From: NICK.HOLDEN-AT-geo2.poptel.org.uk
Date: Mon, 19 Aug 1996 08:21:08 GMT
Subject: Re: Cuba: Workers State



Hugh said:
> > I think we can all imagine Adolfo with a superpower state machine 
(secret
> > service, trained assassins, a money trough etc) to put some real clout
> > behind his musings.


Which upset Richard:
> Do you think that after a Communist seizure of state power the current
> ruling class is going to say, like the old cockney criminals in their
> striped Tshirts and bags marked swag, "It's a fair cop guv! You got me
> fair banged to rights. I'll come quiet."?
> 
> They will use everything at their disposal to prevent, and defeat a
> revolution. They will not give up even one or two years later. It is
> plain common-sense that a revolution has a duty to defend itself against
> a ruthless ememy who will do just about every horrible, nightmarish thing
> you can imagine.
> 
> Maybe you think we should just tell them to read some dusty book by Leon
> Trotsky, and they would all be convinced of the rightiousness of your
> cause. But then a Trotskyist party could never get in the position to
> make those real choices, could it?


Given Trotsky's role in organising the red Army to resist the 
counter-revolution after October, I think the above is unecessary and 
political wide of the mark. You may have great criticisms of Hugh, and his 
tendency, but I don't think that should blind you to history.

I would have thought we could all agree on the need for suppression of 
counter-revolution. The question is the form in which this suppression is 
administered, and whether, as Aldofo seems to think, it should go on for 
ever and ever, suppressing more and more effectively as the workers' state 
develops, or whether it should be a product of the transition to socialism, 
i.e. a necessary but unpleasant historical stage in the dictatorship of the 
proletariat - once we have conquered, the aim, surely, is freedom?

Do you think the Bolsheviks (Lenin any more than Trotsky) enjoyed the 
suppression of Kronstadt? Of course not. They sought ways to lessen the 
'necessary level' of state suppression, but were governed by history.

Regards,


NickH



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