Raul Castro

[The Jay]

What is your opinion of him and his policies?

[Tim Cornelis]

He is more openly capitalist. He is privatizing the economy rather than socializing it. I see no reason why we as revolutionary leftists should support him.

[The Jay]

Why do you think that Fidel allowed him to succeed him?

[Tim Cornelis]

Why do you think that Fidel allowed him to succeed him?

nepotism?

[Geiseric]

He's a stalinist.

[RedSonRising]

The Cuban people seemed to like the reforms of the useless material restrictions implemented beforehand, when I visited and inquired two years ago.


I'll wait and see where Cuba's political future goes before either praising or condemning him as a historical force. Though he did contribute much to the Cuban Revolution, which for all its flaws, brought great gains to the population.

[KurtFF8]

It's impossible to respond to the powerful arguments against Raul in this thread.

[MustCrushCapitalism]

Not sure what to say about the arguments against Raul, would you say it's getting as bad as say, China, or not quite there yet?

[The Jay]

I know that it's not anywhere near china, but I wonder if it's headed that way. Does anyone know if the small businesses that have been given autonomy are allowed to employ workers without giving them equal ownership?

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Wait, his last name is Castro? Let me hear no bad word against this anti-imperialist bastion of Marxian Socialism.:rolleyes:

[Astarte]

My guess is Fidel Castro still is consulted by Raul. The real test will be when not just Fidel finally dies, but Raul, and what ever other old men from the Cuban revolution of over half a century ago that are still around.

If Cuba wasn't trying to attract foreign capital to fill the vacuum left by the dissolution of the USSR, people would be criticizing it from the other direction like they do North Korea.

As mentioned above, the Cuban revolution has made many gains - nationalized healthcare, almost 100% literacy, state paid for university, etc...

... and who knows, Castro could live to be 104.

[GatesofLenin]

Watch the CIA try Bay of Pigs II invasion. :(

[Magdalen]

nepotism?

The suggestion that his election to the Cuban Presidency was somehow 'nepotistic' is just silly. Raúl isn't in the position he is because of who his brother happens to be, he's in that position because he's an incredibly experienced and able revolutionary - he was a member of the youth wing of the Popular Socialist Party before his brother was even politically active, excelled as a Commander during the Revolutionary War, and proved an ever-reliable Defence Minister, Vice President and latterly Acting President over nearly fifty years of countless challenges.

[Jose Gracchus]

What does being a member of the youth of the PSP have to do with being an 'experienced revolutionary'? The PSP was a collaborationist organization that posted ministers to Batista's sham cabinet, even if it formed the base of Castro's future ruling party.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

The suggestion that his election to the Cuban Presidency was somehow 'nepotistic' is just silly. Raúl isn't in the position he is because of who his brother happens to be, he's in that position because he's an incredibly experienced and able revolutionary - he was a member of the youth wing of the Popular Socialist Party before his brother was even politically active, excelled as a Commander during the Revolutionary War, and proved an ever-reliable Defence Minister, Vice President and latterly Acting President over nearly fifty years of countless challenges.

Of course, of course.

Not really sure if you're completely serious here.

Either way, reality has shown that Raul Castro doesn't still have the abilities of an 'able revolutionary' enough to stop the return of the market in Cuba.

[Jolly Red Giant]

I met Raul Castro once. I was working in a local airport in the early 1980's when his flight from Moscow to Havana landed for re-fuelling. It was a big deal in the airport and there was a major panic as the airport managers ran around preparing things. I was on the airbridge to the plane when Raul came off. He stopped for a few moments to talk to me and the other worker with me. The one thing I remember distinctly was that he had about fifty people who came off the plane with him running around to his every beck and call. One of them pushed a soviet lapel badge into my hand. For me it was nauseating to see this so called socialist with his entourage of servile subordinates.

[Magdalen]

What does being a member of the youth of the PSP have to do with being an 'experienced revolutionary'? The PSP was a collaborationist organization that posted ministers to Batista's sham cabinet, even if it formed the base of Castro's future ruling party.

I'm well aware of the deficiencies of the PSP - I was just using Rául's membership in that organisation as evidence that he hadn't been merely 'co-opted' into the Cuban revolutionary movement by his brother. As far as is evident, Raúl Castro had already left the PSP by the time Batista came to power, when its inept leadership convinced itself of the virtues of collaborationism. Even with regards to the post-revolutionary period, I seem to remember reading somewhere that Che Guevara in particular commented upon the obstructionist tendencies of PSP members within the new regime.

[KurtFF8]

Also the PSP broke with Batista before the guerilla movement even started and was repressed by Batista eventually as well.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

If Cuba wasn't trying to attract foreign capital to fill the vacuum left by the dissolution of the USSR, people would be criticizing it from the other direction like they do North Korea.

Apologist nonsense. North Korea is as much a part of the global market as Cuba is. Ever heard of how the Chinese are investing there and all that? Exploiting the workers of the DPRK for cheap labour? What sort of essential part of socialist construction is filling the vacuum (the reliance and subservience to the Soviet Union and negating independent industrialisation and development was a serious mistake and one of the things that led up to the precarious modern situation in the first place) by attracting foreign capital and setting up exclusive tourist resorts where the wealthy visitors can live in a standard denied all Cuban citizen, all the while the water infrastructure of the island crumbles and food- and water-born diseases start spreading increasingly for the first time since the 1950's...


