Fidel Castro and "Socialist" Cuba

[incogweedo]

So i've been wondering a lot about Cuba lately. With Fidel dying, my father bragging about how it's Capitalization has begun, etc., i was just wondering about the truth of the Castro regime. I know Che Guevara is known for being one of the most famous true socialists out there, but what about Castro? From the Western news and resources i've been reading, he seems to be like that of Stalin or Polpot. One of the people who claim to be a socialist savior of the people but are corrupt murderers just looking for power. I have heard before that Che felt betrayed by Castro because he lied to the people and did not set up a truly socialist country.

Questions i have: Is Castro and his regime truly socialist? Is he seriously a murderer of Innocent people? Did he betray Guevara? Or is all this stuff i've read about him just pure Western bullshit, like the US propaganda about Huga Chavez?

Any facts and answers are welcome :) thanks in advance!

[PhoenixAsh]

...well...his brother Raoul was the only actual member of the communist party in the early years before Castro became an opportunist and joined that party...before that he was actually opposing them.

- Castro was not truely socialist
- His system was not truely socialist
- Che and Castro had a bit of a falling out and several differences of opinion....but I do not think castro betrayed Che to the Bolivians.

[RATM-Eubie]

I think VeganMarxist posted something about a post about supposed Cuban Lies you should look that up.
In my opinion a lot of the western media has a lot of lies portrayed against the man..

[Obs]

So i've been wondering a lot about Cuba lately. With Fidel dying, my father bragging about how it's Capitalization has begun, etc., i was just wondering about the truth of the Castro regime. I know Che Guevara is known for being one of the most famous true socialists out there, but what about Castro? From the Western news and resources i've been reading, he seems to be like that of Stalin or Polpot. One of the people who claim to be a socialist savior of the people but are corrupt murderers just looking for power. I have heard before that Che felt betrayed by Castro because he lied to the people and did not set up a truly socialist country.

Questions i have: Is Castro and his regime truly socialist? Is he seriously a murderer of Innocent people? Did he betray Guevara? Or is all this stuff i've read about him just pure Western bullshit, like the US propaganda about Huga Chavez?

Any facts and answers are welcome :) thanks in advance!

First of all, Che Guevara was a huge fan of Stalin, and sided with China in the Sino-Soviet split. The bourgeois claim that he ruthlessly murdered hundreds of thousands is, obviously, false. There were many executions during the Cuban revolution, and Che was in charge of many of these, but that is how revolutions are. You gotta take out the trash before you can start making the new society.

About Cuba being socialist - yes and no. Whether or not Fidel Castro is/was truly a communist can be debated, but what can't be debated is the fact that Cuba is ruled by a communist party, which did a good job of implementing socialism during the time of the East Bloc, though being economically dependent on the revisionist Soviet Union meant that there were some flaws in this socialist structure. Today, however, two full decades since the fall of the Soviet Union, Cuba is still recovering from the major economic damage they suffered from losing their #1 trading partner while resisting the temptation of giving in to capitalism like the East Bloc in Europe. Beyond this, they have been moving slowly away from socialist economics under the leadership of the relentlessly revisionist Raúl Castro, who has enacted reforms that expand the private sector with the intention of creating more independent cooperatives - a slippery slope we remember from Perestroika. So far, the expansion of the private sector has not made its way to any huge sectors within Cuban production. Combining these factors, it's my judgement that Cuba is a revisionist socialist state that could fall back into capitalism, but might also yet be saved if they're lucky enough to have a change of leadership soon. (This would probably necessitate the death or debilitation of Raúl Castro.)