Why Cuba is not a socialist society

[celticfire]

There seems to be a growing (tiny, but growing...) trend of Castroism on this board, and I want to address it head on, especially since some of their advocaters have been so hostile to my own political line to go so far as advertise mocking a revolutionary leader.

But this isn't about that- it's about their political line. Since the popularization of Che Guevara, millions of youths have participated in his personality cult for decades now upholding him as a revolutionary hero of the people. This is all right and true, but it is also important to understand why none of Che's ideas were correct, even if his actions were heroic, and why socialism is much more than what Cuba is offering.

Cuba has done a lot of progressive things, such as aid to Southern Africa for fighting the forces of Apartheid, the lack of debt among the people, the free schools and medical care, and their outspoken opposition to international capitalism.

But is that alone socialism?

Examine how the Cuban state came into being. Even in their methods of taking power, in the July 26th movement, their focoist tactics were a modern-day version of Blanquism. Change never came from the masses, it was always directed from above.

Castro never even claimed to be a "communist" until he wanted aid from the social-imperialist Soviet Union; his coup was bourgeois-nationalist in nature, with some real social improvements involved, but not ultimately bringing the people into the process of remaking society.

For Cuba to become socialist, they'd have to have a socialist revolution.

Cuba'a reliance on sugar monoculture, Soviet subsidies in exchange for carrying their water internationally, and now toursism/sex traffic are all symptoms of their state-capitalist infrastructure.

[Body Count]

I don't really have my own "political line" as of now as I am still learning, so I suppose I am just "marxist" for the time being.... :D

With that in mind, what exactly are your views? Which revolutionary leader has been attacked?

I'm not a "Castroist", but I do applaud the man for what he's done in life. I somewhat have a bigger "personality cult" for Castro then I do Che. I mean, the whole thing with his first attack on Batista ending in failure, to his famous "condemn me" speech, then to be set free, only to start another movement and succeed! Definitely amazing. And when you consider the US CIA with there plots like Bay of pigs failing miserably, he seems to almost have some sort of divine intervention if you will.

Here's a question, do you feel that Cuba would be more socialist with or without the US embargo? How much do you feel thats hurt progress in Cuba?

[Amusing Scrotum]

Originally posted by celticfire+--> (celticfire)There seems to be a growing (tiny, but growing...) trend of Castroism on this board[/b]

If I had to choose, I'd be Castroist rather than a Maoist. Castro's foreign policy stands alone as the most progressive foreign policy of perhaps the whole of the last century.


Originally posted by celticfire+--> (celticfire)their focoist tactics were a modern-day version of Blanquism.[/b]

Not the right type of vanguard I suppose? :lol:


[email protected]
Change never came from the masses, it was always directed from above.

Are you saying there was no participation by the Cuban masses?


celticfire
his coup was bourgeois-nationalist in nature

A bourgeois revolution was all that was possible. Old material reality will always destroy "grand dreams."
_______

"Cuban Socialism" (or state monopoly capitalism, you choose) is easily the most preferable model out there for developing nations. It is a pity that modern industry hasn't yet been successfully developed, however there are material reasons for this.

In short, if you were to go to the "third world." Cuba would be "the place to go." Plus Cuban foreign policy is ten times more progressive than Mao's ever was.

[ComradeOm]

Originally posted by [email protected] 19 2005, 01:20 PM
There seems to be a growing (tiny, but growing...) trend of Castroism on this board, and I want to address it head on, especially since some of their advocaters have been so hostile to my own political line to go so far as advertise mocking a revolutionary leader.
And you Maoists feel threatened? Or maybe Bob feels that he is the only "revolutionary leader" in the Americas. Ironic that.

While continue I remain unconvinced on the matter of Cuba I fail to see how you have any ground on which to criticise Castro. Did he not kill enough through famine or grand failures? Or perhaps its his refusal to jump into bed with the US.

We'll see what's really going on in Cuba once Fidel dies. Who knows, maybe his socialist revolution is still on track.

[redstar2000]

http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php...st&p=1291991975 (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=44150&view=findpost&p=1291991975)

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[Fidelbrand]

Personally, I think one of the the greatest problems of the left is our ultra-utopian ideals.

"For Cuba to become socialist, they'd have to have a socialist revolution."

From theory and logic, the answer is a definite "yes". But what is the significance of the question, especially in regards to Cuba itself? It's now socialist, its welfare and planned economy and democratic improvements shows this fact. The only downer is that the means of production is not entirely controlled by the workers, but I still support it because if made progress "away" from blatant capitalism.

[Conghaileach]

What a ridiculous first post. There's nothing new at all there, just the same old 'anti-revisionist' arguments regurgitated once more - Cuba depended on 'revisionist' USSR and thus could not, and cannot, be socialist!

Jesus, I'm actually starting to agree that the RCP is a cult where the word of Bob has become the word of God.

The reason why Cuba is not socialist is, simply put, that the means of production, distribution and exchange are not controlled by the workers democratically. That being said, despite Cuba's limitations (which aren't really that bad in terms of democracy etc.), it still deserves the support of anyone who would claim to be in any way progressive.

[celticfire]

Originally posted by Body [email protected] 19 2005, 02:56 PM
With that in mind, what exactly are your views? Which revolutionary leader has been attacked?

I'm not a "Castroist", but I do applaud the man for what he's done in life. I somewhat have a bigger "personality cult" for Castro then I do Che. I mean, the whole thing with his first attack on Batista ending in failure, to his famous "condemn me" speech, then to be set free, only to start another movement and succeed! Definitely amazing. And when you consider the US CIA with there plots like Bay of pigs failing miserably, he seems to almost have some sort of divine intervention if you will.

Here's a question, do you feel that Cuba would be more socialist with or without the US embargo? How much do you feel thats hurt progress in Cuba?
My view is that the world should not seek to make trade there main source of economic development, as Cuba has done with the former Soviet Union. Rather I think socialist China showed a brilliant example of a pre-industrialized country can develop on its own. China was recieving aid from the USSR but was ended when Khrushchev consolidated his power. China launched the Great Leap Forward which saught to build self-supporting communes. -- That is my model. Of course it wasn't without flaws and errors but the basic approach was correct.

[gewehr_3]

I do0 support alot of his reforms and how there arenot any homeless or starving and such. But i donot like authoritarians and cuba needs freespeech and freedom of the press. I dont like any gvt. that has restrictions on things.

[Guerrilla22]

but it is also important to understand why none of Che's ideas were correct,

Which of his ideas do you feel were not correct? His ideology changed as he got older and experienced the USSR first hand, but foremost he was a communist and deciated to spreading revolution world wide.

[Hopes_Guevara]

Originally posted by [email protected] 19 2005, 09:05 PM
China launched the Great Leap Forward which saught to build self-supporting communes. -- That is my model. Of course it wasn't without flaws and errors but the basic approach was correct.
The Great Leap Forward was really one of the worse economic policies in the history of the Communist Pary of China. It was too utopian to work. Indeed, it was only a great dream of Mao who always expected that China would be soon equal with USSR and USA in about 10-20 years. The dreams were never errors but the methods for doing them made a big mistake. At that time, Chinese economy was really bad. Under the command of Mao, every family and everyone refined steel, iron and cast iron. The economy became lame in next to no time. I am sure that Chinese now never want to remember such a stupid period, even if in only their mind.

