Cuba

[Pogue]

Don't misunderstand me here, because I know alot about Cuba, having read many texts on the country, but theres one thing I wondered about.

What would you describe Cuba's socio-economic/political system as? Is it a social democracy, Marx-Leninist, deformed workers, etc? Or would you just call it evolutionary socialism? It's odd because of the whole blockade and the fact that for a while they were the only serious socialsit country left.

[BobKKKindle$]

Despite its progressive features (for example, the universal provision of healthcare and other basic services, and a low level of unemployment) Cuba is a state-capitalist regime, as a bureaucracy has taken the place of the former bourgeoisie and now owns the means of production (and accumulates surplus value by the exploitation of the working class) through the state, as evidenced by the highly unequal relations of distribution which exist in Cuba.

[Yehuda Stern]

I agree with Bobkindles. The Cuban regime was brought to existence through the actions of a petty-bourgeois liberal guerilla, which turned to socialist rhetoric when it couldn't cut a deal with the US and had to orient to the Soviets.

I don't want to say that there was no revolution in Cuba, or that it didn't give the Cuban masses gains that are to be defended. However, the only real way to defend them is by carrying out a real socialist revolution against the Cuban capitalist bureaucracy.

[Charles Xavier]

Cuba is a socialist state lead by a Marxist-Leninist Communist Party.


Don't listen to these adherents to these cut and dried patterns who say if a revolution doesn't fit their perfect ideal then it must be cast away.

[Yehuda Stern]

Don't listen to people who tell you to not listen to other people, that's first. Second, I don't think the revolution must be cast away - the capitalist state and its regime should be cast away by the working class.

[chegitz guevara]

Don't misunderstand me here, because I know alot about Cuba, having read many texts on the country, but theres one thing I wondered about.

What would you describe Cuba's socio-economic/political system as? Is it a social democracy, Marx-Leninist, deformed workers, etc? Or would you just call it evolutionary socialism? It's odd because of the whole blockade and the fact that for a while they were the only serious socialsit country left.

I would characterize it as a workers' state. Private property has largely been abolished, although there are small pockets of it here and there. Production and distribution is based on human needs not the profit motive. Production for the realization of exchange value exists only at the lowest level. There is an intrusion of capitalism, in the resort industry and also their nickle mining, but being an under developed country, they need outside help for those things, just as they will to exploit the oil in their slice of the Gulf of Mexico.

The state is fairly democratic, based on the system outlined in The State and Revolution, with the lowest level being elected by the people, and each level above that elected by the next lower layer. Any one can stand for election at the lowest level, but above that, you must be a member of the Communist Party to be elected.

[Magdalen]

you must be a member of the Communist Party to be elected.

Almost half of the members of the National Assembly of People's Power are not Communist Party members. Check your facts before you go making assertions.

[spice756]

The state is fairly democratic, based on the system outlined in The State and Revolution, with the lowest level being elected by the people, and each level above that elected by the next lower layer. Any one can stand for election at the lowest level, but above that, you must be a member of the Communist Party to be elected.


Explain this better this makes no sense!!




Cuba is a state-capitalist regime



Not true Cuba there is no state-capitalism .

State capitalism, in its classic meaning, is a private capitalist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism) economy under state (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State) control. This term was often used to describe the controlled economies of the great powers in the First World War (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I).[1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State-capitalism#cite_note-0) In more modern sense, state capitalism is a term that is used (sometimes interchangeably with state monopoly capitalism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_monopoly_capitalism)) to describe a system where the state is intervening in the markets to protect and advance interests of Big Business (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Business). This practice is in sharp contrast with the ideals of free market (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_market) capitalism.[2] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State-capitalism#cite_note-1)
This term is also used by Marxists (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxism) and heterodox economists (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heterodox_economics) to describe a society wherein the productive forces (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Productive_forces) are owned and run by the state in a capitalist way, even if such a state calls itself socialist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist)

There is no private ownership or nothing being done in a state control but in a capitalist way.Profit is not in charge.The USSR seem to be state-capitalism may be but not Cuba or North Korea.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State-capitalism

[Yehuda Stern]

You're wrong - Cuba fits exactly the last part of the definition you have quoted. Cuban workers are wage slaves. Their work is used to produce surplus value for the use of the state bureaucracy. It doesn't matter that the surface form of exploitation is different from that of capitalist countries, as capitalism expresses itself mainly in the way surplus value is taken from the workers.

