An early anarchist critique of Castroism. If you read it, make note of the crits of Huberman and Sweezy, http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/anarchist_archives/bright/dolgoff/cubanrevolution/toc.html
http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/anarchist_archives/bright/dolgoff/cubanrevolution/chapter2.html
>...In 1964 Monthly Review, a Marxist-Leninist journal, published a special 96 page essay, Inside the Cuban Revolution, written by Adolfo Gilly, a fanatical "left wing" pro-Castro Argentine journalist who lived among the Cuban people for more than ayear. Although Gilly acknowledges the deformation of the Cuban revolution, he is "... still unconditionally on the side of the Revolution." (preface, p. vii) Gilly was nevertheless bitterly denounced by Castro. The following excerpts from his essay best illustrate the kind of muddled thinking which leads to the most glaring contradictions by "leftist" Castroite critics:
Statement: "the State defends the position ... and concrete economic interests of the functionaries, the State itself, the Party and the union bureaucracy ... the people have no direct power ... the State creates and defends positions of privilege." (p. 42) Contradiction: "The State is the workers' very own" (p.46)
Statement: "Just as there has not appeared in the Cuban leadership any tendency that proposes self-management, neither has there appeared any which looks to the development of those bodies which in a socialist democracy express the will of the people; soviets, workers' councils, unions independent of the State, etc. ..." (p. 40-41) Contradiction: "... in Cuba the masses feel that they have begun to govern their own lives ..." (p. 78)
Statement: "When it comes to decisions of the government, it never allows dissent or criticism or proposals for change ... nothing can be published without permission ..." (p.28) Contradiction: "There is no country today where there is greater freedom and democracy than in Cuba." (ibid.)
Like Gilly, the editors of the Monthly Review, Leo Huberman and Paul Sweezy, also combine extravagant praise with what adds up to a devastating indictment of the Castro regime:
... the success achieved by the Cuban Revolution ... the upsurge of mass living standard to create a quantity and quality of popular support for the Revolutionary Government ... and its supreme leader Fidel Castro ... has few, if any, parallels (Socialism in Cuba; N.Y., New York, 1970, p. 203, 204) ... there have been remarkable achievements in the economic field and there will be even more remarkable ones in the future ... (p. 65)
Huberman and Sweezy then inadvertantly deny their own statements:
nearly everything is scarce in Cuba today (p. 129) ... there is the continuing difficult economic situation. Daily life is hard, and after ten years many people are tired ... tending to lose confidence in the leadership's ability to keep its optimistic promises ... the ties that bind the masses to their paternalistic government are beginning to erode ... (p. 217-218)
While the examples of the alleged economic "achievementes" are indeed rare, the catastrophic collapse of the economy and the mass discontent for which the "Revolutionary Government" is directly responsible are overwhelmingly documented. (see pgs. 74, 81, 82, 86, 103, 107, 200, 205-207, 217-220)
To create material incentives and reduce absenteeism the Revolutionary leadership, to its everlasting credit ... has at no time committed the folly of restoring the capitalist wage system in which ... whoever works harder gets more ... Castro is quoted: "to offer a man more for doing his duty is to buy his conscience with money." (p. 145)
A few pages later, Huberman and Sweezy again refute themselves. The Revolution can be saved only if the capitalist wage system is restored. Now, the "... Revolution cannot afford to rely exclusively on political and moral incentives"; it will even have to resort to semi-militarization of work!" (p. 153)
The assertion that the "... Cuban Revolution has resorted to very little regimentation is refuted in the same paragraph:
... there are doubtless evidences of this in the large-scale mobilizations of voluntary labor ... indeed, there are already signs of this regimentation in the growing role of the army in the economy bringing with it military concepts of organization and discipline ... an example of this is the Che Guevara Trail Blazers Brigade, organized along strictly military lines [which] has been clearing huge amounts of land ... (p. 146) Cuba's system is clearly one of bureaucratic rule ... [nor has the government worked out] an alternative ... (p. 219-220)
For Huberman and Sweezy, the realization of socialism is, in effect, based upon the omnipotence of the State. The people are not the masters but the servants of the "revolutionary" leadership who graciously grant them the privilege of sharing "in the great decisions which shape their lives..." (p. 204)
Toi ignore the lessons of history and expect rulers to voluntarily surrender or even share power with their subjects is -- to say the least --- incredibly naive.
Herbert Matthews -- foreign correspondent and later a senior editor of the New York Times, now retired -- was granted his sensational interview with Fidel Castro in the Sierra Maestra on February 17, 1957. Matthews has since then been welcomed to Cuba and granted interviews with Castro and other leaders. His attitude towards the
Castro dictatorship resembles that of the doting parent who inflates the virtues of his offspring and invents excuses for the child's transgressions.
... Fidel's personality is overwhelming. He has done many things that enraged me. He has made colossal mistakes ... but we must forgive him, he has to deal with difficult problems which no man could have tried to solve without making errors and causing harm to large sectors of Cuban society... (p. 4)
Not the least of the privileges accorded to despots is the right to make mistakes at the expense of ordinary mortals.
How Castro, who is "... a great orator ... the greatest of his times," is "not able to express his emotions" (p. 44) is a peculiar failing that Matthews does not deem it necessary to explain. <snip>
An interesting new bio. of Herbert Matthews, The Man Who Invented Fidel: Castro, Cuba, and Herbert L. Matthews of The New York Times (Hardcover) by Anthony Depalma