Former New York mayor Ed Koch was fond of hovering at busy subway station entrances and startling commuters by asking, with a big smile and a handshake, “How am I doing?” There is no Cuban equivalent of course, not even remotely so, yet in his own diffident way Raul Castro must be wondering how his “provisional” administration has done.

      Fair to say, the record of his interregnum is mixed. Nothing truly transformational has occurred, and may never as long as this innately cautious career military officer is in charge. He may ultimately decide against any real economic decentralization, fearing it could ignite instability. Most of his brother’s calamitous legacies may be just too difficult for him to repudiate. And perhaps, even now as the need to decide is urgently upon him, Raul may not be able to assure that Fidel vacates the Cuban presidency. That will be the most critical test of how Raul is doing.

      He is likely under considerable pressure to finalize the transfer of power soon. It has been eighteen months since Fidel has been out of sight, and increasingly too, out of mind. A particularly insightful Cuban recently observed that the populace has moved on beyond Fidel, without fear or cognizance of him, and with an abiding sense of relief that he is no longer able to impose on them. This person observed that “Fidel has been forgotten as absolutely by the Cuban people as all of those boring Russian movies they had no choice but to watch for so many years.”

      It’s not clear to what extent Raul has taken a lead in engineering Fidel’s evanescence. But he is nonetheless its principal beneficiary and it may actually be his most important accomplishment thus far. He has in other ways too begun to stimulate and lift the popular mood on the island, even if he can claim no credit yet for providing significant improvements in the mostly miserable lot of the Cuban people.

      Yet, anecdotal accounts suggest they have a better image of Raul now than in the past. To their relief he has delivered only a few speeches since taking over, and, unlike Fidel’s interminable and desultory oratory, when Raul speaks, he is succinct, precise, and on subject. He mostly avoids the front pages of Cuba’s newspapers, is known to delegate and share power, and has made sure to convey the image of himself as a family man. He has communicated through the leadership ranks that he prefers to work a normal day and does not want to be disturbed after hours. Unlike his brother, he permits no self imagery of heroic accomplishments or extraordinary personal capabilities.

      He is not known to have traveled abroad since Fidel’s confinement, and has had neither the time nor interest in mounting mass demonstrations against the United States. For Fidel, problems at home were always less important than internationalist posturing, but Raul communicates the impression of concentrating almost exclusively on domestic problem solving. Notably, he has almost entirely ignored the non-aligned movement that Cuba has led since September 2006. All of this is surely calculated to contrast his personal and leadership styles with Fidel’s and to demonstrate that his priorities are more attuned to the real needs of the populace.

      Raul and those speaking for him have admitted that Cuba’s many grave problems are systemic. In their disarmingly truthful view, it is not the American economic embargo or “imperialism” that are the cause of all problems on the island, as Fidel always insisted, but rather their own mistakes and mindsets. In turn, Raul has called on Cubans, especially the younger generation, to “debate fearlessly” and help devise solutions for the failures. Brutally candid discussions at the grass roots level have proliferated. Not long ago all this would have been considered counter-revolutionary blasphemy.

      There have been no reports of the death penalty being invoked, even in the cases of young hoodlums guilty of killing a military officer. Despite continuing brutal repression of the country’s human rights and dissident groups, Raul has allowed some limited social decompression. Intellectuals, artists, and previously oppressed homosexuals have been given more space. Juventud Rebelde, the newspaper intended for Cuban youth has been innovatively reconfigured, publishing investigative stories that could never have been aired while Fidel was in charge. Even the previously sacrosanct public health system has come under critical scrutiny in its pages.

      Remarkably too, The Lives of Others, an Oscar winning film about the amorality of communist East Germany’s repressive secret services was shown recently in Havana. At least one independent and often irreverent internet site intended for Cuba’s disenchanted youth has been allowed to function. Without fanfare, police in Havana have stopped ticketing illegal taxis and more buses are on the streets.

      In a major address last July dedicated primarily to massive failures in agriculture, Raul called for “structural and conceptual” change. Given his past sympathetic references to the laws of supply and demand, his advocacy of liberalizing economic reforms in the 1990s, and the many for-profit enterprises his military officers have been encouraged to run, he probably plans to introduce market incentives in the countryside. Private farmers are being paid more by the government for their produce and are receiving tracts of land so that food crops will be more available in markets. More dramatic innovations in agriculture are likely to be announced this year.

      With his own powerful base of support in the military he has run since 1959, the security services he has controlled since 1989, and the communist party he manages, Raul has led from a position of undisputed strength. He has no intention of opening or liberalizing the political system or permitting a flowering of dissident activity. But as he approaches his seventy-seventh birthday in June, he gives every indication of wanting to leave a legacy of his own, one quite distinct from that of his brother.

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I wish to acknowledge the valuable assistance provided by Vanessa Lopez, my University of Miami student research assistant, in the preparation of this report.

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