The Militant(logo) 
    Vol.61/No.45           December 22, 1997 
 
 
`Granma International' Offers The Voice Of Cuban Revolution  

BY MIKE TABER
Since February 1966 Granma International has been the weekly voice of the Cuban revolution in English, French, and Spanish. For almost 32 years it has published speeches by Fidel Castro and other Cuban leaders, documents by the Cuban government, and news articles on Cuba. Among recent articles are:

An interview with Cuban Brig. Gen. Luis Pérez Róspide, head of the Union of Military Industries. These are enterprises run by the Revolutionary Armed Forces to spur production and promote economic efficiency. In these enterprises 97.6 percent of the work force, and 70 percent of administrators and specialists, are civilians. Key to their success, Pérez states, is workers' participation in decision making.

At the heart of this program is the nature of the Cuban army itself. "The Rebel Army is the people in uniform," Pérez says. "And with that concept of Fidel's we arrived at the strategy of the War of All the People." This strategy consists of "guaranteeing each Cuban a rifle, a land mine, and a grenade to defend the country," the article points out.

An article on the Fourth National Meeting of Nonsugarcane UBPCs. UBPC stands for Basic Units of Cooperative Production, which were set up in 1993 in face of the sharp drop in production on state farms. Among their tasks was to involve working people more in decision making and eliminate some of the bureaucratic features of the old state farm setup.

Some 1,600 UBPCs are currently functioning, on 37 percent of the country's arable land that is not utilized for sugarcane production, the article in Granma points out. But the creation of the UBPCs by itself has not solved the difficulties. Only 25 percent of them are self-sufficient in food.

Nevertheless, the UBPCs "are credited with having made a contribution to reducing the overall losses in the agricultural sector, inherited from other less fortunate stages: from approximately 1.8 billion pesos in 1993 to close to 400 million pesos anticipated at the end of the year."

The article concludes by citing remarks to the meeting by Cuban vice president Carlos Lage, "Even though 71 percent of those entities are showing losses, the constant reduction of those losses and improved results in production are favorable aspects in the course of Cuban agriculture."

A report on the recent wave of terrorist bombings in Havana, given by Col. Adalberto Rabeiro of the counterintelligence division of the Ministry of the Interior.

Articles on the Fifth Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba, and of the events surrounding the 30th anniversary of the death of Ernesto Che Guevara, whose remains were recently found, returned to Cuba, and interred in the city of Santa Clara amidst a massive popular outpouring.

Subscriptions to Granma International are available from Pathfinder Press.  
 
 
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