Education For Cuban Workers in East Germany

1 Education for Cuban workers in East Germany:
2 a comparative analysis for the case of Cuban

3
4
students
5
6 Claudia Martínez Hernández
7
8
Bildung und Erziehung downloaded from www.vr-elibrary.de by Leuphana Universität Lüneburg on March, 20 2023
9
Zusammenfassung: Ca. 30.000 kubanische Arbeitnehmer*innen erhielten zwischen
10 1978 und 1990 aufgrund eines bilateralen Abkommens Verträge für drei bis fünf Jahre
11 in Ostdeutschland. Das Arbeitsprogramm war ein staatlich gelenktes Migration-
12 sprogramm für junge Menschen, die keine oder nur wenig Studien- und Ber-
13 ufserfahrung hatten und sorgte für einen hohen Grad an Mobilität zwischen den
14 beiden Ländern. Ein Vergleich der Art und Weise, wie beide Migrantengruppen von
15 den Organisationen der Kommunistischen Partei Kubas – durch die Schaffung von
Selbstverwaltungsstrukturen – im Ausland betreut wurden, bietet neue und umfas-
16
sendere Einblicke. Die Partei versuchte, als ”Erzieher” aufzutreten und die Studier-
17 enden und Arbeiter*innen zu ”erziehen”. Ihr umfassendes Konzept der ”Erziehung
18 in der Praxis”, hatte zum Ziel die sozialistische Persönlichkeit in den Arbeiter*innen
19 und Studierenden zu stärken. Es stellt sich jedoch heraus, dass ein weit gefasstes
20 Konzept der Erziehung in der Praxis eher die Bedingung, das Mittel und der Zweck
For personal use only.
21 des sozialistischen Arbeitsprogramms war.

22 Schlüsselwörter : Kubanische Arbeiter, Ostdeutschland, Kubanische Studierende,
Bildung
23
24
Summary : About 30,000 Cuban workers received contracts for three to five years in
25 East Germany between 1978 and 1990 due to a bilateral agreement. The labour
26 programme was a State-Party-Led migration programme for young people who had
27 no or little study and work experience and accounted for the highest human mobility
28 ratio registered between the two countries. Comparing how the organizations of the
29 Communist Party of Cuba put a frame to both groups of migrants were framed
30 abroad by the organizations of the Communist Party of Cuba – through the creation
of self-governing structures – offers new and richer insights. The Party tried to be an
31
“educator” and to “educate” the students and workers. There was a broad concept of
32 “education in practice” to create a socialist personality that was more clearly the
33 condition, means, and purpose of the socialist labour program.
34 Keywords: Cuban workers, East Germany, Cuban students, Education
35
36
37
38 1. Introduction
39
40 This contribution to the “Panel 3: Education and the Socialist/Post-socialist
41 Countries” of the Digital Conference “The Construction of Educational
42 Spaces in a post-Soviet and post-socialist area”, hosted at DIPF/ Leibniz
43 Institute for Research and Information in Education, September 23–24, 2021
Bildung und Erziehung 75. Jg., S. 447 – 463, ISSN (Printausgabe): 0006-2456, ISSN (online): 2194-3834
2022 Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht
448 Claudia Martnez Hernndez
1 presents preliminary results of the ongoing PhD research “The framework of

2 the Cuban temporary migration within the Council for Mutual Economic
3 Assistance (CMEA) by the organizations of the Communist Party of Cuba
4 (PCC), 1972–1990” which is part of the research project “Entanglements
5 between Cuba and the GDR: mobilities, exchanges, circulations within the
6 Council for Mutual Economic Assistance” (project leader Univ. Doz. Dr.
7 Berthold Unfried) at the University of Vienna. I briefly explain the paper’s
8 logic in relation with the panel description. The main purpose was to discuss
if the notions “socialist educational sphere” within what has been called the
9
10 “Soviet model”, “red globalization” or “socialist globalization” can pur-
11 posefully be applied. In this line, at least three elements of the presentation
12 background must be highlighted:
13 In the first place, the case study to be presented involves the German
14 Democratic Republic (from now on East Germany) and Cuba, both actors of
15 the self-denominated Socialist World System.1 The first country was the
16 most industrialized member of the CMEA at the time, and the second was
17 one of the three non-European and underdeveloped members of the eco-
18 nomic organization. The entanglements between the two unequal partners
19 are analysed from the socialist perspective of aligning their levels of devel-
20 opment through their participation in bilateral and multilateral agreements
21 with mutual interest. This purpose was embodied in the two programmatic
22 documents of the socialist economic organization, the “Fundamental prin-
23 ciples of the international socialist division of labour” of 1962 and the
24 “Complex Program” of 1971 (Fritsche 1991).
25 In the second place, our project assumes that the entry of Cuba in 1972
26 into the CMEA, following the membership of Mongolia in 1961 and before
27 that of Vietnam in 1978, can be interpreted as part of a socialist globalization
28 process. The terminology used by socialist European countries was “socialist
29 internationalization”. The extension of socialism to Asia, Africa (only with
30 observers), and Latin America endowed the CMEA with a European centre
31 and an extra European periphery – although, in this case, the centre-pe-
32 riphery relations had different dynamics from those described in the world
33 system analysis by Wallerstein (1979), specifically in the intended location of
34 the economic profit concentration.
35 In the third place, the Cuban workers in East Germany were only one of
36 various groups of thousands of people in the transcontinental move under
37 socialist state-led migration programmes during the last decades of the
38
39 1 The proponents of the self-denomination as SWS defended the idea of a new world
40 system by the transcontinental extension of socialism and claimed to be a real alter-
native to the Capitalist World System. For arguments in favor and against such an
41 independent SWS see Wallerstein 1979; Chase-Dunn 1982; Stone 2002; Sanchez-Sibony
42 2014. The debate is resumed in: Unfried 2021 and Martnez Hernndez 28. 1. 2021:
43 http://hsozkult.geschichte.hu-berlin.de/tagungsberichte/id=8856.
Education for Cuban workers in East Germany 449
1 system competition. These programmes were deeply associated with a

