On state monopoly capitalism

[black magick hustla]

Mainstream marxist-leninists argue that current and past "socialist" societies were really workers' states, and they were genuinely socialist.

Trotskyists hate the therm "state monopoly capitalism", and instead use "deformed workers' states"--except sachmanites (or however the fuck you spell that) or cliffites.

However, I personally think state monopoly capitalism is a very accurate way to describe present and past "socialist" societies. Trotskyists argue that while such states had "bureacratic deformities", they were workers' states because they were established through workers' revolution, and the state was "nice" to the workers---differing from capitalist states.

However, isn't this argument kinda bankrupt? It implies that "benevolence" is not a characteristic of the bourgeosie, and as such, a benevolence bourgeois is a paradox. However, we have seen many bourgeois individuals that are benevolent and do spend considerable amounts of capital in charity--not because they have an agenda, simply because they feel they are doing something "good".

Couldn't this have happened with socialist societies? The ruling bureacracy was composed of revolutionary militants that were affected by the different conditions of the revolutions. They appreciated workers to a certain extent, and they truly thought they were doing something good.

Discuss.

[Clarksist]

However, we have seen many bourgeois individuals that are benevolent and do spend considerable amounts of capital in charity--not because they have an agenda, simply because they feel they are doing something "good".

Oh, because exploiting mass amounts of workers and then offering them crumbs is benevolent.


They appreciated workers to a certain extent, and they truly thought they were doing something good.

Don't flatter the Soviet rulers, they knew exactly what they were doing.

[Leo]

However, I personally think state monopoly capitalism is a very accurate way to describe present and past "socialist" societies.

The key here, in order to fit those state-monopoly capitalist regimes in history, is to understand that the term is not just very accurate way to describe present and past "socialist" societies but also other countries developing capitalism, especially latecomers, such as Germany in late nineteenth century and Japan in early twentieth century.

[RebelDog]

Trotskyists hate the therm "state monopoly capitalism", and instead use "deformed workers' states"--except sachmanites (or however the fuck you spell that) or cliffites.

If I call myself a Trotskyist do I have to call the USSR a "deformed workers state" or if I think the USSR was a deformed workers state do I have to call myself a "trotskyist" but never a Cliffite although he himself was a Trotskyist? What if I think the USSR was a state with deformed workers? :D
All this is a stereotyping too far which puts new people off if you ask me. Marxism seems to get splintered in to neo sects by the year who people think must stick to a rigid collective view.


Couldn't this have happened with socialist societies? The ruling bureacracy was composed of revolutionary militants that were affected by the different conditions of the revolutions. They appreciated workers to a certain extent, and they truly thought they were doing something good.

Absolutely. Whilst they finish up being essentially another ruling class it is clear that even these situations are preferable to capitalism, Cuba, forinstance, with its education and health systems which are far superior to comparable countries. Had the Cuban revolution not taken place we can say with certainty that their progress in these fields would have been little for the working class to sing about.

[GX.]

Trotskyists hate the therm "state monopoly capitalism", and instead use "deformed workers' states"--except sachmanites (or however the fuck you spell that) or cliffites. Nobody uses one term instead of the other. They describe or explain two different things.


However, I personally think state monopoly capitalism is a very accurate way to describe present and past "socialist" societies. Trotskyists argue that while such states had "bureacratic deformities", they were workers' states because they were established through workers' revolution, and the state was "nice" to the workers---differing from capitalist states.

However, isn't this argument kinda bankrupt? Of course it is-you made it up. When did "niceness" enter into the equation?

[black magick hustla]

Originally posted by [email protected] 29, 2006 07:28 pm

Trotskyists hate the therm "state monopoly capitalism", and instead use "deformed workers' states"--except sachmanites (or however the fuck you spell that) or cliffites. Nobody uses one term instead of the other. They describe or explain two different things.


However, I personally think state monopoly capitalism is a very accurate way to describe present and past "socialist" societies. Trotskyists argue that while such states had "bureacratic deformities", they were workers' states because they were established through workers' revolution, and the state was "nice" to the workers---differing from capitalist states.

However, isn't this argument kinda bankrupt? Of course it is-you made it up. When did "niceness" enter into the equation?
They are not "nice" perse, but clearly, many socialist governments were more benevolent that capitalist governments---that is one of the reasons trotskyists believe they are "workers' states".

[LSD]

Couldn't this have happened with socialist societies? The ruling bureacracy was composed of revolutionary militants that were affected by the different conditions of the revolutions. They appreciated workers to a certain extent, and they truly thought they were doing something good.

That's exactly right.

Most "revolutionary" leaders come to power genuinely believing that they will make a difference. If they weren't true ideologues, they'd never have spent the time and energy required to build up an inurgent force and drive it to victory.

Second and third generation leaders, however, tend to be less "pure hearted". Some of them undoubtably buy into their own mythology, but the driving force of their class is not "belief", it's self-interest.

"Socialist" bureaucratic classes are constantly struggling for power with an ever resilient local bourgeoisie. By keeping the people relatively satisfied, they assure that no bourgeois counterrevolution will occur and their position of authority will not be challenged.

Even Kim Jon Il pays lip service to the "idealist" of communism. Keeping the people molified is as old as government itself.

Leninist "vanguard" states allow the working classes to force a split in their rulling class. Instead of the bourgeoisie rulling unchallenged, it must contend with a powerful and well-supported managerial class. That limits the degree to which it can exploit the working class and forces the state to make consessions to secure its power.

That's why living standards collapsed following the fall of the Soviet Union. One rulling class can get away with things that two rulling classes couldn't.

That doesn't mean that bureaucratic state capitalism is the way to go. It just means that it tends to be better than aissez-faire. Actual worker self-governance, however, beats both of them by a mile!


When did "niceness" enter into the equation?

The moment that Leninists started citing Cuba's social welfare figures as "proof" that it was a "workers' state".

Look, I have no doubt that a large part of the Cuban government genuinely believes that it is a part of a revolutionary vanguard and that it is serving and internationalist proletarian agenda.

But "belief" does not define class.

The government of the Republic of Cuba has direct control over the means of production. That relationship is what defines its econoomic class. Whether it admits that or not, whether it is even "representative" or not, is ultimately irrelevent.

The same goes for every other "socialist" state throughout history.

After all, would you consider the Canadian bourgeoisie "more selfless" than the American one? No? Why not? It's made consessions that the American capitalists would never make!

Meanwhile the American bourgeoisie also sees itself as the "defenders" of "freedom" and its puppet government is just as "representative" as any Bolshevik regime (if not more so).

Somehow, though, you seem less willing to buy their self-description as "vanguards" of the people. :rolleyes:

[Severian]

Past thread: the most detailed examination of the "state capitalism" theory ever on this board. (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=47266)


Originally posted by marmot+--> (marmot) Trotskyists argue that while such states had "bureacratic deformities", they were workers' states because they were established through workers' revolution, and the state was "nice" to the workers---differing from capitalist states. [/b]

I'm sorry, but the second part is a misrepresentation of Trotsky's position. As GX also pointed out.

If somebody would read, say "The Revolution Betrayed" or "In defense of Marxism".....

The terminology can be kinda misleading - "workers state" doesn't refer to the political regime, which is obviously antiworker. It refers to the economic relations which form the base, which the state machinery rests on....

Those property relations are progressive, despite the regime. Not because the regime is supposedly 'nicer' or anything like that.

Trotsky sometimes made an analogy to labor unions, which are also infected by a privileged bureaucracy which represses the ranks. Nevertheless, the unions are workers organizations, and workers defend them, while trying to expand democracy in 'em. Experience shows: the fight against the bosses - to defend the union - and the fight against the bureaucracy - to democratize the union - go hand in hand. For example, Miners for Democracy was part of the whole militant history of the UMWA ranks.

Looking at the former Soviet bloc or PR of China today, this is clearer than ever. The political regimes no longer credibly claim to be communist or make any pretense of being "nice" to the workers.

Nevertheless, the nationalized property relations - what's left of 'em - are worth defending, and working people are fighting to defend them.

The ongoing privatizations and other moves towards capitalism have had a devastating impact on working people. Life expectancy in Russia has plummeted, for example. And in neither Russia nor China has the land been privatized yet, for example.

This has produced all kinds of working-class unrest, including hundreds of protests and strikes every day in China. This resistance is the major reason why the former Soviet bloc and China are still problematic as profitable and stable areas of investment for world capital.

Many people expected - hoped - that the demise of "communism" in these countries would result in a new world economic boom for capitalism, comparable to the post-WWII period of stability.

Yet the fall of the bureaucratic regimes did not prove a great godsend for world capitalism - economically or in terms of stabilizing their domination of the world. Why? 'Cause it was never the bureaucracy that was their problem - it was the property relations, and the expectations of the workers underlying that. That remains their problem.


Originally posted by Marmot+--> (Marmot)The ruling bureacracy was composed of revolutionary militants that were affected by the different conditions of the revolutions.[/b]

Certainly not true after the initial period of these regimes. They were staffed by careerists, gray bureaucrats. By the 30s, Stalin had largely purged all the old Bolsheviks and former revolutionaries, even those who'd supported his faction. His regime included a noticeable number of ex-Mensheviks, along with other careerists who'd joined the CP after it was firmly in power.

Quite a few old fighters got purged over the course of the Mao regime, too. I don't know the proportion of pre-1949 members who were purged versus not.....but certainly most of the bureaucracy was staffed with post-1949 recruits, who were probably motivated by material privilege more than anything else.


Originally posted by Marmot
They appreciated workers to a certain extent, and they truly thought they were doing something good.

It's common for privileged elites to believe their own propaganda. This self-delusion can be one of their weaknesses.

But that's not why they are sometimes relatively "nice" to workers, as you put it. It's out of fear, and pressure from below. Anything workers have we won in struggle.

And the gains of those struggles are reflected in workers' expectations - to take back those gains also involves a fight. All the more so when we're talking about the gains resulting from a revolution.

The question always has to be: what maximizes the class consciousness and fighting capacity of the working class and the rest of the exploited? We can never count on any layer of any privileged elite to guard our gains out of "niceness", being former "revolutionary militants", or anything else.


Originally posted by Leo Uillean[email protected] 29, 2006 01:21 am
The key here, in order to fit those state-monopoly capitalist regimes in history, is to understand that the term is not just very accurate way to describe present and past "socialist" societies but also other countries developing capitalism, especially latecomers, such as Germany in late nineteenth century and Japan in early twentieth century.
OK...so by using the term "state-monopoly capitalist", you're saying that, for example, the USSR and early-20th century Japan had the same economic system. Is that right?

'Cause obviously, that's not the case. Each had its own characteristics and behaved very differently. The differences in the economic base also produced characteristically different political superstructures.

Everyone knows it, including state caps, they only trot out the "state-monopoly capitalist" business when they're talking about the USSR. As in this case.

So "the key here" "is to understand that" "state-monopoly capitalist" is total nonsense.


[email protected]
The government of the Republic of Cuba has direct control over the means of production. That relationship is what defines its econoomic class. Whether it admits that or not, whether it is even "representative" or not, is ultimately irrelevent.

In other words, if the means of production are owned by the government, that automatically proves it is state capitalism. No need to examine any pesky facts or details. That kind of thing just makes Ace's head hurt.


Ace
The moment that Leninists starting citing Cuba's social welfare figures as "proof" that it was a "workers' state".

