“The Transformations have to be Profound” Part 1

An interview with Rogelio Polanco, Head of the Ideological Department of the Communist Party of Cuba

By Katrien Demuynck on February 6, 2023

Cuba is currently going through an extremely difficult time. How does this island manage to hold its ground in spite of everything? What are the challenges it faces and how are they being addressed? We put these questions to Rogelio Polanco.

KD : Cuba is going through a very tough time, at a time when socialism is in a completely different position than in previous decades. Cuba is one of the few socialist countries that are still standing. What are the main problems and challenges of Cuban society at the ideological level?

RP : Indeed, the world is going through an exceptional circumstance. The risks for the existence of humanity are still very high. Imperialism continues with its actions contrary to the welfare and prosperity of the great humble masses of the planet. Its exploitative, distorting, warmongering, xenophobic and right-wing policies continue to generate great conflicts for human existence. Today we are all witnesses of this exacerbation of contradictions that causes serious risks to humanity. We are living at a time when fascist, right-wing and neo-liberal ideas are gaining more and more strength. The big information transnationals have been in charge of exacerbating these tendencies and provoking greater conflicts in our country.

The world economy is also going through very adverse circumstances. The covid 19 pandemic has had serious impacts on human coexistence. It has slowed down the world economy and, in turn, has forced a considerable part of our nations to close borders and to generate a very complex situation from the health point of view. It has also had a psychological impact on a large part of humanity. Added to this are adverse circumstances related to the increase in the arms race and the warmongering provocations of the imperialist countries. In this respect, the most relevant recent event is an armed conflict in Europe. All this has generated a very serious situation.

Of course, in the case of Cuba, in addition to these impacts of the international situation and the international economy, the great obstacle facing the Cuban nation continues to be the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the United States for more than 60 years now. This blockade has been intensified with more than 240 measures applied by the group of government around President Trump, who intensified all kinds of actions to prevent the least entry of financial resources into Cuba. The group that accompanied in making political decisions related to Cuba in the Trump administration was in charge of identifying all those possible ways of entry of financial resources in our country and try to prevent them with measures that are really genocidal, of suffocation for an entire nation. These include measures related to the persecution of the supply of fuel to our country, to such an extent that in recent statements by the then U.S. Secretary of Defense it was revealed that they had been assessing the possibility of physically preventing with military actions the arrival of fuel ships to our country. It is almost an action of piracy in the 21st century.

Furthermore, only a few days before leaving office they were able, in a demonstration of revanchism, to include Cuba again on the list of countries sponsoring terrorism, so that it would remain as a kind of legacy to the new government, after more than 30 years of Cuba having been included in that spurious list, totally unjust and cynical, because if there is one country that has been a victim of terrorism, it has been Cuba. Cuba has never attacked any nation, much less the people of the United States or its government. Cuba had been removed from that list during the last term of President Obama, as part of the actions taken by the U.S. government and the negotiations held at that time. Reincorporating Cuba in that list is very serious, it has an important impact on banks, governments and companies, because it limits their transactions with Cuba. As we all know, the international financial system is completely controlled by the United States and Western countries. And any bank that intends to make a transaction towards Cuba, not only in US dollars (as we know Cuba cannot make them in that currency which is the main international currency), but in any other currency, but that goes to Cuba or as a source to Cuba or only indicates Cuba in that transaction, any bank limits it, prevents it, blocks it and, therefore, Cuba cannot make transactions through the international financial system, because those banks try to comply with the regulations of the US Treasury Department. This is a demonstration of the extraterritorial character of the blockade.

KD: Can you explain why you call it extraterritorial?

RP : When we say extraterritorial it means that a country, a government, makes decisions that have implications for another government or other entities outside its territory. It is totally illegal and given what banks consider in English “overcompliance”, i.e., to be more than compliant with international transaction rules, they are very careful about making any transactions because they may be subject to sanctions. The U.S. Treasury Department has for several years imposed extraordinary sanctions on European banks for conducting transactions with Cuba, sanctions that have resulted in multi-million dollar losses.

