Date: Tue, 8 Aug 2000 03:35:24 -0700 (PDT)
From: Jamal Hannah <jah-AT-iww.org>
Subject: "castro messiah"


---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 8 Aug 2000 01:30:05 -0700 (PDT)
From: "[iso-8859-1] laurkhi" <laurkhi-AT-yahoo.com>
To: redskin-AT-egroups.com (Red/Anarchist Skinhead Mailing-List)
Subject: Re: [redskin] castro messiah


--- Darío Sánchez <reddario-AT-hotmail.com> wrote: > 
> Well, socialism is a necesary step to change a
> capitalist regime into a 
> communist regime. The term socialism evokes the
> opposition to any form of 
> egoism.

My first objection! Socialism in my opinion must mean
that the working class follows it's own interests and
not the interests of the bourgeoisie. Socialism in
this sense means collective egoism of the working
class. 

> Marx said that after capitalism were defeated it was
> going to be a new 
> period inferior to communism, it is called the
> socialist stage. After that 
> stage it is going to be a new stage very
> evolitionated, more properly called 
> communist.
> During the socialist stage the old capitalists
> methods will be replaced with 
> new ones in order to establish the bases for the
> next step of the revolution 
> (communism). 

So far so good.

> The principal changes are, the way of
> distribution of the 
> products, change in in the productive forces,
> agrarian reform, crisis of the 
> old political parties and the capital gain will not
> be giong to the pockets 
> of the owners of private production, instead it will
> be going to a colective 
> found to attend the enlargement of the production,
> administration, schools, 
> health centers, etcetera. Like in Cuba, so Cuba has
> followed the steps to 
> get to the socialism stage.

Here we must make the necessery distinction between
socialism and nationalization.

> The cows, sorry I mean the people in this period
> will have the opportunity 
> to participate in political desicions and they will
> be an important part of 
> the evolution.
> But this is not an easy process, there must be an
> organization that takes 
> the charge of the revolution and lead it. The
> porpose of this organization 
> is to lead the masses and abolish the privileges of
> capitalism, wich is a 
> big step going toward equality and freedom.
> Fidel Castro more or less said this once "the party
> recapitulates 
> everything, inside-it is where the the dreams of all
> the revolutionaries of 
> our history find their  synthesis. The party is the
> soul of the Cuban 
> Revolution" 

This is the leninist fallacy. The one that confuses
the party with class. From this follows that a
leninist can say that the dictatorship of the party
means the dictatorship of the proletariat because the
party and only the party can represent proletarian
interests. This is unforgivable from both marxist and
anarchist viewpoints. Obviously there must be
organization, but this organization must encompass the
whole class.

> This is one more step of Cuba to the
> socialism stage.
> Here's a very interesting point to dicuss,
> "plurality of parties or unique 
> party?" The socialist tendence has a very importance
> in the concept of 
> class, the class is formed of many varieties of
> tendences. So it is normal 
> that socialism pefers the plurality of parties, but
> how about communism? In 
> the second fase of the revolution, there's a new
> political revolution to 
> affirm the overthrow of the old sistem and and
> reaffirm the party as the 
> unique party that is able to manage the revolution. 

In socialism, if we agree with your definition, there
must indeed be a plurality of "parties". One of the
reasons for this is the division of labour. "The class
is formed of many varieties."

As for communism:

"In place of the old bourgeois society, with its
classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an
association in which the free development of each is
the condition for the free development of all."

In other words in communism the interests of the
individual are the interests of the community and the
other way around. Communism's heart is the
self-determination of the commune. At this point at
least
a governing party distinct from the rest of the
community would be unnecessery as well as harmful.

> So, what's Cuba's case? 
> is it a dictadorship? or is it just an historic
> process?

In my opinion it's still a failure. For communism
people (or cows or whatever) must learn
self-determination. This is not something that can be
imposed from above. It's something that is learnt in
the struggle itself.

> [...]
> 
> -THE NEW MAN-
> 
> Only a real revolution is able to create a new man,
> a complete revolutionary 
> must work all the hours of his/her life, he/she must
> feel the the revolution 
> so that hours of work won't be any sacrifice because
> you will be implanting 
> all your time in a fight for the social benefit, if
> this activity really 
> satisfaces the one who practices it, the definition
> "sacriface" will mean 
> nothing. This must be a principal quality of any
> revolutionary, feel the 
> revolution as it is to work with meticulousness. But
> it isn't that simple, 
> as everything it has a dark side, the hardest part
> of being revolutionary is 
> to know how to define your fellings, all
> revolutionary must be impulsed for 
> a lot of love joined to a great passionate spirit in
> order to orient all 
> your actions to just one objetive, to improve the
> social enviromet.
> ... the vogue of a cold mind and thinker will help
> to take painful 
> desicions...
> 
> After this I do declare that the new man of Che
> Guevara is a
> socialist-communist revolutionary. (romantic)

Your declaration is indeed a little romantic. For me
the idea of the new man stems from the idea the
society determines the nature of man and not the other
way around. If we wish to create a new man we must
create a new society. The substance of society - what
kind of society it is - is of extreme importance. And
the substance of society are the relations within it.
If the society is authoritarian the people in it will
be sheep (or cows).Mao's China for example was
extremely authoritarian. There one man held hegemony
over the rest of society. And the rest of society
mirrored him. Remember the Mao suits for example. For
creating a socialist man we must have socialism. The
working class must be hegemonic, it must have direct
power over production as well as politics. Because if
someone else can control the politics he can control
the producers as well. And thus he can control
production - and we have a class society again.


> 
> I believe whatever I want, I know what I experince,
> I've learned anarchism 
> is not going to overthrow capitalism.

Learnt from where?

>[...]
> 
> Hey! hey! no so fast! you mean Castro didn't have
> confidence in the masses? 
> then, can you tell me how the hell he made a
> revolution?
>

You're yourself rather quick to confuse Castro with
Cuban masses, as if one man could represent the whole
multitude.
 
> Sorry about my English, I tried to do my best.
> 
> 

No need to apologize, my English is far from perfect
too. Unfortunately it's the only language we have in
common at this point.

> Darío Sánchez
> 
> "la verdad no debe ser simplemente la verdad
> la verdad también debe ser divulgada" FC


In solidarity.
l.

Ps. For an anarcho-syndicalist critique of Cuba see:
http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/anarchist_archives/bright/dolgoff/cubanrevolution/toc.html


__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Kick off your party with Yahoo! Invites.
http://invites.yahoo.com/

--------------------------------------------------------------------<e|-
Get a NextCard Visa, in 30 seconds! Apply NOW!
1. Fill in the brief application
2. Receive approval decision within 30 seconds
3. Get rates as low as 0.0% Intro APR and no annual fee!
http://click.egroups.com/1/7874/3/_/17316/_/965723406/
--------------------------------------------------------------------|e>-