How Would You Describe Cuba Politically?

[Patridiot]

Out of curiosity: Would you describe Cuba today as communistic, socialistic or something else? Please motivate.

[Eleutherios]

Socialist, yes. Communist, no, since no country has ever achieved communism (a stateless, classless society).

[Aurora]

Cuba is a deformed workers state.But it is of course a hell of alot better than the others.

[RGacky3]

Authoritarian-Socialsit (in my view an oxymoron), basically a Socialistic Dictatorship.

[Rawthentic]

State-capitalist.

[OneBrickOneVoice]

hasta is right but for the wrong reasons :D while the people do have garunteed food, water, and etc... it is not moving towards communism. Instead of after liberation, solving its argicultural problems it just switched buyers and created more socialized production however, it was under the boot of the Soviet revisionists like it had been under the boot of American Imperialists before. Since the Soviet Union fell, it has privatized tourism and small businesses. Also, the embargo has really fucked with Cuba

[manic expression]

Socialist.

[Rawthentic]

Lefty, why do I have the wrong reasons? Where did I post them?

Cuba has a state-capitalist economy because it is a market one. The state may hamper at it as much as it does to try and meet a certain degree of need, but a market economy it remains. It is also due the inability of Cuba's material conditions during its revolution to allow the building of socialism that help create a top-down structure.

There are people that can better describe this, obviously.

[OneBrickOneVoice]

Originally posted by [email protected] 19, 2007 05:43 am
Lefty, why do I have the wrong reasons? Where did I post them?

Cuba has a state-capitalist economy because it is a market one. The state may hamper at it as much as it does to try and meet a certain degree of need, but a market economy it remains.

There are people that can better describe this, obviously.
well I assumed that you would say something like this


It is also due the inability of Cuba's material conditions during its revolution to allow the building of socialism that help create a top-down structure.

which is silly because a dictatorship of the proletariat is a state and a state will always have a top down structure. The ultimate difference between a capitalist and socialist one is whose in charge.

Other than that sentence I agree with you completly and didn't think you would cite that.

[BobKKKindle$]

Although, for the most part, the means of production are under the control of the workers, Cuba is moving backwards in terms of a transition to Communism; the Special Period has resulted in the reintroduction of Private ownership of the means of production and the rise in wage labour, as multi national hotel corporations have begun to command resources within the Cuban conomy.

[Rawthentic]

which is silly because a dictatorship of the proletariat is a state and a state will always have a top down structure. The ultimate difference between a capitalist and socialist one is whose in charge.

You miss the point here. What you said is a given, but what I mean is that the workers do not have direct control of the government or of the economy. It is very hierarchical, for things such as all the layers of managers, specialists, and experts that are there for the workers to be "told what to do." And Fidel and his whole clique is a great example to the centralization of power and hierarchy.

[Q]

Originally posted by [email protected] 19, 2007 05:54 am
which is silly because a dictatorship of the proletariat is a state and a state will always have a top down structure. The ultimate difference between a capitalist and socialist one is whose in charge.
Ehhh? The dictatorship of the proletariat is a bottom-up driven society via soviet democracy and all that.

I agree with Anarion: Cuba is a deformed workers' state; it has a planned and socialised economy, but without workers in charge. The bureaucracy in Cuba has everything under control. It is deformed (as opposed to degenerated) because it never knew a socialist revolution and just copied the model of the Stalinist USSR.

Cuba: Socialism and Democracy (http://www.socialistworld.net/publications/Cuba/) is quite an interesting book on the subject.

[OneBrickOneVoice]

Originally posted by [email protected] 19, 2007 06:13 am

which is silly because a dictatorship of the proletariat is a state and a state will always have a top down structure. The ultimate difference between a capitalist and socialist one is whose in charge.

You miss the point here. What you said is a given, but what I mean is that the workers do not have direct control of the government or of the economy. It is very hierarchical, for things such as all the layers of managers, specialists, and experts that are there for the workers to be "told what to do." And Fidel and his whole clique is a great example to the centralization of power and hierarchy.
power needs to be centralized, but in the hands of the workers, and its not in Cuba. However, in past socialist states, most obviously, GPCR China, this was true. Also, keep in mind the soviet councils were the base of the political systems and represented and ran the system. One of Stalins errors was how beaurcratically he handled the soviets but he'd attempt to reverse this after the union was industrialized. That, I think, is part of the reason why the marxist-leninist states have had to turn to inconvenient measures; lack of industrialization.


