Monday, December 29, 2014

CUBA

The cuban exceptionalism
Liaison Committee for the Fourth International - LCFI

The Cuban revolution marked a turn in the history of the twentieth century in Latin America. In addition to defeating a pro-US dictatorship in Uncle Sam’s backyard, for the first time in the Western Hemisphere capitalism was expropriated.

This allowed a small island with less than a dozen million people to escape the fate of an agricultural colony subservient to the US to proudly show to its population and the world its unprecedented achievements like the elimination of hunger and poverty, an educational system. Its excellent health and medical advances are exported to the rest of oppressed humanity.

Cuba became a workers state after the overthrow of the dictator Fulgencio Batista and the seizure of power by the movement’s guerrilla army on July 26 in 1959. The revolutionary process at first did not have a socialist strategy. Its aims was only the achievement of democratic capitalist tasks such as the end of the dictatorial regime and agrarian reform.

But amid the cold war against the USSR the revolutionary process threw a spotlight on the contradictions between the tiny island and imperialism. It was only when imperialism tried to invade the island in the Bay of Pigs in April 1960 to defeat the new regime that the direction of the revolutionary movement of Castro and Che was finally to complete the expropriation of the multinationals. Then the entire capitalist class departed in droves for Florida. From that time on the ‘worms’ (rats), as they came to be known, have integrated themselves organically with imperialism and had been determining US policy on Cuba up to mow.

Exported.;

Fidel Castro in a Tank in 1961, the year of the Bay of Pigs invasion.
This type of overthrow was a definite theoretical possibility recognized by Trotsky in the Transition Program of 1938:

“However, one cannot categorically deny in advance the theoretical possibility that, under the influence of completely exceptional circumstances (war, defeat, financial crash, mass revolutionary pressure, etc.), the petty-bourgeois parties, including the Stalinists, may go further than they themselves wish to a break with the bourgeoisie. In any case, one thing is not to be doubted: even if this highly improbable variant somewhere, at some time, becomes a reality and the workers’ and farmers’ government in the above-mentioned sense is established in fact, it would represent merely a short episode on the road to the actual dictatorship of the proletariat.”

In the Cuban case, the “short episode” lasted between 1959 and 1961. The direction of that Castro’s M-26-7 took involved empirically revolutionary measures, but almost always under imperialist pressure. Che himself, who historically represented the internationalist wing of the Cuban Government, recognizes that the radicalization of the revolution was more conditioned by the imperialist pressure than the socialist convictions of its leaders:

“What lies ahead depends greatly on the United States. With the exception of the agrarian reform, which the people of Cuba desired and initiated themselves, all of our radical measures have been a direct response to direct aggressions by powerful monopolists of which your country is the chief exponent. US pressure on Cuba has made necessary the ‘radicalisation’ of the revolution. To know how much further Cuba will go, it will be easier to ask the US government how far it plans to go.” La NaciĆ³n, 6/9/1961).

The Cuban revolution, which was never directed by a revolutionary party, was bureaucratised by its own internal limitations. This process of bureaucratization worsened when the fragile island needed material assistance and appeal to the workers’ state of the Stalinist bureaucracy in the USSR. But soon the principle and the policy of “peaceful coexistence” of Stalinism showed young direction of Cuban State how their Russian allies were unreliable. Che was disillusioned with the USSR government during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, because he felt ‘ betrayed ‘ by Moscow who withdrew their armament from Cuba without warning to the Cuban Government, capitulating US pressure.

THE BLOCKADE AND THE END OF THE USSR
FORCED THE BUREAUCRACY TO PRESERVE THE
CUBAN WORKERS STATE FOR THEIR OWN SURVIVAL

The policy of isolation and blockade imposed by imperialism from 1962 exercised a powerful counter revolutionary pressure for decades under exceptional condition and that forced Castro to take an oppositional stance in order to defend the new forms of property relations established by the expropriation of the bourgeoisie and imperialism.
For us only the dialectic of these special circumstances explains how being a workers’ state that was weaker than the USSR and China, for example, and as for a long time depending on these “mega workers’ states”, Cuba managed to survive the demise of its sponsors.

These are the elements of these contradictions demonstrated by the following features:

1) Cuba is a workers’ state that didn’t arise from the actions of industrial workers;

2) It is the workers’ state which is geographically closest to the hard core of world imperialism;

3) It is economically the most fragile and when the USSR collapsed and abandoned it it was at its weakest;

4) In proportion to its fragility Cuba made the biggest effort in the international arena in Africa and in Latin America, without getting any immediate strategic profit for their efforts, but using it as element of resistance against the pressure of imperialism;

6) To influence mass movements in Latin America the Castro bureaucracy needed to abandon part of the Stalinist bureaucracy’s nationalism;

7) The role of the Cuban bourgeois ‘worms’, as an organic component of imperialism, it is disproportionate to its economic weight fraction as a bourgeois class;

8) Thus, among all workers’ states the Castroite bureaucratic was forced to confront imperialism far more than any other and had to rely on the masses far more because of the threat of imperialism.