2 “socialist path of development” and took place on a temporary basis. To
3 show the magnitude of the Cuban participation, mention should be made
4 that no other period in Cuban post-revolutionary history presented higher
5 human mobility rates in the framework of temporary State-led migration
6 programmes than the years of that country’s membership in the CMEA.
7 Five sections will illustrate the topics of this contribution. The section
8 “Cuban workers to East Germany” introduces the characteristics of the la-
bour programme between the two countries. The section “More reasons for
9
10 the temporary labour migration” points out education-related arguments to
11 consider the labour market complementarity as a simplistic explanation of
12 the labour programme. The section “Cuban labour and educational pro-
13 grammes in East Germany” presents similarities and differences between
14 Cuban workers and students on the move. The section “Cuban self-gov-
15 erning structures abroad” explains how the PCC organizations put a frame
16 for both groups The section “The broad concept of education in practice”
17 emphasizes the extension of the educational sphere beyond the spaces of
18 formalized education for the workers.
19
20
21
2. Cuban workers to East Germany
22
23
Cuban workers were sent to East Germany between 1978 and 1990. Ac-
24
cording to the bilateral agreement signed by both countries on May 3, 1978,
25
young Cuban people obtained contracts for three to five years of work in the
26
German industrial sector while being trained in the workplace. East Ger-
27
mans denominated them as kubanische Werktätige bei gleichzeitiger Qual-
28
ifizierung im Prozeß produktiver Tätigkeit (Cuban workers with simulta-
29
neous qualification in the process of productive activity) while Cubans called
30
them jvenes trabajadores a calificarse (young workers to be trained in the
31
workplace) and later cooperantes socialistas (socialist cooperators). The
32
distinctive characteristics of this temporary labour migration programme –
33
thus determining the further content of this contribution and its analyses –
34
are as follows:
35
36 • All of the participants had no or little study and work experience. They
37 often came from the most backward areas of Cuba, where industrial and
38 societal development was significantly low and where important invest-
39 ment projects were foreseen to change the local situation. One could
40 represent them primarily as people with a narrow life experience, mainly
41 restricted to rural communities or small towns. The group also included
42 people from urban areas.
43 • The Communist Party of Cuba (Partido Comunista de Cuba, PCC) – the
1 country’s highest political and economic decision-maker– was the main

2 Cuban institutional actor behind the negotiation, conception and im-
3 plementation of the labour programme in East Germany. It was, therefore,
4 endowed with the normative, subjective, and moral content that charac-
5 terizes the work of these organizations.
6 • The current literature assesses two main reasons for the establishment of
7 the temporary labour migration not only between Cuba and East Germany
8 but also with other CMEA member states. The first is labour market
complementarity. It describes the human exchanges as resulting from a
9
10 surplus population in Cuba and labour shortages in the European coun-
11 terparts. The second and more controversial reason is the workers’
12 training in relation with a socialist developmental agenda in the “mutual
13 interest” of Cuba and the host countries.
14
15
3. More reasons for the temporary labour migration programme
16
17
Labour market complementarity was not the only reason for this pro-
18
gramme (Unfried 2022). Cuba had a 100,000 labour surplus in 1977 and the
19
figure was expected to reach 150000 by 1978, all this resulting from the low
20
sugar prices in the international market and; therefore both the reduction of
21
the investment plans and the stagnation of the expected expansion of the
22
national labour market. That was the explanation given by the chairman of
23
the Central Planning Commission of Cuba, Humberto Prez, to his East-
24
German counterpart, Gerhard Schürer, on the occasion of their meeting in
25
July 1977.2
26
However, a look into the past shows that the labour surplus was only the
27
tip of the iceberg. First, the labour surplus accompanied by problems of
28
vagrancy and absenteeism in Cuban society. Around 400,000 workers, 20 %
29
of the Cuban workforce, were reported absent from their workplace in 1970.3
30
Those numbers were disappointing for the PCC. They were calculated the
31
same year 1970 that the government dedicated all the resources and the
32
country’s efforts to achieve the production of 10 million tons of sugar with
33
the declared objective of improving the national financial situation. It does
34
not seem a coincidence that immediately after, in 1971, the Law against
35
vagrancy established the obligation to work for all citizens from the age of 17.
36
According to Marxism-Leninism, the conception of work is called to change
37
38 2 Begründung des Beschlusses über die zeitweilige Beschäftigung kubanischer Werk-
39 tätiger in Betrieben der DDR. Vorlage für das Sekretariat des ZK der SED / Werner
40 Krolikowski, Berlin 8. 12. 1977, Bundesarchiv Berlin (BA), SAPMO DC 20-I/4/3956:
Fol. 1–25.
41 3 Comisin Interamericana de Derechos Humanos, ‘Captulo X: Derecho al trabajo.
42 Section 4. Otras Caractersticas del Sistema Laboral’, http://www.cidh.org/countryrep/
43 cuba83sp/capitulo10.htm (accessed November 25, 2021).
1 in a socialist regime as well as collectivism-related values and principles are

