- 03 Jan 2012 18:15
#13863993
Well America is only a bourgeois democracy, but at least Trotskyists can explain their views and stand in elections. They can't in Cuba.
You said it there.
You also said it several times on the other thread:
You seem to have a very short memory considering we discussed this over and over. I must have said it about 10 times by now.
democracy is not just about voting, its about free speech and so on, none of which happens in Cuba.
The National Candidates are selected by people who have been selected by people who have been selected by the public. This is several steps away from direct choice. Plus, nobody can state their views except that they support the revolution. Basically it's taken for granted that they are not gonna oppose the regime in any significant way. The final choice is made by the Candidacy Commission. The people in that are selected by various bodies:
Confederation of Cuban Workers (Central de Trabajadores de Cuba)
· Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (Comités de Defensa de la Revolución)
· Federation of Cuban Women (Federación de Mujeres Cubanas)
· National Association of Small Farmers (Asociación Nacional de Agricultores Pequeños)
· University Students' Federation (Federación Estudiantil Universitaria)
· Federation of Secondary School Students (Federación de Estudiantes de la Enseñanza Media)
These are all controlled by the CP.
The list drawn up by the National Candidacy Commission is sent to the National Electoral Commission. The National Electoral Commission is required to verify whether the pre-election candidates proposed meet all legal requirements.
In other words, to get to be proposed as a deputy to the National Assembly, a citizen must be approved by three separate organs of the state - the National Candidacy Commission, the Municipal Candidacy Commission and the Municipal Assembly of People's Power. It is pretty much impossible, for anyone who is not an avowed fan of the regime to be nominated with this process is place. If you get 8 years for writing your views down you have zero chance of getting elected.
My arse. I do not call the UK a dictatorship because to do so would be stupid. It does not have many of the same features as Cuba.
In the UK you can state your views, campaign on them, form parties and stand in elections. And socialist do this. In Cuba you cant do any of that and socialists get sent to jail for even writing this down.
He was an honest man, he dared to say what he thought. It landed him in jail.
I said caste not class.
bureaucratic caste cuba
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Yes, but Trotsky wrote all the stuff explaining that the KPD was on a course for disaster.
1931:
"Germany is now passing through one of those great historic hours upon which the fate of the German people, the fate of Europe, and in significant measure the fate of all humanity, will depend for decades."
"Worker-Communists, you are hundreds of thousands, millions; you cannot leave for anyplace; there are not enough passports for you. Should fascism come to power, it will ride over your skulls and spines like a terrific tank. Your salvation lies in merciless struggle. And only a fighting unity with the Social Democratic workers can bring victory. Make haste, worker-Communists, you have very little time left!"
shame that message didnt get through the thick skulls of the Stalinist leadership.
Empty words. The situation had no guarantee but it had a good chance. The subjective factor is the vital ingredient in any revolutionary situation. Just two people made the Russian revolution happen, Lenin and Trotsky. Without them it is unlikely the October revolution would have happened. Of course you need the objective conditions first - they were there. If anything Trotsky was a bit late in realising. What the KPD did was call a revolution and then cancel it. There is nothing worse. The masses lost any faith in them and so they had fascism instead. Well done.
It is blatantly obvious that I meant to write "been" in front of the quote for fuck's sake.
Castro was not a socialist so it's not so surprising that Cuba isnt socialist.
The point is that Castro wasnt trying to establish socialism and seeing as he runs the country its hardly surprising that it isnt socialist.
The fact that the Russians didnt know who he was is important because this was about the only Stalinist state where the Stalinists were barely involved. It was America which forced Castro to go to the Russians.
You say it is common knowledge that Castro wasn't a communist but on the thread I did specifically you spent weeks arguing against it, even claiming that he might have been a closet Marxist. You did agree that he may well not have been a s left wing as some of the others.
The point of that thread was to establish facts, such as the fact that Castro was not a socialist never mind a Marxist with a clear strategy like Lenin and Trotsky. It's obvious from the fact that he led a guerilla war in the countryside, that is not a Marxist tactic.
The subjective factor is crucial. This had been the tragedy of the 20th century. The one revolution not contaminated with Stalinism still ended up in the Stalinist camp.
"in reality it was the Communists above all others who prevented revolution in Spain" George Orwell
Economic Left/Right: -10.0 Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -8.31
kurt wrote:This is false, the Communist Party is not allowed to campaign in elections and doesn't pick candidates at most levels of representation. Of course the people running for government support the regime, if they were really anti-government they would likely engage in more subversive activity. Show me a single congressperson that doesn't support the US government for example.
Right at the lowest levels they have direct recall, but the people that they directly elect can recall at the higher levels. This is much like the US where the people don't directly impeach the President, but their elected representatives do.