As mentioned above, the Cuban revolution has made many gains - nationalized healthcare, almost 100% literacy, state paid for university, etc...And gradually they are being undone. Liberalising, buying and selling of housing, exchanges for monetary gain, sacking of hundreds of thousands of workers, essentially forcing them to lick the arses of greasy tourists as street charlatans with tarot cards or shining shoes of passer-bys or driving cycle taxies to appeal to the tourists who think it's so damn cute to see the "traditional" and "old" like that. The external conditions are problematic, U.S. embargo and whatnot, but it is not an excuse for this wholesale reversal that can only be the beginning of the end, just like what happened in China, and ostensibly the result of a leadership more keen on preserving its own position than any ideological and political striving.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

As mentioned above, the Cuban revolution has made many gains - nationalized healthcare, almost 100% literacy, state paid for university, etc...

... and who knows, Castro could live to be 104.

If you support the revolution because of these gains, then why don't you support European Social Democracy as well? They made exactly the same 'gains', whilst relinquishing empire post-ww2, in the most part.

The Cuban revolution's biggest achievement is its longevity in holding off imperialism and its prowess in medical research that has given the world vaccines against Hepatitis and so on. It has done well with literacy and yes it has nationalised healthcare and education, but that is something you expect from a state-run socialised system. I believe the North Koreans do this too.

[RED DAVE]

The suggestion that his election to the Cuban Presidency was somehow 'nepotistic' is just silly. Raúl isn't in the position he is because of who his brother happens to be, he's in that position because he's an incredibly experienced and able revolutionary - he was a member of the youth wing of the Popular Socialist Party before his brother was even politically active, excelled as a Commander during the Revolutionary War, and proved an ever-reliable Defence Minister, Vice President and latterly Acting President over nearly fifty years of countless challenges.And with all that experience, first as a member of a Stalinist party, and then as a leader of state capitalism, he will fulfill his destiny by bringing full-blown capitalism to Cuba.

RED DAVE

[Magdalen]

The Cuba-bashers are out again it would seem - but I would continue to argue that their accusations of a 'capitalist restoration' are mistaken.

Firstly, Cuba is continuing to deal with the aftermath of the Special Period. Although significant leaps forward in economic growth occurred during the first decade of this century, allowing prohibitions on the sale of certain goods to be relaxed (I have explained these changes in detail elsewhere), Cuba has not fully recovered yet, and now has the global economic crisis to deal with too: whether it likes it or not, it is affected by this. Steps have to be taken to ensure the survival of the Cuban Revolutionary Project: the Cuban people cannot and will not let their nation crumble.

This April, the Sixth Congress of the Communist Party discussed and implemented a lengthy programme of guidelines to reinvigorate Cuba's economy, which had previously been subjected to an extensive national consultation (and not a 'national consultation' like the ones the British Government hold - over 80% of Cuba's population participated). 45 proposals advocating the concentration of private property were explicitly rejected, because in the words of Raúl, they 'openly contradicted the essence of socialism'. The majority of this programme, entitled the 'Guidelines of the Economic and Social Policy of the Party and the Revolution', has been entirely ignored by both the bourgeois and anti-Cuba leftist press, who have instead focused on certain provisions, taken out of context, to justify their venomous opposition to Cuban Socialism. In comparison, proposals such as the long-awaited beginning of a process to abolish the inherently unequal dual-currency system have gone entirely unnoted.

## apologies for the removal of the link - I accidentally forwarded the guidelines as they were prior to the Communist Party Congress, when they were significantly amended - although it exists in print, I haven't been able to find an English translation of the final version online yet, I'll put it up here if I do! ##

[manic expression]

Either way, reality has shown that Raul Castro doesn't still have the abilities of an 'able revolutionary' enough to stop the return of the market in Cuba.
By that standard, I suppose we should declare that Lenin was not an "able revolutionary", either, as his time in office saw a far stronger "market" than anything Cuba's seen since the 50's. Regardless, the proclamations of the return of the "market" in Cuba (perpetuated almost exclusively by those who opposed the Cuban government long before the reforms were announced) are pure sensationalism. Many of the reforms are promoting workers' cooperatives as a way to reduce dependence on a centralized state sector...others are aimed at self-employment. A shake-up was always going to be needed so long as Cuba remained under imperialist siege, but this does not mean socialism is defeated, it simply means socialism is capable of taking more than one specific form.


If you support the revolution because of these gains, then why don't you support European Social Democracy as well? They made exactly the same 'gains', whilst relinquishing empire post-ww2, in the most part.First, European states "relinquished" their empire only along the lines of neo-colonialism and imperialism, retaining domination through less direct means. Were it not for the US telling Britain and France to cut it out for geopolitical reasons, they (along with that perennial thug of imperialism: Israel) would have re-conquered Egypt in 1956, and that's just one example. Comparing the bourgeois states of Europe (of which the most "pink" member, Sweden, made a lot of money selling arms to apartheid) to Cuba (which sent thousands of Cubans to fight and die against apartheid in Angola with neither the promise nor the desire for any material gain) is simply outrageous.

Second, to echo someone more succinct than myself (De Leon, IIRC): socialism is not merely a list of improvements, it is a new system which yields as a result a list of improvements. Cuba's improvements came as a result of the expropriation of the capitalist class; Europe's "improvements" came as a result of concessions to strong trade unions.

[Jose Gracchus]

Cuba did not 'expropriate' the capitalist class; they were simply virtually all compradors nearly to the last man, and abandoned the country when the nationalists came to blows with the U.S., their real master, geopolitically. The State was obliged to assume management and ownership of the great majority of the enterprises.

Also, its hilarious to hear a Marcyite try to paraphrase DeLeon, if there could be someone who would disagree with your politics more emphatically.

EDIT (Yet more Manic Stupidity):


By that standard, I suppose we should declare that Lenin was not an "able revolutionary", either, as his time in office saw a far stronger "market" than anything Cuba's seen since the 50's.

