Cuba [Archive] - RevLeft

Lei Feng

31st March 2012, 20:24

Cuba, as it currently exists, is still a Socialist Republic. It has liberalized some aspects of society such as private businesses(as long as they don't employ other people/self management). And yes, Castro and Che are still highly revered in Cuba as heroes of the Revolution. It'd be like if you(assuming you live in the USA) talked crap about George Washington, Ben Franklin, or Thomas Jefferson here.

However, you are correct that abolishing the state would result in making cuba a "mafia playground" again as it was before the revolution. The State in its current form is necessary in Cuba as an apparatus to protect against Counter-Revolution from the inside as well as foreign threats. For the most part, the state does represent the will of the people(although with some government bureaucrats here and there...but that exists in any government: Proletarian or Bourgeois). Voting age is 16 and elections take place for local representatives and the like. It is a lot more "grassroots-ish" democracy than there is in the USA.

Concerning how there could be major improvements: First thing is first, Socialism can exist in one country, but it is necessary to build up a Communist Front with other Socialist nations(which Che helped try to achieve by exporting revolution to other countries). The reason for some of these market oriented economic reforms is due to the lack of sufficient outside aid. Cuba is a small country, with limited resources. And, like all countries, needs to trade. However, solving some of the more internal problems: the must be a better focus on adherence to Marxism-Leninism, via education, the media, etc. I wouldnt say it needs to be more "authoritarian", but it needs to carry out campaigns to maintain the revolutionary spirit(in the case of Mao, the cultural revolution, but learn from its mistakes) and oust party bureaucrats.

All in all, I believe Cuba is still a very Progressive Society but it just needs to bring back the old revolutionary fervor that was present back in the 60s.

Grenzer

31st March 2012, 20:30

Caj

31st March 2012, 20:43

Cuba, as it currently exists, is still a Socialist Republic.

As if there is any such thing as a "socialist republic". Socialism is stateless.

State in its current form is necessary in Cuba as an apparatus to protect against Counter-Revolution from the inside as well as foreign threats.

And don't forget its role in maintaining bourgeois rule and the exploitation that it entails.

For the most part, the state does represent the will of the people(although with some government bureaucrats here and there...but that exists in any government: Proletarian or Bourgeois).

Who the fuck are "the people"? What is this, the fucking French Revolution? Communists don't give a fuck about this mythical entity known as "the people", but about the proletariat.

"[S]ome government bureaucrats here and there"? Hell, let's just apply that logic to bourgeois society as a whole. "It's ok, guys. The bourgeoisie exploits us, but they're only 'here and there,' if you know what I mean." Ridiculous.

Voting age is 16 and elections take place for local representatives and the like. It is a lot more "grassroots-ish" democracy than there is in the USA.

This doesn't change the fact that "democracy" under bourgeois rule is a fraud.

First thing is first, Socialism can exist in one country,

Oh, really? Let's see what Engels said about that:

— 19 —
Will it be possible for this revolution to take place in one country alone?

No. By creating the world market, big industry has already brought all the peoples of the Earth, and especially the civilized peoples, into such close relation with one another that none is independent of what happens to the others.

Further, it has co-ordinated the social development of the civilized countries to such an extent that, in all of them, bourgeoisie and proletariat have become the decisive classes, and the struggle between them the great struggle of the day. It follows that the communist revolution will not merely be a national phenomenon but must take place simultaneously in all civilized countries – that is to say, at least in England, America, France, and Germany.

It will develop in each of these countries more or less rapidly, according as one country or the other has a more developed industry, greater wealth, a more significant mass of productive forces. Hence, it will go slowest and will meet most obstacles in Germany, most rapidly and with the fewest difficulties in England. It will have a powerful impact on the other countries of the world, and will radically alter the course of development which they have followed up to now, while greatly stepping up its pace.

It is a universal revolution and will, accordingly, have a universal range.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/11/prin-com.htm

solving some of the more internal problems: the must be a better focus on adherence to Marxism-Leninism, via education, the media, etc. I wouldnt say it needs to be more "authoritarian", but it needs to carry out campaigns to maintain the revolutionary spirit(in the case of Mao, the cultural revolution, but learn from its mistakes) and oust party bureaucrats.

Yep, the problems facing Cuba stem from a lack of "adherence to Marxism-Leninism", not from like the material conditions that exist and have necessitated Cuba's situation. I mean, we all know ideas precede matter. :rolleyes:

All in all, I believe Cuba is still a very Progressive Society but it just needs to bring back the old revolutionary fervor that was present back in the 60s.

The bourgeoisie is no longer a progressive class. Cuba doesn't need to "bring back the old revoutionary fervor" from the bourgeois revolution that brought the current regime to power; rather, the Cuban proletariat must take state power in its own revolution to create a truly progressive society.

daft punk

31st March 2012, 20:45

daft punk

31st March 2012, 20:49

It's been a bourgeois dictatorship since its inception.
No. That is just silly. Castro ended up nationalising most stuff and the bourgeois got fed up with him pretty quick.

Look, the Stalinists have a fairly good reason to write a load of bollocks, but you should be capable of showing more objectivity, but do you do that? Sadly, no.

Caj

31st March 2012, 20:51

No. That is just silly. Castro ended up nationalising most stuff and the bourgeois got fed up with him pretty quick.

Look, the Stalinists have a fairly good reason to write a load of bollocks, but you should be capable of showing more objectivity, but do you do that? Sadly, no.

Objectivity? That's hilarious considering that you call Cuba a "deformed workers' state". It's not any kind of working state as the workers don't hold state power. Nationalization is not the DotP. Workers' power is.

Lei Feng

31st March 2012, 20:55

A socialist republic is a contradiction in terms since socialism is a classless, stateless society. A workers' republic might be possible, but it wouldn't be socialism, and it still wouldn't describe Cuba which is a bourgeois dictatorship. It's been a bourgeois dictatorship since its inception. The "revolution" was spear-headed by the petit-bourgeoisie who co-opted the peasants to overthrow the Batista regime. Castro initially wanted to form an alliance with the United States, but was rebuffed. It was only after that that he threw his chips in with the Soviet Union and nationalized businesses(a process which was not total, by the way). Only one entirely ignorant of the facts could call Cuba socialist, or anything approaching it.

With that said, Castro seems like a cool guy.

Firstly, if you are a Marxist of any sort, you would understand that Socialist Republic is not a contradiction in terms. Socialism is not a "classless,stateless society", Communism is. Socialism is the historical phase/development toward the aforementioned classless/statelss society. Socialism is a Society achieved after Capitalism has been overthrown and the state exists continuing the revolution toward communism. A Republic is a style of Government. A society can, therefore, be run using both of those elements(in the case of Cuba).

And yes, nationalizing businesses does not make a country socialist, but having a majority of the means of production in state hands managed by workers/having workers have a say in the workplace, is Socialist.

And to say that the Cuban Revolution was not genuinely a Revolution is a completely biased statement. It was indeed a revolution which recieved mass support from the peasantry(the majority) and overthrew a corrupt US backed puppet mafia regime.

daft punk

31st March 2012, 20:56

Objectivity? That's hilarious considering that you call Cuba a "deformed workers' state". It's not any kind of working state as the workers don't hold state power. Nationalization is not the DotP. Workers' power is.

Different meaning of the phrase workers state, in this usage, it simply means the economy was nationalised so there is no capitalist class.

If Cuba kicked out the bureaucracy and had democracy it would be sort of socialist. That only requires a political revolution, not a social one, as there is no bourgeoisie, only a bureaucracy which does not actually own the means of production legally.

Grenzer

31st March 2012, 20:57

daft punk

31st March 2012, 20:58

This should be good, Stalinists vs left coms. :)

Caj

31st March 2012, 21:01

Firstly, if you are a Marxist of any sort, you would understand that Socialist Republic is not a contradiction in terms. Socialism is not a "classless,stateless society", Communism is.

You do realize that Marx used these terms synonymously, right? I'm sure if you were "a Marxist of any sort", "you would understand" this.

Socialism is the historical phase/development toward the aforementioned classless/statelss society. Socialism is a Society achieved after Capitalism has been overthrown and the state exists continuing the revolution toward communism. A Republic is a style of Government. A society can, therefore, be run using both of those elements(in the case of Cuba).

You're describing the DotP, not socialism.

And yes, nationalizing businesses does not make a country socialist, but having a majority of the means of production in state hands managed by workers/having workers have a say in the workplace, is Socialist.

Replace "Socialist" with proletarian dictatorship and this would make sense. Still, this description is far from the situation in Cuba.

And to say that the Cuban Revolution was not genuinely a Revolution is a completely biased statement. It was indeed a revolution which recieved mass support from the peasantry(the majority) and overthrew a corrupt US backed puppet mafia regime.

I don't think anybody said it wasn't a genuine revolution. It was. It's just that it was a bourgeois revolution.

Tim Cornelis

31st March 2012, 21:01

Firstly, if you are a Marxist of any sort

If you were a Marxist of any sort you would recognise that wage labour are capitalist relations of production, and therefore Cuba has a capitalist mode of production.

Wage labour is when the means of production (advanced in this stage) are owned by a privileged elite (e.g. state or private individuals), while the working class only own their labour-power and are therefore compelled to sell their labour-power to the owner of means of production.

In Cuba labour-power is subject to buying and selling, and therefore a commodity, and therefore wage labour exists.

Just because the state has nationalised the means of production does not mean it abolished wage labour. This should suffice to prove that wage labour, and therefore capitalist relations of production, exist in Cuba.

First stage: The capitalist appears as a buyer on the commodity- and the labour-market; his money is transformed into commodities, or it goes through the circulation act M — C.

It depends what you call a "labour market". If a corporation transfers labour from one branch to another clearly two branches are buying labour-power, but labour-power remains with the same employer. A similar scenario is when the state owns all branches, the worker is still compelled to sell his labour-power to an employer--i.e. wage labour. You could qualify this as "labour market" since there is buying and selling of labour-power despite the lack of competition between workers. Essentially markets are about exchange, and not about competition. In a market economy exchange is subject to competition, what we call a market. When the state nationalises, so to speak, exchange, "markets" technically still persist. There is still exchange of labour-power, it is bought and sold, but since there is only one buyer and only one employer to sell labour-power to there is no competition and thus no 'market'.

Second Stage: Productive consumption of the purchased commodities by the capitalist. He acts as a capitalist producer of commodities; his capital passes through the process of production. The result is a commodity of more value than that of the elements entering into its production.

True. Added value, etc. etc. Has nothing to do with wage labour in any case.

Third Stage: The capitalist returns to the market as a seller; his commodities are turned into money; or they pass through the circulation act C — M.

Also true. C-M-C, or C-M in this example, means the capitalist (in Cuba, the state) sells commodities (In Cuba's example these are state sanctioned and manufactured commodities/products), the money is then use to buy labour-power (a commodity since it's subject to exchange--it is bought and sold). Therefore commodities of the employer (Cuban state) pass through circulation act C-M.

forr the most part, the state does represent the will of the people(although with some government bureaucrats here and there...but that exists in any government: Proletarian or Bourgeois). Voting age is 16 and elections take place for local representatives and the like. It is a lot more "grassroots-ish" democracy than there is in the USA.

democracy in Cuba, as in any Marxist-Leninist state, does not translate well in practice. Candidates are pre-sanctioned by the leadership of the Communist Party and Committees to Defend the Revolution before being allowed to run. The influence the Cuban workers have on municipal affairs is therefore already limited. But since most of the policies are decided at the national level, which is even less democratic, the workers have virtually no say with the exception of some trivial matters.

critics argue that these local elections candidates are nominated in open meetings run by the CDR (Committees to Defend the Revolution) that are closely linked to police and security forces. They report and sanction dissent. Prison terms of 4 years threaten those that openly oppose the regime in that public meeting filled with informants. People not supporting can be threatened with losing their home and jobs." and "The nomination of candidates for election to the Municipal Assemblies is done by nominating assemblies, in which all voters are entitled to propose candidates. In practice, however, these district assemblies are usually organized by the Committees for the Defence of the Revolution or the Communist Party, which makes the selection of an opponent of the regime most unlikely.

(source (]http://www.cubaverdad.net/iachr_cuba_elections.htm))

Cuba is neither a workers' state nor does it have a socialist mode of production. It is a bourgeois dictatorship that dresses itself in socialist rhetoric.

Different meaning of the phrase workers state, in this usage, it simply means the economy was nationalised so there is no capitalist class.

Nationalisation means the state has become the capitalist (unless wage labour is abolished).

Caj

31st March 2012, 21:03

Different meaning of the phrase workers state, in this usage, it simply means the economy was nationalised so there is no capitalist class.

If Cuba kicked out the bureaucracy and had democracy it would be sort of socialist. That only requires a political revolution, not a social one, as there is no bourgeoisie, only a bureaucracy which does not actually own the means of production legally.

The economy can be nationalized and the bourgeoisie can still exist. Surplus value is still extracted from the working class and the producer class is still completely alienated from the means of production in Cuba.

daft punk

31st March 2012, 21:04

Cuba isn't a deformed workers' state, no such thing exists. It flies completely in the face of material reality. It doesn't even have a planned economy either, and it never has. The problem with the Trotskyist analysis is that it uses the same criteria as the right wing media for 'socialism': State ownership of the means of production. State ownership of the means of production isn't, and never has been the qualifier for socialism or a non-capitalist mode of production. The main purpose of the degenerated workers' state theory is a form of opportunism to justify supporting Soviet imperialism, and that of others. There is no basis in Marxist economics in it at all, and it has more roots in bourgeois thought than anything else.

If the Trots were actually consistent in the application of the theory, then virtually all existing states would be deformed workers' states, as the difference between Cuba and the United States is one of quantity, not quality. Since GM is nationalized, it can't be owned by the bourgeois, it's owned by the worker's but managed by a dictatorial bureaucracy! Oh.. wait a second..

Dont take this personally (well ok feel free to), but this sounds like the sort of crap libertarians come out with when the claim America is socialist. ' Oh they both have this and that'. Both have some nationalisation, both socialist. Both have some inequality, both capitalist.

Can you not see that Cuba is quite different from America? Stop spouting rhetoric and just have a simple look at Cuba and America and see how similar or how different they are.

If you want to claim Cuba has a largely private economy you need some hard data.

"The main purpose of the degenerated workers' state theory is a form of opportunism to justify supporting Soviet imperialism, and that of others. "

Support this as well.

Grenzer

31st March 2012, 21:31

And to say that the Cuban Revolution was not genuinely a Revolution is a completely biased statement. It was indeed a revolution which recieved mass support from the peasantry(the majority) and overthrew a corrupt US backed puppet mafia regime.

It certainly is a biased statement if you take a bourgeois view of things, which you seem to be doing. A revolution in Marxist terms is a complete and fundamental change of the state of things in economic and social relations, this did not happen in Cuba, as has been described. You seem to be a fan of Soviet imperialism, but I"m not surprised. What's so great about Soviet imperialism that you say that it should be praised and advanced over American imperialism?

The peasantry is an inherently reactionary class, though it sometimes can be co-opted in the proletariat's interests. Whether the majority of peasants approved of the Castro regime is entirely meaningless since we should be working in the interests of the workers above all, not the peasants. All that happened in the end of the day is that a corrupt puppet of American imperialism was replaced with a corrupt puppet of Russian imperialism.

What happened in Cuba was a revolution by bourgeois standards, just as the overthrow of the Mubarak regime was a revolution; which is to say that in essence there was no change at all. We should be concerned with a change in the fundamental nature of things, not their outward forms.

I don't see the harm in admitting that I'm incredibly fucking biased when it does to advancing the interests of the workers, so I guess you are right in a limited and superficial sense.

Tim Cornelis

31st March 2012, 21:43

Dont take this personally (well ok feel free to), but this sounds like the sort of crap libertarians come out with when the claim America is socialist. ' Oh they both have this and that'. Both have some nationalisation, both socialist. Both have some inequality, both capitalist.

Can you not see that Cuba is quite different from America? Stop spouting rhetoric and just have a simple look at Cuba and America and see how similar or how different they are.

If you want to claim Cuba has a largely private economy you need some hard data.

"The main purpose of the degenerated workers' state theory is a form of opportunism to justify supporting Soviet imperialism, and that of others. "

Support this as well.

It's different. You cannot have some hybrid of capitalism and socialism. And Grenzer did not say the US and Cuba re the same as you imply, he said the difference is in quantity.

Let's look at this, State Ownership (SO) and private ownership (PO) using rough estimates and guesses (it's a thought experiment, not about facts).

Cuba. SO: 95%. PO: 5% ------- according to you a deformed workers' state (DWS)
Former Yugoslavia. SO: 80%. PO: 20%. DWS or capitalist?
PPR Poland. SO: 80%. PO: 20%. ----- DWS or capitalist?
Belarus. SO: 50%. PO: 50%. -------- DWS or capitalist?
China. SO: 20%. PO: 80%. ---------- DWS or capitalist?
Norway. SO: 7%. PO: 93%. --------- DWS or capitalist?
USA. SO: 1%. PO: 99%. ------------ DWS or capitalist?

See, it's about quantity. If Cuba is a DWS then surely so was PPR Poland? And if PPR Poland was a DWS then surely Belarus also qualifies as such? But if Belarus qualifies as DWS, then so should Sweden and Norway. But then...

Yes, there is a difference between Cuba and the USA, the former is state-capitalist and the latter is private-capitalist.