Oh, and here I thought we were discussing the character of the Stalinist regimes in this thread. Whether Trotsky's analysis of them was correct. Certainly Marmot hadn't mentioned Cuba when he started in about "niceness."

'Cause actually I've used those facts to argue the Cuban regime is unlike those bureaucratic regimes. (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=4112)

Neither in that thread nor any other - has anyone given any serious explanation of why a "capitalist" or Stalinist" regime in a Third World country would place such a high priority on the social needs of working people.

All I ever see is ignorant analogies to Sweden - a First World country where the ruling class could once more easily afford to buy class peace in that way. Once, in the past. For over a decade the Swedish ruling class, including the Social Democrats, has been rolling back its social programs in the face of working-class resistance.

On the other hand, the behavior of the Cuban government is easily explained - if you think it tends to act in the interests of working people.

Consider: how do you prove the U.S. government is a capitalist government, that it serves the interests of the rich? Most of the voters are workers, after all. How do you know it's run by the bosses? By its actions, mostly.

Why not examine the actions of the Cuban government - the same way?

[GX.]

They are not "nice" perse, but clearly, many socialist governments were more benevolent that capitalist governments---that is one of the reasons trotskyists believe they are "workers' states".

Certainly a "degenerated worker's state" would have in place certain progressive economic measures, but that is not just what defines a degenerated worker's state. This is what remains of a worker's state, ie a state established by worker-led revolution and which "degenerated" That is why it is called a degenerated worker's state. As far as state capitalism goes, I think that phrase taken by itself is pretty meaningless in this instance. If you accept the degenerated worker's state theory, I would assume you think the economc system of the USSR was monopoly state capitalism, since "state-monopoly capitalism"+soviet power=socialism. the ussr was "state monopoly capitalist"-soviet power+bureaucracy, thus both "state capitalist"and a degenerated worker's state.


The moment that Leninists starting citing Cuba's social welfare figures as "proof" that it was a "workers' state". Which Trotskyists? Pabloites? ICL and its offshoots? I'm not sure this view that Cuba is a worker's state is even that common amongst the modern Trotskist milieu. Cuba isn't any kind of worker's state, but rather some kind of petit-bourgeois/peasant based state.

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 29, 2006 01:36 pm
They are not "nice" perse, but clearly, many socialist governments were more benevolent that capitalist governments---that is one of the reasons trotskyists believe they are "workers' states".
Missed this before. Certainly this was not Trotsky's opinion either. See earlier post for what Trotsky actually meant by "degenerated workers state".

[Leo]

OK...so by using the term "state-monopoly capitalist", you're saying that, for example, the USSR and early-20th century Japan had the same economic system. Is that right?

Similar system but the same pattern.


'Cause obviously, that's not the case. Each had its own characteristics and behaved very differently.

Oh really?! Well guess what Severian, development of capitalism in every single country has its own characteristics and different behaviors. This is irrelevant.


The differences in the economic base also produced characteristically different political superstructures.

Only in the name.

There are several necessary things to go through this process;

-Ruling class controlls how the means of production will be used collectively

-This causes a strong comman system which the economy itself becomes based on

-Initially as industry and capitalism develop, the system moves more towards creating individual capitalists.

[LSD]

It's common for privileged elites to believe their own propaganda. This self-delusion can be one of their weaknesses.

But that's not why they are sometimes relatively "nice" to workers, as you put it. It's out of fear, and pressure from below.

Exactly.

"Socialist" governments like Cuba or the former USSR don't engage in social welfare programs because they want to, but because they're forced to. Because the nature of the Leninist state is that the introduction of an elite bureaucratic class weakens the exclusive power of the bourgeoisie.

That doesn't make these countries "workers'" anything, however, "degerated" or otherwise. A true "workers' state", even a "deformed" one, would have to actually have a special authority vested in the worker.

But the ordinary worker in China has no more freedom or economic power than the ordinary worker anywhere else. In fact, he usuall has less. No, what makes the PRC distinct is the special role of the state and of the bureaucracy which composes it.

That does mean that the capitalists do not have as much freedom in such countries as they would in more "liberal" states and because of that, there are often better social programmes in place in such states. But bureaucratic state capitalism and worker self-governance are two entirely seperate things.

And while the one may sometimes be better than free market capitalism, it has absolutely nothing to do with communism.


In other words, if the means of production are owned by the government, that automatically proves it is state capitalism. No need to examine any pesky facts or details.

Those are the facts, Severian.

If a small elite controlls the economy, whether that elite is called the "market" or the "vanguard", you don't have participatory worker control. Further "details" can tells us about the nature of the particular exploitation involved, but unless their is direct mass economic governance, exploitation is occuring.


Oh, and here I thought we were discussing the character of the Stalinist regimes in this thread.

Strange, 'cause I thought we were discussing "state monopoly capitalism", in all its manifestations. Like it or not, that includes Cuba. A country which is particularly relevent, 'cause it's pretty much the only "socialist" regime left that Leninists will still point to as a a "sucess story".

Russia, China, Korea, eastern Europe, etc... every other Leninst experiment has no proven itself an abysmal failure. But because Cuba is yet to collapse in on itself, desperate ideologues still cling to it as "proof" that their decrepit model still has value.

I suppose we'll have to wait until it finally crumbles before this tired anachronistic Leninist myth finally dies its well-deserved death. In the mean time, I guess we'll keep going around and around this circle. Hopefully, though, some outside observers can learn from this interchange and realize just how hollow the Leninist/Stalinist/Maoist/Castroist/Kimist/whomeverist paradigm really is.


Cause actually I've used those facts to argue the Cuban regime is unlike those bureaucratic regimes.

:huh:

That can't possibly be the thread you meant to link to...


Neither in that thread nor any other - has anyone given any serious explanation of why a "capitalist" or Stalinist" regime in a Third World country would place such a high priority on the social needs of working people.

I have.


Originally posted by me
The Cuban bureaucratic class is fighting for power with the ever resilient local bourgeoisie. By keeping the people relatively satisfied, they assure that no bourgeois counterrevolution will occur and their position of authority will not be challenged.

It's no different from the myriad of social programmes introduced by Stalin and his successors.

Even Kim Jon Il pays lip service to the "idealist" of communism. Keeping the people molified is as old as government itself.

Is the Canadian bourgeoisie "more selfless" than the American one? No? Why not? It's made consessions that the American capitalists would never make.

Hmmm, could it be that the level class exploitation isn't dependent on "selfnessless", but on material and historical conditions? :o

The Cuban working class has managed to force a split in its rulling class. The same split that defined all the other so-called "socialist states" throughout history. Instead of the bourgeoisie rulling unchallenged, it must contend with a powerful and well-supported managerial class. That limits the degree to which it can exploit the working class and forces the state to make consessions to secure its power.

That's why living standards collapsed following the fall of the Soviet Union. One rulling class can get away with things that two rulling classes couldn't.

That doesn't mean that bureaucratic capitalism is the way to go. It just means that it tends to be better than laissez-faire. Actual worker self-governance, however, beats both of them by a mile!


it would never make internationalists moves like sending almost its entire military to Angola to fight against racist, imperialist invadors, when it had not a single investment in Angola, nor did it stand to benefit financially in any way whatsoever..

It sure standed to gain politically, though.

Castro has always been a very politically minded leader and he is aware, probably more than anyone, how important it is to keep Cuba's image up, both domestically and in the rest of the world.

Cuba's foreign policy is as much about appearance as it is about charity. Not that charity is incompatible with bureaucratic rule.

After all, the bureaucrats aren't the ones shipping off to Angola or Venezuela. Rulling elites are human too and, especially in ideologically charged states, they often buy into their own propaganda.

I have no doubt that a large part of the Cuban government genuinely believes that it is a part of a revolutionary vanguard and that it is serving and internationalist proletarian agenda.

But "belief" does not define class.

The government of the Republic of Cuba has direct control over the means of production. That relationship is what defines its econoomic class. Whether it admits that or not, whether it is even "representative" or not, is ultimately irrelevent.

The American bourgeoisie also sees itself as the "defenders" of "freedom" and its puppet government is just as "representative" as Cuba's (if not more so). Somehow, though, you seem less willing to buy their self-description.

Look, I understand the temptation to buy into the Cuba myth, but the facts speak for themselves. If the workers truly ruled in Cuba, there could be no other classes, save perhaps a lingering peasantry.

There are capitalists in Cuba, CdL, and by definition that means that bosses are runing production, not the workers.

Sorry. :(

http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php...292148323&st=25 (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?act=Post&CODE=08&f=4&t=54801&p=1292148323&st=25)


On the other hand, the behavior of the Cuban government is easily explained - if you think it tends to act in the interests of working people.

So, again, does that make the Canadian government a "semi-workers state" because it acts more in the interests of working people than, say, the American one? And what about the famous European welfare states?

You really can't have it both ways. If Cubas social figures "prove" that it is a "workers state" than why don't Denmarks do the same?


Consider: how do you prove the U.S. government is a capitalist government, that it serves the interests of the rich? Most of the voters are workers, after all. How do you know it's run by the bosses? By its actions, mostly.

Why not examine the actions of the Cuban government - the same way?

Ok, let's.

Cuba may have an extensive system of social welfare programmes, but they're nothing more than state interventions into the general market economy of the island. Cubans work for an income, they buy and sell within a currency-based capital market, and they pay taxes to their capitalist government, which then uses those procedes for various government functions.

The market hampering of the Republic of Cuba and the market hampering of the United States of America are only a difference of degree. One is merely more extensive than the other.

But the fundmental system, the underlying formulation -- both economic and political -- are basically indistinguishable.

Although, in fairness, the US's system of "republicanism" does appear to be marginally more credible than Cuba's. At least in the US, the rulling class occasionaly changes who speaks for it.

Neither "republic", however, has any resemblence to democracy. That would require that the poplulation have an active role in shaping policy. Something that, obviously, does not and has no occured in any so-called "socialist republic".

[RebelDog]

So, again, does that make the Canadian government a "semi-workers state" because it acts more in the interests of working people than, say, the American one? And what about the famous European welfare states?

Of course not, neither Cuba nor Canada are workers states. I know you kinda meant that rhetorically.


You really can't have it both ways. If Cubas social figures "prove" that it is a "workers state" than why don't Denmarks do the same?

What the figures show is that, due to its origin, the Cuban state uses a far greater percentage of its GDP for the welfare of its people and public money doesn't end up in the private sector to the degree it does here in the UK forinstance. The Cuban people are far better off under this model than they would have been without a revolution. Whilst such a model is not what most of us desire it is clearly better for the workers who live in Cuba at this time in history. Cuba gives a hint of what is possible if things are planned and prioritised. I would prefer such a model here in the UK right now to the neo-liberal/capitalist status quo I have to endure as a manual worker in a shitty factory. Its not what we ultimately want but it would improve my life and the lives of workers in the UK here and now.

[Severian]

Originally posted by Ace Ironbody+October 30, 2006 03:18 pm--> (Ace Ironbody @ October 30, 2006 03:18 pm)
It's common for privileged elites to believe their own propaganda. This self-delusion can be one of their weaknesses.

But that's not why they are sometimes relatively "nice" to workers, as you put it. It's out of fear, and pressure from below.

Exactly.

