File spoon-archives/marxism.archive/marxism_1996/96-06-marxism/96-06-26.161, message 62


Date: Fri, 21 Jun 1996 11:55:09 -0400 (EDT)
From: Louis N Proyect <lnp3-AT-columbia.edu>
Subject: Where state capitalism gets its information


Jorn :
----
A French-Polish journalist, K.S. Karol, has written a book called 
something like "Cuba: The Guerillas in Power" (I have only a Danish
edition - the original French title is "Les Guerilleros au Pouvoir", ca.
1970) which is very pro-Castro, but also very open about how the
revolution developed.

Karol confirms what I wrote above. Several times he says that power was
ready for the first who was willing to take it. And there were other small
movements who tried. The Barbudos ("the bearded men" in the mountains) and
the Llanos (city guerillas) were first of all *military* units, not
political organizations. There were never important meetings like a
conference, congress in the M. 26.7 movement. There was a national
directorium (these names are all re-translated from Dansih, so...) but it
only met twice, in Feb 57 and in May 58, and important leaders like Che
Guevara and Raoul Castro were not members.


Louis: 
-----
Jorn bases his understanding of what took place in Cuba from
a journalist who he describes as "very pro-Castro" as if he had Castroite
credentials. The truth is that K.S. Karol writes for bourgeois
publications like L'Express exclusively and he is not "very pro-Castro".
He is hostile to Castro and the rest of the Cuban leadership, including
the late Che Guevara.

What Jorn does tries to do with this book is substantiate a claim that the
July 26th Movement was not democratic because there "were never important
meetings like a conference." What Jorn fails to point out is that Karol's
claim on this matter is unsubstantiated and unfootnoted. Karol's book is a
series of journalistic impressions and nothing more. The final paragraphs
are a hostile attack on the Cubans from a peculiar Maoist spin in which he
advocates "cultural revolution" in Cuba.

If this is the sort of information that British SWPers use to form their
impression of revolutionary Cuba, then god help us. We are treated first
to the sneering IS'er from Canada who says, "Cuba has got universal
health-care. Big deal. So do we." Then, we get Jorn holding up K.S. Karol
as "very pro-Castro".

It seems to me that unless we share come kind of common understanding of
what a journalist like K.S. Karol stands for, or why it is ridiculous to
compare Cuba to Canada, then it will be difficult for each side in this
debate to understand each other. Since the state capitalists already have
their minds made up, as befits the vanguard of the working-class, it is
not such a problem for them. It is for the rest of us.



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