Where is the demarcation between DWS and capitalist exactly?

Vladimir Innit Lenin

1st April 2012, 12:09

Cuba is a deformed workers state, ie a planned economy run by a privileged bureaucratic elite. It's not democratic and it's not socialist. There is inequality and you can get locked up for writing that Cuba needs democratic socialism even if nobody reads it, if you just wrote it at home.

Cuban democracy is like this. Can you guess how many people are on the ballot paper when you vote in the national election? Is it one, less than one, or more than one?

The answer of course is one. You get a choice on one candidate.

Some images of Cuba

http://www.cubadeluxtravel.com/images/paradisus-varadero.jpg

http://motorcitytimes.com/mct/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/poverty-in-cuba.jpg

socialism - where everyone is equal.

I stayed on that street in the bottom photo, I think.

It's true that Cuba is neither Socialist, nor heading anywhere but away from Socialism.

However, there was (probably was and not is) something to defend about Cuba until very recently, mainly the massive improvements to living standards it had made over 50 years, in its context as a 3rd world country, against the backdrop of the poverty of similar nations such as Haiti, Guatemala, El Salvador etc.

What has attracted me about Cuba is that it has seemed to be a kind of constrained Marxism-Leninism. Marxism-Leninism-lite, by necessity more than anything else. Everybody knows that Fidel Castro was never originally a Marxist, less so a Leninist. With this, the population has been relatively free, in comparison with other 'Socialist States'. Whilst the USSR, DPRK and PRCs impressive growth and improvements to healthcare, education and welfare were almost completely wiped out against the backdrop of great purges, mass executions and an horrendous lack of any democratic input at the local level, and the GDRs surveillance operations destroyed the lives of so many Germans (again, offsetting the welfare improvements it made), Cuba has never really had a mass spate of executions, or mass surveillance or anything like that. People live better in Cuba than they could ever live under Capitalism or Marxism-Leninism. It is a qualitative improvement on anything else, bar Socialism.

What must be said though, are a couple of things:

1) Cuba should be condemned for several things:
a) it's record on LGBTX rights, horrendous.
b) it's record of support for 'anti-imperialist' reactionaries like Ahmedinajad.
c) the failure to of course ever move towards genuine, worker-led control of the means of production, though admittedly the imperial situation of Cuba is unique and this is a somewhat mitigating circumstance.
d) of course, we can recognise that now Cuba is on the way to full-blown, free-market Capitalism and has probably passed the point of no return; only a proletarian revolution could now institute Socialism, I feel, though the return to State-led Social Democracy could probably be done without revolution, though i'm doubtful this would happen.
e) the two-currency system has, in the past 15-20 years, led to an horrendous increase in inequality. There has been little investment in the inner cities, as we can see from the above picture of Centro Habana. Having stayed there myself for an extended period, I can confirm the dilapidation and lack of structural investment.

2) Cuba's model is clearly unique to itself. It is not a model you could advise for many other countries. The anti-imperialist 'warfare' mode is largely a product of the US and the Bay of Pigs, of the USs previous support for Batista and of Fidel Castro's personal indefatigability. You simply wouldn't want to export such a model and it should be recognised as a Cuban-only (well, perhaps other similar countries could 'benefit' from it too, though this is debatable) model.

In sum, i'm a lot more sympathetic to the Cuban model, historically, than I am to any other 20th Century, self-declared 'Socialist State', simply because it has managed to improve the living standards of the working class beyond belief, institute some level of local democracy (CDRs) without going through mass executions, mass surveillance etc.

Vladimir Innit Lenin

1st April 2012, 12:10

There is also a lot to be said for the work Cuba has done in the healthcare sphere, both producing vaccines and cures domestically for export, and for its sending of doctors to places such as Angola, Venezuela and Haiti.

manic expression

1st April 2012, 13:08

Also true. C-M-C, or C-M in this example, means the capitalist (in Cuba, the state) sells commodities (In Cuba's example these are state sanctioned and manufactured commodities/products), the money is then use to buy labour-power (a commodity since it's subject to exchange--it is bought and sold). Therefore commodities of the employer (Cuban state) pass through circulation act C-M.
The only problem is that labor power isn't bought in Cuba, and you can't generalize "employer" to mean any entity that pays someone something..."employer" means an individual who employs a worker on a payroll.

democracy in Cuba, as in any Marxist-Leninist state, does not translate well in practice. Candidates are pre-sanctioned by the leadership of the Communist Party and Committees to Defend the Revolution before being allowed to run. The influence the Cuban workers have on municipal affairs is therefore already limited. But since most of the policies are decided at the national level, which is even less democratic, the workers have virtually no say with the exception of some trivial matters.
No, they aren't, there is an electoral body in place (not the CDRs, and definitely not the PCC leadership as you state) that has the power to invalidate a candidacy, but this is seldom, if ever, used. If this is such an obstacle to democratic decision-making, where are all the candidates rejected by this process of "pre-sanctioning"? What are their names?

Since this is not an obstacle to democracy, the workers have complete control over the affairs of their communities and workplaces.

Vladimir Innit Lenin

1st April 2012, 15:35

Though it should be said, thinking again, with the sending of doctors, the incredible biomed sector in Cuba and so on, that this really has little to do with Marxism-Leninism. Or even Marxism. Hence why I suggest that the Cuban model is quite far removed from Socialism, Marxism-Leninism or any other system we know.

Tim Cornelis

1st April 2012, 15:55

The only problem is that labor power isn't bought in Cuba, and you can't generalize "employer" to mean any entity that pays someone something..."employer" means an individual who employs a worker on a payroll.

Yes it is. Workers in Cuba only own their labour-power. The government owns the means of production. The workers sell their labour-power and are thus employed by the government. Are you actually denying this? Because if you are, you are basically saying that autogestion/workers' self-management exists on a wide scale in Cuba? And I've never ever heard that claim anywhere before.

From wikipedia:

Most of the means of production are owned and run by the government, and most of the labor force is employed by the state, although in recent years, the formation of cooperatives and self-employment has been encouraged by the Communist Party. In the year 2000, public sector employment was 76% and private sector employment was 23% compared to the 1981 ratio of 91% to 8%.

The source is out of order, however.

And what'dya mean I can't "generalise" the meaning of employer to mean "any entity that pays someone something"? Where did I say so?

Employer = someone or some group that hires labour/buys labour-power. Which is what the Cuban state does.

"employer" means an individual who employs a worker on a payroll.

In your definition, the majority of workers in my country are not wage labourers as their labour is bought by a corporation, or rather the people owning and controlling the corporation. An employer can be more than one individual:

em·ploy·er /emˈploi-ər
Noun: A person or organization that employs people.

No, they aren't, there is an electoral body in place (not the CDRs, and definitely not the PCC leadership as you state) that has the power to invalidate a candidacy, but this is seldom, if ever, used. If this is such an obstacle to democratic decision-making, where are all the candidates rejected by this process of "pre-sanctioning"? What are their names?

Since this is not an obstacle to democracy, the workers have complete control over the affairs of their communities and workplaces.

Dissidence is not allowed, so logically people will not invalidate a sanctioned candidate.

If this is such an obstacle to democratic decision-making, where are all the candidates rejected by this process of "pre-sanctioning"? What are their names?

Are you really asking me this? Well, you have Eduardo Santos, and.... no seriously, are you asking me this?

This is the same intellectual level of asking "well, if the nazis really killed dissenting voices, then give me a name, where are they?". Well I don't know any names of murdered people by the nazis, don't mean they didn't kill anyone. (no, I;m not comparing you to nazis, it's an analogy).

Same here, just because I don't know any local Cubans, don't mean that elections are fair.

It is beyond my comprehension how anyone cannot recognise that Cuban democracy, as in any Marxist-Leninist state, was a sham. A puppet show controlled by the Party elite from their ivory towers. People like you are so full up in their ideologies that they must filter out anything that might contradict it. It is a self-rationalising mechanism ingrained in their thinking to reinforce existing bias.

Does this apply to me? Do I need to filter out any information that Cuba might just be the socialist country it is said to be? No. Absolutely not. I would gladly believe it if Cuba was a socialist country with grassroots democracy and workers controlling their own communities and workplaces. I would love to see this. But the fact of the matter is, it's not true. And I don't have any ideological bias that compels me to believe these lies.

I'm done discussing Marxist-Leninists, fuck em all.

The Cheshire Cat

1st April 2012, 17:03

Well that didn't exactly sort things out as I hoped:)

I still don't have a well-backed opinion on Cuba. Some things I admire, like Cuba having on of the best healthcare and school systems in the world. I believe that couldn't get much better. The free housing is also good, but I wonder why they are so dirty.
Is this the people's fault, so should they just keep their houses clean, or should the government do something about this?

Also, they have one of the lowest infant-death rates of the world and Cuban people almost are the oldest people of the world. And there is, compared to other Caribbean islands, very little hunger, regardless to the sanctions.

Other things are vague though, like their electionairy system. They do have an opposition, but it can't be chosen? Or are they just not chosen. If they they can't be chosen, than why are there so little protests or angry Cubans (except from the capitalists that flee to Miami ofcourse).

I am planning on going to Cuba maybe this summer. If everything goes according to the plan, I will remain in one of the 'hotels' ran by ordinairy people, not the state hotels. That way I hope to get into contact with normal Cubans and maybe they will give me their honoust opinion on their government. I think that is the only way te get closer to the truth.

Brosa Luxemburg

1st April 2012, 17:40

Are there still 'big improvements' possible for this country? And with that, I don't mean it's a perfect communist society, it isn't even communist, but I was more thinking about the Socialism in one Country theory. Since it is nearly impossible to create socialism in one country, especially in a country like Cuba, they can't go very much further with their socialism. Except from abolishing the state and giving the people more power maybe. But they can't yet abolish money and many other capitalist factors yet, since they greatly depend on their foreign trade with non-socialist countries. Also, if they would abolish the state, I think it would be more simple for other countries to split apart the worker councils that would come into existence and maybe fully restore capitalism in the end. Making it a maffia-and-pedophile-playground again.

So do you think there could be more major improvements?

And how much does the government represent the people? I once heard that you could get into great trouble with 'ordinairy' people on the street for saying bad things about Guevara and Castro. If this is the truth, and they like Fidel Castro that much, they probably also like the Cuban government (as long as Raul doesn't reform much further). So would that mean the government represents the people pretty much, or is this a conclusion to simple?

Well, Cuba recently has become more free-market with Raul Castro's reforms in the country. That is not a good improvement at all and I expect life to get much harder in Cuba because of this. I do like the alliance system that Cuba is involved in with Venezuela, Ecuador, Brazil, etc. as a bulwark against IMF reforms and the neo-liberalist agenda, called the Bolivarian Alliance of the Americas. I think Cuba should increase workers control of the workplace and open the government up more.

As far as the government representing the people goes...well that gets much more complicated. The system of the Poder Popular provides a good democratic forum for the people, but overall the people don't have much say in the government. At the same time, the Castro brothers are still popular among the Cuban population (although it is waning for sure). The government is not NEARLY as oppressive as the western media makes it out to be, although it is oppressive to be sure. To put it in the best perspective, out of all the totalitarian countries in the world Cuba is the least totalitarian of them.
All opposition is not rooted out and not every oppositionist is sent to prison. Here is an interesting article I read a while ago from the foreign policy analyst group Foreign Policy In Focus. (http://www.fpif.org/articles/cubas_culture_of_dissent)

Vladimir Innit Lenin

1st April 2012, 17:53

No, they aren't, there is an electoral body in place (not the CDRs, and definitely not the PCC leadership as you state) that has the power to invalidate a candidacy, but this is seldom, if ever, used. If this is such an obstacle to democratic decision-making, where are all the candidates rejected by this process of "pre-sanctioning"? What are their names?

Since this is not an obstacle to democracy, the workers have complete control over the affairs of their communities and workplaces.

I'm afraid this simply isn't true.

I've been to Cuba, spoken to workers there, and have seen first-hand that yes, whilst the CDRs do seem to facilitate some local participation in democracy (though not seemingly in a hugely widespread fashion), and whilst many people have a very good view of the police there, workers do not have ANY control over the affairs of their communities and workplaces.

I mean, take for example the problems in Centro Habana alone: the dilapidation of the buildings, the problems of rubbish collection; the people are pissed off about these things, yet nothing is done. Look nationally at the ridiculous price of milk, the ban on fishing and selling certain fish, the lack of investment in the infrastructure that would allow for widespread internet usage, and above all the dampened level of wages for those in national peso industries (most ordinary Cubans!). All of these are huge national issues that ordinary Cubans have spoken to me about, but when it came to making generalised political criticisms, they often shied away from this and looked over their shoulder or talked in hushed tones.

I'm afraid that Cubans certainly do not control affairs in their workplaces and communities, buddy.

Brosip Tito

1st April 2012, 18:21

This canard belonging to Marxist-Leninists that socialism is currently in existence in these nations, is beyond me. How in the fuck can you just accept the idea. It's clear that you haven't actually researched the place, or even Marx, to find out that socialism doesn't exist in one country, nor can it.

Now, onto the idea of degenerated workers' state. It's absurd, and it's about time Trotskyists drop the idea. It was a poor theory, that's been proven wrong. Trotsky was wrong, not the end of the world. You don't have to hate him or think he's a capitalist because he was wrong.

In my opinion, the state in these cases, Cuba/USSR, etc. represents the bourgeois class. I've yet to see reasoning as to why it does not. The bourgeois class isn't some club that one cannot enter, that is eternally these select few people. You can make yourself bourgeois by force, as Stalin did, as Castro has done.

RedSonRising

1st April 2012, 18:32

I'm afraid this simply isn't true.

I've been to Cuba, spoken to workers there, and have seen first-hand that yes, whilst the CDRs do seem to facilitate some local participation in democracy (though not seemingly in a hugely widespread fashion), and whilst many people have a very good view of the police there, workers do not have ANY control over the affairs of their communities and workplaces.

I mean, take for example the problems in Centro Habana alone: the dilapidation of the buildings, the problems of rubbish collection; the people are pissed off about these things, yet nothing is done. Look nationally at the ridiculous price of milk, the ban on fishing and selling certain fish, the lack of investment in the infrastructure that would allow for widespread internet usage, and above all the dampened level of wages for those in national peso industries (most ordinary Cubans!). All of these are huge national issues that ordinary Cubans have spoken to me about, but when it came to making generalised political criticisms, they often shied away from this and looked over their shoulder or talked in hushed tones.

I'm afraid that Cubans certainly do not control affairs in their workplaces and communities, buddy.

From what I've seen and gathered from talking to people myself in Havana, there are mixed sentiments. Nobody likes the bureaucracy, but it is largely a direct result of the embargo. One citizen told me "It's worse to kill a cow than a man in Cuba", and so feelings of repression linger. But having read on the period of attempted "modernization" in the country decades ago, I found that milk is a rare good in Cuba due to its Caribbean climate and lack of access to foodstuffs from the United States and Western Europe. The restoration of dilapidated buildings require materials which simply aren't accessible given their relationship to the world system.

I believe the tendency of workplaces depends on the nature of the industry. The relationship between the workers, unions, etc. and managers which help facilitate planning with the state has been a constantly changing process (I encourage people to read "Cuba: A Different America", which has a great passage on this.) Agriculture has always been particularly democratic (and continues to move in that direction as land becomes municipalized for decentralized decision-making), as well as cigar production, and the production of other steady domestic goods. Businesses under state management that included services (restaurants, etc.) often had boss-worker dynamics, though I feel the increase of worker cooperatives and self-employment helps correct these. Local markets are not exploitative when absent of capital-labor relations.

In terms of elections, I met individuals who felt that decision-making was bureaucratic and ineffective, and others who felt that their system responds to their needs and is essential for their survival as a model that resists the doom of a capitalist third world country. Having flaws with representation does not make a country inherently capitalist, and you don't have to be a Marxist Leninist to see that there are valuable elements of the Cuban model which advance working class interests.

If anyone's interested in looking at the changes going on in Cuba (which i feel are a far cry from neo-liberal privatization), I posted a video which examined these transformations through great detail. When I visited in 2009, people seemed receptive to Raul's methods, and following my visit is when a number of reforms on freedom of speech were made (a trend which seems to have also continued, as this video details an aired talk-show that receives and discusses complaints against the government.)

http://www.revleft.com/vb/video-al-jazeera-t167294/index.html?p=2347244#post2347244

daft punk

1st April 2012, 18:43

Objectivity? That's hilarious considering that you call Cuba a "deformed workers' state". It's not any kind of working state as the workers don't hold state power. Nationalization is not the DotP. Workers' power is.

'workers state' has 2 meanings, DOTP, and a planned economy. Socialism needs both. Cuba has a planned economy. Therefore it is a deformed workers state, a planned economy (workers state 2nd meaning) ruled by a bureaucracy (deformed version of how it should be run).

manic expression

1st April 2012, 19:26

In your definition, the majority of workers in my country are not wage labourers as their labour is bought by a corporation, or rather the people owning and controlling the corporation. An employer can be more than one individual:
But you forget: what is the relationship of individuals to that corporation? Are they owners, do they through their ownership of private property employ workers? Yes? Then it is an entirely different thing and we cannot compare the two with any sense of seriousness.

As the individuals that make up the Cuban state do NOT own private property, do not form a group of owners who employ workers, then the equation does not apply.

