Fidel Castro

[implodings]

Hello, I'm new to the forum.
So, I've seen that a lot of people on here really support Fidel Castro, and I don't exactly understand why?
My history with Fidel was that my grandfather, Antonio del Conde, helped him obtain La Granma, and then went off to work with him in Cuba. When he was there, he then sent for his entire family, including my mother...
What I've heard from family discussions and what I've read from my mother's book was that Fidel treated his inner-circle completely differently than the way he treated Cuban civilians.
Hiring my incompetent grandfather and giving him a position in his government (in the National Institute for Agrarian Reform), letting Cubans live under miserable conditions all the while giving my grandfather a mansion to live in (which used to belong to rich Americans), and incarcerating homosexuals just make me squirm at the mention of him... I just don't see how he was a good socialist leader...
He had a private, well-stocked supermarket that he reserved for foreign workers (my family included), he also had a private farm, etc.
What in your opinion made him a good leader?

P.S.
Just so that you don't think I'm a liar, here are a few pictures of my family with Fidel or in Cuba
oh... never mind I can't post pictures yet

[Die Rote Fahne]

Of course Fidel treated his inner circle better. It comes with the extremely ultra-centralist territory that is Stalinism. They form their own cliques within the upper ranks in the party, and begin to care about that clique, as opposed to the worker. I have the same issue with Lenin, though his centralism may have been a lot, according to my own opinion, it was nothing compared to Stalinist centralism.

Now, this befell Hoxha, Stalin and Mao much more than Castro I believe, but it still occurred.

The ideology of Marxism-Leninism has failed. The power of decision making has to be in the hands of the entire party, with full recallability by the people. The central committee's role should be one of leadership and guidance within the party ranks, and not top-down decision making, and control.

[Broletariat]

He wasn't a Socialist, just another leader of a Capitalist nation.

[Luc]

I imagine most of the Castro supporters are so for anti-imperialist reasons. I'm not so I can't really expand beyond that.

[OhYesIdid]

You guys are being rather unfair, IMHO. To paraphrase Redstar 2000, if you think living conditions in Cuba are bad, take a look at Haiti, or Jamaica, or most of the Antillas. Living conditions blare much better under Castro than what they were before. You should also take into account the massive Embargo they have endured for so long. Colonialist-minded people go on about the embargo beig Castro's fault, but as far as I know Castro has done nothing if not negotiate all these years, the USA wants to make an example of the Cuban Revolution. I do think it is remarkable how long the people of Cuba have endured this without rising up against Castro out of desperation, as common sense says they would.
Leninism is the breeding ground of dictatorships. IMHO, Kruschev's bureaucratic order is preferable to any Stalin, Mao, or Castro in the world.

[Broletariat]

You guys are being rather unfair, IMHO. To paraphrase Redstar 2000, if you think living conditions in Cuba are bad, take a look at Haiti, or Jamaica, or most of the Antillas. Living conditions blare much better under Castro than what they were before. You should also take into account the massive Embargo they have endured for so long. Colonialist-minded people go on about the embargo beig Castro's fault, but as far as I know Castro has done nothing if not negotiate all these years, the USA wants to make an example of the Cuban Revolution. I do think it is remarkable how long the people of Cuba have endured this without rising up against Castro out of desperation, as common sense says they would.
Leninism is the breeding ground of dictatorships. IMHO, Kruschev's bureaucratic order is preferable to any Stalin, Mao, or Castro in the world.

All I see is a Capitalist nation and a leader of aforementioned nation.

Good intentions don't matter too much to me, just material conditions.

[OhYesIdid]

All I see is a Capitalist nation and a leader of aforementioned nation.

Good intentions don't matter too much to me, just material conditions.

Same here, we're all materialists, no? Living standards in Cuba are undeniably better than those on neighboring countries. Look, I'm no Stalinist apologist, I'll be the first one to denounce bureaucratic pseudo-capitalistic dictatorships. However, one cannOt just ignore all real, objective progress just because it's not radical enough. In part, I'm just playing devil's advocate, but I find that Castro and the Cuban Revolution In general gets a bad enough rap without being granted elsifficient credit.

[promethean]

IMHO, Kruschev's bureaucratic order is preferable to any Stalin, Mao, or Castro in the world.

Same here, we're all materialists, no? Living standards in Cuba are undeniably better than those on neighboring countries. Look, I'm no Stalinist apologist, I'll be the first one to denounce bureaucratic pseudo-capitalistic dictatorships. However, one cannOt just ignore all real, objective progress just because it's not radical enough. In part, I'm just playing devil's advocate, but I find that Castro and the Cuban Revolution In general gets a bad enough rap without being granted elsifficient credit.You may think so, but the working class in the former Soviet Union did not and the same goes for the 'socialist' states of today. Essentially, except for Stalinist and Trotskyist apologists for the former Soviet Union, no one else thinks it is preferable (I am not accusing you of being one). The working class in the former Stalinist countries did not revolt against the reforms of Gorbachev, after which 'socialism' was officially abandoned. If there was no revolt against the overthrowing of this order, how can you argue that Soviet workers in fact preferred the bureaucratic order against the new market capitalist order? Most workers probably just saw the regime change as old bosses being replaced by new bosses. The same goes for every other Stalinist state that dissolved itself and made their economies accessible to the world market. I am sure that if the ruling class of Cuba, North Korea or any other isolationist autarkist state parading itself as a 'socialist' state decide its time to change to a market capitalist regime, there would be very little protest from the working class in those countries, in spite of all the endless apologia for these states from Stalinists and Trotskyists.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

It's quite well known in Cuba that Fidel Castro lives modestly, relative to probably every other leader/former leader of a nation on earth. Undoubtedly, he was/is a Leninist (perhaps through a mixture of conviction and realpolitik necessity) and his centralising ways meant that the central organs of the state amassed a great deal of power. Cuba is no egalitarian dream, in terms of power relationships.

