From my archives: The New Cuba reviewed (1976)

Following up on my recent post of Theodore Draper's analysis of the broken, original promises of Fidel Castro, I thought it would be interesting to share a book review I wrote in 1976 of a book edited by Ronald Radosh that evidenced the disillusionment of some important New Leftists with Castro's Cuba. (I don't think the title was mine.)

Radosh has, of course, moved to the political right, but this collection was an important intellectual contribution at the time and, I think, the points I make in the review are still valid, albeit some aspects are historically limited. In retrospect, I think I should have discussed some of the other contributors so I have included the Kirkus Review at the bottom.

I've added a few links and notes which weren't in the original.

The New Cuba is out-of-print, but it should be available in college libraries and from used-book dealers.

"Stale Cigars, Bad Rum and Repression"

by Stuart Elliott
New America
October 1976 

 
Yet another Communist paradise has disillusioned its erstwhile Western enthusiasts. Cuba, once the ideal to the New Left in America, Europe, and Latin America that the Soviet Union was to an earlier generation, has been criticized as a degenerating or flawed revolutionary state by such radical intellectuals as Rene Dumont, K.S. Karol, and David Caute.* The most recent echo of this disillusionment is a collection of essays edited by American New Left historian Ronald Radosh, The New Cuba: Paradoxes and Potentials.


Compared to the writings of Herbert Matthews, Frank Mankiewicz, and Senator George McGovern, The New Cuba is an expose. Matthews, for instance, criticizes the critics of the arrest and political confession of the Cuban poet Herbert[o] Padilla and denies that torture has ever been authorized in Cuba. Mankiewicz and his associate Kirby Jones conclude that "if one compares Cuba's lack of political freedom and social mobility to any other Latin American country, then to all but a handful of landed aristocrats it must seem a very desirable place indeed." George Me Govern has described Cuba as a nation "whose policies sometimes irritate us."

If Radosh and his colleagues are more critical than Matthews, Mankiewicz, and McGovern it is because they expected Cuba to create a "new man" and a "new society," not simply an egalitarian authoritarianism. Radosh, in particular, is critical of the failure of Castro to develop a socialist democracy, cultural and political repression in Cuba, and the price that Cuba has paid for the receipt of Soviet aid.

Although Radosh's analysis develops little new ground, his recapitulation of the work of Karol and Dumont may give wider circulation to their incisive views. Karol, in his important study Guerillas in Power, penetrated to the heart of the Cuban revolution when he accused the revolutionary elite, including the supposedly heterodox Che Guevera, of importing two myths from the Soviet Union: that the workers had no interest other "than the acceleration of production in accordance with the overall economic plan," and that the revolutionary leaders "know best how to interpret the thoughts and needs of the working class." Against the utopianism of the New Left, Dumont argued that the policy of moral incentives followed in the early years of the Cuban revolution! inevitably meant the militarization of work. After the failure of the ten-million ton sugar harvest in 1970, moral incentives have been replaced by material incentives. However, as Radosh points out, Dumont's expectation that the introduction of material incentives and market relations would mean a corollary, if 'partial, political liberalization has proved erroneous. Instead, the Cuban economy has been Sovietized.

Yet for all its comparative honesty, 'The New Cuba is ultimately disappointing. It provides no real insights into the potential development of Cuba. Rather than examining the contradictions in Cuba, we are presented with paradoxes. Both in his essays in this collection and in a recent review in Dissent# Radosh retains an optimistic outlook for the possibility of a more independent and democratic socialism in Cuba that finds little support in his analysis of Cuban society. Radosh even suggested in Dissent that the normalization of relations with the United States is the one factor that might lead away from the Stalinization of Cuba. However, in The New Cuba Radosh observed that rather than lead to political liberalization, detente with the United States might well result in increased ideological conformity.

Radosh and his associates have rejected the notion that to criticize the Cuban revolution is to serve the cause of reaction. But their opinions are biased and, ultimately, less than convincing, because they continue to see themselves as friends of the Cuban revolution and to define the present system as socialist. So while Radosh is willing to criticize Cuba's "socialism" as flawed, he refuses to describe it as a totalitarian state. 

The limited, and therefore apologetic, nature of Radosh's criticism is reflected in his criticism of political and cultural repression in Cuba. He condemns the imprisonment of Herbert Padilla and the suppression of the last quasi-independent journal in Cuba, but neglects to mention that there are 80,000 political prisoners in Cuba, held in barbarous conditions. Castro himself has admitted  to holding 20,000 political prisoners and details about conditions in the Cuban prison camps are readily available in the reports of the Inter American Commission on Human Rights. In its Fifth Report on the Status Human Rights in Cuba, the Commission reported that in the last five years violations of human rights" are far from decreasing, and arbitrary and excessively strict procedures continue, particularly in the treatment of political prisoners, with complete disregard for "the dignity of human beings."

