cuba

[red cat]

is cuba really communist?

[Manifesto]

No. It is State-Capitalist and a little Socialist at most.

[New Tet]

is cuba really communist?

No, but that doesn't mean we should not support Cuba and it's people against U.S. imperialism.

Check this pamphlet (in pdf format) on that very topic:

'Is Cuba Socialist?' (http://www.slp.org/pdf/others/is_cuba.pdf)

[ArrowLance]

Cuba is a developing communist country, imo. And certainly not 'State-Capitalist.'

Their health care system, schooling system, housing management and labour management I feel evidence this.

[ArrowLance]

No, but that doesn't mean we should not support Cuba and it's people against U.S. imperialism.

Check this pamphlet (in pdf format) on that very topic:

'Is Cuba Socialist?' (http://www.slp.org/pdf/others/is_cuba.pdf)

I feel that article basically argues semantics. 'The workers don't have democratic control, so it's not socialism.' Is the general feel I got from the article. That statement isn't even completely true as Cuba does have voting.

So I guess it comes down to what your opinion of what 'socialism/communism' is. Does it include countries that are working towards these goals? Also, it depends on if you think Cuban policies are indeed moving in the right direction.

I feel they are, and that Cuba is.

[PRC-UTE]

is cuba really communist?

It claims to be a workers state building socialism. It does resemble roughly what Marx or Lenin predicted it would be like.

[Manifesto]

Cuba is a developing communist country, imo. And certainly not 'State-Capitalist.'

Their health care system, schooling system, housing management and labour management I feel evidence this.
Well its not Socialist but somewhere in between.

[New Tet]

I feel that article basically argues semantics. 'The workers don't have democratic control, so it's not socialism.' Is the general feel I got from the article. That statement isn't even completely true as Cuba does have voting.

You must have given the pamphlet only a cursory glance. The article, as you call this pamphlet, is a well thought out discussion about an important topic that often crops up here, in Revleft.



So I guess it comes down to what your opinion of what 'socialism/communism' is. Does it include countries that are working towards these goals? Also, it depends on if you think Cuban policies are indeed moving in the right direction.

I feel they are, and that Cuba is.


It's not exclusively a matter of opinion. There are institutions in Cuba that formalize the economic relations of that country. What they are is discussed in the pamphlet.

[Yehuda Stern]

To save some time, I'm quoting things I wrote in other threads:


Seeing as Cuba never had a workers' revolution, i.e. a revolution of the workers themselves led by a vanguard party, and seeing as Cuba has proven against and again that it is incapable of consistently opposing imperialism:

1. Its betrayal of the national liberation struggle in Eritrea when Ethiopian leader Mengistu became a supporter of the USSR;
2. Its refusal, along with the USSR, to challenge the control of oil companies in Angola in the war with SA;
3. Its double talk on the Gulf war in 1991:

"Cuba voted for the U.N.'s demand that Iraq withdraw from Kuwait (Resolution 660), and for the restoration of the "legitimate government" of the emirs (Resolution 662). It shamefully abstained on the key resolution (661) ordering an all-out economic boycott of Iraq, itself an act of war against the Iraqi people. It also abstained on Resolution 665 authorizing the use of naval force to halt shipping into and from Iraq. And in an August 25 speech, U.N. representative Ricardo Alarcón boasted that Cuba was cooperating with the boycott of Iraq even though it had abstained on the vote."

I see no reason to consider this regime or state socialist or progressive in any way, other than for the obvious fact that it is an oppressed country and should be defended against imperialism.
maybe Cuba and China were always capitalist, and that's why they can turn to a market economy without any change in the ruling class, let alone a civil war.

We have universal healthcare, universal education, housing for all citizens, food and water properly distributed and all of these managed in a centrally planned economy by a party of the working class that democratically operates. The nation is run by a workers democracy and Cuba's resources are used for the Cuban people, not foreign profit ambitions. Only that's one third irrelevant, one third inaccurate and one third a lie. Sure, Cubans have won all sorts of democratic gains from the revolution, which the Castroists will eventually take away like their ilk has done elsewhere. But Cuba is still a poor state, and no one but the most blind Stalinist can believe that it is a democracy, much less a workers' democracy.

It's not that I'm upset that the Cuban revolution worked - I'm upset that Cuba has one of those regimes that tarnishes the name of socialism and Marxism, and that it is aided by people like you who have no trust in the working class and who are willing to put any bourgeois nationalist who uses Marxist rhetoric on a pedestal.