O RLY? Post-Stalin-type central planning was only implemented in 62-63. The First Five Year Plan was in...1976. It also bears repeating none of the Cuban revolutionary leadership perceived themselves as leading a socialist revolution in 1959. The nationalizations were predominantly reactive, as discussed above.


Regardless, the proclamations of the return of the "market" in Cuba (perpetuated almost exclusively by those who opposed the Cuban government long before the reforms were announced) are pure sensationalism. Many of the reforms are promoting workers' cooperatives as a way to reduce dependence on a centralized state sector...others are aimed at self-employment. A shake-up was always going to be needed so long as Cuba remained under imperialist siege, but this does not mean socialism is defeated, it simply means socialism is capable of taking more than one specific form.

Self-employment means a regression toward petit bourgeois forms, as does cooperativization. Workers' cooperatives were implemented in the USSR under the pretense it was necessary where individual producers who had access to their own means of production had to be gradually assimilated. The Cuban State is actively encouraging the development of property relations. Since 1983, the private sector of employment has grown from 8% to 23% and growing faster than ever. It is quite difficult to distinguish between Raul's reforms and Gorbachevism or Dengism.

[manic expression]

Cuba did not 'expropriate' the capitalist class; they were simply virtually all compradors nearly to the last man, and abandoned the country when the nationalists came to blows with the U.S., their real master, geopolitically. The State was obliged to assume management and ownership of the great majority of the enterprises.
:lol: Yes, no expropriation, just one of those funny coincidences that private ownership disappeared.


Also, its hilarious to hear a Marcyite try to paraphrase DeLeon, if there could be someone who would disagree with your politics more emphatically.
Right...I'm particularly interested in that DeLeon writing in which he disagreed with Marcy's analysis of the 1956 situation in Hungary. :rolleyes: At least we know your sectarian microchip is still working.

[Jose Gracchus]

Given that DeLeonists do not support the USSR as a "workers' state", I think it is effortless to think they could not possibly have come down on the same side as Sam Marcy on Budapest 1956.

Do you think there is no difference qualitatively, in the social content of a change in management, where an active working is not present (nor even is your hallowed workers' vanguard), and the State, controlled largely by those without even socialist consciousness in the idealist sense (ideologically speaking), simply assuming management of abandoned enterprises? Does private property cease to exist at the cooperative restaurant or copy center down the street from my home? Do these forms at their heart not have generalized commodity production as their purpose, complete with profit-and-loss accounting? From the point of view of the laborer, does it matter whether his labor causes the profit of a State or private enterprise, in terms of social relations?

[flobdob]

If you support the revolution because of these gains, then why don't you support European Social Democracy as well? They made exactly the same 'gains', whilst relinquishing empire post-ww2, in the most part.

Because that's not true.

Whilst formal empires of European imperialist states were declining post WW2, it's totally another thing to act as if this was "relinquishing" imperialism. Britain and the other European imperialist powers fired up the engines of colonial plunder, rapidly increasing their overseas assets and investments before, during and following its abandonment of formal empire. I can't believe I have to repeat this on a leftist forum...

The "gains" of social democracy could only be paid for because of the plundering of the oppressed world. They were only paid for in face of mass civil unrest, an endemic capitalist crisis and the influence of the Soviet Union on working class politics. Ever since then they have been gradually eroded, to the point of the eventual tearing away that we see right now.

Cuba is however an underdeveloped country that made a socialist revolution, has been under siege by US imperialism since birth. It's not an imperialist country.

If you can't see a qualitative distinction between the two, then get your eyesight checked out.

[manic expression]

Given that DeLeonists do not support the USSR as a "workers' state", I think it is effortless to think they could not possibly have come down on the same side as Sam Marcy on Budapest 1956.
Oh, this is a fun game, let me try.... Given that Trotsky supported the USSR as a deformed workers' state, I think it is effortless to think he could not possibly have come down on the same side as Daniel DeLeon (I mean, you) on Hungary 1956.


Do you think there is no difference qualitatively, in the social content of a change in management, where an active working is not present (nor even is your hallowed workers' vanguard), and the State, controlled largely by those without even socialist consciousness in the idealist sense (ideologically speaking), simply assuming management of abandoned enterprises? Does private property cease to exist at the cooperative restaurant or copy center down the street from my home? Do these forms at their heart not have generalized commodity production as their purpose, complete with profit-and-loss accounting? From the point of view of the laborer, does it matter whether his labor causes the profit of a State or private enterprise, in terms of social relations?
Speak to the point for once. We're not looking at a cooperative copy center down the street, we're looking at a country that saw the general expropriation of an entire class. So yes, there is a qualitative difference. Namely, that the Cuban worker is not exploited...if they were, show me the individuals collecting on the profits (you can't, because there are no such positions in Cuban society). Related to this is the fact that Cuban workers are not hired and fired by capitalist bosses as all workers are in capitalist society. All told, the dynamics are entirely different because the structure is entirely different.

Your argument, on the other hand, is that all the Cuban capitalists just felt like leaving, and so "The State" took over because no one else was around to do the job. Did it ever occur to you that in a capitalist society, other capitalists would invariably step up to take the same positions? Did it ever dawn on you that "The State" doesn't take over the vast majority of industry and production simply because capitalists feel like moving to Miami? Apparently not.

[manic expression]

EDIT (Yet more Manic Stupidity):
Yep, your sectarian microchip is working just fine.


