Is Cuba’s revolution still relevant for the left?

[willp]

I knew a conservative family, and the only book of Orwell's they had was Homage to Catalonia. The reason? Because it fitted in with their conservative belief that it was right to support Franco, because he opposed the 'Stalinists'.
Which government sent the most aid to the Spanish Republic?
Which government alone denounced the Non-Intervention Committee, where the British and French governments stifled Soviet aid to Spain while assisting Hitler and Mussolini to aid Franco?
Who fought the longest and hardest against Franco?
The POUM? No, too busy launching an insurrection in Barcelona against the Republic.
The anarchists? No, too busy organising collectives that refused to send their produce to the government.
Naturally, Orwell didn't spend much time looking at the big picture, being too busy praising those saboteurs, the POUM and the anarchists.

[Jon Teunon]

I'm sure that your conservative family will have been surprised to learn that Orwell believed that the returning soldiers British soldiers from WW2 should keep their arms to use in a revolution at home...

The point is Willp that just because many on the right (including Churchill) used the dead Orwell's works for their own agenda because they misunderstood (deliberately or not) his very original views and left politics, does not detract from the overall point that Orwell was right and remember like the communist International Brigades which you no doubt salute - he put his life on the line fighting Fascism. The rightist mentality will turn any work into capitalist propaganda including Das Capital (as do the authoritarian left).

As an argument it is as useless and equally dubious as a capitalist to use the obvious failings of the USSR to dismiss a democratic socialism. It is lazy thinking.

As he made clear in the book the family you knew so missed the point on if everyone on the left killed just one Fascist - then the defeat would be defeated, which is not quite what those communists such as Victor Gollancz so nice at safe in London were doing was it?

and any attempt at historical impartiality on your point is severely compromised by your last sentence:

'The anarchists? No, too busy organising collectives that refused to send their produce to the government.
Naturally, Orwell didn't spend much time looking at the big picture, being too busy praising those saboteurs, the POUM and the anarchists.'

Anyone with just a passing knowledge of the Spanish Revolution knows that like the Republicans, socialists and communists large numbers of the anarchists were dying at the front. (And they claim that they were badly supplied compared to the communist columns – which if your disgraceful view is representative of the Stalinists of the time that they were merely sabateurs – seems highly likely. (There are parallels between Stalin’s aid here to that of the IMF more recently – here Comrades have the arms by all means – but there are strings attached – oh and I’ll have all you Gold Reserves as well. Oh yes it’s called Imperialism. How comradely and ‘communist’!)

And without the heroic spontaneous uprising by the men and women in Catalonia (thousands and thousands of ‘ordinary’ working class members of the CNT and FAI that you’re smearing) there would have been no Republic for the USSR to use for their own agenda – because it would have been run over by the coup made by the Military Right July 18-19 1936.

(And if you this reading of Stalin’s motives –then read Hugh Thomas’ Spanish Civil War – just as example there are many others - who while no supporter of the CNT, FAI or POUM (in fact anarchists think he is against them) demonstrates how Stalin was less concerned with an absolute victory over Franco – but with keeping Britain and France ‘on side’ which meant destroying any revolutionary gains including the collectives you so deride. (This kind of twisted ‘revolutionary logic’ eventually led to the disgraceful Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of August 24 1939 -with streams of desperate Spanish refuggees still trying to get into France to avoid Franco's butchers - only to find concentration camps waiting for them supplied by the French Popular Front government).

Whereas I made the point that most ordinary communists who bravely fought against Franco should not be belittled for terrible violence inflicted by their leaders – you merely dismiss all anarchists and POUM militiamen and women as 'saboteurs'.

If that is your ‘big picture’ it seems that those who represent the authoritarian left have learnt precious little from the 20th century.


 

[willp]

Thatcher made Hugh Thomas a life peer in 1981, which surely proves what class he serves. Or do you think she just loved his history for its impartiality?

His history of the war in Spain is biased to favour the British ruling class, and to smear it enemies. 

And (as you prove by drafting them both in to sustain your hostility to the USSR), Orwell's analysis is little different from Thomas's.

