ABSTRACT
The Cuban media covered Parly sessions without sparing details. “Political-ideological work,” the vanguard role of the Party and its militants in their work with the masses, and analyses of local education, labor, and production problems were among the topics discussed in a series of provincial Party extraordinary plenums held in November 1986. The media continued to concentrate on the domestic economy, one of the major objects of rectification. Granma reported daily on different sectors’ production accomplishments and deficiencies, workers’ meetings, regime plans, and major labor issues. Castro’s speeches repeatedly criticized labor indiscipline, low productivity, state bureaucracy–the bobocracia—and mismanagement practices as leading ills. Using terminology that has specific meaning within the Cuban context, a notable article in Granma’s Ideology page set forth the rationalization for the Rectification Process. “Combativity” essentially refers to attitudes and actions expected of Cuban society while actively pursuing rectification and the “elimination of negative tendencies".