Ehhh? The dictatorship of the proletariat is a bottom-up driven society via soviet democracy and all that.

You're talking about the exact political system, the system of proletarian democracy. I'm talking about the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, where the proletariat suppress the bourgeois in the same way the bourgieous suppressed the proletariat.

[Whitten]

Cuba's a Proletarian democracy practicing socialism with allowances for minimal capitalist cooperation as a result of its circumstances.

[Labor Shall Rule]

It is a state dominated by the national bourgeoisie, which is currently struggling to retain power amidst the imperialist threat that is less than 80 miles away. As for Cuba being a "workers' state", I don't think that the Cuban Revolution was a prime example of the workers self-emancipating themselves, controlling the means of production and distribution, and changing social relations across the country.

Fidel Castro was originally associated Partido Ortodoxo, a political party that stated it's objectives of "establishing a distinct national identity, economic independence and the implementation of social reforms", none of these which intertwine with the workers' movement. He conquered political power alongside his small handful of intellectuals and rural lumpenproletarian. There was no "degenerated workers' state", they immediately flexed what would be considered "Stalinist" measures on the economy through strict centralization of the means of production under the hands of the state apparatus. There was no movement in the urban centers, and according to James O'Connor in 1964, "the peasantry did not even spontaneously seize and cultivate idle lands." Castro, in fact, threatened reprisals against "anarchic land distribution". He claimed that the victory of the so-called "revolution" was only possible because "we united Cubans of all classes and all sectors around a single, shared aspiration."

Many argue that his association to the Cuban Communist Party proves that some sort of working class organization played a part in the Cuban Revolution. However, the party had little to no relation to the working class of Cuba. In 1933, the party withdrawed support for a general strike against the Machado dictatorship and it even collaborated with Batista from 1938 into the mid-1940s. There is no such thing as "direct democracy" in Cuba. The Committees for the Defense of the Revolution and Federation of Cuban Women are not organizations of participatory democracy, but rather, they organizations that, as even Raul Castro admitted, exist to "encourage support" for party policy.

[Spirit of Spartacus]

Red Dali, I find it disturbing that you're referring to the peasantry as the "rural lumpen-proleteriat".

[Raúl Duke]

[/QUOTE]Red Dali, I find it disturbing that you're referring to the peasantry as the "rural lumpen-proleteriat".[QUOTE]

Is it because the peasantry isn't proletariat? Because than I would agree with you; since proletatiat means urban workers or industrial workers (unless I got my Marxist terminology wrong) and since the peasant isn't a proleterian than it's impossible to be a lumpen proletarian either.

However, Red Dali's post is really interesting and enlightening.

[manic expression]

It seems people have misconceptions on Cuba's political system. Here is a good source:

http://members.allstream.net/~dchris/CubaFAQ.html

Check out the ways in which candidates are nominated and how accountable office holders are. Furthermore, there are many parts of Cuban society that are not governmental that play a crucial role in Cuban life (ie women's organizations, etc...). By the way, even Cuba's enemies admit that the Committes for Defense of the Revolution play an important role in Cuban communities.

I strongly disagree with the notion that the leaders of Cuba are bourgeois (?!), or that socialism somehow can't have a viable government. And to people who are fretting over the PCC's influence, the party was always going to be a factor, it's Marxism-Leninism for crying out loud; the whole point is that the party and the people work together.

[Guerrilla22]

the most democratic country on earth.

[Q]

Originally posted by [email protected] 20, 2007 12:56 am
the most democratic country on earth.
Interesting opinion. Why is it that only the PCC is allowed as a political party? Why does Cuba have a Stasi like infrastructure where everyone keeps an eye on everyone? Why are opinions that don't coincide with the government line surpressed? Why is Fidel Castro after all these years still in power?

I could go on, but I'll leave it at that for now.

[manic expression]

Originally posted by Q-collective+February 20, 2007 02:20 pm--> (Q-collective @ February 20, 2007 02:20 pm)
[email protected] 20, 2007 12:56 am
the most democratic country on earth.
Interesting opinion. Why is it that only the PCC is allowed as a political party? Why does Cuba have a Stasi like infrastructure where everyone keeps an eye on everyone? Why are opinions that don't coincide with the government line surpressed? Why is Fidel Castro after all these years still in power?

