Cuba, Castro and Socialism

Description

Twenty-one years have passed since the time Castro’s rebel army, backed by a loose coalition of intellectuals – the 26th July Movement – destroyed the US-backed Batista regime and began to effect fundamental changes in Cuban society. What exactly did it achieve? Does it provide the Third World with an alternative and viable road to socialism to that of Moscow’s stultifying bureaucrats? Can its methods be repeated elsewhere? These questions have been posed even more sharply by recent events in China – China for so long the brightest star on the eastern horizon, but which now participates in joint foreign policy initiatives with the USA in Afghanistan, and encourages the entry of western capital and a more sharply differentiated society at home. The limelight is therefore inevitably on Cuba; has it remained faithful to its socialist principles? Did it indeed ever have any? Or, like China, when one probes beneath the surface at all seriously do they disappear into thin air? Many indeed have had no doubts at all about the socialist nature of Cuba’s revolution. Thus C. Wright Mills for instance concluded that it was “a revolutionary dictatorship of the peasants and workers of Cuba” in which one man possessed “virtually absolute power”. This somewhat bizarre view was the more remarkable for representing a wide consensus on the question; from Paul Johnson in the New Statesman who waxed lyrically on Cuba’s “genuine dictatorship of the proletariat” even if it was expressed through the “arbitrary” rule of one man, to Joseph Hansen and the Fourth International who claimed – somewhat less lyrically – that “in the final analysis, the overturn in property relations in Cuba is an echo of the October 1917 revolution in Russia”, and therefore “Cuba entered the transitional phase of a workers’ state, although one lacking as yet the forms of democratic proletarian rule”. On what were these very widespread claims based? And how have they stood the test of time? Finally, how can we now characterise the direction in which Cuba is heading? These are questions we shall examine in this article. Peter Binns & Mike Gonzalez Contents The background to the 1959 Revolution 1959-60: “Our revolution is neither capitalist nor communist” 1961-1963: the first industrialisation attempt 1963-65: back to the machete The Russian connection One, two, three Vietnams? The 1970 crisis Cuba in the 70s The working class The Party, the army, and the construction of a new ruling class Cuban state capitalism’s subordination to the USSR Cuba’s foreign policy For the self-emancipation of the working class Notes