[Marxism] stalinism, cuba, gorbachev

["stansmith44" <stansmith44@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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[Marxism] Cuba. Gorbachev. Stalinism

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  a.. To: marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
  b.. Subject: [Marxism] Cuba. Gorbachev. Stalinism? 
  c.. From: "Hal Smith" <rakovsky@xxxxxxxxxx> 
  d.. Date: Sat, 10 Jul 2004 06:56:40 -0400 (EDT) 
  e.. Reply-To: rakovsky@xxxxxxxxxx, Activists and scholars in Marxist 
tradition<marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> 
  f.. Sender: marxism-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 

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   Trotskyists often throw around the term "stalinist" like the term "petty 
bourgeois". It seems to fit everyone, and has become a term of abuse, sort of 
like a political version of the word "asshole." Besides that, "stalinist" 
becomes such a generic word that it loses its meaning. The policies of Kim Jong 
Il, Joseph Stalin, Ho Chi Minh, Chiang Ching, the present rulers of China, 
Gorbachev, Pol Pot are all called stalinist. And what useful generalizations 
about policies and strategies can we gain from that. Such a generic term is 
rather useless scientifically.    In addition, the defining feature of what 
Trotkskyists called stalinism is not lack of democracy. It is the abandonment 
of world revolutionary struggle for an accomodation with imperialism that 
benefits one's own immediate interests.   Cuba obviously has never abandoned 
the world revolutionary struggle,something that even a nit-wit like George Bush 
understands better than the ISO, while Gorbachev basically sold out everything 
to imperialism, if not simply giving it all away. What could be more 
opposite?Stan Smith  A Soviet advisor to Cuba, temporarily teaching in Canada, 
believes that Gorbachev's USSR had a higher level of self- government than Cuba 
at the time he was there in the late 1970's-early 1980's because he believed 
there was more free speech, more room for vacation, freedom for expression, 
freedom of behavior, assembly, and religion in Gorbachev's USSR. At that time, 
a large amount of "religious stuff" appeared and spread. Sometimes there were 
maybe 7 candidates running against each other at the municipal, city, and 
province levels. There were 2 candidate elections at the councilor "soviet" 
levels. There were referendums. There were all kinds of private institutes, 
yoga, and karate appeared. Before, you needed the director's permission for 
Xerox copying. You could have a typewriter without having to registrate it 
first. You became allowed to choose all the elected positions. The subordinates 
chose the directors of departments, in all spheres- factories, textiles, 
education, everything. And then the directors became soft. It happened 
anarchically, but all of this ended with Yeltsin. "Everything they told me 
about capitalism was true." From: personal interview. I take this to mean that 
we should look at the Soviet Union in more flexible ways. If we are going to 
say that Cuba is non Stalinist because of an amount of local direct 
self-government and also elections at the national level, then we should not 
strictly define all the trends of the Soviet goverment as Stalinist. 
Specifically, I believe that Gorbachev and Khrushchev represented a democratic 
trend within the Communist Party, which can be felt within many Communist 
movements. There are similar splits between the Swedish Communists and a 
smaller more undemocratic group that had ties to Stalin's legacy within their 
movement. Similarly Khrushchev had to fight against Molotov and Malenkov, who 
wanted to remove him for denouncing Stalin. And I hear Castro in his own time 
had to struggle with a pro-Stalin faction of his own party. Because of the 
evidence above, if we are going to define Cuba as non-Stalinist, then I don't 
think we should define Khrushchev or Gorbachev's trends that way either. In 
fact, they struggled against the main tendencies we define clearly as 
Stalinism- bureaucracy, careerism, political repression, one man dictatorship, 
and the cult of personality- even though elements from Stalin's time remained. 
North Korea, then, which disagreed with Khrushchev's denunciation of Stalin, 
would be a closer example of a Stalinist nation.
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