2 meant to replace individualist values and principles. Faced with the fact
3 that many people did not want to work, the PCC perceived that a country
4 with a recognized culture of labour discipline and organization such as East
5 Germany would be an excellent “school” for many individuals showing
6 attitudes that were incompatible with the construction of socialism (Un-
7 fried 2022).
8 Second, there was a particular concern about the situation of the young
generation and its limited access to the educational system and the labour
9
10 market. The Second Congress of the UJC acknowledged that there were
11 around 200,000 youth aged between 13 and 16 who did not study or work in
12 Cuba in 1972. This group was the most worrying for the PCC and the UJC,
13 presumably because of their strategic role in the future of the country. They
14 were described as people with poor study habits rejecting all teaching ac-
15 tivities, a low degree of discipline and attitudes of improper conduct, be-
16 coming involved very early in matters of sexuality and parenthood, as well as
17 lacking compassion for others. According to Fidel Castro, there was an
18 insufficient infrastructure to assimilate them all into the secondary level of
19 school at that time.4 Some solutions in the short term were programmes
20 formalising education for specific population segments through workshops
21 or groups for crafts, agriculture and food production, as well as the creation
22 of the “Youth Labour Army” in 1973 and the adjustment of compulsory
23 military service in 1976. What does not seem a coincidence is that, precisely
24 from 1978 onwards, when all these young people were legally of age, Cze-
25 choslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, and Bulgaria agreed to receive some of
26 them and to train them in support of the major strategy of the PCC to reverse
27 the situation described above. Human resources had been defined as a
28 priority at the First Congress of the PCC in 1976: “the constant raising of the
29 level of general education and culture of the people is an indispensable
30 condition for the successive improvement of the economy, the state, and the
31 Party apparatus”.5
32 Third, many new plants and factories built with the cooperation of the
33 socialist brother countries from Eastern Europe used a technology that was
34 unknown in Cuba. As part of the agreements for the construction of the new
35 facilities, technical support was offered by specialists traveling to Cuba.
36 There were thousands of technicians and specialists from the Soviet Union,
37 Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria, and Romania in
38 Cuba. They, in different branches and sectors of the economy, helped to
39
40 4 Discurso pronunciado por Fidel Castro Ruz en la clausura del Segundo Congreso de la
UJC, La Habana 4. 4. 1972, http://www.cuba.cu/gobierno/discursos/1972/esp/f040472e.
41 html (accessed November 25, 2021).
42 5 Departamento de Orientacin Revolucionaria del PCC, Tesis y Resoluciones del Primer
43 Congreso del PCC, La Habana 1976.
1 resolve production issues and shared their knowledge with the Cuban per-
2 sonnel. In 1967–1971 only, the average number of technicians from these
3 countries was greater than 7500 (Daz Vzquez 1980, 148). However, this was
4 not enough. The progress of any industrialization process depends not only
5 on the speed with which the new technologies and production techniques
6 can be assimilated. The absence of a qualified labour force is a serious
7 obstacle that impacts any attempt to modernize the economy. The efficiency
8 of social production is closely dependent on the knowledge and experience
that staff possess in manufacturing and using the available means of pro-
9
10 duction. Likewise, human resources, as the subject and object of the process
11 of economic development constitute the very foundation of all production.
12 Consequently, it was impossible to carry out an industrialization pro-
13 gramme without the required quantity and quality of a skilled labour force.
14 By training people in the industrial companies of East Germany, Czecho-
15 slovakia, Hungary, and Bulgaria, Cuba would receive, in the coming years, a
16 significant number of qualified workforce in the fields of mechanics,
17 chemistry, electronics, textiles, metallurgy, production of footwear, etc.
18 The potential solution to each of the above-mentioned arguments for
19 sending Cuban workers to East Germany had – though perhaps not in the
20 most traditional sense – an educational background.
21
22
23
24 4. Cuban labour and educational programmes in East Germany
25
26 Following migrant workers, students became the second largest group of
27 Cubans in East Germany. There were around 6000 Cuban students in Ger-
28 man universities from 1960 to 1990, while near 30000 Cuban workers got
29 contracts in East Germany between 1978 and 1990 (Ritschel 2015; Gruner-
30 Domic 2011, 56). The sending of workers was so intensive that in just over a
31 third of the time students were sent, the number of the first group was five
32 times the number of the second group. Students were generally a homoge-
33 neous group of medium-high intellectual level, while the workers were
34 characterized as a highly heterogeneous group of medium-low intellectual
35 level. The opportunity to study in socialist European countries was given to
36 those who finished high school with outstanding results. The future belongs
37 to men of science, became Fidel Castro’s motto when he inaugurated the
38 “schools for the best”, a new type of high school for the most outstanding
39 students in mathematics, chemistry, and physics. Upon graduation, most of
40 them obtained scholarships offered to Cuba in the Soviet Union and Eastern
41 Europe, as discussed during the exchange of experiences on the PCC work in
42 the national education system with the delegation of the Socialist Unity Party
43 of Germany (Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands, SED) from October
1 28th to November 12th, 1977 in Havana.6 Whereas the opportunity to work

2 and be trained on-the-spot in “brother countries” was given to those young
3 people with little or no study and work experience, mostly from the back-
4 ward areas of the country. The very fact of being selected constituted a sort of
5 social recognition and, at the same time, a burden of responsibility. Working
6 in Eastern Europe was a unique opportunity for personal and professional
7 growth. For some who had never left their birthplaces before, this was a great
8 adventure. The possibility of economic and material benefits was another
incentive for many. In some cases, the aspiration of the young to become
9
10 independent from their families also prevailed.
11 The scholarships offered per study profile and work positions per in-
12 dustrial branch were expected to match the planned positions covered by
13 students and workers after their return. Cuba’s requests for scholarships and
14 work positions were based on the national needs, and the counterparts
15 responded to the extent that they could provide them. In most cases, both
16 groups were sent to acquire the necessary skills to run the companies, fac-
17 tories, and plants to be built in Cuba with the collaboration and solidarity of
18 the member countries of the CMEA. The two groups of young people on the
19 move were expected to have long-term effects for the country’s future and to
20 generate economic development.
21 Two elements distinguished the initial political framework in which the

