People's Democracy and Decentralizatlon IN THE summer of 1974 an experiment in democracy and decentralization was initiated in Matanzas Province. Municipal, district and provincial Organizations of People's Power (PPO) were estahlished. 5,597 production and service units were handed over to the PPO. The PPO performs the combined functions of city council and local administration, and also takes on certain functions of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (COR), etc. 90 % of the people voted in the elections, but « ... 60 % of the deputies are communists and young communist members ... » (10). An interview with a high official of the PPO proves that the much publicized «decentralization», «democracy» and q;people's self management» of affairs allegedly being instituted in Cuba is a brazen fraud: « Q) Is the establishment of self-governing Organ of People's Power (PPO) to promote mass participation in local and provincïal administration part of the process of reinforcing the Dictatorship of the Proletariat? A) Actually, the establishment of the PPO -being tried out as an experiment in Matanzas- is part of the process. Q) On what principles are the PPO based? A) The Communist Party is the principal, the indispensable organ'ism for the construction of socialism in our country, and, as such, directs as it deems best, all the organizations and organisms, including of course the Organs of People's Power» (11). This system patterned after the fake Russian q;soviets) actually re-inforces the dictatorship. The Commlttees for the Defense of the Revolutlon ( CDR) W HAT [asked K. S. Karol] has become of the many rank- « and-file organizations that were ·once so dynamic? ... These organisations have ceased to exist on anything but paper. They became puppets ... for example the COR... spring into action when it cornes to tracking down bad citizens and small (10) Ibid., p. 17. (11) Granma, May 28, 1974. 52
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