RE: [Marxism] The two souls of socialism(was:RE:JohnHolloway-AlexCallinicos ...

[Joaquín Bustelo <jbustelo@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Jscotlive says: "That the US has never mounted a full scale invasion of
Cuba is a  reflection of the fact they are well aware of the
overwhelming support the  revolution receives from the Cuban people. If
Iraq is a quagmire after the  removal of such an unpopular regime, Cuba
would be a burning hell for  US occupation forces in Cuba."

There is an additional factor. A quarter century ago Cuba adopted a new
military doctrine, "the war of the entire people" aimed explicitly at
training and preparing for massive resistance to an occupation. What
arguably a few Iraqi units were trained for prior to the fall of Saddam
is something not just every Cuban military unit, but the entire Cuban
nation has been preparing for decades, including with an organized
militia of about one million people.

There are hundreds or thousands of depots throughout the country with
weapons of various kinds, handbooks on how to build weapons and
explosives from commonly available items, the works. And hundreds of
thousands at least, more likely millions of Cubans who will actively
take part in the resistance.

It also tells you something *at least* about how the Cuban revolutionary
government views itself in relation to the Cuban people, and I would
maintain, about the reality of the Cuban revolution. And that is that
this is a government that is not only not afraid to arm its own working
people, but isn't even afraid of massively training the population in
irregular warfare, precisely the kind of warfare a population would use
to overthrow its own government. 

The imperialist press, for reasons that should be obvious, don't spend a
lot of time explaining Cuba's military preparations: it might give some
people bad ideas, for example in a place like Haiti. But the Pentagon is
perfectly aware of them, and in its planning for any possible invasion
has to take it into account. 

And it means something like that if in a "normal" country of this this
size it would take, say, 250,000 troops to occupy it, and you could
expect 500 dead and 5,000 wounded, in Cuba it is going to take a million
troops, you're going to have to accept many thousands of dead and tens
of thousands of wounded, and even then you might not succeed, because
the war becomes politically untenable and after all, war is the
continuation of politics by other means.

Joaquín


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