Cuba needs revolutionary discipline and perseverance, not political or economic changes, the island's Communist Party has said in a document that will likely chart its course into the 21st Century.

The economy is in dire straits, the document acknowledged, ticking off shortages of food, clothes, soap and medicine, as well as power blackouts, fuel shortages and a crisis in housing and public transportation.

Yet the party will never permit ``the return of capitalism,'' because that would defeat the Marxist-Leninist nature of the revolution, said the eight-page statement published in Havana over the weekend.

Its grim language, insisting on one-party rule and urging Cubans to attack anything that undermines ``socialist values,'' was taken as further proof that Havana plans no major political changes in the near future.

The document is essentially a party platform that will be discussed in June and July at nearly 400,000 meetings of party, labor union and other activists in preparation for a party national congress Oct. 8-10.

``A new plebiscite for the Cuban people,'' said a headline in the official Granma newspaper Saturday. Granma added later that it is a plebiscite ``for the fatherland, the revolution and socialism.''

Little change expected

While the party's 770,000 hand-picked members technically can disagree with any part of the platform, dissent is unwelcome and risky, and previous platforms have reached congresses pretty much as originally written.

The October congress will be the party's first since 1991, a period of economic crisis in which thousands of members turned in their cards or fled abroad. They were replaced by younger Cubans who are believed to care less about ideology than the job opportunities and other benefits the party offers them.

The two-month period allowed for discussion of the draft before the congress -- compared with seven months in 1991 -- signals the leadership's desire for a tightly controlled process with no surprises, party members said.

From its very title, The Party of the Unity, Democracy and Human Rights That We Defend, the document makes it clear that party leaders are proposing no changes and instead pushing to preserve one-party socialism as Cuba's best defense against U.S. attacks and subversion.

``The party is in a better position today than ever to perfect its role as society's guide,'' the document said. ``It is the vigilant conscience and backbone of national resistance.''

On human rights, ``there has not been a single political crime since 1959,'' said the document, which made no mention at all of previous or possible economic reforms.

No recent changes

Beginning in mid-1993, President Fidel Castro legalized the use of dollars, farmers' markets and family-owned enterprises and broadened foreign investments in a successful effort to halt Cuba's economic plunge after Moscow stopped its subsidies in 1991.

But no more major changes have been adopted in the past 18 months, and the document's description of party ideology as founded on ``Marx, Engels and Lenin . . . and the example and creative ideas of Fidel'' signaled little desire to reopen the door to reforms.

Instead, the platform complains about Cubans' ``fascination and frivolous cult for Yankee symbols and models'' and demands that party members respond ``firmly'' to dissidents and ``criminals'' seeking to undermine the regime.

``Each act of corruption that we do not stop on time erodes the image of our democracy and benefits those who wish to eliminate it,'' the document added. ``Indifference and inaction by revolutionaries is inadmissible.

``For Cubans, an independent fatherland, a genuine democracy and socialism can never be separated. Socialism in Cuba is an organic part of its historical process.''