[BobKKKindle$]

Private property has largely been abolished, although there are small pockets of it here and there.

The formal abolition of private property as a legal concept is not the same as abolishing capitalism, and so the fact that the Cuban economy is based on state ownership does not mean that Cuba is automatically a workers state. Historically, there have been several societies where private property did not exist and yet these societies still exhibited class divisions, as a small minority decided which goods should be produced and also occupied a privileged position in the relations of distribution. These societies include Arab feudalism under the rule of the Mamelukes, where the Sultan was the only formal landowner and he divided up the right to correct land rents between the various individual nobles who comprised the ruling elite even though these nobles had no formal land ownership rights, and Britain after WW2, where key national industries were taken over by the government to facilitate the accumulation of capital by the bourgeoisie. A workers state requires that the workers are in a position of political power, which means that workplaces should be subject to democratic control and workers should be allowed to discuss political issues openly without fear of state persecution.

[spice756]

You're wrong - Cuba fits exactly the last part of the definition you have quoted. Cuban workers are wage slaves. Their work is used to produce surplus value for the use of the state bureaucracy. It doesn't matter that the surface form of exploitation is different from that of capitalist countries, as capitalism expresses itself mainly in the way surplus value is taken from the workers.

I don't believe the party members are exploiting Cubans or taking all the money for them self.

Really do you believe this? Some say the USSR was like this and I say may be.

We can't keep calling all those countries deform worker state ,degenerate state ,state capitalism not true socialism so on.

Really such claims is believing the right wing propaganda.

[Yehuda Stern]

That's always the excuse, though - "Stalin did not kill millions, you're buying Western propaganda." "Mao did not kill so many people, you're buying Western propaganda." No propaganda - it's facts on the ground. Cuban workers are exploited. If they're exploited in order to produce surplus value, it means there's a capitalist ruling class.

[BobKKKindle$]

Really such claims is believing the right wing propaganda.

On the contrary, the complete opposite is true - conservatives and other opponents of socialism have consistently tried to pretend that countries such as Cuba are examples of what socialism looks like when implemented in practice, because this allows them to use the shortcomings of these countries, especially the shortage of basic necessities and the repressive police apparatus, as evidence of the theoretical and practical flaws of socialism as an ideology. By identifying the former members of the Soviet bloc and several governments which still exist today as state capitalist, socialists are indicating that these societies exhibit the same class divisions and antagonisms as any other capitalist society, including countries which have always been defined as capitalist such as Britain, and we do not view these societies as models which should be followed in future revolutionary experiments. The way we view these societies has deep implications for our approaches to revolutionary change, because if we accept that the countries of Eastern Europe were socialist, then it follows that socialism can be imposed from outside by an occupying power without the active participation of the working class.

[spice756]

That's always the excuse, though - "Stalin did not kill millions, you're buying Western propaganda." "Mao did not kill so many people, you're buying Western propaganda." No propaganda - it's facts on the ground. Cuban workers are exploited. If they're exploited in order to produce surplus value, it means there's a capitalist ruling class.

It is small country with very little people and little resource.Isolated by hostile countries and the US who play dirty .The embargo so on.This is why Cubans have very litte not some rich party members .

Also keep in mind Cuba has almost no industry most people working in farms or the stores.Cuba is dependent on imports goods.

Look if you want to talk about Stalin or Mao make other thread.No I'm not a fan of Stalin .

