[Marxism] On Cubaphilia

[Jscotlive@xxxxxxx]

Courtney:
 
Agricultural practices, ways of organizing health care etc. can be seen  for
the wonder they are without feeling obligated to defend a  fundamentally
top-down situation, formed by historical conditions. I  unswervingly support
Cuba against intervention, political, economic and  military, aimed at
forcing some other kind of government on it. Against U.S.  imperialism or
any other imperialism, one must side with Cuba and stand for  the
self-determination of the Cuban people.
 
Reply:
 
No, I'm sorry, this won't do. US imperialism is intervening in Cuba now,  not 
at some spurious point in the future. It is a society under siege and under  
conditions of siege dissent is treason. The communards, whom you espoused  
previously, unfortunately did not hold to this view, which is why it only 
lasted  
72 days before they were butchered. The Bolsheviks fortunately did and thus 
were  able to save the revolution.
 
You correctly cite the role of material and historical conditions in  
determining the development of the Cuban Revolution. But you then negate those  
same 
material and historical conditions with the tired and worn 'top-down'  canard 
that's used by devotees of the revisionist theory of state capitalism to  
dismiss the struggle of an entire people. Fidel and a small band of guerillas  
could not and did not make the revolution on their own. This view is  
ahistorical. They relied on the support of the poor peasantry and the support 
of  
students and workers in the towns. 
 
In the immediate aftermath of the first stage of the revolutionary  struggle, 
the working class and the peasantry were key in restructuring and  developing 
the Cuban economy, and in defending it from the very real threat  posed by US 
imperialism. 
 
The Revolution is still in progress, US intervention continues in various  
ways and to various degrees, with the resulting pressure distorting and  
retarding Cuba's development.
 
To deny the Cuban people the role they have played and are  playing within 
Cuban society is to replace an analysis rooted in  materialism for one rooted 
in 
subjectivism. 
 
 
 
 
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