Date: 	Thu, 20 Jun 1996 12:33:16 -0700
From: Tony Tracy <ttracy-AT-direct.ca>
Subject: Re: State Capitalism and Cuba


At 01:31 PM 20/06/96 -0400, Louis Proyect wrote:

>Louis: Oh, no. Not another state capitalist! This is like the final scene
>in "Night of the Living Dead". Somebody please nail some planks up against
>the window before another zombie creeps in. First of all, knucklehead,
>before you go jumping feet first into a debate on a list like this, you
>should learn the terrain a little bit or else somebody nasty like me is
>going to punch you in the nose figuratively speaking.
>
>Now, as to the question of Cuba vs Canada on health-care. What is wrong
>with you, puppy-dog? Canada is an IMPERIALIST nation. Cuba is an
>agricultural, THIRD-WORLD country that has been facing economic warfare
>from the USA for its entire existence. It is UNIQUE for having the kind
>of superior health care and education facilities it has among countries
>with similar socio-economic characteristics. The comparison is not between
>Canada and Cuba. It is between Cuba and Jamaica.

Clearly Louis had way to much fun as a child in the playground: he doesn't
seem capable of debating a question without resorting to pre-adolescent name
calling ("knucklehead"? "puppy-dog"? "zombie"? an offer to punch me in the
nose? --- my pre-school aged daughter can do better than that...).

In answer to what little substance Louis encloses in his reply -- yes, Cuba
has managed to bring about some reforms in the midst of an anti-imperialist
struggle. And I defend those reforms. However, reforms (as I attempted,
briefly, to point out) do not make for socialism.

As I had said, a consistent *Marxist* approach to socialism is one which
defines the question on the balance of class forces. Do workers actually
*control* the means of production in Cuba? If so, by what means? Or is a
nationalized economy alone, or some reforms in social programs, enough to
create a workers' state of some type.

What characteristics do you believe that Cuba has that would indicate to you
that it is in any way socialist, moving towards socialism, headed by
socialists, a workers' state of any type? 

At least Malecki, in the midst of his whining from "exile" about people
posting who hold a state capitalist analysis, takes the question a bit more
seriously:

At 20:30:58 20/06/96, Robert Malecki wrote:

>But still the Question comes down to some very basics. Class struggle and 
>revolutionary uppheavals in those states that, either the workers overthrew 
>(Russia) and the various states where peasant armies overthrew the 
>capitalist class and started on a road of transition to socialim. Despite 
>the deformations and degenerations Communist defend these great gains earned 
>in blood by struggle of millions of people.

Yes, Malecki: revolutionaries defend gains and reforms. Clearly. And
revolutionaries oppose imperialism and imperialist intervention. Certainly. 

However, I would argue, like Marx, that socialism must come from the working
class itself -- not from "peasant armies" or petit-bourgeois intellectuals
(Fidel & Che for example), but the working class. No shortcuts. Other groups
(such as "peasant armies") certainly can contribute to a struggle against
imperialism and for national self-determination, but they cannot lead a
fight for socialism -- workers' control of the means of production.  

While the struggle against imperialism and the fight for national
self-determination are fundamentally linked to class struggle, they are not
a substitute for a real working class approach to obtaining socialism.

Tony Tracy
International Socialists



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