[BobKKKindle$]

It is small country with very little people and little resource.Isolated by hostile countries and the US who play dirtyThis shows that socialism can only exist on a global scale, and a failure to spread the revolution overseas to more advanced countries will ultimately lead to the restoration of capitalism, in the form of a regime which uses socialist rhetoric to obscure the privileged class position of the bureaucracy. This is what exists in Cuba today, and this is exactly the same as what happened in Russia following the isolation of the Bolshevik revolution. If Cuba faces imperialist attack, socialists will offer unconditional military support, not because we think Cuba is a socialist country, but simply because Cuba would be a country facing the aggression of an imperialist power, and our position on the national question demands that we offer support to all oppressed nations even when we do not agree with what the government is doing, or the economic system of that country.

[spice756]

Cuba are examples of what socialism looks like when implemented in practice, because this allows them to use the shortcomings of these countries, especially the shortage of basic necessities and the repressive police apparatus


You will not find homeless people or people starving in Cuba like in other South America or Central America countries..

Cuba may have bad homes but not slums

Mexico slum

http://images.world66.com/sl/um/_q/slum_quarter_in_th_1_galleryfull (http://images.world66.com/sl/um/_q/slum_quarter_in_th_1_galleryfull)

http://www.kenyaaidsinstitute.org/images/soweto3.JPG (http://www.kenyaaidsinstitute.org/images/soweto3.JPG)



Cuba
http://mytravelling.net/cuba/foto/cuba2775.jpg (http://mytravelling.net/cuba/foto/cuba2775.jpg)
http://arxxiduc.files.wordpress.com/2007/07/cuba_1.jpg (http://arxxiduc.files.wordpress.com/2007/07/cuba_1.jpg)

For almost two years the Provincial Hospital Eduardo Agramonte Piña, in Camagüey, has been the home of José Miguel Macías Boligan; a two year boy suffering from spinal muscular atrophy, or Werdnig Hoffmann disease (infantile SMA).
Photo gallery (http://www.cadenagramonte.cubaweb.cu/images/galeria_infantes_victimas_bloqueo/index.html)

For that reason, José Miguel requires a mechanical ventilator to live, a machine that replaces his respiratory organs, says doctor Cecilia Guerrero, responsible of the case.
Although Jose Miguel and his mother Yaima Boligan receive excellent attentions in the local hospital; they could have been already in their own home, but the economic barriers erected by the US government has impeded Cuba to acquire a mechanic ventilator for the survival of the little boy.
“The life of this child depends on this equipment, because this illness does not permit José Miguel live by himself. So he has to stay in the hospital, as far as the country can buy a mechanical ventilator for him,” doctor Guerrero emphasizes.
“These machines – she added- are extremely expensive in the world market at a cost of 30 000 and 45 000 dollars each; if we were not blocked, we could buy them to lower prices”, and remarked that thanks to the efforts of the Public Health Ministry of Cuba another child (a girl) in Camagüey with spinal muscular atrophy has a ventilator at home

http://www.cadenagramonte.cubaweb.cu/english/health/cuba_in_spite_of_blockade.asp (http://www.cadenagramonte.cubaweb.cu/english/health/cuba_in_spite_of_blockade.asp)

[spice756]

This shows that socialism can only exist on a global scale, and a failure to spread the revolution overseas to more advanced countries will ultimately lead to the restoration of capitalism, in the form of a regime which uses socialist rhetoric to obscure the privileged class position of the bureaucracy


Cuba is doing good for country that is not industrise.Cuba lacks industry and resource.

The USSR had a enough to be by them self :confused:.I believe Canada being strong country can have socialism in one country and be 100% better than the USSR.

