24 Chapter 2
are most probable, but 5 cannot be ruled out. A series of policy alternatives is sug-
gested here that might make the first scenario possible.
On July 31, 2006, Fidel Castro, because of serious health problems,
provisionally delegated the presidency of Cuba to the second secretary
of Cuban Communist Party and minister of the armed forces, Raúl
Castro. On February 24, 2008, Raúl Castro was appointed president.
This new stage of the Cuban Revolution has been characterized by
consultation with the masses about the kind of socialism they want to
build, a parallel policy returning to some aspects of the economic
reform abandoned in 2000, a key role for the armed forces in the
economy,^2 the dismantling of programs of the Battle of Ideas^3 that
were considered economically unsound, the elimination of subsidies
such as free food at workplaces, and the reduction of the state through
the fusion of ministries and the reduction of the labor force. The suc-
cess of these policies will condition what scenarios will prevail in Cuba
in the future.^4 The consolidation of the revolution in the medium and
- The Cuban army is the most successful institution in Cuba with regard to organiza-
tion. At the Fifth Congress of the Cuban Communist Party in 1997 it was decided to
extend the managerial improvement of the army to the civilian economy. By 2007 this
was being done for 797 of a total of 2,732 enterprises (http://www.cubasocialista.cu/
texto/0098081lage.html). - The Battle of Ideas was an ideological movement launched by Fidel Castro at the
beginning of 2000 in order to bring the child Elián González, whose mother had died at
sea and whose father sought his return to the island, back from Miami. This mass mobi-
lization meant a renewal of revolutionary values and was described by Fidel as follows:
“They are the ideas that illuminate the world, that can bring peace to the world.... that
can resolve the violence. Because of this we speak about a battle of ideas” (quoted in
Ramonet, 2006: 364). - Several foreign actors have designed scenarios for the “transition in Cuba” (Xalma,
2007). The government of the United States has been fostering a rapid transition to libe-
ral democracy, including internal subversion and violent actions to reestablish the
island's neocolonial dependency. The European Union, along with some sectors of the
political class in the United States, wants a gradual transition or “soft landing.” The
extreme right of the Cuban community agrees with the policy of blockade and rapid
transition through violent action if necessary, but in recent years broad sectors of this
community have approached the European Union view. Within Cuba the government
through Raúl Castro is trying to guarantee the traditional model of socialism with chan-
ges that are primarily economic. Some intellectuals and broad sectors of the population
want more speed and depth in the changes in the economic, political, social, and ideolo-
gical arena. They consider this the only way for socialism in Cuba to survive. Almost all
of the tiny dissident groups in Cuba agree with the policy of the United States and are
financed by ad hoc funding through the Interest Section.