Dissidence is not allowed, so logically people will not invalidate a sanctioned candidate.
False, dissent is allowed and protected. Opponents of the socialist government are permitted to march, organize and the like.

Are you really asking me this? Well, you have Eduardo Santos, and.... no seriously, are you asking me this?
Um, an artist living in New Hampshire?

More importantly: was he rejected by the electoral commission? No? OK, cool.

This is the same intellectual level of asking "well, if the nazis really killed dissenting voices, then give me a name, where are they?". Well I don't know any names of murdered people by the nazis, don't mean they didn't kill anyone. (no, I;m not comparing you to nazis, it's an analogy).

Same here, just because I don't know any local Cubans, don't mean that elections are fair.
I can tell you all sorts of parties and organizations, and yes, individuals, that were suppressed by the Nazis, and yet you expect us to believe that Cuba is involved in political oppression when you can't name but one person who's been blocked from running in local elections by this supposedly, purportedly menacing electoral committee.

If you cannot point to any repression, it stands to reason that there is none.

It is beyond my comprehension how anyone cannot recognise that Cuban democracy, as in any Marxist-Leninist state, was a sham. A puppet show controlled by the Party elite from their ivory towers. People like you are so full up in their ideologies that they must filter out anything that might contradict it. It is a self-rationalising mechanism ingrained in their thinking to reinforce existing bias.

Does this apply to me? Do I need to filter out any information that Cuba might just be the socialist country it is said to be? No. Absolutely not. I would gladly believe it if Cuba was a socialist country with grassroots democracy and workers controlling their own communities and workplaces. I would love to see this. But the fact of the matter is, it's not true. And I don't have any ideological bias that compels me to believe these lies.
Well, that's a whole lot of rhetoric with nothing behind it.

I'm done discussing Marxist-Leninists, fuck em all.
That'll show us!

daft punk

1st April 2012, 19:27

Originally Posted by daft punk http://www.revleft.com/vb/revleft/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showthread.php?p=2402093#post2402093)
"Dont take this personally (well ok feel free to), but this sounds like the sort of crap libertarians come out with when the claim America is socialist. ' Oh they both have this and that'. Both have some nationalisation, both socialist. Both have some inequality, both capitalist.

Can you not see that Cuba is quite different from America? Stop spouting rhetoric and just have a simple look at Cuba and America and see how similar or how different they are.

If you want to claim Cuba has a largely private economy you need some hard data.

"The main purpose of the degenerated workers' state theory is a form of opportunism to justify supporting Soviet imperialism, and that of others. "

Support this as well. "

It's different. You cannot have some hybrid of capitalism and socialism.

Yes you can, the USSR in 1922.

And Grenzer did not say the US and Cuba re the same as you imply, he said the difference is in quantity.

"If the Trots were actually consistent in the application of the theory, then virtually all existing states would be deformed workers' states, as the difference between Cuba and the United States is one of quantity, not quality."

and he is wrong. Think about the dialectical relationship between quality and quantity. If you change the quantity of something enough you end up with a qualitative change. I dunno why he says Cuba doesnt have a planned economy, it is mostly state run.

Let's look at this, State Ownership (SO) and private ownership (PO) using rough estimates and guesses (it's a thought experiment, not about facts).

Cuba. SO: 95%. PO: 5% ------- according to you a deformed workers' state (DWS)
Former Yugoslavia. SO: 80%. PO: 20%. DWS or capitalist?
PPR Poland. SO: 80%. PO: 20%. ----- DWS or capitalist?
Belarus. SO: 50%. PO: 50%. -------- DWS or capitalist?
China. SO: 20%. PO: 80%. ---------- DWS or capitalist?
Norway. SO: 7%. PO: 93%. --------- DWS or capitalist?
USA. SO: 1%. PO: 99%. ------------ DWS or capitalist?

Cuba DWS
Poland PPR DWS
Belarus DWS I assume
China DWS now 50% capitalist
Norway capitalist
USA capitalist.

See, it's about quantity. If Cuba is a DWS then surely so was PPR Poland? And if PPR Poland was a DWS then surely Belarus also qualifies as such? But if Belarus qualifies as DWS, then so should Sweden and Norway.

It isnt just about numbers, as Bolshevik Russia up to 1924 was mostly private, but had a workers government. I cant comment on Belarus because I know nothing about the place. Norway has more than 7%SO, probably more like 40%, but it is still capitalist. The USA is also 40%, but is firmly capitalist. China is about 50-50 but is still DWS because it is ruled by the CCP. The bourgeois dont have the clout that they have in the USA. In America, the financial companies own the government, can sway it and so on. I dont think it's in that league in China yet. China probably will go capitalist like Russia did eventually.

But then...

Yes, there is a difference between Cuba and the USA, the former is state-capitalist and the latter is private-capitalist.

Where is the demarcation between DWS and capitalist exactly?

DWS is almost 100% SO. It is ruled by a fake socialist party. To get socialism you need:

1. A political revolution.

Capitalist is usually about 40% SO, and had bourgeois democracy in which every 5 years you choose between two slimy bastards who are both funded by the bourgeoisie. To get socialism you need:

1. A political revolution
2. A social revolution.

Brosip Tito

1st April 2012, 19:34

Daft Punk, that means the USA under Roosevelt was a deformed Workers' State.

manic expression

1st April 2012, 19:34

I'm afraid this simply isn't true.

I've been to Cuba, spoken to workers there, and have seen first-hand that yes, whilst the CDRs do seem to facilitate some local participation in democracy (though not seemingly in a hugely widespread fashion), and whilst many people have a very good view of the police there, workers do not have ANY control over the affairs of their communities and workplaces.

I mean, take for example the problems in Centro Habana alone: the dilapidation of the buildings, the problems of rubbish collection; the people are pissed off about these things, yet nothing is done. Look nationally at the ridiculous price of milk, the ban on fishing and selling certain fish, the lack of investment in the infrastructure that would allow for widespread internet usage, and above all the dampened level of wages for those in national peso industries (most ordinary Cubans!). All of these are huge national issues that ordinary Cubans have spoken to me about, but when it came to making generalised political criticisms, they often shied away from this and looked over their shoulder or talked in hushed tones.

I'm afraid that Cubans certainly do not control affairs in their workplaces and communities, buddy.
Your points are well-taken. However, at the same time, many of these things are out of the control of anyone in Cuba, let alone the workers of Centro Habana. First, dilapidation of buildings likely continues because the resources in order to counteract it (something that can prove far more wide-reaching than one might think, given that it is a project that comprises all the elements of construction with none of the straightforwardness) are not readily available at the moment. Does that mean it is out of the political control of the workers there? I do not think so. To wit: if someone is frustrated because their sink is broken and they don't have the means with which to fix it, it doesn't mean they don't control their own house.

Second, national issues are no different, perhaps moreso. The price of milk is not decided democratically by anyone, it has to do with production across the country as well as the capitalist market, and Cuba cannot excuse itself from that so easily. The ban on fishing and selling certain fish is likely a conservation measure, and preserving the resources of a country (especially an island country that is isolated to a considerable extent) is surely a reasonable policy at this juncture.

Internet usage is a perfect example of this: limited internet access is very much the result of having no (or, very little, I haven't checked in a bit) fiber-optic cable connections abroad. It is not as if Centro Habana could feasibly vote itself better internet connections if it was so able; it is a function of the economic and political blockade put upon Cuba by the US.

So while I do not deny what you have heard, I ask: how do any of these things signify a lack of control over Cuban society by Cuban workers?

Vladimir Innit Lenin

1st April 2012, 19:38

Your points are well-taken. However, at the same time, many of these things are out of the control of anyone in Cuba, let alone the workers of Centro Habana. First, dilapidation of buildings likely continues because the resources in order to counteract it (something that can prove far more wide-reaching than one might think, given that it is a project that comprises all the elements of construction with none of the straightforwardness) are not readily available at the moment. Does that mean it is out of the political control of the workers there? I do not think so. To wit: if someone is frustrated because their sink is broken and they don't have the means with which to fix it, it doesn't mean they don't control their own house.

Second, national issues are no different, perhaps moreso. The price of milk is not decided democratically by anyone, it has to do with production across the country as well as the capitalist market, and Cuba cannot excuse itself from that so easily. The ban on fishing and selling certain fish is likely a conservation measure, and preserving the resources of a country (especially an island country that is isolated to a considerable extent) is surely a reasonable policy at this juncture.

Internet usage is a perfect example of this: limited internet access is very much the result of having no (or, very little, I haven't checked in a bit) fiber-optic cable connections abroad. It is not as if Centro Habana could feasibly vote itself better internet connections if it was so able; it is a function of the economic and political blockade put upon Cuba by the US.

So while I do not deny what you have heard, I ask: how do any of these things signify a lack of control over Cuban society by Cuban workers?

Meh, I must say your points are legitimate, i've heard them before and, aside from the ban on fishing (which i'm not too sure about), I probably agree with you.

Vladimir Innit Lenin

1st April 2012, 19:40

Of course, now the subsidies on food are being removed, which will be extremely harmful to families with babies, as the milk requirement will be difficult to meet. I couldn't drink the milk in Cuba as it wasn't pasteurised, but when I got hustled to buy some for someone, even I (not that i'm rich, but as a foreigner I obviously had access to hard currency) found it extortionately priced.

I see that the current Cuban administration has really undone a lot of the decent work done in constructing a decent society, with the privatisation of property, the laying off of state workers, and above all the failure to deal with the dual currency system, instead moving back towards free-market Capitalism.

Rooster

1st April 2012, 19:46

Isn't the notion that just a political revolution can change the course of history idealist? :confused: Don't the material conditions dictate the structure of society and not the other way around?

Brosip Tito

1st April 2012, 19:50

The nature of the Cuban revolution wasn't even proletariat, in my opinion. It was a progressive peasants revolution, led by the petty-bourgeois with passive proletariat support.

manic expression

1st April 2012, 19:55

Isn't the notion that just a political revolution can change the course of history idealist? :confused: Don't the material conditions dictate the structure of society and not the other way around?
If so, then Marx was an idealist, for he saw the French Revolution (along with the American Revolution) as a political revolution that changed the world and the course of history.

Rooster

1st April 2012, 19:59

If so, then Marx was an idealist, for he saw the French Revolution (along with the American Revolution) as a political revolution that changed the world and the course of history.

But what was those political revolutions based on? They didn't just spontaneously end up with the bourgeois mode of production.

Lev Bronsteinovich

1st April 2012, 20:02

Cuba isn't a deformed workers' state, no such thing exists. It flies completely in the face of material reality. It doesn't even have a planned economy either, and it never has. The problem with the Trotskyist analysis is that it uses the same criteria as the right wing media for 'socialism': State ownership of the means of production. State ownership of the means of production isn't, and never has been the qualifier for socialism or a non-capitalist mode of production. The main purpose of the degenerated workers' state theory is a form of opportunism to justify supporting Soviet imperialism, and that of others. There is no basis in Marxist economics in it at all, and it has more roots in bourgeois thought than anything else.

If the Trots were actually consistent in the application of the theory, then virtually all existing states would be deformed workers' states, as the difference between Cuba and the United States is one of quantity, not quality. Since GM is nationalized, it can't be owned by the bourgeois, it's owned by the worker's but managed by a dictatorial bureaucracy! Oh.. wait a second..
To view Cuba and the US as merely a difference of quantity and not quality is absurd. When Castro and his followers got into power, in a short period of time nationalized everything. There was barely anything that was considered private property -- to say this was bourgeois or some form of capitalism is to make the word capitalism meaningless. The bourgeoisie left -- heading to Miami, hoping for a quick counter-revolution with the aid of the US. Ooops it failed. Ultimately, without help from a wider revolution, Cuba will probably face a counter-revolution. You cannot build socialism in one country, let alone a poor isolated island. And Castro and Raul are not communists.

Grenzer, because of your need for purity -- you cannot see what should be defended and what represents a gain for the workers of the world. GM, btw is not nationalized -- it has been given money by the government and is partly held by the government -- as soon as is convenient it will be out of government hands -- this is just stock changing hands. Again, absolutely silly comparing this to the wholesale and almost complete nationalization that occurred following the Cuban Revolution.

Shit happens in the world. When there are real gains, it is the task of revolutionary to both defend those gains and point out the problems and failures; to call things by their right name. You just wash your hands of the Cuban revolution because it is not pure enough for you.

Caj

1st April 2012, 20:14

'workers state' has 2 meanings, DOTP, and a planned economy. Socialism needs both. Cuba has a planned economy. Therefore it is a deformed workers state, a planned economy (workers state 2nd meaning) ruled by a bureaucracy (deformed version of how it should be run).

A workes' state is just that: a state controlled by the workers, and is thus symonymous with proletarian dictatorship. Socialism begins after the DotP withers away.

The deformed/degenerated workers' state theory is a bunch of idealist nonsense devoid of a materialist understanding of modes of production. Cuba is capitalist in the Marxian sense of the term. Wage labor, exploitation through surplus value extraction, control of the means of production by a class that appropriates surplus value, a class of producers alienated from the means of production, the production of commodities, etc., etc. all exist in Cuba. The fact that there's a "planned economy" is irrelevant and doesn't erase the capitalist class system and mode of production that exists.

Art Vandelay

1st April 2012, 20:23

I have always had a soft spot for Cuba and I do love the country and the people there, however Cuba is a bourgeois state and therefor must be opposed. That does not mean that I turn a blind eye to the massive achievements that have been made and the fact that Fidel gave the states the middle finger for half a century. :castro:

manic expression

1st April 2012, 21:15

But what was those political revolutions based on? They didn't just spontaneously end up with the bourgeois mode of production.
The class conflict between the monarchy, the aristocracy, the bourgeoisie, the proletariat and the peasantry. It was, to oversimplify the event, a matter of the monarchy successively losing the support of each.

Yes, the bourgeoisie and proletariat had to do with the development of capitalism within France.

The whole point of Marxism is that the advancement of capitalist development brings the bourgeoisie and proletariat into struggle, from which a new revolutionary synthesis can/will arise.

Rooster

1st April 2012, 21:49

The class conflict between the monarchy, the aristocracy, the bourgeoisie, the proletariat and the peasantry. It was, to oversimplify the event, a matter of the monarchy successively losing the support of each.

Yes, the bourgeoisie and proletariat had to do with the development of capitalism within France.

The whole point of Marxism is that the advancement of capitalist development brings the bourgeoisie and proletariat into struggle, from which a new revolutionary synthesis can/will arise.

Wasn't it more to do with the productive forces out growing the political superstructure? You saying that it was a matter of the monarchy losing support from the other classes doesn't really explain it in a satisfactory materialist way.

manic expression

1st April 2012, 22:04

Wasn't it more to do with the productive forces out growing the political superstructure? You saying that it was a matter of the monarchy losing support from the other classes doesn't really explain it in a satisfactory materialist way.
Had Louis XVI made better decisions it's feasible that the monarchy could have survived in some form. The Flight to Varennes, perhaps combined with the Brunswick Manifesto, was what really sealed the fate of the crown. The same goes for the forces of republicanism: the Tennis Court Oath wasn't about productive forces outgrowing political superstructure, after all. The state of production in France, I think, set up the various social forces that were vying for dominance and/or survival, and it was up to the leaders of different tendencies within those forces to try to maneuver their way through those waters that proved so treacherous.

One thing we should remember is that when we look at political revolutions, not everything will be written in the stone of productive forces and so on. The stage is set by productive forces but individual actors grapple upon it to the best of their abilities. No one really embodied that more than Napoleon: without the Revolution, he would have likely been nothing, but with the Revolution, he was able, through sheer brilliance, to march to Cairo and to Moscow and change the world in the process.

Tim Cornelis

1st April 2012, 23:37

But you forget: what is the relationship of individuals to that corporation? Are they owners, do they through their ownership of private property employ workers? Yes? Then it is an entirely different thing and we cannot compare the two with any sense of seriousness.

Wage labour is fucking wage labour. Period.

As the individuals that make up the Cuban state do NOT own private property, do not form a group of owners who employ workers, then the equation does not apply.

You're doing all kinds of mental gymnastics to tell me:

A = B

Wage labour is fucking wage labour. Period.

False, dissent is allowed and protected. Opponents of the socialist government are permitted to march, organize and the like.

You're right. Everyone in Cuba lives in a perfectly happy paradise and dance under the rainbow. The state just wants everybody to be happ-y. It would neeeeeever hurt anyone.

It is just those mean imperialist who lie! Mister Catro would neeever just detain dissidents!

Cuba: Dissidents arrested in Cuba, 1 September 2011
Cuba: Further information: Women denied right to protest, 1 September 2011
Cuba: Women protesters must not be silenced, 25 August 2011
Cuba's 'Ladies in White' targeted with arbitrary arrest and, 22 August 2011
Cuba: Death following alleged police assault in Cuba, 19 May 2011
Repression of Cuban dissidents persists despite releases, 16 March 2011
Cuban activist in incommunicado detention, 9 December 2011
Cuba: Further information: Activists held without charge, 13 December 2011
Cuba still detaining peaceful protesters, 20 January 2012
Cuban blogger denied exit from country, 7 February 2012
Cuba: Ex prisoner of conscience believed detained, 23 February 2012
Cuban authorities prevent activists from commemorating death of ..., 23 February 2012
Cuba: Brothers arrested after listening to hip-hop, 22 March 2012
Cuba: Routine repression: Political short-term detentions and ..., 22 March 2012
Cuba: Cuban couple detained for protest activities, 22 March 2012

Um, an artist living in New Hampshire?