"Socialist" governments like Cuba or the former USSR don't engage in social welfare programs because they want to, but because they're forced to. Because the nature of the Leninist state is that the introduction of an elite bureaucratic class weakens the exclusive power of the bourgeoisie. [/b]
Oh. If that's true, isn't it a good thing? If that's true...wouldn't it make sense to oppose the restoration of private capitalism, or whatever you want to call it? To defend those states against imperialist attack aiming at the restoration of private capitalism?

'Cause that's the political conclusion behind the "workers' state" terminology. It's pretty pointless to have purely terminological arguments, if you're not disputing the political conclusion. Especially when you're mostly dealing with the literal meaning of the words, and not what Trotsky meant by 'em.

Definitions aren't true or false - only more or less useful. At the risk of continuing a purely terminological argument, lemme point out it's not so useful to have the same word - capitalist - for every country out there today. The whole point of having words for things is so you can make distinctions between them.

And secondly: you agree that "It's out of fear, and pressure from below." that elites grant concessions to the workers? You say "exactly?"

Well, where's that pressure in Cuba? Where are the struggles by workers against the Cuban government and CP leadership?

I can point to 'em in capitalist states - the mass struggles that have resulted in social programs and other concessions by the bosses. You get what you fight for - you don't get anything for free.

I can point to them in the Stalinist states, from Hungary '56 forward. The concrete reasons for the apparatchiks' fear of the working class. But even more than that - the struggles that resulted in these gains - were the revolutions that produced these states.

And in Cuba, there sometimes are conflicts between the workers and bureaucracy as well. E.g. over the early-90s bureaucratic proposal to introduce a tax on wages, pushed back by widespread working-class opposition mobilized through "workplace assemblies" called by the union federation.

The difficulty for you, however - the central leadership of the CP and government consistently comes down on the side of the workers. This is not typical behavior for a capitalist or Stalinist regime.



In other words, if the means of production are owned by the government, that automatically proves it is state capitalism. No need to examine any pesky facts or details.

Those are the facts, Severian.

Um, no. Nowhere in your post do you present a single concrete fact about Cuba. You simply assume that it the same as the various Stalinist regimes, and therefore "state-monopoly capitalist."

Instead, you have a massive self-contained, a priori logical structure. It may be internally consistent - or not - but it has little contact with anything outside itself.


Ace
The Cuban bureaucratic class is fighting for power with the ever resilient local bourgeoisie. By keeping the people relatively satisfied, they assure that no bourgeois counterrevolution will occur and their position of authority will not be challenged.

What are you talking about? Sounds like some Maoist nonsense about the phantom capitalists who are constantly produced in the form of bad ideology or something.

There is no capitalist class in Cuba, especially if you don't mean the bureaucracy by that. The most privileged people are workers in tourism, and people who get money sent from relatives abroad. Then some of the bureaucrats.

Additionally, it makes no sense to assert that pressure from capitalism would produce relatively pro-worker policies. The reverse is true: the bureaucracy acts as a transmission belt for anti-worker pressure coming from world capitalism. The actual capitalists, worldwide, are always pressing these states to adopt more "market-oriented" policies, at the expense of working people. Most have.


It's no different from the myriad of social programmes introduced by Stalin and his successors.

I'm sorry, but factually it is very different, even the capitalists have noticed that since they have to operate in the real world in order to defend their interests. And you've given no explanation of the policy differences between Cuba and the Stalinist states. Your "explanation" is obviously a standard-issue, one-size-fits-all version.



t would never make internationalists moves like sending almost its entire military to Angola to fight against racist, imperialist invadors, when it had not a single investment in Angola, nor did it stand to benefit financially in any way whatsoever..

It sure standed to gain politically, though.

Why yes. Besides the factor of appearance and prestige you mention - there's the factor of giving U.S. imperialism as much trouble as possible elsewhere, in order to reduce the pressure on Cuba. There's a conscious realization that the future of the Cuban revolution depends on the future of the world revolution.

'Course, what does that say about a government which benefits politically from aiding the world revolution? Which can be counted on to aid every revolutionary development to the fullest extent it can? Could it be...that its interests are the same as the interests of the world working class?


You really can't have it both ways. If Cubas social figures "prove" that it is a "workers state" than why don't Denmarks do the same?

Yeah, I responded to this idiotic non-analogy in my earlier post. (In its more common form, Sweden.)


Cuba may have an extensive system of social welfare programmes, but they're nothing more than state interventions into the general market economy of the island.

I'm sorry, but few people outside this board have noticed that Cuba has a general market economy.

Only with lots of groupthink in inward-turned far-left circles can anyone lose touch with reality to such an extent. And I might point out, rarely in Latin America do even far-left sects claim that Cuba is capitalist, or the same as the various Stalinist regimes. They're a little closer to the situation.


Cubans work for an income, they buy and sell within a currency-based capital market, and they pay taxes to their capitalist government, which then uses those procedes for various government functions.

Circular, of course - you refer to the assumption that the Cuban government is capitalist in the course of proving that same assumption.

Factually wrong; Cuban workers don't pay taxes, for example - that proposal was defeated, as I mentioned earlier. And "capital market" usually refers to, well, a market for capital, which is not characteristic of the Cuban economy. The law of value does exist and operate, inevitably at this point - but not in the form of the competition of different capitals. That's not how the means of production are apportioned between different industries or workplaces.

And politically atrocious! Any attempt to rapidly abolish currency and wages - in an economically underdeveloped country under siege by world capitalism - can only be a utopian attempt to forcibly shoehorn people into a preconceived social blueprint.

The Khmer Rouge are the one regime ever to attempt that.

Dismissing Cuba as having nothing to do with socialism - because they didn't abolish currency and wages! No, they were correct not to do so. Instead, Cuban working people have moved as far towards communism as possible - and have done everything possible to aid the world revolution. The world revolution is the only thing that can make it possible to make further steps towards communism.

Lemme put it this way: you claim workers don't control the Cuban government. Well, if they did: what would they do differently?


The market hampering of the Republic of Cuba and the market hampering of the United States of America are only a difference of degree. One is merely more extensive than the other.

Steam and ice are the same thing; one merely has a higher temperature than the other. But it's not terribly practical to treat 'em the same way. 'Course, that's some of that evil dialectical thinking; quantitative differences becoming qualitative.

The Republic of Cuba tries to restrict the operation of the law of value as much as practical - in order to produce the most pro-worker results possible. The United States of America tries to channel the operation of the law of value in order to produce the most pro-big business results possible - compatible with a fair degree of social stability.

[Severian]

Originally posted by The [email protected] 30, 2006 04:04 pm
Of course not, neither Cuba nor Canada are workers states.
.....
What the figures show is that, due to its origin, the Cuban state uses a far greater percentage of its GDP for the welfare of its people and public money doesn't end up in the private sector to the degree it does here in the UK forinstance.
Oh. And why, exactly, does the Cuban "capitalist" government do that? With concrete details about its situation and the actions of different class forces inside Cuba, please.

What exactly would a government of working people do differently, in the same situation?

If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck.....could it be a duck?

[YKTMX]

Originally posted by Leo [email protected] 29, 2006 07:21 am

However, I personally think state monopoly capitalism is a very accurate way to describe present and past "socialist" societies.

The key here, in order to fit those state-monopoly capitalist regimes in history, is to understand that the term is not just very accurate way to describe present and past "socialist" societies but also other countries developing capitalism, especially latecomers, such as Germany in late nineteenth century and Japan in early twentieth century.
That's the most sensible thing you've ever said.

Congratulations.

[RebelDog]

Oh. And why, exactly, does the Cuban "capitalist" government do that?

I never called the Cuban government capitalist, I wouldn't dream of attaching that slur to them. I shouldn't have mentioned Cuba and Canada in the same sentence when stating neither are 'workers states' they are too different for that. I fully understand that Cuba is very likely the most progressive state in the world in terms of the working class but whether Cuba should be refered to as a 'workers state' is something I am not so sure of but clearly that comes down to people having different ideas about what a workers state is. The workers state should be one that has abolished capitalism and is moving toward communism, the later of the two is impossible however for a small country like Cuba in a sea of capitalism. The Cuban revolution can only ever truely succeed if it is part of an surge in proletarian action worldwide to destroy capitalism. This is surely the fate of any isolated revolution. With this in mind states like Cuba are put forward wrongly by the right as the best situation our ideology can achieve for workers. At the moment I would regard Cuba as a success story in very difficult conditions but because the workers do not exersise complete control over Cuba (a representitive ruling class puports to do that job) I cannot call it a workers state. I do know its the nearest thing we have in this world to a workers state and it far superior to any of the 'workers states' that some would claim existed in eastern europe.


What exactly would a government of working people do differently, in the same situation?

Judging by the treatment meted out to Cuba for 5 decades for daring to have a revolution I doubt the situation would be any different. As long as reactionary elements exist inside and capitalism outside, a country where a workers revolution has taken place the state must protect itself from these forces. Without substantial international support and solidarity a revolution has a long hard road ahead of it. If exacly the same situation was true in the UK today as it is in Cuba I would fight reactionary forces and help to protect it, as I would Cuba, because whatever I or anyone thinks of the situation in Cuba, set against the current fate of workers movements in the world today it would be a major blow for us all if it collapsed.

[Lenin's Law]

Originally posted by The [email protected] 01, 2006 09:17 am
Judging by the treatment meted out to Cuba for 5 decades for daring to have a revolution I doubt the situation would be any different. As long as reactionary elements exist inside and capitalism outside, a country where a workers revolution has taken place the state must protect itself from these forces. Without substantial international support and solidarity a revolution has a long hard road ahead of it. If exacly the same situation was true in the UK today as it is in Cuba I would fight reactionary forces and help to protect it, as I would Cuba, because whatever I or anyone thinks of the situation in Cuba, set against the current fate of workers movements in the world today it would be a major blow for us all if it collapsed.
I agree. I went to Cuba a few years ago and while the workers have many complaints (often justifiably so) about their government and their life on the island, they know the most probable fate that awaits them should the present government fall. I don't think you can call it a workers state because as you say the workers do not have direct control of their country or the MoP, but government representatives and bureacrats do, claiming to act in the best interests of the workers. While it can be argued that the Cuban govenrment has generally acted in the workers best interests, I don't think you can ever be content with delegating authority to representatives that claim to know best and claim to work in yor best interests without taking the helm yourself.

With all that being said however, it is nothing less than remarkable how the Cuban government has managed to survive as long as it is has often being completely isolated and besieged in at least the Western Hemisphere if not the world.

[LSD]

Oh. If that's true, isn't it a good thing? If that's true...wouldn't it make sense to oppose the restoration of private capitalism, or whatever you want to call it?

Absolutely. Just like I'd oppose the restoration of the laissez-faire free market in capitalist countries where worker pressure has forced social programmes. Again, that's not because Cuba -- or Canada -- have anything to do with revolutionary socialism, it's just that hampered capitalism is functionally less exploitative than unhindered capitalism.

Again, that's why following the collapse of the Soviet Union, living standards decreased. Even the most hard-line Stalinist will acknowledge that the USSR of 1989 was anything but socialist. But it's social programmes were still more extensive than those of the Russian Federation which would replace it.

It was these objective programmes which made the difference, not some mythical nonsense about "degenerated workers" or "revolutionary foundations".

Any time that the market is reigned in by the state, it's a temporary respite for the workers. But if we buy into the social-democratic lie that state hampering is a long-term solution, we abandon the very principles on which communism is constructed.


To defend those states against imperialist attack aiming at the restoration of private capitalism?

Well, obviously. But then no one on this board (outside of OI) is supporting US imperialist attacks or free market restoration in any self-styled "socialist" regimes.

