Development

[Global_Justice]

i hope i put this in the right place :unsure:

anyway, i often hear havana described as 'like being in the 50's' because it has old 1950's cars and buildings. obviously we know communism neads capatalism before it to build the infastructure, but what about 50 years into the movement towards communism, how do you prevent what has happened in cuba?

[Whitten]

Cuba is backwards because its an under-developed nation, and has been largely shut off from world trade. The same thing wouldnt happpen in an already developed nation that underwent revolution.

[Socialistpenguin]

Well, Cuba is a small country which doesn't possess the means to develop its means of production to any great extent. I believe they've had several 5 year plans, but their success was limited due to the above reason.. In the USSR, they had the resources to fuel the development, in Cuba they have to import resources.
They've also had to contend with trade embargo's from the USA for going on 40 years now.

However, we can prevent this by supporting revolution in other nations, which is what Marxists do anyway.

[Janus]

anyway, i often hear havana described as 'like being in the 50's' because it has old 1950's cars and buildings
That is due to the embargo and the collapse of the USSR. Cuba is quite low on parts for cars and materials to make ultramodern buildings.


but what about 50 years into the movement towards communism, how do you prevent what has happened in cuba?
Encourage technological development and modernization. It's not like you have to have capitalism for it to occur.

[Janus]

Moved to Learning.

[loveme4whoiam]

It's not like you have to have capitalism for it to occur.
I thought you did? Is not a period of intense industrial build-up caused by capitalism required in order to lay the groundwork for high-tech Communist worker-governed industry, which also ferments the workers into becoming class conscious and all that jazz?

I seem to recall from my year of studying the "fall of communism" that Stalin et al embarked on a period of what was called "galloping urbanisation" (or galloping industrialisation, I forget which and they mean largely the same thing) in order to catch up with the advanced, cappie West, leading to all the economic screw-ups the USSR is known for?

I would have thought the cappie period was importand for the reason stated above, to lay down the infrastructure for Communism, or at least Socialism. Jumping straight from near-feudalism (or at least, monarchist/warlord dictatorship) into Socialism would put that country in an awkward position, and force it to rely on another more industrialised country, as Cuba had to.