[Zeitgeizt]

Personally, I think one of the the greatest problems of the left is our ultra-utopian ideals.

"For Cuba to become socialist, they'd have to have a socialist revolution."

From theory and logic, the answer is a definite "yes". But what is the significance of the question, especially in regards to Cuba itself? It's now socialist, its welfare and planned economy and democratic improvements shows this fact. The only downer is that the means of production is not entirely controlled by the workers, but I still support it because if made progress "away" from blatant capitalism.


Wow, there is an adult on this thread! This is probably the only thing said, which made any sense on this entire thread.

Castro did not turn Cuba Socialist out of opportunism...(lets ride the MIT ivory tower professor a little harder...) Castro had the best interests of the Cuban people at heart, and if that meant land reform then so be it - it was a huge advance forward. It turns out that Castro felt that it was best to defend the revolution, and defend the people by advancing towards Socialism, but you simpletons seem to think he did this out of some dirty motive...what that motive was is beyond me, and I don’t think your accusation would hold up in a rational court of law, thank god nobody here is on the jury, with the exception of the comrade I quoted.

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 19 2005, 07:20 AM
Cuba has done a lot of progressive things, such as aid to Southern Africa for fighting the forces of Apartheid,
Wait, a Maoist is saying that was progressive? May I remind you Mao himself was on the other side in Angola, the same side as Washington, the Zairean dictatorship, and apartheid South Africa. Your comrade Flyby's explained that she still regards it as an awful crime that "The Soviet Union demanded that Cuban troops help consolidate new colonial areas for social-imperialism. They became armed bodyguards for the MPLA in angola."

This is the key to Maoists' line on Cuba: you're still mindlessly repeating Mao's position on Cuba which was driven by the national interests of Chinese apparatchiks at the time. At least that was some basis then.....now it's outlived even that purpose. But you persist through sheer inertia.

(And, of course, it's easier to be for revolution in the abstract than to defend a concrete revolution which has actually taken place. That's the key to the more general opposition to Cuba by pseudo-revolutionary leftists.)

As others have pointed out, you've got nothing new here. Here's a past thread where the same arguments were made in detail by another Maoist and refuted by yours truly. (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=31514&hl=)

The assertion that the masses were not involved in the Cuban Revolution is particularly ridiculous. Besides the support and involvement in guerilla warfare by the rural population, there was the urban uprising in Santa Clara which helped Guevara's column take that city, the general strike which accompanied Batista's fall and blocked Washington's efforts to replace him with another military regime....etc.

What's more, the masses are still involved in the Cuban Revolution. That's the power that has enabled the revolution to defy Washington for over 40 years, and accomplish the progressive acts you admit it has. You think...what, Fidel has superpowers? It's not really necessary to involve the masses to accomplish progressive social change? What? How do you concretely explain the events and accomplishments of the Cuban Revolution if its really just a capitalist regime?
As I asked your fellow state caps in this thread; never have gotten a concrete analysis of the facts from 'em in that thread or any other discussion, online or real-life. (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=41124&st=0&#entry1291947172)

[Guerrilla22]

A large part of the problem is that we can't seem to agree on what the definition of actual socialism is.

[ReD_ReBeL]

I'm not much of a Fan of Mao but he was not on the side of the Apartheid in South Africa, read Nelson Mandela's autobiography and he states that they went to meet Mao in China and tried to buy arms and equipment off of Mao , but Mao's reply was that he did not think the ANC was mature enough yet so he wouldent give them arms but he gave them his support

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Fidelbrand
Personally, I think one of the the greatest problems of the left is our ultra-utopian ideals.

As one of the "confirmed sinners" in this regard here, let's talk about "ultra-utopian ideals".

Revolution is neither "easy" nor "safe". When anyone asks us to choose a "revolutionary alternative" to existing society, is it not sensible to ask what are we being asked to choose?

Are you willing to literally "bet your life" on a roll of the historical dice?

Most people aren't.

Here is where the Leninists get very tricky. They all dazzle us about the "marvels of communism" in order to win our support.

But if and when they "come to power", what we actually get is rather less than "marvelous"...and sometimes pretty damn awful.

And pretty much the entire corpus of Leninist theoretical works written after 1917 consists of "Marxist" "explanations" of why we "can't have" what they promised us.

I think the Leninists all sincerely believe in their own mythologies...but why should we?

Why is it "ultra-utopian" on our part to actually demand what we really want?

And to flatly refuse anything less?

Are we to "go on forever" as pawns of this or that existing or aspiring elite -- tossed about by policies over which we have no control?

Is submission to despotism "in our genes"?

Or do we really want "a new world" that is really free of all the old shit?

In my opinion, this will be the question of the left in this century. And maybe the next as well.

Will we insist on communism...or will we submit to a fresh crop of "revolutionary" despots?

What do you choose?

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[Fidelbrand]

Yo Red,

When I am talking about "ultra-utopian ideals". I guess I was using a rather macro view in regards to the society as a whole. Individually, I think people of course has the freedom to think and dream for what they want.

For leftists, we know what good ideas are all about, and we aspire to build a better world through our endeavor of knowledge and actions.

However,
1) the material reality,
2) the "liberal" psychology of the mass,
3) their susceptibility and acceptability to drastic change

..... at times makes it "ultra-utopian" on our part to actually demand what we really want......And to flatly refuse anything less

Capitalism overthrown, then a sharp change to and advocacy of communism is ultra-utopian".

What do you think?

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Fidelbrand
Capitalism overthrown, then a sharp change to and advocacy of communism is ultra-utopian.

Why would large numbers of people want to overthrow capitalism in the first place?

Just to end an unsuccessful imperialist war? Or just because of a major economic crisis?

You don't need a revolution to "solve" those "problems"...a simple change of government usually works out fine.

In Marx's view, proletarian revolution would take place only when the proletariat became convinced that it was "fit to rule"...and that its old capitalist rulers were no longer "fit to rule".

A working class that has such convictions is already communist...it sees at once the need to establish new popular organs to "govern" society.

The idea of appointing (or acquiescing to) a middle class elite to despotically govern "in the interests of the working class" would literally make no sense.

In the "third world", the option of "revolutionary despotism" does make sense...neither the working class nor the peasantry feel that they are "fit to rule". What they actually want is a "benevolent despotism".

And what they ultimately get is the despotism of modern capital...which is a big improvement over the despotism of landed aristocrats and imperialist quislings.

"Western" Leninist parties unanimously share the conceit that they will rule the "western" proletariat "as if" we were all "third world" peasants or "backward" workers.

That ain't gonna happen! :angry:

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[Nothing Human Is Alien]

As I asked your fellow state caps in this thread; never have gotten a concrete analysis of the facts from 'em in that thread or any other discussion, online or real-life.

I'm still waiting for one as well. It seems as if they disappear after their points are rebuffed.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Severian
How do you concretely explain the events and accomplishments of the Cuban Revolution if it's really just a capitalist regime?

This is, of course, such a general question that one could write a lengthy book on the subject.

Particularly since the "events" and "accomplishments" go unspecified.

But try this...

1. Lots of capitalist countries have fought wars of national liberation.

2. Lots of capitalist countries have enacted "social benefit" mechanisms with varying degrees of generosity.

3. Quite a few capitalist countries have employed state capitalist mechanisms to varying degrees and for various periods of time.

