Fatalistic Marxism

[Julio Pino <jpino@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

   Marxists used to be accused of believing in Calvinistic pre-destination,
that capitalism was bound to collapse due to its own contradictions and
that all revolutionaries had to do was give it the final kick
(the"gravediggers" and all that). Now, reading the discussion on South
Africa and Third World revolutions, it seems to me many have come
full-circle, arguing that with the end of the Soviet Union and the rise of
a unipolar world the best revolutionaries can opt for is to win some wiggle
room inside the global market; anything else would be suicide.
   But this trend of thought ignores what communists do for a living:
provide leadership by analyzing(not ignoring)objective and subjective
factors that further the class struggle and lead to victory.Case in point:
In 1959 the practical, pragmatic, thing for Fidel Castro to do was turn in
the direction of the United States. The US offered the "best deal" during
the Cold War, buying Cuba's sugar, providing consumer goods, etc. A
settlement with the Cuban bourgeosie was feasible also, since so many had
hated and had fought against Batista. Whatsmore , Fidel was dealing with a
population inculcated for decades by American (and some
home-grown)anti-communism. Radicalizing the Revolution, pragmatically
speaking, made no sense. Yet Fidel chose to go in the opposite direction,
expropiating US property, seizing the large landed estates, declaring the
Revolution officialy socialist, all BEFORE he could count on the support of
the USSR.Why? Because while waging the insurrection against Batista he had
warned that treachery lurked everywhere; there were plenty of
self-proclaimed "revolutionaries" who just wanted a comfortable existence
without Batista, and the M-26 Movement had to be on guard less the
Revolution be stolen away. The defection of former allies such as  Huber
Matos and Gutierrez Menoyo proved him right.
  Some will say Castro had more manouevering room than the revolutionaries
of today (ANC, FARC of Colombia, et al) because of the existence of the
socialist camp. But think about it. If that logic is true then the
practical thing to have done after the fall of the USSR would have been to
dissolve the Communist Party (a la Milosevic)and proclaim the whole
revolutionary experiment had been a big mistake. Again, Fidel chose to go
in the opposite direction, purifying the Party and mobilizing the masses
against both "hard" US intervention (eg, Helms-Burton Law) and  "soft"(as
some in the State Dept. are telling Clinton: let's let US business crawl
back into Cuba and gradually strangle the socialist economy).
  For a Marxist, nothing in the history of revolutions (or
counter-revolutions)is pre-determined. Revolutionary consciousness is the
key, and it's gained not by proclaiming yourself a vanguard party but by
constantly reading and translating and acting upon local conditions, not
the wind blowing from the four corners of the empire.
Julio Cesar Pino