More importantly: was he rejected by the electoral commission? No? OK, cool.

I was being sarcastic (it's a Colombian liberal).

I can tell you all sorts of parties and organizations, and yes, individuals, that were suppressed by the Nazis, and yet you expect us to believe that Cuba is involved in political oppression when you can't name but one person who's been blocked from running in local elections by this supposedly, purportedly menacing electoral committee.

I do not know A SINGLE name of a political prisoner in North Korea, therefore THERE IS COMPLETE FREEDOM OF SPEECH IN NORTH KOREA!!!

http://alltheragefaces.com/img/faces/jpg/misc-genius.jpg

Hurpty, fucking durr, you're brilliant!

It's local fucking elections, I don't even know the name of my the mayor of my own city and yet somehow I am supposed to know the names of people who were NOT allowed to run in elections from localities in CUBA, whose names are even unfamiliar to Cubans themselves?!?

Are you fucking serious?!

If you cannot point to any repression, it stands to reason that there is none.

Name one name of a detained North Korean. You can't do it? Oh it stands to reason that therefore North Korea is a bastion of free speech! Oh ma gawd, you're so smart.

You were not asking for general repression, or even a source that shows the sham that is "democracy" in Cuba (which I provided), you were asking for specific names of local Cubans that even Cubans (except for the families, colleagues, and neighbours, and friends) don't know!

Well, that's a whole lot of rhetoric with nothing behind it.

It's the truth. Your Marxist-Leninist bias makes it so that you simply deny any facts or evidence contrary to Marxism-Leninism. Is this so for all MLs? No. It's also true for other ideologues as well.

That'll show us!

Don't flather yourself. It's to keep me from losing my sanity and losing my faith in humanity.

EDIT:

Cuban Law:

Article 103, which defines the crime of propaganda enemiga, or "enemy
propaganda." It states that anyone who incites against the social order,
international solidarity or the socialist state by means of verbal, written
or any other kind of propaganda, or who makes, distributes or possesses such
propaganda, can be imprisoned from between one to eight years. Anyone who
spreads false news or malicious predictions likely to cause alarm or
discontent among the population, or public disorder, can be imprisoned from
between one and four years. If the mass media are used, the sentence can be
from seven to fifteen years in prison.

Yet somehow free speech is guaranteed?

Cuba is undeniably a sham democracy controlled by the state:

On February 1, officials held a public meeting in which they criticized Yero
for not voting for Communist candidates and for not participating in the
local CDR; according to press reports, she received an eviction notice the
following day.
http://pcmlp.socleg.ox.ac.uk/transition/issue07/cuba.htm

On February 1, 1999, the police and housing officials called her neighbors
to a public meeting, where it appears, they declared that Mrs. Sara Yero had
not voted for Communist Party candidates and did not belong to the local
Committee for the Defense of the Revolution. The next day, Margarita Sara
Yero received a written eviction notice.
Human Rights Watch/Americas, op. cit., World Report 2000, p. 28.
http://www.cidh.oas.org/annualrep/99eng/Chapter4.htm

In a few cases, the government used housing regulations to harass independent reporters.
In January 1999, housing authorities in Santiago notified Margarita Sara Yero, the director
of the Turquino Correspondence of the Independent Press Agency of Cuba
(Agencia de Prensa Independiente de Cuba), that she would be evicted from her home, where
she had resided for thirty-five years. The officials claimed that she had abandoned her home,
but several neighbors confirmed her residency.
On February 1, 1999, police and housing officials called her neighbors to a public meeting,
where they reportedly stated that Yero had not cast votes for Communist Party candidates
and did not belong to the local Committee for the Defense of the Revolution
(Comité para la Defensa de la Revolución).
The next day, according to press reports, Yero received a written eviction notice.
http://www.hrw.org/wr2k/americas-04.htm

Eviction
Eviction is another less common method of repression used by the authorities to suppress dissidence.
Victims are ordered to leave their homes and reportedly sometimes transferred to crowded shelters for
the homeless. Amnesty International is concerned that incidents in which eviction is threatened or
carried out allegedly for political motives or as a means of suppressing freedom of expression,
association and assembly undermine respect for the principles articulated in article 12 of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
This article states that ''no one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family,
home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation,'' and other related rights.

For example, in August 1999, as well as being temporarily detained, opposition activist
Ramón Humberto Colás Castillo, was evicted from his home in Las Tunas province, along with his wife,
Berta Mexidor Vázquez, and their two children.
Ramón Colás and Berta Mexidor, who were both founders of the first independent library in Cuba, had
lived in their home for 13 years before being told they were illegal occupants. According to Berta Mexidor,
the authorities removed all their belongings into lorries in spite of their protests and told them they were
been moved to another area, some 60 kilometres from their home.
They were later taken to a military camp where some 300 people were reportedly housed.
According to reports, the family are currently staying with relatives.

In January 1999 Margarita Sara Yero, an independent journalist working for Cuba Press in Santiago
de Cuba province, was reportedly informed that she had to vacate the home where she had lived for
some 35 years.
The reason given by the authorities was reportedly that she ''had abandoned her home and was
the owner of another''. Margarita Yero's lawyer then wrote to the Dirección Municipal de Vivienda,
Municipal Housing Office, with signatures from neighbours confirming that she had never abandoned her home.
However, on 2 February 1999 she reportedly received a reply to the letter stating that she would be evicted
on 4 February 1999. Due to help from various local organizations and a statement by an old friend who confirmed
that she had been living in that place since 1963, the eviction was not carried out.
http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGAMR250042000?open&of=ENG-CUB

Cuba's justice minister, Roberto Díaz Sotolongo, the National Assembly also
has the authority to accept or reject any prospective candidates for public
office.56 Given the heavy hand of the government in the electoral process,
and the absence of any choice, the constitutional provision that the
National Assembly "represents and expresses the sovereign will of the
people" rings hollow. (from: Human Rights Watch interview with Justice
Minister Roberto Díaz Sotolongo, New York, June 11, 1998.
http://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/cuba/Cuba996-03.htm

Rooster

1st April 2012, 23:40

Didn't Manic used to argue that the USSR wasn't capitalist because no one held stocks with the state? :confused:

Grenzer

1st April 2012, 23:47

Didn't Manic used to argue that the USSR wasn't capitalist because no one held stocks with the state? :confused:

Yes, and he also justified the purges by saying "they were complicated and chaotic times". The next time one of us goes trolling Stormfront we'll have to pass that one along to the fash.

Tim Cornelis

1st April 2012, 23:55

Didn't Manic used to argue that the USSR wasn't capitalist because no one held stocks with the state? :confused:

It wouldn't surprise me. It's just reinforcing his pre-existing Marxist-Leninist bias. See the results: rationalising the most absurd things to fit his narrow bias.

KlassWar

1st April 2012, 23:56

I do not know A SINGLE name of a political prisoner in North Korea, therefore THERE IS COMPLETE FREEDOM OF SPEECH IN NORTH KOREA!!!

Dude, Cuba ain't North Korea. People can go to Cuba, see stuff, and then tell outsiders. At least some foreign journalists go to Cuba on occassion. The Cuban leadership regularly releases propaganda aimed at friendly nations in South America. Speakspeople of the Cuban Government give interviews and tell stuff to interviewers. Sometimes, so do ordinary Cubans.

Cuba couldn't pull off North Korea-style mass repressions without the world noticing. It's not that isolated, intelligence and communications-wise. Cuba ain't on the same league as North Korea: They ain't even playing the same goddamn sport! Petty-bourgeois, semi-Marxist populist dictatorship versus a deformed version of Stalinism with bonus cult of personality and repression.

Cuba is comparable to Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia or the softer Eastern Bloc countries.

Grenzer

2nd April 2012, 00:00

Dude, Cuba ain't North Korea. People can go to Cuba, see stuff, and then tell outsiders. At least some foreign journalists go to Cuba on occassion. The Cuban leadership regularly releases propaganda aimed at friendly nations in South America. Speakspeople of the Cuban Government give interviews and tell stuff to interviewers. Sometimes, so do ordinary Cubans.

Cuba couldn't pull off North Korea-style mass repressions without the world noticing. It's not that isolated, intelligence and communications-wise. Cuba can't even be compared to North Korea: It's comparable to Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia or the softer Eastern Bloc countries.

I think you're kind of missing the point here.

Goti was drawing an analogy to illustrate why he doesn't have to know the specific names of people repressed by the regime to know that Cuba isn't the communist utopia a lot of people in here seem to think it is. I don't think there was any part of his statement which said that Cuba was the same as North Korea.

Lev Bronsteinovich

2nd April 2012, 02:17

Wage labour is fucking wage labour. Period.And kumquats are kumquats, period. But neither are the defining element of capitalism. Wage labor and kumquats existed before capitalism, and will exist past the death of capitalism. You left-com comrades see it all as black and white (as often do our ML friends). So, Castro is a Stalinist -- and he came to that out of necessity. The Cuban revolution, nonetheless was a huge victory for the Cuban masses. Believe it. The idea that things are comparable to when the Batista cabal was running the show is very wrong. Ultimately I guess, we can't agree on categories. You say that something cannot be a dictatorship of the proletariat without democratic workers control. And when I say that we've certainly seen the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie without democratic bourgeois control.

And ultimately, the deformed workers' states are aberrant and transitory phenomena, albeit rather long lasting transitory phenomena. They can only exist for so long without succumbing to the pressures of isolation, imperialist aggression and the world market. Seems to me that if you find yourself not defending the Cuban Revolution but you do find yourself defending Afghan Mullahs against the PDPA and the USSR, you should go back and look at some of your primary assumptions.

RedSonRising

2nd April 2012, 06:41

Let's not forget that Cuba has the actual threat of sabotaging enemy activity and propaganda at their doorstep. The Ladies in White have had proven links to CIA-funded Miami terrorists, and they still managed to get a permit to protest on the island a few years ago. Every few years or so, a United States "Development Contractor" is found and detained by the Cuban government, with no media acknowledgment or explanation from the United States, and is charged with suspicious activities that do often seem suspicious. Internal collaborators with US anti-Castro groups that received funding from the CIA, export pro-capitalist dissident media, and have a long history tied with terroristic murder and sabotage on the island all have a lot to do with the institutional repression of potentially dangerous acts of dissent.

Do I deny that persons within the Cuban state have benefited from such policies? Of course not; were I living in Cuba now, I would be doing my best to reform the system and advance working class interests within the parameters that material conditions allow. But this does not mean that there is a structural class of individuals exploiting the surplus labor of the working population on the level of a bourgeoisie. While many third world countries in regions that facilitate trade or possessive of some natural resource invaluable to the world market (namely oil) may be able to simultaneously fund the lifestyles of a domestic ruling class while exploiting the population, the Cuban economy has no such affordability. To truly have such an upward extraction of sources under the embargo means that the Cuban economy would have collapsed decades ago.

Cuban politics are complicated, convoluted, bureaucratic, but to suggest that the people have no say in production or decision-making processes simply ignores the reality that Cuba cannot afford both a domestic ruling class and a comprehensive, egalitarian system of Education, Agriculture, Health, and domestic production. As I stated before; agriculture has been an organic process that has further municipalized over the years (while services have been turned into functional cooperatives), State television now features a talk-show that airs the grievances written in people's sent letters, and reforms for freedom of expression have helped advance plans for the people to have more access to the internet, along with the continued release of prisoners. Nobody said the revolution was going to be an act of instant dismantling of all barriers to classless society, and I feel those that hold revolutionary socialism as an ideal should look to the achievements of the Cuban masses with critical but fair admiration, instead of cheering on potential leads to liberalization simply to utter a sectarian "I told you so."

While these videos alone cannot "prove" that the Cuban government is a popularly controlled/influenced set of institutions, it does provide the perspective that there is a notable level of transparency in higher government communicated through the media, and that the people are in touch with the means through which they can further advance their goals.

vgj3gPbLE4g
TuU_2eqMpTc
r3ZnaLuqMCo

Tim Cornelis

2nd April 2012, 11:49

And kumquats are kumquats, period. But neither are the defining element of capitalism. Wage labor and kumquats existed before capitalism, and will exist past the death of capitalism.

Wage labour was never generalised before and only existed in moderate proportions. The means of production have become so advanced in this stage that you must have access to advanced means of production to be able to produce commodities. As a result, those who only own labour-power are compelled to sell it to gain access to the means of production. Consequently, labour-power--unlike in previous stages--has become a commodity.

If we observe a particular mode of production we find that the relations of production are, despite what you claim, the defining characteristic of that mode of production.

When the relations of production are that of master and slave we know that the mode of production is slavery.

When the relations of production are that of lord and serf we know that the mode of production is feudalism.

When the relations of production are that of wage labour (employer and employee) we know that the mode of production is capitalism. It is the relations of production that characterise the mode of production. Ownership merely determines the nature of the relations of production, but ownership itself is not a criteria for any mode of production.

When Marx described the capitalist mode of production he did not conceive of a possibility that the state could monopolise the capitalist mode of production in its entirety, this does not mean state-capitalism cannot exist. Clearly, when the state has control over capitalist relations of production (generalised wage labour), it is state-capitalist.

It does not matter whether slaves are owned by private individuals or the state itself, the relations of production, and thus the mode of production remains that of slavery.
It does not matter whether labour-power is bought by private individuals or the state itself, the relations of production, and thus the mode of production remains that of capitalism.

According to wikipedia (which you may contest, but I find this accurate).

A defining feature of capitalism is the dependency on wage-labor for a large segment of the population; specifically, the working class (proletariat) do not own capital and must live by selling their labour power in exchange for a wage.

Each new mode of production brings about new relations of production as its primacy. A socialist mode of production will not have wage labour as its primary relations of production, it will have associated labour.

Vladimir Innit Lenin

2nd April 2012, 11:56

And kumquats are kumquats, period. But neither are the defining element of capitalism. Wage labor and kumquats existed before capitalism, and will exist past the death of capitalism. You left-com comrades see it all as black and white (as often do our ML friends). So, Castro is a Stalinist -- and he came to that out of necessity. The Cuban revolution, nonetheless was a huge victory for the Cuban masses. Believe it. The idea that things are comparable to when the Batista cabal was running the show is very wrong. Ultimately I guess, we can't agree on categories. You say that something cannot be a dictatorship of the proletariat without democratic workers control. And when I say that we've certainly seen the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie without democratic bourgeois control.

And ultimately, the deformed workers' states are aberrant and transitory phenomena, albeit rather long lasting transitory phenomena. They can only exist for so long without succumbing to the pressures of isolation, imperialist aggression and the world market. Seems to me that if you find yourself not defending the Cuban Revolution but you do find yourself defending Afghan Mullahs against the PDPA and the USSR, you should go back and look at some of your primary assumptions.

Sorry? Wage Labour is THE defining feature of Capitalism, for it leads to the extraction of surplus, which again is the defining feature of Capitalism.

Also the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie doesn't have democratic bourgeois control because the bourgeoisie is not interested in democracy. It has the control of capital - capitalistic bourgeois dictatorship. Just for that, doesn't mean that the Dictatorship of the Proletariat can also somehow be Capitalistic proletarian dictatorship; an absolute misnomer.

Lev Bronsteinovich

2nd April 2012, 14:23

Sorry? Wage Labour is THE defining feature of Capitalism, for it leads to the extraction of surplus, which again is the defining feature of Capitalism.

Also the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie doesn't have democratic bourgeois control because the bourgeoisie is not interested in democracy. It has the control of capital - capitalistic bourgeois dictatorship. Just for that, doesn't mean that the Dictatorship of the Proletariat can also somehow be Capitalistic proletarian dictatorship; an absolute misnomer.

Well, wage labor is an important aspect of capitalism -- but both wage labor and obviously extraction of surplus existed long before capitalism. I believe Marx emphasized ownership of the means of production as the defining characteristic of which class rules. Maybe I have that wrong. But it seems to me that the arguments that a lack of workers democracy means that it cannot be the D of the P is an idealistic view. Of course, workers' democracy is highly desirable and ultimately essential. And I don't know what you are talking about with "Capitalistic proletarian dictatorship" -- that is a term I would never use as it is nonsensical.

manic expression

2nd April 2012, 14:30

It seems I've touched a nerve. Angry ultra-lefts are so cute...so much vulgar blather and nothing behind it. So let's see what pathetic, nonsensical, pro-Miami, anti-Cuba hogwash our anti-socialist friends have on offer today. Should be fun.

Wage labour is fucking wage labour. Period.
Hahahaha good one. So "wage labor" is whenever someone gets money for doing something, regardless of social relations. Great job, you just rejected any semblance of materialist analysis.

So no, sorry to burst your ultra-left bubble, but wages don't necessarily equal wage labor. Wage labor has to do with a specific relationship between boss and worker that does not exist in Cuba, and judging by your temper tantrum, you're starting to realize that yourself.

A = B

Wage labour is fucking wage labour. Period.System of production wherein individual owners employ workers

DOES NOT EQUAL

System of production wherein ownership of private property and employment of workers as a capitalist is illegal

A is not B

Just like you're not a Marxist. :laugh:

You're right. Everyone in Cuba lives in a perfectly happy paradise and dance under the rainbow. The state just wants everybody to be happ-y. It would neeeeeever hurt anyone.

