In Cuba, the first president was elected - Miguel Diaz-Canel. Under his leadership, Liberty Island will continue its “perestroika” and try to overcome the difficult economic crisis. What is happening painfully resembles the situation of Gorbachev's times. Does this mean that the Cuban regime is in danger of collapse, and Moscow and Havana will soon diverge in different directions, as happened after the collapse of the USSR?
Those who find the USSR in adulthood must remember that the Soviet and Cuban peoples are fraternal peoples with a common history. And whoever does not remember, let him remember - now again, it is relevant.
In March 1990, the Congress of People's Deputies elected the first and, as it soon became clear, the last president of the USSR - the head of the Soviet state. In fact, Mikhail Gorbachev simply moved from the chair of the Chairman of the Supreme Council to what was specially created for him - new, “like in America.” Almost at the same time and for the same reasons, the CPSU lost its "leading and guiding role." How it all ended — everyone knows, and the question of whether it could all have ended in a different way (without the collapse of the USSR) has no answer and never will.
The change of the captain’s cubicle (but not of the captain himself), as well as the amendments to the Soviet constitution that came with this in the “package”, became one of the last chords of “perestroika”, after which the country rapidly plunged into the abyss.
In October 2019, the deputies of the National Assembly of the People’s Power of Cuba elected the country the first president for many years - Miguel Diaz-Canel. Prior to that, the successor of the Castro brothers worked as head of state as chairman of the State Council, and now they will be “like in America” (however, Cuba is America), where the president is the head of the government, is the supreme commander in chief and, if necessary, is replaced by the vice-president (he elected a black veteran Cuban Communist Party Salvador Valdes Mesa).
But stylistically this does not resemble the United States, but rather the late USSR. Cuba has been undergoing its own “perestroika” for several years, and last year, with the adoption of the new constitution, it came to an “acceleration”. The liberalization of the economy in a fairly short time transformed Liberty Island and dramatically changed the lives of Cubans: they now have a small business, private sector, mobile Internet, buying and selling, if not all, but much. The newspaper VZGLYAD wrote in detail about Cuban perestroika: “The streets of the cities of the USSR changed just as rapidly in the era of the Gorbachev boom of cooperatives.”
There is one more, much darker similarity. After some economic recovery caused by the reforms, Cuba began to plunge into the economic crisis - and by the time the president is elected, this crisis is already perceived as a serious threat to the country. Diaz-Kanel was even forced to declare a “temporary” special position, primarily due to fuel shortages. The blame for all this, however, is not perestroika.
U.S. President Donald Trump is to blame for stepping up the economic blockade of both Cuba and Venezuela, the main oil supplier for Liberty Island, who paid for this oil with what he could (for example, Cuban general practitioners who were sent on a business trip to Venezuela). Both because of sanctions and because of a sharp drop in oil production (caused by sanctions, but not only them) Caracas now sends Havana a third of the previous volume of hydrocarbons.
A serious blow was also dealt to Trump's measure to limit private transfers to Cuba. Cubans living in the USA, like Tajiks in the Russian Federation and Ukrainian “zarobitans” in Poland, have made a tangible contribution to the Cuban national economy in recent years, supporting families remaining in their homeland.
Now they can transfer no more than a thousand dollars once every three months. Miguel Diaz-Kanel called these and other White House practices “cruel” and “like genocide”. He stressed that US actions have a devastating effect on the delivery of food to the island, the operation of public transport and electricity during peak hours.
That is, on the one hand, he recognized the destructiveness of sanctions for the country. On the other hand, he emphasized that it is not the “repressive regime” and the military that does not serve it that suffers (this is the stated goal of the USA), but ordinary people. Given that most of the planet, including EU countries, Cuba sympathizes with and has long criticized America for its inhumane practices, this is a rational tactic. But it’s unlikely that it will affect Washington, where it’s supposed to spare ordinary Cubans and try not to harm them, they will continue to bend their line, no matter what Trump, who crossed out the entire Obama thaw, when the US and Cuba restored diplomatic relations and agreed on a number of joint programs, it’s not out of hatred for everything Cuban. He is also rational, but at the same time cynical and selfish.
