What did Fidel do wrong?
srd
paucity of specificity concerning what Castro should have done
differently. We can point to the flaws in the economic policies of Stalin,
but it is much harder to accomplish anything similar for Cuba, because
Cuba's small size limits its degrees of freedom. We can point to Stalinist
betrayals, but except in a few instances, it would be harder to prove that
Cuban policy made a difference one way or another. Cuba's lack of weight
and lack of options has given left criticism of Castro a formal character
and even a petty bourgeois appearance, in its emphasis on democratic
forms, absent substantially different policy options. If Cuba is as I
contend a bourgeois state, albeit a transitional one, even more so than in
the deformed workers state theory, it should be easy to show unnecessary
policy failures, roads not taken. The level of personal freedom allowed in
Cuba has seemed to many to greatly exceed the limits ordinarily permitted
under Stalinism.
If Cuba is a bourgeois state, we expect some blatant deviation from the
norms set for workers states, grave lacunas in defense of collective
capital. Where is it? It is right before our noses, like it should be, and
it also explains the mildness of Castro regime and its overwhelming
popularity of the regime. The surplus value in a country like Batista's
Cuba, to the extent that it is invested in the country at all, is
invested in the education and training of its professional classes and in
the knowledge acquired by its national bourgeoisie. Castro failed to
defend the property interests of the workers and peasants and the future
of Cuban nationalism by allowing the Cuban petty bourgeoisie and
bourgeoisie to flee to Miami. I am hypothesizing--merely guessing,
really--that the preclusion of options facing Cuba rests with this
irresponsible Castroite policy, one that benefitted the old bourgeoisie
enormously by allowing it to get away to a classically capitalist country
at the same time as the regime created a new bourgeoisie. Castro,
representing a section of the bourgeoisie himself, had no interest in
oppressing the old bourgeoisie out of existence. Nor did his Soviet
supporters.
srd
Vngelis
Sent Bacardi packing his bags.
The gringos will never forget him for that.
All the rest is history.
srd
> Sent Bacardi packing his bags.
> The gringos will never forget him for that.
> All the rest is history.
You don't say whether you would support, oppose, or maintain indifference
to Castro's open exit for the bourgeoisie and professional petty
bourgeoisie.
srd
Vngelis
> On Thu, 15 Mar 2007 22:28:58 -0700, Vngelis <meberr...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > Sent Bacardi packing his bags.
> > The gringos will never forget him for that.
> > All the rest is history.
>
> You don't say whether you would support, oppose, or maintain indifference
> to Castro's open exit for the bourgeoisie and professional petty
> bourgeoisie.
>
> srd
Personally they should have been tried for crimes against their
workers.
The question is how does a bourgeoisie flee from a bourgeoisie?
Did Castro represent the Soviet bourgeoisie as opposed to the US one?
Almost every worker on earth knew Russia was different from the USA
and the rest of the world. They could feel it instinctively.
You now argue it was the same.
A bourgeois is a bourgeois is a bourgeois.
srd
> The question is how does a bourgeoisie flee from a bourgeoisie?
> Did Castro represent the Soviet bourgeoisie as opposed to the US one?
> Almost every worker on earth knew Russia was different from the USA
> and the rest of the world. They could feel it instinctively.
> You now argue it was the same.
> A bourgeois is a bourgeois is a bourgeois.
The U. S. Civil War and its aftermath is the best analogy. Not only did
the two forms of capitalism go to war, but when the North won it imposed a
kind of revolutionary dictatorship over the South. I'm sure if there was a
place to flee to, the former slaveowners would have gone. But the South
was almost the last place in the world to countenance slavery.
The slavery of the American South was definitely capitalist. Yet the
suppression of slavery was very violent, and after the war the slaveowners
were disenfranchised. The Northern program of Reconstruction was imposed
by force.
So I agree it is rare that matters come to that kind of explosiveness
within the bourgeoisie, except for war between separate bourgeois states.
The Soviet bourgeoisie is no ordinary bourgeoisie. But even for the
ordinary bourgeoisie, it isn't unprecedented or even counter-theoretical.
As to the instincts of workers on this - unquestionably they are sound,
but don't look for microscopic precision based on instinct alone. Any
Black during the Civil War knew that the North was different from the
South. It was. The level of oppression was lower. But that didn't make it
a society based on a *fundamentally* different class structure.
srd
Vngelis
But every bourgeoisie in history seeks to expand its modum of
operation. The soviet 'bourgeoisie' which advised its local
'bourgeois' workers parties to hand over power when they had it in
their hands. So instead of gearing towards union and monopoly power
the soviet 'bourgeoisie' at the end of WW2 opted for the opposite.