Many of us would prefer that there be some political changes in these regimes, but, as always, those changes must come from within.

Specifically, it would be nice to see the Republic of Cuba actually adhere to some principles of Republicanism. Not that the Republic is traditionally a good paradigm of democracy, but it sure beats the hell out of abject tyrany.

Not to mention that a more liberal political system would garner Cuba a lot more friends and a lot more credibility. Cuba's struggle with the United States isn't just an economic one, it's a public relations one; and the longer that "comrade Fidel" holds on to his iron grip, the worse the Cuban government looks to the rest of the world.

Plus, the corruption that inevitable accompanies state centralization can severly undermine the functionlity of state welfare programmes. That's not to say that the Cuban government is incapable of helping its citizens, obviously it isn't. But a more accountable and decentralized regime could be better at it.


'Cause that's the political conclusion behind the "workers' state" terminology. It's pretty pointless to have purely terminological arguments, if you're not disputing the political conclusion.

There's more than one political conclusion here, Severian, and it's ludicrous to assert that one term can only have on implication as if it were a arithmetic equation. Politics don't work like that.

Yes, labeling a regime a "workers' state" implies that it should be defended from attack, but it also implies that the institions of said state are, in some part, actually ontrolled by workers. It implies that countries like Cuba or North Korea really do embody proletarian governance and, as such, it weakens the political viability of communism as an ideology.

People, especially educated people, are more than aware of what Stalinist regimes are and have been. No one's buying the Third International line any more. But people are certainly skeptical about the validity of communism. Partly as a result of persistant capitalist propaganda, even more because of abject Leninist failure, the popular perception of communism these days is "good in theory, but impossible in practice".

Equating regimes like Cuba with communism, therefore, only realizes these fears. Because if Cuba's really as good as it can get, no one's interested.

Look, there are a lot of things in Cuba to be admired and a lot of the third world would do well to take from its example. But workers need to understand that Cuba is not the aim here; that that kind of faux-social-democratic nineteenth century anachronism has absolutely nothing to do with real proletarian self-governance.


And secondly: you agree that "It's out of fear, and pressure from below." that elites grant concessions to the workers? You say "exactly?"

Well, where's that pressure in Cuba? Where are the struggles by workers against the Cuban government and CP leadership?

Struggles don't have to be in the streets to be real, Severian. The class war is far more complex than that.

In bureaucratic regimes like Cuba and the former Soviet Union, the latent power of the populace at large is understood by the government without the need for overt demonstrations.

The only thing keeping Stalinist administrators in their jobs (aside from well-trained armed guards and a monopoly on weapons) is the understanding by those they rule that a free market restoration would be worse.


I can point to them in the Stalinist states, from Hungary '56 forward. The concrete reasons for the apparatchiks' fear of the working class.

Don't be absurd. The '56 revolution was in reaction to foreign occupation and __ policies. Not to mention that it was brutally crushed. It barely had an effect on Hungarian economic policies and it certainly didn't affect Russia proper.

If Cuba were occupying some foreign country, they'd probably be facing resistance there too, but as they're not, comparing them to Soviet Imperialism is ludicrous.

Worker unrest is famously silent in Stalinist regimes, that's why when it does occur it's so historically noteworthy.

But the absence of visible proletarian resistance does not imply proletarian support. Not unless you're proposing that fascist Germany was also a "workers' state".


The difficulty for you, however - the central leadership of the CP and government consistently comes down on the side of the workers.

:lol:

The point that you insist on missing is that if Cuba truly were a "workers'" anything, the government wouldn't have to "come down on the side" of the workers, it would be the workers.

Again, there are many reasons why the Cuban government implements the social policies it does, but to call those market hamperings "siding with the workers" is an outrageous oversimplification.

By that logic, Social-Democrats also "side with workers", they're just limited by their "material conditions".

This is faux-materialism, Severian, it's turning objectivity into a subjective catch-all excuse machine for any regime that dons to label itself "socialist".


Um, no. Nowhere in your post do you present a single concrete fact about Cuba.

Except that the economy is unlaterally controlled by an elite state apparatus. In terms of the larger discussion here, that's the only fact that matters.


What are you talking about?

The capitalist class in Cuba is rather complex. A large part of it is officially a part of the bureaucratic machine, while in reality acting much in the way a private bourgeoisie does. A smaller portion operates within the gray areas of Cuba's command / market economic dichotomy.

In both cases, however, the capitalists are very much existant and very much in their typical economic role.

That's not to say that they're not weakened the enormous power of the state. On the contary, like in most socialist-inspired mixed-economies, the power of the market is primarily defined by the lengths to which the government is willing to go.

But what that means is that, contrary to the "revolutionary" rhetoric of the republic and its apologists, Cuba is functionally no different from any other heavily regulated market economy.


There is no capitalist class in Cuba

:blink:

Really? None? Then doesn't that mean that class antagonisms have "ended" and as such the need for the "transitional state" is gone?

Tell me then, why does the PCC maintain its grip on power? Why haven't the institutions of the state "withered" like they're supposed to?

Sorry, but this notion you've come up with, it's a ridiculous one, and it doesn't even make sense from within your own ideological paradigm. I've seen a lot of wacky defenses of Cuba on this board, but complete proletarianization? ...well, it's a new one, to say the least. :unsure:


Additionally, it makes no sense to assert that pressure from capitalism would produce relatively pro-worker policies.

Not pressure from capitalism keeps the Cuba working class on the side of the bureaucracy because it's better than the alternative. Of course the capitalists themselves don't want to see the present market hampering continue -- save those, of course, who've found a way to profit off of it -- but economic pressure isn't as simple as all that.


Why yes. Besides the factor of appearance and prestige you mention - there's the factor of giving U.S. imperialism as much trouble as possible elsewhere, in order to reduce the pressure on Cuba.

To a degree, sure. Although the likelyhood of Cuba singlehandedly taking down US imperialism is slim, any weakening of their "great enemy" can only help the Cuban regime.

Certainly, from an economic perspective, Cuba would do far better if someone other than the US were running the local trading market.

The thing is, though, Cuba's efforts are so unlikely to produce consequential results (doctors never brought down an empire), that I find it highly improbably that that's their immediate aim.

It's far more likely that, again, they're acting primarily out of a desire to maintain the public image of the republic and, to a lesser extent, to serve their ideological agenda which, to whatever extent, a good deal of the bureaucratic rulling class still genuinely believes in.


'Course, what does that say about a government which benefits politically from aiding the world revolution?

That in Realpolitik, the enemy of one's enemy is often one's friend. That doesn't mean that Cuba is a part of some "world revolution". It just means that, as you say, it bennefits from any weakening of US imperial power.

Not unlike how, say, Iran would bennefit from any such weakening. But no one's so deluded as to claim that the Islamic Republic has anything to do with progressive revolution.


And politically atrocious! Any attempt to rapidly abolish currency and wages - in an economically underdeveloped country under siege by world capitalism - can only be a utopian attempt to forcibly shoehorn people into a preconceived social blueprint.

No one's suggesting "shoehorning" anyone into anything, and you're absolutely correct, at its present stage of development, Cuba is almost certainly not developmentally capable of constructing a communist society.

So how about we stop with the "worker" nonsense and acknowledge what Cuba actually is: a social-democracy without the democracy.


Steam and ice are the same thing; one merely has a higher temperature than the other. But it's not terribly practical to treat 'em the same way.

Perhaps not, but it's immensely practical to acknowledge that they are both nonetheless water.

Fascism is a form of capitalist governance. A far more extreme one than typical liberal republicanims, but a form of capitalism nonetheless. That doesn't mean that fascist regimes should be "treated the same" as liberal ones, but it does mean that as leftists we must recognize that their common foundation.

No one is advocating "treating" Cuba the same as, say, the United States. But then, of course, none of us are in a position to "treat" any country. We're not heads of state or legislative policy advisors, we're political radicals with very little influence on grande international affairs.

Why then you insist on approaching this question as if you were in a position to shape international policy, is frankly beyond me.

The terminological question isn't about how we "treat" the Republic of Cuba, it's about how we conceptualize the Republic of Cuba. About whether we consider it a "socialist success story" or merely another example of capitalist adaptiveness.

Which one we choose won't change how people "treat" Cuba itself, frankly we're just not that important. But what it will change is how people think of us and our movement.

The Cuban regime isn't at stake here, Severian, our credibility is.

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 01, 2006 07:47 am
Well, obviously. But then no one on this board (outside of OI) is supporting US imperialist attacks or free market restoration in any self-styled "socialist" regimes.
I hope you're right. But certainly there are many who sit on the fence rather than side with the countries being attacked!

Really, I think there are very few leftists who recognize the need to defend the remaining gains of these revolutions. Which today, means first of all defending those gains against the more and more openly pro-capitalist regimes.

That's one symptom of the increasing rottenness of "the left," really. Much of it was attached to those regimes - not to the workers' gains in those societies. When they lost their attachment to the regimes - that became clearer than ever.

The historic debate over the character of these countries is all about political conclusions - which side to take in international conflicts.

*"Workers states" - side with these countries against the capitalist world.

*"Bureaucratic collectivism" - people advocating this view typically ended up siding with capitalism - as "State Department" social democrats or outright defenders of capitalism. Most famously Burnham and Schactman. It actually makes more abstract intellectual sense than "state capitalism", but its less common on the left - because its political conclusions tend to take people out of the left.

*"State capitalism" - typically started out sitting on the fence, equally blaming American imperialism and "Soviet imperialism". Both Tony Cliff and Mao Tse-tung took this stand. Those are two main people who developed "theories" that the USSR was capitalist. Your version, BTW, is probably Mao's - you got it from Redstar, who got it from the Progressive Labor Party, who got it from Mao. Certainly you lack Cliff's relative theoretical sophistication.

It can be hard to remain balanced on a fence when it comes to the class struggle. For example, Mao later went over fully to alliance with U.S. imperialism, arguing that "Soviet imperialism" was the larger problem. Worse, his most faithful followers internationally went along with this.

Now here's the interesting bit: as a consequence, they didn't just have to oppose the USSR; they had to oppose all kinds of workers' movements and national liberation movements in the world, which took aid from the USSR or which included pro-Moscow CPs. They had to support all kinds of rightist movements against them.

Which says something about the relation of these inter-state conflicts - to the world class struggle.


Even the most hard-line Stalinist will acknowledge that the USSR of 1989 was anything but socialist. But it's social programmes were still more extensive than those of the Russian Federation which would replace it.

It was these objective programmes which made the difference, not some mythical nonsense about "degenerated workers" or "revolutionary foundations".

Ah yes, how mystical and non-objective of me to emphasize the differences in the economic foundations of society, over the political regime.

The difference between the USSR and other countries was not simply welfare programs as we all know and love them. It's the functioning of every unit of the economy. They did not run on a profit basis, and that had social consequences.

Foreign capitalist who bought up Soviet industries found that out the hard way: they sometimes also bought all kinds of social obligations - to provide heat to a town, food to employees, day care.....they immediately set out to make these industries profitable, of course, most obviously by getting rid of a lot of workers.

This had a lot to do with the human catastrophe associated with trying to restore capitalism. It's not just "social programmes".


Specifically, it would be nice to see the Republic of Cuba actually adhere to some principles of Republicanism. Not that the Republic is traditionally a good paradigm of democracy, but it sure beats the hell out of abject tyrany.