O RLY? Post-Stalin-type central planning was only implemented in 62-63. The First Five Year Plan was in...1976. It also bears repeating none of the Cuban revolutionary leadership perceived themselves as leading a socialist revolution in 1959. The nationalizations were predominantly reactive, as discussed above.Nationalization actually started in early 1959 and caused the US to retaliate with (wait for it) reactive measures. The agrarian reforms, which was about seizing the means of production in the countryside, were initiated in May of 1959. You certainly have a penchant for ignoring history.


It is quite difficult to distinguish between Raul's reforms and Gorbachevism or Dengism.Only to the politically numb. Tell you what, you show me how the Cuban reforms are actually like what Deng or Gorbachev instituted ("petit bourgeois forms lol" doesn't really count) and then I'll take your claims seriously. Have fun dealing with all those inconvenient and annoying facts.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

The "gains" of social democracy could only be paid for because of the plundering of the oppressed world. They were only paid for in face of mass civil unrest, an endemic capitalist crisis and the influence of the Soviet Union on working class politics. Ever since then they have been gradually eroded, to the point of the eventual tearing away that we see right now.

The workers of East Germany paid for the following progress and the reversal of flawed Soviet policies with blood and civil unrest (1953, etc). And more than anything the benefits of social-democracy were paid for by the labour of the workers of those states, that capitalists voluntary relinquished to quell the unrest and demands only for so long as was absolutely necessary (to secure long-term profits in a time of unrest). This was an idea that the capitalists and ruling classes had discussed amongst themselves before it was realised in both Scandinavia and Britain.


Cuba is however an underdeveloped country that made a socialist revolution, has been under siege by US imperialism since birth. It's not an imperialist country.Not really. It has been under siege from the U.S., but it is an imperialist country (part of capitalism). More innocent than many, but nevertheless. The revolution was not socialist but a broad and populist rebellion. Fidel didn't take to the idea of socialism until it become painfully obvious that whatever he was, the U.S. was not pleased, which made him turn to the Soviet Union and drape himself in red flags. This might even have been sincere, but nevertheless, the revolution was not socialist and at the very start there was not eve any pretence that it was.

For political realities and material reasons thus, Cuba came to regard itself socialist. For those same reasons, Cuba is now slowly and unavoidably (pending a true socialist revolution) is now regenerating to a "regular" capitalist state, slowly but surely.


Speak to the point for once. We're not looking at a cooperative copy center down the street, we're looking at a country that saw the general expropriation of an entire class. So yes, there is a qualitative difference. Namely, that the Cuban worker is not exploited...if they were, show me the individuals collecting on the profits (you can't, because there are no such positions in Cuban society). Related to this is the fact that Cuban workers are not hired and fired by capitalist bosses as all workers are in capitalist society. All told, the dynamics are entirely different because the structure is entirely different.The Cuban state is the capitalist boss. The structure is not different, and like that of the Soviet Union, which it emulates, it in itself emulates capitalist relations with the State as a mediator and central force instead. The state's income is from foreign hard currency (tourists) and primarily turn-over (profit) tax on enterprises and export balance, much like most states.

So when the Cuban state fires 150,000 workers and tell them to go be street charlatans and cycle taxi drivers and suck up to foreign tourists, tells them to get "self-employed", what is it? Progress? Socialism? Is it not merely the result of capitalism wrecking havoc on Cuba? Private farming? Encouraging "entrepreneurship" and "self-employment"?

The process is different because the process is different? Way to say nothing.


Your argument, on the other hand, is that all the Cuban capitalists just felt like leaving, and so "The State" took over because no one else was around to do the job. Did it ever occur to you that in a capitalist society, other capitalists would invariably step up to take the same positions? Did it ever dawn on you that "The State" doesn't take over the vast majority of industry and production simply because capitalists feel like moving to Miami? Apparently not. No, the state can, if the new ruling class forming sees fit, fill the role. They will then be the managers of the new singular state capitalist. There have surely been capitalists seeking to step up to the job, but it might have, for various reasons, including wanting to be on the good end of Soviet policies for benefits such as getting good deals for their sugar export, necessary to thwart that, so far. By now it is possible for small business to hire people. It is possible to buy and sell houses, making money that way. Raul Castro's presentations of those "reforms" are not socialist apart from that he says it is necessary to keep the socialism, which is a contradiction in terms.

[Jose Gracchus]

Oh, this is a fun game, let me try.... Given that Trotsky supported the USSR as a deformed workers' state, I think it is effortless to think he could not possibly have come down on the same side as Daniel DeLeon (I mean, you) on Hungary 1956.

Typical manic retard response. What was the actual material issue under discussion? Oh, right:


Right...I'm particularly interested in that DeLeon writing in which he disagreed with Marcy's analysis of the 1956 situation in Hungary. :rolleyes: At least we know your sectarian microchip is still working.

The issue at hand was the fact that it was fatuous and superficial to paraphrase some purported (since, as per usual, you never can give any proof to your claims, any source)throwaway platitude by Daniel DeLeon in support of Cuba, when DeLeonists came down on the USSR as a class society which exploits the working-class and works against the communist revolution. In other words, for your illiterate self, I'm saying you're a clown using cute quotes where the person you're supposedly quoting would never consider your usage appropriate or meaningful.

So who gives a shit about your bizarre and clueless tangent about Trotsky? What the fuck does that have to do with anything? I'm not the one using Hallmark card-level sloganeering to try and prove something. You did, and you had no idea what you were talking about (as usual).

You're easily and by far the least intellectually honest major user on this forum. What I find amazing is how you think anyone who hasn't gone through the Marcyite lobotomy could plausibly follow this feeble line of argument and not notice it makes no fucking sense.