It is just those mean imperialist who lie! Mister Catro would neeever just detain dissidents!Not going to provide us with a source? Didn't think so, using imperialist and gusano newspapers would probably look odd. But I'm very curious which "dissidents" you think are being repressed...the ones taking money from US imperialism?

And what of the dissidents who are allowed to speak freely but don't take money from imperialism? Oh, I guess they don't matter, because they don't fit into your Pentagon-approved myth about Cuba. Sucks for them that anti-Cuban hacks don't care about their experiences.

I was being sarcastic (it's a Colombian liberal).Ah, so not someone who's been rejected by the electoral commission. Not surprising.

I do not know A SINGLE name of a political prisoner in North Korea, therefore THERE IS COMPLETE FREEDOM OF SPEECH IN NORTH KOREA!!!

http://alltheragefaces.com/img/faces/jpg/misc-genius.jpg

Hurpty, fucking durr, you're brilliant!

It's local fucking elections, I don't even know the name of my the mayor of my own city and yet somehow I am supposed to know the names of people who were NOT allowed to run in elections from localities in CUBA, whose names are even unfamiliar to Cubans themselves?!?Ah, so since you can't name a single candidacy that's been rejected by the commission you cited as an example of repression, I'm mentally retarded. Brilliant left-wing stuff right there, you really do have a towering "faith in humanity", don't you. :rolleyes:

So yeah, the names are unfamiliar because THEY DON'T EXIST.

The rest of your post is infantile garbage, just as I expected.

Name one name of a detained North Korean. You can't do it? Oh it stands to reason that therefore North Korea is a bastion of free speech! Oh ma gawd, you're so smart.I don't oppose the DPRK, thus it's not my business to name detained Koreans for you.

What, not going to compare me to mentally challenged people again? Your demeaning rhetoric must feel very revolutionary. :rolleyes:

You were not asking for general repression, or even a source that shows the sham that is "democracy" in Cuba (which I provided), you were asking for specific names of local Cubans that even Cubans (except for the families, colleagues, and neighbours, and friends) don't know!You didn't show any source, you threw out old, stale rhetoric that could come from any gusano windbag.

And stop being so melodramatic, it simply demonstrates how little political substance you have. ALL I ASKED FOR was one example of a candidacy being rejected by the electoral commission YOU CITED.

Since you can't show us that, it stands to reason you have no support, and that your position is just hot air based on nothing except for bourgeois propaganda.

It's the truth. Your Marxist-Leninist biasMy bias is toward reality, yours is toward Miami and the White House. Guess which makes more sense.

Don't flather yourself. It's to keep me from losing my sanity and losing my faith in humanity.That ship sailed a long time ago. Comparing political opponents to the mentally challenged shows just the kind of "faith" you have in humanity:

None.

Cuban Law:
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA Human Rights Watch? :laugh: You are doing quite the liberal impression. HRW's claims on this are backed by nothing substantive, merely interviews with anti-Cuban exiles who have a vested interest in lying.

I'll wait for you to come up with something worth taking seriously, which will probably never come, because such a thing is beyond you.

manic expression

2nd April 2012, 14:36

Didn't Manic used to argue that the USSR wasn't capitalist because no one held stocks with the state? :confused:
No, I didn't, but you know, whatever, lying about someone is fine just as long as they're not part of the left-com club.

Yes, and he also justified the purges by saying "they were complicated and chaotic times". The next time one of us goes trolling Stormfront we'll have to pass that one along to the fash.
Why not pass along your irrational hatred of all socialist states? You should get along real swell seeing as you share that central political position.

It wouldn't surprise me. It's just reinforcing his pre-existing Marxist-Leninist bias. See the results: rationalising the most absurd things to fit his narrow bias.
What, I have a bias and you don't just because you can't come up with anything outside of Miami exile slander to support your outlandish claims? Here's a tip: try rationalizing how you can't back up your empty non-arguments. Oh wait, you won't because you can't! :lol: Let's hear it for un-materialist anti-socialism, folks!

Tim Cornelis

2nd April 2012, 14:38

Well, wage labor is an important aspect of capitalism -- but both wage labor and obviously extraction of surplus existed long before capitalism. I believe Marx emphasized ownership of the means of production as the defining characteristic of which class rules. Maybe I have that wrong. But it seems to me that the arguments that a lack of workers democracy means that it cannot be the D of the P is an idealistic view. Of course, workers' democracy is highly desirable and ultimately essential. And I don't know what you are talking about with "Capitalistic proletarian dictatorship" -- that is a term I would never use as it is nonsensical.

I already explained in my previous comment why this is wrong. Firstly, while it is true that wage-labour existed prior to capitalism, this was never the primary relations of production. Only when the means of production have advanced to such a degree that labour requires access to advanced means of production, does wage labour become the dominant relations of production, and only then is there capitalism.

Ownership determines the nature of the relations of production. For example, you cannot have common ownership and wage-labour. Wage-labour can only exist when the means of production are concentrated in the hands of a few, or monopolised. In Marx time, the only form of in which the means of production were monopolised was in the form of private ownership and he included this as an aspect of the capitalist mode of production. However, state ownership of the means of production is also a form of monopolisation an thus also leads to wage-labour.

Anyone who claims that nationalisation is socialist cannot deny that the police are socialist.

But it seems to me that the arguments that a lack of workers democracy means that it cannot be the D of the P is an idealistic view.

Quite the opposite actually. Each mode of production brings forth different relations of production as dominant social relations in production. Therefore, socialism will bring different relations of production than capitalism, and therefore it will abolish wage labour.

manic expression

2nd April 2012, 14:47

If you have to deny facts to sustain the credibility of Marxism-Leninism then clearly you have a bias.
What facts? Where? You've given none because you have none.

You cited the electoral commission as an example of repression...I asked for just one example of a candidacy being rejected by said commission...you showed me nothing and instead called me mentally retarded.

Classy stuff. Not Marxist at all, but still very classy. :laugh:

Why is it that you do not respond to my arguments, it would be pretty easy to refute them seeing how they are "non-arguments" right?

Miami exile slander? What the fuck are you talking about, I just made up a random name which happened to be the same as a Colombian liberal and some guy living in Miami. I explained this already, I gave you tons of evidence, names, dates, or Cuban state repression, I exposed the sham democracy for what it was, and you reply by with some bullshit?

Why? To protect your own bullshit.
Trying to portray the Ladies in White as some poor, repressed organization? Citing the arrest of dissidents who've been documented to have taken US money for the purposes of destabilizing Cuba as "repression"? Yeah, you've bought Miami exile slander hook, line and sinker. Why not shed some crocodile tears for the Brothers to the Rescue and Franco-backed Operation Peter Pan while you're at it?

This is what happens when ultra-lefts trip over themselves in their haste to attack socialism: they end up dropping right down to the level of any anti-socialist. Sad, but not unexpected.

Tim Cornelis

2nd April 2012, 15:09

It seems I've touched a nerve. Angry ultra-lefts are so cute...so much vulgar blather and nothing behind it. So let's see what pathetic, nonsensical, pro-Miami, anti-Cuba hogwash our anti-socialist friends have on offer today. Should be fun.

What the hell is up with your continual references to Miami? And how am I pro-miami, I've not mentioned anything related to it once.

And how am I "anti-Cuban", because I am opposed to a bourgeois dictatorship that happens to rule over Cuba I am supposed to be "anti-Cuban".

Hahahaha good one. So "wage labor" is whenever someone gets money for doing something, regardless of social relations. Great job, you just rejected any semblance of materialist analysis.

Where did I say that? I said wage labour = wage labour, what you posted is your wrong interpretation of my words.

Wage labour is when the worker sells his labour-power to the owner of the menas of production.

So no, sorry to burst your ultra-left bubble, but wages don't necessarily equal wage labor.

That's what I keep saying. Do you even read my posts?

Wage labor has to do with a specific relationship between boss and worker that does not exist in Cuba, and judging by your temper tantrum, you're starting to realize that yourself.

Actually, the reason I have a temper is because you keep coming at me with "wage labour isn't when you work for a wage" while I keep saying that myself.

System of production wherein individual owners employ workers

DOES NOT EQUAL

System of production wherein ownership of private property and employment of workers as a capitalist is illegal.

It's not illegal, it is illegal for private capitalists, not for state capitalists.

Just like you're not a Marxist. :laugh:

I never claimed I was, what's your excuse?

Not going to provide us with a source? Didn't think so, using imperialist and gusano newspapers would probably look odd. But I'm very curious which "dissidents" you think are being repressed...the ones taking money from US imperialism?

Any source I will provide is "bourgeois lies" anyway.

Your arguments are unfalsifiable. Anything that supports your claim is accurate, anything that contradicts it are from faulty bourgeois souces.

http://www.amnesty.org/en/region/cuba

And what of the dissidents who are allowed to speak freely but don't take money from imperialism? Oh, I guess they don't matter, because they don't fit into your Pentagon-approved myth about Cuba. Sucks for them that anti-Cuban hacks don't care about their experiences.

So now everyone who is critical of the Cuban government and is not allowed to do so is taking money.

See, unfalsifiable.

Ah, so not someone who's been rejected by the electoral commission. Not surprising.

Again, I don't know any local Cubans, not one.

Ah, so since you can't name a single candidacy that's been rejected by the commission you cited as an example of repression, I'm mentally retarded. Brilliant left-wing stuff right there, you really do have a towering "faith in humanity", don't you. :rolleyes:

No. It is because you expect me to know all the names of the victims of Cuban repression, and if I do not know them, it must not exist. It's tantamount to arguing that since I do not know any North Koreans that were not allowed to participate in North Korean elections, elections in North Korea must be fair and free and democratic. It is truly beyond stupid.

Furthermore, any names I will provide will be paid by the pentagon anyway (that is, according to you).

So yeah, the names are unfamiliar because THEY DON'T EXIST.

No, because I don't live in Cuba. There was this candidate in the Netherlands from a city who was not allowed to run as candidate for the local government because he did not have enough signatures. Now you go tell me who it was GO! And if you do not know who it was..... it must mean that he was allowed to run.

The rest of your post is infantile garbage, just as I expected.

I don't oppose the DPRK

First, it was an analogy. Second, well I don't know any, therefore (according to your logic) there must be no political prisoners in North Korea. Third, the fuck is wrong with you?

What, not going to compare me to mentally challenged people again? Your demeaning rhetoric must feel very revolutionary. :rolleyes:

If I do not channel my unbelief for the incredible stupidity, anti-socialist, anti-Marxist through a slightly agitated comment on a forum I'm going to shit bricks.

You didn't show any source, you threw out old, stale rhetoric that could come from any gusano windbag.

And stop being so melodramatic, it simply demonstrates how little political substance you have. ALL I ASKED FOR was one example of a candidacy being rejected by the electoral commission YOU CITED.

Again, it is tantamount to asking "well, if the nazis really killed 12 million people, then name them". I don't know any.

Since you can't show us that, it stands to reason you have no support, and that your position is just hot air based on nothing except for bourgeois propaganda.

Everything that does not agree with your ML interpretation is bourgeois. That is, your theories are unfalsifiable.

My bias is toward reality, yours is toward Miami and the White House. Guess which makes more sense.

Again with Miami? In any case, I already explained why I don't have a bias. If Cuba truly was a grassroots democracy, with workers control over production, and freedom guaranteed for all workers I would gladly believe, and I genuinely mean this. I would use Cuba in every argument which tells me socialism does not work, I would point out how Cuba is doing better than any (or most) other Latin American country, how it has good health care, how it has affordable housing, how it has the second highest literacy rate. I would embrace Cuba, but the reality is, it's a capitalist dictatorship. It's economically better than, say, El Salvador, but both are capitalist.

That ship sailed a long time ago. Comparing political opponents to the mentally challenged shows just the kind of "faith" you have in humanity:

None.

Arguably.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA Human Rights Watch? :laugh: You are doing quite the liberal impression. HRW's claims on this are backed by nothing substantive, merely interviews with anti-Cuban exiles who have a vested interest in lying.

your arguments are unfalsifiable.

I don't provide sources, it's because it doesn't exist. I do provide sources, it's bourgeois lies-----unfalsi-fucking-fiable.

I also don't see how Cuban law is supposed to be a HRW.

I'll wait for you to come up with something worth taking seriously, which will probably never come, because such a thing is beyond you.[/QUOTE]

No you're not, all I say is based on bourgeois propaganda anyway. Whatever I say, do, whatever evidence I may provide, even if I take ten Cubans to your home and let them explain how democracy is a sham you will say "nope, they are paid by imperialists". "nope, that's just bourgeois propaganda"/

Unless you can find me that guy who was not allowed to run due to a lack of signatures in a city in the Netherlands, I probably won't respond (then again, I don't like shitting bricks so probably will).

What facts? Where? You've given none because you have none.

You cited the electoral commission as an example of repression...I asked for just one example of a candidacy being rejected by said commission...you showed me nothing and instead called me mentally retarded.

Your flatout deny any facts I provide to sustain your belief, = biased. So why should I bother.

Classy stuff. Not Marxist at all, but still very classy. :laugh:

Trying to portray the Ladies in White as some poor, repressed organization? Citing the arrest of dissidents who've been documented to have taken US money for the purposes of destabilizing Cuba as "repression"? Yeah, you've bought Miami exile slander hook, line and sinker. Why not shed some crocodile tears for the Brothers to the Rescue and Franco-backed Operation Peter Pan while you're at it?

This is what happens when ultra-lefts trip over themselves in their haste to attack socialism: they end up dropping right down to the level of any anti-socialist. Sad, but not unexpected.

Unfalsifiable.

Vladimir Innit Lenin

2nd April 2012, 15:38

I think we've passed the point of productive discussion.

This has just turned into left-communists/anarchists/libertarians vs Marxist-Leninists, and none of us has such a great mind as to be able to sway the course of the debate decisively. Meh.

manic expression

2nd April 2012, 17:39

What the hell is up with your continual references to Miami? And how am I pro-miami, I've not mentioned anything related to it once.
You're peddling their nonsense. Want to lecture me about how heroic and brave the Ladies in White are? Go for it, you're exposing your true colors.

And how am I "anti-Cuban", because I am opposed to a bourgeois dictatorship that happens to rule over Cuba I am supposed to be "anti-Cuban".
You oppose the revolutionary government of Cuba and use rhetoric from Miami exiles...if the shoe fits wear it.

Where did I say that? I said wage labour = wage labour
And then you ignored what wage labor actually means in order to cheaply apply it to a country that has none...just because you've already convinced yourself of this unprovable fact after being duped by right-wing anti-socialist anti-Cuban hacks.

Wage labour is when the worker sells his labour-power to the owner of the menas of production.
Which owners would that be in Cuba? Which?

That's what I keep saying. Do you even read my posts?
Then why are you telling us Cuba has capitalist wage labor when it clearly doesn't?

Actually, the reason I have a temper is because you keep coming at me with "wage labour isn't when you work for a wage" while I keep saying that myself.
If I recall correctly, that's not when you called me mentally retarded...that would be when I asked you for examples of repression and you had nothing.

It's not illegal, it is illegal for private capitalists, not for state capitalists.
Ah, right, so the social position of the capitalist class is illegal but you still think people are legally capitalists.

I never claimed I was, what's your excuse?
Well that explains a lot. :laugh:

Any source I will provide is "bourgeois lies" anyway.
Yes, any source YOU PROVIDE will most likely be bourgeois lies, because those are the only things that support your numb reasoning.

Your arguments are unfalsifiable. Anything that supports your claim is accurate, anything that contradicts it are from faulty bourgeois souces.

http://www.amnesty.org/en/region/cuba
Let's hear it straight, do you think Amnesty International isn't a faulty bourgeois source? They're probably the archetypical faulty bourgeois source.

So now everyone who is critical of the Cuban government and is not allowed to do so is taking money.
I know this isn't part of your Pentagon-approved talking points, but it's proven that Cuban "dissidents" were/are taking money from US imperialists.

From 2008: Cuban sting shows US diplomat handing over cash to dissidents (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/may/24/cuba.usa)

Wow, that's gotta be annoying for you.

Again, I don't know any local Cubans, not one.
Then stop acting like you know the political situation, when you know absolutely nothing.

See, infantile.

No. It is because you expect me to know all the names of the victims of Cuban repression, and if I do not know them, it must not exist. It's tantamount to arguing that since I do not know any North Koreans that were not allowed to participate in North Korean elections, elections in North Korea must be fair and free and democratic. It is truly beyond stupid.
Yeah yeah more desperate comparisons...try to stick to the topic at hand for once in your life.

Namely, which candidacies have been rejected by the electoral commission that you cited as repressive?

Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

Furthermore, any names I will provide will be paid by the pentagon anyway (that is, according to you).
The point is you won't provide me with any names because there are none.

No, because I don't live in Cuba. There was this candidate in the Netherlands from a city who was not allowed to run as candidate for the local government because he did not have enough signatures. Now you go tell me who it was GO! And if you do not know who it was..... it must mean that he was allowed to run.
I can explain to you why the Netherlands is a capitalist state.

You won't do the same when it comes to Cuba...because you can't.

First, it was an analogy.
And a pretty ineffective one, probably borne of a complete lack of legitimate arguments.

If I do not channel my unbelief for the incredible stupidity, anti-socialist, anti-Marxist through a slightly agitated comment on a forum I'm going to shit bricks.
And by channeling your unbelief, you mean demeaning me by comparing me to the mentally handicapped? Very constructive, I think, very positive.

