Reply #3: Raul: He's the pragmatic Castro [View All]

[Say_What]

Comprehensive and interesting piece about Raul from the St. Petersburg Times.

<clips>

...But Raul, who had seen this coming since 1979, was ready, says Amuchastegui, who has written extensively on the military's economic reforms. In the early 1980s the armed forces sent engineers, managers and economists to take courses in universities and tour factories in Scandinavia, France and Canada. American economists were also invited to lecture in Havana.

The Cubans called it "perfeccionamiento empresarial" - business improvement. The key institution entrusted with this project was Raul's Armed Forces Ministry.

New accounting practices were introduced, state subsidies eliminated and managers given greater independence from the state ministries that had run them. Incentive pay was introduced for productive workers.

It wasn't a short-term survival plan. "It's a long-term strategy of change and transformation for the whole system," wrote Amuchastegui in a recent unpublished study. It sought "the most suitable middle ground" to blend the Revolution's emblematic "social tenets" with "superior capitalist organization."

Similar to the "China model," it hinged on loosening state economic controls without letting go politically.

Fidel wasn't having any of it, but Raul saw it as the only way forward. "Raul has always been inclined to reforms despite his hard exterior," said Hidalgo.

http://www.sptimes.com/2006/08/13/Worldandnation/Raul__He_s_the_pragma.shtml