4. Most capitalist countries have elaborate systems of quasi-free public education.

5. Most capitalist countries have likewise invested substantially in public health maintenance.

Is there something that Cuba "has done" that no capitalist country "has ever done"?

What might that be?

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[Severian]

Originally posted by redstar2000+Dec 20 2005, 06:24 PM--> (redstar2000 @ Dec 20 2005, 06:24 PM)
Fidelbrand
Personally, I think one of the the greatest problems of the left is our ultra-utopian ideals.

As one of the "confirmed sinners" in this regard here, let's talk about "ultra-utopian ideals".

Revolution is neither "easy" nor "safe". When anyone asks us to choose a "revolutionary alternative" to existing society, is it not sensible to ask what are we being asked to choose? [/b]
Yes, that is a seeming advantage of the utopian socialist approach over the Marxist approach: the utopian can tell you exactly what his/her future society will look like.

In considerable detail, down to the last nut and bolt, with some utopians.

OK, if you like that kind of thing, it's usually harmless enough. But if you do, why claim to be a Marxist?

And it is just a seeming advantage: in reality the utopian is telling you what you won't get. One, a utopian, by pure propaganda, is not likely to get the power to implement the blueprint. Fortunately. Because two, if some utopian does get the power, it usually turns out to be real messy trying to fit people into a blueprint worked out in advance....involved a lot of brute force.

It's not accidental that Redstar's straight-to-communism plan is in reality the Progressive Labor Party's straight-to-communism plan...that is, it was proclaimed by the most super-authoritarian group on the left, as Redstar will describe it himself. The actual implementation of such a plan could only be done by decree and brute force, trying to override (in their minds, accelerate) the actual evolution of society by force of will. That's why Redstar's advocacy of frequent, rapid execution actually fits quite well with his overall political approach....


Just to end an unsuccessful imperialist war? Or just because of a major economic crisis?

You don't need a revolution to "solve" those "problems"...a simple change of government usually works out fine.

Really! Capitalism is capable of solving the problems of imperialist war and economic crisis. Again, why claim to be Marxist if you think so?

OK, capitalism can sometimes emerge from particular crises of that nature with a new stability.....but only at a hideous price for working people, in poverty, fascism, and wartime death and devastation. (Even the last is sometimes necessary to solve crises of overproduction...destroying a mass of means of production. E.g. WWII.)

Yes, revolutions become necessary, and are recognized by millions as necessary, precisely for the reasons you dismiss. To resolve a pressing crisis, and to prevent the ruling class from resolving it in their own favor by their own destructive means.

They certainly do not happen because the majority of workers have been convinced by utopian propaganda that a communist society is desirable. That has never happened before any revolution.

The degree of class consciousness that has existed...is more a product of the experience of the revolution, than a product of propaganda. Propaganda has a role, but it's a secondary one.

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 22 2005, 02:28 AM
1. Lots of capitalist countries have fought wars of national liberation.
Such as? In the 20th century?

And please, name one capitalist country which has given so much aid to so many wars of national liberation, provoking Washington at great risk to itself, with nothing to gain from it economically. What class interest of the supposed Cuban capitalist class was served by its intervention in Angola?


2. Lots of capitalist countries have enacted "social benefit" mechanisms with varying degrees of generosity.

Name one of generosity, relative to economic level, remotely comparable to Cuba's. Or explain what interest of the Cuban capitalist class has led them to adopt such a unique policy.


3. Quite a few capitalist countries have employed state capitalist mechanisms to varying degrees and for various periods of time.

Any to the same degree as Cuba- that is, to the degree of totally expropriating the capitalist class and causing it to flee to Miami? Where is the capitalist class in Cuba today? Any other country in the world today which is moving away from, rather than towards, capitalism?


4. Most capitalist countries have elaborate systems of quasi-free public education.

No other country spends the as much percent of GDP on education as Cuba. As there's nothing "quasi-free" about Cuban schools. Cuban students don't even pay for a pencil. There are stipends for those attending school. Etc.


5. Most capitalist countries have likewise invested substantially in public health maintenance.

What planet are you from?

This kind of thing is precisely why I say I've never gotten a serious answer to this question: they all involve a complete and deliberate ignorance of all facts about Cuba, and all relevant facts about the capitalist world we live in.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Severian+--> (Severian)Yes, revolutions become necessary, and are recognized by millions as necessary, precisely for the reasons you dismiss. To resolve a pressing crisis, and to prevent the ruling class from resolving it in their own favor by their own destructive means.

They certainly do not happen because the majority of workers have been convinced by utopian propaganda that a communist society is desirable. That has never happened before any revolution.[/b]

Yes, what I am talking about "has never happened before". The working class will make revolutions that are explicitly communist and then proceed to actually implement a communist society.

Horrors! :lol:

On the other hand, your "revolutionary option" -- a.k.a. Party despotism -- has happened many times...and the consequences are so infamous that hardly anyone will even bother to listen to you anymore.

All petty-bourgeois Leninist ideologues agree: the working class must be ruled "for its own good".

Ain't gonna happen! :)


What class interest of the supposed Cuban capitalist class was served by its intervention in Angola?

Angola has more oil than it can use. Cuba doesn't have enough oil to keep the lights on in Havana for 24 hours straight.

Think about it.


Name one of generosity, relative to economic level, remotely comparable to Cuba's. Or explain what interest of the Cuban capitalist class has led them to adopt such a unique policy.

Some country has to be "in first place".

And, as you admit, the Cuban social polices are not "unique".

"Revolutionary" despotisms want to be popular...and generous social welfare policies are one very effective way to do that.


Any to the same degree as Cuba- that is, to the degree of totally expropriating the capitalist class and causing it to flee to Miami?

When petty-bourgeois revolutionaries come to power, they get rid of the class that tormented them. Nothing surprising there.


Where is the capitalist class in Cuba today?

In the government ministries, of course, managing Cuba, Inc. Probably waiting for Fidel to die so they can introduce a "new economic policy" and start massive privatization.


Any other country in the world today which is moving away from, rather than towards, capitalism?

The Chavez-groupies on the board would nominate Venezuela, of course.

We have disputed before the "direction" that Cuba is taking...and I have seen no evidence that things have changed in that regard.


No other country spends as much percent of GDP on education as Cuba.

Not even Sweden? :lol:

Anyway, as I said before, some country has to be "in first place".


What planet are you from?

I might well ask you the same. You imply that Cuba is "the most generous welfare-state on the planet" and maybe you're right about that.

It's as if you had formulated a new equation:

generosity of welfare system = amount of working class power

I don't think such an equation is even remotely "Marxist" myself.

But you apparently do think that...or at least something very close to that.

I can't help but wonder if this is a reflection of the contemporary "western" Leninist infatuation with reforms. Nearly all of the remaining Leninist parties in the "west" are more or less openly reformist in practice...so why not "make the leap" and "measure socialism" by a "reformist gage"?

More welfare = more socialism

I will remind the reader of this...


redstar2000
The almost forgotten ancient meaning of the word "socialism" was an ultra-democratic state apparatus that was actually controlled directly by the working class. As Marx and Engels both pointed out explicitly, the Paris Commune was the first such state to ever exist.

