by Tad Szulc
Valdés's successor as interior minister, General José Abrahantes Fernández, directs the State Security Services (the political secret police), the elite Special Forces of State Security (a militarized shock force of some five thousand men with armor and aircraft), the National Police, the overseas intelligence services linked to State Security, and the tremendous network of neighborhood security watchers and informers of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR). The Security Services have an impressive record in dealing with the regime's enemies everywhere, and they easily infiltrate Cuban exile communities in the United States, Canada, and Western Europe. However, Abrahantes, who was Valdés's deputy, has no political clout of his own—he used to be the man in charge of Castro's personal security—and most likely Raúl Castro now controls the police network along with the armed forces.
As a revolutionary, Valdés had participated in every action from the Moncada attack in 1953 to the autumn 1958 invasion of the lowlands by rebel columns from the Sierra (he was Che Guevara's deputy in command of Column 8, which conquered the central provinces), and his influence with Castro was enormous. He was one of the most pro-Soviet figures in the top leadership, and his ties with Soviet and Eastern European intelligence services were most intimate, particularly after 1968 when Moscow imposed the primacy of the KGB (the Soviet secret service) in Cuba.
The rest of the power structure includes Fidelista knights as well as men who joined the revolution at subsequent stages. Among the former are Pedro Miret Prieto, an engineering student who trained the Moncada plotters in the use of arms and was at Castro's side during the attack; he later served as a distinguished military commander both in the Sierra and at the Bay of Pigs. Miret, now the vice-president of the Council of Ministers in charge of industrial development and a member of the party's Political Bureau, is a pleasant and deceptively harmless-looking short man with a moustache. Once one of the toughest revolutionaries, Miret is a greatly trusted adviser in the Castro inner circle.
Armando Hart and Comandante Almeida both belong to this enchanted circle, though they are not among the principal decision-makers. Jesús Montané Oropesa, an accountant who fought both at Moncada and in the Sierra, was removed from the Political Bureau at the 1986 Party Congress, but remains a Central Committee member and is still very close to Castro.
Sergio del Valle Jiménez, a physician who was a Sierra guerrillero of outstanding courage and later a leading military commander, is part of the inner group. He was minister of health, an extremely important assignment given Castro's public-health priorities, Until December 1985, when Fidel drafted him for a full-time but discreet political role outside the Politburo. José Ramón Machado Ventura, also a former guerrilla physician (the Rebel Army had an inordinate number of fighting doctors, starting with Che Guevara and Faustino Peréz, who came aboard the Granma), has become the new Communist party's chief ideologue, carrying great weight with Fidel. He is on the Politburo.
Another old-time Fidelista with recently growing power is Jorge Risquet Valdés-Saldaña who at the 1986 Party Congress became a member of the party's Politburo, in addition to the key post of a secretary of the Central Committee he has held for a decade. Relatively unknown to the public, Risquet is the chief executor of Castro's military and political operations in Africa as well as an enforcer of labor policies at home.
Vílma Espín de Castro, who is Raúl Castro's wife, was in the Sierra with him (they were married in Santiago shortly after victory, but Fidel was too busy to attend the wedding), and she is now a member of the Council of State and (since February 1986) a full member of the party's Political Bureau (the only woman in this ruling body). As president of the Cuban Women's Federation, Vílma Espín (who once studied architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology) holds very considerable political power. A woman of charm, Vílma occasionally acts as informal hostess on social occasions at the Palace of the Revolution, standing next to Fidel in the reception line.
Besides old Fidelistas, two men of diverse backgrounds count powerfully in the Castro power edifice, principally because he has immense personal respect for each of them. They are Carlos Rafael Rodríguez Rodríguez, the intellectual and political genius of the "old" Communists, and José Ramón Fernández Álvarez, a former Batista army officer who was imprisoned during the Sierra war for antiregime conspiracies, and who now serves Castro as a vice-president of the Council of Ministers, education minister, and worldwide diplomatic troubleshooter.