[BobKKKindle$]

What exactly are you trying to prove - in your view, what is the class character of the Cuban government? Is Cuba a working socialist economy? Is Cuba a workers state with bureaucratic deformations? At the moment, your only response to my arguments is to claim that Cuba has better living conditions than other countries at the same level of development, by pointing to progressive features such as the absence of homelessness and the universal provision of healthcare. The fact that these features exist in Cuba does not mean that Cuba is automatically a socialist economy, because these features can also be achieved within the framework of capitalism, and Cuba's rate of improvement for indicators such as life expectancy has actually been slower than other countries in the same region even though Cuba was already fairly advanced when the revolution occurred in 1959.

[BobKKKindle$]

The USSR had a enough to be by them self

If it is possible to construct socialism in one country, how else can you explain the rise of the bureaucracy in Russia, after the defeat of the German revolution and Russia's subsequent isolation from the rest of the world? Lenin and the other leaders of the Bolshevik party were aware of this from the beginning, because they recognized that every country had become part of an integrated world economy which tied countries together through trade and other economic transactions, so that no country would be able to survive on its own:

"It was clear to us that without the support of the international world revolution the victory of the proletarian revolution was impossible. Before the revolution and even after it, we thought: Either revolution breaks out in the other countries, in the capitalistically more developed countries, immediately, or at least very quickly, or we must perish"

[I]Minutes of the Third Congress of the Comintern, Russian edition, p.354

This, when combined with the fact that revolution is most likely to break out first in an undeveloped country, means that international revolution is the only way to attain socialism.

[Yehuda Stern]

Look if you want to talk about Stalin or Mao make other thread.No I'm not a fan of Stalin .

I will not, because you're using exactly the same trick as those people. I'm not the one buying propaganda - you are. Cuba is a poor country with a very rich bureaucracy. That's not socialism.

[chegitz guevara]

That's always the excuse, though - "Stalin did not kill millions, you're buying Western propaganda." "Mao did not kill so many people, you're buying Western propaganda." No propaganda - it's facts on the ground. Cuban workers are exploited. If they're exploited in order to produce surplus value, it means there's a capitalist ruling class.

He claims facts on the ground, but he never gives us any. What we get is a circular argument: the workers are wage-slaves, because it's a state-capitalist economy, and we can tell that it's state capitalism because the workers are wage slaves. He just knows, without having spoken to any Cubans.


Explain this better this makes no sense!!

People elect the local level government. The local governments elects the regional government. The regional governments elect the national government. The national government elects the executive council, etc. Each level of government is directly behold to the layer below it.

[chegitz guevara]

The formal abolition of private property as a legal concept is not the same as abolishing capitalism, and so the fact that the Cuban economy is based on state ownership does not mean that Cuba is automatically a workers state.

No, as I pointed out repeatedly, it's the fact that the workers themselves overthrew the government and seized the means of production that makes it a workers' state. Furthermore, the abolition of private property on such a massive scale, pretty much means no capitalism, since capitalism is, by definition, a system of private property and the extraction of surplus value via commodity production. If you don't have both, you don't have capitalism.


Historically, there have been several societies where private property did not exist and yet these societies still exhibited class divisions, as a small minority decided which goods should be produced and also occupied a privileged position in the relations of distribution.

Your understanding of those societies are flawed. In the case of the Mamluks and other caste societies of that order, while property may have been own by the state, i.e., the Sultan, the extraction of surplus value was done by individuals. Even if the land was owned by the Sultan, he granted the right to extract surplus value from the tenants to someone else (for a share). This surplus value was not put back into society, either to increase production or to raise the standard of living of everyone. Instead, it was used by individuals to increase their own wealth. In Europe, we called a similar society, feudalism. The main difference between European and Middle Eastern feudalism is that in Europe, the nobility were not owned by the King, even if their land was. In any event, it has no bearing on a society that nationalized everything for the benefit of everyone, and where individuals do not extract surplus value.

In Great Britain, the entire economy was not nationalized. So your example doesn't even apply. In the case of the steel industry, the state intervened in order to bail out the owners of British steel (and protect the jobs of the workers), not in order to extract a profit for itself nor to try and create a new society. It's the same shit we're seeing now with the bank bailouts and the state's taking a slice of the company. They are trying to maintain the profit system, not get in on it.

