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This was the logical and justifiable origin of what eventually became known as the Budgetary Financing System, which Che would later defend against Carlos Rafael Rodríguez and the Soviet technicians. But he soon began to advocate an extreme form of centralization and a total ban on monetary transactions among companies. His arguments rested more on Marxist theory than on economics, and revealed a peculiar indifference to actual conditions in Cuba. The bleeding of the middle classes, the administrative chaos that follows any revolution, the scarcity of goods due to the U.S. embargo, the lack of hard currency and experience, were all potential obstacles to the system envisaged by Che. The clockwork mechanisms with which he proposed to fine-tune the economy, which was indeed relatively small and manageable, simply did not exist in Cuba—or in any other country, capitalist or Socialist.
In February 1963, Che formulated his first justification for the system’s excessive centralization in an article entitled “Against Bureaucracy” (“Contra el burocratismo”). Owing to its origins, the Revolution had initially spawned a sort of “administrative guerrilla warfare” in which everybody did as he pleased, “disregarding the central leadership apparatus.” It had become necessary to “organize a strong bureaucratic apparatus” to implement a “policy for operational centralization, strongly curtailing the initiative of administrators.”53 Later, in 1964, Che would recognize that the system had serious drawbacks: a lack of cadres, excessive bureaucracy, incomplete information for decision-makers, and severe deficiencies in distribution.54 But at the outset he was adamantly in favor of centralization, and a number of other ideas which helped exacerbate an already disastrous economic situation.
The task Che set himself was in all likelihood unrealizable. Rapid, intensive industrialization had been feasible in Stalin’s Soviet Union thanks to its resources as the largest country in the world. However, it had taken a huge toll in human suffering, and had led to the weak economic foundations which would become apparent only years later. Mao’s Great Leap Forward in China had also had disastrous consequences, at a human cost intolerable to a Western country like Cuba. Che could not possibly win with the cards he had been dealt. He assumed, wrongly, that Soviet aid and sheer determination (his own and that of his followers) would overcome the obstacles ahead. A less ambitious project might have achieved more lasting results and avoided painful setbacks before they occurred. But Che was incapable of a more limited vision. What’s more, the political course he and Castro had chosen, both internally and externally, did not allow for more moderate plans. Given the international context, Cuba’s resources, and the political goals of the Revolution, most of Che’s theses were bound to triumph at first, only to be abandoned later—though their replacement no longer coincided with his ideas or sensibility.
The failure of Che’s policies during those first years was reflected in his own rigorous process of self-criticism. In the initial phase, his vision was superficial and simplistic—though still more focused than that of the other leaders. Thus, at the first national meeting for production held On August 27, 1961, he threw down a challenge to his audience:
You have received me with a warm round of applause. I don’t know if you did so as consumers or simply as accomplices. … I believe it was more as accomplices. At [the Ministry of] Industries we have made mistakes that have resulted in considerable shortages in supplies for the population. … At every turn we have had to change directors, replace administrators, send others to improve their cultural and technical capacities, and others to improve their political positions. … The Ministry has often issued orders without consulting the masses, it has often ignored the labor unions and ignored the great working masses … and at times the decisions of the working class … have been taken without any discussion with the leadership of the Ministry. … There is currently a shortage of toothpaste. We must explain why. In the last four months, production has been paralyzed; yet there was a large stock. The urgent measures required were not taken, precisely because there was a large supply. Then, the stock began to shrink, and the raw materials did not arrive. … Then the raw materials arrived, a calcic sulfate which did not have the required specification to make toothpaste. … Our technical comrades at the companies have made a toothpaste … which is as good as the previous one; it cleans just the same, though after a while it turns to stone.55
The audience at this meeting also witnessed one of the few public disagreements between Che and Fidel. After Guevara declared there was a “crisis in production,” Castro announced that “there is no crisis of production,” despite the criticism and complaints of his own economic officials. Rationing would be instituted six months later.
In 1962, Guevara increasingly questioned the Revolution’s economic performance, especially at the Ministry’s bimonthly meetings. He repeatedly criticized the Ministry itself and the evolution of the economy, though his analysis remained shallow and shortsighted. Che still believed that any problem could be solved by dint of enthusiasm, revolutionary fervor, and unbending determination. Charles Bettelheim, a French Marxist economist who held a heated debate with Che in 1964, recalls that Guevara systematically tried to talk his way through errors and problems. He would race from factory to factory, haranguing his audience.56 When this did not work, he would stubbornly insist until he persuaded his public—or had to rush off to solve another problem.