Rodríguez, his white goatee and his manner giving him a touch of Old World boulevardier, is by far the most experienced politician in Cuba: His career stretches back to the 1930s, when Castro was a child in Oriente. A most affable man of considerable learning and sophistication as well as a prolific writer, he has been Fidel's most valuable collaborator, politically and intellectually, since the 1959 victory. They remain extremely close, conversing every day. Rodríguez is thirteen years older than Castro, and is one of the few Cubans who address him as tu in the Spanish familiar usage of friendship.
As vice-president of the Council of State and the Council of Ministers and member of the party's Political Bureau, Rodríguez is the third member of the trio, along with Raúl Castro and Osmany Cienfuegos, that forms the top level of the power structure directly under Fidel. Foreign policy and economics are his principal personal responsibilities (Foreign Minister Isidoro Malmierca Peoli, an old-line Communist, executes foreign policy but does not plan it), and Castro makes very few decisions of any kind without consulting the septuagenarian Rodríguez.
It is principally thanks to Rodríguez's perspicacity that the Fidelista-Communist fusion could occur, and that the Castro-led new Communist party emerged from all the Sierra and post-Sierra maneuvering. Rodríguez had served as a minister in the Batista cabinet during World War II when the Communists shifted to "popular front" policies (this ministerial phase in his career is now tactfully omitted from official Cuban biographies), and he was the first of the otherwise unimaginative leadership of the illegal Communist party during the insurrection to understand that Castro would dislodge Batista—and that the Communists had better get aboard.
Even as late as the failed general strike of April 1958, Communist leaders thought that, at best, a victorious Castro would turn into a Cuban version of Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser, a radical nationalist, and that moves toward socialism would remain confined to the Communists. The idea of coming to power themselves as a result of the anti-Batista revolution had never occurred to the essentially conservative Communists (that idea had not occurred to the Soviets at the time either), and it took the flexible and fertile mind of Carlos Rafael Rodríguez to see new possibilities.
After the general strike, the Communist party authorized its members to join the guerrillas if they so desired, and quite a few of them went up the mountain. A number of them chose (or happened) to serve in Raúl Castro's new autonomous command northeast of the Sierra Maestra possibly because Raúl, unlike Fidel, had been a Communist Youth member at Havana University. In June 1958, Rodríguez himself made the ritual trek to the Sierra Maestra headquarters, where Fidel, whose notion of asserting his importance is often to keep people waiting endlessly to see him, had the Communist emissary cool his heels for several days
There is no record of their lengthy conversations, but Rodríguez remained in the Sierra through August and the start of the final rebel offensive against Batista, indicating that the foundations for a future Communist Cuba were laid then. Castro had already decided on this course in principle, and the discussions with Rodríguez must have centered on the modalities of creating a Communist apparatus that Fidel would control. In the ensuing months, the "old" Communists fielded a small guerrilla operation in central Cuba, conveniently joining forces with the column coming down from the Sierra under the command of Che Guevara and Ramiro Valdés.
If, indeed, Rodríguez played a crucial role in the forming of the initial Communist alliance with Castro—including the secret negotiations in Fidel
's hideaway house outside of Havana within weeks of victory—he was equally important in preventing breakdowns. In 1962, when the new Communist party was still in its organizational phase, Rodríguez sided with Castro to put down a dangerous attempt by old-line Communists, perhaps encouraged by ever-greedy Moscow, and to assert their domination over it. The crisis was so grave that Castro vanished from public view for weeks, preparing a counterattack. A similar situation developed in 1968 when problems within the Cuban Communist party were immensely aggravated by Castro's open quarrels with the Soviet Union over military, security, and economic cooperation policies. Here again Rodríguez saved the day as the chief mediator. Castro once more beat down domestic orthodox Communist conspiracies—imprisoning thirty-seven "old" Communist leaders (some of whom were still incarcerated in 1985) to show that he would not countenance Communist "counterrevolutionaries" either—but he had to make far-reaching international concessions to the Kremlin. Subsequently, Carlos Rafael Rodríguez assumed the specific responsibility for all aspects of relations with the Soviets.