Does that sound good to you?

If it does, then why not fight for it?

You're not afraid of some Leninist ideologue calling you "ultra-utopian", are you? :lol:

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[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 22 2005, 05:46 AM
Yes, what I am talking about "has never happened before". The working class will make revolutions that are explicitly communist and then proceed to actually implement a communist society.
It will? What is this conclusion based on? Not past history as a guide, as you explicitly state.


On the other hand, your "revolutionary option" -- a.k.a. Party despotism -- has happened many times...and the consequences are so infamous that hardly anyone will even bother to listen to you anymore.

All petty-bourgeois Leninist ideologues agree: the working class must be ruled "for its own good".

Sorry, this dispute is not over Leninism or the role of the party; it is over Marxism vs utopianism.



What class interest of the supposed Cuban capitalist class was served by its intervention in Angola?

Angola has more oil than it can use. Cuba doesn't have enough oil to keep the lights on in Havana for 24 hours straight.

Think about it.

Yes, think about it. Obviously Havana did not grab any of that Angolan oil for itself, or it wouldn't have that problem. (Nor did Cuba or the USSR have any such need for oil at the time of the intervention!) So again: what capitalist class interest was served?



Name one of generosity, relative to economic level, remotely comparable to Cuba's. Or explain what interest of the Cuban capitalist class has led them to adopt such a unique policy.

Some country has to be "in first place".

And, as you admit, the Cuban social polices are not "unique".

I admitted nothing in the kind, as anyone can see from the paragraph quoted...and see no reason why I should, if you can't name another country that's remotely comparable.

Cuba's not just in first place - it's as far ahead in social programs as the U.S. is in military spending.


In the government ministries, of course, managing Cuba, Inc. Probably waiting for Fidel to die so they can introduce a "new economic policy" and start massive privatization.

Oh, so it's one guy that's the obstacle to that? How Marxist. Fidel's superpowers again. And if he's just the representative of the capitalist class, why would he be an obstacle.

The privileges of government administrators in Cuba are strangely small if they control the means of production and state power as a capitalist class. Are they all ascetic monks who enjoy self-sacrifice? Not typical behavior for capitalists. Or Stalinist bureaucrats, for that matter.

But a concrete explanation of this atypical behavior is not to be expected from those who claim Cuba is "state capitalist."


We have disputed before the "direction" that Cuba is taking...and I have seen no evidence that things have changed in that regard.

Then you're blind as well as deaf, because I and others have shown you plenty of evidence that Cuba is moving away from capitalism.



No other country spends as much percent of GDP on education as Cuba.

Not even Sweden? :lol:

No, not even Sweden. Not even close. You seem incapable of grasping that the Swedish welfare state - which is being dismantled - is based on a much larger GDP. (As well as on Sweden emerging from WWII almost uniquely unscathed, and on the struggles of Swedish workers.)

Third World countries do not typically maintain anything of the kind. You seem completely blind to the conditions of life for working people in the Third World - the majority of humanity, and the majority of countries, do not in fact enjoy any major public health investment by governments. Tens of thousands die for the lack of vaccines which cost pennies. For the lack of clean water.

But not in Cuba. You can't explain that difference, that chasm, so you pretend it doesn't exist.


It's as if you had formulated a new equation:

generosity of welfare system = amount of working class power

I don't think such an equation is even remotely "Marxist" myself.

But you apparently do think that...or at least something very close to that.

No. I'm asking you for an explanation: why are the supposed state capitalists in Cuba so exceptionally generous? Lacking an explanation, you have to deny the facts.

Which have been presented many times on this board, so I'm not going to repeat them.

I do think any evaluation of a state's class character must be based on facts. Including that state's actions.

For example, in order to prove to someone that the U.S. state machinery serves the interests of the capitalist class, I'd point to its actions in suppressing the current subway workers strike in New York and denying their basic democratic right....to not go to work. And numerous other actions which prioritize the profits of the capitalist class over the social needs of working people.

Cuba's actions show the opposite set of priorities: its government puts the needs of working people first. It's one important symptom.

On the other hand, we have....not another state's actions, but Redstar's rhetorical promise of workers' democracy. Lemme suggest this is worth far less than actions.

[chebol]

No, wait, Severian. One day Redstar is going to wave a magic wand, or pencil, or wag his finger one more time, and then- KAZZAMMM! Hey presto. Socialism! No need to go about making the world a better place today, as the mystical revolution will fix it all tomorrow. (Good way of keeping your hands clean too).

[chebol]

And it's clear from his arguments that Redstar doesn't even understand capitalism, let alone marxism.

[Ownthink]

Originally posted by [email protected] 23 2005, 09:40 PM
And it's clear from his arguments that Redstar doesn't even understand capitalism, let alone marxism.
:lol:

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 23 2005, 08:36 PM
No, wait, Severian. One day Redstar is going to wave a magic wand, or pencil, or wag his finger one more time, and then- KAZZAMMM! Hey presto. Socialism! No need to go about making the world a better place today, as the mystical revolution will fix it all tomorrow. (Good way of keeping your hands clean too).
Yeah, exactly. One day a century or three from now, when the objective conditions are finally ready and enough people have been propagandized to accept the utopian blueprint, poof!

That's exactly the issue: whether communism is a movement proceeding from the facts of the actual class struggle today....or from the principles somebody hopes will be implemented someday.

If its the former - if the fundamental method of Marx and Engels was correct - then the revolutions which have actually taken place are of tremendous importance. And the question is not how closely or distantly those revolutions resemble the hoped-for future society, but their role in the real worldwide class struggle today.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

I'm still waiting for celticfire to ever respond to any of the facts severian used to rip his arguments to shreads.. is it going to be like the other threads in which he posted the original argument than disappeared after the rebuttal?

[Guerrilla22]

Me too. If you make statements you should at least be able to back them up. I'm also not sure how a country could go to communism directly, bypassing socialism, redstar maybe you could elborate, please.

[Enragé]

"One can debate the meaning of the term "socialism," but if it means anything, it means control of production by the workers themselves, not owners and managers who rule them and control all decisions, whether in capitalist enterprises or an absolutist state. To refer to the Soviet Union as socialist is an interesting case of doctrinal doublespeak. "
- Noam Chomsky

therefore
Cuba is NOT socialist
period.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

:lol:

Cuz if Chomsky says it, it must be true!

So I take it you voted for Kerry to then? I mean, since he recommended it an all...

And unfortunately for you, you're going to need more than a quote from a petty bourgeois intellectual to convince anyone that "the [Cuban] workers themselves ... don't control production ... [and that] owners and managers who rule them ... control all decisions."

[Conghaileach]

Originally posted by [email protected] 26 2005, 02:56 PM
therefore
Cuba is NOT socialist
period.
But do you think it should be supported by socialists and other progressives, or are you some kind of ultra-left purist?

[Atlas Swallowed]

The Cuban people are better off under Castro then they were before him. Cuba should be supported for that and for the fact that Cuba has been a thorn in the foot of the United States for decades.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Guerrilla22
I'm also not sure how a country could go to communism directly, bypassing socialism, redstar maybe you could elaborate, please.

Well, you begin by saying that's what you're going to do!

In other words, the Leninist paradigm asserts that "it's impossible", so the question of "how to do it" never arises.