Having said that, the Cuban system has worked relatively well, for the majority, and without an overwhelming Stalin-style repression or mass murder. The Cuban model, however, is for Cuba. I don't believe it is exportable or scaleable at all. It's a quirk, and perhaps that's why I have a soft spot for it. Cubans live better than almost any other 3rd world nation and, when Fidel Castro told Batista's arseholes, "Condemn me, it is of no importance, History will absolve me", he may have a point. Cuba is slowly succumbing to full-blown Capitalism and it may well be a case of 'the grass is greener', for ordinary Cubans. I know a lot of them have been hit hard in recent years simply by the expansion of the tourist industry and the dual currency problem, combined with the 'special period' post-USSR collapse.

[Tim Finnegan]

I think the reason that Cuba tends to garner so much sympathy even from the usual opponents of Marxism-Leninism is that the ideological veneer was always rather thin, and the truth of the Castroist project, a sort of Jacobin welfarism, is more apparent, and so more easily sympathised with in itself. It allows the Marxist-Leninist model to be approached as a variant of social democracy, a connection which many seem unwilling to make for fear that this would concede something to nattering reactionaries, and to be evaluated as such.

Of course, as Promethean quite rightly observes, whether this breed of left-nationalism is actually deserving of any sympathy is another matter altogether.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

I don't think the issue here is sympathy. Sympathy doesn't really have anything to do with support. Well, only in a loose, correlational sense.

The truth is that Fidel Castro was not really a committed Leninist pre-revolution; it seems obvious to me that his marriage to the ideology of the USSR was one of necessity, combined with his own ideas for welfarism, as you say.

In many ways, it is the precursor to Chavez's brand of bolivarian left-nationalism, though we must of course be careful to stress that it's not nationalism in the jingoistic sense, at all. It's more righteous anti-imperialism.

[Art Vandelay]

I have always been a big supporter of Che and Fidel and upon getting interested into politics and the revolutionary left I began my studies at the Cuban Revolution. I would go into greater detail if we wish to have a bigger discussion on the merits of the revolution, but simply put, even as an anarchist, I can say that what Fidel did with Cuba was nothing short of amazing given his circumstances. Were there mistakes? Of course. Would this be the type of revolution I want or the results I would like to see. Absolutely not. But it would be nothing short of lies to say that the average Cuban citizen has not benefited from Fidel's regime.

[Tim Finnegan]

I have always been a big supporter of Che and Fidel and upon getting interested into politics and the revolutionary left I began my studies at the Cuban Revolution. I would go into greater detail if we wish to have a bigger discussion on the merits of the revolution, but simply put, even as an anarchist, I can say that what Fidel did with Cuba was nothing short of amazing given his circumstances. Were there mistakes? Of course. Would this be the type of revolution I want or the results I would like to see. Absolutely not. But it would be nothing short of lies to say that the average Cuban citizen has not benefited from Fidel's regime.
One could make quite the same claim about Louis Napoleon, which suggests to me that it is not in itself an altogether usual measure.

[Art Vandelay]

One could make quite the same claim about Louis Napoleon, which suggests to me that it is not in itself an altogether usual measure.

Well like I said did Fidel make mistakes? Of course. Obviously as we see the beginnings, although I hope not, of Cuba being on the road to the restoration of capital the revolution will probably not last to see the new revolutionary wave which I think will be coming in our lifetime. However, given what Fidel had to work with, as well as the fact that it is really the only "socialist" country left, the results have been remarkable. Not to mention that he has stared down Yankee imperialism for over half a century never budging and even fighting off a attempted invasion. Like I said this was not true communist revolution, however given the real life alternatives that the Cuban people would have faced without Fidel, this was clearly their best case scenario. There is a reason that Cubans adore the man.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

We aren't seeing the beginnings of Cuba being on the road to the restoration of capital. We are in the middle phase of that now, and it looks as though the PCC have gone far enough that, short of a workers' uprising (which is highly unlikely), they are unlikely to be able to rein in burgeoining free-market.

Essentially, Cuba has been, for about 20 years, operating a dual system, with the underground market (a la izquierda, literally - on the left, ironically!) undermining the official economy. With the introduction of the dual currency and the banning of dollars, the Cuban government entrenched the financial capital end of this system, whereby it was officially declared that all those who had access to convertible pesos would, essentially, be far, far better off than ordinary Cubans on national pesos (20-25 times better off, in fact, since prices didn't alter along with currency!). Since there, it's all been downhill, i'm afraid.

[thesadmafioso]

ideological fetishists hatin


some ideological fetishists also lovin


yeah but they're on my side so

Alright comrades, lets try to keep the rim shots to a minimum and try to stay on topic here.

[Inner Peace]

Every "leader" did make some good things and some bad thing,what are we going to do we are only human
and in the future we should rely learn from their mistakes and try to fix them

[Geiseric]

Well Cuba is moving towards privatisation as we speak, it's moving towards capitalism. the progress they made from being basically a U.S. imperialised 3rd world country to a deformed workers state is substantial, however every decision the beuracracy makes doesn't come from any sort of workers organisation, so I would support a genuine workers revolution in the future capitalist cuba.

[Rooster]

Well like I said did Fidel make mistakes? Of course.

Incidentally, that's one of the main problems with Cuba and any other marxist-leninist state. The political control of the economy and country is not in the hands of the workers and everything is at the whim of the party.

[leemadison11]

I can see only one instance about why there are such big supporters of Fidel Castro, people who hate United States of America would be the biggest supporters of him cause he hates US more than anyone on this planet.