Re: [Marxism] Raul Castro proves no lightweight in leading Cuba

["Joaquin Bustelo" <jbustelo@xxxxxxxxx>]

Walter writes:  

("Rumors are circulating that Raul will parcel out state land to farmers,
allow Cubans to open more small business, stay at tourist hotels, acquire
cell phones and freely buy and sell their cars and
homes.")

(If this one paragraph alone were to prove to be true, Raul would gain
immense popularity in Cuba. These are issues of both great practical
importance and symbolic significances to Cubans today.

(Hal Klepak's book, mentioned below, is very expensive, but it's also one of
the most informative things I've ever read on Cuba.

(Here's a wild and crazy notion: Raul welcoming George W. Bush to Havana.
Can you imagine any such a notion? Actually, it's an idea which can't be
completely excluded. Circles Robinson in a recent essay explained why Bush
would have nothing to lose:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/message/59934 ) 

*  *  *

Walter, 

        Don't you ever get tired of bourgeois-imperialist liberal bullshit? 

        U.S. imperialism maintains the Cuba blockade because of its
fundamental interests and nature. 

        If they had thought Fidel would sell out, like Mao, or that the
Cuban socialist revolution could be undermined the way the bureaucratic
"socialist" (Stalinist) regimes were in Eastern Europe and China, they'd be
displaying the same tactical flexibility against Cuba as they did against
the USSR and the rest. 

        Ditto for all the Reuters (et al.) bullshit about Raúl. 

        The blockade is not due to the great political influence of the
gusano community; the power and influence of the gusanos is constantly being
pumped up and re-enforced by the imperialist ruling class because it is
useful to them in maintaining the blockade. 

        That Cuba constantly plays footsie with witless American liberals is
no excuse. What ELSE is there to do from where Cuba sits in relation to U.S.
politics? What have WE in the United States given the Cubans to work with,
apart from dozens of sects with dozens of members in a vast nation of 300
million people?

        The constant calls in CubaNews and on this list, urging Bush to do
in relation to Cuba like Nixon did in relation to China make me want to
puke. 

        What Nixon did in relation to China was to accept Mao's kind offer
of left cover for crimes against humanity, sipping champagne with Nixon
while Nixon's B-52s, at Nixon's orders, committed genocide against the
Vietnamese people. It was not a kindness or a progressive step by Nixon; it
was part of a strategic line centered on winning the war of aggression
against the people of Vietnam by genocide.

        That the Vietnamese eventually did win does not mean any thanks are
due to Mao's and Brezhnev's conscious and revolting betrayal, not only to
their fake-pretend claims to be Communists, but to even their status as
members of the human race. 

        That Nixon "had to" recognize the People's Republic of China
reflected the weakened state of U.S. imperialism, but was in no way a cause
or contributor to it. And the way it happened was part of the Stalinist
bureaucracies in Moscow and Peking opportunistically pimping off the heroic
struggles and enormous sacrifices of the Vietnamese people. 

        What Moscow and Peking SHOULD HAVE told Nixon when he came calling,
looking for political cover for his escalated genocidal aggression, was that
he should shove his champagne bottles up his ass and that the next aircraft
carrier or airbase to launch an attack on North Vietnam would be turned into
Strontium 90 by the combined wrath of the Sino-Soviet nuclear forces.

        On October 8th, revolutionaries the world over will mark the 40th
anniversary of the CIA-ordered assassination of Commander Ernesto "Che"
Guevara after he was wounded and captured in combat. We should mark the day
by re-dedicating ourselves to promoting Che's intransigently
anti-imperialist, revolutionary approach:

*  *  *

There is a sad reality: Vietnam ? a nation representing the aspirations, the
hopes of a whole world of forgotten peoples ? is tragically alone. This
nation must endure the furious attacks of U.S. technology, with practically
no possibility of reprisals in the South and only some of defense in the
North ? but always alone. 

The solidarity of all progressive forces of the world towards the people of
Vietnam today is similar to the bitter irony of the plebeians coaxing on the
gladiators in the Roman arena. It is not a matter of wishing success to the
victim of aggression, but of sharing his fate; one must accompany him to his
death or to victory. 

