[Marxism] Cuba and "Socialism from Below" [was: the ISO's conference]

["Joaquin Bustelo" <jbustelo@xxxxxxxxx>]

S Artesian comments on the traditional "socialism from below" position that
Cuba is capitalist: 

*  *  *

Indeed, that is a "silly position," which chucks Marxism out the window
without even bothering to see if the window is open.  Capitalism after the
bourgeoisie has been expropriated? Capitalism without a class of
capitalists, or with somehow a new class?  And if with a new class, we
should see that class developing inside the pre-existing formula
accumulation of capital.  Do we?  Does that "class" have any essential
relationship to either the means or relations of production?

*  *  *

See, I think these positions come about almost by accident, some small group
--perhaps just a circle-- adopts it and then they have to justify it. The
*function*  of the position was to differentiate the
Independent/International socialist current from "Third World Marxism" or
"Maoism." I know that later these "New Communist Movement" currents became
more serious, but to begin with [1967-1970] they were mostly shooting from
the hip to justify their gut reactions as student rebels, basically making
it up as they went along. The "socialism from below" critiques of what was
generally a pro-everybody-and-their-sister who the US didn't like was not
hard to devise, but hardly rigorous.

So, yes, you can analyze all this seriously and theoretically. But the
ENTIRE corpus of left-wing anti-Fidelista writings and analysis has this
really huge problem: they can't explain why Cuba is different, not just from
the GDR or the USSR, but even from China and "People's Korea." When you come
right down to it, Cuba just turned out to be *better* than the rest, perhaps
not in some ultra-transcendental way but at any rate, VERY clearly so.

Also, frankly, most of the critiques of Cuba are highly derivative of the
mid- and late-60's books on Cuba. Listen Yankee. Guerrillas in Power.
Castro's Cuba, Cuba's Fidel. The Book of the Twelve. The Economic
Transformation of Cuba. Venceremos! (a book of Che speeches and writings).
Revolution in the Revolution. And a few more. Beginning in 1970, Cuba just
fell out of fashion among the professoriat so the critiques all get frozen.

One thing that is generally missing from these accounts is the class
struggle within Cuba from Jan 1, 1959 to April 17, 1961 (the Bay of Pigs
invasion). The emphasis is always on clashes with the imperialists, the
Hotel Teresa thing in Harlem, Khrushchev's "I don't know if Fidel is a
communist, but I'm a Fidelista" and so on. The creation of the militias, the
development of a pro-revolution wing in the mass media, the strengthening of
the unions and the birth of the block-by-block committees for the defense of
the revolution are not dealt with in any detail, and neither are the rent
rollbacks, the slashing of electricity rates, not even the struggle around
the agrarian reform. 

Given the wealth of historical material NOW available, it is not difficult
to completely take apart the left-wing critiques of Cuba from Trotskyist and
related groups, as these were all done at the end of the 60's or beginning
of the 70's and not touched since. On the contrary, usually what's happened
is that concrete has been poured on them  and they have been elevated to the
status of sacred, revealed truths.

But then when you try to fit later events into those frameworks, they break
or blow up in your face.

For example, Cuba doesn't bullshit people on health issues. 

A quarter century ago, when its first AIDS cases came up, Cuba put those
affected under a very rigorous quarantine, as a public health measure. And
Cuba got dumped on for being anti-gay and so on. In a way, Cuba had it
coming, because it had INDEED dumped on gays, even if this wasn't part of
that pattern. Because the truth was most of these cases were being imported
from Africa by soldiers who had been carrying out internationalist missions
and quite likely became infected through heterosexual contacts. But the
government obviously did not want to link AIDS to the fight against
imperialism and apartheid in southern Africa, at least not until it knew
much more than it did then. 

A quarter century later this swine flu thing shows up. And even though it
was entirely predictable that the Mexican bourgeoisie and government would
feel aggrieved and offended, Cuba suspended all flights to Mexico. It was
the first country to do so. The FORM of it was different than the isolation
of AIDS patients in the mid-1980's, but the public health reasoning and
sought-after effect was the same. Isolate the source of the infection so it
doesn't become generalized to the population. 

These are understandable, accessible, coherent government policies. 

You don't have to AGREE with them 100%, but you can't help admiring the
consistency and recognizing that they are quite rational. 

Like confronting hurricanes. They don't care WHO you are. You can't stay in
an area that the government has decided to evacuate. And it's not just the
local cops and the political police and the effing army that gets on your
case. The neighborhood "Committee for the Defense of the Revolution" and if
there's a factory, also the union, and if there's a school then the pioneers
(kinda like the scouts) ALL get on your case. The result is the hurricane
comes through and the Dominican Republic has 60 dead and Haiti 27, but Cuba
only 2 --if that-- and Florida 12. 

It is stuff like this that the ISO comrades don't and can't get, for what it
shows is that, albeit unevenly and only in part, the devolution of the
functions of government on the people as a whole has BEGUN. The CDR's, for
example, are the base units of the apparatus of persuasion/compulsion as
well as participation/hegemonization. But they are NOT "the government" AT
ALL, just the neighborhood association. 

True this is only a foreshadowing and a couple of first baby steps on the
road laid out in the state and revolution, and it is hard to imagine taking
further big steps on that road WITHOUT  changing the world Cuba lives in.
But the ISO comrades can't admit this may be true, even a tiny bit. They
can't even LOOK at it that way. They have to stick to the narrative of a
peasant insurrection led by other petty-bourgeois elements that came to
power at the beginning of 1959, and, yes, they did one or another good thing
a long, long time ago, but nothing like what socialism would entail.

Which doesn't mean of course the blockade or imprisoning the five etc. is
justified, the comrades will add immediately, trying to get off the
theoretical historical stuff and onto firmer political ground.

But they can't decree a "let 100 flowers bloom" attitude towards Cuba
because it takes apart their whole socialism from below narrative. NOT the
only possible such narrative, MERELY the one that got spun in the real
world. And because the PURPOSE of the ISO is to cohere a cadre that can
preserve and project "socialism from below" as an integrated, coherent and
NECESSARY political-ideological outlook and strategy, fundamentally you
can't cede an inch to the Cuba is OK crowd (even if it is only a tiny bit
OK). 

That's like the Catholic Church saying that sometimes --although only
extremely rarely-- the Pope can be a little wrong, even when speaking
ex-cathedra. If papal infallibility is papal bull, then the whole
ideological edifice comes crashing down.

Ditto for the ISO: if Cuba is even a little OK, in some fundamental way, of
course, then the whole ideological construct comes apart because it was put
together originally with Cuba being just one more of these Stalinoid
horrorshows like Pol Pot's Kampuchea, Mao's Great Proletarian Cultural
Revolution, Hoxha's Albania and Ceacescu's Romania not to mention the GDR or
the USSR. 

Joaquin


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