Ivan Ernesto is an official of the Cuban Institute for Friendship with the Peoples and member of the Union of Young Communists. He spoke to Rock around the Blockade about the genocidal US blockade on Cuba, economic changes, socialism and internationalism.
RATB: What does socialism mean to you?
Ivan Ernesto: Socialism for me is an alternative to the current unjust socio-economic system that prevails in the world. And of course as a transitory stage, socialism is not the climax or the highest stage itself of what we aspire in terms of social justice... it is a process where there are still ongoing struggles, backwards and forwards... it is a process still in construction where certain elements of the previous stage (capitalism) and other characteristics of the new model we aspire to build (communism) are interacting and generating new challenges and opportunities.
RATB: What are your views on the economic changes taking place in Cuba?
IE: The economic panorama that is taking place in Cuba is an example of those challenges in a socialist country with the particularities of our nation. Remember to take into account that Cuba is a developing country of the global south that is punching above its weight, even more if you consider that added to the structural deformations generated by centuries of colonialism and neocolonialism, Cuba is facing the longest system of unilateral sanctions ever imposed by the biggest economic power of the world against us, just 90 miles from the US.
Nowadays Cuba is continuing its process of updating its economic model that began approximately in 2010. This is a process that has its antecedents mainly during the 2nd half of the 1980’s, when we started our process of identification of bad tendencies and mistakes (led by Fidel Castro) in order to promote new economic policies that could solve those mistakes or problems our nation was facing and also deal in better conditions with the deep deformed economic infrastructure (that I mentioned previously). That process was interrupted in the 1990’s by the collapse of the socialist block in eastern Europe and of course, the Soviet Union, when we suddenly lost over 80% of our foreign commercial partners and our economy dropped around 30% of its GDP in only one year. At this time the US then strengthened its sanctions against Cuba. During those times our country was mainly focused on survival. And we did it; we not only survived but also grew, and when the international context was more favourable – when progressive governments in Latin America started emerging: like Chávez in Venezuela, Lula in Brazil, Correa in Ecuador, Kichner in Argentina, Evo Morales in Bolivia – it gave opportunities for regional integration, creating and expanding collaboration in social programs and fairer conditions for trade.
In this context, in 2010 Cuba assumed a strategy to update our economic model to the new post-Soviet Union era, in which we corrected some of the bad tendencies and mistakes identified in the 1980’s, but also other new challenges that emerged in the last 20 years. This process has not been a perfect one (of course, it has been made by humans). It has been backwards and forwards, contradictions, with some effective measures but others that have created new challenges. Some reforms have been delayed or not been implemented in the right time or in the best way to address them. We are left with a very limited range of action due to the imposition of the blockade against Cuba, because any mistake committed regarding economics in our country will cost 3-5 times more to recover under our sieged conditions.
If we take into account that Trump started his maximum pressure policy towards Cuba even before the pandemic, and Biden’s administration has not done almost nothing to change anything regarding that policy, the result will of course be a very complex economic scenario for Cuba. Nevertheless we are trying to diversify the Cuban economy, and encourage food production, changes of energetic matrix - moving from fuels to renewable energies - while dealing with natural disasters, like hurricanes, tornadoes and earthquakes. And still we not only provide assistance to Cubans for free during these natural disasters and during the years of pandemic, but we also keep our firm will to continue helping other peoples around the world, sending doctors and teachers to assist, mostly to those who are in the most vulnerable condition.
RATB: What is the importance of international solidarity?
IE: I would like to first of all refer to something that sometimes people overlooked or do not perceive. That is that Cuban patriotism is very linked to internationalism and solidarity, in opposition of what happens in most of western countries or those who are in the core of capitalism, where most of the time patriotism is linked to far-right wing, white supremacists and xenophobic and racist groups. This main difference was settled even before the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, during our wars for independence, when many foreigners embraced our cause and many Cubans also supported other liberation processes. Our National Hero Jose Martí expressed once that ‘Homeland is Humanity’ and that has been part of the pillars and vocation of the Cuban Revolution since the very beginning. That’s why we have sent doctors to over 100 countries around the world; why we train people from all over the world as doctors, engineers and many other professional and technical industries. That’s why we supported Vietnam, that’s why we fought against apartheid in Angola, that’s why Cuba supports Palestine.