22 educational programme and labour migration programmes took place. The
23 first is the official declaration of the socialist character of the Cuban revo-
24 lutionary government in 1961 and its definitive alignment with the Soviet
25 Union since the 1970s, thus the entry into the CMEA in 1972. The second is
26 the creation in 1965 and the further institutionalization process of the PCC
27 by 1976. The educational migration programme started before the socialist
28 declaration of the revolutionary regime and the creation of the PCC. The
29 sending of Cuban students to the socialist European countries was initiated
30 right after the triumph of the Revolution. Yet, the entry into the CMEA
31 implied a new stage of the programme by significantly increasing the
32 number of Cubans studying abroad in different programmes. The labour
33 programme was, from its genesis, a State-Party-led programme. It took place
34 precisely after the adaptation of the Cuban institutional structure and
35 mentality according to the membership in the CMEA. This programme was
36 negotiated and implemented bilateral planning actions as part of socialist
37 integration. The point here is that students were primarily intended as a
38 group who would receive formalized higher and technical education and for
39
40
6 Behandlungsprotokoll ZK der SED. Ergebnisse des Erfahrungsaustausches über die
41 Parteiarbeit im Volksbildungswesen in der Republik Kuba vom 28.10–12. 11. 1977
42 (Beschluss des Sekretariats des ZK der SED vom 19. 9. 1977). Abteilung Volksbildung
43 (VoBi). 23. 11. 1977, Bundesarchiv Berlin (BA) DY 30/67351.
1 whom political-ideological education – Marxism-Leninism was included in

2 the study programmes in East Germany – was guaranteed. Due to the
3 characteristics of their selection, the students already showed important
4 scientific and intellectual aptitudes to operate beneficial transfers for the
5 Cuban scientific-technical development. The case of workers was different.
6 Their skills to contribute to the anticipated Cuban future and their values
7 and principles for the construction of socialism were in doubt or had to be
8 improved in the best-case scenario. They had to be “educated” through work
and socialism in practice.
9
10
11
12 5. Cuban self-governing structures abroad
13
14 The process of setting up somewhat self-governing Cuban institutions in
15 socialist “fraternal countries” is outlined by Gleijeses and Hatzky in their
16 studies on Cuban internationalism in Angola given an absence of the nec-
17 essary Angolan structures (Gleijeses 2013 / Hatzky 2012). Yet, Berthold
18 Unfried broadens this idea by pointing out that Cubans also applied these
19 structures to frame their temporary labour and educational migration in
20 Eastern Europe, despite the aforementioned institutional deficiency, thus
21 revealing this phenomenon as a particularity of the socialist inter-

22 nationalism “in national colours” at that time (Unfried 2022). The organ-
23 isations of the PCC framed the sending, surveillance in the field and the
24 return of thousands of people as a key element for Cuban development
25 efforts during the last decades of the system competition of the Cold War.
26 They mobilized and supervised the rest of the political and administrative
27 institutions in the country and were complemented in the field by the UJC
28 due to the age criteria for both students and workers sent to the European
29 CMEA member states.
30 The replication of Cuban political and administrative structures for the
31 surveillance of Cuban students and workers to provide them with a sort of
32 Cuban life abroad reached its climax around 1982. The Council of the Cuban
33 Embassy was always at the top of the respective organizations in the host
34 country. With the entry into the CMEA and the expected increase of all forms
35 of transcontinental mobility, the former position of the representative from
36 both the Ministry of Education and the UJC was split to make room for two
37 separate representatives in 1972. This change responded to the idea of sep-
38 arating the administrative and political functions so that each one would
39 gain effectiveness. The student groups and the committees of the UJC/ PCC
40 functioned where there was the minimum necessary number of members for
41 creating them. The same logic was applied to the workers after they arrived
42 in 1978. 50 % of students were UJC or PCC members, but the membership
43 did not exceed 20 % in the case of workers. Afterwards, the problems gen-
1 erated in the attention of the students immediately occupied the second level
2 of importance. The cultural clash was more complex, and its consequences
3 were more difficult to be foreseen and overcome, with the workers. One of
4 the most significant attempts to control workers’ behaviour was the creation
5 of the “Contingent of Socialist Cooperation” in 1982 (new structures in-
6 dicated in blue). While only some workers were members of the PCC and the
7 UJC, 100 % of them were members of the contingents, which made them a
8 mass political organization with the task to reduce the negative incidents
involving Cubans mostly during their leisure time.
9
10 Some decisions of the PCC differentiate the strategic turns with each
11 group. In order to “avoid problems” – on the politico-ideological level – the
12 PCC indicated to the UJC that students should not join the Committee for
13 Foreign Student Affairs (Komitee für Angelegenheiten ausländischer Stud-
14 ierender, KAS), an organisation created by the German Ministry of Higher
15 and Technical Education to carry out politico-ideological surveillance.7 Of
16 course, this caused a few misunderstandings with local authorities, who
17 finally stepped back and respected the Cuban’s self-government. For ex-
18 ample, in 1978, East German authorities had difficulties stimulating pro-
19 motional activities for the Festival of Youth and Students to be held in
20 Havana, since Cuban students were not involved in the KAS activities pro-
21 gram. Cuban students were only allowed by the PCC and the UJC to set up
22 their International Committee in May 1986 and since then became involved.8
23 It is contradictory that this same year the organizational integration of
24 students was approved, the Third Congress of the PCC decided to end
25 sending workers in 1988 resulting from the process of “rectification of er-
26 rors” initiated by the PCC as a line of separation from the Perestroika. East
27 Germany then asked to extend the workers’ contracts, and Cuba resumed the
28 sending (Unfried 2022).9 On the one hand, the largest groups of workers were
29 sent during the first half of the 1980s. The decline of the labour programme
30 set in after 1986. The debate about the workers was an internal Cuban debate
31 between economic interests – on that level the programme was seen as a
32 success – and political interests – on that level the workers damaged the
33 country’s image by being involved in negative incidents abroad such as
34
35 7 Zwischenbericht über den Stand der Realisierung des Beschlusses des Sekretariates des
ZK über die ,Leitung des Ausländerstudiums in der DDR und die Verbesserung der
36
politisch-ideologischen Arbeit unter den ausländischen Studierenden‘ Berlin, 18. 8.
37 1967, Bundesarchiv Berlin (BA) DY 30/7759.
38 8 Nationalrat der Nationalen Front der DDR (KAS 1984–1989). KAS, September 1988. Zur
39 Situation unter den kubanischen Studierenden in der DDR, Bundesarchiv Berlin (BA)
40 DY 6/6288.
9 Carta de Lionel Soto Prieto a los miembros del secretariado y a los primeros secretarios
41 de los Comits Provinciales del PCC y el municipio especial Isla de la Juventud. Havana,
42 16. 12. 1989, Archivo Central de la UJC, Seccin 1 Primer Secretario 1989, 036–03–1169/
43 1: 1.5 Documentos recibidos del PCC con orientaciones.
1 fights, drunkenness, and social indiscipline. On the other hand, amidst a