From Marx's account of the Paris Commune, we gather that he thought two considerations were important in this first workers' state -- it was hyper-democratic and it was visibly shrinking.

What we would want to do after a proletarian revolution is specifically avoid creating a political "center of gravity" where "everything gets decided".

Naturally, we'd completely dismantle the old bourgeois state apparatus and disperse its personnel.

So who would decide things? Clearly there would be multiple "public bodies" that would indeed be "hyper-democratic" and that, in my opinion, would manage the useful functions that a "high-tech" society requires.

I imagine that things would be pretty "ragged" in the first couple of decades...it will take some time to find out "what works" and what "doesn't work".

But as communists, we would "rule out" certain things "no matter what".

No professional armies or police; no prisons; no large-scale private property; no "market" in basic necessities; and so on.

And then we'll see how we do.

The Leninists have, of course, a much clearer perspective on this stuff. They just "lop off" the big capitalists and replace them with the Party leadership while everything else stays the same.

This is, in their view, "reasonable" and "practical".

Of course it doesn't "lead to communism" and, in fact, cannot lead to communism ever.

The net effect is simply to replace an old ruling class with a new ruling class.

Now it's true that in the case of backward countries that communism really is impossible and the Leninist option makes a considerable degree of sense as a less harsh "road to modern capitalism" than the way it happened in the first capitalist countries.

It's a shame that Leninists in the "third world" make a bunch of "socialist" promises that will never be kept...but then the early revolutionary bourgeoisie made our great-great-great grandfathers a lot of promises that were never kept either.

Don't see much "liberty, equality, fraternity" around these days, do you?!

It is in the advanced capitalist countries where Leninism really "crashes and burns". They seek to replicate their "third world" successes under completely different historical conditions...as if modern-day London or Paris or Berlin "will someday be like" Petrograd or Hunan Province or the hills of Oriente.

It's so crazy that one wonders how they ever got away with it!

Well, it's the "prestige of a winner" effect, I guess. It sounded plausible that Leninism was "the way to go" because the USSR and China "looked successful".

Now that we can see the real outcome, the "winner effect" has become the loser effect. Leninist socialism has become infamous as the "transitional period" between feudalism and capitalism.

So Cuba is "all that's left".

If Cuba "openly goes capitalist", then the Leninists have no further cards to play. Even if they win in Nepal or the Philippines, the "spell" has been broken.

No sensible person in the "west" will tolerate the idea of a Party despotism.

So anti-capitalist revolutionaries must figure out everything all over again...this time from a communist perspective.

A "big job"...but there's no one who's going to do it for us.

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[barista.marxista]

Cuba is an incredibly democratic state. All representives in parliamentary bodies are elected from municipal districts. They can be recalled at any time with a democratic vote. They comes from local districts, and the government is built up from there. Parliamentary representatives receive no pay for their political work -- it is done voluntarily alongside their normal work. There are bureaucracies in Cuba, but no government is perfect, and it's something that should be criticised if it is hindering the revolution. But the fact is that the Cuban Revolution has seen, perhaps moreso than any other revolution, the efforts and participation of the masses of the nation, from the momentum of the initial guerrilla campaign, to the continuing participation in government. There have been bad choices made (the persecution of homosexuals comes to mind), and there has been the accumulation of surplus in some hands (which has been attacked by the masses continuously).

But if socialism comes from the mass participation of workers, then anyone who claims Cuba is bureaucratically state capitalist is ignoring the entire history of the revolution. The means of production of commodities are communally owned, and the small private sector is never put ahead of public interest. The accumulation of surplus-value in the hands of those private sector people does not threaten the workers state. Those private sector beneficiaries have no say in Cuban governmental policies. Thus, it is the workers who control the state.

Personally, I do criticize the private sector, but I think it is necessary since the fall of the Soviet Union. I don't think Cuba would be able to make it without the sector, and the issue of importance is whether it will grow in the coming years. I am not a Leninist, and I see Leninism as a historical role in the third-world to liberate countries from imperialism. But it does degenerate into state-capitalism, and no final socialist revolution can occur without socialising the means of production -- the first world. So at this point, I do give critical support to Cuba, and I think it has prevented reverting back into state capitalism for so long precisely because of the mass participation of workers in the state. But, as I said, we could see a deneration into state capitalism, on the scale of the USSR and the PRC, if the private sector is not strictly regulated.

[Enragé]

Originally posted by [email protected] 26 2005, 02:39 PM
:lol:

Cuz if Chomsky says it, it must be true!

So I take it you voted for Kerry to then? I mean, since he recommended it an all...

And unfortunately for you, you're going to need more than a quote from a petty bourgeois intellectual to convince anyone that "the [Cuban] workers themselves ... don't control production ... [and that] owners and managers who rule them ... control all decisions."
im not even a yank, and i wouldnt have voted for that moron Kerry.

The point is, its bloody true what chomsky said.

And as far as i know, the cuban workers indeed do not control production because ol' fidel is doing that.


But do you think it should be supported by socialists and other progressives, or are you some kind of ultra-left purist?

We should support the cuban people, and the best way of doing that is to support the current government in the various good things they do (which is a lot), support them against US imperialism, support them in their foreign policy...BUT we should also be critical of some of the things the cuban government does and clearly state that this is not socialism...at least not yet (perhaps it will progress towards it...but please...do it fast).

Bottom line is, we should support it, but not without being critical of what they do.

For example, we should also support the right of the iraqi people to resist against the occupying coalition...we should not however declare them saints and support them in everything they do.

[Guerrilla22]

Originally posted by redstar2000+Dec 26 2005, 05:54 PM--> (redstar2000 @ Dec 26 2005, 05:54 PM)
Guerrilla22
I'm also not sure how a country could go to communism directly, bypassing socialism, redstar maybe you could elaborate, please.

Well, you begin by saying that's what you're going to do!

In other words, the Leninist paradigm asserts that "it's impossible", so the question of "how to do it" never arises.

From Marx's account of the Paris Commune, we gather that he thought two considerations were important in this first workers' state -- it was hyper-democratic and it was visibly shrinking.

What we would want to do after a proletarian revolution is specifically avoid creating a political "center of gravity" where "everything gets decided".

Naturally, we'd completely dismantle the old bourgeois state apparatus and disperse its personnel.

So who would decide things? Clearly there would be multiple "public bodies" that would indeed be "hyper-democratic" and that, in my opinion, would manage the useful functions that a "high-tech" society requires.

I imagine that things would be pretty "ragged" in the first couple of decades...it will take some time to find out "what works" and what "doesn't work".

But as communists, we would "rule out" certain things "no matter what".

No professional armies or police; no prisons; no large-scale private property; no "market" in basic necessities; and so on.

And then we'll see how we do.

The Leninists have, of course, a much clearer perspective on this stuff. They just "lop off" the big capitalists and replace them with the Party leadership while everything else stays the same.

This is, in their view, "reasonable" and "practical".

Of course it doesn't "lead to communism" and, in fact, cannot lead to communism ever.

The net effect is simply to replace an old ruling class with a new ruling class.

Now it's true that in the case of backward countries that communism really is impossible and the Leninist option makes a considerable degree of sense as a less harsh "road to modern capitalism" than the way it happened in the first capitalist countries.

