Cooperatives Featured in Conference Beginning Today in Cuba
HAVANA TIMES, April 24 — The Eighth International Conference on Agricultural Law begins today in Havana and is dedicated to “cooperatives as an engine of social development,” reported the Prensa Latina news agency.
The forum is attracting judges, lawyers, notaries, registrars, teachers, university students and other national and foreign specialists who will discuss topics such as credit, insurance, marketing, development and the effectiveness of cooperatives.
Non-official left sectors on the island have promoted debate around the cooperative forms of organizing work, which — although included in the reform guidelines of the Communist Party that were adopted last year — so far have not received the same governmental support as efforts around private “self-employed workers.”
With regard to both agricultural and non-agricultural cooperatives, comrades in Cuba could look at the historical experience of the Chinese Indusco (Gung Ho), worker-owned industrial cooperatives, 1938 to 1959. These were instrumental first in defeating the Japanese invaders, and second in helping defeat the pro-fascist Kuomingdong by 1949. There is a specific reason why this experience should be looked at and assessed at this time.
Indusco was a broad, international movement that elicited financial capital from Chinese expatriates in the Philippines, the US, and many other countries, as well as anti-fascists all over the globe. In today’s situation, the peasants and more urbanized workers might be able to collaborate with both with the Cuban diaspora and the many others who wish Cuba well, for significant capital assistance and investment .
This could become a significant international, non-partisan movement. There might be opposition from several quarters, but since there has been a relevant historical precedent, it is possible that such a movement could succeed and be of tremendous assistance to the Cuban people.