By JUAN O. TAMAYO
Herald Staff Writer
Cuba's ruling Communist Party, admitting that the post-Soviet economic crisis significantly eroded its popular support, is planning a unique assembly of party faithful soon after the U.S. elections.
The National Conference in late November will replace the party congress, held every four years. A party congress was due this year but has been postponed indefinitely, one party official in Havana said.
A congress would have required preparatory agenda discussions at all levels of the party, which might have exacerbated the current debate between reformers and conservatives inside the party.
Instead, the National Conference format, which has never been used, will allow a more agile yet controlled debate, the official said in a telephone interview.
Debates between party members who favor more economic openings and those who would hold the line are seen by Cuban analysts as crucial to the island's future, probably more so than U.S. policies.
Reports about the National Conference -- the exact date has not been announced -- have sparked conjecture in and out of Cuba that the party could be about to undertake major changes in policies or personalities.
Cuba's legislature ``has a bunch of new laws all bundled up and ready to be put into place. But it's a matter of timing,'' said John Kavulich of the New York-based U.S. Cuba Trade and Economic Council, who does not expect major changes to come out of the party meeting.
Party officials say the National Conference will be aimed more at explaining the party's view of the reasons behind the crisis, and the thinking behind the government's response.
A recent rash of party meetings at various levels ``help us to inform our members, to listen to their opinions, their criteria, to define and offer guidance on the tasks at hand,'' party Central Committee member Jose Ramon Machado Ventura said in an interview broadcast Friday.
A party document published by the newspaper Granma in six installments last month pushed the same theme, insisting that party members need to ``explain'' government policies to Cubans whom the document painted as increasingly dissatisfied and disillusioned.
``There has been a weakening of support for the revolution among some social groups and people,'' the document said, ``as well as exaggerated criticisms for the [reforms] adopted, which are considered insufficient.
``There are a significant number of people who doubt the capacity of socialism . . . to resolve production problems,'' it added, ``a tendency to organize groups not supporting the government . . . and a growing influence by Cubans abroad.''
There are also feelings of ``insecurity, fear, mistrust, confusion, disillusionment [and] a search for personal salvation that has fueled individualism and egoism among the people.''
While asserting that the main reason behind Cuba's economic crunch is the collapse of the Soviet empire, the document also acknowledges that the party and the Cuban government committed errors over the past 37 years.
But Cuba's economy is now on the mend. The government survived, the document boasted.
``The difficult years . . . and the natural political erosion for the agencies and institutions responsible for leading the country have not destroyed the people's trust in the aims of the revolution,'' it said.
Party members must now step up vigilance against corruption and misuse of government resources, the document added, avoid internal rifts and learn to explain the ins and outs of economic policy to all Cubans.
``One fact that must be kept in mind is that society is headed toward a mixed economy . . . with a dominance by a public sector that will have to show equal or higher productivity than the private sector,'' it said.
But this will not be achieved, as in the past, through government subsidies or assistance or the egalitarian distribution of resources except in the case of public health and education, the document added.
The paper urged party members to blend humanism and justice with personal initiatives and production.
© 1996 The Miami Herald.