In Cuba, Castro lives in an apartment. The highest levels of government and bureaucracy do have nicer homes than the average Cuban, but by the standards of any real class society, they live like managers compared to their workers, not like owners. The surplus value generated by worker class is not extracted to be used to make others wealthier, but is instead used to incre4ase both the level of production in Cuba and to make the lives of the Cuban people better, just as Marx said a socialist economy would do in The Critique of the Gotha Programme.

[Yehuda Stern]

He claims facts on the ground, but he never gives us any. What we get is a circular argument: the workers are wage-slaves, because it's a state-capitalist economy, and we can tell that it's state capitalism because the workers are wage slaves. He just knows, without having spoken to any Cubans.

Are we referring to each other in the third person now? Have we really sunk to that level?

Either way, I have in fact spoken to Cubans. The IMT had Cuban comrades and when I was in the IMT they spoke of their imprisonment at the hands of the Castro regime and later on about the working class in the country. I told you stupid honor games get you nowehere. Either way, I don't have to talk to workers in each and every country to know their conditions. I know the conditions of workers in China are horrid, even though I have never spoken to a Chinese person.

[BobKKKindle$]

No, as I pointed out repeatedly, it's the fact that the workers themselves overthrew the government and seized the means of production that makes it a workers' state.If the involvement of the working class in the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism is the main criterion we use to determine whether a country is a workers state or not, then all of the countries in eastern Europe would not have been classified as workers states because the regimes in these countries were imposed by a foreign power during a period of military occupation, meeting the active resistance of the working class in some cases. This poses a question - if these countries were not workers states, then what were they? They were certainly not market-capitalist, as by 1948 the state had already taken control of all industry consisting of large-scale enterprises throughout the region, and the state had already attained a monopoly on foreign trade, and economic planning departments were in the process of being set up. In essence, the economic structures which prevailed in eastern Europe were similar to those which existed in Russia at the same time. If these countries were not workers states, and not market-capitalism, the only remaining solution is to categorize them as state-capitalism, which is exactly what they were, as consistently argued by the IST. Once you acknowledge that state-capitalism can exist in practice, then it becomes clear that capitalism can still operate even when private property is not recognized by the government as a legal entity (in the form of individual ownership of productive resources) and instead the main criterion we use to classify whether an economic system can be described as "capitalism" is the separation of workers from the means of production. In all the former "socialist" states, it was clear that the workers were not able to subject production to their own control and were forced to sell their labour power as a commodity to the state in exchange for a wage, which they then used to purchase commodities produced by state enterprises.

[spice756]

There have been numerous threads on this in the past:

Is Cuba socialist? Thread 1 (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=31514&hl=), Thread 2 (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=53862&hl=class+forces+cuban+revolution).

Is Cuba democratic? Thread 1 (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=53175&hl=), Thread 2 (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=53647&hl=), Thread 3 (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=52791&hl=), Thread 4 (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=58186&hl=cuba%20democracy&st=0), Thread 5 (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=58141&st=0&#entry1292201469), Thread 6 (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=53927&hl=).

More:
Confusion about Cuban life (http://www.revleft.com/vb/../showthread.php?t=82130&highlight=fidel+castro+privilege)
Nature of the Cuban State (http://www.revleft.com/vb/../showthread.php?t=64765&highlight=fidel+castro+privilege)
Defending Cuba’s Socialist Revolution (http://www.revleft.com/vb/defending-cuba-s-t47968/index.html?t=47968)
Fidel Castro's Lifestyle (http://www.revleft.com/vb/fidel-castro-t38790/index.html?t=38790)
Progressive Cuba Bashing (http://www.revleft.com/vb/definitive-article-cuban-t39798/index.html?t=39798)
Again on Fidel Castro's lifestyle, bureaucratic privilege in Cuba, etc. (http://www.revleft.com/vb/fidel-castro-video-t55730/index.html?t=55730)


Well there seems to be lots of talk about Cuba and the USSR may be we need a group set up here :):)to talk about it

So we can explain to the new members here?




