> Yeah. Fidel learned from his mistakes, but it's too late to change
> the model now.
Charles replied:
>
> Chavez and Castro are good baseballers. They know it's important to
> be a good loser, as well as a good winner.
=======================================
Actually, I don't believe either the Cubans or the Venezuelans made any
"mistakes" - at least not decisive ones - in how they respectively
approached the question of power then and now, and, rather than thinking in
terms of being "good winners or good losers", it seems to me their decisions
have always been taken with reference first and foremost to the existing
relationship of forces. Notwithstanding their comments, I think both Charles
and Doug would agree with both these statements.
In 1960, the Fidelistas were forced of necessity to expropriate the bourgeoisie - both economically and politically. The US was equipping a counter-revolutionary army and threatening to strangle the Cuban economy by blocking its sugar exports to the American market. The takeover of the economy, the ban on opposition political parties, and the radical reorientation of Cuba's political and trade relationships to the Soviet bloc were essentially defensive moves within this context. In effect, the July 26th movement either had to fill the vacuum created by the flight of Cuban capital and state officials to Miami in the wake of its destruction of the Batista army or consent to the return of the Cuban bourgeoisie and the reconfiguation of the old government in a new guise. It had not, however, conducted an armed struggle or was prepared to surrender its newly won power and support among the Cuban people to this end.
It was also a period of rising revolutionary ferment in Latin America, and like the Bolsheviks a generation before, the Cubans hoped their revolution would serve as a spark for successful insurrections on the continent which would prevent their isolation. But, as in Europe in the aftermath of WWI, this did not happen, and the Cubans had to rely on their own formidable exertions and assistance from the distant Soviet bloc in order to survive.
Despite the tribulations and the political and economic distortions introduced into the revolution by the US embargo and other hostile acts, I think few of us would dispute that it has been a net gain for the Cuban people, especially in terms of their health and education standards, their national sovereignty, and the redistribution of the land and other property, and it has laid the basis for further advance. Frankly, I don't see what "mistakes" there were which the Cubans could have avoided which would have secured a better outcome, or that they learned things which would have caused them to alter course in any meaningful way.
The process of change in Venezuela has, of course, been quite different - also of necessity. The Chavez leadership did not take power in an armed struggle, and it is doubtful it could have if it wanted to. The international balance of power is less favourable to armed struggle for socialist revolution than it was even in the 60's; the USSR has disappeared, China has changed its colours, and there is no longer an international revolutionary left on a global scale vying for state power. In Venezuela, the regular army was not destroyed, and the allegiance of the high command to the socialist project of the government remains in doubt. The bourgeoisie, though weakened, has not been expropriated, and it is still able to use its economic resources and control over the means of communication to contain the movement from below, as we have just seen.
The Chavistas have consequently not been in a position to frontally attack and destroy the old regime as the Cubans did. Instead, they have had to try to outflank and replace it by peaceful popular mobilizations and a slow march through the institutions of state power - beginning with the armed forces and the government, and extending to the bureaucracy, judiciary, media, and commanding heights of the economy. Unlike the Cubans, what weighs in their favour is that they are bolstered by the demand for their primary product, oil, which has allowed them to proceed in this manner.
Whether the Bolivarians will be able to gradually and fully implement a socialist economy in this way (which I very much doubt), or whether the effort to do so will inevitably precipitate a decisive and bloody showdown with the US-backed bourgeoisie as in the earlier case of Chile, or whether the final outcome will be a New Deal-style compromise forced on the Venezuelan bourgeoisie and the restless masses by prevailing domestic and international conditions - all of this remains to be seen. I think the issue of term limits, and whether that was a good or bad idea to put to a referendum, will not weigh very heavily.