Again, it is tantamount to asking "well, if the nazis really killed 12 million people, then name them". I don't know any.
I can name Thaelmann off the top of my head because I know a little something about German history...kind of helps when you're discussing a certain topic, I find.

Anyway, Google and 10 seconds will reveal far more than one name. You lose, try again.

Everything that does not agree with your ML interpretation is bourgeois. That is, your theories are unfalsifiable.
There are plenty of MLs on this very forum who disagree with me and who are not bourgeois, therefore you're wrong. Again.

Again with Miami? In any case, I already explained why I don't have a bias. If Cuba truly was a grassroots democracy, with workers control over production, and freedom guaranteed for all workers I would gladly believe, and I genuinely mean this. I would use Cuba in every argument which tells me socialism does not work, I would point out how Cuba is doing better than any (or most) other Latin American country, how it has good health care, how it has affordable housing, how it has the second highest literacy rate. I would embrace Cuba, but the reality is, it's a capitalist dictatorship. It's economically better than, say, El Salvador, but both are capitalist.
What, you don't have a bias? A truly impartial position is logically impossible, and so you're wrong there, you have a bias you're just not honest enough to admit it.

And "in reality" you have nothing to show it's capitalist and you have nothing to show that it's a dictatorship.

I don't provide sources, it's because it doesn't exist. I do provide sources, it's bourgeois lies-----unfalsi-fucking-fiable.

I also don't see how Cuban law is supposed to be a HRW.
You don't provide sources because none exist, and whenever you do they're full of right-wing nonsense that deserves only to be laughed at. Case in point: the Ladies in White, your showpiece of "Cuban repression". :lol:

No you're not, all I say is based on bourgeois propaganda anyway. Whatever I say, do, whatever evidence I may provide, even if I take ten Cubans to your home and let them explain how democracy is a sham you will say "nope, they are paid by imperialists". "nope, that's just bourgeois propaganda"/
Yeah, go to Miami and bring ten exiles to my home, then you'll be speaking with the voice of Cuba! :laugh:

Unless you can find me that guy who was not allowed to run due to a lack of signatures in a city in the Netherlands, I probably won't respond (then again, I don't like shitting bricks so probably will).
Of course, you can pull up some citation of sometime one of the Ladies in White had a hair on their head touched and cried foul which is capital R Repression in your mind, but you can't pull up anyone who was barred from candidacy by the electoral board.

Which tells us it's not repression at all, just you taking your cues from the White House because you wouldn't know materialism if it came up to your front door and recited War and Peace while doing jumping jacks.

As for this whole Netherlands petition idea, not sure if you didn't notice, but that was never my claim. I didn't tell you the Netherlands was a capitalist state because of a certain amount of signatures you have to get to run in a local election. Still, I can find this:

Parties wanting to take part must register 43 days before the elections, supplying a nationwide list of at most 50 candidates (80 if the party already has more than 15 seats). Parties that do not have any sitting candidates in the House of Representatives must also pay a deposit (11,250 euro for the November 2006 elections, for all districts together) and provide 30 signatures of support from residents of each of the 19 electoral districts in which they want to collect votes.

Nailed it! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Representatives_of_the_Netherlands)

So what's your next pathetic excuse? That you can't find anyone rejected by the Cuban electoral commission because Google is secretly working for Fidel Castro? With ultra-left nonsense, the fun never stops!

Your flatout deny any facts I provide to sustain your belief, = biased. So why should I bother.
Ah, I see, whatever a gusano exile tells you is "facts". Good representation of your ideological alignment. :laugh:

Brosip Tito

2nd April 2012, 21:46

Trash this thread. Any thread where Manic starts debating someone, it turns into a shitstorm of useless semantics arguments and unfalsifiable claims on manic's part.

Lev Bronsteinovich

3rd April 2012, 03:17

Ownership determines the nature of the relations of production. For example, you cannot have common ownership and wage-labour. Wage-labour can only exist when the means of production are concentrated in the hands of a few, or monopolised. In Marx time, the only form of in which the means of production were monopolised was in the form of private ownership and he included this as an aspect of the capitalist mode of production. However, state ownership of the means of production is also a form of monopolisation an thus also leads to wage-labour.

Anyone who claims that nationalisation is socialist cannot deny that the police are socialist. OWNERSHIP determines which class rules, exactly. The bureaucrats do NOT own the means of production in the deformed workers states. Private property is, by definition, the dominant mode of capitalism.

Agreed, nationalization, in and of itself is not enough. When it happens in Western Europe or the US it is often to bail out failing companies or industries. There is no centralized planning and the vast majority of capital remains privately owned. State capitalism is an oxymoron. Lenin used it to try to explain the deeply contradictory and perilous position the Soviet government found itself in after the revolution did not spread to western europe. The Left Coms here would have had Lenin cede power to the Whites and commit suicide. Forget the world revolution. But for about 30 seconds we would have had workers democracy before the counter-revolution came down on us. Doo dah.

manic expression

3rd April 2012, 14:54

Trash this thread. Any thread where Manic starts debating someone, it turns into a shitstorm of useless semantics arguments and unfalsifiable claims on manic's part.
This was a reasonable conversation until my opponent compared me to the mentally challenged in order to belittle my arguments. If you want to blame the decreasing decorum of this thread then direct it there.

By the way, from your bitterness, it's pretty clear you're still mad at getting schooled by me. You shouldn't worry about it too much, because as you can see it happens to a lot of ultra-lefts here.

Brosip Tito

3rd April 2012, 15:09

This was a reasonable conversation until my opponent compared me to the mentally challenged in order to belittle my arguments. If you want to blame the decreasing decorum of this thread then direct it there.

By the way, from your bitterness, it's pretty clear you're still mad at getting schooled by me. You shouldn't worry about it too much, because as you can see it happens to a lot of ultra-lefts here.
:laugh:

You didn't school me. You've never schooled anyone.

You claimed that my arguments were "unmaterialist", with absolutely no backing as to why.

You claimed that my definitions were not Marxist, because you say so. With NO sources of your own definitions. Every point you could not refute, you turned into a semantics debate.

You still haven't answered to your total incompetency with Marxist class theory, when you referred to different monarchical families as classes of their own.

Honestly, just stop posting. You're threads and replies are content free, and you refuse to acknowledge when you're wrong. You derail the argument, and you turn your own arguments into unfalsifiable ones.

Nobody is "bitter" here. I don't need to be bitter when you didn't even provide an actual argument against me.

Nobody "won" our argument or got "schooled" because you didn't participate in an argument on the national question. I participated in the debate, and you participated in a debate about semantics and "Marxist" or "materialist" definitions of words.

If you were capable of defending your ideas, without resorting to calling people "unmaterialist" "anti-marxist" or "ultra-left", maybe one could take you seriously. You can't even do that. You have no ideas. You are a compelte revisionist of marxist theory, you derail arguments, you have no theoretical competency to be able to defend yourself.

tldr; Read some Marx and Engels.

manic expression

3rd April 2012, 15:23

Brosip Tito

3rd April 2012, 15:35

Order Reigns, maybe you should try to speak to the topic at hand (Cuba, in case you forgot) instead of getting mad about losing a previous argument. It is in no small part your inability to talk about Cuba that has made this thread such poor conversation. Regardless, make a point about Cuba and I'd be more than happy to point out just how un-Marxist your politics are.
Sure, I'll engage you in a another pointless debate were you fail to prove any point, even your semantic ones.

What is YOUR definition of Marxism and your definition of materialism.

On to Cuba:

Cuba is a capitalist bourgeois dictatorship. It was never a dictatorship of the proletariat, let alone socialism (which is a stateless, classless society).

The Cuban revolution was not a proletariat revolution. In fact, the majority class in Cuba was the peasantry, who were also the majority composition of the revolution. There was passive proletariat support of this petty-bourgeois led, peasants revolution. We know that, as Marxists, the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot exist without a majority being the proletarian.

The question of "socialism" existing in Cuba is now out of the question, because we know that socialism is stateless and classless.

Did a DOTP exist, is the question. The answer, quite clearly, is no.

manic expression

3rd April 2012, 15:48

Finally, something of substance...or, something of supposed substance.

What is YOUR definition of Marxism and your definition of materialism.
Briefly and off the top of my head...

Marxism: the ideology and analytical method set out by Marx

Materialism: the view of society as stemming from concrete circumstances first and foremost, production arguably being the most important

On to Cuba:

Cuba is a capitalist bourgeois dictatorship. It was never a dictatorship of the proletariat, let alone socialism (which is a stateless, classless society).

The Cuban revolution was not a proletariat revolution. In fact, the majority class in Cuba was the peasantry, who were also the majority composition of the revolution. There was passive proletariat support of this petty-bourgeois led, peasants revolution. We know that, as Marxists, the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot exist without a majority being the proletarian.
:laugh: No. On all counts, no.

First, you can't quantify "dictatorship" because it's nothing but a baseless charge from a baseless viewpoint. Second, you won't show how Cuba is a "capitalist bourgeois" society because you can't, capitalist production has been outlawed and is not in practice in the country. Third, Marx himself promoted working-class revolution even when the proletariat was not the majority of the population (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1856/letters/56_04_16.htm), so obviously you have no business saying "as Marxists" because you're in direct opposition to such a Marxist as Karl Marx.

The question of "socialism" existing in Cuba is now out of the question, because we know that socialism is stateless and classless.
False. Socialism is neither. Communism is stateless and classless, socialism is the establishment of working-class society as the prerequisite for communism.

Did a DOTP exist, is the question. The answer, quite clearly, is no.
That, quite clearly, is not an argument.

Brosip Tito

3rd April 2012, 16:10

Finally, something of substance...or, something of supposed substance.Mmhm.

Briefly and off the top of my head...

Marxism: the ideology and analytical method set out by Marx

Materialism: the view of society as stemming from concrete circumstances first and foremost, production arguably being the most importantThat's a very basic definition of each, but I'll accept it, I have no time to make you go in depth.

:laugh: No. On all counts, no.Do explain.

First, you can't quantify "dictatorship" because it's nothing but a baseless charge from a baseless viewpoint. Second, you won't show how Cuba is a "capitalist bourgeois" society because you can't, capitalist production has been outlawed and is not in practice in the country. Third, Marx himself promoted working-class revolution even when the proletariat was not the majority of the population (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1856/letters/56_04_16.htm), so obviously you have no business saying "as Marxists" because you're in direct opposition to such a Marxist as Karl MarxI'm arguing that a proletarian dictatorship cannot occur out of it. I'm not opposing it.

False. Socialism is neither. Communism is stateless and classless, socialism is the establishment of working-class society as the prerequisite for communism.Marx used the terms interchangeably. You're thinking the DOTP.

That, quite clearly, is not an argument.Nor is anythign you've replied with.

manic expression

3rd April 2012, 16:15

I'm arguing that a proletarian dictatorship cannot occur out of it. I'm not opposing it.
Proletarian rule is the aim of Marxism and certainly of Marx, and so obviously he supported such an occurrence to that end.

And if you're not opposing it then why do you oppose it when you wrongly think that's what happened in Cuba?

Marx used the terms interchangeably. You're thinking the DOTP.
False again (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch01.htm).

Nor is anythign you've replied with.
That's pretty funny when you've conceded multiple points already.

Brosip Tito

3rd April 2012, 16:26

Proletarian rule is the aim of Marxism and certainly of Marx, and so obviously he supported such an occurrence to that end.The elimination of class society is Marxism's aim. Proletarian rule is the way to get there.

And if you're not opposing it then why do you oppose it when you wrongly think that's what happened in Cuba?Because that did happen in Cuba. Castro and his officers were petty-bourgeois, the majority of the forces were peasants. The peasants were the majority class in Cuba.

(http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch01.htm)False again (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch01.htm).What are you trying to reference here? Quote it, I'm not reading the whole thing right now.

That's pretty funny when you've conceded multiple points already.What points have I conceded?

manic expression

3rd April 2012, 16:35

The elimination of class society is Marxism's aim. Proletarian rule is the way to get there.
...which doesn't at all contradict the possibility of a revolution of workers and peasants when workers aren't the majority of the population.

Because that did happen in Cuba. Castro and his officers were petty-bourgeois, the majority of the forces were peasants. The peasants were the majority class in Cuba.
Why was Fidel petty-bourgeois? Because he was born to a petty-bourgeois family? Class isn't like eye color, it doesn't stay with you your whole life. Fidel was a lawyer, he wasn't a worker but he wasn't employing workers either. Further, by the time he got to Mexico City all that had changed and he was a professional revolutionary.

Also, Marx in the Manifesto quite clearly says that members of the bourgeoisie and petty-bourgeoisie will and should join ranks with the masses, something that contradicts entirely your position.

Again, peasants being the majority means absolutely nothing when it comes to the character of a revolution, Marx himself just told you that.

What are you trying to reference here? Quote it, I'm not reading the whole thing right now.
It explains that classless society isn't just one stage, it's a process to get to truly classless, stateless society.

What points have I conceded?
That Cuba is a "dictatorship" and that Cuba is a "capitalist bourgeois" society.

Brosip Tito

3rd April 2012, 17:13

...which doesn't at all contradict the possibility of a revolution of workers and peasants when workers aren't the majority of the population.Never said it did. However, proletarian rule is not established when the revolution is "successful". It must continue to proletarianize the nation, and the peasants, which is did.

However, the working class itself, never held political power, nor control of the means of production.

Why was Fidel petty-bourgeois? Because he was born to a petty-bourgeois family? Class isn't like eye color, it doesn't stay with you your whole life. Fidel was a lawyer, he wasn't a worker but he wasn't employing workers either. Further, by the time he got to Mexico City all that had changed and he was a professional revolutionary.Yes, that makes him petty-bourgeois.

The point being that the entire leadership of the revolution, was heavily influenced by petty-bourgeois interests.

Also, Marx in the Manifesto quite clearly says that members of the bourgeoisie and petty-bourgeoisie will and should join ranks with the masses, something that contradicts entirely your position.Quote it.

Again, peasants being the majority means absolutely nothing when it comes to the character of a revolution, Marx himself just told you that.No, he never. you need to learn to cite the parts you want to use to prove your point.

You don't say "God says gays are an abomination" and then link someone to the entire bible to prove your point.

It explains that classless society isn't just one stage, it's a process to get to truly classless, stateless society.Cite it.

That Cuba is a "dictatorship" and that Cuba is a "capitalist bourgeois" society.I asked you to explain how I was wrong, you then ignored my call.

manic expression

3rd April 2012, 17:39

Never said it did. However, proletarian rule is not established when the revolution is "successful". It must continue to proletarianize the nation, and the peasants, which is did.
Why isn't proletarian rule established?

However, the working class itself, never held political power, nor control of the means of production.
Except it did and does. Here (http://cubandemocracy.wordpress.com/election-process/) is the proof (http://www.cubaminrex.cu/english/Focus_On/Cuban%20political%20and%20electoral%20system%20.ht m).

Yes, that makes him petty-bourgeois.
You don't know what class is, then.

The point being that the entire leadership of the revolution, was heavily influenced by petty-bourgeois interests.
Why, because it wasn't insulated from lawyers?

Quote it.
Obviously you don't know the work:

Finally, in times when the class struggle nears the decisive hour, the progress of dissolution going on within the ruling class, in fact within the whole range of old society, assumes such a violent, glaring character, that a small section of the ruling class cuts itself adrift, and joins the revolutionary class, the class that holds the future in its hands.

No, he never. you need to learn to cite the parts you want to use to prove your point.

You don't say "God says gays are an abomination" and then link someone to the entire bible to prove your point.
No, I don't say that, but you probably think Marx did somehow because you're not a Marxist. From the very short letter that you were unable to read:

The whole thing in Germany will depend on whether it is possible to back the Proletarian revolution by some second edition of the Peasants war. In which case the affair should go swimmingly.

Have fun dancing around that, too.

Cite it.
Of course, you probably don't know anything about that either.

What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges. Accordingly, the individual producer receives back from society -- after the deductions have been made -- exactly what he gives to it. What he has given to it is his individual quantum of labor. For example, the social working day consists of the sum of the individual hours of work; the individual labor time of the individual producer is the part of the social working day contributed by him, his share in it. He receives a certificate from society that he has furnished such-and-such an amount of labor (after deducting his labor for the common funds); and with this certificate, he draws from the social stock of means of consumption as much as the same amount of labor cost. The same amount of labor which he has given to society in one form, he receives back in another.
Here, obviously, the same principle prevails as that which regulates the exchange of commodities, as far as this is exchange of equal values. Content and form are changed, because under the altered circumstances no one can give anything except his labor, and because, on the other hand, nothing can pass to the ownership of individuals, except individual means of consumption. But as far as the distribution of the latter among the individual producers is concerned, the same principle prevails as in the exchange of commodity equivalents: a given amount of labor in one form is exchanged for an equal amount of labor in another form.
Hence, equal right here is still in principle -- bourgeois right, although principle and practice are no longer at loggerheads, while the exchange of equivalents in commodity exchange exists only on the average and not in the individual case.
In spite of this advance, this equal right is still constantly stigmatized by a bourgeois limitation. The right of the producers is proportional to the labor they supply; the equality consists in the fact that measurement is made with an equal standard, labor.
But one man is superior to another physically, or mentally, and supplies more labor in the same time, or can labor for a longer time; and labor, to serve as a measure, must be defined by its duration or intensity, otherwise it ceases to be a standard of measurement. This equal right is an unequal right for unequal labor. It recognizes no class differences, because everyone is only a worker like everyone else; but it tacitly recognizes unequal individual endowment, and thus productive capacity, as a natural privilege. It is, therefore, a right of inequality, in its content, like every right. Right, by its very nature, can consist only in the application of an equal standard; but unequal individuals (and they would not be different individuals if they were not unequal) are measurable only by an equal standard insofar as they are brought under an equal point of view, are taken from one definite side only -- for instance, in the present case, are regarded only as workers and nothing more is seen in them, everything else being ignored. Further, one worker is married, another is not; one has more children than another, and so on and so forth. Thus, with an equal performance of labor, and hence an equal in the social consumption fund, one will in fact receive more than another, one will be richer than another, and so on. To avoid all these defects, right, instead of being equal, would have to be unequal.
But these defects are inevitable in the first phase of communist society as it is when it has just emerged after prolonged birth pangs from capitalist society. Right can never be higher than the economic structure of society and its cultural development conditioned thereby.
In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life's prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly -- only then then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!