Che explained his approach as follows:
As for the problem of enthusiasm, the lack of enthusiasm, the need to rekindle revolutionary enthusiasm, there is the concept of emulation. We have completely neglected emulation. It is fast asleep, it must be awakened at once. Emulation must be the basis that constantly moves the masses; there must be people who are constantly thinking of ways to rekindle it. It is not that difficult to look for ways, other ways, to engage people in the struggle.57
Che returned to this again and again, in a strange combination of realism and utopianism. He recognized the failings of the Revolution—and called for more of the same, though with greater dedication. He did not relinquish his beliefs or theoretical analysis. Only in 1964 would he seek a more complex explanation for the impasse reached by the Cuban Revolution. For the time being, however, he continued to express both lamentations and exaltation:
[Cuba is] the first Socialist country of Latin America, the vanguard of America, and there is no malanga, there is no yucca and there is none of anything else; and here [in Havana] rationing is more or less decent, but go to Santiago and there are four ounces of meat a week; everything is lacking and there are only bananas, and half the lard; here in Havana we have twice as much of everything. All of these things are hard to explain and we have to explain them through a policy of sacrifice whereby the Revolution, and the leaders of the Revolution, march ahead of the people.58
In mid-1963, Guevara began to formulate more explicit and substantive criticisms in his writing, speeches, and interviews. He anticipated the consequences, recognizing that any viable alternative to the policies followed in 1961–62 was indeed abhorrent—but necessary. Yet rather than continuing to strive for an impossible goal, or living ambivalently with an unavoidable but unacceptable situation, he preferred to flee—to Africa, Bolivia, and history. Any other course would have been despicable in his eyes. If Guevara had effected the changes in economic policy that were required, he could have stayed in Cuba with full honors, his position and prestige intact. But resigning oneself to the imperatives of realpolitik and economics is not the stuff of which myths, or heroes, are made. He soon perceived the quandary into which he, and the Revolution, had fallen. Guevara described it, with brutal frankness, to the Soviet ambassador as early as mid-1962. After requesting that construction proceed more quickly on an ironworks in Oriente whose opening had recklessly been announced for October, and about which Che had already written to Mikoyan, he admitted:
Our government has already made many different promises to the people, which it unfortunately cannot fulfill. I would not like our promise to build an iron
and steel industry as the keystone of the country’s industrialization to be in vain. Of course we should be more careful about the promises we make, and tell the people only about things we can really accomplish. But if the promises are already made, they must be fulfilled.59
In a speech delivered at a planning seminar in Algiers on July 13, 1963, Che noted a series of conceptual—not practical—errors that had given rise to Cuba’s disastrous economic situation. First he placed them within a theoretical framework: “Essentially, in terms of planning we did two contradictory things, which were not compatible. … On the one hand, we copied in detail the planning techniques of a sister country; on the other, we remained spontaneous in many decisions, especially the political ones with economic implications, that needed to be taken daily in the process of government.”60 He provided an example of the lack of analysis and information that beset the Revolution during its initial years. The government had first proposed an annual growth rate of 15 percent, and then studied the ways to achieve it; but, “for a monoculture country, with all the problems I have told you about, to grow 15 percent was simply ridiculous.”61
He then criticized more specific aspects of the regime’s early economic policy. First of all, Cuba attempted to become self-sufficient in an array of intermediate and consumer goods that could be acquired more cheaply from friendly countries. Secondly, “we made the fundamental mistake of disdaining our sugar cane, trying to carry out an accelerated diversification, which led us to neglect the cane plantations, which together with a severe drought which afflicted us for two years, caused a serious fall in our cane production.”62
Finally, Che revealed:
In terms of income distribution, at first we gave too much emphasis to paying fairer salaries, without sufficiently considering the real state of our economy. … We have a phenomenon where, in a country that still has unemployment, we lack labor in agriculture … and every year we have to levy volunteer workers.63
The new course—concentrating on sugar—resulted from policies diametrically opposed to those followed thus far. It was the only option, but not the one favored by Che. He grasped—possibly before anyone else—that the Revolution’s economic policy was unsustainable, and he admitted it publicly, with his characteristic honesty and sincerity, so unusual in Cuba. But in 1962 he had not yet fully assimilated the implications of the disaster; he did not yet realize how distasteful the alternative would be. Not until Cuba signed a long-term sugar agreement with the U.S.S.R. on January 21, 1964, did he recognize that the only road still open to Cuba was unacceptable to him.
Though his disenchantment with the Soviet alliance began in 1961, it would reach its climax only in the first days of 1965. Its real trigger was the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, when the world came closer to the nuclear precipice than ever before or since. Che’s participation during those days in October extended through three phases: decisive before the crisis, almost nonexistent while it lasted, and extremely forceful in its aftermath.*6
Che had invoked the Soviet nuclear umbrella several times in 1961. His major premise rested upon an indisputable reality: as long as the United States persisted in its attempts to overthrow the Havana regime by force, Cuba had the right and obligation to defend itself by all available means. Cuba had militias, a regular army, a flimsy air force, and huge popular support, but even all together these were not very formidable. The deployment of Soviet short- or medium-range missiles in Cuba would be a powerful deterrent. From this perspective, Cuba would become a sort of nuclear tripwire for Soviet ballistic weapons. Any attack against the island would be countered by the USSR from Cuba, in a rationale similar to that for the U.S. missiles stationed in Germany and Turkey. The Cubans were understandably convinced, until the summer of 1962, that Kennedy, the CIA, and Miami would seek revenge for the Bay of Pigs at any cost, in a new invasion attempt.