Unlike most other top Cuban Communists, Rodríguez thrives on good conversation and every form of art and literature, being himself the author of remarkably readable books of essays and memoirs. A onetime Havana University professor and newspaper editor, he enjoys attending art gallery openings, interesting social and diplomatic occasions, and intellectually satisfying small dinners—always shining with wit and courtesy. But sad to say, Carlos Rafael Rodríguez seems to be the last of his breed: They no longer make politicians of his brains and charm, Communist or not, in Cuba.
José Ramón Fernández Álvarez, the vice-president and troubleshooter, is a Cuban revolutionary politician of still another type, but also a most valuable one to Fidel Castro and increasingly important. Tall, ramrod-straight, and white-haired, he is similarly a revolutionary charmer of foreigners. A few years older than Fidel, Fernández attended the same high school in Santiago and shares a family background in rural Oriente very similar to Castro's own. They met first, however, after the insurrection when the former army officer was released from the Batista prison on the Isle of Pines (now the Isle of Youth), the same prison where Castro was locked up five years earlier. Also of Spanish parentage, he is known as "Gallego," though his parents came from Asturias and not Galicia.
Fernández, who at the time had no ideological links of any kind, was a professional soldier (and a graduate of the U.S. Army's artillery school at Fort Sill, Oklahoma) and anxious to enjoy civilian life now that the hated dictator had been overthrown. The day of Batista's fall, he assumed the military command of the prison, presently returning to Havana to look for a job. Castro, however, had heard about him and summoned Fernández for a late-night conversation shortly after arriving in the capital from Oriente.
The ragtag Rebel Army had a desperate need for professional officers in order to expand and modernize, and Castro urged Fernández, the officer "with clean hands," to get back into uniform, ignoring that he had just become a well-paid sugar-mill manager. For an hour Fernández resisted, and finally Fidel cried with mock petulance: "Okay, Gallego. . . . That's just great. . . . You go and run your sugar mill, I shall retire to write books, and fuck the Revolution. . . . Is that what you want?" The great persuader won, and Fernández spent the next two years rebuilding the Rebel Army and purchasing arms overseas. He helped to buy the first shipment of Belgian FAL automatic rifles that were Cuba's best weapons until the Soviets became the arms supplier. As the field commander of Cuban forces during the Bay of Pigs invasion, Fernández deserves a great deal of credit for the rapid victory on the ground while Castro coordinated the overall strategy.
Later, Castro used the much-liked Fernández whenever he had hard problems: in the armed forces, in the vast operations of the Education Ministry, and, in the latest phase, in establishing diplomatic and political relations with Latin American governments. Authoritative and efficient, a rare combination in socialist Cuba, Fernández is one of the revolution's best assets (in his spare time he graduated from the Communist party's superior studies' school in Havana to become a bona fide Marxist-Leninist as well). At the 1986 Communist Party Congress, he was named Alternate Member of the Politburo.
While the top power structure in Cuba is reasonably well coordinated in terms of the overall management of the country, the fundamental problem remains Fidel Castro's psychological inability, rather than conscious refusal, to let go of any power. The result is that all authority and responsibility continue concentrated in his hands, a state of affairs that paralyzes all initiative on lower levels. Castro's compulsive dedication to detail, and the conviction that no matter what the subject he knows more about it than anyone else, have combined to make him an obstacle to an efficient development of the economy and the society. Most Cuban managers in the totally state-owned economy simply have no courage to make decisions within their purview, fearing displeasure on high and, most likely, punishment, therefore, a mutually protective association of bureaucrats has come into being, and the bitter Havana joke is that Cuba does have a two-party system after all: the Communist party and the bureaucratic party. The waste of resources and talent is staggering.
