Vargha Poralli
15th January 2007, 14:20
I came across this article in ISR (http://www.isreview.org/issues/51/cuba_image&reality.shtml). It raises many points which i would like share with comrades who defend Cuba.
The reason i find this particular article interesting is :
(From the article)
In many instances, the defense of Cubas right to independence and against the U.S. embargo is coupled with a political identification with Castros government. Any criticism of Cuba is seen as playing into the hands of imperialism and therefore off-limits. Evidence of problems, at least as the Left might identify themif acknowledged at allare excused as necessary or unavoidable distortions resulting from the embargo. The more honest or open-eyed of the friends, at least when speaking tte--tte, wrote Trotsky of the apologists for Stalins Russia, concede that there is a spot on the Soviet sun. But substituting a fatalistic for a dialectic analysis, they console themselves with the thought that a certain bureaucratic degeneration in the given conditions was historically inevitable. Defenders of Cuba, at least the less starry-eyed, make the same argument. But as Trotsky wrote, The stupidity and dishonesty of ones enemies, in this case U.S. imperialism, is no justification for ones own blindness.
Discuss
Edit: BTW that article is polemic to this article (http://socialismandliberation.org/mag/index.php?aid=639)
The reason i find this particular article interesting is :
(From the article)
In many instances, the defense of Cubas right to independence and against the U.S. embargo is coupled with a political identification with Castros government. Any criticism of Cuba is seen as playing into the hands of imperialism and therefore off-limits. Evidence of problems, at least as the Left might identify themif acknowledged at allare excused as necessary or unavoidable distortions resulting from the embargo. The more honest or open-eyed of the friends, at least when speaking tte--tte, wrote Trotsky of the apologists for Stalins Russia, concede that there is a spot on the Soviet sun. But substituting a fatalistic for a dialectic analysis, they console themselves with the thought that a certain bureaucratic degeneration in the given conditions was historically inevitable. Defenders of Cuba, at least the less starry-eyed, make the same argument. But as Trotsky wrote, The stupidity and dishonesty of ones enemies, in this case U.S. imperialism, is no justification for ones own blindness.
Discuss
Edit: BTW that article is polemic to this article (http://socialismandliberation.org/mag/index.php?aid=639)