Shocking Allegations

The allegations which have been filed against Cuba are among the most shocking instances of torture ever recorded. Yet by refusing to respond to the allegations as required by the regulations of the Organization of American States, Cuba has not only confirmed the accuracy of the charges, but has demonstrated its total disrespect for human rights. A chain of prison and labor camps crosses Cuba, and one camp, in Havana province, holds a capacity of 20,000. One camp for women originally named "America Libre" is now called "Nuevo Arnanecer" (New Dawn). Reading Radosh one would never know that this is part of the "new Cuba."

Nor do Radosh and the other critical sympathizers take a hard enough look at Cuba's economic and social performance outside the prisons. The Castro government's own statistics, for instance, show infant mortality increasing through the 1960s. Average per capita consumption of rice in 1968 was half the level of 1956. By the late 1960s the Cuban economy was faltering and political discontent was growing. The Cuban economy is relatively healthy today, but that is because of increased, Soviet aid and booming world sugar prices, which are higher, relative to their 1968 level, than petroleum prices.

In return for stepped-up economic aid, Castro was forced to grant the Soviets more direct influence in Cuban affairs. The Soviet Union has insisted on the "institutionalization of the revolution" to protect its economic, political, and ideological investment in Cuba. The first Congress of the Cuban Communist Party, held in December 1975, was symptomatic of the process of strengthening government and politics along Soviet lines and the widespread adoption of Soviet- style administrative and economic practices. Fidel's charismatic, personalist rule was limited by a party program that stressed the "leading role of the PCC.”


Another stage in the Sovietization of Cuba was the adoption of Cuba's first “socialist" constitution in February 1976. The constitution accords the PCC the status of "the leading force of the society and state" and bears a remarkable resemblance to the 1936 Soviet constitution.

The new "Organs of People Power" are an attempt to provide evidence of popular support . that is both more. stable and controllable than Castro's charisma. Matthews and Mankiewicz point to the experimental elections held in Mantanzas Province in 1974, soon to be duplicated throughout the island, as proof that the institutionalization of the revolution is leading to new forms of mass democracy, Although there were contested elections, the Commission to regulate the elections is headed by the veteran pro-Moscow Communist Blas Roca. The Castro regime and its Soviet masters have no intention of licensing the development of an opposition. The "new Cuba" resembles nothing so much as the old Soviet Union. When apologetic criticisms of the Castro regime are replaced by genuine solidarity with Cuban democrats, there may at last be a hope for a new Cuba.

_____________________________________

* Rene Dumont, Cuba, Is It Socialist?
                           Cuba, Socialism and Development Grove Press, 1970
   K.S. Karol, Guerillas in Power
   David Caute, Cuba, Yes?

Both Dumont's Cuba, Is it Socialist? and Karol's book were listed among the Castro's five least favorite books by Atlantic magazine in 2005. Both remain essential works to understand Cuba.

# Ronald Radosh "On the Cuban Revolution" (Review of Social Security in Latin America: Pressure Groups, Stratification and Inequality, by Carmelo Mesa-Lago, and Revolution in Cuba, by Herbert L. Matthews)Dissent, pp. 309-314 June 1976]

For comparison, here is the Kirkus Review

Eight essays by leftish Cuba-watchers, assembled by a history professor at Queensborough Community College, a libertarian anarchist and author of Prophets on the Right (p. 61). Radosh seems to be saying that Cuba has succumbed to Leninist authoritarianism but pop music is still played, so hope persists. Among the critics are Martin Duberman, identified by Radosh as a "homosexual author," who believes that Cuba has failed "in the area of psychosexual transformation." Rene Dumont, who was kicked out of his agricultural advisory post by the Cubans under suspicion of CIA activity, joins K. S. Karol, Jean-Paul Sartre, writer Jose Yglesias, and French economist Charles Bettelheim in attacking Castro as dictatorial. Latin American specialist James Petras and former National Security Advisor Maurice Halperin also fault Cuba for declining to decentralize and for jailing the poet Padilla in 1971. Radosh adds an indictment of Raul Castro for his attacks on "U.S. youth culture" and his demand for "ideological purity." The book does not aim at analysis of Cuban economic development or, except for the aspersions against Castro's ties to the USSR, place Cuba's development in the context of international politics. The book is far from a shrill blast--Frances FitzGerald, for example, presents an on-the-one-hand, on-the-other-hand judgment. But it will provide low-keyed reinforcement of the suspicions of academics regarding "collectivism" and "centralization."