It's a shame that Leninists in the "third world" make a bunch of "socialist" promises that will never be kept...but then the early revolutionary bourgeoisie made our great-great-great grandfathers a lot of promises that were never kept either.

Don't see much "liberty, equality, fraternity" around these days, do you?!

It is in the advanced capitalist countries where Leninism really "crashes and burns". They seek to replicate their "third world" successes under completely different historical conditions...as if modern-day London or Paris or Berlin "will someday be like" Petrograd or Hunan Province or the hills of Oriente.

It's so crazy that one wonders how they ever got away with it!

Well, it's the "prestige of a winner" effect, I guess. It sounded plausible that Leninism was "the way to go" because the USSR and China "looked successful".

Now that we can see the real outcome, the "winner effect" has become the loser effect. Leninist socialism has become infamous as the "transitional period" between feudalism and capitalism.

So Cuba is "all that's left".

If Cuba "openly goes capitalist", then the Leninists have no further cards to play. Even if they win in Nepal or the Philippines, the "spell" has been broken.

No sensible person in the "west" will tolerate the idea of a Party despotism.

So anti-capitalist revolutionaries must figure out everything all over again...this time from a communist perspective.

A "big job"...but there's no one who's going to do it for us.

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif [/b]
Ok, I agree that historically Lenin's model hasn't brought about communism ever. However, in Cuba's case I'm not sure that Castro ever intended to lead the country to communism. What I'm wondering is how a country makes the great transition from capitalism directly to communism, and without massive hang ups.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Guerrilla22
What I'm wondering is how a country makes the great transition from capitalism directly to communism, and without massive hang ups.

There are no "blueprints"...at least none that I'm aware of.

Probably because we're "too far" from the practical possibility itself.

For example, if proletarian revolution were just "10 years" in the future, I think there would be revolutionaries studying the question of "how to do the transition" right now.

But because it is at least four or five decades away at the earliest, people are reluctant to spend their time seriously investigating something with so many unknowns.

We have, at best, a short list of things that we know must not be done...and an even shorter list of things that we want to test when the opportunity arises.

For example demarchy (http://www.redstar2000papers.com/theory.php?subaction=showfull&id=1083335872&archive=&cnshow=headlines&start_from=&ucat=&) seems to me to be a potentially valuable mechanism for running a communist society...but it would have to be tested in practice.

I am not terribly worried about the possibility of "massive hangups"...though it can't be "ruled out" of course.

The working class in an advanced capitalist country is a lot smarter than is portrayed in the capitalist media...or by the Leninists.

It's not "inevitable" that they will fuck up "unless" they are "properly guided".

In my opinion, that's a capitalist superstition.

And I see no reason whatsoever to accept it...and some rather obvious reasons to reject it.

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[jaycee]

the workers don't control anything in cuba anymore than they did under mao, stalin or any other state capitalist dictatorship. The cuban revolution was not a revolution but a capitalist coup by one faction of the ruling class against another. Socialism is impossable in one country and any country will regrees back to capitalism unless the revolution spreads and becomes a global revolution. Even after the Russian Revolution, the only ever succesful workers revolution (succesful in gaining power i mean) capitalism still dominated the economy by its inherent economic laws which are unavoidable in one country especially a backward one like Russia. The difference between the Cuban and Russain revolution was that the Russian revolution was made by the workers through the soviets (which lossed power quite rapidly , by about 1921 they had lossed all effective power due to the civil war and mistakes made by the bolsheviks).

We should support the cuban working class against their government and the cuban ruling class, not alongside them.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Do you have anything of substance to say? Any sources or thought out arguments that demonstrate that the working class in Cuba doesn't control the means of production? An analysis of which class does, and why they act in the interests of workers?

Or are you just going to continue spewing the same rhetorical slogans that have all been heard before?

[jaycee]

firstly answer these questions: do people work for a wage in cuba? yes
Are the products sold for a profit? yes
Do the government act as a nationalised capitalist? yes
Does cuba sell and buy things on the world marker (with the painful exception of America) ? Yes
what we have here is capitalist economy

Secondly, you should tell me how the workers control the economy when all real decisions about the economy, laws and every other aspect of running the country are decided by the beuracracy of the state.

I know you'll try to say that the workers run the state through local denocaracy but this is an even more obvious sham than the elections in the western 'democracies'. They are under almost complete control from the central government and all the candidates have to be approved by the central government. these elections are the same as the elections in the ussr where the soviets, although once revolutionary organs of the working class became pretty much meaningless and more like the local or council governments that all capitalist democracies use. Even if the soviets had remained in power in russia they still would have turned out this way, while the economy remained capitalist as it will alays be inside one country. There can be no such thing as working class capitalism.

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 30 2005, 10:08 AM
Are the products sold for a profit? yes
No. "Profit" is not a meaningful category in the Cuban economy (excepting the small private and semi-private sectors of the economy.) Heck, it wasn't even a meaningful category in the Soviet economy, though they tried hard to make it one!


Does cuba sell and buy things on the world marker (with the painful exception of America) ? Yes
what we have here is capitalist economy
....
Even if the soviets had remained in power in russia they still would have turned out this way, while the economy remained capitalist as it will alays be inside one country.

Oh. So any country existing in a capitalist world is capitalist.

Since revolutions occur within national borders, taking power from an existing national state, and do not occur everywhere at once....any revolution can only lead to capitalism.

This is like the Stalinists' ridiculous caricature of the correct, Marxist idea that there can be no socialism in one country....they said anyone who believed that must oppose revolutions. That was false, of course, an oversimplified straw man, nobody believed that. Until now, apparently!

On the contrary, Marxists said that although you can't have socialism in one country, you can start the transition to socialism, take the first steps past capitalism. And most importantly, by making and defending a revolution in one country, you encourage revolutions in other countries.

[jaycee]

profit is meaningful in both the soviet union and cuba, it is just not as meaningful for individual sectors becuase it isn't individual capitalists competing but the state economy competing on a global scale. but the economy overall is capitalist and has to make a profit.

Yes its right that revolutions in one country should be supported as long as they are workers revolutions which the cuban revolution clearly was not. Also they can only be supported whilst the workers remain in power and in the soviet union support for the revolution of 1917 was completely oppossed to support for the stalinist regieme which was the comlete negation of proletarian internationalism. Stalinisms idea of socialism in one country was a complete betrayal of the 1917 revolution, the Russian state even when it restored some aspects of its proletarian nature (during the 1920s) was inceasingly developing intersets seperate to that of the world revolution.

[KC]

How about posting some evidence to back up your claims?

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Severian
On the contrary, Marxists [sic] said that although you can't have socialism in one country, you can start the transition to socialism, take the first steps past capitalism.

The only "Marxists" who said that were Trotskyists.

Not to mention the additional confusion such a position generates.

In the Leninist paradigm, "socialism" is regarded as the "period of transition" between capitalism and communism.

Now we have a new "period of transition"...between capitalism and socialism.

Does it have a name? :lol:

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[Wanted Man]

Originally posted by [email protected] 30 2005, 04:08 PM
I know you'll try to say that the workers run the state through local denocaracy but this is an even more obvious sham than the elections in the western 'democracies'. They are under almost complete control from the central government and all the candidates have to be approved by the central government.
A monstrous lie. Candidates for such elections don't have to be party members, and the party itself isn't allowed to put forward candidates. Each candidate tries to get elected by "grassroots" campaigning. I wonder where you got your dubious "information", apart from a certain untasteful part of your anatomy.