[Black Sheep]

I feel that article basically argues semantics. 'The workers don't have democratic control, so it's not socialism.' Is the general feel I got from the article. That statement isn't even completely true as Cuba does have voting.
In bourgeoisie democracy workers do have the right to vote as well.
Socialism's democratic control is about dem. control over the means of production, and thus over economy and overall life.

[BobKKKindle$]

Their health care system, schooling system, housing management and labour management I feel evidence this. Cuba does exhibit important gains such as universal healthcare, and these are gains which need to be defended both against the threat of imperialist intervention and the ruling bureaucracy, which even now is attempting to impose neo-liberalism through a process of gradual reform and compromise in order to enhance its own material privileges. Not only are these gains coming under attack from inside Cuba, the important thing for socialists when we are debating the nature of the Cuban state is that these are not gains that have anything to do with socialism as such, in that their existence does not depend on the existence of the socialist mode of production - rather they are democratic gains (just as the minimum wage and the eight-hour day are also democratic gains) which have been won in other capitalist countries, and for that reason, the fact that Cuba has a good education system does not mean it is socialist, or any kind of workers state. The gains that we associate with socialism - of which the most important are workers control of the means of production, and the abolition of wage-labour - are not present in Cuba, and this tells us that Cuba is a state-capitalist regime, subject to the control of a bureaucracy, whose material privileges depend on the exploitation of the working class, the members of which, like other workers throughout the world, sell their labour power as a commodity, and lack control over the labour process.

If Cuba is a workers state as some sections of the left maintain, then this means that it is possible to abolish capitalism without the intervention of the working class, i.e. without the working class being the main agent of social and political change, because the creation of the current government in Cuba occurred as a result of a guerilla movement taking power after a prolonged struggle in the countryside, and, at first, did not describe itself as a socialist or communist government, only changing its description of itself once the realities of geopolitics forced Castro and his allies to turn to the USSR for economic support. This means that Marx was wrong when he argued that "the emancipation of the proletariat must be the work of the proletariat itself", and raises the question of why we as socialists should even bother agitating amongst workers when our desired society can (so the argument goes) be created by military intervention, or a small group of people fighting in the jungle.

Just to add to what Yehuda said about Cuba's foreign policy, the Cuban government also supported Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia in 1968 as well as the Tiananmen Massacre in China in 1989, further affirming that Cuba is/was a component of the Soviet imperialist bloc, and has consistently failed to give support to workers struggling against exploitation and oppression throughout the world.


Well its not Socialist but somewhere in between.

No. It is State-Capitalist and a little Socialist at most
Socialism and state-capitalism do not exist as points on a continuum, because state-capitalist societies are not inherently more progressive than societies that give legal recognition to private property, and it is impossible for a country to be both capitalist and socialist at the same time. For socialists the key issue is class rule, and so we must pose the question of which class in Cuba is the ruling class, that is, which class commands political power, and controls the forces of production. If you think that the working class is the ruling class then Cuba is a workers state and any problems that currently exist in Cuba can be overcome through reform and revolution spreading to other countries, whereas if you (like me) think that Cuba is a state-capitalist regime, then it necessarily follows that the working class is oppressed and exploited, and progressive change in Cuba can only come about as a result of confrontation with the bureaucracy, and the overthrow of the existing state, given that there is no such thing as a peaceful transition to socialism, and the capitalist mode of production cannot be overturned through reform.

[cb9's_unity]

I am not sure what exactly Cuba is, whether it is State-Capitalist, bureaucratic collectivization or something completely different.

Cuba does display some elements of democracy yet it is clear that power is held by a tightly controlled party. Whether this party constitutes an entirely new class is something i could not give you the answer to. However true power is certainly not held by the working class and the governments protection of such things as freedom of speech and freedom of the press is highly questionable.

So in the end Cuba is a socialistic something. The upper party has created a very progressive economy that has undoubtedly helped the Cuban population (the people of Cuba may not live in completely first world conditions but when compared to nearly all the countries around them it is clear they are doing something right). So while economically the country may appear to be socialist, without the vital aspects of democracy and total working class control the terms socialist or communist can not be faithfully applied to Cuba.

And yes I have looked at both sides of the debate and while Cuba is not as terrible as the capitalist media portrays it, it is also not the haven for democracy that some on this site would like you to believe.

[x359594]

To save some time, I'm quoting things I wrote in other threads:..I see no reason to consider this regime or state socialist or progressive in any way, other than for the obvious fact that it is an oppressed country and should be defended against imperialism.

While I'm in substantial agreement with the rest of your post, I must differ with you on this point.