2 politically changing environment in Europe, students were perceived as
3 potential carriers of/or influenced by dangerous ideas. For the Cuban au-
4 thorities it was a risk worth taking since the presence of students in East
5 Germany was highest during the second half of the 1980s. The Ministry of the
6 Interior of Cuba received regular reports about the situation with students
7 and workers who remained in the field until 1990.
8
9
10
6. The broad concept of education in practice
11
12
In the case of students, the educational element of the temporary educational
13
migration programme is obvious; while in the case of workers, the im-
14
portance of training as a reason for the programme continues to be ques-
15
tioned by different authors (Gruner-Domic 1997; Gruner-Domic 1999;
16
Gruner-Domic / Oltmer 2008; Alamgir 2020). They argue that it was not an
17
essential element for the sending of workers and that in many cases such
18
training did not take place. However, in both cases, formalized lines of
19
education were carried out in different ways. The lines of the educational
20
sphere operating in the case of workers might not be noticeable. Structured

21
preparation before travelling can be mentioned as an example. Selected
22
workers were gathered for one or two weeks before traveling to East Ger-
23
many in a motel in Alquizar, a municipality located less than an hour from
24
the Havana airport. Apart from running their last medical exams, creating
25
their bank accounts for the later sending of remittances and giving them a
26
suitcase and winter clothing, one of the main purposes was to offer them a
27
preparation programme with information about the history and culture of
28
the host country, the work and life conditions they would have, the char-
29
acteristics of the production sector to which they were assigned, the regu-
30
lations and rules of behaviour to follow. However, workers often complained
31
about the conferences organised by the Cuban authorities, with a minimum
32
participation of the German representatives in Havana.10
33
Once in East Germany, they were offered language and professional
34
knowledge. All groups were provided with one translator for every 50
35
workers, who should stay with them till the German courses were finished.
36
The language courses could last between two and six months depending on
37
the specific activities to be carried out. During that time, the priority was to
38
generate communicative competencies concerning specific work activity,
39
work safety, and labour law. Language skills were expected to improve as a
40
result of the day to day life of workers, in their contact with their local
41
42 10 Praxides Claudio Garca Daz (former Group Chief of Cuban works in East Germany
43 and Cubatcnica staff), in discussion with the author, March 11, 2019.
1 counterparts. There were many problems with the levels of assimilation of

2 the courses, primarily because of the workers’ lack of study experience, who,
3 in most cases, struggled with their language learning. Full or partial training
4 courses were provided in the workplace by German institutions. The in-
5 dividual contract of every person stipulated the completion of training to
6 become a skilled or semiskilled worker. The specifications were observed in
7 the general contract signed by Cubatcnica, the Agency of the State Com-
8 mittee for the Economic Collaboration dealing with the German counter-
part, the State Secretariat of Work and Wages. Something is clear, a person
9
10 can only fulfil work responsibilities once the necessary knowledge to execute
11 the work is understood, learnt, and applied. Many cases of indiscipline and
12 absences were recorded as character problems, but the general opinion of the
13 German authorities was positive about the achievements of Cuban workers.11
14 They mastered the technique and achieved work productivity not much
15 lower than that of their German colleagues. Many were awarded for their
16 results.
17 The reasons for the early return of students and workers are another
18 element. The revocation of scholarships was found to be mostly related to
19 students’ academic insufficiency, which means failure with their formalized
20 education. They had cordial relations with groups of other nationalities and
21 generally managed their free time without incidents. The early termination
22 of contracts for workers was, instead, frequently due to mismanagement of
23 free time and of interpersonal relationships with their counterparts. It was
24 interpreted as a result of their insufficient “all-sided education”. Different
25 approaches were taken in the treatment of young Cuban workers in Eastern
26 Europe. Some sources show a sort of paternalism and caretaker attitude
27 because the temporary migrants were inexperienced youth, often being far
28 away from their families for the first time.12 Not all of them managed their
29 new independent status well. When things did not work out as expected,
30 “educational measures” – including the early termination of the contract –
31 were taken within the Cuban structures. The Cuban authorities were gen-
32 erally tougher in their decisions than their European counterparts. The local
33 authorities were generally more pragmatic and permissive.13
34 More than professional training or technical instruction, the PCC pursued
35
36
11 Informe sobre la realizacin del II Festival de la Amistad entre las Juventudes de Cuba
37 y la RDA 29.10.–2. 11. 1984, Archivo Central de la UJC, Seccin 23 Relaciones Inter-
38 nacionales 1984, 12-2-37531.
39 12 Carta de Jos Ramn Balaguer Cabrera, miembro del Secretariado del CCPCC, a
40 Roberto Robaina, Primer Secretario de la UJC, 19. 10. 1989, Archivo Central de la UJC,
Seccin Primer Secretario 1989, 16–1–497/2: Documentos recibidos del CCPCC.
41 13 Entrevista en el Comit Estatal de Instruccin Pfflblica de la URSS. Moscffl, 4. 1. 1990,
42 Archivo Central de la UJC, Seccin 4 Primer Secretario 1990, 17–1–530/3: 4.0.13
43 Documentos enviados y recibidos de organismos del Estado y Ministerios .
1 a broad concept of education: adopting manners, habits, and ways of con-