Now that we have moved aside your de rigueur misdirection, goalpost changing, and other perennially dishonest debating tactics, we may move on:


Speak to the point for once. We're not looking at a cooperative copy center down the street, we're looking at a country that saw the general expropriation of an entire class. So yes, there is a qualitative difference. Namely, that the Cuban worker is not exploited...if they were, show me the individuals collecting on the profits (you can't, because there are no such positions in Cuban society).

So when exactly do proletarians in cooperatives stop being proletarians, when a magical percentage of the economy becomes state and cooperative in managerial form? Do internal social relations within the enterprise not matter at all?

As for the rest, since you yourself admit that private business is being allowed, than by definition there must be private property owners and exploiters on Cuban soil, even according to your superficial definition.


Related to this is the fact that Cuban workers are not hired and fired by capitalist bosses as all workers are in capitalist society. All told, the dynamics are entirely different because the structure is entirely different.

So if I'm a Cuban worker laid off and told to get "self-employed" shining boots for European bourgeois on vacation, or to bend over and let them fuck me in the ass for hard currency, because that's what the Comandante needs, its all good and fine because there's no shareholders on the other end of the apparatus depriving me of my livelihood? These reforms have real consequences in increasing the dependence of Cuban workers on remittances and service for foreign wealthy tourists.


Your argument, on the other hand, is that all the Cuban capitalists just felt like leaving, and so "The State" took over because no one else was around to do the job.

That is exactly what happened, no serious history of 1959-1961 in Cuba really disputes this. The Cuban capitalists left, as I pointed out, because nearly all of them were compradors who either worked directly on behalf of American or American-aligned international capital, or were otherwise dependent on it. Most of the middle management and specialists simply abandoned it too, once their sweetheart colonial pact with the U.S. was tits up under Castro. Where do you think those gusanos came from?


Did it ever occur to you that in a capitalist society, other capitalists would invariably step up to take the same positions? Did it ever dawn on you that "The State" doesn't take over the vast majority of industry and production simply because capitalists feel like moving to Miami? Apparently not.

What other capitalists? If a businessman shuts down his business, other businessmen cannot simply step up and say "its mine!" It makes less sense to think of Cuba 1959 as some mature and self-sustaining capitalist society on the same level as the U.S., when while it had always been characterized by capitalist relations, it has always been as a subordinate service zone for a more powerful capitalist metropole, first Spain, then the U.S. Also, under neoliberalism is has absolutely been a tendency toward capitalists shuttering enterprises and them laying completely fallow, without anyone stepping in. Where do you think the autogestion movement vis-a-vis abandoned factories in Argentina came from?

It is quite possible under the circumstances for most of the educated people and property-owners, usually tied into colonial or neo-colonial institutions, to simply abandon their nation when profit-making becomes even slightly less adequate due to unfavorable political leadership. You are looking at it the wrong way: these gusanos thought they would be gone for 6-18 months before Uncle Sam had the nationalist revolutionaries shot by some CIA front man like in Guatemala (Arbenz's regime was actually overtly reformist and pro-capitalist, and styled itself after FDR's New Deal, and its overthrow was the model for the Bahia de Cochinos emigre invasion).

This is qualitatively different from the socializations of Russia in 1917-18, and Spain 1936-37. In both of those cases, the mobilized, highly organized, and politically charged working class confronted their exploiters as a class, and directly expropriated their enterprises en masse. In both cases, this actually occurred in spite of the direction from the leadership--by far most Russian nationalizations occurred at the behest of local soviets and factory committees, often against the wishes of the Bolshevik leadership, which prior to the Civil War was concerned firstly with arresting the economic collapse, and not with immediate nationalization and socialization. Lenin and others actually envisioned a considerable intermediate period of 'worker-supervised capitalism' under soviet rule before steps were made toward real socialization.

In the case of Cuba, the working class was extremely passive, politically non-socialist or even anti-socialist (in 1959 the legacy of McCarthyism in Cuba was still quite considerable), and not mobilized as a class. They did not confront their bourgeois as a class. The self-styled workers' vanguard, the PSP--was a despised group of sell-outs which had even allowed themselves to enter Batista's cabinet prior to his repressing them. The majority of capitalists really did ditch Cuba, hoping for their daddy to reinstall them on more favorable basis soon after. Of course it didn't work out that way, and together with right-wing U.S. interests, subsequently imposed a permanent punitive trade regime on Cuba to teach their rabble a lesson, when they could not be reinstalled.

This isn't just some shit I've cooked up. Plenty of very sympathetic (far more than me) historians and socialists have described Cuban socialism as "socialism by accident".

Did it ever dawn on you you're way outside your element when it comes to discussing virtually every historical topic you've ever waded into?


Yep, your sectarian microchip is working just fine.

That's not what sectarian means. Calling you and your politics names is not what sectarianism means. It may be in poor taste, but by running around throwing words around you do not even understand the context of, you just sound and look like an intellectual impostor who wants to look redder-than-thou.


Nationalization actually started in early 1959 and caused the US to retaliate with (wait for it) reactive measures. The agrarian reforms, which was about seizing the means of production in the countryside, were initiated in May of 1959. You certainly have a penchant for ignoring history.

I know all this. You're changing the subject again. What was this all in reply to, again? Oh right:


By that standard, I suppose we should declare that Lenin was not an "able revolutionary", either, as his time in office saw a far stronger "market" than anything Cuba's seen since the 50's.