On the other hand, the Trump administration did everything possible to pursue any inflow of money into Cuba and the Biden administration has continued with those unilateral coercive measures against Cuba by means of a campaign against tourism to Cuba or a perverse campaign against Cuban doctors providing services in other countries, a campaign in which it was even raised that they were turned into slaves and even forced some countries to take actions to stop receiving cooperation from Cuba, which also prevented the inflow of income to our country in health matters.

During the five years of the Trump administration and so far of the Biden administration, the blockade of Cuba has intensified atrociously. In the midst of the covid 19 pandemic, these actions were more opportunistic than ever, because they prevented Cuba from accessing medicines, pulmonary ventilators and other basic supplies needed to alleviate the effect of the pandemic, which is an extremely cruel action against Cuba.

KD : How did you deal with the Covid 19 pandemic under those circumstances?

RP : We had to resort to our immense capacity for resistance and to the supreme will of our people and our government to find a way to face the pandemic peak, which could only be counteracted by concentrating all the efforts of the country, the nation and all the people. In those circumstances and thanks to the visionary idea that Fidel had had at the time of creating the capacity to produce medicines and biotechnological production, we were able to create our own vaccines. Only in this way has it been possible to control the pandemic and it is an extraordinary heroism of our people. This is today a chimera for many nations, a goal, because even during the pandemic period the injustices of the international capitalist system were exacerbated. There were countries that hoarded more and more vaccines, sometimes even several times more vaccines than necessary, and, therefore, vaccines were lost when they expired. These countries were not able, in a selfish action, to share them with other nations. The distribution of vaccines to face an epidemic, a global pandemic of covid 19, is today unequal because the international economic order is unjust and unequal. This is the scenario in which today Cuba continues to resist, overcome and develop the Revolution.

KD : All this must have created or exacerbated the country’s internal problems.

RP : Internally, there have been important challenges. Cuba is immersed in a process of gradual and orderly transfer of the main positions and responsibilities of political leadership of the Revolution from the historical generation to a new generation formed and forged during these years. It was the moment imperialism had been waiting for so long to attack and try to defeat the Revolution. Let us remember that in the first years of the Revolution, imperialism was determined to physically destroy our main leaders. There were hundreds of attempts to assassinate Commander in Chief Fidel Castro and other leaders of the Revolution, attempts that often failed. Then they bet on what they cynically called the “biological solution”, which was nothing more than waiting for the death of our historical leaders and that in this way the revolution would be defeated, defeated. For a long time they bet that continuity was impossible, however, today we are living a moment in which new generations of Cubans continue to carry forward the revolutionary process, which demonstrates the convictions that for so many decades have been established in the heart of our people and also shows that our Revolution responds to a historical need. Of course, the role of the leaders has been essential in its deepening and advancement, but the Revolution is the product of the conscious and active participation of an entire people. Otherwise the advance of the Revolution would not have been possible.

In these circumstances, today we are facing a difficult economic situation which has been the result of the international economic situation, of the situation of the tightening of the blockade and also of the difficulties we have had to face as part of the process of economic transformation of our society. Today Cuba is very limited in financial resources to continue the development of the country. We have no access to credits of any kind, neither from international organizations nor commercial credits. Today it is increasingly difficult to obtain financial resources to guarantee the continuity of our development plans, when no country in the world can develop and advance if it does not have access to financial sources. On the other hand, access to trade, foreign investment and international tourism has been increasingly deficient due to the blockade.

