Re: The Evolution of Cuban Communism or Cuban Socialism?

[Michael Hoover <hoov@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Mage said, among other things, that Cuba found itself caught between the USSR
> and US aggression.  The former contributed to the bureaucratic distortion of
> the regime, while the latter's hostility gave Castro little alternative
> options.

Nationalist sentiment in Cuba provided post-revolutionary support for
radical reforms and disengagement from past relations with the US...
Substantially altered/severed relations with the US served to enhance
the integrity of Castro and the post-revolutionary leadership...that
leadership, with no political/economic ties to the past, was able to
consolidate majority support through policies/programs too ambitious
for some elements of the reformist middle-class (much less capital
and it allies)...Cuba's dependent capitalism lacked legitimacy and
the country's "liberal democracy" was held in contempt by the
previously marginalized majority population...Maurice Zeitlin -
"Revolutionary Politics and the Cuban Working Class" - offered evidence
that widespread oppostion to elections following the revolution...so
conflict with the US was probably inevitable, but it was driven by
forces/relations internal to Cuba - as much as/more than? - hostility
>from the behemoth of the north

The most significant problem after the revolution was isolating
political opponents who would have continued to make alliance with
US capital...the Popular Socialist Party (PSP), Cuba's communist
party prior to the revolution, provided much needed organization,
direction, and discipline...the PSP had not supported the
revolutionary movement until shortly before the seizure of power -
consequently, organized labor which was controlled by the communists
had not been a major factor in the insurrection...alliance with the
Soviets was pragmatic, though PSP influence in the Cuban government
indicated ideological confluence...institutionalization of the
revolution along modified one-party lines (a system resting on the
organization and mobilization of mass supprt) and consequent
bureaucratization did not occur until the 1970s...and despite Cuba's
"client" status with the Soviet Union, the latter generally stayed
out of Cuban political affairs...Cuba's relations with the Soviet
Union "redistributed dependency"...USSR economic/military assistance
saved a - maybe not THE - revolutionary process...but again, forces/
relations internal to Cuba played a vital role...Michael


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