When we analyze the lonely situation of the Vietnamese people, we are
overcome by anguish at this illogical moment of humanity. 

U.S. imperialism is guilty of aggression ? its crimes are enormous and cover
the whole world. We already know all that, gentlemen! But this guilt also
applies to those who, when the time came for a definition, hesitated to make
Vietnam an inviolable part of the socialist world; running, of course, the
risks of a war on a global scale -- but also forcing a decision upon
imperialism. And the guilt also applies to those who maintain a war of abuse
and snares ? started quite some time ago by the representatives of the two
greatest powers of the socialist camp. 

We must ask ourselves, seeking an honest answer: is Vietnam isolated, or is
it not? Is it not maintaining a dangerous equilibrium between the two
quarrelling powers? 

And what great people these are! What stoicism and courage! And what a
lesson for the world is contained in this struggle!

*  *  *

Circles Robinson and his ilk are the worst kind of liberal
bourgeois-imperialist wannabes: totally CLUELESS ones.

He says, in the article you recommend:

*  *  *

Hundreds of CIA organized or supported terrorist acts have not
toppled the government led by Fidel Castro either. To the contrary,
the country's institutions have repeatedly shown their ability to
cope with difficult scenarios, the latest being the sudden surgery on
the Cuban president last July and his prolonged recovery.

The blockade has clearly flunked the test and Cuba is on the rebound
with expanded trade and investment with Venezuela, China and Canada.

Now, Bush, like Nixon, could do something positive to go down in
history. Otherwise, he will leave office in January 2009 with the
only legacy of having needlessly sacrificed so many US and Iraqi
lives under the guise of combating terrorism.

*  *  *

But there is a REASON why hundreds of CIA plots --to mention just the ones
directed against Fidel personally-- have failed. And that is because Fidel
is the embodiment and symbol of an intransigent revolutionary nation whose
people refuse to kow tow to any imperialist criminal or oppressor, even the
most powerful. 

Those plots were foiled, not by Fidel, but by thousands of heroic combatants
of the Ministry of the Interior and hundreds of thousands of conscious,
committed collaborators of Cuba's security organs, whose political
convictions and moral rectitude not only frustrated the CIA plots, but even
succeeded in penetrating the highest circles of imperialist war planning
against Cuba in the Pentagon, as the American imperialists themselves have
been forces to reveal.

The blockade has not "failed." The blockade is not about "success" or
"failure." It is the conscious, legitimate, logical and continuing
expression of the most heartfelt reaction of a vampire system against a
revolutionary example that, were it to spread, would drive a stake through
its heart. The cruel, savage blockade is not a mere policy of imperialism
but the most heartfelt expression of its very soul.

Imperialism's terms of reference for what constitutes "success" and
"failure" in relation to its Cuba policies have absolutely nothing to do
with a righteous identification with the Cuban Revolution or even a true
defense of the right of the Cuban people to run their own affairs as they
see fit.

To put forward arguments like that the blockade has been a failure in
overthrowing the revolution, or even how much money capitalists would make
selling stuff to Cuba, is to place oneself squarely in the imperialist camp.
Cuba will, of course, seek to take advantage of all contradictions in the
ruling class, its economic operatives and sectors, and its political
circles, but that is an entirely different matter from the attitude of
Americans who should be fighting imperialism, explaining its true nature,
instead adopting the pose of "humanitarian" imperialists who pretend to
think that genocide, wars of aggression and other crimes against humanity
can be more successfully achieved through a greater employment of "peaceful"
means.

Such radicals masquerading in pro-imperialist drag aren't fooling anyone.
The American imperialists understand instinctively what Cuba is and the
threat it represents to their rule and their profits. Telling them --as
Circles Robinson does implicitly, and you all-but-second-- that Fidel and
Raúl are really quite the same as Mao and Brezhnev convinces the
imperialists only that the folks saying that are hopeless idiots.

But the damage is not only irrelevance. It is fundamentally miseducating the
rising generation of revolutionaries --however small that layer may be in
this country-- about the nature of imperialism, about imperialist privilege,
about the struggle against imperialism. 