The NEP featured a mostly nationalized, yet market-coordinated, economy. So when I point out that central planning was not implemented proper until the 'mini-Stalinist' 62-63 years, and there was no FYP until the mid-70s, I am talking about precisely the alternative to 'the market' under Lenin, which is the centrally administered economy. Replying to this with B-B-B-BUT THEY NATIONALIZED STUFF EARLIER THAN THAT YO, doesn't mean anything, since as you pointed out, they had nationalization and markets under Lenin in the NEP from 1921 to 1928. Just because you have nationalizations does not mean your economy is centrally administered. Just ask all kinds of statist development regimes which were rightist throughout the 20th century. Your reply isn't wrong, it is simply irrelevent. I was not disputing whether they had not nationalized most of the economy, I was disputing that they had "less market than Lenin since the 50's", because you're wrong, and you have no idea what you're talking about.

Nice try changing the issue I corrected you on. Again, do you really think anyone else is dumb enough to not notice this? Do you think this is a really clever slight of hand? Or do you really not understand what is said?


Only to the politically numb. Tell you what, you show me how the Cuban reforms are actually like what Deng or Gorbachev instituted ("petit bourgeois forms lol" doesn't really count) and then I'll take your claims seriously. Have fun dealing with all those inconvenient and annoying facts.

Uh, all three leaders instituted wide-spread profit-and-loss accounting, allowed in more foriegn capital, increased the labor insecurity of the workforce, and introduced cooperative forms (which is a step backward from socialization, because it turns associated workers into formally property-holders). And this leads naturally to what follows afterward in the other two cases, and I'll bet money that it will follow in Cuba as well.

[manic expression]

Typical manic retard response. What was the actual material issue under discussion? Oh, right:

The issue at hand was the fact that it was fatuous and superficial to paraphrase some purported (since, as per usual, you never can give any proof to your claims, any source)throwaway platitude by Daniel DeLeon in support of Cuba,
So I take it you're not going to address what I actually wrote. Anyway, hope you're hungry, 'cause you're going to eat your words once again (http://www.marxists.org/archive/deleon/works/1908/081102.htm):

For it cannot be too strongly insisted that Socialism means but one thing, and that is the abolition of capital in private hands, and the turning over of the industries into the direct control of the workmen employed in them. Anything else is not Socialism, and has no right to sail under that name. Socialism is not the establishment of an eight-hour day, not the abolition of child labor, not the enforcement of the pure food laws, not the putting down of the Night Riders, or the enforcement of the 80-cent gas law. None of these, nor all of them together, are Socialism. They might all be done by the government tomorrow, and still we would not have Socialism. They are merely reforms of the present system, mere patches on the worn-out garment of industrial servitude, and are no more Socialism than the steam from a locomotive is the locomotive. Socialism is the collective ownership of the mechanical equipment of production which would bring in its wake all the other improvements in conditions above mentioned. But they are only the wake”Socialism is the vessel which must cast that wake, Socialism is the locomotive from which these betterments are the trails of steam.


So who gives a shit about your bizarre and clueless tangent about Trotsky? What the fuck does that have to do with anything?
You're easily and by far the least intellectually honest major user on this forum. What I find amazing is how you think anyone who hasn't gone through the Marcyite lobotomy could plausibly follow this feeble line of argument and not notice it makes no fucking sense.You say that since DeLeonists don't support the Soviet Union, that everything related to DeLeon disagrees with me.

I simply looked at the exact reverse of your logic: since Trotsky supported the Soviet Union, everything related to Trotsky disagrees with you.

I know you don't like it, but it's your "logic" at work. Funny how you're such a sectarian that you can't even stand your own arguments. :lol:


Now that we have moved aside your de rigueur misdirection, goalpost changing, and other perennially dishonest debating tactics,...says the poster who deliberately launched into a tangent over nothing but sectarian bitterness. :laugh::laugh::laugh: "You can't say that! DeLeonists don't agree with you on everything!" You're a class act all the way.


So when exactly do proletarians in cooperatives stop being proletarians, when a magical percentage of the economy becomes state and cooperative in managerial form? Do internal social relations within the enterprise not matter at all?We're not talking about an individual cooperative. Try again.


As for the rest, since you yourself admit that private business is being allowed,Except you're twisting my words. Show me an example of private business and we'll talk.


So if I'm a Cuban worker laid off and told to get "self-employed" shining boots for European bourgeois on vacation, or to bend over and let them fuck me in the ass for hard currency, because that's what the Comandante needs, its all good and fine because there's no shareholders on the other end of the apparatus depriving me of my livelihood? These reforms have real consequences in increasing the dependence of Cuban workers on remittances and service for foreign wealthy tourists.:lol: Yep, no shareholders and no capitalists involved, and yet you're trying to tell us that it's all capitalists and shareholders after all!

But go ahead, explain to me why socialist countries can't have tourism. Quite an internationalist opinion you're holding when travel between countries is something to be opposed.


That is exactly what happened, no serious history of 1959-1961 in Cuba really disputes this. The Cuban capitalists left, as I pointed out, because nearly all of them were compradors who either worked directly on behalf of American or American-aligned international capital, or were otherwise dependent on it. Most of the middle management and specialists simply abandoned it too, once their sweetheart colonial pact with the U.S. was tits up under Castro. Where do you think those gusanos came from?They left because they were expropriated. That's the whole point. That's why their positions weren't filled by new capitalists, as would happen in any capitalist society.


What other capitalists? If a businessman shuts down his business, other businessmen cannot simply step up and say "its mine!"Yes, other businessmen can and will...from within or without the company.


It is quite possible under the circumstances for most of the educated people and property-owners, usually tied into colonial or neo-colonial institutions, to simply abandon their nation when profit-making becomes even slightly less adequate due to unfavorable political leadership. You are looking at it the wrong way: these gusanos thought they would be gone for 6-18 months before Uncle Sam had the nationalist revolutionaries shot by some CIA front man like in Guatemala (Arbenz's regime was actually overtly reformist and pro-capitalist, and styled itself after FDR's New Deal, and its overthrow was the model for the Bahia de Cochinos emigre invasion).You keep missing the entire picture. The capitalists left...and no one replaced them because their positions had been liquidated.