I could go on, but I'll leave it at that for now. [/b]
That's a pile of crap and you know it. This is revolutionary left, not "sit down with the gusanos and capitalists and ask them how they feel" left. Did I step into a wormhole and come out in a democratic socialist forum? Is this "I Love John Stuart Mill" week? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

The PCC is the only political party because the Cuban people have chosen the path of socialism. Having other parties would mean capitalist parties, do you want that? Well, it's abundantly clear that the Cuban people do NOT want that, and any criticism of that is ludicrous. More importantly, NO PARTY IS ALLOWED TO NOMINATE CANDIDATES, not even the PCC (gasp!). Nominations are done in public meetings, not in party conventions or anything like that.

In spite of all of this, the counterrevolutionaries ARE allowed to speak as they will. Oswaldo Paya, the Ladies in White and other groups oppose the Cuban government and they are allowed to do so in a visible manner without being impeded. However, they are very unpopular in Cuba.

Those 73 dissidents who were arrested were taking money from US-based groups and were basically funded by the US government. They were taking money from foreign sources for political activity without telling anyone, which will get you thrown in prison in practically every country, much less a country which has endured untold amounts of US aggression. It's unfortunate that so many buy into imperialist propaganda and take the bourgeoisie's bait hook, line and sinker.

For goodness' sakes, next people are going to be telling me that Fidel Castro rapes babies and chews with his mouth open. Is there anyone else here who doesn't have a problem with a society establishing socialism? For those who are confused, that sometimes entails suppressing counterrevolutionaries, having a party that promotes and furthers society's goals and otherwise.

[Whitten]

I think the Cuban Communist Party should just drop "party" from their name, just to avoid playing into the western properganda that Cuba is a one party state.

[TC]

Cuba is a democratic workers state practicing advanced socialism after a period of limited market socialism (the special period) which recently ended.

There is nothing wrong with workers states temporarily implementing elements of capitalism under workers control in order to build or restore the material conditions for socialism. This is what Trotsky and Lenin did in the New Economic Policy in the 20s and what the Cuban government did in the Special Period of the 90s. In both cases, workers retained a monopoly on the control and ownership of the strategic elements of the economy while allowing limited market aspects to bring in new capital for the purpose of building (or in Cuba's case, restoring) the material level required for socialism.

Workers state control can exist in less developed economies but socialism can only exist in economies capable of meeting the material needs of its people. Cuba is currently such a society so it is both a workers state and socialist.

[TC]

Originally posted by Q-collective+February 20, 2007 02:20 pm--> (Q-collective @ February 20, 2007 02:20 pm)
[email protected] 20, 2007 12:56 am
the most democratic country on earth.
Interesting opinion. Why is it that only the PCC is allowed as a political party?


I could go on, but I'll leave it at that for now. [/b]
Its not, other parties on both the left and the right exist in cuba (such as the christian liberation movement, christian democratic party, cuban liberal union, social democratic party, etc), no party including the communist party participates in elections, people vote for individuals not parties.



Why does Cuba have a Stasi like infrastructure where everyone keeps an eye on everyone?

it doesn't, thats make believe. Cuba has never been accused of disappearing or torturing enemies by any serious organization, it has no political police unlike in imperialist nations, and unlike the US and UK all accused are given trials.

Police "repression" is so lax that Cuban police wont even show up to monitor pro-imperialist opposition demonstrations, they just ignore them, which is easy, cause they're tiny.



Why are opinions that don't coincide with the government line surpressed?

They aren't, the opposition publishs newspapers and submits legislation like the velara (sp) project openly. How do you think those 73 journalists drew public attention to themselves before they were exposed as CIA assets? Because cuba protects freedom of press and allowed them to openly publish all of their pro-imperialist propaganda until they were caught doing actual illigal activities.



Why is Fidel Castro after all these years still in power?

Because when democratically elected leaders of stable states don't fuck up the public doesn't see any need to replace them; this is not a bourgeois democracy where the bourgeois fixate on giving people a false choice of yale grad a or yale grad b which have identical class politics, its a genuine democracy where no facade of changing figure heads every few years is required.

[Wanted Man]

Originally posted by Q-collective+February 20, 2007 03:20 pm--> (Q-collective @ February 20, 2007 03:20 pm)
[email protected] 20, 2007 12:56 am
the most democratic country on earth.
Interesting opinion. [/b]
Which country is more democratic?