CASTRO'S COMPROMISES

By FIDEL CASTRO

As the failure of its economy forces Cuba to reinvent itself, Fidel Castro has stayed largely in the background, leaving it to other officials to explain and defend the changes sweeping his country. But two weeks ago, he invited a delegation from TIME to dinner for a rare three-hour conversation that gave him an opportunity to define the compromises he is making: to expound, argue, and marshal the evidence in support of a reform process some Cubans fear is changing Cuba too much and others charge is not changing the country nearly enough.

TIME: Can you reflect on the strange love-hate relationship between Cuba and the U.S.?

Castro: The strange thing about this hatred is that it does not come from us. We have never hated the U.S. Thousands of Americans who have come to Cuba have had the opportunity of seeing that there is no hostile feeling against them. In no place in Latin America are Americans treated with more respect than in Cuba. I do not think either that there is any hatred on the part of U.S. citizens toward us. I recall that when I went to New York in 1960, some people booed me. But that came, to a very large extent, from lack of understanding. I think even that feeling has diminished.

TIME: Over the past several years, almost every revolutionary leader in the world has fallen by the wayside except you. How does it feel to be alone in this situation? What do you believe your legacy will be when you pass from the scene?

Castro: I would have to write an encyclopedia. [laughter]

Our system has not been exactly the same as in other countries. It was always very original, and it came from the people. Socialism did not come from the higher-ups: the people struggled, and they deposed the Batista government. There was a liberation. True. But it was a relative liberation: we got free from Batista, but we could not get rid of the U.S.

The U.S. started imposing conditions and measures simply to crush the revolution: subversion, dirty wars, mercenary invasions, assassination plots against us. I have an Olympic record in that regard, and I should be awarded a medal because there is no individual against whom so many assassination plots have been contrived, who is still living. That is partly luck. And partly because of the inefficiency of the ones who carried out the plots: they were not fanatics but people who were paid.

I am profoundly convinced that what we have been doing is the fair thing to do. It is the noblest thing to do and the most humane, and we will never be repentant for that. Never. I do not feel alone.

TIME: Did you feel betrayed when Mikhail Gorbachev told you Moscow would no longer provide you with economic assistance?

Castro: I had good personal relations with Mr. Gorbachev. I believe that he was full of good intentions. He never talked about destroying socialism. Later on, though, I think that he did not follow a consistent strategy. He said things could not be done in an orderly way, one priority after the other, but that everything had to be done at the same time. So he destroyed the history of the U.S.S.R. He destroyed the party. He destroyed the state. It was impossible for the Soviet Union to make the reforms they wanted while destroying history, destroying the party, destroying the government.

TIME: What lessons are you drawing from Boris Yeltsin?

Castro: He now says he's not communist, and I say, yes, I'm communist. He repents of having been a communist, and I am proud to be one. Why do I have to renege on my principles?

I have no choice but to continue being a communist, like the early Christians remained Christian. I feel like the early Christians. Perhaps I will be devoured by the lions.

TIME: Where did communism go wrong?

Castro: It went wrong by not liquidating capitalism earlier. I believe that capitalism, in spite of its great successes, is a catastrophe for the world. No matter how many cars, no matter how much good living you have, there are billions of people living in poverty who have no cars, no comfort, no public health, no education. The atmosphere is already poisoned. The waters are poisoned. The forests are being subjected to acid rain. The weather is getting warmer. We have suffered from that ourselves. Capitalism developed the forces of production; it developed technology. But at the same time, it has been digging its own grave.

TIME: How do you really feel about foreign investment in Cuba?

Castro: I was among those who proposed joint ventures even before the collapse of the Soviet Union because we had resources that we could not make use of. We have factories that need raw materials, such as fuel, or some more updated technologies so we may accept a joint venture. The principle we base our activities on is that to develop the country needs capital, technology and markets. All these investments and joint ventures are fundamentally aimed at export production.

But we are not implementing a privatization policy. For domestic consumption, we prefer our own industries. And in the case of the enterprises that are functioning, we prefer that they continue being state-owned. We have no interest in privatizing domestic enterprises. We won't renounce the fundamental role of the state in the development of the economy. We are not going to privatize streets or parks or roads.

TIME: And never the land?

