Date: Sat, 24 Aug 1996 18:06:56 +0200
From: m-14970-AT-mailbox.swipnet.se (Hugh Rodwell)
Subject: Re: Rum do's in the beast's back yard


Louis P has a ball:

>> * Economic situation in Cuba: up shit creek without a paddle (cf 1a).

>Louis: This is a bald assertion without any supporting data. Do you
>have figures on Cuba's economic growth in this general period? "Up shit
>creek without a paddle?" Did Trotsky ever write this way? (Trotsky, you
>know, the deceased goateed Russian revolutionary.)

This in fact summarizes the generally accepted view on Cuba's economic
situation at the time. Find an authority who disagrees, and tell us about
it. Then tell us why Fidel contradicts your authority in his confession of
economic chaos and failure on 26 July 1970.

Why should I write like Trotsky? What I'm doing here is providing a summary
of not very controversial positions on the Cuban situation in a drastic and
humorous style, with a touch of Australian gusto.


>> * Voluntaristically (non)planned,

>Louis: I posted a lengthy article on Che Guevara's approach to >
>planning. What exactly was missing in his approach that can be found
>in the Bolshevik Age of Titans whose temple you worship at.

'Voluntaristic' means substituting the will for planned, prepared work
appropriate to solving the material task at hand -- will rather than
intellect combined with material preconditions. Classic case of voluntarist
policy: the Great Cultural Revolution.

Che's approach to a centralized economy was taken the whole way in the
nationalizing offensive of early 1968, but his approach to the planning
needed to make it run was dismantled in the mid-60s, when he left the
Ministry of Industries. The effects of the Law of Value on a small and
relatively weak workers' state in a world-market under imperialist hegemony
were not appreciated, material incentives were dismissed and moral
incentives lauded, which meant the army ended up doing the work.

A paragraph from the Cambridge History of Latin America (Cuban bits
compiled in Cuba: A short history):

        Paradoxically, as the economy became thoroughly centralized,
        the means for central planning and control were abandoned. In
        the late 1960s there were neither real year-to-year national
        plans nor any medium-term planning. From late 1966 onwards
        only sectoral planning  occurred, but on a limited basis and
        with little effort to reconcile the often conflicting claims
        on the same resources from unconnected enterprises and
        projects. A central budget was also abandoned, not to
        reappear until a decade later. Fidel Castro launched an
        attack on 'bureaucratism' which crippled the capacity of
        several central agencies. Financial accounting and auditing
        were discontinued; statistics were kept only in physical
        quantities (e.g., pairs of shoes). It became impossible to
        determine the costs of production for most items.

>> * non-centralized objectives rule,

>Yes, you have to watch out for those "non-centalized objectives".
>Is this something like "problematized hermeneutics"?

The content is covered by the paragraph quoted. The language, too.
'Non-centralized' means not gathered into a centre, which is pretty obvious
if central planning and central budgeting is dumped. 'Objectives' means
goals, ends, aims, what you're trying to achieve, where you're trying to
get. Like 10 million tons of sugar by 1970 is an objective.

'Problematized' means made into something 'problematic', that is, not
self-evident. Something that can and should be questioned. A bit jargony,
but straightforward. 'Hermeneutics' means (among other things) the 'study
and interpretation of human behaviour and social institutions' (Collins).
It's from Greek 'hermeneutikos' expert in interpretation, 'hermeneuein' to
interpret, 'hermeneues' interpreter. 'Interpretation' means 'to clarify or
explain the meaning of' or to 'construe the significance or intention of'.

'Non-centralized objectives' have nothing to do with 'problematized
hermeneutics' except in Louis P's narrow and envious mind.


>> * reinforced by non-statistics.

>Louis: "Non-statistics"? Hmmm, love to hear more about this. Did you >read
>this somewhere or just decide to type it, thinking
>it would sound impressive.

Again, the content is covered by the paragraph I quoted. The stylistic
presentation is my own. Just as is Louis's oh-so-relevant comment. If you
think Cuban statistics at the time were so damn good -- defend them!

>> * 'Micro-faction' expulsions of 1967 get up Moscow's nose,

>Louis: Notice Hugh's probing analysis of the politics of the
>expulsion. Notice his careful attention to Castro's speech
>explaining the expulsion. Such Marxist scholarship would turn Isaac
>>Deutscher green with envy.

