HAVANA — An internal Communist Party document envisions a radically revamped economy, with a new tax code, freshly legalized private cooperatives and a state payroll no longer shackled by the need to support at least a half-million idle or unproductive workers.
The document — obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press — also offers a cold dose of reality for those who think reforming one of the last bastions of Soviet-style communism will be easy: It warns that many of the new businesses will be shuttered within a year.
The 26-page document fleshes out some of the details of sweeping layoffs of 500,000 workers by March 2011 that Cuba announced Monday in the most dramatic reform instituted since President Raul Castro took over for his ailing brother, Fidel, in 2008.
Workers at the ministries of sugar, tourism and agriculture will be let go first — and some layoffs at those entities began in July, it said. The last in line for cutbacks include the Civil Aviation sector and the Ministry of Social Services — the agency overseeing the layoffs.
No government sector appears to go untouched, with cuts slated for Cuba’s vaunted athletics program — long favored under sports-crazy Fidel Castro since the early days of his 1959 revolution — and even its Health and Education Ministries.