John F. Kennedy had assured several Latin American leaders—from Rómulo Betancourt of Venezuela, in December 1961, to Adolfo López Mateos of Mexico, in June 1962—that the United States “did not foresee for the time being any unilateral action against the Castro regime.”64 But Havana believed the exact opposite—or at least it wanted the Soviets to think so. Castro pointed to a conversation between Kennedy and Alexei Adzhubei, a journalist and political operative of Khrushchev’s who was also the Soviet premier’s son-in-law and the director of Izvestia. According to Adzhubei, during a three-hour lunch at the White House on January 31, 1962, Kennedy conjured an analogy with Hungary to justify his policy toward Cuba. Adzhubei concluded (in a report to Khrushchev forwarded to Castro) that the U.S. President was once again bent on toppling the Havana regime by force of arms.*7 Recent statements by Soviet sources continue to suggest that it was the Adzhubei report which led the Cubans to insist on the issue of their defense. As a result, in the last days of April or early May 1962, Khrushchev convinced himself that Washington was determined to destroy the Castro regime.65
Aleksandr Alexeiev—named Ambassador to Cuba in May 1962 after Kudriavtsev had earned Fidel’s animosity—recounts a meeting he attended in the Kremlin. He was summoned to an office next to Khrushchev’s. The meeting included the premier himself, Deputy Premier Anastas Mikoyan, Frol Kozlov (secretary of the Communist Party’s Central Committee), Minister of Defense Malinovsky, Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, and Marshal S. S. Byiruzov, the commander of the Soviet strategic missile force. In Alexeiev’s words,
Khrushchev started off by asserting, “We can only help Cuba by taking a very serious step. If Cuba agrees, we will place medium-range missiles on the island.” Then he asked: “How will Fidel take the news?” Mikoyan replied that Castro would never agree, as his strategy was based on the force of Latin American and world public opinion. If USSR missiles and bases were stationed in Cuba, it would place itself in the same situation as U.S. semidominions. Everyone fell silent except Malinovsky, who exclaimed, “How can a Socialist revolution not accept our help; even the Spanish Republic accepted it!” They all decided to send a delegation to Cuba, consisting of Rashidov [Sharif Rashidov, the party leader of Uzbekistan], Byiruzov, and myself. Khrushchev warned us before we left: “We do not want to lead Cuba into an adventure, but the Americans will accept the missiles if we install them before their elections in November.”66
The Soviet delegation arrived in Havana in early June. They were met at the airport by Raúl Castro, who was still unaware of the purpose of their visit. Byiruzov was even traveling incognito, under the guise of an engineer named Petrov. Alexeiev confided to Raúl that Petrov was actually the commander of Soviet ballistic-missile forces, and that he requested an urgent meeting with Fidel. The latter received them immediately. Alexeiev took notes, both in order to translate and for the historical record; according to those notes, the Soviets began by stating that Khrushchev believed the strongest way to help Cuba was to place missiles on the island. Fidel replied that the idea was very interesting, but not necessary to save the Cuban Revolution, Conversely, if such a step could strengthen the Socialist bloc, it was worth thinking about. In any case, he could not answer immediately.67 Another meeting took place the following day. Cuba was represented by Raúl and Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, President Osvaldo Dorticós, Carlos Rafael Rodríguez, and Emilio Aragonés. Fidel gave the Cuban reply: yes— not to bolster the Cuban Revolution, but the Socialist bloc. As Castro would admit thirty years later,
We did not like the missiles. If they had been only for our defense, we would not have accepted them. Not so much because of the danger, as the damage they might inflict on the image of the revolution … in Latin America. The missiles made us into a Soviet military base, which would have a high political cost for our image. If the issue had been only our defense, we would not have accepted the missiles.68
Fidel Castro decided to send Raúl to Russia in order to finalize the compact. Shortly afterward the Cuban defense minister traveled to Moscow, where he received from Marshal Malinovsky a draft text which he examined page by page. The agreement
proposed sending 42,000 Soviet troops and forty-two 24-meter missiles to Cuba. Khrushchev asked that the delegation refrain from contacting Havana by radio or telegraph, in view of the danger of American interception. The element of surprise was crucial. In August, Alexeiev returned to Cuba with the revised text in his portfolio; he transmitted it to Fidel Castro, who found it too technical. He asked the Soviets to specify how Cuba asked for their help, and to include a more political preamble. As the covenant could not be negotiated through regular communications channels, somebody had to fly to Moscow. Fidel decided to send Che and his closest aide, Emilio Aragonés, the secretary-general of the incipient Unified Revolutionary Party.
These facts are not disputed by Soviet sources. But American participants, even thirty years later, retain a very different perception of the crisis. Meetings in Cambridge and Hawk’s Cay in 1987, Moscow in 1989, and Havana in January 1992 brought together several of the principals involved, allowing them to review their interpretations. Robert McNamara (U.S. Defense Secretary at the time), McGeorge Bundy (National Security Adviser), and Theodore Sorensen (Kennedy’s top political aide) have stated that none of them ever fathomed Khrushchev’s motivations. They always supposed that they involved the strategic balance, Berlin, the U.S. bases in Turkey, or internal struggles within the Kremlin, rather than Cuba itself. Sorensen, for example, speculated that if Khrushchev did not act publicly, signing an open agreement with Cuba, he must have had some more mysterious motive.69