'Get up the nose of' means to irritate beyond measure. It needs no great
depth of insight to realize that the expulsions were extremely irritating
to Moscow, sorry, I mean the Stalinist leadership of the Soviet Union. If
Louis thinks the motivation for the expulsion was not what I claimed (a
threat by Moscow hacks to the traditional leadership of the revolution,
with institutional backing in the army, and I ought to add for extra
clarity -- though it shouldn't be necessary given that these events took
place less than ten years after a victorious revolution that wasn't
followed by the blood-letting that decimated the revolutionary cadre of
October -- a social base in the mass of the people who benefited materially
>from the revolution) -- if Louis thinks otherwise, let him substantiate his
point.


>> * this spring has come to be known as the Prague spring,
>>
>> * things were happening everywhere
>>
>> * Poor Che [he was a wonderful bloke, and how!] was dead in
>> Bolivia,
>
>Louis: These three points are staggering in their emptyheadedness.
>Did you get trained to speak such banalities in an cadre
>training school in the Pampas or did you always have it in you?

You, me rusty old bed-spring, are not one to talk of empty-headedness. You
live in a glass house, old son.

The point about the characterization of the spring (I apologize to everyone
who thought it was obvious) was that there was an international
revolutionary upsurge under way. One major event I left out that was still
reverberating everywhere was the Cultural Revolution, providing a massive
impulse to voluntarist thinking throughout the world.

>> * voluntaristically trying to create a hundred new Vietnams

>Louis: Actually, he was trying to create one new Vietnam in Bolivia. >It
>was the worst mistake of his life.

Louis makes it a personal mistake. I'd rather see it as a reflection of the
Cuban revolutionary leadership and its perspective on revolution and
internationalism. It cost Che his life and led much revolutionary effort in
Latin America astray. Che's death was a tragedy. He was a thinking
revolutionary leader who was quite capable of developing beyond the
limitations of the Cuban experience and Stalinism given the right
historical setting.


>> * 'Shaft the workers of the world, Fidel me old sugarlump,
>>[= Comandante Castro, help us crush this worldwide revolutionary
>>upsurge]

>Louis: This certainly does explain the Cuban army's willingness to
>assist the imperialist project in Southern Africa. There must have
>been something that was fiendishly complicated from dialectistical
>standpoint to explain the Cuba-Afrikaner conflict. Must have been a
>>subtle Stalinist ruse. Anti-imperialism on the face of it; class-
>collaboration underneath the service. Of course, since Rodwell
>thinks the ANC is Stalinoid as well, who knows. I would love to
>engage the miscreant Rodwell in a discussion of African politics as
>well. His knowledge in this area is probably scantier than his
>knowledge of Central and Latin America.

Nothing subtle about it. You said it yourself: anti-imperialism on the face
of it, class-collaboration underneath the 'service'.

(Note the spelling errors and botched punctuation in Louis's posting. This
>from someone who has attacked Robert M countless times for stylistic
negligence!!)

The word is not 'Stalinoid', it's Stalinist. The ground you stand on Louis.
Your troubles with the SWP weren't because they had a lousy regime, but
because you couldn't stomach the Trotskyist, Bolshevik-Leninist class
principles that they were based on, in spite of imperfections.

Cuban military help to Africa is dialectical indeed. But it's not subtle.
It was tangible internationalism *within the counter-revolutionary
constraints of Soviet diplomacy*. I notice you don't mention Cuban help to
the bloodstained butchers of Addis Abeba. You don't analyse the
revolutionary socialist credentials of the MPLA. Basically, you don't
analyse anything, you just spit venom all over me (and every other
Bolshevik-Leninist on the list) using any pretext you can find.

Note that Cuba didn't intervene in the really important struggle in
Southern Africa -- South Africa itself. If it had, it would have suppressed
any attempts by the South African proletariat to take the revolution beyond
the Stalinist limits (successfully imposed by the ANC) of the Two-Stage
Revolution. Not even a chance to strangle a successful revolution using the
line of Socialism in One Country.

And the ridiculous situation of full-scale military intervention half-way
round the world and powder-puff coyness on its own doorstep in Nicaragua!


>Recommendation: If you want to learn how to utter unsubstantiated
>rhetorical hot-air balloons, just get in touch with Hugh Rodwell.

Tu quoque, Lou me old fish-head. You speak of yourself.

>This is what Trotskyism has come to: Rodwell's sterile phrase-
>mongering and Malecki's ritual incantations for Trotskyist parties
>everywhere or else.

Revel in your universe of ignorant arrogance and bad-tempered putdowns,
Lou, for as long as it can keep the real world at bay.

Cheers,

Hugh





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