Relative to the rest of the countries in the Caribbean, Cuba is indeed progressive. If you make an empirical comparison with its nearest Caribbean neighbor Haiti, you'll see that the average citizen of Cuba is better off than the average citizen of Haiti in every way.

It seems to me that an examination of the actual conditions in Cuba will tell us more about where the country really stands in relation to socialism than any of its professed ideological pronouncements or any of our ideological wishful thinking can tell us.

As much as any one here I wish for the survival of Cuba and the conclusion of its revolution on the side of authentic socialism.

[BIG BROTHER]

Well you are hearing a lot of bullshit from a lot of sides but for a quick answer.

What is communism? A stateless, classless society, were the mode of production and distribution is the following: From each according to their abilities to each according to their needs.

Cuba doesn't meet that criteria above.

Longer explanation. Different tendencies have a different analysis of Cuba. The analysis I share is that Cuba is a Deformed workers state. Why? Because Cuba did not go through a workers revolution like in Russia. Yet due to the conditions on which the Cuban Revolution developed private property was expropriated thus capitalism was overthrown. Now the means of production in their majority are collectivized, and the economy is planned. Those are the similarities Cuba has with a workers state. The "Deformed" part comes from the fact that a bureaucratic elite of party members have all the political power, were as a legitimate workers state, the workers would democratically control society.

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

I agree with it being a deformed workers state, but not for the same reasons. Nationalized property, a planned economy, or "similarites" with a workers state is nothing but state capitalism if the "bureacratic elite" have all the power. I don't think this is the case in Cuba, however. While it is by no means a perfect proletarian democracy, Cuba has sufficient democratic features to ensure that it reflects the general interests of the working class.

[Gravedigger01]

It is the most Communist Country at the moment

China is as Communist as mr. Monopoly
The only thing Communist about Vietnam is the central controlled government
Laos is basically China and Vietnams *****
North Korea is communist but led by a madman
Cyprus,Nepal and Moldova have communist goverments but aren't communsit states

So I think Cuba is the best We've got with their planned economy ,good heathcare and rations

[cb9's_unity]

Well you are hearing a lot of bullshit from a lot of sides but for a quick answer.

What is communism? A stateless, classless society, were the mode of production and distribution is the following: From each according to their abilities to each according to their needs.

Cuba doesn't meet that criteria above.

Longer explanation. Different tendencies have a different analysis of Cuba. The analysis I share is that Cuba is a Deformed workers state. Why? Because Cuba did not go through a workers revolution like in Russia. Yet due to the conditions on which the Cuban Revolution developed private property was expropriated thus capitalism was overthrown. Now the means of production in their majority are collectivized, and the economy is planned. Those are the similarities Cuba has with a workers state. The "Deformed" part comes from the fact that a bureaucratic elite of party members have all the political power, were as a legitimate workers state, the workers would democratically control society.

I don't necessarily disagree with a lot of what your saying but why do people have this obsession about describing an entire country in two words? Too often I see people label a country something and then lay out the facts to support and rationalize that label.

Is Cuba a deformed workers state or is it state capitalist? Cuba is Cuba and has its own very specific conditions and reasons for why it has ended up the way it has. I guess I'm not accusing you of this but too often people go to war over labels instead of specific conditions.

[spiltteeth]

I'd just like to point out that although Cuba is flawed there is a movement that thinks Cuba has tremendous socialist and revolutionary potential and posits that she is worth saving and strengthening her, do not give up on Cuba! see New Left Review's Tariq Ali.

[Yehuda Stern]

Relative to the rest of the countries in the Caribbean, Cuba is indeed progressive. If you make an empirical comparison with its nearest Caribbean neighbor Haiti, you'll see that the average citizen of Cuba is better off than the average citizen of Haiti in every way.

It seems to me that an examination of the actual conditions in Cuba will tell us more about where the country really stands in relation to socialism than any of its professed ideological pronouncements or any of our ideological wishful thinking can tell us.

Like I said in my original post - those are democratic gains that Cuban workers have won from the Castroists and which should be defended. They do not, however, show in any way that the Cuban state is progressive or socialist. I do not understand where you see that I judge Cuba according to its "ideological pronouncements" or to my "ideological wishful thinking" - I pointed out facts regarding the state's class nature and its foreign policy.

[x359594]

...I do not understand where you see that I judge Cuba according to its "ideological pronouncements" or to my "ideological wishful thinking" - I pointed out facts regarding the state's class nature and its foreign policy.

And I agreed with you. I was not singling you out comrade, I was making a general observation about some of the posts in this thread. I apologize for my lack of clarity.