Not to mention that a more liberal political system would garner Cuba a lot more friends and a lot more credibility.

Well, those are odd statements for a self-described anarchist. I've thought that you're basically a liberal, but didn't expect you to get so explicit about it.

This is a call for bourgeois democracy in Cuba. Which would be a step backwards.

What Cuba needs is more workers' democracy - but it has a lot more already than you seem aware of. In favoring more democracy in Cuba, it's important to make that clear - to avoid calling for democracy in the same terms that Washington and other supporters of capitalism do!

(BTW, "republic" (literally, "the public thing") doesn't mean anything definite other than "not a monarchy". So who knows what you mean about the principles of Republicanism, except that it's bourgeois democratic claptrap.)

A few pesky facts I've presented in the past, on why Cuba is not ruled by "abject tyranny" and on examples of workers' democracy there:
link (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=46131&st=0&#entry1292018204)
link (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=32995&st=0&#entry503038)
link (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=35695&st=25)

Others have also given some facts on this; I and others might be inclined to provide more - if our opponents' didn't so consistently dismiss all facts and figures about Cuba as irrelevant.


Yes, labeling a regime a "workers' state" implies that it should be defended from attack, but it also implies that the institions of said state are, in some part, actually ontrolled by workers.

I'm sorry, but that was not in fact implied or stated by Trotsky. It's a "straw man" argument to claim that this is believed by those of us who agree with his analysis of the USSR.

Again, you might consider reading "The Revolution Betrayed" or "In Defense of Marxism" before attempting to contest that analysis; it might not kill you to know the position you're arguing against.

If you're hung up on the literal meaning of the words or how people on the street may perceive them - I agree the terminology can be misleading. I don't that often use the exact phrase myself - sometimes I say "postcapitalist countries" for example.

Again, purely terminological arguments are pointless; the larger issue is whether the analysis is correct.


Equating regimes like Cuba with communism, therefore, only realizes these fears. Because if Cuba's really as good as it can get, no one's interested.

Funny; a lot of people who visit it seem favorably impressed. A lot of other people don't share you're ignorant assumption that it's an "abject tyranny."

Funny it's in Latin America that working people are moving forward in struggle most; and the only place lately where working people try even tentatively to reach for power. There are many reasons for that - but certainly the sympathy for Cuba among most Latin American far-leftists - and many working people - hasn't prevented it.

And just maybe.....the example of Cuba has some positive influence? Isn't that why Washington is so determined to crush them, sometimes stated even in their internal documents - what some have called "the danger of a good example"?


Struggles don't have to be in the streets to be real, Severian. The class war is far more complex than that.

In bureaucratic regimes like Cuba and the former Soviet Union, the latent power of the populace at large is understood by the government without the need for overt demonstrations.

The only thing keeping Stalinist administrators in their jobs (aside from well-trained armed guards and a monopoly on weapons) is the understanding by those they rule that a free market restoration would be worse.

Vague and gassy. But thanks for the admission that you can't point to any working-class or progressive opposition to the Cuban government.

In fact, "latent power" without some action does not wring concessions from any ruling elite. Without struggle, there is no progress.

And fear of capitalist restoration does not always keep people from fighting Stalinist regimes, obviously.



I can point to them in the Stalinist states, from Hungary '56 forward. The concrete reasons for the apparatchiks' fear of the working class.Don't be absurd. The '56 revolution was in reaction to foreign occupation and __ policies. Not to mention that it was brutally crushed. It barely had an effect on Hungarian economic policies and it certainly didn't affect Russia proper.

I think it's you who's being absurd by refusing to acknowledge the class dimension of the '56 Hungarian Revolution and numerous other examples of workers' resistance to apparatchik regimes. And revolutions that are crushed do not therefore become irrelevant; they show dramatically that the ruling elite does have something to fear.

Many reforms are driven by the fear of revolution; and now that I think about it, most apparatchik regimes had a degree of political liberalization and also economic concessions to the working class from the 50s on.


Worker unrest is famously silent in Stalinist regimes, that's why when it does occur it's so historically noteworthy.

Relatively low-level - compared to capitalism - not the same as nonexistent.

Of course, this highlights the differences between these societies and capitalism - both why is there less resistance - and why is it possible to win more concessions with less struggle?


But the absence of visible proletarian resistance does not imply proletarian support. Not unless you're proposing that fascist Germany was also a "workers' state".

An obviously false analogy. The working class suffered a crushing, bloody defeat in Germany 1933. The reverse is the case in Cuba 1959.

By the fall of the Third Reich in '45, workers had not recovered from that total defeat - but that kind of thing doesn't last forever. Consider Mussolini's fate. And there was oppposition from the left to the Third Reich, even if small-scale. There's zero in Cuba, and nobody's ever given a good explanation why. Consistent with the claim it's a capitalist state, that is.


Again, there are many reasons why the Cuban government implements the social policies it does,

I'm just asking for one. But without success, still.


but to call those market hamperings "siding with the workers" is an outrageous oversimplification.

By that logic, Social-Democrats also "side with workers", they're just limited by their "material conditions".

Your faith in the social democracy is touching. But in fact, in country after country Social Democrats are leading the charge for antiworker economic policies. I mentioned Sweden earlier - maybe you've heard of Blair's New Labour - I don't suppose you know what Carlos Andres Perez did in Venezuela '94?

It was just the latest example in the social democracy's long history of bloody suppression of workers' resistance to its defense of capitalist interests. No when did Cuba do that? Oh, never.

As usual, one problem with these mindless non-analogies is that no other government acts like Cuba's.


Except that the economy is unlaterally controlled by an elite state apparatus.

I'm sorry, that is not a fact. That is the issue in dispute, which you have not even attempted to prove with facts.

Unless, as a self-described anarchist, you just mean that the economy is nationalized. It seems counter-intuitive to use that, by itself, as proof the country is capitalist.

You remind me of Forbes magazine, which claims that Castro is one of the world's richest people. Why? He owns a big chunk of Cuba's GNP, or maybe various pieces of Cuba's state property. How do you know he does? They just do.

(Ironically, is rarely true in actual capitalist countries. It is in some sense (unilaterally is questionable) true of Stalinist states...but hardly constitutes proof they're capitalist.)


The capitalist class in Cuba is rather complex. A large part of it is officially a part of the bureaucratic machine, while in reality acting much in the way a private bourgeoisie does.

No, I'm sorry. Bureaucrats cannot operate a business according to market demands. They cannot appropriate its profit for themselves. They cannot leave it to their heirs. Even the worst and least controlled of 'em have their own ways of operating - their own "economic laws" one might say - different from capitalism.

A second ago, even you were describing the bureaucracy as different and contending with the bourgeoisie; you can't switch back now.


A smaller portion operates within the gray areas of Cuba's command / market economic dichotomy.

Oh. Black marketeers are contending for power, a constant threat of counterrevolution which keeps the bureaucracy in line? C'mon. They're loathed by the population. And incidentally, they're purely commercial (not industrial or financial) and small-scale.

(No, the only real danger of counter-revolution, and the real social base of the "opposition" - comes from Washington.)

BTW, this bit about the phantom capitalist class, you also got from Mao by way of Redstar. He came up with it in order to justify branding his factional opponents as representatives of the nonexistent Chinese capitalist class. They were all, of course, representatives of the same bureaucratic elite.

When you repeat ideas, you might want to consider where they come from and what interests they originally served. This one hasn't gained in factual basis or theoretical sophistication - from when it was part of Mao's crude power play.


Really? None? Then doesn't that mean that class antagonisms have "ended" and as such the need for the "transitional state" is gone?

I'm sorry, don't try to saddle me with the idiocy that ignores all but 2 classes. Because there's no capitalist class, obviously I'm not saying there are no classes. Obvious to anyone not in the grip of that particular Redstar-like idiocy, I mean.

In Cuba, there are workers, peasants (cooperate and independent), self-employed people, petty-bourgeois types including the black marketeers, middle-class professionals....and the bureaucracy.


Not pressure from capitalism keeps the Cuba working class on the side of the bureaucracy because it's better than the alternative.

Gee, you talked about pressure from the alleged "local bourgeoisie" in answer to my question: what pressure on the bureaucracy keeps it providing these social programs? So now we go all the way around the circle before I find out you never meant to answer it. Artful dodger.



'Course, what does that say about a government which benefits politically from aiding the world revolution?
That in Realpolitik, the enemy of one's enemy is often one's friend.

BZZZZ! I'm sorry, that is the wrong answer. U.S. imperialism has had many adversaries. None of them - except the USSR for its first few years - has acted the way Cuba does - aiding the world revolution every way they can.

The later USSR's military interventions didn't exactly have the same kind of character or result as Cuba's in Angola and elsewhere....

Most of Washington's adversaries constantly seek some accomodation with it, even when that's hopeless; the late Iraqi regime is a good example. But Cuba, while they'd like normal relations - aren't willing to sell out the world revolution to get it. They lost their best chance - during the Carter administration, which temporarily ended the travel ban - over Angola.....

At the risk of making your head hurt with more pesky facts, lemme refer you to "Conflicting Missions" by Piero Gliejeses. It's the best-documented and best-respected book on Cuban foreign policy. (Respected by the academic establishment, too.) The book's overall point, which it backs with all those sources? "The thesis is that no country has maintained such an altruistic policy over such a long period," Gleijeses says. (http://home.netcom.com/~hhenke/news24.htm)

Altruism isn't the word I'd use; and Gleijeses doesn't mean it in a simple way. It's in his book that I first came across the partial explanation that the Cuban government aims to distract Washington by causing it as much trouble as possible, "along all the roads of the world"....but the point is, that no narrow national interest can begin to explain the depth of the Cuban government's internationalist commitment.

Anyway, read the book.

Other regimes may sometimes have some interests which occasionally coincide with some interest of workers. Cuba's - consistently run along with those of the world revolution. The difference is not minor.

You mention Iran. They don't aid revolutionary movements - they aid "Islamic" rightists. Their counteroffensive into Iraq - in which they tried to replace the Ba'thist regime with an "Islamic" one - didn't work out like any of Cuba's internationalist operations.


Why then you insist on approaching this question as if you were in a position to shape international policy, is frankly beyond me.

The working class needs its own foreign policy...and in fact, workers' actions do affect the bosses' ability to carry out their foreign policy.

Coming from you, I gotta read this: why you insist on approaching political questions as if you're in a position to affect the real world? The important thing is.....wait for it.....


The terminological question isn't about how we "treat" the Republic of Cuba, it's about how we conceptualize the Republic of Cuba. About whether we consider it a "socialist success story" or merely another example of capitalist adaptiveness.

Yup, see, the thing isn't intervening in the class struggle taking place in the world. The important thing is "conceptualizing" things so we best figure out how to propagandize for communism in the abstract.

(Propaganda has its place, and I've done more of it in the real world than, I'd bet, all the Redstarites and semi-Redstarites like you put together. But it sure ain't more important than the class battles taking place in the world....)

But I'll go along partway: this is part of what we mean by communism. Is it a utopian blueprint, with no connection to any real-world event? Do we wait for it to arrive like the Second Coming of Jesus? Do we nod along with those who say that "communism is great in theory", although nothing that's ever happened in the real world even begins to live up to that promise?

Go ahead if you like, but you're resigning all relevance. Or if by some fluke you ever get the power to shoehorn people into that utopian blueprint....no matter how pretty your blueprint is, the results won't be.