People like Circles Robinson are happily pissing into this well, the well on
which the future of the entire human race will one day depend, and the duty
of revolutionaries is not to applaud, but to be entirely rude and tell him
to go find a latrine somewhere else, not in spaces where intransigently
revolutionary and anti-imperialist politics should prevail.

Given the overall political situation in the United States and the state of
the left, there is really only ONE thing that radicals from the 50's, 60.s
and 70's can do, and that is to help prepare the next generation --however
large or small-- for the battles they will face. 

This means facing up to our many mistakes -- but also preserving those
things we were right on. 

We have a left in the United States today DOMINATED to a very large degree
by the non-profiteer/QUANGO (=Quasi Non Governmental Organization) sectors.
These sectors are largely, if not overwhelmingly promoted and financed by
the imperialist bourgeoisie itself through its foundations and individual
progressive "angels." It is as if the liberal capitalists read Lenin's 1916
article on imperialism and the split in socialism, and made their program to
implement as massively and consciously and systematically as possible a
policy of feeding crumbs and scraps from the imperialist banquet table to
any progressive movement, cause, issue or element that they come across in
order to preemptively corrupt them.

I was struck reading the web site of one of the most radical groups in the
non-profiteer/QUANGO sector how they boast of being a genuinely GRASS ROOTS
organization and have only a HALF DOZEN full-time staffers. But these are
CAREER PROFESSIONALS of the QUANGO/non-profiteer sector costing
$30,000-$50,000 a year in payroll alone, and at least an equivalent amount
in expenses and overhead. MOST OF THAT MONEY is coming from foundations, or
to speak in precise Marxist terms, the class enemy.

Politically, it is not hard to understand the role these people play as a
social layer, with whatever individual exceptions. It is exactly the same
role as pre-WWI social-democracy played throughout most of Europe. They are
intermediaries between popular movements --in Europe a century ago the
workers movement-- and the imperialist bourgeoisie. Except that in the
Europe of those days, they worked for mass-based, and at least in theory
mass-controlled organizations -- parties and unions -- or institutions like
media outlets closely connected with them.

But what mass base controls Amnesty International? The ACLU? The AFSC? Or
lesser known groups like the San Francisco area's "National Network for
Immigrant and Refugee Rights" which played a prominent role in the U.S.
Social Forum, has scores of affiliates, everyone and their sister except, as
far as I could tell, except for the coalitions and organizations that
mobilized MILLIONS of Latinos in the streets precisely for "immigrant and
refugee rights" in the last years and a half? 

Who really controls the National Council of La Raza, which went out of its
way to break relations and withdraw such meager financing as it had
previously given to groups that turned out to be the central leadership in
mobilizing the Latino community for a just immigration reform? 

Who pays for the phone calls every Wednesday at 3 PM Eastern Time where
Washington insiders try to tell immigrant rights activists across the
country that a piece of crap like the now forgotten Bush-Kennedy "Grand
Compromise" on immigration reform was the only hope for legalization?

THAT is where arguments like "The blockade has clearly flunked the test"
come from. What test? Subverting or overthrowing the Cuban Revolution. Where
the idea that Nixon did something "positive" in accepting Mao's offer of
left cover for genocide PROVIDED the People's Republic of China got certain
benefits. Like diplomatic recognition. A seat as a permanent member of the
imperialist UN Security Council. And so on.

There are THOUSANDS of young people mired in the reformist swamp of
QUANGO/non-profiteer/"organizing" (including union "organizing")
jobs/careers, and tens of thousands who see that as the only viable choice
and alternative for post-College political activism.

Many or most of them are irretrievably lost -- but the duty of
revolutionists is to save at least the few who CAN be saved under current
circumstances, not capitulate to the flood or bourgeois-liberal imperialist
bullshit, even when it is being pushed from Havana by a super-annuated hippy
like "Circles Robinson."

Nixon did not do anything "positive" but rather took advantage of the
willingness of Mao and Brezhnev to give him "detente" cover for escalated
genocide against the Vietnamese people. To even suggest that Cuba might be
willing to play a similar role in greeting such a "positive" step by Bush is
an unmitigated slander, not just against Fidel and Raúl, but against the
Cuban Revolution and the Cuban Nation. 

Joaquín



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