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 31 2005, 10:58 AM
profit is meaningful in both the soviet union and cuba, it is just not as meaningful for individual sectors becuase it isn't individual capitalists competing but the state economy competing on a global scale. but the economy overall is capitalist and has to make a profit.
All societies as a whole must "turn a profit" to survive and advance: that is, they must produce more value than they consume, and accumulate wealth. See Marx's "Critique of the Gotha Programme" on why communist society cannot pay the workers for the full product of labor.

So by that criterion, all societies in human history have been and always will be capitalist. If you refuse to make distinctions among different societies, and look only at their similarities and not their differences, you make it completely impossible to discuss or analyze anything. Follow this approach consistently and logically, and all of human social history becomes a shapeless, homogenous mass of oatmeal, without even a raisin to relieve the monotony.


Yes its right that revolutions in one country should be supported as long as they are workers revolutions which the cuban revolution clearly was not. Also they can only be supported whilst the workers remain in power and in the soviet union support for the revolution of 1917 was completely oppossed to support for the stalinist regieme which was the comlete negation of proletarian internationalism. Stalinisms idea of socialism in one country was a complete betrayal of the 1917 revolution, the Russian state even when it restored some aspects of its proletarian nature (during the 1920s) was inceasingly developing intersets seperate to that of the world revolution.

More oatmeal.

Why should a revolutionary process, or the social gains of a revolution, only be supported when you like the regime in power, or when it took power in accordance with your blueprint for what a revolution is supposed to look like? IMO this kind of doctrinaire thinking is just an excuse for sectarian trends who look at every new revolutionary leadership as a new competitor more than a new ally.

To make an analogy to the epoch of bourgeois revolutions....long after the revolutionary regime in France was overthrown, the gains of the revolution continued. Under the Emperor Napoleon, hangman of the revolution, in many ways analagous to Stalin....the French Revolution was even still capable of extending itself abroad through his wars, from the emancipation of German Jews to the abolition of Polish serfdom.

Even when the Bourbons were restored, they never managed to take the land back from the peasants.

It's proving similarly difficult to fully restore capitalist property relations in the former Soviet bloc today, even under openly pro-capitalist regimes.

And Redstar also comes out in defense of the undifferentiated oatmeal:

Now we have a new "period of transition"...between capitalism and socialism.

Does it have a name? laugh.gif

Yes, god forbid - or Pope Redstar forbids? - we make too many distinctions, or recognize too many different types of transition period.....we're only talking about the biggest social change in human history, after all.

Political clarity requires political differentiation, Your Holiness. Of course, you're not exactly in the clarity business.

And as humanity accumulates more experience with this kind of revolution, I fully expect that more periods of transition will be recognized. But of course you're not exactly about basing yourself on real experience of living class struggle, either.

And yes, it has a name, and has had for decades: workers state. An easily misunderstood name, I admit, since it doesn't refer to the political regime or who holds power....but to the economic foundations.

A workers state is what emerges when capitalist property is nationalized and a planned economy is created as a result of a proletarian revolution. These economic measures are necessary but not sufficient preconditions for beginning to advance towards socialism.


The only "Marxists" who said that were Trotskyists.

At the time (the 30s), those were two words with the same meaning. Unfortunately, there were no other Marxists worthy of the name.

The vast majority of those claiming to be Marxist, after all, were simply obedient and willing servants of every twist and turn of Kremlin foreign policy. No thinking person can consider that Marxism.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Severian
And yes, it has a name, and has had for decades: workers state. An easily misunderstood name, I admit, since it doesn't refer to the political regime or who holds power....but to the economic foundations.

Then how about a name with some hope of communicating a coherent meaning to the reader?

State monopoly capitalism, for example.

Isn't that what Lenin said would be "a great improvement"?

Isn't that what Stalin did?

It seems to me that whatever you name this period of "transition between capitalism and socialism", the way it actually works is that it just returns to capitalism.

So much for my "failure" to "base myself" on "real experience" of "living class struggle".

Trying to discredit my views by suggesting that I have elevated myself "to the papacy" is not going to "fly".

I have never claimed to be the "Vicar of Marx on Earth". :lol:

On the other hand, I am certainly dogmatic when it comes to insisting on what really happened and what is really happening as opposed to the deceptions of flowery linguistic phrases.

We have not gained anything if we merely substitute earthly illusions for "heavenly illusions".

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[red team]

Welcome to Cuba!

The "Socialist" Thailand of the Caribean. :lol:

http://www.american.edu/TED/cubatour.htm

Red Team

[jaycee]

the difference between creating enough material wealth of commodities for the population is obviously not the same as the capitalist need to make a profit. the need to make a profit is part of commodity production which is a capitalistic relation. This is what exists in Cuba. a communist society would own all property in common and the ralation of wage labour will not exist so therefore the idea of workers getting back what they produce is a false idea of communism.

'why should you only support a revolution if you like the government?'

the point is obviously what class they represent and not what my personal view of them is. If they represent thye bourgeoisie then i don't suport them as all factions of the bourgeoisie are equally reactionary in capitalisms decedant period. State capitalism can often have a more wide spread welfare state and better social benefits but will also be more repressive and will exploit its workers just as much as the western model. Also massive social enefits is not eternally sustainable as tyhe soviet union showed, the capitalist economy when faced with crisis has no choice but to attack workers living conditions. Threfore state capitalist economies can bend the rules of capitalism (as all countries are increasingly having to in order to survive in a capitalist world dominated by a never ending crisis of over production) but they cannot actually surpass them.

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 1 2006, 02:25 AM
Then how about a name with some hope of communicating a coherent meaning to the reader?

State monopoly capitalism, for example.
A coherently wrong meaning.


Isn't that what Lenin said would be "a great improvement"?

Dishonest word games. Lenin used the term "state capitalism" to refer to foreign capitalists' joint venture with the Soviet workers' government. You use it to describe the Soviet government as capitalist, and pretend you and Lenin were talking about the same thing.

I
t seems to me that whatever you name this period of "transition between capitalism and socialism", the way it actually works is that it just returns to capitalism.

So much for my "failure" to "base myself" on "real experience" of "living class struggle".
...
On the other hand, I am certainly dogmatic when it comes to insisting on what really happened and what is really happening as opposed to the deceptions of flowery linguistic phrases.

Bullshit. You rarely if ever cite a single, solitary concrete fact about "what is really happening."

In fact, capitalism has never been fully restored anywhere it was abolished as an economic system. So far.

To demonstrate that for everywhere would...involve a hundred times more facts and sources than everything you've ever posted put together. And be outside the scope of this thread.

But as far as Cuba, you've been proven wrong with concrete facts, every time you've touched "what is really happening" with a ten-foot pole. As in this thread (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=35106&st=0) and this one (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=35695&st=25) and this one (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=36350)among others.

So you don't do it anymore.

**

Of course if revolutions don't happen elsewhere - if the world class struggle goes against the working class - eventually the Cuban revolution will be rolled back, and capitalism will be fully restored in other countries as well.

Not because that's the nature of transitional states to always go back or any such nonsense; but because that will be the relationship of forces in the world.