In the midst of this, imperialism has carried out a large-scale political communications campaign with multimillionaire resources to generate situations of destabilization within the country. They have in their favor the monopoly of the information transnationals, in particular of the large algorithmic platforms in the digital public space. Today they control practically the totality of the information flow generated in the world and through processes of media intoxication, by means of high-tech communicative operations, they are trying to induce a destabilization of great proportions that will generate problems in the national situation. They are inducing actions in the physical space, in the street, to achieve what they call the social explosion, which is nothing else than to generate chaos, violence, to try to confront segments of our people with the authorities and with the law enforcement agencies to generate campaigns on violations of human rights, democracy and thereby provoke situations of destabilization within the country. This is textbook. Different theorists consider it as part of the hybrid war, a fourth generation war that takes advantage of different elements of political, communicative, informative and diplomatic character to achieve the objectives of regime change with a lower political cost for those who carry out these destabilization actions. By means of supposedly non-violent or civilian actions, they seek to generate chaos and thus provoke foreign intervention and achieve their desired objectives of overthrowing those governments that are uncomfortable or adverse to them. That is the design of the processes of political subversion against Cuba and against other friendly nations that try to develop alternative processes in their own countries, contrary or counter-hegemonic to the actions of imperialism.

KD : In your opinion, what are the most important challenges facing Cuba?

RP : In the case of our country, the main challenges from the ideological point of view have to do, precisely, with the capacity of our people to confront these actions of subversion. The objective of this is to strengthen our political preparation at all levels so that our people increasingly understand and accompany the leadership of the Revolution in the process of development of our nation, of socialist construction and of confronting subversive actions. All our efforts from an ideological point of view are aimed at reinforcing our values, our essence, our national identity, our culture, the foundations of our ideology, based on the thought of José Martí, of Fidel Castro and, of course, on Marxism and Leninism, and on the essential elements that sustain the Cuban nation.

All this in the face of a process of cultural colonization that is trying to be established from those centers of imperial power where they permanently try to exalt, extol and give theoretical body to a whole series of actions of ideological character to present the American dream or capitalism as the only way for the development of our nation. Everything that is detrimental to our symbols, our leaders, our history is an essential part of the actions of subversion. Everything aimed at breaking the human will, at provoking disunity among our people, at generating false news, at trying to maintain that the Cuban nation is unviable, that socialism is unviable, is part of the action of imperialism. For this purpose they have think tanks, universities, important lines of thought in the cultural, philosophical and ideological spheres, which by different means try to influence, to influence the minds and hearts of our people. And especially the fundamental target of subversive action is our youth, the new generations from the earliest ages.

Historically this has been the case. Historically our enemies have argued that the new generations would not be able to give continuity to their revolutionary process. If the historical leaders could be wiped out, either by physically or morally annihilating them, then it would not be possible for the new generations, who did not participate in the process of revolutionary creation, of forging the founding ideals of the Revolution, to continue it. These new generations would become soft, they would be corrupted or would not have sufficiently firm convictions to sustain the revolutionary process. They would not be able to resist the onslaught of artificially created scarcity, material limitations and, weakened ideologically and before the avalanche of subjectivity and the symbols of capitalist ideology, they would end up succumbing. That is the origin of all the interest of the U.S. governments and their agencies and, in short, of all the cultural scaffolding of imperialism to influence the youth.

KD : What is Cuba doing to keep the youth on the path of the Revolution?

RP : The objective of the Revolution in this historical stage is to strengthen our ideological foundation. To strengthen and profoundly transform what we have called ideological political work. The transformations have to be profound. Everything we have done so far has not been enough to achieve the historical objectives that will allow the new generations to be even better prepared to face these great challenges. The Communist Party plays the leading role. We held our eighth congress last year where the fundamental missions that were strengthened were the economic battle, the ideological battle and the struggle for peace. Therefore, our ideological firmness has to be based on the capacity we have to understand that reality and to make our work of raising the awareness of the great masses of our people more and more effective. There are methods, styles of work of our Party, of our communist youth, of our mass and social organizations and of our entire political system that have not been sufficiently effective. A transformation is required in accordance with this new reality where the digital public space and the influence of the media and in general the issues related to information become essential elements in the formation of our youth and the entire population.

In that sense the Party has approved a program for the transformation of ideological political work that includes several key areas. In the first place, the articulation of the revolutionary forces. Today we need a more united, more coordinated action of all the political forces of society. Only in this way is it possible to face the enormous challenge posed by the destabilizing and subversive action of imperialism, with all the power to undermine our society. We have to develop then a capacity for coordination, for the articulation of all our political and social structures in order to act in a coherent manner, in an increasingly organized way and with methods more in line with our reality.