.

Castro's Promises Betrayed: Theodore Draper's Classic Analysis

Since August 13 was the 88th birthday of Cuban dictator emeritus Fidel Castro, it is  appropriate to revisit the classic and brilliant 1962 analysis of Castro's original revolutionary promises by historian Theodore Draper in his book Castroism, Myth and Realities. Particularly since Cuba is undergoing a distorted, centralized discussion of Constitutional changes.  Democratic left forces are trying to intervene in the process and some are raising the issue of whether the 1940 Cuban Constitution should be the basis for  new changes.

by Theodore Draper

Was the Cuban revolution "betrayed"? The answer obviously depends on what revolution one has in mind--the revolution that Castro promised before taking power, or the one he has made since taking power.
[Leo] Huberman and [Paul] Sweezy have written: "Fidel had made his promises and was determined to carry them out, faithfully and to the letter." But neither they, nor [C. Wright] Mills, nor [John-Paul] Sartre ever says what these promises were. The oversight has been a necessary part of the mythology.#


I have made a brief inventory of the promises, political and economic, made by Castro from his "History Will Absolve Me" speech (at his Moncada trial in 1953) to the end of 1958.*

 These promises so soon became embarrassing that some of his literary champions began to rewrite history (after less than two years!) by avoiding all mention of them. **

POLITICAL

Castro's 1953 speech predicted that the first revolutionary law would be restoration of the 1940 Constitution and made an allusion to a "government of popular election."

Castro's manifesto of July, 1957, his first political declaration from the Sierra Maestra, contained a "formal promise" of general elections at the end of one year and an "absolute guarantee" of freedom of information, press, and all individual and political rights guaranteed by the 1940 Constitution. Castro's letter of December 14, 1957, to the Cuban exiles upheld the "prime duty" of the post-Batista provisional government to hold general elections and the right of political parties, even during the provisional government, to put forward programs, organize, and participate in the elections. 

In an article in Coronet magazine of February, 1958, Castro wrote of fighting for a "genuine representative government," "truly honest" general elections within twelve months, "full and untrammelled" freedom of public information and all communication media, and reestablishment of all personal and political rights set forth in the 1940 Constitution. The greatest irony is that he defended himself against the accusation "of plotting to replace military dictatorship with revolutionary dictatorship." 

In his answers to his first biographer, Jules Dubois, in May, 1958, Castro pledged "full enforcement" of the 1940 Constitution and "a provisional government of entirely civilian character that will return the country to normality and hold general elections within a period of no more than one year." In the unity manifesto of July, 1958, Castro agreed "to guide our nation, after the fall of the tyrant, to normality by instituting a brief provisional government that will lead the country to full constitutional and democratic procedures." 

ECONOMIC 

In the 1953 speech, Castro supported grants of land to small planters and peasants, with indemnification to the former owners; the rights of workers to share in profits; a greater share of the cane crop to all planters; and confiscation of all illegally obtained property. His land reform advocated maximum holdings for agricultural enterprises and the distribution of remaining land to farming families; it also provided for encouragement of "agricultural cooperatives for the common use of costly equipment, cold storage, and a uniform professional direction in cultivation and breeding." In addition, the speech expressed the intention of nationalizing the electric and telephone companies.

The manifesto of July, 1957, defined the agrarian reform as distribution of barren lands, with prior indemnification, and conversion of sharecroppers and squatters into proprietors of the lands worked on. 

The Coronet article favored a land reform to give peasants clear title to the land, with "just compensation of expropriated owners." It declared that Castro had no plans for expropriating or nationalizing foreign invest was based on the principle that those who cultivate the land should own it. This law, signed by Fidel Castro and the then Judge Advocate General, Dr. Humberto Sori Marin, made no mention of cooperatives" or "state farms." 

Its entire intent was to implement the hitherto neglected agrarian-reform provison in the Constitution of 1940.* 

Such were the promises that Fidel had made.  The near unanimity with which Castro's victory was accepted in January,1959, was the result not merely of his heroic struggle and glamorous beard but of the political consensus he appeared to embody. This consensus had resulted from the democratic disappointments in1944-52 and the Batista despotism of 1952-58. There was broad agreement that Cuba could never go back to the corrupt brand of democracy of the past, and the Cuban middle class was ready for deep-going social and political reforms to make impossible another Prio Socarras and another Batista. Castro promised to restore Cuban democracy and make it work, not a "direct" or "people's" democracy but the one associated with the 1940 Constitution, which was so radical that much of it, especially the provision for agrarian reform, was never implemented. 

