Pablo Fernandez is a Cuban belonging to the first generation of the Cuban Revolution - people who in1959 were young and, along with the whole country, enthusiastically greeted Fidel Castro's revolution which was supposed to change everything for the better. At the beginning of the 1970ties, Pablo was sent to a forced labour camp and afterwards he managed to emigrate. He came to Poland in 1974. A small room filled with pipe smoke. His tiny apartment in an old town house in the centre of Warsaw is by no means a nest of a counter-revolutionary plot. Neither is Fernandez an inspired anti-Castro crusader. He lacks revolutionary fire. He works in a small editing house which publishes English textbooks and art albums, sometimes he writes his own poems in the evenings. The history bruised his soul, but it did not turn him into an active Castro opponent; he has never got involved in any politics in Miami. "I just wanted to live", says he. You are asking about my opinion about the Revolution after all these years? I split it into stages, because it is a nonsense to discuss Cuban revolution as an entity. Years until 1968 were truly revolutionary, but afterwards the regime had become petrified, ceasing to be revolutionary. Frankly speaking, I am not keen of people who fought for revolution, supported socialist changes and then emigrated to Miami, where they pretend that they had fought Fidel since their very birthday. There were times where I myself had enthusiastically marched in the ranks of the revolution, I had been a believer, I evolved with the revolution. We had never thought that it would unite with any of the cold war countries. However, just before the invasion of our enemies from Miami at Playa Giron [known as the Bay of Pigs] Fidel had announced that the revolution was going to be socialist. It had come as a surprise, but we said OK and we started to move towards socialism. Actually, we had had no idea of what it really meant we just had our "tropical socialism" which we had never associated with Moscow. At that time, Cuba also had the old Communist Party of Stalinist character. It even accused Fidel's revolution of being too wayard, irresponsible, disobedient to the Central Office.[...] In Cuba, I worked at the Philosophy Department of the University of Havana. Our philosophy was far away from the textbook Marxism-Leninism, we delved into the original concepts of Third World philosophers. At that time, the University was a meeting place for young, anti-Soviet people [...] The relations with Moscow became tense at that time. Khrushchev tolerated Fidel's antics just as a father approves his pranks of a child. After the missile crisis, the relations almost broke. Castro was so angry with Khrushchev that he decided to become the leader of Latin American and African guerrilla movement, which went against the current of USSR policy. Fidel was fascinated with a guerrilla war theory named " faco" co-authored by Che Guevara and French intellectual Debray. It required groups of avant-garde revolutionaries to settle in the countryside -just contrary to the tenets of the Soviet doctrine - and to bring revolution from there to the cities. From the point of viev of traditional Leninism it was but a perversion! (laughs). Castro enthusiastically bought this theory just to anger the Soviets; he built with it his independence from Moscow. He acted in this manner until 1968. That is why I think that '68 marked the end of the real Cuban revolution.

When in 1968 Soviet troops entered Prague, all of us thought that Fidel would sympathise with Prague rebels, but he made a speech on TV which was just like a bucket of cold water on our heads. He was afraid that Americans will invade Cuba in response to the occupation of Prague. He relented to the Soviets... But it was not only that [a pause]. A year ago, Che died in Bolivia. All of us felt it under our skin that Castro condemned him to his lone death. With Che at his side, it would be harder for him to fraternise with the Soviets. Yes, 1968 was the year of dire changes. Fidel nationalised the remaining private businesses; since then, a cobbler had not been able to mend shoes in his own workshop, a tailor could not make suits... It was a blow to the prospects for decent living. In the meantime, Khrushchev was replaced by Brezhnev who was not so tolerant to Castro's feats of disobedience. In '68 they closed my department at the University and opened a new one, under the leadership of a Soviet advisor. Something ended then, something of key importance for us. Cuba fell into deep crisis, we had food shortages. And something else went into oblivion - the thing which we considered an unique feature of our revolution: its Caribbean fiesta mood, its suaveness, its charm. Soviets required discipline and the revolution soon changed into a tough regime of a single party, with the economic model typical for that party. It was the end of free debate, the beginning of the"ideological purge" and our culture withered in the result. Castro's regime no more agreed with my concept of revolution. I decided to emigrate and I said it openly, but before I was approved, I was sent to a forced labour camp for four years. It was a common practice, everyone wanting to leave had to go there and work until he obtained a consent; it could last a year, or two or five years or it could never happen. It was a strange phenomenon, a perverted method of coercion. You could give up your plans and leave the camp at any time, but when you have already been there for two years, you do not want to waste your effort, because the consent can come at any time... For me, it came in 1974.

I am part of the generation which lived during the heroic epics of the revolution, and I sometimes recall these times with nostalgia. Next generations know only the sad and miserable everyday struggle against intolerant bureaucracy. Do you know where this change is best noticeable? In literature! We wrote epic novels, songs praising the future - we held the future in our hands, we wanted to change the country. Nobody has been writing in this way afterwards. They returned to existential literature, to dark, grotesque, violence-obsessed realism. [...] You are asking about Raul Castro who replaced Fidel. Somebody wrote that "Fidel is the heart of the Revolution, and Raul is its fist". Well, I don't know... Fidel was a wrangler who accepted Marxism and Soviet influences, because only the USSR could give him support in the conflict with the USA. It also gave him ideological justification for what he did. Raul has been a Communist since the start. People said in Cuba that he was the "bad policeman". You know, there comes Fidel and gives you a cigarette and then comes Raul and he breaks your bones, but opinions differ on him. Well, now you can safely conclude that El Comandante is a charismatic leader who lost. He left the country in ruin. The country which in spite of dreadful dictatorship of Batista was in 1959 one of the best developed Latin American states, fell to the very bottom under his rule. What about Raul? Time will show who he is.