In the entranceway of the shopping complex Tienda Carlos Tercero in Central Havana, a sign announces, “En el nuevo milenio, venta + economÃa + eficiencia = revoluciónâ€? (“In the New Millennium, Sales + Economy + Efficiency = Revolutionâ€?). Another sign inside reads “Juntos para defender lo nuestroâ€? (“Together to defend what is oursâ€?) and is credited to Cuba’s largest trading company and the firm that runs the shopping complex.1 These signs, in a place that seems only to represent the inequality brought about by the legalization of the dollar in 1993 and to exhort long-demonized mercantilism and consumerism, appear as poignant examples of how desperately those managing the Cuban economy and its propaganda machine wish to hold on to the rhetoric of the Cuban revolution in spite of the increasing marketization of the economy and growing social and economic inequality. Well-known revolutionary slogans such as Patria o Muerte! (Fatherland or Death!), Hazlo por Cuba! (Do it for Cuba!), and Vencerémos! (We will Overcome!) still remain on the walls in the streets of Havana and throughout the island, but new slogans have been invented to try to link current developments to the revolutionary tradition.
While the signs at Carlos Tercero and other shopping complexes could simply be dismissed as bad advertising in a country that spent thirty years trying to rid itself of capitalist elements—and did so fairly successfully—few dispute that post-Soviet Cuba, or what is known as “special periodâ€? Cuba,2 is a place of contradictions that the leadership has had a hard time smoothing over. What is disputable, however, is how new and particular to Cuba these contradictions are, how they function, and to what end. Taking these contradictions at face value or trying to reconcile them too quickly fails to grasp how Cuban socialist ideology continues to be transformed, not only by the government, but by Cubans in other spheres of society.