And of course, there's a certain tendency here to passively accept Washington's vilification of Cuba - every revolutionary advance will meet similar propaganda attacks, so it's better to get used to fighting them.

When you say "our credibility is" at stake, it's pretty obvious you just don't want to be associated with so much capitalist mud thrown at it. In contrast, the ruling class has never vilified the abstract utopian concept of "communism" nearly as much; they're even happy to quote "left" opponents of that evil "Leninism" against it. As long as you don't associate yourself with any real-world threat to their profits, you're safe.

****

Or do we say "Communism is not a doctrine, but a movement. It proceeds not from principles but from facts."

Do we base it on real-world developments - from the smallest workplace and neighborhood conflicts - to the revolutions that have actually happened? Do we identify with those revolutions, seek to fight side by side with them. Point to them as positive examples of some of the things that can be accomplished even in difficult situations?

My experience is, that does get a positive response. (Hmm...do you have any real-world experience propagandizing for your concept of "communism" to the general public? Do any of the Redstarites? The SLP hasn't achieved anything noticeable with its similar utopian approach......)

People do like real-world examples, more than any abstract and purely theoretical demonstration of the desirability of communism.

You admit that nobody could do any better in Cuba's situation. You didn't answer what a workers' government would do differently in their situation.

So, then - if you won't use them as an example, you won't use anything as an example, until that better situation arrives.

A perfect situation, I suspect, involving a perfect, wartless utopia of a revolution. I strongly suspect nothing else will be good enough for you.

Most importantly, that'll still be true, when a revolution develops where you live. If you can't even recognize a revolution when you see one......you sure won't be able to join it. You'll just complain that it doesn't fit your utopia. That'll be true for others politically educated in the same spirit.

Possibly like a certain student in "Ten Days That Shook the World" (http://www.marxists.org/archive/reed/1919/10days/10days/ch7.htm)

Oh, and this "example of capitalist adaptiveness" business. Capitalism has many limits to its adaptability. You attitude is called illusions in the progressive potential of capitalism. If so many social problems can be solved under it, if everything Cuba's done could be done under capitalism.....well, in fact, it can't.

[LSD]

I hope you're right. But certainly there are many who sit on the fence rather than side with the countries being attacked!

Such as?

This argument of yours, that terminological debates must lead to to foreign policy implications, is nothing more than a glorified straw man; an assertion that those who don't adhere to your political science interpreation of Cuba's "economic foundations" nescessarily support US imperialism. Clearly that's an absurd assertion.

The Baathist government of Iraq was one of the more oppressive and reactionary states on earth, but that doesn't mean that "ultra-leftists" supported the US invasion. On the contrary, regardless of how we may feel about Sadaam Hussein, we recognize that US imperialism is the greater threat to the international proletariat.

The same is certainly true of Cuba. I, and those who agree with me, may not like many aspects of the Cuban political and economic system, but that doesn't mean that we support its US-backed overthrow or that we'd be "on the fence" when it comes potential imperialist invasions.

Indeed, from what I've seen, it's actually those who accept your theoretical model who are more likely to support imperialism. People like YKTMX who generally buy into the Trotskyist paradigm have expressed far more ambivalence when it comes to a theoretical US invasaion than any conversant "ultra-leftist" I've seen.

That's not to say that your model leads to "fence sitting" either. You see, I'm not going to go down that same bullshit road. I recognize that, while I disagree with your conceptualization of Cuba as a "workers'" anything, that terminological disagreement does not automatically make you an apologist for imperialism.

This entire issue of imperialism, in fact, is nothing but a non sequitur. An attempt to move the debate from one of what is Cuba to one of what should be done with Cuba -- an issue that neither of us are in a serious position to influence.


The historic debate over the character of these countries is all about political conclusions - which side to take in international conflicts.

Except that the communist position has always been to oppose imperialism, regardless of the parties involved.

Again, this is a non-issue. The only potential "international conflict" involving Cuba would be one between it and the leading imperialist power in the world. As such, there can be no question as to which side communists, "ultra-left" or otherwise, would take.

North Korea is another so-called "degenerated workers' state", one which has become so blatant in its antipopulism, that practiclaly no one outside of fringe Maoist circles considers it anything other than embarassment.

That being said however, I think you'd be pretty hard pressed to find a single unrestricted member of this board who would support an imperialist attack on the DPRK.

Yes, this debate is fundamentally about political conclcusions, but not the ones you're talking about. The political conclusions at stake here are over the nature of communism and revolutionary strategy.

If Cuba is truly a "workers'" "socialist" state, then it means that true post-capitalism is achievable not only in underdeveloped third world countries, but also that it's possible to set-up such a system with rather limited popular involvement.

It would mean that socialism truly can be implemented "top-down" and that successful revolutionary insurrections can be organized along statist and hiearchical lines.

In short, the nature of Cuba is important because it speaks to the fundamental debate in the revolutionary left today. That's why Leninist and other "old" leftists are so desperate to cling to Cuba as a "success story". Because it's pretty much the only "old left" example left.

All the others have collapsed or "degenerated" to such a point that their hypocrasy is unavoidable, even to the "true believer". But Cuba is still standing and, because of that, it's become the last beacon of hope for a dying ideology.

I understand that and I can empathize with the motivation, but my interest is not in keeping Leninism alive, it's in identifying the truth and using that truth to best further the revolutionary cause. If that means junking 95% of Lenin's ideas -- as I've become convinced it does -- so be it.

I have absolutely no compunctions about shattering illusions if that's what's called for here.


Ah yes, how mystical and non-objective of me to emphasize the differences in the economic foundations of society, over the political regime.

The two are inseperable. Economic foundations shape politics and political organization shapes economics.

And in Cuba's case, those economic foundations are distinctly capitalist. Again, we're talking about a market system here in which workers work for wage labour, purchase goods and services on a common currency market, and

I agree that it's not the typical liberal capitalist republic; the state and the capitalists have intermingled to such a point that, in many instances, they are for all intents and purposes indistinguishable. But that's the natural conclusion of social-democratic theory.

It has nothing to do with communism or worker-control.

Now you've indicated that the reason that Cuba has not actually developed post-capitalist economic systems is because, at is present stage of development, to do so would be suicide ...and you're right.

But you take the wrong lesson from this fact. Cuba's inability to progress beyong capitalist foundations does not mean that its government is a "workers' state" "doing all it can do", it means that a "workers' state" is not possible.

Worker-control is not compatible with capitalism, not at any level. And so countries which are not capable of transcending the latter are equally not capable of implementing the former.

So while the government of Cuba may characterize itself as proletarian, and its supporters may perpetuate that notion, the reality is that as long its economic foundations remain firmly rooted in capitalism, anything other social-capitalism is impossible.


The difference between the USSR and other countries was not simply welfare programs as we all know and love them. It's the functioning of every unit of the economy. They did not run on a profit basis, and that had social consequences.

What nonsense. Individual industries may have been at one time or another run at a loss, but those were tactical decisions made when it was concluded that it was in the interest of the organization as a whole.

The totality of state industry, however, had to run at a profit because that was where the government got its budget from and betweeen social programmes and massive militarization, thse governments had rather extensive costs.

The only way for "every unit of the economy" to operated without a profit-motive would be if the total value of every persons labour when back to that person directly. If there was no upwards movement of capital.

That would require, however, a genuinely post-capitalist economy, something which the USSR was never able to achieve.

Again, why do you think the former "2nd world" was able to "transition back" into capitalism so quickly? Sure, there were the occasional bumps and obstacles as there always are when one is stripping a society of its social welfare programmes. But overall, it was a staggeringly simple shift.

When the Bolsheviks first took over, they had a massive economy to run and no real ability to move beyond capitalism. So they took the old managers and bosses, gave them new spiffy state titles, and put them right back in charge.

When their grand experiment finally collapsed 74 years latter, they went back to being overt capitalists.

As far as the average worker was concerned, the "units of the economy" hadn't changed much. Although they sure missed the practical bennefits of a state monopoly.


Well, those are odd statements for a self-described anarchist. I've thought that you're basically a liberal, but didn't expect you to get so explicit about it.

This is a call for bourgeois democracy in Cuba. Which would be a step backwards.

No, actually it's a call for Cuba to admit what it is. The myth of Cuban "socialism" has been an excuse for 47 years of a political as well as economic state monopoly.

Increasing the accountability of that state would not move Cuba "closer to communism", it wouldn't even have anything to do with "socialism", what it would do is make Cuba a better social-democracy.

Because, again, that's all that Cuba is or reasonably could be in the immediate future. So you're right, tinkering with Cuba's variant of capitalism doens't have much to do with revolution or communism, but then neither does Cuba.


What Cuba needs is more workers' democracy - but it has a lot more already than you seem aware of.

Believe me, I've read the arguments, but I'm also politically savvy enough to recognize that, when it comes to political organization, theory only counts for so much.

You have a remarkably naive faith in the integrity of republicanism. If "representatives" truly represented anyone other than themselves, then the United States would be the "beacon of democracy" it so loves to proclaim itself.

In reality, of course, economic power trumps political machinery.

Republican "responsibility" is a myth. You can put in place as many "checks and ballances" as you want, the fact remains in a statist society, the average person simply doesn't have the means, time, or motivation to "check up" on their "leaders".

That means that even if the system is ostensibly set up as transparent or accountable, the reality of power is that it perpetuates itself. That's why "comrade" Fidel has been sitting comfy for nearly 50 years now.

Truly "recallable" leaders get recalled. No one is perfect, and especially when it comes to the complex busines of running a society, the notion that one "leader" could be so good as to never warrant replacement is absurd.

Even if Castro were the smartest human being to ever live, basic comon sense tells us that at some point, new blood would be a good idea.

And yet despite all the propaganda about Cuba's "democratic" structure, the same "delegates" keep returning and returning ...just like in every bourgeois republic.

Republicanism doesn't work. Substitionalist politics inevitably result in corruption and corrosion. Not because socialist "delegates" are "evil", but because that kind of political and economic authority is just too tempting to resist.

Even in the absence of obvious personal perks, the ability to excersize that kind of control over a society is intoxicating, especially to the more politicaly and ideologically minded. People like Lenin and Castro who genuinely believe that they have a "plan" for society, how can they possibly be expected to resist the chance to implement it?

I suppose it comes down to which you value more, the real flesh-and-blood working class, or your ideological conception of working class "interests". Because while statist leaders can serve the latter, they can never serve the former.

The only way for the proletariat to truly rule is if it does so directly.


If you're hung up on the literal meaning of the words or how people on the street may perceive them - I agree the terminology can be misleading. I don't that often use the exact phrase myself - sometimes I say "postcapitalist countries" for example.

Again, purely terminological arguments are pointless; the larger issue is whether the analysis is correct.

And, as I hope I've made clear, in my judgment the analysis is not correct.

And "postcapitalist"? Cuba? Don't be absurd. You can't wish away capitalism with good intentions and red flags. The material basis needs to be there if you want to move ahead economically.

As an, in your words, "economically underdeveloped" third world country Cuba is not in any condition to transcend capitalism regardless of what it's "leaders" would like us to believe.


And just maybe.....the example of Cuba has some positive influence?

Of course it does!

Cuba's managed to accomplish some remarkable things; considering what it has, what it's up against, and what it's had to deal with, the fact that it's not only still standing, but in possession of some of the best standards of living in the third world is nothing short of astounding.

