Hello nateddi, I am Titoman, I just changed my nick.


I will point out some things which will help people to understand it, but I also like to accept all arguments anyone will give.

Cuban revolution is without doubt one of more known events in human history. Even the name of this very forum carries itself a part of it. Therefore I feel it urgent to discuss it with people here on Che-Lives. Che Guevara is even today a simbol of war against American imperialism and against capitalism world-wide. Not only that, but Cuban revolution is also by many considered a socialist revolution, by some even Cuba itself presents a socialist country.

The history of Cuba tells us that Cuba again and again had coup d´etats. One dictator succeeded another. But as long as this did not hurt American imperialism it was ok for them. It was ok for them, until Castro succeeded with revolution. The nature of all coup d´etats before Castro´s were to put in charge the leader of the coup and his people. It is wrong idea of people who think that Castro had in his mind a nationalized planned economy from the start of the revolution. Cuba today has nationalized planned economy, but Castro didn´t have that kind of plans. Castro from the very start wanted to make a bourgeois-democratic revolution, as he was a bourgeois-democrat. American revolution was his idol image. Castro´s rebels were mainly pesants and intellecuals and they were raising a bourgeois-democratic slogans. But when Castro succeeded with coup d´etat, he needed money for his bourgeois-democratic reforms. He therefore taxed American companies (which consisted 90% of all companies), but the companies refused to pay those taxes. The companies then complained to Washington which then presented the embargo on Cuba. But when Castro had embargo he didn´t have much more choices, he got to change his plans and nationalize the economy. And here he had a mirror plan in Russia and other Stalinist countries, which also gave them support later.
The nature of the revolution is that it was made by a few people, mostly intellectuals and peasants and therefore after revolution the power was not in the hands of the proletariat, neither in the hands of peasants, like in Russian revolution, but in the hands of Castro and his Co. There were no soviet councils of workers, peasants or soldiers, no true workers management and therefore workers´ democracy did not exist. The revolution started there where Russian true socialist revolution ended, in totalitarian caricature, firstly represented by Stalin.That is also shown by fact, that USSR and China were Cuba´s main trading allies. USSR was selling them oil for low prices and then they were selling it for higher on the market, which has also given them hard currencies, but everyone can see, that there would be no whatever support for Cuba from deformed workers´ state such is USSR if Cuba had been a true workers´ state from times of Lenin. Cuba is totalitarian state where workers´ democracy does not exist and it is therefore doomed to failure in the long run. Without the highest degree of democracy, workers´ cauncils can not function at all, and the role of planning by workers is switched. Instead of workers running the country in factories, the role is switched and factories are run by the bureaucratic Stalinist clique, which does not give any freedom for workers.

If we go back to revolution itself, forget the past of bourgeois-democrat Castro and concentrate mainly on the revolution itself, we see that Castro was supported mainly by peasant masses because of hated Batista´s regime. But there was no support of the workers at all, the key element of the socialist revolution. Workers came into the moving when it was all over. When Castro´s rebels conquered Havana workers supported him and went on streets. The gains of the revolution itself were on one hand good, nationalized and planned economy (thanks to which Cuba maintained itself even today), but because of circumstances the revolution was developing in, nothing better could get out as a degenerated workers´ state of proletarian Bonapartism, where workers do not control the economy, but is instead controlled by privileged bureaucratic caste (In our case Castro and his Co.). Socialist revolution is not every revolution, but is a revolution where masses go in the fight against the oppresing capitalist system and classes it represents , and most important, workers must play a key role in the revolution. Without masses of workers there is no socialist revolution.

Historical events totally falsified the idea that socialist revolution can be made without direct intervention of working class. The idea that peasants can make a socialist revolution is a very old and goes back to the time of Narodniks in old tsarist Russia. Narodniks had the idea of ´Russian socialist way´ and came to conclusion, although false, that it is possible to make a socialist revolution without proletariat in the first line of offense. They went even further, their theory says that peasants on their own can make a socialist revolution. They said that because Russian population was consisted mainly with peasants, Russia must go on its own way of achieving socialism without proletariat. It is clear that this idea runs totally against the Marxism, but let me explain further. Narodniks were consisted mainly of students and had slogan ´Go to people´. They were going mostly to peasants and were very disappointed when they saw that they didn´t gain any support and saw that peasant are not interested of their proletarian ideas. That is how those Students went from bad to worse. Because they have taken the wrong approach to the Marxist ideas, most of them got disillusioned by Marxism (because they did not understand it) and moved to anarchism. Soon most got disillusioned also by anarchism and moved out of revolutionary movement forever.

Many people here seem to be Maoists and therefore I would also like to stress the nature of Chinese revolution and Maoism.
It is true that in China the masses were present in the revolution. Many, many people. But again, these masses were just peasants. Maoists like to say that that is why sickle is on the proletarian flag, but that only shows their not understanding of Marxism. It is true, peasants can play a great role in the revolution. They can either side with proletariat or with the reactionary forces, but can NOT play the independed role in the socialist revolution. Well, they can, but then it is not a socialist revolution anymore and it is doomed to bonapartist governemnt of one man. The whole mentality of peasants is bourgeois in practice. They want land. The demand for land is a slogan of bourgeois-democratic revolution. And socilaism is a lot more than pure division of land. But as I said, they can play an immense role if allied with proletariat, like in October revolution in Russia. Socialist revolution can only be realized by masses where proletariat must play a key role.

So if I say in short why the revolution was not a socialist revolution and what were its consequences:

- The revolution was made by small group of people, consisted mainly of lumpen proletariat elements.

- Therefore consciousness of the proletarian elements was low (because of the lack of proletariat in revolution)

- On International scale there was no other healthy workers´ state, only degenerated Stalinist states.

- Because of all this development it was impossible that Stalinist bureaucratic caricature would not raise itself above the society and use it for its interests.

- Cuban bureaucratic caricature is therefore same as any other Stalinist bureaucracy. It exploits the working class although to maintain its power must manoeuvre between working class and bourgeois.

- Because of scare of socialist revolution on world scale, Stalinist bureaucracy totally abandoned revolutionary internationalism.


I must say that true Marxists should support the internationalism and every workers movement anywhere in the world. But must also at the same time stress for the neccesity of proletarian masses playing key role. In order to provide a socialist revolution and a working workers´ democracy, it is needed in the first place that proletarian masses play the key role in the revolution and in order to do that a firm Marxist approach of leadership is neccesary. Second thing is that not only for a functioning of the state, a high degree of democracy (for all people not only workers) is neccesary, but also it is true that Bonapartist countries where one man rules and where no workers´ democracy exists are successful only in repeling the workers and other masses of other countries from the true socialism and Marxist ideas.

Ok, that is all for now. I will be glad to receive all comments from anybody.

(Edited by Turnoviseous at 1:17 am on Aug. 28, 2002)