Re: [Marxism] Celia Hart: "Lula...is a class traitor"

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Carlos P.:
> I wonder, given the friendly proximity between Celia
> Hart and Fidel Castro (for whom she campaigns as a
> post-modern Trotskyist), if Fidel himself thinks the
> same...?

Who knows what Fidel Castro thinks. He is not in the habit of issuing
broadsides against the heads of state whose goodwill he depends on. This
includes China:

Forty years ago, the two countries were the closest of political brethren,
building Communist paradises, marching to the same revolutionary beat. But
time changed everything.

Today, while one brother, Cuba, has mostly stayed the course, the other,
China, is brimming with entrepreneurs and foreign multinationals and has
recently joined the World Trade Organization.

So when Cuba's leader, Fidel Castro, came to China for his first state
visit in almost a decade this week, the reunion was warm but a bit awkward
as well.

In meetings between President Castro and top Chinese leaders, from
President Jiang Zemin to the new Communist Party secretary, Hu Jintao,
there were handshakes and hugs and reaffirmation of loyalty, to be sure.
But there were also some long hard looks saying, "My, how you have changed!"

Mr. Castro, meeting with Li Peng, head of China's legislature, said, "I
can't really be sure just now what kind of China I am visiting, because the
first time I visited your country appeared one way and now when I visit it
appears another way."

He added cryptically, "You can say that every so often, your country
undergoes great changes."

--The New York Times, February 28, 2003

What was he supposed to have said? That China is run by a bunch of greedy
and corrupt dictators who violate every principle of communism that they
supposedly stand on?

It seems obvious that this would have deepened Cuba's economic isolation
and weakened the prospects for socialism on the island, which is in
desperate need of allies after the fall of the USSR.

Furthermore, I doubt that anybody on the left, except for Walter Lippmann,
has any illusions left in Lula or the Chinese "Communists".

--

www.marxmail.org


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