Cuba’s third five-year plan will begin in 1986. In the first few years of the revolution, sugar, tobacco, rum, and coffee were exported. Now the most important exports are sugar, citrus fruits, nickel, and fish. For a 10-year period, from 1971 to 1981, there was no change either in the prices of the staples on the domestic market or in the Cuban workers’ minimum wages. The 1981 wage reform set a minimum wage of 85 pesos. [A Cuban peso was equal to US$1.13.] The average monthly wage is 185 pesos. The maximum wage is 600 pesos — that is, less than 10 times the minimum wage. Rent, which is paid to the state, is less than 10 percent of the renter’s wage, no matter what the size of the property. The consumption of staples is controlled by means of ration books that regulate the supply, so Cuba’s 10 million inhabitants are not subjected to the tragedy of hunger that scourges most of Latin America’s and the rest of the world’s population. Surplus production is sold at a higher price on the parallel market, which is official. In the ration book a kilogram of beef costs one peso and 35 centavos; a quart of milk, 25 centavos.
In 1981, the year of the last census, 52 percent of the population was under 30 years old. In the first years of the revolution, the population grew at an annual rate of more than two percent, considered very high in this country. Today it is 0.9 percent. In 1959 less than 2,000 students graduated from the universities. In 1984, 28,000 graduated. Cuba now has 20,500 doctors, one for every 488! The steady decline in the number of patients allows the country to give medical assistance to 28 nations.
Alfredo Ham tells us, besides, that the annual per capita increase in consumer goods and services is between approximately 2.5 and three percent. Inflation, which cannot be calculated by capitalist criteria because there is no financial speculation and which is regulated by the state so as not to decrease the real value of workers’ wages, is around three percent annually. Real income is growing each year more than inflation. The country is in a position to absorb the entire work force, and the current low unemployment rate — approximately six percent of the economically active population — is due to the fact that the family income, which is relatively high, allows some people to be unemployed while waiting to get the job that they prefer. This is the case with young university graduates or middle-level technician graduates who may want to wait for a particular job in the location of their preference and don’t want to take another job, even though often they would receive the same salary as an engineer. The average daily caloric consumption is between 3,000 and 3,500, well above the minimum of 2,240 established by the Food and Agriculture Organization. The Gross National Product is more than $2.4 billion. Industry makes up 50 percent of that figure.
On Monday night, Fidel Castro received the small Brazilian delegation in his office in the Palace of the Revolution. Around the table were shelves full of books, there were cassettes and a transistor radio. On the table were papers, a crystal container full of candy, a round box with small short cigars, those preferred by the comandante. Underneath an enormous portrait of Camilo Cienfuegos, painted with soft strokes, were leather armchairs and a marble table from the Isle of Youth. In the background was a large conference table with four chairs on each side and two at each end. There was another huge oil painting of young students doing agricultural work. The office was large, comfortable, and air-conditioned but not luxurious. Fidel, wearing an olive-green uniform, invited us to sit at the table. He was especially interested in talking with Joelmir Beting, who had to go back to Brazil before the rest of us. He asked about Joelmir’s work, how he apportioned his time, how much time he had for study, and how he managed to keep so much economic information in his head. He also asked about our trip to the Isle of Youth and Cienfuegos, commenting, “The Cienfuegos nuclear power plant is being built with all the requirements for absolute safety — to withstand tidal waves, earthquakes, even a passenger jet crash.”
My mother praised Cuban cooking, especially the seafood. Fidel, who is also a chef, agreed. “The best thing is not to boil either shrimp or lobster, because boiling water reduces the substance and the taste and toughens the flesh. I prefer to bake or broil them. Five minutes of broiling is enough for shrimp. The lobster takes 11 minutes to bake or six minutes on a skewer over hot coals. Baste only with butter, garlic, and lemon. Good food is simple food. I think that international chefs squander resources; in a consommé many of the by-products are wasted by including the egg yolk; only the white should be used, so the leftover meat and vegetables can be used in a pie or something. One very famous chef is Cuban. Not long ago, he was preparing fish with rum and some other things for a visiting delegation. The only thing I liked was the turtle consommé — but, as I said, there was waste.”
Turning to Joelmir Beting, he asked, “What’s your daily work schedule like?”
“An hour and a half of radio programs every morning, half an hour of television in the evenings, and I write a daily column of economic commentary that’s published in 28 Brazilian newspapers.”
Fidel addressed him again: “How do you find the time to read and keep up with things? I spend an hour and a half every day reading the wire services, the dispatches from almost all the agencies. I receive them typed, in a folder, with a table of contents. The dispatches are in order by topic: everything related to Cuba, then sugar — which is basic for our exports — US politics, etc. If I read that a new pharmaceutical product has been discovered or a very useful new piece of medical equipment has been developed in some country, I immediately send for information about it. I don’t wait for the specialized medical journals that take from six months to a year to publish the information. This week I found out that a new device had been developed in France to destroy kidney stones by means of ultrasound. It’s much more economical than the one produced in West Germany. Two days later a compañero left for Paris to get the information. We’ve also asked for information about a new pharmaceutical product that was discovered in the United States that halts infarction. Public health is one of the sectors I follow closely with great interest, as are scientific research in Cuba and abroad and national and international economic matters. Unfortunately, I don’t have enough time to gather and analyze all the information I’m interested in. I wanted to be more up-to-date for this conversation with you, and I sent for all the important international economic news items from the last two months. I got four volumes of 200 pages each! It’s not easy to keep up with the dynamics of events, the adventures of the US dollar, and the consequences of the nefarious US economic policy on the world economy.”
Joelmir Beting said, “The dollar is a currency of intervention — armed intervention in our countries — rather than a reference currency. The rise of the dollar reflects the ruin of the US economy. The ruble is tied to gold. The ruble has backing, the dollar doesn’t. This is why the Soviet Union has been adversely affected by the increased value of the dollar since Nixon — over the phone — suspended the US currency’s gold backing. In a way, the currency that is buying the world today is counterfeit. The number of dollars circulating outside the United States is a mystery.”
Fidel leafed through the folder containing the transcript of Monday’s international dispatches. He commented that the folder wasn’t very thick because politicians and journalists weren’t used to working over the weekend.
“No one knows the computer that man has in his head,” he said, “I often wonder why so many people go into politics. It’s a hard job. It’s only worthwhile if it’s done as a function of something useful, if some problem can really be solved. In conversations such as this one, with visitors, I try to learn. I try to find out what’s going on in the rest of the world — especially Latin America.”
“As commander-in-chief, you are responsible both for the administration of Cuba and for its international relations,” Joelmir Beting observed. “Might two commanders be necessary?”
“Everything here is decentralized and follows well drawn-up plans. Moreover, there’s a central group that facilitates the administration. It used to be a Roman circus, with each agency, each ministry struggling with the planning board, squabbling over appropriations. Now everyone is responsible for everything. The Ministry of Education also participates in the main decisions concerned