[BobKKKindle$]

because Cuba did not go through a workers revolution like in Russia.On this point we are agreed - but if you think that workers states can come into existence without the working class playing a major rule then do you therefore think that Marx was wrong when he asserted that "the emancipation of the proletariat must be the work of the proletariat itself", and how do you understand the role of revolutionary socialists? It seems that the necessary conclusion of holding your position is to support powerful workers states like the Soviet Union and China invading other countries and imposing their economic and political systems throughout the world, because by doing so they would be able to abolish capitalism on a global scale, at which point the only thing left for the working class to do would be to carry out a political revolution, which is presumably less difficult or significant than a social revolution against capitalism. Not only does this logic neglect the working class, as noted above, it also leads to support for Soviet imperialism, as we saw during the invasion of Afghanistan, when orthodox Trotskyists refused to call on the Red Army to leave despite the atrocities that were being carried out in that country by Soviet forces, whereas the SWP maintained our internationalism by supporting the efforts of the resistance to inflict a defeat on imperialism.


Now the means of production in their majority are collectivized,This is another common characteristic of your position - you are blurring the distinction between collectivized and nationalized property relations. The means of production in Cuba are nationalized which means that are subject to the ownership and control of the state in much the same way as the British economy was nationalized during the WW2 and major banks have recently been nationalized as a result of the bailout; if they were collectivized, this would mean they were under collective management, which requires that the working class exercise political power. The nationalization of property has nothing to do with socialism (at least inherently) because it is fully compatible with exploitation, markets, wage-labour, and all of capitalism's other features.


the economy is plannedHow is it possible to speak of Cuba's economy being planned in any meaningful sense when priorities are set by the ruling bureaucracy and (more importantly) Cuba is, as a small country with inadequate natural or technological resources to provide for itself, subject to the dangers of the world economy? The nature of "planning" in Cuba was fully demonstrated during the special period when citizens experienced prolonged food shortages and the country as a whole suffered negative growth over a period of several years because Cuba was no longer supported by the USSR, and the recent growth of tourism in Cuba alongside other export-orientated industries means that now more than ever before Cuba is vulnerable to economic developments in other countries.

[BIG BROTHER]

I think our friend here who started the thread just wanted to know if Cuba was Communist. It is not.

As to what Bob said, it seems to me that a major flaw with those who support the "State-Capitalist" analysis, is that either "State-Capitalism" is a more progressive form of capitalism, or the dissolution of the Soviet Union, a Return of imperialism to Cuba wouldn't be a step back in the class struggle.

[Yehuda Stern]

I apologize for my lack of clarity. No worries, but then I don't understand which part of your post refers to your disagreement with me.



As to what Bob said, it seems to me that a major flaw with those who support the "State-Capitalist" analysis, is that either "State-Capitalism" is a more progressive form of capitalism, or the dissolution of the Soviet Union, a Return of imperialism to Cuba wouldn't be a step back in the class struggle.The SWP theory was indeed that state capitalism is a more developed capitalism, where the law of value operated due to the arms race with western imperialism and not due to an internal class struggle. Despite this, the SWP's reaction to the collapse of the USSR was in fact disgustingly gleeful, with signs lauding the "death of communism."

However, there are many theories of state capitalism. Ours, for example, argues that the Soviet state was a weaker form of a capitalist state, and that its form was a compromise made by the Stalinist ruling class to better control the workers. From this point of view, its dissolution is reactionary because the state, although imperialist, embodied certain gains of the workers inherited from the revolutionary state created by October. Similarly, the Cuban state embodies certain democratic gains of the masses won during the 1959 revolution. In both cases, the gains must be defended from the Stalinists, through a workers revolution.

[willdw79]

No worries, but then I don't understand which part of your post refers to your disagreement with me.

The SWP theory was indeed that state capitalism is a more developed capitalism, where the law of value operated due to the arms race with western imperialism and not due to an internal class struggle. Despite this, the SWP's reaction to the collapse of the USSR was in fact disgustingly gleeful, with signs lauding the "death of communism."

However, there are many theories of state capitalism. Ours, for example, argues that the Soviet state was a weaker form of a capitalist state, and that its form was a compromise made by the Stalinist ruling class to better control the workers. From this point of view, its dissolution is reactionary because the state, although imperialist, embodied certain gains of the workers inherited from the revolutionary state created by October. Similarly, the Cuban state embodies certain democratic gains of the masses won during the 1959 revolution. In both cases, the gains must be defended from the Stalinists, through a workers revolution.
Overall I agree with your post overall. But one thing that tends to get left out about the plight of the soviets and chinese communists is that they made mistakes by acciedent. I believe that they were well intentioned. marxist ideology is fairly new and I think that the infleunces of more seasoned capitalist war machines played a larger role in defeating the advances of the russian/chinese revolutions than you give them credit for.