2 duct of an integral socialist personality. What does that mean? Jesffls Mon-
3 tan Oropesa explained on behalf of the Secretariat of the Central Committee
4 of the PCC that:
5
“…for us, the concept of education has a broad meaning, but at the same time, it is
6
well defined… Education is not a passive fact, it is not receiving classes, storing
7
knowledge. To educate is to form, make man capable of fully facing life, and be a
8 builder and creator of the future. And educating young people for communism
9 means fully educating them. The technique is necessary to build the material base
10 for the communist society, but communism is much more than an economic fact.
11 When we talk about educating young people, we talk about forming new men, and
12 this is not just the work of a technical institution. We aspire to train men freed
13 from the burdens of selfishness and ignorance, men capable of facing life with a
revolutionary concept of the scientific, social and economic order. That education
14
will develop the very essence of man, his gregarious spirit, his solidarity, so that he
15 is capable of responding, as if he felt it in his person, to any affront to any human
16 being in the world”14
17
18 It is paramount to understand the strategy of the PCC to achieve such an
19 extended sense of education with students and workers. Both groups were
20 supposed to adopt the best qualities of the local population in host countries
21 but also to spread the best qualities of the Cuban society – being ambassa-
22 dors – and to earn the respect of their counterparts: being educated and to
23 educate. This is another interesting contradiction to be pointed out: the rigid
24 control of Cuban structures and the clear time limit of the stay of Cubans
25 abroad sought to reduce personal involvements and in-depth social in-
26 tegration. Nevertheless, the desired transfer of specific values and principles
27 occurred easier and more naturally when it happened hand in hand with
28 friendship or love. Only structured contact was often formally organized and
29 encouraged by means of Friendship Festivals, cultural or sports events,
30 voluntary work sessions, politico-ideological study groups, a joint celebra-
31 tion of national commemorative days, excursions to places of political,
32 economic and cultural significance.
33 Students had more degrees of freedom for non-structured contacts. They
34 shared dormitories with peers from different nationalities and a diversity of
35 political thoughts. The evolution of their political ideas was not always easy
36 to keep in line with the Cuban interests. Good preparation was needed to
37 answer well-reasoned statements questioning PCC decisions. In subsequent
38 decades high positions in important sectors of the Cuban government were
39 filled by Cubans who graduated from Universities in Eastern Europe, af-
40
14 Intervencin del CompaÇero Jesffls Montan Oropesa, miembro del CC, en nombre de
41 la Secretara de Organizacin del Partido, ante el II Congreso de la UJC, Archivo
42 Central de la UJC, Seccin II Congreso de la UJC 1972, 56–1–1816/3: 1.0.8 Inter-
43 venciones.
1 firmed Jos Luis Rodrguez, who currently serves as advisor to the Cuban
2 Minister of Higher Education.15 The former student in East Germany re-
3 members the high levels of professional, human and organizational quality
4 acquired by him and his colleagues during those years of study.
5 Workers had less political initiative due to their lower degrees of general
6 education, which was seen as a constant problem. Expanding their life ho-
7 rizons and capacity to contribute better to building socialism back home –
8 not only as a workforce but with ideas and everyday practice – was highly
desired. However, the Cuban and East German authorities preferred to
9
10 proceed with prudent separation, and workers lived in separate dormitories
11 in a micro Cuban environment. These arrangements caused many problems
12 such as neighbours complaining about loud music during the night. Nev-
13 ertheless, the leading Cuban figure for CMEA affairs Carlos Rafael Rodrguez
14 evaluated the “educative” experience as “beneficial for all, although it has
15 been assimilated to different degrees by thousands of young workers”.16
16 Many of those who fulfilled their work contracts received the influence of a
17 culture of forethought and planning, as well as discipline and organisation.
18 Some changed their attitude towards work, their care for social property, and
19 their respect for their colleagues. Others illustrate with their statements the
20 assimilation of the socialist feelings of solidarity and brotherhood: “If
21 Germany needs help again, I will come back” (Vogel / Wunderlich 2011, 58).
22 Many other cases serve to identify how this experience operated changes
23 on the individual behaviour and attitude. Praxides Claudio Garca Daz is an
24 exceptional case because he can tell about the Cuban workers in East Ger-
25 many from every possible angle. He was trained as a civil construction
26 technician at Zeitz in 1976 as part of the agreement for the training of 500 to
27 700 Cubans between 1975 and 1978 and served as a precedent for the
28 working and training programme from 1978 onwards. The same year Garca
29 Daz was selected as Group Chief of Cuban workers in East Germany and he
30 had this role until 1985 when he returned to Cuba and got a position in
31 Cubatcnica, precisely at the Department for East Germany that prepared all
32 the information for sending the new groups of workers to that country. He
33 affirmed: “I learned (…) an exact work culture. (…) I have colleagues who
34 (…) have directed industries here, that is, we learned, they and I” and by
35 sharing his memories, he emphasized the acquisition of leadership, a re-
36 sponsible work attitude, and the importance of a respectful environment at
37 the workplace and with the colleagues.17
38
39 15 Jos Luis Rodrquez (former Cuban student in East Germany), in discussion with the
40 author, Havana January 17, 2019.
16 Carlos Rafael Rodrguez, Letter to Gunther Kleiber, Havana, 26. 1. 1987, Archivo
41 Central de la UJC, Seccin 4 Primer Secretario 1987, 14–2–436/5: 4.0.14 Corres-
42 pondencia enviada y recibida del Consejo de Ministros.
43 17 Praxides Claudio Garca Daz (former Group Chief of Cuban works in East Germany
1 In 1981, women represented 18 % of the workers in East Germany.18 Six