There is a key area, related to cultural and educational issues. We have to strengthen our entire educational system, our educational training system, but also the values of the new generations. Strengthen the role of the teacher, the role of the school as the fundamental cultural center of the community. The role of culture in its broadest expression, beyond artistic culture. That is to say, culture considered as an integral general culture, as Fidel taught us. We have to strengthen our institutions for the generation of thought, our institutions for the generation of national identity. We have a culture that is the pride of the nation. We also have a cultural development in different areas that allows us to be proud of Cuba’s identity, which has always been subjected to imperialist attempts to destroy it as a nation. Thus, everything we should do in that sense should be strengthened.

There is also a key area that has to do with communication and technology. There is a new communication paradigm related to the Internet, social networks and the digital public space that is being used, driven by an interest, to reach not only large masses, but to directly influence each person. It is impressive the capacity of global algorithmic platforms through the use of what today is called big data to influence the tastes, interests and desires of every person on the planet.

KD : Is Cuba capable of neutralizing the social media war against the island?

RP : The capacity we have to counteract that work of sapping, that work of undermining the human will, has to be much greater. We have to do like the Cuban independence fighters, the Mambises in the War of Independence, like the members of the Rebel Army in the Sierra Maestra: take those weapons away from our enemy. Learn to master them and use them for our own objectives. We have to master the use of those tools. Denounce their manipulated, rigged use against the interests of our nations. We have to achieve greater technological sovereignty. We have to achieve international cooperation. Among all those who today face the harmful impact of these technologies, we have to achieve international legislation to limit the use of technologies for war and to generate confrontations between human groups and nations. There is already an extraordinary work of our people so that this information and communication technology is used in an exalting way, a different way from the way it has been designed and used by imperialism.

In addition to that, we have on the other hand the imperious need, in the midst of the blockade, to advance in the transformation of our economy, to create the bases, to generate the prosperity that our people need so much and that we deserve so much. Only by generating material wealth produced by the ingenuity and capacity of our people in the midst of these adverse circumstances will it be possible to have better economic conditions to face this adverse international panorama. And to do it in an innovative, creative way. It is very difficult, but we have to do it by overcoming the blockade, transcending it, overcoming it and generating our own productive capacities.

In this sense, the country is putting science and innovation, the talent developed for so many years by our Revolution, in function of increasing those economic capacities. We have collectively thought, debated and approved an update of the Cuban economic and social model of socialist development. We have approved new economic and social guidelines of the Party of the Revolution. We have approved the National Economic and Social Development Plan until 2030, and we have carried out important transformations in different areas of our economy that allow us to develop our socialist state enterprise and other new economic actors that include forms of non-state management, but with a socialist social identity, which are not to undermine our national project, but to increase employment opportunities and economic contribution from other forms of management. We are doing all this in the midst of great difficulties. We have to increase the production of food and medicines. We have to increase innovation in the different areas of our economy and services.

And, in addition to that, we have to continue strengthening our fundamental social conquests: education, health, social security, culture, sports, which are basic conquests of our socialism. And to do so, in addition, with a high level of democratic participation and a high level of popular control. The management of the government with new structures that the new Constitution has given us, a Constitution that was approved by the majority vote of our people after a broad popular debate. We are developing all the laws and legal norms that will allow the rights protected in the Constitution to have an even greater legislative development. We are increasingly stimulating, generating new rights and new structures so that citizen participation can be more effective. How is Cuba proposing to get out of the economic and media siege and the asphyxiation to which imperialism is trying to lead us? By appealing for more democracy, more participation, more popular control, more socialism. Only in this way will it be possible to face the challenges we have in the immediate future and which are very demanding for the possibilities of our people to move forward. Only with national unity, only with a high level of consciousness, only with a great effort on the part of all sectors of the nation will it be possible to face these great challenges. We are fully confident that the current leadership of the Revolution will maintain the support of the immense majority of our people.

Sources: Rebelión