Re: [Marxism] The two souls of socialism (was: RE: JohnHolloway-AlexCallinicos debate)

["Ian Pace" <ian@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Louis Proyect" <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>
To: "Activists and scholars in Marxist tradition"
<marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, August 20, 2005 1:42 AM
Subject: Re: [Marxism] The two souls of socialism (was: RE:
JohnHolloway-AlexCallinicos debate)


> Ian wrote:
> > I think that the fact that Cuba is a small country, hardly a major world
> > industrial power now or previously, makes it of questionable value to
> > extrapolate from it towards other possibilities.
>
> I would suggest another way of looking at this. If a country that relies
> primarily on the export of agricultural goods, that is subject to economic
> sabotage from the most powerful imperialist nation in history, that is
> forced to spend an inordinate amount of its national income to defend
> itself militarily, that has been forced to reinvent itself economically as
> a result of the collapse of the USSR can achieve Human Development
> Indicator statistics comparable to Sweden, Canada and other G8
> nations--this tells me that a country without such obstacles can become a
> virtual paradise.
>
> We must study Cuba for the same reason that we might have studied the USSR
> during the NEP. For all its flaws, Russia in the early 1920s was a
> incubator for socialist development.
Well, Cuba still isn't of great strategic or economic importance to the USA
any longer, now that it's no longer aligned with the USSR. That's why I
believe the antagonism from the USA is largely symbolic. Venezuela, as an
OPEC member (Chavez is watching the situation in the Middle East very
closely - on this and other subjects, I pointed out this group to Richard
Gott, who is a personal friend - he may post some stuff here at some point),
is quite different - its geopolitical significance is of a different order.

Certainly what Cuba has achieved is incredible given the circumstances - I
just believe that this would be much harder to do in some other countries.
Cuba's island status also probably makes a difference to US fears, which
might be greater if it were a mainland country.

Solidarity,
Ian



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