In the case of Cuba, the working class was extremely passive, politically non-socialist or even anti-socialist (in 1959 the legacy of McCarthyism in Cuba was still quite considerable), and not mobilized as a class. They did not confront their bourgeois as a class.How do you explain the mass rally of June 1959, which featured tens of thousands of campesinos in support of the agrarian reforms?

The working class wasn't "passive". They were highly involved in the seizing of assets in both industry and in agriculture.


This isn't just some shit I've cooked up. Plenty of very sympathetic (far more than me) historians and socialists have described Cuban socialism as "socialism by accident".Yes. Cuba tripped, fell and landed on an economy and political system devoid of bourgeois influence.


Did it ever dawn on you you're way outside your element when it comes to discussing virtually every historical topic you've ever waded into?Did it ever dawn on you that you couldn't answer the question posed to you?


That's not what sectarian means.Going into a comically frenzied rant whenever I say anything you don't like isn't sectarianism? Well, there must be some other reason you froth at the mouth whenever I point out your habit of being entirely incorrect...perhaps you dislike people from the East Coast.


The NEP featured a mostly nationalized, yet market-coordinated, economy. So when I point out that central planning was not implemented proper until the 'mini-Stalinist' 62-63 years, and there was no FYP until the mid-70s, I am talking about precisely the alternative to 'the market' under Lenin, which is the centrally administered economy. Replying to this with B-B-B-BUT THEY NATIONALIZED STUFF EARLIER THAN THAT YO, doesn't mean anything, since as you pointed out, they had nationalization and markets under Lenin in the NEP from 1921 to 1928. Just because you have nationalizations does not mean your economy is centrally administered. Just ask all kinds of statist development regimes which were rightist throughout the 20th century. Your reply isn't wrong, it is simply irrelevent. I was not disputing whether they had not nationalized most of the economy, I was disputing that they had "less market than Lenin since the 50's", because you're wrong, and you have no idea what you're talking about.You're not even addressing the meat of the issue. What's important to establish is that the USSR in the 20's was going away from a centralized economy whereas Cuba from 1959 went towards it. And yes, as Cuba entered the 60's it was getting rid of market dynamics...that was what you failed to comprehend.


Uh, all three leaders instituted wide-spread profit-and-loss accounting, allowed in more foriegn capital, increased the labor insecurity of the workforce, and introduced cooperative forms (which is a step backward from socialization, because it turns associated workers into formally property-holders). And this leads naturally to what follows afterward in the other two cases, and I'll bet money that it will follow in Cuba as well.You basically described a great deal of what Lenin did.

Cooperative forms needn't always go in such a direction. Cuba's reforms are designed to avoid such pitfalls, and as already explained they've been extensively discussed and criticized among the Cuban working class.

So again, show me exactly how you make the comparison, not just some vague "lol fourin capitul lolz" nonsense you're so fond of.

[Jose Gracchus]

So I take it you're not going to address what I actually wrote. Anyway, hope you're hungry, 'cause you're going to eat your words once again (http://www.marxists.org/archive/deleon/works/1908/081102.htm):

For it cannot be too strongly insisted that Socialism means but one thing, and that is the abolition of capital in private hands, and the turning over of the industries into the direct control of the workmen employed in them. Anything else is not Socialism, and has no right to sail under that name. Socialism is not the establishment of an eight-hour day, not the abolition of child labor, not the enforcement of the pure food laws, not the putting down of the Night Riders, or the enforcement of the 80-cent gas law. None of these, nor all of them together, are Socialism. They might all be done by the government tomorrow, and still we would not have Socialism. They are merely reforms of the present system, mere patches on the worn-out garment of industrial servitude, and are no more Socialism than the steam from a locomotive is the locomotive. Socialism is the collective ownership of the mechanical equipment of production which would bring in its wake all the other improvements in conditions above mentioned. But they are only the wake”Socialism is the vessel which must cast that wake, Socialism is the locomotive from which these betterments are the trails of steam.

You say that since DeLeonists don't support the Soviet Union, that everything related to DeLeon disagrees with me.

I simply looked at the exact reverse of your logic: since Trotsky supported the Soviet Union, everything related to Trotsky disagrees with you.

I know you don't like it, but it's your "logic" at work. Funny how you're such a sectarian that you can't even stand your own arguments. :lol:

You're a moron. Regardless of how that quote sounds in isolation, DeLeon and his successors did not and would not consider Cuba to be socialism, and so it is contextually irrelevant. Just as if I plucked Trotsky quotes out of thin air to justify something, despite knowing contextually he would not possibly support my point, I would be a dishonest fuck just like you. I think you really are a sad testament to the education PSL does of their cadre. I disagree with lots of Stalinists, but very few give me the impression they have no idea how critical thinking, research, or logic actually functions.

This is a waste of my time. No one who isn't already eating at your trough would possibly take your debating attempt here seriously. Feel free to make some trite LOL MICROCHIPS LOL SECTARIANISM LOL remarks to your heart's content.

[manic expression]

Not really. It has been under siege from the U.S., but it is an imperialist country (part of capitalism).
Oh? Then you'd do well to illustrate the imperialist foundation of Cuban society and the imperialist direction of its state. I'll wait.


