Owen:
> i.e. a hagiographic account of the Cuban Revolution which is present in a
>collection of essays and articles I have on the Revolution including
>Castro's stunning essay on "Revolution and Charisma". Please avoid
>[attempting] patronising me, it does little to aid your arguments.
O'Connor's book is included in a collection of essays? Must be a very thick
book.
> Hence the fact I was talking about where they stood when the Bolsheviks
>seized power in October 1917, the basis of which was the permanent
>revolution as laid out by Lenin principally in the April Theses.
Sorry, old thing, you have to expand on this. Can't follow you.
> I was not indulging in a "what-if?" scenario based on "good man bad man"
>logic. If the Soviet bureaucracy had not come to the aid of the Cuban regime
>which was established by the 1959 Revolution, a workers' state of any form
>could not have been established. The axis which existed in the world at that
>time ensured the consolidation of the bureaucracy which emerged from the
>ranks of the guerrilla armies. The fate of the bourgeois wing of July 26 was
>wound up with the American bourgeoisie, since it was incapable of
>independence from imperialism due to its reliance on it, whilst the
>peasant/proletarian wing relied on the Soviet bureaucracy. Without that
>base, a similar revolution today would be incapable of consolidating a
>workers' state of any kind. In Cuba at the time, things were really on a
>knife edge and could have gone either way.
Exactly. What if the USSR had not existed.
> I know one name to be Hubert Martos. There were others also. As the
>revolution changed course they fled the country and ended in Miami, as did
>the expropriated bourgeoisie who are still sulking. If there were no
>bourgeois wing, then why did the revolution not begin as socialist? Why did
>it not expropriate the bourgeoisie immediately?
Since Cuban capitalism was mostly based on agriculture, it would be useful
to review the changes that took place in this part of the economy. From its
beginnings in radical agrarian reform, the Cuban revolution rapidly began
to attack private property at its roots. This left Cuban agriculture as one
of the most purely socialist in character the world had ever seen.
Agrarian reform was the most important "class" question the Cuban
revolution faced. The agency that took charge was the newly-formed National
Institute of Agrarian Reform (INRA), most of whose leadership was drawn
from the battle-tested guerrilla ranks. The Communist Party, like their
cothinkers in the Spanish Civil War, counseled moderation to the
"barbudos", but the Castroites paid no attention.
Cattle ranchers were first on INRA's hit-list. In Camaguey province, the
cattle-raising heartland, the local INRA chief ordered the confiscation of
all large and medium sized ranches. In 1959, 900 ranches totaling over a
million hectares became state property. The confiscations actually led to
some economic chaos not entirely dissimilar to what occurred in the USSR in
the late 1920s as many of the bigger ranches rapidly liquidated their
assets. The Cuban revolutionaries made a political calculation that such
sweeping transformations would strengthen the revolution in the long run
since the elimination of the latifundio would garner it support from the
land- starved rural masses.
Since sugar cane was the linchpin of the Cuban economy, the rural workers
based in this sector could serve as a powerful locomotive for the
revolution. They outnumbered the middle-class sugar farmers by five to one.
They were also the favored class of the revolution which promised to bring
full-time employment, higher wages, medical care, education and
recreational facilities to the deprived countryside.Thus the large and
middle-sized farms were confiscated in an effort to provide a better life
for the workers. By the end of 1960, the state controlled most of Cuba's
productive farmland: 4 million hectares of sugar and ranch land and over 2
million acres of rice, tobacco and other properties. The rural bourgeoisie
had been expropriated.
Now that the land belonged to the state, what development strategies could
be carried out? Cuba's prospects were good. Unlike the Soviet Union, China
or Nicaragua, the Cuba revolution inherited an economy that was not
devastated by civil war. The factories, fields, ports, railroads, and
communications were in good shape. Neither was there the runaway inflation
that paralyzed development efforts in Nicaragua. The Cuban Peso was at a
par with the US dollar when Batista was overthrown.
Since the Cuban bourgeoisie had not made efficient use of the generous
holdings of land at its disposal, the government calculated that two birds
could be killed with one stone. Unemployment would be attacked by creating
state farms out of the confiscated properties. Also, Cuba's trade imbalance
could be remedied by making better use of farmland, thereby increasing
export commodities. These interrelated goals became the driving-force
behind agrarian planning.
> Is this a joke? The woman I met who went on a German Communist Party
>delegation with initial sympathies with Cuba (i.e. she had nothing to do
>with Trotskyism) did not have that impression, and she had a guided tour by
>the regime intended to show her only the positive side. But she still saw
>the privileges for the bureaucracy. For instance, bureaucrats have dollars,
>and that gives them an infinite advantage over everyone. They also have
>reserved hospitals, and special privileged schools. There is also a pretty
>nice section of Havana with nice apartments for the officials. You won't
>believe it, perhaps, but I'm consulting unbiased primary evidence, not
>hagiography written by miserable ex-Trotskyists.
You're right. I don't believe it.
> As Johannes said, the chief icon of the July 26th was Marti, the Cuban
>independence fighter. This really reflects the petty bourgeois nationalist
>character of the insurrection. However, since it was a multi-class
>organisation, there were different icons depending on which class or strata
>you belonged to.
If Johannes said it, it must be true.
> Hardly my conception of a workers' state. Do you think that the
>consciousness of the working class is as a ruling class? Of course it is
>not, they wield no political power. But somebody must wield political power.
>Call them who you like, officials or bureaucrats. Castro explains himself by
>saying the working class will not be able to achieve political power until
>they have sufficient class consciousness and education, and also denounced
>workers' self-management viciously.
Useless jargon.
> Don't get things mixed up - the *Revolution* enjoys extraordinary support,
>but the regime does not, and has got considerably less popular during the
>Special Period. People who have gone to Cuba who have talked to Cubans - and
>this is very hard since it is illegal for a Cuban to talk to a foreigner -
>will pledge their support for the Revolution and even list its various
>achievements, but they are very critical about Castro.
More anecdotal evidence. Okay, let me respond in kind. I talked to Bessie
Goldstein who came back from a "Grandmothers for the Advancement of
Afro-Cuban Music" delegation. She said that the government enjoys
extraordinary support.
>
> If Cuba was a healthy workers' state, the Soviet Union would not have come
>so enthusiastically to its aid for it would have posed a threat to the
>continued rule of its bureaucracy. Nothing was more dangerous to it than a
>healthy workers' state in the world. But Cuba didn't even have elections
>until the 1980s. It rarely even has Party Congresses. Hardly the socialist
>society which I have in mind.
Yes, the mind is a dangerous thing to waste.
Louis Proyect
Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/
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