Re: [Marxism] Either a socialist revolution or a caricature of revolution

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Walter wrote:
> This was written over four decades ago. At that time, Cuba was completely
> isolated in Latin America with only Mexico retaining diplomatic relations.

Che wrote this speech not out of concern for Cuba's diplomatic needs but 
because he wanted to come to the aid of Vietnam. It was titled "Create two, 
three? many Vietnams" and delivered to the Tricontinental in 1967.

> Today, virtually every country in Latin America recognizes Cuba and has
> normal relations with it. The bourgeoisies of Latin America, wno are not
> socialist revolutionaries, have begun to find it in their own interests now
> to distance themselves from Washington. This simple reality has not had
> any impact on some who refuse to recognize that the world is different in
> many ways today, and that different tasks and perspectives flow from the
> changes in the objective international situation of our epoch.

Yes, and Cuba is the only country that has abolished class rule. The 
question before us is not the diplomatic needs of Cuba but how to end the 
sort of misery in Bolivia that drew Che to this country in the first place 
and that still exists. Che's foquismo was in error, but we still have to 
focus on the question of *socialist strategy*.

> The Soviet Union was an alternative pole of attraction and an alternative
> model for social development, though deformed by bureaucratic degener-
> ation.

I always get the sinking feeling that a lot of Walter is writing is shaped 
by TINA. You have to remember that Victor Tirado wrote an infamous article 
declaring that the era of socialist revolutions had come to an end with the 
collapse of the USSR. Not surprisingly, he wrote  in 1991 that ."..we are 
used to thinking that imperialism only wants to keep us in misery. I 
believe that was true in the past, but it is not the moment we are 
experiencing now."

> Thanks for the 40-year old quotation from Che Guevara. Fidel said very much
> the same thing in the SECOND DECLARATION OF HAVANA. However neither
> he nor the other leaders of the Cuban Revolution say these things today.
> They recognize that there have been a few changes in the last forty years.

So I guess the goal is to say the same things that the Cuban leaders say. 
Who needs a brain when you can serve as a stenographer.


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