Well America is only a bourgeois democracy, but at least Trotskyists can explain their views and stand in elections. They can't in Cuba.
kurt wrote:So pretty much you think that anti-Communists should be allowed more participation?I would be in favour of that if Trotskyists could as well. It's democracy. The Bolsheviks allowed everyone their say except the black hundreds who were terrorist/fascist. That's why we are in favour of free speech for fascists within reason. Ban people from saying their stuff and you have a dictatorship. If Cuba was genuine democratic socialism you wouldnt need to worry about capitalists having their say.
kurt wrote:Where did I say that there was more than one for the national elections? You were not clear about what level you were even talking about until I had to ask you (And you didn't even know which elections the results you were posting were from!).
kurt wrote:Quote:
They have a choice of one candidate in the National elections. They get locked up for criticising Castro. This is not socialism and it is not democracy.
None of this is true.
You said it there.
You also said it several times on the other thread:
kurt wrote:Quote:
Ok, so tell me, in National elections in Cuba, how many people are on your ballot paper?
I believe I've mentioned this. The requirement is that a minimum of 2 candidates, and a maximum of 8 I believe.
You seem to have a very short memory considering we discussed this over and over. I must have said it about 10 times by now.
kurt wrote:Why is Democracy to you just about the single act of voting? This is a very vulgar notion of Democracy and ignores the rest of the process, and the nature of the organizations that select these candidates.
democracy is not just about voting, its about free speech and so on, none of which happens in Cuba.
The National Candidates are selected by people who have been selected by people who have been selected by the public. This is several steps away from direct choice. Plus, nobody can state their views except that they support the revolution. Basically it's taken for granted that they are not gonna oppose the regime in any significant way. The final choice is made by the Candidacy Commission. The people in that are selected by various bodies:
Confederation of Cuban Workers (Central de Trabajadores de Cuba)
· Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (Comités de Defensa de la Revolución)
· Federation of Cuban Women (Federación de Mujeres Cubanas)
· National Association of Small Farmers (Asociación Nacional de Agricultores Pequeños)
· University Students' Federation (Federación Estudiantil Universitaria)
· Federation of Secondary School Students (Federación de Estudiantes de la Enseñanza Media)
These are all controlled by the CP.
The list drawn up by the National Candidacy Commission is sent to the National Electoral Commission. The National Electoral Commission is required to verify whether the pre-election candidates proposed meet all legal requirements.
In other words, to get to be proposed as a deputy to the National Assembly, a citizen must be approved by three separate organs of the state - the National Candidacy Commission, the Municipal Candidacy Commission and the Municipal Assembly of People's Power. It is pretty much impossible, for anyone who is not an avowed fan of the regime to be nominated with this process is place. If you get 8 years for writing your views down you have zero chance of getting elected.
kurt wrote:There are similarities between the two, yet you are not willing to call the bourgeois UK state a "dictatorship" even though it has many of the same features that you claim make Cuba a dictatorship in terms of the electoral process. This to me demonstrates a bias you are bringing to the argument and your strange criteria for what constitutes a Democracy.
My arse. I do not call the UK a dictatorship because to do so would be stupid. It does not have many of the same features as Cuba.
In the UK you can state your views, campaign on them, form parties and stand in elections. And socialist do this. In Cuba you cant do any of that and socialists get sent to jail for even writing this down.
kurt wrote:Quote:what?
Basically in Cuba if you arselick the dictatorship you might get a minor role in government, if you criticise it's privilege and lack of democracy and say it needs to be changed even in private you get jailed for years.
Ah, more of the "yes it is!!!" kind of "argument"
kurt wrote:Quote:
I told you what he did he had an unpublished manuscript saying Cuba is not socialist and calling for an end to the privilege of the bureaucracy and dictatorship, calling for genuine democratic socialism. He was a popular Marxist who was guilty of honesty.
You think you can just ignore stuff like that. You have blinkers on.
I think you mean "blinders" here. And can you not write something without loaded rhetoric? The idea that his crime was "being honest" assumes quite a bit about the situation before a real examination of what happened.
He was an honest man, he dared to say what he thought. It landed him in jail.
blinker
Pronunciation: /ˈblɪŋkə/
noun
1 (blinkers) chiefly British a pair of small leather screens attached to a horse’s bridle to prevent it seeing sideways and behind and being startled.
something which prevents someone from gaining a full understanding of a situation: we are having a fresh look at ourselves without blinkers
Quote:
Cuba is ruled by a bureaucratic caste
Bureaucracy itself is not a class though, so how (under a Marxist analysis) could it be a ruling class? The claim that the bureaucracy is a ruling class is a non-Marxist explanation of what Cuba is.
I said caste not class.
bureaucratic caste cuba
About 3,710,000 results (0.26 seconds)
Quote:
Of course it isnt unique. Trotsky, Lenin, Luxemburg, Marx, Engels, all the Bolsheviks up to 1924, all said the revolution had to be international. Even in spring 1924 Stalin said revolution must be international.
What was unique about Trotsky was that he predicted world revolution starting in Russia, ie a backward country. And he was also unique in calling for the overthrow of the Duma/Provisional Government.
