidence of change in the United States today scarcely deserves the label revolution. True we do have an occasional election with mildly revolutionary unexpected results and likewise true is the fact that some new laws are labelled bits and pieces of a social revolution. However that may be and it remains open to argument. We are left with equivalently desirable economic revolution despite oft mouthed words about automation. Of all the forms that revolution can take economic revolution is possibly the most difficult for us to comprehend.

Consider the Castro revolution in Cuba. Politically we are readily aware of those who are in and those who are out of power and socially. We know who has stayed and who has left but our vision is less clear. Distinctly blurred when it comes to conclusions about the economics of that revolution. It is not enough that oversimplified generalization to say Cuba has shifted from dependence upon the United States to dependence upon Russia both the background and the foreground of the Cuban economic picture is more complex than that. Tackling the telling of that complexity is a new volume. The economic transformation of Cuba written by Edward Boorstein spelled B double o r s t e i n and published by Monthly Review Press New

York born Edward Boorstein served the United States government in the Federal Reserve and in the War Production Board. A combat engineer in World War Two days He later served US military government in Germany and as economic consultant in Washington and Latin America. Accompanied by his wife and two children he went to Cuba in May 1960 for three and one half years. He served as an economist at the National Bank and ministry of foreign commerce. These then are the words the ideas of a first hand account of economic aspects of the Cuban revolution. By October 1 nine hundred sixty. This of course more than 18 months after Castro had come to power. Much of the administrative and technical personnel related to foreign owned businesses industries of size had left the island.

The Americans and some of the Cubans were withdrawn by the home companies of the plants for which they worked and others Cubans left of their own accord. They found themselves unable to understand the struggle with the United States unwilling to accept the new way of life that was opening up to them. This matter of departures of personnel of significant key personnel was one of the earliest problems that the changing economy had to know in the Cuban revolution. There was also a measure of dependence upon the United States that was beyond that of dollars in our personnel attending jobs. Almost everything from the large boilers in the sugar mills to ordinary electric sockets have been built working according to American designs and specifications. The identification plates on the machinery told you that it was General Electric Westinghouse Minneapolis Honeywell or some other well-known United States corporation. The electric

current used in Cuba was exactly the same as that in the United States. The system of measures was in inches and feet instead of the metric system so common in the rest of Latin America and most of the larger factories except for sugar mills and tobacco plants worked with raw materials which had to be brought to Cuba from the United States and oftentimes these raw materials were specifically designed for the machinery the processes to which they were to be submitted. Just as an automobile can be put out of commission for lack of a small inexpensive part. But to say a brake cylinder worth a few dollars so the operations of a large factory can be slowed down indeed stopped because of some ordinarily insignificant piece of equipment that cannot be replaced. This measure of dependence then was another great problem that the changing order of the Cuban Revolution had to face

raw materials and components also gave trouble. For example one for million dollar plant for the production of synthetic fiber finished just about the time the Revolution broke could not be put into operation because it was not possible to get cellulose acetate of exactly the specifications required. Also the incubators produced in the old American car and foundry plant were designed to use thermostats produced in the United States. Problems often arose even when it was possible to obtain the raw materials. It suddenly came as a bit of a surprise when Cubans were made aware of the fact that Russian wheat is apparently somewhat different from American wheat and this required adjustment in Cuban processing equipment in like fashion. The silica rock imported from Poland for the soap and detergent

factories different from that which had been previously used. And so there were even more problems. The errors that were made in the course of conversion were also in numerable machines were sometimes damaged by improvised parts which did not meet specifications. Often orders were blithely sent out for expensive new machinery when it would have been better to repair our cannibalise some of the existing equipment sometimes to the care of equipment was poor. The problem then emerges that the successful takeover and operation of the Cuban economy depended greatly on how well its foreign trade was managed under rapidly changing conditions produced by the elimination of the United States sugar quota nationalization. The American embargo and the need to