What exactly are you trying to prove - in your view, what is the class character of the Cuban government? Is Cuba a working socialist economy? Is Cuba a workers state with bureaucratic deformations?


I'm not trying to prove any thing.You some how think there are communist party members exploiting the working class and living a privilege life.


Bobkindles what are you trying to say.

If the involvement of the working class in the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism is the main criterion we use to determine whether a country is a workers state or not, then all of the countries in eastern Europe would not have been classified as workers states because the regimes in these

countries were imposed by a foreign power during a period of military occupation, meeting the active resistance of the working class in some cases. This poses a question - if these countries were not workers states, then what were they? They were certainly not market-capitalist, as by 1948 the state had already taken control of all industry consisting of

large-scale enterprises throughout the region, and the state had already attained a monopoly on foreign trade, and economic planning departments were in the process of being set up. In essence, the economic structures which prevailed in eastern Europe were similar to those which existed in Russia at the same time. If these countries were not workers states, and not market-capitalism, the only remaining solution is to categorize them as

state-capitalism, which is exactly what they were, as consistently argued by the IST. Once you acknowledge that state-capitalism can exist in practice, then it becomes clear that capitalism can still operate even when private property is not recognized by the government as a legal entity (in the form of individual ownership of productive resources) and

instead the main criterion we use to classify whether an economic system can be described as "capitalism" is the separation of workers from the means of production. In all the former "socialist" states, it was clear that

the workers were not able to subject production to their own control and were forced to sell their labour power as a commodity to the state in exchange for a wage, which they then used to purchase commodities produced by state enterprises.

[Comrada J]

I've never seen a good source that Cuban civil servants are corrupt wealth hoarders, this argument usually comes from cappies who view a socialist state as some kind of corporation and assume the government are share holders - but thats how cappies see everything I guess, as shares and cash dollars.

[Lenin's Law]

Don't misunderstand me here, because I know alot about Cuba, having read many texts on the country, but theres one thing I wondered about.

What would you describe Cuba's socio-economic/political system as? Is it a social democracy, Marx-Leninist, deformed workers, etc? Or would you just call it evolutionary socialism? It's odd because of the whole blockade and the fact that for a while they were the only serious socialsit country left.

Unfortunately, this is very a controversial question and there is no one answer that is universally agreed upon by everyone here. Anarchists and some Marxists call it state capitalist, others call it a socialist state and many Trotskyists/Marxists call it a deformed workers state. What the right answer is? Only you can decide really after hearing all the arguments and the factual information regarding Cuba. Personally, I don't believe a truly socialist country can be made on scarcity; Cuba is a small countryof about 11 million people largely isolated in the Western Hemisphere, with the exception of Venezuela. Socialism is about abundance, there being enough goods and material for everyone not.

To be sure, there are certainly some progressive qualities about Cuba (planned economy, universal healthcare, free education, etc) but the Cuban bureacracy still has far too much control. Cuba's supporters will say, and there is definitely a point to this, that US aggression (Bay of Pigs, Operation Mongoose, historical aggression, ongoing hostility,etc) makes it difficult not to have strong leadership in place. But I believe that only when the whole of Latin America, or at minimum a large part of it, turns socialist will there it be able to provide the materialist conditions for a Cuban workers state.

[spice756]

I believe Cuba is Socialism.The Cuba may turn away from Socialism after Castro and Raul are gone.I mean they can live only so long.

After Castro and Raul are gone it may turn like China is like after Mao.With out a other country that is Socialism it almost impossible to stay Socialism .The capitalism country will brainwash the party to place profit in command when done socialism will be lost.

I fear Cuba may turn into other China soon , and amazing that after so march hardship the party did not allow other China way of thinking in Cuba.