The Day Castro Buried Capitalism

The Day Castro Buried Capitalism / Cubanet, Tania Diaz Castro

Cubanet, Tania Diaz Castro, 13 March 2017 – This 13 March is the 49th
anniversary of the Great Revolutionary Offensive, that economic project
that emerged from the little brain of the "Enlightened Undefeated One,"
to ruin the Cuban economy even further.

Although each year the so-called Castro Revolution was a real disgrace
for all Cubans, the worst of all was the day that Fidel Castro did away
with more than 50,000 small private businesses: establishment where
coffee with milk and bread with butter was served, high quality
restaurants mostly for ordinary Cubans; expert carpentry workshops; the
little Chinese-run fritter stands; fried food stalls which, for those
who don't remember, used prime beef; shoe shiners who plied their trade
along the streets; people who sold fruit from little carts; milkmen who
delivered to homes, etc. A project that caused unemployment among
workers with long experience and that upset people.

Under the slogan of creating "a New Man," something that today inspires
laughter, the Great Revolutionary Offensive is no longer mentioned. Not
even one more anniversary of that nonsense is mentioned in the media, as
if nobody remembers the great mistake of the Commander in Chief.

The "New Man," proposed as a part of this, ended up losing his skills
and trades forever: cabinetmakers, turners, gypsum and putty
specialists, blacksmiths, longtime carpenters, tailors, seamstresses,
book restorers and many others, were forced to give up their work and
take up screaming "Homeland or death, we will win!" Over the years,
between the invasive marabou weed and the "magic" moringa tree, they
were converted into the now well-known undisciplined, lazy, lethargic,
absent, stealing in their workplaces and dreaming of working outside
their country. A kind of worker who, it is true, thanks to the crazy
economic juggling of Fidel Castro, is inefficient even faced with
cutting-edge technology.

A recent example has been widely commented upon by Havanans: two hundred
Indian workers have been hired for the construction of the Gran Manzana
Kempinski Hotel, under the argument that Cuban workers cannot deliver
the same performance.

Those who ask whether this is appropriate, seem to have forgotten that
Cuba still suffers the great drama of lost trades.

The elders of today, who analyze everything through the great magnifying
glass of time, come to the correct conclusion that these workers have
been not only victims of the economic disaster that the country suffers,
and then converted by force into members of a first opposition against
the regime, an opposition that has done a lot of damage and the result
of which has been to live in a country lacking development and
technology for decades and, therefore, instead of good pay they receive
alms, as a punishment to shame them.

Raúl Castro said it recently: "We have to erase forever the idea that
Cuba is the only country in the world where it is not necessary to
work." Would it not have been more accurate to say: "the only country
where people do not want to work, so that the socialist dictatorship
will end?"

That would be the real solution.

If Raul does not say it, it is because he is afraid to be
sincere. Miguel Díaz Canel, his first Vice-President, may say it through
his always lost looks, as lost as those trade that reigned in a Cuba
that was not Fidel's.

Source: The Day Castro Buried Capitalism / Cubanet, Tania Diaz Castro –
Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/the-day-castro-buried-capitalism-cubanet-tania-diaz-castro/