Castro: Not so far. We haven't thought about including it. But we cannot say never. Perhaps we will allow in the future some real estate investment.

TIME: Is there a clear economic strategy at work, or is it debated on an ad hoc basis?

Castro: Our main objective is to preserve the revolution: our independence and the achievements of socialism. We have not renounced socialism as our common objective. Now we are introducing reforms to develop the country during the ``special period'' because the socialist camp has disappeared. We have lost more than 70% of our imports. We were left without credits, without capital, without technology and without markets.

No other country would have been able to endure what we have endured. No other socialist country has been able to endure the collapse of the socialist camp or the loss of its imports in the midst of a blockade. We have been able to do so because of the revolution. No other country would have been able to endure such a situation without a system similar to ours because it would not have been able to guarantee an equitable distribution of resources.

But our system must adapt to the realities of today's world. We have to be ready to conduct necessary changes to adapt to the present world conditions-- without renouncing our ideas and without renouncing our objectives. What we are doing will continue. The commitments we make here now will be fulfilled. There is no going back.

TIME: Do you feel comfortable that some people have dollars and others do not?

Castro: We do not like it. It is not the ideal. It is a need for a specific stage in history. We don't like any foreign currency circulating, not just dollars. We introduced the dollar out of need.

The changes were not just a government decision. We discussed them with the workers and students. We discussed an increase in food prices. No, the food prices should not go up. How about a reduction in salaries? No. How about wage taxes? No. The majority told us to take harsh measures against speculators in the black market who were getting rich illegally.

They said to charge for sports events. Many people said that plastic-surgery services should be paid for. Many said we should increase the price of nonessentials, such as alcoholic beverages and cigarettes.

TIME: What about income taxes and property taxes?

Castro: The dream of every American: not to pay taxes. People here do not even pay housing taxes. One day we will have to convince Cubans they should have to pay.

TIME: So are you prepared to talk to the Cuban people about an income tax now?

Castro: If we are able to convince them, yes. [laughter]

We also have to convince workers--and there are a large number of them who are convinced--that they must make a contribution to social welfare. There is a deficit of 500 million pesos in social security every year. They are discussing whether the contribution should be 5%, 6% or 7%. It has to be established because the worker has not paid anything for social security. That mentality must be changed.

TIME: You have cut back on government, and we hear hundreds of thousands may lose their jobs this year. How do you deal with them?

Castro: There are jobs, but not in Havana. One of the things we are doing is to attract some people from the cities to the countryside. We have given land parcels to those who want to till the land. We are also trying to start up factories by means of joint ventures. We are boosting tourism as much as we can as a source of employment. We are expanding the number of free-lance workers. Free-lance working, an embryonic form of what you call private enterprise, is one of the ways by which we must find jobs for all those people who have no work.

But we do not want to cut back education and public health because we cannot destroy the system we have created. We do not want to have private medicine because we have created a health system which has rendered extraordinary results, and we do not want to destroy it. It would be a historic crime to do so.

TIME: Forty years ago, you were full of idealism. When you won, you eliminated the vices of the Batista regime, among them prostitution and crime. Today we see prostitutes back on the street with the dollar economy.

Castro: To a certain extent, it happened before the special period. But with tourism, the expansion of relationships with foreigners makes that phenomenon increase, motivated by various reasons that are not always economic.

The state tries to prevent it as much as possible. It is not legal in our country to practice prostitution, nor are we going to legalize it. Nor are we thinking in terms of turning it into a free-lance occupation to solve unemployment problems. [laughter] We are not going to repress it. What else can we do? If we are harsher, we will be accused of being human-rights abusers.

TIME: How are you going to pass the revolution to the next generation?

Castro: We are already handing it down to the next generation. No problem. It's easy because responsibilities are shared by many people.

TIME: But three generations from now when none of us are here?

Castro: At that time the U.S. and Cuba will be friends. The awareness of the need for peace will have made great strides, and the so-called embargoes by you and by us would have disappeared-- out of mental illness--out of stupidity, it will disappear.

TIME: What do you want your great-grandchildren to say about you?

Castro: I do not know, but you have to think about it. I believe that they will feel proud. I do not regard myself as a bad man. On the contrary. And I have seen that sometimes grandchildren are proud even of people who were bad.