I read an excellent book on the development of Cuba's medical care programmes. It was written by an academic from the mid-west, who was obviously not a socialist. And yet he was impressed and his account was one of the most amazing accounts of what intelligence, good will, and a humane project could achieve:....remarkable results in one generation; astonishing results in two generations...all on a shoestring.
Joanna
Louis Proyect wrote:
Cuba is a model for such a process. After the revolution took power, it prioritized rural development. To this day Havana remains neglected. Large-scale farming enterprises were the beneficiaries of clinics, day-care centers, schools, sports and cultural programs. It is also important to consider that most of the rural population was of African descent.
As the children of the original population became educated, they began to move to the cities on their own accord and usually because there was some skilled job that had opened up for them. As mechanization was introduced into the sugar and tobacco fields, it freed up additional labor. None of this was done coercively.
It is a model of socialist transformation and a painful reminder of how bad Stalin fucked things up. For all of the hatred poured on this despot from Western liberals, we should never forget that he was simply imitating Great Britain and US "primitive accumulation".
Louis Proyect, Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org