re-orient about 80 percent of Cuba's trade to the socialist countries. One of the significant problems that this the new volume of trade coming to Cuba had to face concerned the ports a port is something one almost takes for granted. There is the wharf. There is the space for dropping anchor for unloading supplies and moving it out. But lo and behold the whole port system of Cuba from the design and equipment of the docks to the system of warehouses at the ports and in the interior was adapted to a foreign commerce monopolized by the United States. Since Cuba was so close to the United States almost any article needed could be obtained in three to five days through a simple telephone call shipments were frequent and small. Most goods came on the West Palm Beach ferry or the sea train out of New Orleans. Many goods arrived in freight cars or

tank cars which rode onto the ships then off to the ships on the Cuban rails to move down alongside a factory. Lard for example went in tank cars to the factory in which it was canned raw material for the Procter and Gamble plant went directly to the doorstep. When that would shift was made to greater traffic with European countries it became evident that for one thing a profitable shipment called for huge or larger shipments and so these larger shipments coming in larger vessels found it difficult to dock found the warehouse facilities limited found the transfer equipment the cranes etc. in adequate to meet the need and then of course the storage supplies were. Pinched by the fact that there was a shortage of storage space. We have them a series of questions gradually emerging out of

this. The dilemma that Cuba faced and those who were planners had to ask themselves how to increase Cuban exports other than sugar how to replace the US market. How to develop Cuba's tropical fruits and then a more fundamental question came forth. Cuba's foreign trade is larger in relation to the total gross product of that nation than is that of any other socialist country. Is this significant. If so what fundamental problem must Cuba face between foreign trade and economic development. Economists Boorstein was personally acquainted with indeed involved in two aspects of these Cuban economic problems. First the balance of trade. Second the sugar policy that was developed the logic of most of the policies that

revolutionary Cuba turned to was natural and simple to reverse what Imperialism had been doing imperialism meant a cube of large plantations and idle land and labor. The thing to do is to have land reform and put the idle land and labor to work. Imperialism had meant a one crop. Cuba therefore diversified imperialism monopolize Cuba's foreign trade. Therefore trade with all countries imperialism had kept Cuba from more than token industrialization. Therefore industrialized rapidly. Cuba had been an economic vassal of the United States. Therefore try to create an independent economy. These questions are easy to ask but difficult to answer. Consider diversification for example. Even if you say you're going to do it what does it mean in terms of the production of tomatoes of cucumbers of rice of beans of specific commodities. And when you talk about industrialization what industries should

develop. How fast should that development take place. What are the interrelationships between industrialization and agricultural development. Indeed when you talk about economic independence does this mean that a country that Cuba should try to produce everything it needed that it had absolutely no dependence upon anyone anywhere that they have complete self-sufficiency. Well the theory the reality of course had to be reconciled in some fashion and it became evident with the passage of time that Cuba must depend on sugar because it could not industrialize rapidly enough to pay off deficits to meet its balance of payments and therefore it had to do more of what it could do best and sugar was given the unusual priority but was not led to expect when the Revolution broke. This was because Cuba was trying to work from strength what it knew how to do rather than

for example trying to produce more nickel trying to get a nickel plant established which could not be productive for at least two years. Also there was a realisation that Cuba departing from the normal socialist Norm was not going for heavy industry. This because Cuba was given to an agricultural background did not have the raw materials for the establishment of industry and so again was trying to work from strength. But in so doing they did so in a manner that was contrary to quite different from the social norm. The ideological pattern that Russia and other communist states have suggested is the only way to revolution. We have them in this volume by Edward Borstein the economic transformation of Cuba. A well tempered and eminently readable statement of the problems and prospects of the American revolution in Cuba today.

This was another programme in the series Latin America perspectives with Dr. C. Harvey Gardner research professor of history at Southern Illinois University. Join us for our next program when Dr. Gardner will comment on another interesting aspect of Latin American affairs. These programs are recorded by station WFIU FM and are made available to this station by the national educational radio network.