Capitalist Reminiscence? / Cuban Law Association, Wilfredo Vallin Almeida

Wilfredo Vallin Almeida

Many events throughout our existence can be forgotten, but others leave a deep memory that does not go away. And these events may have had many demonstrations as they can be taken for granted, a dream, an omission, a sentence, and even a poster.

With the latter two, much relegated to memory, I was suddenly assaulted when I least expected it: while watching a video that a friend had sent me.

The video in question relates to an investigation and several arrests made by the Technical Investigation Department (DTI) of the National Revolutionary Police. The detainees are involved in fraudulent transactions whose amount is a whopping 33 million pesos.

The poster that comes to mind at the moment is one I saw I don’t know how many times over many years. It was a big fence on a broad avenue and on a white background highlighted in red:

The future belongs entirely to socialism. 

It’s a sign that I no longer see, but it was present during the youth of Cubans of the generation of the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s, when it was assumed that the “moribund capitalism” was terminal and that, who could doubt it?, socialism would be victorious.

The other phrase, I also was reminded of by the sign is:

Crime is reminiscence of capitalist society and will disappear to the extent that socialism advances.

I read that phrase many times in textbooks of law and Marxist texts that college students had to study and examine mandatory.

Watching this film, which ends with the words of General President Raul Castro admits theft where in the country is huge, at all levels and at all levels, and as, moreover, I see it now flourishing and vigorous than ever before in the history of Cuba, I then subtracted one question:

What happened to the “capitalist reminiscence”?

10 February 2014