Even more importantly, the fact that it's been able to do so while heavily controlling its economy fatally belies the neoliberal myth that "economic freedom" is the "only road" to results.

I think that a lot of the world can take comfort from Cuba's story and, certainly, the third world would do well to follow many of its examples. But we're not talking about third world social welfare, here, we're supposed to be talking about revolutionary communism and in that, Cuba unfortunately does not have that much to teach us.

Not that that's particularly surprising considering that a post-capitalist economic system communism requires a post-capitalist capable area within which to operate and by your own admission, that does not include Cuba.


Isn't that why Washington is so determined to crush them, sometimes stated even in their internal documents - what some have called "the danger of a good example"?

The "good example" of Cuba is one of resistance to US imperialism and success in doing so. It has absolutely nothing to do with "socialism" or communism.

The United States government is not afraid that its citizens are going to take Cuba's example. They're afraid that the rest of the third world might, or more specifically that the rest of Latin America might.

Not because the US is afraid of "world revolution", but because it's afraid of losing market ground in the area of the world that for 150 years its considered its own personal playground.


And fear of capitalist restoration does not always keep people from fighting Stalinist regimes, obviously.

Of course not, but conbined with other factors such as fear of arrest and the general political apathy that republican systems tend to engender, people are generally willing to abide by Stalinist exploitation.

That's why, again, the USSR managed to last for three quarters of a century. It's why the PRC's still managing to keep itself afloat (albeit barely).


I think it's you who's being absurd by refusing to acknowledge the class dimension of the '56 Hungarian Revolution and numerous other examples of workers' resistance to apparatchik regimes.

Of course the Hungarian revolution had a "class dimension", that doesn't make it any less of a national resistance movement. And it certainly doesn't suggest that it had any significant influence outside of Hungary itself.

The Soviet government responded in Hungary because they were terrified that other eastern block nations might take from its example and they would lose their "securty buffer" in the east. There is absolutely no indication that they feared that the Hungraian insurrection would bring down the entire Stalinist machine.

The fact is class relations do not manifest themselves in politically oppressive regimes the way they do in more liberal ones. They tend to operate primarily "under the surface", but when a crisis does emerge, it tends to be pandemic.

That means that you don't see small scale strikes and labour actions, because those things tend to be brutally suppressed, but likewise there's no effective release valve for pent-up class anger and so it tends to explode on a large scale.

If the government is skilled, however, and reads the situations properly, those explosions can be avoided. That's what's happened in Cuba.

So, from a superficial perspective, it may appear that there's no class war going on whatsover. But a more deep analysis reveals that just like in every other state monopoly capitalist regime, class conflict has been modified, but certainly not eliminated.


An obviously false analogy. The working class suffered a crushing, bloody defeat in Germany 1933. The reverse is the case in Cuba 1959.

You're dodging the issue.

The issue isn't whether the Nazi regime was in the interests of the German working class, of course it wasn't. But that regardless of that, the Third Reich nonetheless made a number of concessions to keep the working class in line.

And that the lack of any overt proletarian resistance did not mean that the German proletariat become powerless the minute Hitler came to power. It certainly did not mean that the Nazi state was a "workers'" one merely because there was no widespread worker opposition!

This isn't an historical question, it's a political one. You are attempting to assert that a lack of visible worker resistance indicates that the state in question is in fact a proletarian one. It just so happens that one obvious flaw of this assertion is the numerous historical examples of obviously anti-worker regimes that nonetheless had little or not proletarian resistance.

You really can't have it both ways.


As usual, one problem with these mindless non-analogies is that no other government acts like Cuba's.

Not anymore, no, but that's because all the other state monopoly regimes have either collapsed or "liberalized" their economies to the point that even their apologists can't ignore their capitalism.

Cuba just happens to be the one that's still standing.


Unless, as a self-described anarchist, you just mean that the economy is nationalized. It seems counter-intuitive to use that, by itself, as proof the country is capitalist.

For an economy to be nationalized, it first must be capitalist as post-capitalist economies are implicitly public and do not require any state action to keep them out of private hands.

The fact that Cuban capital has one primary holder rather than several is only revlent insofar as determing what kind of capitalism is operating, nothing more.


No, I'm sorry. Bureaucrats cannot operate a business according to market demands. They cannot appropriate its profit for themselves. They cannot leave it to their heirs.

Of course they operate according to market demand, it's a market economy. They have to operate within the monopoly of the state, sure, but that's why it's monopoly capitalism and not liberal capitalism.

Insofar as the profits recieved, it doesn't all go to them personally, no, but they sure do make a good living off of it and, if they're at all smart and resourceful they can find ways to get it to their "heirs".

Most of the profits do go back to the state, of course, but again, that's the social-democratic way. Most social-democracies have tax rates above 50%, Cuba just happens to have one well above (although it doesn't characterize it as such).

"Postcapitalism" operates without profit, not by funneling profits back to a central authority. Cuba, however, clearly falls into the latter camp.


A second ago, even you were describing the bureaucracy as different and contending with the bourgeoisie; you can't switch back now.

I'm not "switching" anything. The leading bureacurats, the ones in positions of general authority and high state office, they constitute a sperate managerial class. The "lesser" bureaucrats, however, the ones who run the individual operations, the one who fill the role of the bosses and owners in the rest of the capitalist world ...they're the latent bourgeoisie.

I'll admit that it's a complicated system and, again, it's not liberal capitalism. But by the same token, it's also not "postcapitalism" or "worker" anything.

I never suggested that the capitalists are nearly as powerful as they are in more liberal states, on the contrary it's the diminishment of bourgeois authority which defines the state capitalist system.

State monopoly regimes attempt to keep capitalism but get rid of the capitalists. They acknowledge (because they generally have no choice) that moving beyond capitalism is not an option, but they think that they can run a bourgeois economy without maintaining the bourgeois class.

Instead, what they end up doing is weakening the bourgeoisie, but replacing them not with a leading proletarian class, but with an emergent bureaucratic class which has its own interests and motivations and which challanges the bourgeoisie for the allegiance of the workers.

What usually happens is that, percieving that any opposition to the bosses is a good thing, the workers will side with the bureaucrats. But eventually will tire of their oppression as well and will look to the capitalists to "liberalize" their country.

That's why state monopoly capitalism never lasts and its why, sooner or latter, Cuba will follow the same path that all the other Leninist experiments have already walked.

I wonder how you will justify that event from within your "workers' state" paradigm. Wait, I can already guess! it's Stalin's fault... :rolleyes:


Oh. Black marketeers are contending for power, a constant threat of counterrevolution which keeps the bureaucracy in line? C'mon. They're loathed by the population.

All exploiters are loathed by those they exploit. That's true in liberal republics and its true in state monopoly regimes as well. That doesn't diminish their economic power or their latent poliitcal potentcy.

Most Cubans may not like black-marketeers, but they nonetheless work with them. As such, they do represent an economic challenge to the monopoly of the state. Because they can offer lower prices are rare goods, demand for their services increase.

It's basic capitalist economic laws: competition, laws of value, etc... In a truly "postcapitalist" country, capitalist market forces would be no more relevent than feudal relations are in the modern US. But, of course, that's not the case in "postcapitalist" Cuba.

No, instead, the people of Cuba run their day to day life in just as capitalist a manner as anyone else. Earning incomes, spending money, budgeting resources, and all the rest.

It's capitalism, Severian, it's just heavily regulated capitalism.


BZZZZ! I'm sorry, that is the wrong answer.

Brilliant rebuttal. :rolleyes:


U.S. imperialism has had many adversaries. None of them - except the USSR for its first few years - has acted the way Cuba does - aiding the world revolution every way they can.

Nonsense.

The third international was all about "aiding world revolution", so was China for a long time. Sure, they only aided their brand of revolution, but then so does Cuba.

Now in addition to "revolutionary" aid (of which Cuba is providing less and less these days), Cuba does export all sorts of general aid services, doctors being the most famous one.

But then what social democracy doesn't hand out aid? The whole foreign aid package is a hallmark of the social democratic ideal. Cuba's one of the few third world countries to engage in it, but then it's one of the few third world countries to truly engage in social-democratic politics.

Again, that's why its a good example to the rest of the third world and it's why the US is so afraid of what it represents. But "Communism"? "Revolution"? These words have absolutely no relevence here.


Most of Washington's adversaries constantly seek some accomodation with it, even when that's hopeless

Some do, some don't.

Many, especially those entrentched in ideology are unwilling to seek compromise even if it might be the realpolitk choice. Again, I point to nations like Iran which continually insist on defying the US at any opportunity available.

In fact, it's often those countries which are the least democratic that are the most willing to go to absurd lengths in defiance of world hegemony. Since they're not ultimately accountable to anyone but themselves they can ride their ideology no matter where it takes them.

To a large degree, that's probably true of Cuba.

Regardless though, the fact that it resists imperialism cannot be taken as "proof" that it's democratic or "proletarian". Resistance to imperial aggression is an issue of self-defence, not "revolutionary struggle".


Other regimes may sometimes have some interests which occasionally coincide with some interest of workers. Cuba's - consistently run along with those of the world revolution. The difference is not minor.

So it's in the interests of the "world revolution" that homosexuals be imprisoned? Or that fascist politicans be supported? Or that more money be pumped into the emergent Chinese private sector?

The interests of the Cuban regime "run along" with the interests of the Cuban regime, nothing more. Sometimes, for political and public-relations reasons, those interests coincide with those of international working-class, but often they don't.

And, again, Cuba is hardly the first state to make ideology and perception the cornerstone of its foreign policy. That's what a large part of the Cold War was about, after all, convincing "neutral" nations to join one side or the other by shipping massive amounts of support and aid to anyone who would accept it.

That doesn't mean that Stalinist Russia was "revolutioanry", it just means that it knew how to play politics.


The working class needs its own foreign policy...and in fact, workers' actions do affect the bosses' ability to carry out their foreign policy.

To a degree sure, but not in the sense that you seem to be implying and certainly not in this case.

Whether Cuba is a state monopoly or a "postcapitalist socialist workers paradise" doesn't change the fact that its a thorn in the side of US imperialism and that, as third world social-democracies go, it's fairly progressive.

That means that regardless of how the bourgeoisie conceptualizes it, they'll nonetheless oppose it.

Besides, you're just repeating this straw man hypothethis of yours that anyone who rejects the Trotskyist "workers state" model "must" support imperialism. Again, there are political conclusions at stake here, but not "foreign relations" ones.


Yup, see, the thing isn't intervening in the class struggle taking place in the world. The important thing is "conceptualizing" things so we best figure out how to propagandize for communism

Actually both are important.

Explaining and promoting postcapitalist solutions is an indispensible part of the living class struggle because unless the working class has a long-term goal, resistance to capital will never go beyond issue-specific struggles.

That's why the class needs to be organized and educated. It's also why it needs to be properly informed on the nature of communism. Because as long as communism is conceptualized as "utopian", it will be ignored; but equally so, as long as it is conceptualized as Leninism, it will rejected.

The first world working class is well aware of the Russian and Chinese and Korean and Angolan and Cuban examples ...and they don't want them.

Partially 'cause the bourgeoisie has propagandized against them, but probably even more so because they were overt abject failures.

"Good in theory but impossible in practice" is damning enough for an ideology and its a slander that communism's been fighting for centuries now, but add to that a history of corruption and brutal suppress and you have the ingredients for complete ideological irrelevency.

