Question about Cuba

[AtarashiiSekai]

Hey comrades!

I have been reading up on Cuba recently, and how they have a higher literacy rate and lower infant mortality than even the US, but people will always claim that Cuba is a harsh dictatorship where dissent is silenced and people will get shot trying to escape going to rafts heading for Florida.

Is Cuba really this "harsh dictatorship" and what is the truth about it?

Thanks All!

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

Define "harsh".

[ВАЛТЕР]

We had a thread about Cuba where some right winger tried to denounce it as some horrible place. Lots of great examples of the real situation there, including links to UNICEF facts and the likes.

Here's the thread. It may be of some use to you: http://www.revleft.com/vb/cuba-stuff-t177529/index.html

[Os Cangaceiros]

A lot of people left Cuba due to the economic situation in the aftermath of the Cold War.

[Let's Get Free]

Is Cuba really this "harsh dictatorship" and what is the truth about it?



Of course, it's not the tyranny that the right wing makes it out to be, but it's still a political dictatorship.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

It's not the totalitarian hellscape that American conservatives and large portions of the Cuban American population say, is but that doesn't mean Cubans don't want or should receive more political power and personal freedoms/privileges. Not everything in the world is so black and white. Those conservatives often have serious rose-colored glasses when it comes to their own state which they love so much. In the US we can vote, speak out against the government and join radical parties (just nothing too radical or you'll get an FBI file), but if you immigrated here illegally as a teenager you can still get thrown in jail and deported or detained and tortured as a suspected terrorist if you are a foreign Muslim male with the wrong name. The main difference between here and Cuba in their eyes is that the kinds of state repression utilized fit with their values and what they believe is necessary to defend the American political system.

[Thelonious]

I find it ironic that many right-wing Cuban expatriates in the USA condemn the Cuban government's policies on free speech, yet when someone utters a phrase that may be interpreted as pro-Castro they call for that person to be fired from their job. They champion free speech as long as it is in line with their ideology. The case of Ozzie Guillen comes to mind: http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/story/2012-04-17/ozzie-guillen-marlins-castro-cuba/54320132/1

[cantwealljustgetalong]

yes, it's a harsh dictatorship. it's not Stalin's Russia or Mao's China, but it's not pretty.
I don't see why it would be worth defending as a Marxist; it's a class-collaborationist dictatorship with no revolutionary plan.

[Prometeo liberado]

There are many people here who have spent time in Cuba that can attest to the fact that "harsh" can not be used to describe Cuba save for the blockade. The local committees are a vibrant political force and very much a product of the people. All is not well and could be better, but compared to the rest of the Caribbean and Latin America, I'd take it any time.

[Ostrinski]

Perhaps it is a harsh dictatorship with a higher literacy rate and lower infant mortality than the US :confused:? Those things seem completely compatible to me.

[RevInfiniti]

Its hard for me to criticize a country that has done so much for its poor. I find that most people are inclined to believe the American propaganda machine when it comes to Cuba. After the fall of the coward Batista, Castro educated his people, provided Cubans with free health care, reduce the rents for the poor and/or built houses for the poor, he allowed the black panthers and other revolutionaries to train in Cuba, he helped end apartheid in South Africa, became a friend of Malcolm X, Mandela and Che, sent Cuban soldiers to join just causes and so on. I simply wonder where Cuba would be today if America didn't seek to destroy them economically through trade embargo's.

[tuwix]

I think that Cuba experience all advantages and problems of being a country based on stalinist/leninist system. I've never been in Cuba but I listen to description from both sides and I feel that it is similar to what I was experiencing in Poland.

Advantages are a public health system, whole social support system, and public education to the highest level. But the problems are a lack of goods in shops and system doesn't work according to the expectation of the people. The people of Cuba after revolution were expecting a better life but the Cuban state offered them a few very harsh crises. The most of them weren't a direct result of their politics but it is not according to the expectations. And the expectations are to become the first world with upholding the social achievements ( public health system, social support system, and public education).

[RevisioniningLeft]

If the system in Cuba is good for the people, then why not let them give it legitimacy in an election? Classic case of Leninist 'protection of the people from themselves'

[Yazman]

They do have elections though.

Unless you're talking about the economic system, and in that case - since when were referendums on economic systems held anywhere?

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Define "harsh".

Harsh wouldn't be a verbal warning for a two-word post in learning. Luckily for you I don't have the power to do that. :rolleyes:

To the OP: it's important to not try to fit in a country onto some sort of libertarian-authoritarian, free-harsh, democratic-dictatorial scale, as nothing ever really works like that.

Rather, identify Cuba's position in the world - a tiny island, largely isolated by the US embargo. If you're looking to critique the post-revolution system, then compare it to what came before (i'll let you research that by yourself!), and have a look at some of the improvements that have been made, and the failures. Both the successes and failures are numerous.

Above all, if you're looking to pigeon-hole in some way the Cuban system, then consider that it is an absolutely tiny island in a very large, capitalist-dominated world. Its economy has largely been predicated on exports of the usual variety, in particular healthcare - vaccinations, doctors etc. In other words, Cuba relies on trade with other capitalist nations to survive. It is a capitalist nation, albeit a very progressive one that has numerous wonderful achievements to its name. But I suspect that this has only been possible due to political strength and stability, and the tiny size of the island, and perhaps even helped by the embargo in the sense that it has given some political legitimacy to what is quite a creaky system of economic and political organisation.

What I tend to think about Cuba is that it is a progressive capitalist system that works for that island, but isn't really a system that can be generalised or exported anywhere else. It's very Cuba specific, it's not a blueprint for Socialism.