[Editor]

Che Guevara: The Economics of Revolution
Helen Yaffe explores impact of Che Guevara as an economist and politician

http://www.redpepper.org.uk/Che-Guevara-The-Economics-of

[Brigg57]

I don't think Ché is served at all well by this type of deification.

He was a brave man who put his gun where his mouth was, and he paid the price. He died fighting for the poor; that's enough to earn our deep respect, as it was for Rosa Luxemburg.

But to claim that he was teh answer to the capitalist crisis of 2007 on doesn't wash wiht me.

Ché was hardly the great economist, because he applied psychology to management and urged ‘voluntary’ labour in creating a new socialist man, or woman, or something – outside Cuba, this was called Human Relations management, developed by Elton Mayo, teh human rcomplent to Taylorism; Ché combined it with the Stakhanovism of ‘voluntary’ labour.

Right. The origins of the awful Personnel departments, or Human Relations departments, combined with hard work for little reward. I can see how it was forced on Cuba during the dreadful economic isolation forced on them by the US blockade. But I can't imagine anyone here voting for it. You'll need a dictatorship to impose it.

I know. Let's call it - er - the dictatorship of the proletariat, which isn't a dictatorship at all because we all know we support it so it's really democracy.

[Pablo N]

To read Diana Raby's review of the book 'Che Guevara: The Economics of Revolution' by Helen Yaffe visit:

http://www.walterlippmann.com/docs2471.html

[willp]

Dear Brigg57, as I was reading yet another fascinating book by Joseph Stiglitz (Fair trdae for all) the other day - as you do - I came across a thought that he put far better than I managed, which seems to me to be relevant to our earlier discussions about economic self-reliance.

“the issue facing most countries is not a binary choice of autarky (no trade) or free trade, but rather a choice among a spectrum of trade regimes with varying degrees of liberalisation.”

So I think we might agree that in rejecting some pure notion of free trade, we do not have to embrace autarchy.
Cuba, like the USSR and China, had to make the best of a bad job, as the Western states in each case blockaded them as tightly as they could.
Self-reliance is not a bad guiding principle, and really each country should be allowed to make its own choices about each act of trade - asking, is this in our interests? Or is it in the interests solely of the MNC or bank involved?

[no2much]

Dear Brigg 57

Youy say Ché was hardly 'the great economist',. Well Helen Yaffe's book doesn't claim that he was 'great', but rather he carried out a systematic criticism  of  existing types of incentive systems, including those in the USSR. It is also obvious that he was exceptionally well informed about economic debates over development under conditions of  imperialist intimidation/domination, and participated in these debates publically to great effect. I suspect you have not read any of these debates nor understand how brilliant he was.

He certainly wanted to study 'applied psychology to management', and certainly urged ‘voluntary’ labour , as a part of the development of  socialist consciousness. However for you to say that ' – outside Cuba, this was called Human Relations management, developed by Elton Mayo, teh human rcomplent to Taylorism; Ché combined it with the Stakhanovism of ‘voluntary’ labour.'... is really preposterous confusion. First the study of the role of the mind in relation to work, of consciousness, was studied by the bourgeoisie well before Elton Mayo, and for quite directly nefarious purposes, eg First world war production processes. Secondly the bourgeoisie could hardly be said to be trying to consciously design socialism, or to care for the mind and human happiness in the process!

If you are suggesting that there is no difference between the purposes or means, for which the study of the human mind takes place under imperialism,  and that which Che intended,  than your 'respect' for him certainly should only be restricted to the fact that 'He was a brave man who put his gun where his mouth was'! (Your sentence construction merits a Freudian Analysis).  To equate bourgeoise management priorities with Cuban prioriites shows a profound ignorance of the social relations of production in Cuba, which today have taken up again the discussions that Che lead at an earlier stage.
 

[Brigg57]

dear no2much,

I'm sure that when you refer to my phrase that Ché put his gun where his mouth was, you didn't really mean that it was the sentence construction, which merits a 'Freudian Analysis', but the image.