The fact is that Cuban emigration - both old and new - in the USA is concentrated mainly in the state of Florida. Among her are many political refugees and “old dissidents” who hate the Castro regime. They say that lately, the balance is slowly changing - the emigrated Cubanyoung people are not so intransigent. But the fact remains: Florida is one of the vacillating states and the third in the number of electors, so becoming a US president without winning an election in Florida is quite difficult. After the Obama thaw, his successor Clinton lost in Florida, and Trump, who promised Cuba tough measures, won. And hopes to repeat this success in 2020.
It is possible that it will repeat. But this does not mean that Cuban perestroika, with the president at the head, will come to what the USSR has come to - a regime change.
At least Cuba still has someone to rely on - and it relies. And it’s easy to guess who - Russia.
Less than a week ago, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev was visiting Liberty Island (Dias-Kanel’s return visit to Moscow is expected at the end of October) and stayed very productively. The point, of course, is not in the on-duty statements about friendship and alliance (Havana now has nowhere to get away too much). And not in the traditional joys of the growth in trade turnover (even if it’s really impressive - by one third by the end of 2018). And it’s not even in the joint condemnation of the American sanctions policy, which prevents both countries from breathing deeply, although it sounded beautifully: “Russia does not succumb to pressure from outside, like Cuba. And the answer to the pressure should be our closer cooperation ... Latin America is not the backyard of the United States, ”Medvedev snapped. The fact is that Russia has begun supplying Cuba with technologies that can really help it survive the crisis. Medvedev personally launched the first drilling rig of a new type, the task of which is to bring Cuban oil production to the industrial level. Own oil on Liberty Island has always been and still is, but it is very thick and viscous oil, it is so easy not to pump it to the surface. With new drilling rigs from the Russian Federation, it’s easy to pump out, and soon such rigs will cost dozens.
In turn, Russian Railways will modernize the Cuban railways, Rosatom will create the so-called irradiation center, which allows long-term storage of grain and other products, and the Ministry of Agriculture of the Russian Federation will provide Cuba with food security through the supply of wheat, meat and dairy products (negotiations on this subject already coming).
At the same time, the Russian authorities promise: it will not be like in the USSR - “from the heart”, but for money. "About irrevocable" help, which would then have to be written off, is now out of the question and can not go. All our relations are now quite pragmatic, ”the prime minister said in an interview with Russia 1.
Diaz-Kanel emphasized several times: if we have delayed something somewhere, do not worry, we will repay everything. And our Cuban friends pay off their debts. In contrast to what happened in Soviet times, when no one considered money in this case at all.
In general, to the question why Russia needs to support Cuba, in addition to the geopolitical one, there is an economic answer - this is our customer and market. Not very big, but almost native. In addition, developing the idea of jointly opposing the United States, one can go into deep conspiracy theories, drawing, for example, attention to the fact that Medvedev avoided answering the journalist’s question whether a new Russian military base with missiles will appear in Cuba. It was there that the American media went, suggesting a speedy recurrence of the Caribbean crisis.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov seemed to reassure everyone on this score. He stated that the Russian and Cuban sides did not consider the issue of deploying medium- and shorter-range missiles on Liberty Island, as "there is no reason to consider it." But he added: a moratorium on the deployment of missile systems exists until "American systems appear." And understand it as you want. After all, the Caribbean crisis began with the fact that the Americans deployed their missiles in Turkey. Ours in Cuba were already the "answer".
However, Moscow probably perceives the issue of deploying missiles in Cuba as the "red line" for the United States. So the reservations of Medvedev and Ryabkov are not threats, but vicious hints that the Russian Federation also has a loyal ally at the borders of the United States, and at the same time much more gloomy hints that the Russian-American confrontation, continue to heat up, runs the risk of returning to the times of Khrushchev and Kennedy, which should equally scare both countries.
So the Caribbean crisis should not happen again. But the Cuban “perestroika” should not repeat the fate of the Soviet one.
In at least one fundamental issue, Cuba nevertheless went its own way. Raul Castro retained the post of head of the Cuban Communist Party, and the Communist Party itself - a leadership role.
Dmitry Bavyrin
https://vz.ru/world/2019/10/11/1002390.html