Long before the Great Guru Redstar proclaimed it as a Portentous Discovery, Marxists knew that the objective conditions didn't permit a successful advance to socialism in one country, especially an economically underdeveloped one.

Lenin, for example, pointed out, "'It was clear to us that without aid from the international world revolution, a victory of the proletarian revolution is impossible. Even prior to the revolution, as well as after it, we thought that the revolution would also occur either immediately or at least very soon in other backward countries and in the more highly developed capitalist countries, otherwise we would perish. Notwithstanding this conviction, we did our utmost to preserve the Soviet system under any circumstances and at all costs, because we know that we are working not only for ourselves but also for the international revolution."

So the difference between Lenin and Redstar's approach is not over the possibility of building socialism under the objective conditions in 1917 Russia....

but over the need to take action to advance the international revolution versus the tendency of sectarian doctrinaires to wait on the sidelines of the real class struggle.

[jaycee]

the piont isn't that because socialism is impossable in one country we therefore shouldn't support any real working class revolution in one country but we also have to recognise that once the workers no longer hold power (irrespective of what government is in power or who they claim to rule in the intersts of) then we cannot continue to support that governemnt.

[Rawthentic]

Originally posted by [email protected] 19 2005, 11:47 PM

Personally, I think one of the the greatest problems of the left is our ultra-utopian ideals.

"For Cuba to become socialist, they'd have to have a socialist revolution."

From theory and logic, the answer is a definite "yes". But what is the significance of the question, especially in regards to Cuba itself? It's now socialist, its welfare and planned economy and democratic improvements shows this fact. The only downer is that the means of production is not entirely controlled by the workers, but I still support it because if made progress "away" from blatant capitalism.


Wow, there is an adult on this thread! This is probably the only thing said, which made any sense on this entire thread.

Castro did not turn Cuba Socialist out of opportunism...(lets ride the MIT ivory tower professor a little harder...) Castro had the best interests of the Cuban people at heart, and if that meant land reform then so be it - it was a huge advance forward. It turns out that Castro felt that it was best to defend the revolution, and defend the people by advancing towards Socialism, but you simpletons seem to think he did this out of some dirty motive...what that motive was is beyond me, and I don’t think your accusation would hold up in a rational court of law, thank god nobody here is on the jury, with the exception of the comrade I quoted.
wonderful&#33; finally somebody opened there eyes. Cuba is a socialist nation. period&#33; Why are things never good enough for you guys? <_<

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by hastalavictoria
Why are things never good enough for you guys?

(a) We have deeply flawed personalities that take a simple-minded delight in "finding fault" with everything.

(b) We are Marxists with the irritating habit of looking beneath appearances and behind rhetoric to find out what&#39;s really going on...and even worse, we then tell people about what we found.

Choose whichever option appeals to you...we don&#39;t care. :)

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[chebol]

Proof in point. Redstar, if you were a Marxist, you WOULD care. ;)

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by [email protected] 3 2006, 05:39 PM
Proof in point. Redstar, if you were a Marxist, you WOULD care. ;)
At this point in time, a rigorous Marxist approach to social reality and political controversy is "not popular"...for objective material reasons, it just "doesn&#39;t make sense" to most people.

So if I were to allow myself to become upset every time I was misunderstood (or worse&#33;), I would end up drowning in my own stomach acid.

Of course I wish people would grow beyond the "t-shirt stage" of "fan club leftism"...and some on this board have certainly done that.

But it&#39;s quite obvious that this board consistently attracts "newbies" whose conception of the "left" is...well, less than adequate, to put it charitably.

Consider the question I was responding to: "Why are things never good enough for you guys?". The implication of such a question is pretty clear: we&#39;re a bunch of "chronic malcontents" who, "from spite and envy", never have "anything good" to say "about anybody".

It would never occur, I think, to people who raise this kind of question that the purpose of "ultra-left" criticism is to get it right&#33;

The "communism" of the last century was a fucking catastrophe. Should we learn from that or just "carry on" with the "same old shit"?

If we really want to "do better" in this century, then we have to get rid of romantic illusions about the past...and the new ones "in formation" in the present. If the Maoists win in Nepal, can you even begin to imagine all the romanticist crap about "Himalayan Socialism" we&#39;re going to be pounded with??? :o

It will be "Shangra La" all over again. :wub:

I want to see a serious revival of critical historical materialist analysis...and I&#39;m not content with t-shirts and posters.

A picture of Marx on someone&#39;s wall does not make them a Marxist.

It just makes them a fan.

There&#39;s a big difference.

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[CertainKindOfFool]

I&#39;ll tell you why Cuba is not a socialist society... BECAUSE THERE&#39;S STILL A STATE.

It doesn&#39;t get much simpler than that. If the people were really in control, then there wouldn&#39;t need to be anything ruling over them.

[Rawthentic]

Originally posted by redstar2000+Jan 3 2006, 09:42 AM--> (redstar2000 @ Jan 3 2006, 09:42 AM)
hastalavictoria
Why are things never good enough for you guys?

(a) We have deeply flawed personalities that take a simple-minded delight in "finding fault" with everything.

(b) We are Marxists with the irritating habit of looking beneath appearances and behind rhetoric to find out what&#39;s really going on...and even worse, we then tell people about what we found.

Choose whichever option appeals to you...we don&#39;t care. :)

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif [/b]
ill choose "b" and I hope that im right. But are you saying that Cuba is not socialist as well? :huh:

[Rawthentic]

Originally posted by redstar2000+Jan 3 2006, 03:38 PM--> (redstar2000 @ Jan 3 2006, 03:38 PM)
[email protected] 3 2006, 05:39 PM
Proof in point. Redstar, if you were a Marxist, you WOULD care. ;)
At this point in time, a rigorous Marxist approach to social reality and political controversy is "not popular"...for objective material reasons, it just "doesn&#39;t make sense" to most people.

So if I were to allow myself to become upset every time I was misunderstood (or worse&#33;), I would end up drowning in my own stomach acid.

Of course I wish people would grow beyond the "t-shirt stage" of "fan club leftism"...and some on this board have certainly done that.

But it&#39;s quite obvious that this board consistently attracts "newbies" whose conception of the "left" is...well, less than adequate, to put it charitably.

Consider the question I was responding to: "Why are things never good enough for you guys?". The implication of such a question is pretty clear: we&#39;re a bunch of "chronic malcontents" who, "from spite and envy", never have "anything good" to say "about anybody".

It would never occur, I think, to people who raise this kind of question that the purpose of "ultra-left" criticism is to get it right&#33;

The "communism" of the last century was a fucking catastrophe. Should we learn from that or just "carry on" with the "same old shit"?

If we really want to "do better" in this century, then we have to get rid of romantic illusions about the past...and the new ones "in formation" in the present. If the Maoists win in Nepal, can you even begin to imagine all the romanticist crap about "Himalayan Socialism" we&#39;re going to be pounded with??? :o

It will be "Shangra La" all over again. :wub:

I want to see a serious revival of critical historical materialist analysis...and I&#39;m not content with t-shirts and posters.

A picture of Marx on someone&#39;s wall does not make them a Marxist.

It just makes them a fan.

There&#39;s a big difference.

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif [/b]
ok. maybe your right. i shoould be more critical about these kinds of things. But i still argue that Cuba is socialist. by the way that website of yours is good.