2 years later, the figures had risen to 26 per cent.19 Other countries had a more
3 extensive female correlation of the Cuban workforce, particularly Hungary.
4 In 2011, Vogel and Wunderlich reported stories of two Cuban women who
5 went to East Germany as workers to be trained. Josefina Noa was in East
6 Germany from 1978 to 1982 and, back in Cuba, continued studying and
7 became a journalist. She shared her feelings about the empowerment of
8 women through their participation in every production sector ; mostly those
where Cuban women would not even think to do so. She reflected on her
9
10 performance in Karl-Marx-Stadt and affirmed that “no women were working
11 on milling machines and lathes in Cuba at that time” (Vogel / Wunderlich
12 2011, 65). On the other hand, Mercedes Portilla Carreras travelled to East
13 Germany in 1986 and stayed until 1990, thus experiencing a different mo-
14 ment in the history of the socialist European country. After returning to
15 Cuba, she continued working in the sugar production sector. She told about
16 personality formation in a culture of forecast and anticipation, discipline
17 and organization that defines her so far, with her own words dank meiner
18 Zeit in Deutschland bin ich so, wie ich bin (thanks to my time in Germany, I
19 am who I am) (Vogel / Wunderlich 2011, 60).
20 At the individual level, there certainly were lasting effects, which does not
21 mean that personal experiences were homogenous. One last case may help to
22 address a collective conflictual experience. The Third Congress of the
23 Communist Youth Organization, held in Havana in 1982, saw a debate on a
24 group of 82 workers trained in East Germany who after their return to Cuba
25 abandoned their positions at the Carlos Marx cement factory in Cienfuegos.
26 The representatives of the factory pointed out the “defeatist” spirit of the
27 workers while recognizing the inability of the PCC and the UJC to create the
28 necessary working conditions, that is, accommodation or transportation for
29 those who, by mistake, were selected with distant residence.20 Yet, a different
30 reading of this experience which was a negative one from the institutional
31 approach, might have had a positive meaning on the individual level. The
32 intolerance of the Cuban returnees for bad planning and work dis-
33
34
35 and Cubatcnica staff), in discussion with the author and Berthold Unfried, Havana,
March 11, 2019.
36
18 Cumplimiento del plan del aÇo 1982 de la comisin de atencin a las organizaciones de
37 base de la UJC en el exterior, Archivo Central de la UJC, Seccin 7 Organizacin 1982,
38 11–2–340/3: 7.0.18 Seccin atencin a organizaciones de base en el exterior.
39 19 Representacin grfica de algunos indicadores del trabajo de la juventud, Archivo
40 Central de la UJC, Seccin 9 V Congreso de la UJC 1987, 57–3–1862/1: 9.0.8 Docu-
mentos entregados a los delegados.
41 20 Acta literal de la sesin plenaria del IV Congreso de la UJC, Archivo Central de la UJC,
42 Seccin IV Congreso de la UJC 1982, 56–5–1848/4: 2.0.9 Expediente de la sesin
43 plenaria.
1 organization can also be understood as part of the assimilated manners and

2 work habits during their years in German factories. Regardless of the in-
3 dividual outcomes, thousands of people were offered the opportunity to
4 become skilled or semiskilled workers in East Germany and to continue
5 studying and working after their return. They gained practical experience to
6 train others, more or less got to know a new language and culture and the
7 transcontinental “people to people” experience. Accordingly, they had a
8 broader and more internationalised life experience than the average person
in Cuba, with their own opinions on building socialism and their individual
9
10 lives.
11
12
13 7. Conclusions
14
15 The labour program between Cuba and East Germany during the late 1970s
16 and the 1980s has been largely explained through a simplistic logic that finds
17 as its main argument the complementarity of the labour market and neglects
18 multiple internal problems of Cuban society to which the PCC found a
19 partial solution by sending workers to Eastern Europe. As explained, va-
20 grancy and absenteeism, the preparation of future generations and of a
21 sufficient workforce to assume the industrialization of the country were all

22 situations with education-related solutions.
23 The two largest groups of Cubans on the transcontinental move to Eastern
24 Europe during the 1970s and 1980s differed in the way the PCC framed them
25 primarily concerning their composition and behaviour. However, they were
26 similar in their long-term purpose concerning the developing efforts of the
27 country and its socialist “new men”. Neither was the PCC able to control
28 them in the way it wanted nor did the students and workers always act
29 according to expectation. Nevertheless, the entry to the CMEA implied for
30 Cuba the intensification and expansion of a Party- and State controlled
31 temporary migration system with Eastern Europe. Pointing to a specific
32 form of State and State Party led temporary migration based on socialist
33 programs aiming at convergence between the European and non-European
34 member-states of the CMEA, this contribution abandons the predominant
35 western spatial order in migration and development studies.
36 The broad concept of education in practice, beyond the training of
37 workers and the technical and higher education for students, was at the
38 centre of the way Cuban education and labour migrations were framed by the
39 PCC. This partially explains the considerable effort assumed by the under-
40 developed non-European member of the CMEA to keep control over its
41 personnel circulation by mobilizing representatives and creating structures
42 abroad. The PCC sought to create the conditions under which students and
43 workers were supposed to improve themselves as persons with a new, better,
1 and superior conscience and behaviour. The PCC tried to be an “educator”