This is unheard of. Asking your followers to hand over power, get shot
and go into exile...
srd
> But every bourgeoisie in history seeks to expand its modum of
> operation. The soviet 'bourgeoisie' which advised its local
> 'bourgeois' workers parties to hand over power when they had it in
> their hands. So instead of gearing towards union and monopoly power
> the soviet 'bourgeoisie' at the end of WW2 opted for the opposite.
> This is unheard of. Asking your followers to hand over power, get shot
> and go into exile...
Expansion for the bourgeoisie means economic expansion. This does not
necessarily translate into geographic expansion or even expansion of
power. It is well-known that the bourgeoisie in colonial countries will
compromise with imperialism, even though this means curtailing their
power. The reason of course is that they depend on an alliance with
imperialism. Similarly, the Soviet bourgeoisie did not want to bring an
ultra-radical bourgeois revolution to Europe. It would surely be an
impossibility that would quickly spill over to socialist revolution.
srd
Vngelis
The bourgeois revolution had already occurred in Easter Europe from
the previous century. In Greece it had occurred at the beginning of
the 20th century.
Why would not the soviet 'bourgeoisie' not want to expand into Italy
or France?
Why agree with a division when all that was required was a signal to
their local followers for a push for power and they would have
maintained it as they already had it...Yuogoslavia, Greece, Italy?
srd
>> You don't say whether you would support, oppose, or maintain
>> indifference
>> to Castro's open exit for the bourgeoisie and professional petty
>> bourgeoisie.
>>
> Personally they should have been tried for crimes against their
> workers.
Whereas I say that Fidel Castro should be shot for allowing capital
created by Cuban labor to escape. Or if he dies first, then his brother.
srd
srd
> The bourgeois revolution had already occurred in Easter Europe from
> the previous century. In Greece it had occurred at the beginning of
> the 20th century.
> Why would not the soviet 'bourgeoisie' not want to expand into Italy
> or France?
> Why agree with a division when all that was required was a signal to
> their local followers for a push for power and they would have
> maintained it as they already had it...Yuogoslavia, Greece, Italy?
The bourgeois revolution had already occurred, but if by expanding you
mean expanding the Soviet system, that involves a *deepening* of the
bourgeois-democratic revolution. If that occurred in a country which had
already experienced a bourgeois revolution, it would threaten a
proletarian revolution, that the Soviets would not desire.
But I see now that you are probably getting at something else. Why wasn't
the Soviet Union imperialist? Even before the imperialist era, bourgeois
regimes engaged in conquest. And conquest does not require exporting one's
system. Maybe that was your point about Austria.
Every property-owning class is expansionist, but different classes and
sub-classes are expansionist in different ways. Pre-imperialist capitalism
fought for expanding markets for goods; imperialists, for markets for
capital. The transitional bourgeoisie does not suffer from the
contradictions that drove the expansion of the earlier variants, because
those contradictions were mostly created by competition between different
enterprises. The transitional bourgeoisie is, it can be said, the purest
of bourgeoisies. What it requires isn't an expanding market--it has not
experienced problems in marketing what it produces. It requires
ever-expanding production, not an expanding market, which for a
centralized economy is a given.
srd
Vngelis
> On Sat, 17 Mar 2007 07:51:51 -0700, Vngelis <meberr...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >> You don't say whether you would support, oppose, or maintain
> >> indifference
> >> to Castro's open exit for the bourgeoisie and professional petty
> >> bourgeoisie.
>
> > Personally they should have been tried for crimes against their
> > workers.
>
> Whereas I say that Fidel Castro should be shot for allowing capital
> created by Cuban labor to escape. Or if he dies first, then his brother.
>
> srd
Millions of white russians left. You cant control so many people in a
time of turmoil.
srd
Not by OFFICIAL POLICY. And remember, its true even when counter to your
point: Cuba, unlike Russia, is a small country, an island no less; leaving
requires access to port.
If they want to take their chances hiding on rafts, let them.
srd
Vngelis
The fracturing of the Cuban bourgeoisie was not in my opinion
engineered or instigated by Castro. All he wanted was a more equitable
distribution of land.
I dont think he knew what they would do?
Bert Byfield
> engineered or instigated by Castro. All he wanted was a more
> equitable distribution of land.
Crap. All he wanted was to be king. As Mel Brooks said: "It's good to
be king."
> I dont think he knew what they would do?
Stupidity is a poor excuse for a bad dictator.
dusty
Mel Brookes - now there's an authority...But at least he has a sense of
timing in his humour...
>From my observations Fidel Castro is regarded as some kind of secular
saint amongst the culturally Catholic masses of South America.
Sometimes you take your role of Simplicio, the APST court jester, too
far Bert.