Not intended by me, genuinely.

if you read the post carefully, you’ll notice I stated that Cuba was in a state of blockade and enforced poverty, and in this thread I’ve expressed my admiration for the people of Cuba in standing up to US might, even when the USSR fell. Ché’s conception of using management psychology and voluntary labour were unavoidable in meeting that blockade. They were geared to making people work harder – to work very hard indeed – and they were necessary because without such work (and the help offered by the USSR), starvation would have destroyed Cuban independence and returned the island to a state of servitude to the US.

I then said that such an economics was not applicable to the West in the financial turmoil since 2007. Unless an economic collapse takes place, I doubt that the need to work hard is needed for a transition to socialism here.

As far as management techniques are concerned, then Taylorism and Mayo’s Human Relations School are not necessarily tied to the capitalist system of factory production in which they were born. Lenin declared Taylorism to be essential to the construction of socialism because it was an efficient organisation of the production line – it was more productive, it enabled people to work harder. Management theory is often geared to making the workforce work harder. Now that can be done under capitalist conditions, but it can also be done under the siege conditions of a stratified economy such as Cuba.

I am very aware of Soviet economic debates about incentives in the early-mid 1960s, and the failure of the Soviet regime to overcome the problem. The debates were extensive, and involved a lot of argument about the market and a market-determined wage, which Ché didn’t want. My opinions on these don’t really fit here, but to me the best analysis of the dynamics of the Soviet economy have been put forward by Hillel Ticktin in his Critique articles and in his origins of the Crisis in the USSR (1992). That is not an analysis that Cubans would agree with.

The Cubans didn’t have the same problem because the Revolution, the dreadful conditions which were ended by the  Revolution, and the ever-present menace of such a mighty power as the US seem to have enforced a genuine élan among much of the people. As time goes on, problems inevitably arise, of course, but from what I see the Obama administration is bringing the possibility of ending the US blockade – I only hope that the possibility is made a reality, but we’ll see. I look forward to the restoration of civil liberties there. However, manufacturing happiness and ‘a new man’ strikes me as a chilling example of Stalinism at its worst.

When I put Ché on a par with Rosa Luxemburg, it's genuinely meant. The guy was totally dedicated to the struggle for socialism, and died fighting for the poor. I was taught from quite an early age to look on Rosa with deep respect, and have never had reason to lose that. When children trooped into the class of one woman I knew, then teaching in Vienna, all chanting happily that the Jew-bitch was dead, they all wondered why the teacher couldn't speak for tears. I can imagine that scene.

However, that doesn't mean I deify Rosa, heaping adulation and hyper-praise whenever I speak of her. Her ideas on imperialism, nationalism and even the mass strike arouse varying degrees of disagreement. Nevertheless, the respect is quiet; deep but quiet. 

Helen Yaffe's book seems to make the documents of the debate concerning 'the new man' available for the first time in English; I'm glad, and her book deserves publication on that basis alone. But my respect for Ché as a fighter for the poor isn't reduced by my disagreements with his third-world politics or with his analysis of socialism.

[willp]

Brigg57 wrote, "from what I see the Obama administration is bringing the possibility of ending the US blockade – I only hope that the possibility is made a reality, but we’ll see. I look forward to the restoration of civil liberties there. However, manufacturing happiness and ‘a new man’ strikes me as a chilling example of Stalinism at its worst."
Well, Obama doesn't seem to be making much progress on ending the blockade, or indeed on anything else (apart from saving the bankers).
I too look forward to the restoration of civil liberties in the USA - oh, dear, now I see - I think Brigg meant restoring civil liberties in Cuba.
Which liberties do they lack in Cuba? How about the right to a fair trial?
Cubans have more chance of a fair trial in Cuba than they do in the USA. See the five Cubans infamously jailed for decades in the 'land of the free' for exposing terrorist plots against Cuba, hatched in Miami.
And Cubans imprisoned in Cuba live in far more civilised conditions, have far more rights, than anybody unlucky enough to be jailed in the notoriously vile jails of the USA.