Also he was unique more or less in his analysis of Stalinism and fascism.
Except even you just pointed out how Trotsky had praised Gramsci's analysis of fascism that predated his.
Yes, but Trotsky wrote all the stuff explaining that the KPD was on a course for disaster.
1931:
"Germany is now passing through one of those great historic hours upon which the fate of the German people, the fate of Europe, and in significant measure the fate of all humanity, will depend for decades."
"Worker-Communists, you are hundreds of thousands, millions; you cannot leave for anyplace; there are not enough passports for you. Should fascism come to power, it will ride over your skulls and spines like a terrific tank. Your salvation lies in merciless struggle. And only a fighting unity with the Social Democratic workers can bring victory. Make haste, worker-Communists, you have very little time left!"
shame that message didnt get through the thick skulls of the Stalinist leadership.
kurt wrote:Quote:
after 1919 the blame lies with the KPD and in 1923 also lies with Stalin and Zinoviev.
Some of the blame yes, but also with the composition of the working class movement itself and how it developed. It's of course very un-Marxist (which is not important to some of course) to blame certain individuals instead of classes and overall compositions of organizations.
Empty words. The situation had no guarantee but it had a good chance. The subjective factor is the vital ingredient in any revolutionary situation. Just two people made the Russian revolution happen, Lenin and Trotsky. Without them it is unlikely the October revolution would have happened. Of course you need the objective conditions first - they were there. If anything Trotsky was a bit late in realising. What the KPD did was call a revolution and then cancel it. There is nothing worse. The masses lost any faith in them and so they had fascism instead. Well done.
uote:
As I said, some good people in the CPs sort of moved away from Stalinism but never got to discover Trotsky, mainly because he was in jail all the time from 1926-37 when he died.
Do you know that Gamsci's grandson found a letter by Gramsci's wife that said Gramsci had "intentionally prevented from attending a meeting of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Italy on the Trotsky-Stalin split, he being thought to be on the outs with the new Soviet leaders. "
Whether people were "good" or not is obviously quite subjective and a kind of political judgement that is very meaningless.
Hmm the way you've quoted this was done with poor grammar and is getting in the way of your point. Does it mean that he was prevent from attending the meeting or that he decided not to? Perhaps you should be more clear in your posts. (I wouldn't usually harp on these kinds of things, but since you like to claim you have superior English skills, I feel that you should be held to your own standards)
It is blatantly obvious that I meant to write "been" in front of the quote for fuck's sake.
kurt wrote:Quote:
He became one after the revolution.
And your point?
Castro was not a socialist so it's not so surprising that Cuba isnt socialist.
Quote:
How far Castro would have moved towards ‘domestic Marxist solutions’ and whether this would have resulted in a break with landlordism and capitalism is open to debate. What is indisputable is that the crude, threatening blunders of the US administration at the time speeded up the process of the elimination of capitalism and drove Castro into the arms of Moscow. The Russia Stalinists for their part had no prior knowledge of the main figures in the Cuban Revolution, or of where the Cuban Revolution was going. Like most other observers their conclusion, correct as it happens, despite what Lorimer says, was that the leaders of the 26 July Movement were pretty typical of Latin American revolutionaries in the past. Alexander Alexiev, a KGB agent, who was instructed to make contact with Castro and Guevara, wrote that he was originally
And what is the point of all of this either? You even claim that there was a process of the elimination of capitalism in progress and that the US simply made it accelerate. What exactly is that supposed to prove again? And what is the relevance of what the Russians knew or didn't know versus what Marxists like Che Guevara, Raul Castro, etc. knew?
I'm not even sure what your point/argument about Castro is here. You keep saying that "he wasn't originally a Communist!" as if it's some revelation. The problem with your harping on the point is that it is very well known that he wasn't as left-leaning originally as Raul and Che until the revolution. So you're not really saying anything new or controversial with that claim.
The point is that Castro wasnt trying to establish socialism and seeing as he runs the country its hardly surprising that it isnt socialist.
The fact that the Russians didnt know who he was is important because this was about the only Stalinist state where the Stalinists were barely involved. It was America which forced Castro to go to the Russians.
You say it is common knowledge that Castro wasn't a communist but on the thread I did specifically you spent weeks arguing against it, even claiming that he might have been a closet Marxist. You did agree that he may well not have been a s left wing as some of the others.
The point of that thread was to establish facts, such as the fact that Castro was not a socialist never mind a Marxist with a clear strategy like Lenin and Trotsky. It's obvious from the fact that he led a guerilla war in the countryside, that is not a Marxist tactic.
The subjective factor is crucial. This had been the tragedy of the 20th century. The one revolution not contaminated with Stalinism still ended up in the Stalinist camp.
"in reality it was the Communists above all others who prevented revolution in Spain" George Orwell
Economic Left/Right: -10.0 Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -8.31