You're not a Marxist, and you don't even play one on TV.

I asked you to explain how I was wrong, you then ignored my call.
:laugh: That wasn't in response to my points, that was in response to the previous paragraph...you never responded to the points themselves because you're obviously wrong on them.

Brosip Tito

3rd April 2012, 18:07

Why isn't proletarian rule established?Since the proletarian is not the majority. We understand the dictatorship of the proletariat as the dictatorship of the majority over the minority.

Just as the current dictatorship of the bourgeoisie is the dictatorship of the minority over the proletarian majority.

Except it did and does. Here (http://cubandemocracy.wordpress.com/election-process/) is the proof (http://www.cubaminrex.cu/english/Focus_On/Cuban%20political%20and%20electoral%20system%20.ht m).That's not proof. It's government propaganda and a fucking blog you idiot.

You don't know what class is, then.It's a determination of social status based on relations to the means of production.

"Professionals and managers" are oft included into this definition of petty-bourgeois.

Why, because it wasn't insulated from lawyers?
Because the interests of the petty-bourgeois class were represented.

Obviously you don't know the work:

Finally, in times when the class struggle nears the decisive hour, the progress of dissolution going on within the ruling class, in fact within the whole range of old society, assumes such a violent, glaring character, that a small section of the ruling class cuts itself adrift, and joins the revolutionary class, the class that holds the future in its hands.I was wondering if you knew, actually. Regardless, this doesn't apply to Cuba, as the petty-bourgeois were there from the beginning.

No, I don't say that, but you probably think Marx did somehow because you're not a Marxist. From the very short letter that you were unable to read:

The whole thing in Germany will depend on whether it is possible to back the Proletarian revolution by some second edition of the Peasants war. In which case the affair should go swimmingly.

Have fun dancing around that, too.
Thank you.

Now, it doesn't support your claim that revolution can be built on a minority proletarian revolution. In fact, it doesn't say anything to support your claim, or to refute mine.

Of course, you probably don't know anything about that either.

What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges. Accordingly, the individual producer receives back from society -- after the deductions have been made -- exactly what he gives to it. What he has given to it is his individual quantum of labor. For example, the social working day consists of the sum of the individual hours of work; the individual labor time of the individual producer is the part of the social working day contributed by him, his share in it. He receives a certificate from society that he has furnished such-and-such an amount of labor (after deducting his labor for the common funds); and with this certificate, he draws from the social stock of means of consumption as much as the same amount of labor cost. The same amount of labor which he has given to society in one form, he receives back in another.
Here, obviously, the same principle prevails as that which regulates the exchange of commodities, as far as this is exchange of equal values. Content and form are changed, because under the altered circumstances no one can give anything except his labor, and because, on the other hand, nothing can pass to the ownership of individuals, except individual means of consumption. But as far as the distribution of the latter among the individual producers is concerned, the same principle prevails as in the exchange of commodity equivalents: a given amount of labor in one form is exchanged for an equal amount of labor in another form.
Hence, equal right here is still in principle -- bourgeois right, although principle and practice are no longer at loggerheads, while the exchange of equivalents in commodity exchange exists only on the average and not in the individual case.
In spite of this advance, this equal right is still constantly stigmatized by a bourgeois limitation. The right of the producers is proportional to the labor they supply; the equality consists in the fact that measurement is made with an equal standard, labor.
But one man is superior to another physically, or mentally, and supplies more labor in the same time, or can labor for a longer time; and labor, to serve as a measure, must be defined by its duration or intensity, otherwise it ceases to be a standard of measurement. This equal right is an unequal right for unequal labor. It recognizes no class differences, because everyone is only a worker like everyone else; but it tacitly recognizes unequal individual endowment, and thus productive capacity, as a natural privilege. It is, therefore, a right of inequality, in its content, like every right. Right, by its very nature, can consist only in the application of an equal standard; but unequal individuals (and they would not be different individuals if they were not unequal) are measurable only by an equal standard insofar as they are brought under an equal point of view, are taken from one definite side only -- for instance, in the present case, are regarded only as workers and nothing more is seen in them, everything else being ignored. Further, one worker is married, another is not; one has more children than another, and so on and so forth. Thus, with an equal performance of labor, and hence an equal in the social consumption fund, one will in fact receive more than another, one will be richer than another, and so on. To avoid all these defects, right, instead of being equal, would have to be unequal.
But these defects are inevitable in the first phase of communist society as it is when it has just emerged after prolonged birth pangs from capitalist society. Right can never be higher than the economic structure of society and its cultural development conditioned thereby.
In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life's prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly -- only then then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!

You're not a Marxist, and you don't even play one on TV.Once again, a quote which does not aid your point or disprove my own.

:laugh: That wasn't in response to my points, that was in response to the previous paragraph...you never responded to the points themselves because you're obviously wrong on them.Obviously :lol:

Cuba IS a bourgeois dictatorship. It is capitalist. The workers do not hold political power.

manic expression

3rd April 2012, 18:40

Since the proletarian is not the majority. We understand the dictatorship of the proletariat as the dictatorship of the majority over the minority.
Over the capitalist class...not over peasants. Exactly what ideology do you subscribe to? It certainly isn't Marxism.

Just as the current dictatorship of the bourgeoisie is the dictatorship of the minority over the proletarian majority.
Ah, so Cuba before 1959 wasn't capitalist because it didn't have a proletarian majority. Brilliant! :laugh:

That's not proof. It's government propaganda and a fucking blog you idiot.
Those are the facts on the ground. Do you deny them? Provide something to the contrary then.

It's a determination of social status based on relations to the means of production.

"Professionals and managers" are oft included into this definition of petty-bourgeois.
And yet a professional revolutionary is neither.

Because the interests of the petty-bourgeois class were represented.
Quantify that. How do you know they "were represented"? Because someone trained as a lawyer who hadn't worked as a lawyer in years was part of it?

I was wondering if you knew, actually. Regardless, this doesn't apply to Cuba, as the petty-bourgeois were there from the beginning.
Too bad that does nothing to contradict my position on this. Marx thought it was natural and right that members of the ruling class (not even the petty bourgeoisie, mind you) would join the ranks and cause of the masses as Fidel did.

Thank you.

Now, it doesn't support your claim that revolution can be built on a minority proletarian revolution. In fact, it doesn't say anything to support your claim, or to refute mine.

Once again, a quote which does not aid your point or disprove my own.
Wrong. At that point in history, the proletariat was the minority, therefore your equation is anti-Marxist.

Cuba IS a bourgeois dictatorship. It is capitalist. The workers do not hold political power.
More empty ultra-left sloganeering, still no argument. How many more posts can you go before formulating something approaching a constructive point on these baseless accusations?

Thanks for conceding on the question of communism and socialism, by the way.

A Marxist Historian

5th April 2012, 20:47

You do realize that Marx used these terms synonymously, right? I'm sure if you were "a Marxist of any sort", "you would understand" this.

You're describing the DotP, not socialism.

Replace "Socialist" with proletarian dictatorship and this would make sense. Still, this description is far from the situation in Cuba.

I don't think anybody said it wasn't a genuine revolution. It was. It's just that it was a bourgeois revolution.

Not true that Marx used socialism & communism synonymously, except in a general sense. He distinguished two different forms of communist society, the first stage socialism, and the second stage communism. Critique of the Gotha Programme.

Nor was this an isolated occurrence in a single pamphlet. There's a reason he called it the Communist Manifesto, not the Socialist Manifesto. In fact, a whole lot of the pamphlet is devoted to explaining how communism, what he and the Communist League advocated, was different from the socialism in fifty-two different flavors about half of the Manifesto was devoted to denouncing.

Now, calling the Cuban Revolution a "bourgeois revolution" is simply hilarious. This is the "left" equivalent of Flat Earthism or creationism, and anybody who argues that is, basically, an idiot.

What's a bourgeois revolution? It's a revolution that puts the bourgeoisie into power in a society.

What happened to the bourgeoisie in the Cuban Revolution? They had to flee to Miami.

-M.H.-

A Marxist Historian

5th April 2012, 20:59

...Wage labour is when the worker sells his labour-power to the owner of the menas of production...

This posting is getting to the interminability point, so I'm only going to deal with the key point above, to which everything else is secondary.

The above is quite correct, but who owns the means of production in Cuba? As there are no private capitalists in the state sector (there is of course a private sector coming into existence, but that's besides the point in this context), Goti is forced to posit an ethereal "state capitalist" class, which somehow or other, despite no legal form of ownership in existence whatsoever, "owns" the means of production in Cuba.

And why do they own it? Because there is "wage labour" in Cuba. And why is there "wage labour in Cuba"? Because the "state capitalist class" owns the means of production. And why do they own it? Because there is "wage labour" in Cuba. And why is there...?

In short, a purely circular argument.

-M.H.-

Vladimir Innit Lenin

5th April 2012, 22:44

This posting is getting to the interminability point, so I'm only going to deal with the key point above, to which everything else is secondary.

The above is quite correct, but who owns the means of production in Cuba? As there are no private capitalists in the state sector (there is of course a private sector coming into existence, but that's besides the point in this context), Goti is forced to posit an ethereal "state capitalist" class, which somehow or other, despite no legal form of ownership in existence whatsoever, "owns" the means of production in Cuba.

And why do they own it? Because there is "wage labour" in Cuba. And why is there "wage labour in Cuba"? Because the "state capitalist class" owns the means of production. And why do they own it? Because there is "wage labour" in Cuba. And why is there...?

In short, a purely circular argument.

-M.H.-

Private Capitalists have held sway in Cuba for a number of years. Joint ventures and the renting out of first or second houses by private citizens have been the norm for a number of years, and are certainly on the increase. I think you are under-estimating the extent to which the state sector has control over the economy.

Then you also have the privately-controlled resorts such as Varadero.

There isn't wage labour because there is a 'state' capitalist class in Cuba. There is wage labour in Cuba because the workers do not have economic democracy at the national level, and so they are employed labourers, as opposed to democratically allocating labour and capital and fixing production themselves. That there is a 'state' capitalist class is irrelevant. The key is that Capitalist economic relations do persist in Cuba, albeit in an unique sort of way that is foreign to the free-market Capitalism of the western world.

Sperm-Doll Setsuna

5th April 2012, 22:49

On this issue, the other day I observed, in our regular bourgeois press, that there was a man speaking, who said he was a private farmer from Cuba. He owned a plot of land, and whined immensely on the issue of how he was having to sell to the state, and claimed that the state was reluctant to purchase it and would rather leave his crops to rot than pick them up. That aside, which is irrelevant,, of course, bothered the mere fact that these private farmers (who the Raul government now wants to encourage in a vain hunt for productivity and I presume new employment opportunities as the state enterprises shed them by the hundreds of thousands) have been tolerated and let alone for all these years is something that speaks against the notion that the land- and agricultural reforms were ever finished in Cuba.

Kyu Six

5th April 2012, 23:23

1) Cuba should be condemned for several things:
a) it's record on LGBTX rights, horrendous.

I'm curious about Cuba's record on LGBT rights. I was under the impression that this is something the Castro regime takes very seriously and that Raul's daughter Mariela is one of the leaders of the LGBT movement in Cuba.

RedSonRising

6th April 2012, 00:52

I'm curious about Cuba's record on LGBT rights. I was under the impression that this is something the Castro regime takes very seriously and that Raul's daughter Mariela is one of the leaders of the LGBT movement in Cuba.

They've publicly apologized and recognized the horrible thing done in the wake of the revolution, and have now committed themselves to supporting LGBT rights. You can even get a free sex change.

daft punk

6th April 2012, 19:19

I don't think anybody said it wasn't a genuine revolution. It was. It's just that it was a bourgeois revolution.
No. Castro intended it to be a bourgeois revolution, not that he was a Stalinist of course, but it never happened for similar reasons as to why Stalin couldnt manage to make Eastern Europe capitalist at the end of WW2. Pus other reasons ie America fucking him off and Russia offering some assistance. He took the economy into public ownership. He fell out with the bourgeois side of his government early on. It slithered over the edge into a Stalinist -type dictatorship very quickly.

daft punk

6th April 2012, 19:23

It is a bourgeois dictatorship that dresses itself in socialist rhetoric.

why can't you people understand that there is a massive difference between a planned economy with a Stalinist dictatorship, and a capitalist free market economy.

daft punk

6th April 2012, 19:29

Originally Posted by daft punk http://www.revleft.com/vb/revleft/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showthread.php?p=2402084#post2402084)
"Different meaning of the phrase workers state, in this usage, it simply means the economy was nationalised so there is no capitalist class.

If Cuba kicked out the bureaucracy and had democracy it would be sort of socialist. That only requires a political revolution, not a social one, as there is no bourgeoisie, only a bureaucracy which does not actually own the means of production legally. "

The economy can be nationalized and the bourgeoisie can still exist. Surplus value is still extracted from the working class and the producer class is still completely alienated from the means of production in Cuba.

Alienated? Not in the same way. Anyway, a lot of people in countries like Cuba believe it to be socialist, so maybe they dont feel alienated.

The economy can be partly nationalised and the bourgeois still exist, such as Britain 1945-79. But Cuba is not Britain and no bourgeois exists in Cuba. The dictatorship of the Communist Party is not the same as a capitalist class. Why do you have to insist on the same term for two things that are so different? If Cuba is capitalist it is a more progressive form of capitalism than it had pre-Castro, so should be welcomed anyway. But if it is, why the embargo? Why the socialist rhetoric? Why has it been progressive?

daft punk

6th April 2012, 19:37

I stayed on that street in the bottom photo, I think.

It's true that Cuba is neither Socialist, nor heading anywhere but away from Socialism.

correct

However, there was (probably was and not is) something to defend about Cuba until very recently, mainly the massive improvements to living standards it had made over 50 years, in its context as a 3rd world country, against the backdrop of the poverty of similar nations such as Haiti, Guatemala, El Salvador etc.

agreed

What has attracted me about Cuba is that it has seemed to be a kind of constrained Marxism-Leninism. Marxism-Leninism-lite, by necessity more than anything else. Everybody knows that Fidel Castro was never originally a Marxist, less so a Leninist.

correct.

With this, the population has been relatively free, in comparison with other 'Socialist States'.

relatively being the operative word. You can get years in jail for writing about democratic socialism.

Whilst the USSR, DPRK and PRCs impressive growth and improvements to healthcare, education and welfare were almost completely wiped out against the backdrop of great purges, mass executions and an horrendous lack of any democratic input at the local level, and the GDRs surveillance operations destroyed the lives of so many Germans (again, offsetting the welfare improvements it made), Cuba has never really had a mass spate of executions, or mass surveillance or anything like that. People live better in Cuba than they could ever live under Capitalism or Marxism-Leninism. It is a qualitative improvement on anything else, bar Socialism.

What must be said though, are a couple of things:

1) Cuba should be condemned for several things:
a) it's record on LGBTX rights, horrendous.
b) it's record of support for 'anti-imperialist' reactionaries like Ahmedinajad.
c) the failure to of course ever move towards genuine, worker-led control of the means of production, though admittedly the imperial situation of Cuba is unique and this is a somewhat mitigating circumstance.

Lack of democracy threatens the revolution in Cuba

d) of course, we can recognise that now Cuba is on the way to full-blown, free-market Capitalism and has probably passed the point of no return; only a proletarian revolution could now institute Socialism,

or the regime actually moving that way itself.

I feel, though the return to State-led Social Democracy could probably be done without revolution, though i'm doubtful this would happen.
e) the two-currency system has, in the past 15-20 years, led to an horrendous increase in inequality. There has been little investment in the inner cities, as we can see from the above picture of Centro Habana. Having stayed there myself for an extended period, I can confirm the dilapidation and lack of structural investment.

2) Cuba's model is clearly unique to itself. It is not a model you could advise for many other countries. The anti-imperialist 'warfare' mode is largely a product of the US and the Bay of Pigs, of the USs previous support for Batista and of Fidel Castro's personal indefatigability. You simply wouldn't want to export such a model and it should be recognised as a Cuban-only (well, perhaps other similar countries could 'benefit' from it too, though this is debatable) model.

In sum, i'm a lot more sympathetic to the Cuban model, historically, than I am to any other 20th Century, self-declared 'Socialist State', simply because it has managed to improve the living standards of the working class beyond belief, institute some level of local democracy (CDRs) without going through mass executions, mass surveillance etc.