The Cuban state is the capitalist boss. The structure is not different, and like that of the Soviet Union, which it emulates, it in itself emulates capitalist relations with the State as a mediator and central force instead. The state's income is from foreign hard currency (tourists) and primarily turn-over (profit) tax on enterprises and export balance, much like most states.
It would be some funny "capitalist boss" that is controlled directly by the working class (http://www.cubaminrex.cu/English/61CDH/Complete%20texts/Cuba%B4s%20Political%20and%20Elections%20System.ht m). It would be even more interesting if that "capitalist boss" didn't exploit workers, since that presupposes commodity production, which you haven't shown us any evidence of.

But then, it wouldn't be a "capitalist boss" at all.


So when the Cuban state fires 150,000 workers and tell them to go be street charlatans and cycle taxi drivers and suck up to foreign tourists, tells them to get "self-employed", what is it? Progress? Socialism? Is it not merely the result of capitalism wrecking havoc on Cuba? Private farming? Encouraging "entrepreneurship" and "self-employment"?
Stop the sensationalism: positions are being offered to those workers. Saying that they're "fired" is misleading and intentionally so. Many of those "fired" don't have work but are still on the state payroll, and so it's a matter of finding them work, which is in most cases going to be part of the centrally-planned economy. Being self-employed (a very small number in Cuba, let's not forget) is not a contradiction of socialist relations. Neither is tourism that you seem to have some sort of disdain for.

So no, it's not the result of capitalism but the result of socialism modifying its structure because of the havoc caused by imperialism upon it.


The process is different because the process is different? Way to say nothing.
The process is different because you can't tell me a single person in Cuba who privately owns a factory and directly employs the workers who work there.

Way to see nothing.


No, the state can, if the new ruling class forming sees fit, fill the role. They will then be the managers of the new singular state capitalist. There have surely been capitalists seeking to step up to the job, but it might have, for various reasons, including wanting to be on the good end of Soviet policies for benefits such as getting good deals for their sugar export, necessary to thwart that, so far. By now it is possible for small business to hire people. It is possible to buy and sell houses, making money that way. Raul Castro's presentations of those "reforms" are not socialist apart from that he says it is necessary to keep the socialism, which is a contradiction in terms.
Ramblings of an overactive imagination. In addition to your sensationalism on the reforms (no one's allowed to own more than one home, so it's a matter of switching housing with others in an easier fashion; family-run restaurants, for example, are not examples of exploitation) the most ridiculous part of your assertion is that the "new capitalists" wanted to get good sugar deals with the Soviet Union. You are aware that the US and Cuba had some sort of sugar deals in place before that point, right? Why would they want to switch? I suppose you're back to Jose Gracchus' genius formulation: Cuba tripped, fell and landed on a state-run economy.

[Jose Gracchus]

There you have it everyone: socialism by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels boils down to the reification of managerial forms, and the consolidation of the role of the state vis-a-vis the economy and society. State runs most (not even all!) enterprises? Hires most people?: WORKERS HAVE WON!

The sad thing is I think these people really believe that having the PSL run the U.S. federal government and it declare "all your enterprises are belong to us!" would actually work and function, that a Soviet-style mobilization/extensive-development economy (essentially the war economy in peacetime) could be used to run a modern economy of the kind you find in Japan, Western Europe, or North America. Only someone with no historical knowledge of the real context and operation of historical centrally-administered economies would think this. I guess the correct line for SOCIALISM in 1945 was simply to keep the wartime economy, and invite some commiehz in to do some more of the paperwork, instead of Goodyear and Ford management.

Here's a riddle for manic clueless: Was the "Burmese Road to Socialism" a dictatorship of the proletariat? Was it socialism? The state centralized management and juridicial ownership of all concerns, and formed a central economic administration, together with Five Year Plans.

[manic expression]

There you have it everyone: socialism by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels boils down to the reification of managerial forms, and the consolidation of the role of the state vis-a-vis the economy and society. State runs most (not even all!) enterprises? Hires most people?: WORKERS HAVE WON!
Workers won when the capitalists were expropriated (something you haven't even tried to address), workers won when property was collectivized.

Yes, the state runs the vast majority of production. The rest is restricted to self-employment and small regulated cooperatives. And? Does that mean there's a capitalist class? No, it does not, but don't let that get in the way of a good anti-socialist rant.

You say that state control is not, in and of itself, socialism. Fine then, but that it is not in and of itself socialism does not mean it is not part of socialism. When you comprehend that, I'll know you're worth taking seriously.


The sad thing is I think these people really believe that having the PSL run the U.S. federal government and it declare "all your enterprises are belong to us!" would actually work and function, that a Soviet-style mobilization/extensive-development economyObviously you have no idea what you're talking about. US society is not a Soviet-style anything, much less a centrally-planned economy, and so having one party (even a genuine socialist party, a concept I know is alien to you) take control over it would not change those facts. Expropriation would be necessary, the establishment of a working-class state would be required. Both these things you heave and haw to avoid when it comes to Cuba, probably because you don't have an answer.


Here's a riddle for manic clueless: Was the "Burmese Road to Socialism" a dictatorship of the proletariat?Not at all. Here's a riddle for Jose Can'tthinkofanythingsmarttosay: are you saying that Cuba is seriously comparable to Burma? Well, then, quite the materialist are you! Why not compare it to King Louis XIV while you're at it, and really let your materialist credentials shine! :laugh:

If that fails, maybe you can go ahead and call me "retarded" again...that'll show me. :lol:

[Jose Gracchus]

Just answer the question. All the qualities you define as socialism are present in the Burmese Road to Socialism. Why isn't it socialist? There were no lawful private businesses.

[manic expression]

Just answer the question. All the qualities you define as socialism are present in the Burmese Road to Socialism. Why isn't it socialist? There were no lawful private businesses.
Ah, so you're saying that Burmese workers controlled the state through genuine working-class democracy?

I did mention that as a quality of socialism, after all.