Communism needs to be seperated from the "socialist" examples not to avoid bourgeois mud or to achieve some sort of abstract ideological perfection, but because the only way that post-capitalism is going to appeal to real flesh-and-blood workers is if it offers something better than what they've got now.

Cuba doesn't!


But I'll go along partway: this is part of what we mean by communism. Is it a utopian blueprint, with no connection to any real-world event? Do we wait for it to arrive like the Second Coming of Jesus? Do we nod along with those who say that "communism is great in theory", although nothing that's ever happened in the real world even begins to live up to that promise?

Go ahead if you like, but you're resigning all relevance.

On the contrary, by clinging to Cuba as a "partway" example of communism, we're relegating ourselves to anachronism and irrelevence. No one outside of the Leninist left sees Cuba as an "example" to the first world, nor should they.

And any attempt to convince first world workers that they should aspire to Cuba's situation will only be met with derision and outright laughter.

The fact is there are no examples out there of communist or "postcapitalist" economies. That's unfortunate because real-world examples would be great, but radical ideas often must go centuries before being realized.

We cannot grow so desperate for "vindication", however, that we being looking to "examples" that bear little or nothing to do with out actual goals.

If Cuba truly is a model of "postcapitalism" for you then so be it. But what you're fighting for then isn't communism, it's social-democracy. That's fine, I suppose, but I suspect that that's not the reality.

That, as you say, Cuba is "partway" for you, it contains elements of what you'd like to see and because of that you're willing to ignore all the inconcistancies and irrelevencies of Cuba's ultimately capitalist economic arrangement.

Now I understand that can be comforting for adherents of an ideology that's all but lost any real-world relevence, but insofar as practically promiting communism, it does far more harm than good.


And of course, there's a certain tendency here to passively accept Washington's vilification of Cuba - every revolutionary advance will meet similar propaganda attacks, so it's better to get used to fighting them.

That's a nonargument and you know it.

We should fight imperialist propaganda against Cuba for the same reason that we should fight imperialist propaganda against the DPRK ...or Iran. Not because they're the "vanguard" of a "world revolution", but because opposing imperialism is in the overt interests of the world working class.

But just as we shouldn't glorify Kim's autocracy or the "Iranian revolution", we shouldn't make more out of the Cuba than it actually deserves.

Of course Washington is villifying Cuba, they villify anyone who opposes them. But the mere fact of being the US's enemy does not automatically make one a part of some "revolutionary advance".

We should correct American lies where we can and defend Cuba when she is attacked by imperialist interests. But Cuba is not an example "partway" or otherwise of proletarian post-capitalist economics and to assert otherwise discredits and invalidates our entire endeavour.


In contrast, the ruling class has never vilified the abstract utopian concept of "communism" nearly as much

:blink: What???

What do you call the first red scare? What do you call the HUAC investigations against any suspected communist?

Hell, even as far back as the publication of the original manifesto, communism as a theory was being attacked. What exactly did you think Marx meant by his oppening paragraph, anyway?

Sure, it's often easier to attack specific Leninist states rather than communism in general, but that';s because so many of these states were ripe for criticism. Attacking communism is hard, attacking North Korea is easy.

But to say that communism has no been attacked or that society has not been socialized against it, even in theory, is patently absurd.


You admit that nobody could do any better in Cuba's situation

Where?

What I've "admitted" is that Cuba is not capable of achieving communism given its material undervelopment. But that's hardly a major "admission" on my part considering that I'm the one arguing agains the Leninist notion of third world "socialism".

It's actually far more interesting that you've admitted Cuba's economic limitations since you're the one asserting that it can be simultaneously "underdeveloped" and "postcapitalist".

In any case, even though Cuba is functionally no more advanced than a social-democracy, that does not mean that there's not room for improvement. On the contrary, because of its generally progressive economic policies, Cuba has a rare opportunity to be one of the better social-democracies in the world.


So, then - if you won't use them as an example, you won't use anything as an example, until that better situation arrives.

I won't use Cuba as an example because it's not an example, not of communism anyway. If we're talking about models for third world social capitalism, it's not a terrible one, but if we're talking about revolutionary communism in the first world, it's bascially irrelevent.


A perfect situation, I suspect, involving a perfect, wartless utopia of a revolution. I strongly suspect nothing else will be good enough for you.

Then you'd be wrong.

I don't want "perfection", I just want communism. I just want any examples of "postcapitalism" to be genuinely post-capitalist and not bureaucratic capitalism painted red.

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 04, 2006 04:34 pm
Republican "responsibility" is a myth. You can put in place as many "checks and ballances" as you want, the fact remains in a statist society, the average person simply doesn't have the means, time, or motivation to "check up" on their "leaders".
.....
The only way for the proletariat to truly rule is if it does so directly.
This is the only one of your major claims I didn't address previously.

It is an assumption. A wholly unsupported assumption. Your immense self-contained logical structure is built on axioms, not facts. In other words, it's a castle built on air.

Experience so far tends to indicate the opposite of your assumption.

Direct democracy works best as the democracy of a small elite, as in ancient Athens. Or consider its role in present-day California; often the means of shoving through reactionary laws. There's two reasons. The capitalist rule through it, despite universal suffrage - just as they rule through their political representatives, who are often (usually?) not big bourgeoisie themselves.

One, money and social power can influence this process in many ways. Two, there's a limit to how many ballot questions most working people have time to read and understand, let alone get the information to make a good decision about. We see that all the time on the CC of this board!

On the other hand, every workers' government has been a representative democracy, from the Paris Commune to the early Soviets. The elements of direct democracy have been secondary.

These elements do exist in Cuba as well; I gave the example of the workplace assemblies which voted down the proposal for a tax on wages. While they lacked formal legal authority, the fact is their proposal was adopted.

Obviously you have not seriously looked at or considered the facts and arguments I've presented on workers' democracy in Cuba, since you show a complete misconception of what they're about. They do not at all depend on "republican" "theory" as you put it. They depend on what happens in practice. They depend on the course of the class struggle in Cuba, and the forms it takes.

They depend on actions, which do speak louder than words - but of course you've got a whole set of excuses to explain away whatever Cuba does.

Everything else in your post is dodges and incredibly specious fallacies, but I'll take up a couple:


The only way for "every unit of the economy" to operated without a profit-motive would be if the total value of every persons labour when back to that person directly. If there was no upwards movement of capital.

That would require, however, a genuinely post-capitalist economy, something which the USSR was never able to achieve.

No, that would be impossible in any society. As Marx pointed out in the "Critique of the Gotha Programme", no society can return the whole product of labor as wages. There needs to be reinvestment in expanding the means of production, among many other things. There will always be social surplus-product - that came before capitalist profit and will remain after it.

You've proved me right: you will never consider any possible society postcapitalist. 'Course that's a pretty academic question; you'll finish making your peace with capitalism soon. There are damn few old anarchists, and you sure ain't cut out to be one of them.


Not that that's particularly surprising considering that, as a post-capitalist economic system communism requires a post-capitalist capable area within which to operate. By your own admission, that does not include Cuba.

You're doing a simplistic caricature of the Marxist idea that you can't build socialism in one country, especially an underdeveloped one. (That is, socialism in the sense of "the first phase of communism".)

That is not the same as saying workers can't take power and begin moving past capitalism. If that was true, of course it would be futile to try to make a revolution in any one country. It would be as fatalistic and defeatist.

If you can't tell the difference between the first and last step of a journey, you sure as hell ain't going to arrive at your destination - you'll never start out at all.


The third international was all about "aiding world revolution", so was China for a long time.

Fuck. You've gone from whitewashing social democracy to whitewashing Stalinism. A supposed anarchist claiming the Stalintern was "all about "aiding world revolution""? Tell it to the Barcelona workers.

No, the Stalintern, and Mao's foreign policy, were all about using the CPs as bargaining chips to make deals with imperialism. That's why they stabbed the Spanish Revolution in the back, to continue with that typical example, they were seeking an alliance with Britain and France.

No, as Gliejeses proves: Cuba's internationalist foreign policy is unparalleled, since the early years of the Soviet Union.


So it's in the interests of the "world revolution" that homosexuals be imprisoned?
...
We should correct American lies where we can

Which one is it? If we "should correct American lies where we can", then why do you keep mindlessly repeating them?

Now here's an article which corrects those lies. (http://www.blythe.org/bnf.html)

Here's a suggestion: before debating Cuba, why not learn a tiny bit about it? You brought up Cuba, and then to prove your claims about it - talk about everything else on the planet.

[PRC-UTE]

Originally posted by [email protected] 30, 2006 09:18 pm


Although, in fairness, the US's system of "republicanism" does appear to be marginally more credible than Cuba's. At least in the US, the rulling class occasionaly changes who speaks for it.
You should take that act to OI, you'd get some admirers there, mucker.

[OneBrickOneVoice]

Originally posted by PRC-UTE+November 05, 2006 08:32 am--> (PRC-UTE @ November 05, 2006 08:32 am)
[email protected] 30, 2006 09:18 pm


Although, in fairness, the US's system of "republicanism" does appear to be marginally more credible than Cuba's. At least in the US, the rulling class occasionaly changes who speaks for it.
You should take that act to OI, you'd get some admirers there, mucker. [/b]
Well Cubans actually do change who speaks for. They just don't change Fidel because he is admired by the people so much. I remember watching the news when he was sick and they were analyizing his life, they said "He is the only communist who would ever be elected".

[AlwaysAnarchy]

Originally posted by [email protected] 29, 2006 08:59 pm
"Socialist" bureaucratic classes are constantly struggling for power with an ever resilient local bourgeoisie. By keeping the people relatively satisfied, they assure that no bourgeois counterrevolution will occur and their position of authority will not be challenged.

Even Kim Jon Il pays lip service to the "idealist" of communism. Keeping the people molified is as old as government itself.

Leninist "vanguard" states allow the working classes to force a split in their rulling class. Instead of the bourgeoisie rulling unchallenged, it must contend with a powerful and well-supported managerial class. That limits the degree to which it can exploit the working class and forces the state to make consessions to secure its power.

That's why living standards collapsed following the fall of the Soviet Union. One rulling class can get away with things that two rulling classes couldn't.

That doesn't mean that bureaucratic state capitalism is the way to go. It just means that it tends to be better than aissez-faire. Actual worker self-governance, however, beats both of them by a mile!


When did "niceness" enter into the equation?

The moment that Leninists started citing Cuba's social welfare figures as "proof" that it was a "workers' state".

Look, I have no doubt that a large part of the Cuban government genuinely believes that it is a part of a revolutionary vanguard and that it is serving and internationalist proletarian agenda.

But "belief" does not define class.

The government of the Republic of Cuba has direct control over the means of production. That relationship is what defines its econoomic class. Whether it admits that or not, whether it is even "representative" or not, is ultimately irrelevent.

The same goes for every other "socialist" state throughout history.

After all, would you consider the Canadian bourgeoisie "more selfless" than the American one? No? Why not? It's made consessions that the American capitalists would never make!

Meanwhile the American bourgeoisie also sees itself as the "defenders" of "freedom" and its puppet government is just as "representative" as any Bolshevik regime (if not more so).

Somehow, though, you seem less willing to buy their self-description as "vanguards" of the people. :rolleyes:
Thank you for this post. It was truly beautiful and very much needs to be read here by everyone, especially the Marxist Leninist types.

[Vargha Poralli]

PeacefulAnarchist:

i have read it but do not agree with it. u should read post made by severian refuting it.