Good post Mr Tickle.

daft punk

6th April 2012, 19:49

Other things are vague though, like their electionairy system. They do have an opposition, but it can't be chosen? Or are they just not chosen. If they they can't be chosen, than why are there so little protests or angry Cubans (except from the capitalists that flee to Miami ofcourse).

It's complicated. Basically ordinary people vote for local representatives. No political campaigning is allowed. These representatives then vote for higher bodies and so on. A high up body selects the national candidates, and as I said, you get a choice of one. One candidate on you ballot sheet.

So, not very democratic basically.

RedSonRising

6th April 2012, 19:51

Caj

6th April 2012, 20:08

Alienated? Not in the same way. Anyway, a lot of people in countries like Cuba believe it to be socialist, so maybe they dont feel alienated.

And a lot of people in the US believe they live in a democracy. What's your point? It has nothing to do with how people "feel." Feelings don't make modes of production. Physical relations to the means of production and the resulting social relations produced do. In Cuba, as in all capitalist countries, the working class is physically alienated from the means of production.

The economy can be partly nationalised and the bourgeois still exist, such as Britain 1945-79. But Cuba is not Britain and no bourgeois exists in Cuba. The dictatorship of the Communist Party is not the same as a capitalist class. Why do you have to insist on the same term for two things that are so different?

Because they aren't different.

If Cuba is capitalist it is a more progressive form of capitalism than it had pre-Castro, so should be welcomed anyway.

Capitalism is not progressive. I refuse to support one form of capitalism on the grounds that it is "more progressive" than another form of capitalism.

But if it is, why the embargo?

Conflict within the capitalist class.

Why the socialist rhetoric?

Propaganda.

Why has it been progressive?

It hasn't.

why can't you people understand that there is a massive difference between a planned economy with a Stalinist dictatorship, and a capitalist free market economy.

A free market economy is a mode of exchange and is in no way integal to capitalism, a mode of production based on a set of certain material and social relations.

Workers-Control-Over-Prod

6th April 2012, 22:22

You do realize that Marx used these terms synonymously, right? I'm sure if you were "a Marxist of any sort", "you would understand" this.

You're describing the DotP, not socialism.

Replace "Socialist" with proletarian dictatorship and this would make sense. Still, this description is far from the situation in Cuba.

I don't think anybody said it wasn't a genuine revolution. It was. It's just that it was a bourgeois revolution.

The word "Socialist" has always been used synonymously with the DoP. In Germany 1918 "Die Räterepublik", the DoP, was called out by all working people as Socialism. Marx did not use Socialism interchangeably with communism, communist theory was at that point called scientific socialism, and grew to concretetised descriptions of how to get to scientific socialism, i.e. communism. To say Marx used "Socialism" is a fallacy; Marx and communists always made a great distinction between themselves as scientific socialists and utopian socialists and revisionists that called themselves socialists.

Also to say Cuba was a bourgeois revolution... i don't understand why Fidel should have carried the red flag, been a card carrying communist, while taking power and knowing that the USA hated communists, it would have destroyed any chance for relations before the revolution was completed. Then, of course Cuba followed the marxist-leninist path of state capitalism.

Workers-Control-Over-Prod

6th April 2012, 22:31

Alienated? Not in the same way. Anyway, a lot of people in countries like Cuba believe it to be socialist, so maybe they dont feel alienated.

The economy can be partly nationalised and the bourgeois still exist, such as Britain 1945-79. But Cuba is not Britain and no bourgeois exists in Cuba. The dictatorship of the Communist Party is not the same as a capitalist class. Why do you have to insist on the same term for two things that are so different? If Cuba is capitalist it is a more progressive form of capitalism than it had pre-Castro, so should be welcomed anyway. But if it is, why the embargo? Why the socialist rhetoric? Why has it been progressive?

We don't insist (at least i don't) that the CP of Cuba is bourgeois, we are saying that the country uses capitalist relations i.e. the actual ruling class is not the working class, but the party. I.e. the party selects the state capitalist appropriators of the surplus. The workers are not their own board of directors and do not select the state capitalist class, the party does; thereby keeping up the capitalist mode of production. Bloody hell... for being a "left wing" oppositionist you Trotskyists really are petty about your criticism of state capitalist "socialism".

Caj

6th April 2012, 22:33

The word "Socialist" has always been used synonymously with the DoP. In Germany 1918 "Die Räterepublik", the DoP, was called out by all working people as Socialism. Marx did not use Socialism interchangeably with communism, communist theory was at that point called scientific socialism, and grew to concretetised descriptions of how to get to scientific socialism, i.e. communism. To say Marx used "Socialism" is a fallacy; Marx and communists always made a great distinction between themselves as scientific socialists and utopian socialists and revisionists that called themselves socialists.

When talking about socialism as a particular stage of human society, Marx used it synonymously with communism. As a movement, socialism encompassed more than just communism or scientific socialism.

Also to say Cuba was a bourgeois revolution... i don't understand why Fidel should have carried the red flag, been a card carrying communist, while taking power and knowing that the USA hated communists, it would have destroyed any chance for relations before the revolution was completed. Then, of course Cuba followed the marxist-leninist path of state capitalism.

Fidel didn't declare himself a Marxist-Leninist until after the revolution. Not that it would have mattered, though. Marxist-Leninist revolutions are also bourgeois revolutions.

Brosip Tito

6th April 2012, 22:43

When talking about socialism as a particular stage of human society, Marx used it synonymously with communism. As a movement, socialism encompassed more than just communism or scientific socialism.Precisely, it was even referred to, in Germany at least, as the Social Democracy.

Fidel didn't declare himself a Marxist-Leninist until after the revolution. Not that it would have mattered, though. Marxist-Leninist revolutions are also bourgeois revolutions.Not that bourgeois revolution is entirely bad, back in the day, it does see the remnants of feudal society disappear and advance society.

I'm not overly educated on this, but did the Cuban revolution, for lack of a better word, proletarianize the peasantry?

Workers-Control-Over-Prod

6th April 2012, 23:04

When talking about socialism as a particular stage of human society, Marx used it synonymously with communism. As a movement, socialism encompassed more than just communism or scientific socialism.

Precisely, it was even referred to, in Germany at least, as the Social Democracy.

Not that bourgeois revolution is entirely bad, back in the day, it does see the remnants of feudal society disappear and advance society.

I'm not overly educated on this, but did the Cuban revolution, for lack of a better word, proletarianize the peasantry?

Precisely! The Communist movement had been referred to as Scientific Socialism, but was forced to change from "socialism" to "communism" precisely because of Social-Democracy, revisionism and utopian ultra-leftism. So even though Marx used the word socialism, his followers and students were forced to separate from the revisionist and utopian socialists. But Marx never wrote about Socialism, as it certainly was seen as the transition to communist utopia.

Caj

6th April 2012, 23:11

Precisely! The Communist movement had been referred to as Scientific Socialism, but was forced to change from "socialism" to "communism" precisely because of Social-Democracy, revisionism and utopian ultra-leftism. So even though Marx used the word socialism, his followers and students were forced to separate from the revisionist and utopian socialists. But Marx never wrote about Socialism, as it certainly was seen as the transition to communist utopia.

What the fuck are you talking about?

A Marxist Historian

7th April 2012, 05:24

Private Capitalists have held sway in Cuba for a number of years. Joint ventures and the renting out of first or second houses by private citizens have been the norm for a number of years, and are certainly on the increase. I think you are under-estimating the extent to which the state sector has control over the economy.

Then you also have the privately-controlled resorts such as Varadero.

There isn't wage labour because there is a 'state' capitalist class in Cuba. There is wage labour in Cuba because the workers do not have economic democracy at the national level, and so they are employed labourers, as opposed to democratically allocating labour and capital and fixing production themselves. That there is a 'state' capitalist class is irrelevant. The key is that Capitalist economic relations do persist in Cuba, albeit in an unique sort of way that is foreign to the free-market Capitalism of the western world.

Well, yes, there are now a rising number of private capitalists in Cuba. Why? Is it because the Castro regime wanted that all along? Nah.

It's because the Cuban economy is failing and the Castros are getting desperate. If they had their Soviet lifeline back, or if there were working class revolutions elsewhere in the Americas, then that would go away rapidly. Indeed, the support from Chavez in Venezuela is probably the main reason Cuba hasn't turned into another North Korea or collapsed outright.

Your grounds for arguing that Cuba is "state capitalist" seem different from those of the poster I was arguing with. Whereas he was involved in a classical logical nonsense-circle, your grounds are a more ordinary form of abstract idealism.

Arguing that Cuba is capitalist because workers do not have "economic democracy," a slogan here in the USA more usually associated with the class collaborationist patriotic bourgeois liberalism of Woodrow Wilson and Louis Brandeis than with socialism, is anti-Marxist and anti-materialist.

Politics is superstructure, economics is the base. Not the other way around, for any Marxist.

You have an invasion of capitalist economic relations into Cuba because if socialism in one country is impossible, socialism in one island is doubly impossible.

-M.H.-

A Marxist Historian

7th April 2012, 05:29

No. Castro intended it to be a bourgeois revolution, not that he was a Stalinist of course, but it never happened for similar reasons as to why Stalin couldnt manage to make Eastern Europe capitalist at the end of WW2. Pus other reasons ie America fucking him off and Russia offering some assistance. He took the economy into public ownership. He fell out with the bourgeois side of his government early on. It slithered over the edge into a Stalinist -type dictatorship very quickly.

What did Castro have in mind when he was off in the hills? Well, he was basically a free ranging petty bourgeois radical with petty bourgeois radical ideals. Rather like the early SDS at the time of the Port Huron Manifesto by Tom Hayden. The early SDS just loved the Cuban Revolution, and that is not at all accidental.

SDS went Maoist and Weatherman and PL, three flavors of Stalinism. Fidel went Moscow Stalinist, to some degree under the influence of brother Raul, now the head of Cuba and back then the head of the Cuban Communist Party, but primarily due to the support he was getting from the USSR.

As Stalinism is ultimately a petty bourgeois ideology, the transition was actually not that difficult, in the peculiar circumstances of Cuba.

-M.H.-

manic expression

7th April 2012, 10:15

That aside, which is irrelevant,, of course, bothered the mere fact that these private farmers (who the Raul government now wants to encourage in a vain hunt for productivity and I presume new employment opportunities as the state enterprises shed them by the hundreds of thousands) have been tolerated and let alone for all these years is something that speaks against the notion that the land- and agricultural reforms were ever finished in Cuba.
Full-on collectivization in the USSR was a very flawed process that didn't yield very good results ultimately. Allowing private holdings among the peasantry is no contradiction of socialism so long as they're not exploiting the labor of anyone else, which is the case in Cuba. The Cuban Revolution is probably the best example of socialist land reform in the history of our movement.

No. Castro intended it to be a bourgeois revolution,
That is a lie told by a liar. Fidel expropriated the bourgeoisie and drove them from the country.

But what else can we expect from someone who thinks capitalism is "free" society? :lol:

A high up body selects the national candidates, and as I said, you get a choice of one. One candidate on you ballot sheet.
False, that is only in the second round of voting. In the first round of voting, anyone of voting age from the constituency in question can be nominated as a potential candidate. The candidate is then decided by secret ballot, then subjected to a second yes-no vote of the constituency. Thus, you have no idea what you're talking about. As usual.

daft punk

7th April 2012, 21:31

Are people forgetting so soon that Castro had read the works of Marx and Lenin far before even the Moncada attacks? He strategically allied with certain groups who were less than receptive to Marxism during the guerrilla campaign, but always intended to restructure property relations in urban workplaces and in the countryside. He had a dislike for what he deemed "Soviet Imperialism", but saw the benefits in allying with them, obviously, while Raul in his youth was an admirer of Stalin.

Nah, he read all sorts of stuff, his biographers and his fellow revolutionaries all say nobody knew if he was a commie but they didnt really think so. Even Che was only a very basic kind of commie.

If you wanna read something on this have a look here

http://www.socialistworld.net/pubs/Cuba/cu2.html

daft punk

7th April 2012, 21:39

And a lot of people in the US believe they live in a democracy. What's your point? It has nothing to do with how people "feel." Feelings don't make modes of production. Physical relations to the means of production and the resulting social relations produced do. In Cuba, as in all capitalist countries, the working class is physically alienated from the means of production.

I thought you were on about what Marx meant by alienation.

Because they aren't different.

Oh yes they are. But if you think Cuba is the same as Britain, that's up to you. Have a nice day comrade.

Capitalism is not progressive. I refuse to support one form of capitalism on the grounds that it is "more progressive" than another form of capitalism.

Sorry I was assuming everyone on here is a Marxist. Are you an anarchist?

Conflict within the capitalist class.

amazing

Propaganda.

It hasn't.

A free market economy is a mode of exchange and is in no way integal to capitalism, a mode of production based on a set of certain material and social relations.

Well, anyway. Er, so the debate about whether Cuba is gonna end up capitalist is pretty irrelevant to you I guess.

I don't think I have any answers for you. Nothing in 30 years of Marxism prepared me for this. It's like it was all a dream.

Caj

7th April 2012, 21:55

I thought you were on about what Marx meant by alienation.

Oh, no. Sorry about that.

Oh yes they are. But if you think Cuba is the same as Britain, that's up to you. Have a nice day comrade.

The same material relations to the means of production and social relations among classes that exist in Britain exist in Cuba as well. I fail to see any difference in the modes of production in each country.

Sorry I was assuming everyone on here is a Marxist. Are you an anarchist?

What does that have to do with anarchism? I am a Marxist, and like any real Marxist, I recognize that capitalism is no longer a progressive mode of production.

amazing

It's not so much amazing as blatantly obvious.

Well, anyway. Er, so the debate about whether Cuba is gonna end up capitalist is pretty irrelevant to you I guess.

It's already capitalist from the Marxian standpoint.

I don't think I have any answers for you. Nothing in 30 years of Marxism prepared me for this. It's like it was all a dream.

Prepared you for what? An authentically Marxist position on the class nature of Cuba?

RedSonRising

7th April 2012, 22:25

Nah, he read all sorts of stuff, his biographers and his fellow revolutionaries all say nobody knew if he was a commie but they didnt really think so. Even Che was only a very basic kind of commie.

If you wanna read something on this have a look here

http://www.socialistworld.net/pubs/Cuba/cu2.html

Leycester Coltman wrote a very factual autobiography that contains accounts from companions in his youth that suggest Castro was anti-capitalist from very early on. Raul, even before the Soviet Union, described himself as a Marxist-Leninist. Guevara himself was already read on Marxism and subscribed to it before he even met the Castro brothers. It would be absurd to think Castro could look at the condition of labor in the Latin America and think that Cuba, an island whose colonial existed depended on hierarchical labor relations which rented their land out to a foreign ruling class, could simply become a mini-United States with their own capitalist class system and be a whole lot better off. Anti-Batista and anti-imperialism for the July 16th movement were always factors related to the hierarchy that is capitalism. It is quite difficult to mobilize peasants and urban workers against a US-backed dictator without upsetting the domestic ruling class landowners and industrialists that support and depend on him.

Vladimir Innit Lenin

11th April 2012, 07:38

correct

agreed

correct.

relatively being the operative word. You can get years in jail for writing about democratic socialism.

Lack of democracy threatens the revolution in Cuba

or the regime actually moving that way itself.

Good post Mr Tickle.

Whilst I realise you're being quite complimentary about my post (cheers), can you fuck off with your condescension? Not appreciated.

Vladimir Innit Lenin

16th April 2012, 10:40

Well, yes, there are now a rising number of private capitalists in Cuba. Why? Is it because the Castro regime wanted that all along? Nah.

It's because the Cuban economy is failing and the Castros are getting desperate. If they had their Soviet lifeline back, or if there were working class revolutions elsewhere in the Americas, then that would go away rapidly. Indeed, the support from Chavez in Venezuela is probably the main reason Cuba hasn't turned into another North Korea or collapsed outright.

Your grounds for arguing that Cuba is "state capitalist" seem different from those of the poster I was arguing with. Whereas he was involved in a classical logical nonsense-circle, your grounds are a more ordinary form of abstract idealism.

Arguing that Cuba is capitalist because workers do not have "economic democracy," a slogan here in the USA more usually associated with the class collaborationist patriotic bourgeois liberalism of Woodrow Wilson and Louis Brandeis than with socialism, is anti-Marxist and anti-materialist.

Politics is superstructure, economics is the base. Not the other way around, for any Marxist.

You have an invasion of capitalist economic relations into Cuba because if socialism in one country is impossible, socialism in one island is doubly impossible.

-M.H.-

I don't disagree that Fidel et al. have played the game of realpolitik over the years, moving towards Marxism-Leninism when it was necessary to secure markets in the USSR, and now moving towards Capitalism to prop up the Cuban economy in the Capitalist world, to secure hard currency into the country and so on.

If you want to argue with me on a point of semantics then I simply won't bother entering into a long and tire-some discussion. It's pretty obvious that by 'economic democracy', I mean Cuban workers having something between a democratic input into production, and having outright control over the means of production. Stop playing petty politics, you'd have to be really anal to believe that my politics have anything to do with class collaborationism or Woodrow fucking Wilson. As i'm not from the USA i'm obviously not familiar with slogans liberals in your country use. But yeah, you've essentially taken advantage of my semantic slip to avoid the real issue; that Cuba is, in fact, a country which retains Capitalist economic and property relations headed politically (at the national level, at least) by a pretty un-democratic, un-accountable 'vanguard' party.