In January 1959, during the early days of the Cuban revolution, Fidel Castro declared, "Behind me come others more radical than me." It was a reference to the hardcore Stalinists such as his younger brother, Raúl, and also a warning of what might ensue should Fidel be assassinated. Today, however, Raúl is thought to be the more pragmatic of the two Castros--more willing to liberalize the economy and to pursue normalized relations with the United States.
Despite what you may have read, the post-Fidel era did not begin last week when the dictator's retirement was made official. It began about 19 months ago, in the summer of 2006, when Fidel was hospitalized and the 76-year-old Raúl became Cuba's interim president. He has forged a collective leadership and preserved stability on the island. Raúl is likely to be "elected" president at the February 24 Cuban National Assembly gathering, though there has been some speculation that Carlos Lage, the 56-year-old vice president, might become the formal chief executive and that the younger Castro would keep a separate leadership title. The nature of a Raúl-led regime is shrouded by uncertainty. But the factors that will determine the future of post-Fidel Cuba, and of U.S. policy toward Cuba, are obvious.
The military. Raúl has headed the Cuban military for decades. Brian Latell, who spent three decades following Cuba as a CIA officer, argued in his 2005 book, After Fidel, that "Raúl was his brother's one truly indispensable ally" and that his "brilliant, steady leadership
of the Cuban armed forces secured the revolution." Post-Fidel Cuba has essentially been run by a civil-military committee and that won't soon change. "Civilian elites, individually or in any conceivable alliances, will be unable to challenge the military as long as it remains united," Latell wrote. "The Communist Party and popular organizations are hollow shells that have been allowed by the Castros to fade in importance." According to Jaime Suchlicki, a Cuba expert at the University of Miami, the Cuban military now "controls more than 50 percent of the economy," including a large portion of the tourism industry. They are the real power brokers.
Latell made another crucial point: A Tiananmen Square-type incident could cleave apart the military and topple the regime. "Even if the survival of the revolution were at stake, many troop commanders would probably be unwilling to fire indiscriminately on protesting civilians." If ordered to do so, some of the elite paramilitary forces might carry out a massacre, Latell added. "But that could be the surest formula for civil war, pitting loyalist and dissident commanders and units against each other."
China. While Fidel has disavowed the Chinese economic model, Raúl is said to favor it. The Wall Street Journal reported in November 2006 that "Raúl has traveled to China a number of times to study Beijing's economic policies, and in 2003 he invited the leading economic adviser to China's then-premier Zhu Rongji, who played a leading role in opening up China to foreign trade and investment, to give a series of lectures in Cuba." Raúl also supported the modest free-market initiatives devised by Lage in the early 1990s.
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