In a way, and to a certain extent, and these exceptional circumstances, above all by the blockade imposed for more than half a century, prevented the capitalist restoration processes developing gradually and peacefully in Cuba and North Korea (as in China and Viet Nam). This is due to the fragility of these workers’ states who have to fight against imperialism and their respective bourgeois “worms” in Miami or South Korea. In these circumstances the restoration of capitalism could only occur through a civil war.

THE END OF THE LOCKOUT,
THE RESTORATIONIST ROLE OF RELIGION AND
THE REPEAL OF THE SPECIAL MEASURES

We believe that a progressive workers’ sate has to take advantage of the new cold war to end all reprisals taken against them for daring to have expropriated the multinationals and their bourgeoisie vassal. We argue that the blockade should be abandoned unconditionally. However, we also believe that the bureaucracy seeks to convert Cuba into a sort of Caribbean Viet Nam, as the imperialist blockade is suspended, or earlier if possible, i.e. the bureaucracy is taking advantage of the situation to favour the restorationist a religion outlook and not socialism.

The tragicomic blockade did not result in the end of the workers’ state. We denounce all secret diplomacy between the bureaucracy and US imperialism or any other capitalist nation. We fight for the progressive withdrawal of all measures implemented during the “special period” which were taken as special measure because of the dissolution of the USSR in 1991 and the increase of the embargo by the United States in 1992, as well as all subsequent measures that have weakened the planning of the economy, the monopoly of foreign trade and the nationalization of the means of production.

For a start we demand the return of full employment scheme and the repeal of all layoffs; the foreign investment law of 1995, the re-establishment of the monopoly of foreign trade, the full nationalization of all joint enterprises and production. In other words, if things are getting better is necessary to repeal the measures that have put the workers’ state under pressure since 1990. This program must be combined with combating the ambitions and privileges of the bureaucracy, namely, the struggle for political revolution and the establishment of proletarian democracy in Cuba. A political revolution in Cuba would be only be possible if there is a revolution on the continent. Without this, any attempt at political revolution in Cuba would not survive.

FOR POLITICAL REVOLUTION AGAINST CAPITALIST RESTORATION

The struggle for political revolution on the island assumes a permanent character, fighting the measures of the Castro government that conspire against the property relations and forms created by expropriation of imperialism and the Cuban bourgeoisie. At the same time we advocate the construction of popular committees of workers, peasants and cooperative members. We must fight against the secret dialogue agreements with Democrats, Republicans or ‘worms’ as well as with the European imperialism and the Latin American bourgeoisie, everything must be submitted to the debate, rectification and ratification by the organized population.

No return of the property to the ‘worms’. What was expropriated must remain state-owned and under the control of the democratic workers ‘ councils, producers and consumers. The first priority of the state is to ensure health and food for the people. No privilege for bureaucracy and for tourists to the detriment to the working masses. Down with tourist separatism, for the free access of all Cubans to all hotels, beaches and spas used exclusively by tourists. Everything must paid for in Cuban pesos. We must defeat the bureaucracy in the struggle for proletarian democracy and in the struggle for equality against the privileges.

It is necessary to institute a workers’ court of inquiry to investigate and condemn corruption in the black market and amongst the new rich. We defend the right to strike and to organize as part of the struggle for political independence against the Castro bureaucracy, imperialism, its NGO counter revolutionaries and the Vatican. We are for proletarian control of industry and the economy as a whole as well as on trade agreements and foreign trade with Europe, with China and the entire Eurasian block and the Latin American capitalist countries. We demand accounting control by the working class delegates with executive powers to inspect the books of all enterprises. These delegates must hold mandates which are subject to recall and they must be elected in the workplace by the workforce.

Only workers must decide how much and what should be produced and distributed, as well as the wages and the pace of production. They must combat the mass layoffs, privatization of state enterprises and cuts in social services in the state. We oppose the creation of any party or organization that opposes the workers’ state and the dictatorship of the proletariat and defended the creation of a revolutionary Trotskyist party in Cuba and the establishment of proletarian democracy on the island. Capitalist restoration is not a fait accompli in Cuba; only the revolutionary struggle of the Latin American masses against any internal or external restorationist religious offensive can defeat this.