It is, moreover, unthinkable that Castro could have won power if he had given the Cuban people the slightest forewarning of what he has presented them with--a press and all other means of communication wholly government controlled, ridicule of elections, wholesale confiscation and socialization, "cooperatives" that are (as Huberman and Sweezy admitted) virtually "state farms," or a dictatorship of any kind, including that of the proletariat. It was precisely the kind of promises Castro made that enabled him to win the support of the overwhelming majority of the Cuban middle and other classes; a "peasant revolution" would hardly have been expressed in quite the same way.


The least that can be said, therefore, is that Castro promised one kind of revolution and made another. The revolution Castro promised was unquestionably betrayed. 

_________________________________

•Its full text, which became extremely rare after Castro took power, may be found in Enrique Gonzalez Pedrero,La Revolucion Cubana (Mexico: Escuela Nacional de Ciencias Politicas y Sociales, 1959), pp. 143-56. 

**Castro's pre-1959 promises are dealt with by Huberman and Sweezy in a peculiar way. They cite twelve and a half pages of the 1953 speech but omit the five-point program on which Castro said the revolution was based. This program began: "The first revolutionary law would have restored sovereignty to the people and proclaimed the Constitution of 1940 as the true supreme law of the state, until such time as the people should decide to modify it or to change it." The others provided for grants of land to small planters and peasants, with indemnification to the former owners; the right of workers to share in profits; a greater share of the cane crop to all planters; and confiscation of all illegally obtained property. 

Although the speech makes other important points, this is the only itemized program in it, and it is hard to see how its omission can be justified. The unity pact· of July, 1958, is handled in the same way. It contained three points: a common strategy, postwar "normality," and "a minimum governmental program." I have quoted the second point in full in the text. Huberman and Sweezy cite a paragraph in this unity pact that asked the U.S. to cease all military and other types or aid to Batista, but ignore the three-point program, which might have put Castro's promises in a somewhat different light.Mills simply ignores the whole collection of Castro's prepower pledges.

#The three books Draper discusses are

• Leo Huberman and Paul Sweezey, Cuba: Anatomy of a Revolution. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1960 
• John-Paul Sartre, Sartre on Cuba
• C. Wright Mills, Listen, Yankee : The revolution in Cuba

    --NAR 

The 'Victories' of the Cuban working class

Jimmy Roque Martinez, on the occasion of International Workers Day on May 1, wrote a very fine column "The Earth Trembles in Cuba" on the Havana Times website, one of the few outlets for independent writing from Cuba.

Thousands of workers marched across the Plaza of the Revolution in “support” of the Cuban Revolution and its leaders.

The Cuban working class is one of the few in the world that does not have to fight for better working conditions. They must only show their gratitude and obedience to maintain the gains achieved.

This International Workers Day the Cuban working class jubilantly celebrated several victories achieved. For example:

•  Having a wage labor system.
• That this wage is not even sufficient to feed themselves.
• That they do not own the means of production, although the state says otherwise.
• That they have a union they supports their employers and not them as a working class
• That their union federation supports the massive layoffs of state employees.
• That the retirement age was increased by five years with the support of the CTC.
• That a labor law passed four months ago, still unknown in its final form, eliminated the right to employment.
• That they will receive a measly pension.

Here is his conclusion

May Day is definitely not a day of celebration for the Cuban working class. There are many rights to fight for, much exploitation to eliminate.

The earth trembled in Havana, but with demagoguery, injustice and the exploitation of workers in the name of a nonexistent socialism and the strengthening of capitalism.

Cuba Invites Foreign Investment But Bans Economist Mesa Lago

At the end of March, Raul Castro's Cuba passed a new law to attract foreign investment. Apparently, the goal is to increase foreign investment ten-fold.  Not surprisingly, the law was unanimously by the National Assembly. But whether this will solve the deep problems of Cuba's over-centralized bureaucratic economy is another question.  Within days of the new law, the Cuban government refused permission for the eminent Cuban-born economist Carmello Mesa Lago to speak about his new book on the Cuban economy to a program organized by Espacio Laical, a highly-read magazine of the Roman Catholic archdiocese of Havana, which has been allowed a margin of space.

Sam Farber and others have argued that Raul and the other military-party elite have in mind a Sino-Vietnamese model of centralized political power and a capitalized economy.  The banning of Mesa Lago leads credence to that view.

The most powerful economic reform that Cuba could enact would be to break the political monopoly and allow real political freedom.