2 for the students and workers. Through a comparison between the framing of
3 both groups, it turns out that a broad concept of education in practice was
4 more clearly the condition, means and purpose of the socialist labour pro-
5 gramme.
6
7
8
9 References
10
11 Alamgir, Alena (2022): Inappropriate Behavior : Labor Control and the Polish,
12 Cuban, and Vietnamese Workers in Czechoslovakia. In: Siefert, Marsha (Hrsg.):
13 Labor in State-Socialist Europe, 1945–1989, 99–120. Central European University
14 Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9789633863381-008
15 Chase-Dunn, Christopher (1982): Socialist states in the world-system. Beverly Hills,
16 London, New Delhi.
Daz Vzquez, Julio A. (1980): La integracin econmica socialista en el desarrollo de
17
Cuba. In: Economa y Desarrollo, vol 56 (marzo-abril).
18 Fritsche, Klaus (1991): Sozialistische Entwicklungsländer in der ”internationalen
19 sozialistischen Arbeitsteilung” des RGW. Zum Forschungsstand, Berichte des
20 Bundesinstituts für ostwissenschaftliche und internationale Studien, 27.
21 Gleijeses, Piero, (2013): Visions of Freedom. Havana, Washington, Pretoria, and the
22 Struggle for Southern Africa 1976–1991. Chapel Hill.
23 Gruner-Domic, Sandra (1997): Kubanische Arbeitsmigration in die DDR 1978–1989.
Das Arbeitskräfteabkommen Kuba-DDR und dessen Realisierung. Edition Par-
24
abolis.
25 Gruner-Domic, Sandra (1999): Beschäftigung statt Ausbildung. Ausländische Ar-
26 beiterinnen und Arbeiter in der DDR (1961–1989). In: Motte, Jan/ Ohliger, Rainer
27 / Von Oswald, Anne (Hrsg.): 50 Jahre Einwanderung Nachkriegsgeschichte als
28 Migrationsgeschichte, Frankfurt a. M./New York, 215–242.
29 Gruner-Domic, Sandra (2008): Vietnamesische, mosambikanische und kubanische
30 Arbeitswanderer in der DDR seit den 1970er Jahren. In: Bade, Klaus J. / Emmer,
31 Pieter C. / Lucassen, Leo / Oltmer, Jochen (Hrsg.): Enzyklopädie Migration in
Europa vom 17. Jahrhundert bis zur Gegenwart. Paderborn-München, 1078–1080.
32
Gruner-Domic, Sandra (2011): Kubanische Vertragsarbeiter. Leben in einer anderen
33 sozialistischen Realität. In: Zwengel, Almut (Hrsg.): Die ’Gastarbeiter’ der DDR:
34 politischer Kontext und Lebenswelt, 53–69. Verlag Münster.
35 Hatzky, Christine (2012): Kubaner in Angola. Süd-Süd-Kooperation und Bildung-
36 stransfer 1976–1991. München.
37 Jos Luis Rodrquez (former Cuban student in East Germany), in discussion with the
38 author, January 17, 2019.
Martnez Hernndez, Claudia (2021): Report of the online International Workshop
39
“Alternative Forms of Globalization? The Council for Mutual Economic Assis-
40 tance (CMEA) as Development Organization”. In: Transnational, Cross-regional
41 and Global connections, 28. 01. 2021.
42 Ritschel, Susanne (2015): Kubanische Studierende in der DDR: ambivalentes Erin-
43 nern zwischen Zeitzeuge und Archiv. Hildesheim.
1 Sanchez-Sibony, Oscar (2014): Red globalization: The political economy of the Soviet
2 Cold War from Stalin to Khrushchev. New York.
3 Stone, Randall (2002): Satellites and commissars: strategy and conflict in the politics
of Soviet-bloc trade. Princeton.
4
Unfried, Berthold (2022): Intercontinental Labour Migration within the Socialist
5 World: Cuban Contract Laborers in the German Democratic Republic, 1975 to
6 1990. In: Yearbook of Transnational History 2022.
7 Unfried, Berthold (2021): Sozialistisches Weltsystem? Die Praxis internationaler
8 Zusammenarbeit der DDR. In: Zeitschrift für Weltgeschichte, 2/2021.
Vogel, Wolf-Dieter / Wunderlich, Verona (2011): Abenteuer DDR: Kubanerinnen und
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10 Kubaner im deutschen Sozialismus. Berlin.
11 Wallerstein, Immanuel (1979): The capitalist world-economy. New York & London.
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13 Short biography
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15
Claudia Martnez Hernndez is PhD candidate and research collaborator in the
FWF / Austrian Science Fund sponsored research project “Entanglements between
16
Cuba and the GDR: mobilities, exchanges, circulations within the Council for Mutual
17 Economic Assistance” at the Institute of Economic and Social History of the Uni-
18 versity of Vienna (https://socialist-entanglements.univie.ac.at/). Research focus on
19 the history of development policies and temporary migration programs in the “So-
20 cialist World System”. Publications on Cuban foreign policy and on Cuban Inter-
21 nationalism.
22 Address: MSc. Claudia Martnez Hernndez, Department of Economic and Social His-
tory, University of Vienna, Universitätsring 1, 1010 Wien / E-mail: claudia.martinez-
23
hernandez@univie.ac.at
24
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Education For Cuban Workers in East Germany

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1 Education for Cuban workers in East Germany:

2 a comparative analysis for the case of Cuban

21 des sozialistischen Arbeitsprogramms war.

1 presents preliminary results of the ongoing PhD research “The framework of

1 system competition. These programmes were deeply associated with a

1 country’s highest political and economic decision-maker– was the main

1 in a socialist regime as well as collectivism-related values and principles are

1 28th to November 12th, 1977 in Havana.6 Whereas the opportunity to work

21 Two elements distinguished the initial political framework in which the

1 whom political-ideological education – Marxism-Leninism was included in

21 revealing this phenomenon as a particularity of the socialist inter-

1 fights, drunkenness, and social indiscipline. On the other hand, amidst a

sphere operating in the case of workers might not be noticeable. Structured

1 counterparts. There were many problems with the levels of assimilation of

1 a broad concept of education: adopting manners, habits, and ways of con-

1 In 1981, women represented 18 % of the workers in East Germany.18 Six

1 organization can also be understood as part of the assimilated manners and

21 sufficient workforce to assume the industrialization of the country were all

1 and superior conscience and behaviour. The PCC tried to be an “educator”

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