How did 20th century communist leaders explain communist countries' lack of economic success?

I don't imagine you could get one answer for this question, given how many countries have had Marxist-Leninist governments and how varied their experiences have been.

I can offer some insight into the case of Cuba and its leader Fidel Castro. Even here, it would be difficult to give a comprehensive answer, so I'll instead go into an example that I feel is particularly revealing.

The Cuban line on the economy has generally been to stress that while there are constant economic challenges, it does well to provide necessities to all of its citizens and further excels in certain other areas (medicine, education). This contrasts with the claim of many Cuban expats/dissidents that the food is insufficient, or that while the food may be sufficient for necessity, the average Cuban does not have access to as much meat as they should be eating. What short-falls do exist, the Cuban government has often claimed, result in large part from the U.S. economic embargo (and U.S.-backed exploitation of Cuba prior to the Revolution). And of course they will point out (fairly accurately) that the lives of average Cubans are better than before the Revolution. What may be more surprising to the casual U.S. reader, however, is that at times Castro indicated that certain economic failures were his own personal failures as a leader. Not only did this humanize him, but it allowed him to divert responsibility for problems from the revolution and its ideals to the application of that revolution by humans (including himself). And while the good things were always pointed out, Castro would impart a sense that they were not good enough and that the people had to keep fighting to advance.

What follows is something like a case study, with me dissecting two speeches to give you an insight into how Fidel Castro publicly addressed economic failure. It may be lengthy, but I think you'd rather me show you the language than just tell you about it.

The first is a speech Fidel Castro gave on 20 May 1970. The subject is the year's sugar harvest. With Cuba needing an economic jump, Fidel had earlier announced that it would be the mission of the country to harvest 10 million tons of sugar that year, well in excess of any previous record. While in the early days of the revolutionary government, the focus had been on economic diversification from the cash crop economy they had inherited, these plans had turned out disappointingly, and so in the years prior to this harvest, the Cuban government increasingly saw the maintenance and growth of the sugar economy as their best bet in the short term to generate enough exports to afford the imports necessary for growth and diversification. During this harvest, Castro took four hours each day to cut sugar in the fields himself (a clear parallel to the famous case of Che Guevara cutting sugar in the fields after the Revolution) and citizens in all lines of work were urged to take what free time they could to join in the harvest.

Hundreds of thousands of military personnel and volunteers participated in the harvest, though the results of this were mixed as it both allowed for a larger harvest but also caused damage to crops due to the cutters' inexperience. Ultimately, 8.5 million tons of sugar were harvested. This was a record high, but 1.5 million tons short of the goal.

Historian Aviva Chomsky wrote a great introductory text on Cuba since 1959, A History of the Cuban Revolution. It goes into all major facets of society from economy to art to foreign policy, as well as fairly characterizing the successes and failures of the revolutionary project, while remaining short and accessible to the casual reader. I think her conclusion on this subject is a good one:

The entire society was mobilized. Tens of thousands of volunteers left their jobs to cut cane. The legitimacy of the Revolution itself seemed invested in the goal.

The campaign was both a success and a failure. It was a success in showing Cubans, and the world, people's capacity to work, and achieve collective goals, for rewards that went beyond individualism and material gain. But it was an economic failure, in more ways than one. The harvest failed to reach 10 million tons, although at 8.5 million tons it was the largest sugar harvest in Cuba's history. The larger failure, though, was what happened to the rest of the economy when everything was concentrated on sugar. With little investment and with labor diverted to sugar, other sectors collapsed.

So, as you can see, this was an economic failure that the government (and, specifically, Fidel Castro) had to address. Fidel did so publicly in a speech on 20 May 1970. The translated text can be found here at a University of Texas database website.

"I want to begin by reminding you of the origin of the plan of the 10 million tons of sugar. Since trade relations began with the Soviet Union in the wake of the aggressions by the United States..."

Early on, he brings up the economic aggressions of the United States. Not necessarily to blame them for the sugar harvest, but to state that the ambitious goal was necessary due to these aggressions. I would stop short of saying he was reminding the Cuban people, because Cuba's relationship with the United States was starkly in the mind of any Cuban thinking about such economic matters, but he was framing the goal as part of this national struggle.

He then goes on to give a detailed explanation of Cuba's sugar trade and its dependence on Soviet agreements for a significant part of that trade. He characterizes the need for the increase in sugar harvest as a need for more currency with which to acquire machines, materials, and equipment to properly develop the Cuban economy. It is a frank assessment of the country's foreign trade.

This is an interesting line:

"As a result of those conditions and the needs of a developing nation--we might even say a disorganized nation, as is any nation in the midst of a revolutionary process--the trade imbalance with the Soviet Union grew each year."

This is important to understand how Castro was able to personally take the blame for failures, yet not undermine himself. The Cuban view was not that the Revolution was a war fought until victory in 1959, but that the Revolution was the fundamental reordering of society that was ongoing for years after that military victory. There was a sense of trying new things and altering the experiment where needed. If there was a failure, it was not because they had chosen the Wrong Way over the Right Way, it was because they needed to approach their goals from a different angle.

Castro continues to give a detailed description of trade specifics and the rationale behind increasing the harvest goal.

Later in the speech, he describes the harvest itself. When he gets into the reasons for the failure, he names a few, including a low yield due to starting the harvest too early in many areas, and not having the proper equipment necessary to maximize yield.

Then he gets into blame:

"In this matter of the 10 million tons, a basic fact is that the people have not lost the battle. We can say with absolute certainty that the people have won this battle, the people have not lost this battle. It cannot be said that nothing has been gained because the battle of the 10 million tons has not been won. This battle was not lost by the people. We lost this battle. We, the administrative apparatus, of the revolution, we the leaders of the revolution have lost this battle.

...

That is we, our ignorance regarding industrial problems contributed to our not being able to foresee the several problems, subjective type problems, unqualified personnel, and all those things.

...

I say also that certain factors over which we have no control affected industrial production; but no one but ourselves has lost the battle. The people were always willing to do whatever was necessary, with enthusiasm and with that something. This is unquestionable. And the people have not lost the battle."

So here, he is trying to keep up the spirits of the country while placing a good deal of blame on the government. The goal, I think, is to keep the people from being demoralized, which could stop them from volunteering on such a major scale in future projects.

He goes on to describe the efforts ongoing to ensure that they get as much out of the rest of the harvest as possible (while recognizing that it will not be 10 million tons, but somewhere between 8 and 9). He also describes the measures that must be taken in the coming years to correct the problems and develop the underdeveloped regions.

He brings it back to the Cuban revolutionary struggle, in an international context (citing a link with the struggle in Vietnam). And a reminder of the enemy:

"The kind of perfidious thing, of bad faith, that is characteristic of the imperialists because imperialists do not only kill there, here, everywhere, steal, plunder, lie, they are a personification of all that is immoral and bad in the world. They have their dirty methods of intrigue and things of that sort."

This is described in a summary of a recent incident of kidnapped fishermen that Castro includes in the speech. There is a lot more language about the people fighting imperialism.

While recognizing the failure, Castro also calls for celebrations for the effort of all those who went away from their families for months to cut sugar and work towards the common goal. He calls for a reorganization of the administrative structure, a strengthening of the party as the country's vanguard, and a strengthening of mass membership organizations in their role of transforming society.

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