Castro, of course, bristles at any suggestion that he is a dictator and that all the decisions are made by him. In 1977 he told an American interviewer that "I'm a leader, but I am very distant from having unipersonal power or absolute power." He went on to say that though "my personal power was very great" during the war, almost immediately afterward, the revolution moved to "establish a collective leadership . . . a leadership group from among the most capable leaders."
In 1985, Castro still insisted on the collective character of the Cuban leadership and on the fact that the process of institutionalizing the revolution has been completed. This, he said, was achieved with the 1975 national referendum approval of the new Cuban constitution (which became effective in 1976). This created novel mechanisms such as the "Popular Power" local government system under the National Assembly, which votes on proposed laws and in theory supervises their implementation. Still, it taxes the imagination to visualize a rejection by the assembly (which meets twice a year for two-day sessions) of a Castro-proposed law or the removal of a high official on the grounds of, say, inefficiency. Officials may be recalled by municipal or provincial assemblies on the local government level, but policies are not questioned. Castro told me that in the Communist party's Political Bureau he held only one vote out of fourteen and had been overruled on occasion, though he cited no examples.
The question is whether Castro accepts that in the light of Cuban realities these claims are not wholly credible. On the other hand, it must be recognized that he is caught in a political-image trap because he cannot publicly acknowledge that he does actually hold "unipersonal power." Such an admission would undermine the integrity of the institutions he has created, removing whatever semblance of independence or autonomy they may have. The real point, of course, is whether these institutions can survive Castro's death or incapacitation, and how the issue of succession and Cuba's future is to be resolved. To be sure, it was Castro who named his brother Raúl his successor, thus in effect imposing succession.
The official media portray the Council of State and the Council of Ministers (both presided over by Castro) as the decision-making organs of the republic. But in November 1984, for example, an infuriated Castro went before the National Assembly to denounce the shortcomings of an economic-development plan for the following year prepared by the Central Planning Board, and its parallel five-year plan. Overnight he established a "Central Group" in the Council of Ministers, headed by Osmany Cienfuegos, to develop at once a new plan for 1985—hardly the best way of running the economy. Not long thereafter, the Planning Board president, Humberto Peréz Gonzáles, once considered the most promising new-generation technocrat, was "liberated from his functions," the general euphemism for being fired.
In general, it is Osmany Cienfuego's Executive Committee of the Council of Minist
ers that administers Cuba on a day-to-day basis, and Castro does not always attend the meetings held in the building adjoining the Palace of the Revolution. Carlos Rafael Rodríguez felt in mid-1985 that the Executive Committee had "freed" Castro from concern with most current problems, it being agreed that he should have the time to concentrate on great global issues. Only decisions affecting Cuba's relations with the United States and Latin America must be personally approved by Fidel before action is taken, Rodríguez said.
In real life, however, Castro insists on being posted on just about everything, and consequently even relatively minor decisions may be delayed or postponed until the Commander in Chief can catch up with the problems in the midst of his other interests and commitments. His frequent speeches confirm that he is abreast of all aspects of every problem in Cuba: He touches upon all of them as he preaches the virtues of hard work and the tremendous need to save resources. The printing of the Communist party's official daily newspaper, Granma, the voice of the regime, may be held up until dawn hours while Castro personally edits a lengthy policy speech he had delivered extemporaneously the previous day, or a major policy editorial (he writes some of the page-one unsigned editorials, his style being unmistakable for its color and subtle invective).
Fidel Castro's style of government is based on what he calls dialogue or rapport with the population. In practice, it means oratorical hard sell of new policies or an insistence on the fulfillment of old ones. This is usually done through televised speeches delivered before large audiences that applaud Castro and reply affirmatively when he asks whether they approve of what he proposes. (In this fashion, Cubans since 1959 have "approved" executions of Batista-regime torturers, the military presence in Angola, multifarious social and economic sacrifices, and even the transfer of the port town of Moa from Holguín province to Guantánamo province in eastern Cuba.)