[☭World Views]

What effects has the USA-led embargo, USA overt operations, and USA covert terrorism had on Cuba's economy and domestic policy?

Should we take this into account?

[Yehuda Stern]

one thing that tends to get left out about the plight of the soviets and chinese communists is that they made mistakes by acciedent. I believe that they were well intentioned.

I don't think so, but I do not know and to be honest I don't care either. We have no sincere-o-meter: we must judge people's actions and their outcomes, not their intentions.

[willdw79]

I don't think so, but I do not know and to be honest I don't care either. We have no sincere-o-meter: we must judge people's actions and their outcomes, not their intentions.
That is soooo reactionary. Why not then align with the nazis to defeat the Israeli occupiers in Palestine. They want to defeat Israeli occupation too. Motivations matter.

[scarletghoul]

I don't think so, but I do not know and to be honest I don't care either. We have no sincere-o-meter: we must judge people's actions and their outcomes, not their intentions.
What a stupid thing to say. If I were to grab a child with intent to rape them, but in the process of doing so accidently moved them out of the way of an oncoming vehicle, saving their life, then I would be a good guy in your book? This is of course an extreme example, but its essentially what you're saying.

In my opinion we must judge people on the good/evil axis by their intentions, and the competence/incompetance axis by their actions and how well these actions forfilled their intentions. Everything else is not good to judge the person by.

[chegitz guevara]

Too many comrades have a mechanical understanding of Cuba. Marx never said how the worker class would take control of a country. Revolutions do not follow formal logic, first a, then b, then c.... They are massively complex, dynamic events.

The worker class made a revolution in Cuba. What was the class composition of the guerrilla army? Does anyone know, or do you simply assume that it was a peasant army (and ignoring the rural proletariat). Too many comrades focus on the guerrilla movements smashing the state, and pay no attention to the general strike that brought down the government and took charge of Cuba following the fall of Batista. Hundreds of thousands of workers marched through the streets. Workers seized their work places. Just because it didn't happen the way Lenin and Trotsky made the Russian revolution doesn't mean it wasn't a workers revolution.

As for whether Cuba is a communist state, it depends on how you define communism. In Marx's Critique of the Gotha Programme, he identifies two stages of communism, lower and higher. Cuba is clearly in the lower stage of communism, in that it has a state, scarcity hasn't been abolished, there's still a necessity for differentiation of workers, etc. Lenin points out, in State and Revolution that many people, incorrectly, refer to the lower, or first, stage of communism as socialism. I think that it doesn't matter so much what you call it, but since the consensus is socialism, I'm happy to use that term.

[Yehuda Stern]

That is soooo reactionary. Why not then align with the nazis to defeat the Israeli occupiers in Palestine.Because any Nazi or movement that I know of represents imperialism, and Marxists do not support one imperialist power against another. Of course, your analogy is stupid and abstract; but it also shows your inability to tell the difference between oppressor and oppressed, which is what's really "soooo reactionary" in this debate.


If I were to grab a child with intent to rape them, but in the process of doing so accidently moved them out of the way of an oncoming vehicle, saving their life, then I would be a good guy in your book?Unless you told me that was your intention, I'd have no way of knowing, and would have to assume you are a good guy. Do you suggest that from now on, when people save other peoples' lives, we should investigate some imaginary motives they have instead of congratulating them?


Revolutions do not follow formal logic, first a, then b, then c.... They are massively complex, dynamic events.Such smart comments really come cheap. How does the fact that revolutions are indeed complex and dynamic make a revolution led by petit-bourgeois guerrillas into a proletarian one?

In fact, you are the one simplifying here; to you, it is enough that the workers participated in the revolution to decide that it was proletarian. In that sense, every revolution since the French, including, was proletarian. That's clearly not the case; the fact is that the leadership of the revolution wasn't proletarian but petit-bourgeois.


Lenin points out, in State and Revolution that many people, incorrectly, refer to the lower, or first, stage of communism as socialism. I think that it doesn't matter so much what you call it, but since the consensus is socialism, I'm happy to use that term.Lenin also points out in State and Revolution that the state created after the revolution is not socialist but is a workers' state, essentially a "bourgeois state without a bourgeoisie." You and many other leftists tend to leave out that part when they discuss the Stalinist states.