 Havana Times reports

At the beginning of March, the renowned Cuban scholar Carmelo Mesa Lago was invited to attend an interesting intellectual gathering in Cuba. The organizers – particularly Cuba’s Espacio Laical (“Secular Space”) journal – had planned to pay tribute to Mesa Lago, now 80, and to launch his latest book about the Cuban economy in the era of Raul Castro.

It was an excellent initiative. Mesa Lago is the most important Cuban social scientist of our time. He has an enviable academic career behind him, has published many important books and can boast of an expertise that makes him a world authority on more than one issue. He is the kind of person that graces an academic event with his presence, and does so with the kind of modesty and joviality that often characterize greatness.

Mesa Lago is so discrete that only some time later, and through other channels, have we been able to find out that the Cuban government denied him a visa to visit the country of his birth. That is to say, the Cuban government, instead of rejoicing at the prospects of having someone of Mesa Lago’s intellectual and moral stature visit the country, instead of availing itself of his brief sojourn among Cuban scholars, decided to prevent him from attending the event and enjoying the tribute he deserved.

Here is a 2013 talk by Mesa Lago on his book.



Some questions and answers from the same session.

Here are some remarks about the Mesa Lago book from a review by University of Pittsburgh economist Marla Ripoll

The sad reality described by Mesa-Lago is that the social indicators for the Cuban economy are showing a declining trend. Although back in 1999 the Gini coefficient was 0.41, inequality has most likely increased in Cuba. Public employees have lost their jobs, and there are no private jobs to go to; social spending has been cut; access to schooling has been severed; and taxation remains regressive. With a drop of real wages of 73% between 1989 and 2010, raising poverty rates are as much of a concern as raising inequality.

Not that inequality in Cuba, although lower than in Latin America, has been exempt of the two issues that plague inequality everywhere: gender and race. Economists studying inequality around the world have pointed at technological change as the culprit of its recent increasing trend. But leaving technological change aside, which may anyways be marginal in countries in which barriers to technological adoption still abound, what is left is a society in which women and racial minorities face cultural barriers to economic mobility. One would have thought that the equality ideals of the Cuban Revolution, the very ones that traded off efficiency and equality, would have been conducive to resolving the more fundamental issues of human equality.

 As Mesa-Lago concludes, gradualism of economic reform in Cuba is really a reflection of disagreement within the ruling party on how much market activity to allow. But I think it is also a reflection of the lack of an effective plan that would spur economic development in Cuba.

Here is another review at Americas Quarterly. And here is the book Cuba Under Raúl Castro: Assessing the Reforms on Amazon.

Three Views of Cuba

Isbel Diaz Torres has a most interesting article "Who Cares About Cuba BesidesCubans" in Havana Times, an independent Cuban blog which reflects broad democratic left viewpoints.

Who Cares about Cuba Besides Cubans?

another group of Brazilians who uncritically totally identify with the institutional processes that evolved and are being developed in the island. Their unwavering support is displayed even in times of layoffs, golf courses, and state budget cuts.
Brazilian socialist revolutionaries.

Isbel Diaz Torres

Isbel Diaz Torres

Diaz Torres describes three groups of Brazilians he has recently encountered in a recent visit to that country.  The first consists of capitalists, entrepreneurs eager to reap profits and unconcerned about workers, their rights, or democracy.

another group of Brazilians who uncritically totally identify with the institutional processes that evolved and are being developed in the island. Their unwavering support is displayed even in times of layoffs, golf courses, and state budget cuts.

In order to embellish their own ideologies with their middle class communist dreams and their anti-capitalist posture, these people “keep alive an idyllic image of revolution and justify any contradiction with arguments of the last century, with the US blockade as their faithful shield.

There is, however, another group that seems to be the minority, but in my opinion is much more ethical, serious, and decent. I’m talking about a part of the anti-capitalist left that has managed to balance its support for the gains made in Cuba after 1959 with a critical view towards the often contradictory policies and actions of the Cuban government.

Socialists of various political bents understand the depth of the changes in the Cuban social and political system of the last century, and also recognize the adverse effect of interventionist United States’ policies. However they don’t accept the undemocratic, authoritarian and recently pro-capitalist policies implemented by the Cuban government.

another group of Brazilians who uncritically totally identify with the institutional processes that evolved and are being developed in the island. Their unwavering support is displayed even in times of layoffs, golf courses, and state budget cuts.

Brazilian socialist revolutionaries.

In order to embellish their own ideologies with their middle class communist dreams and their anti-capitalist posture, these people “keep alive an idyllic image of revolution and justify any contradiction with arguments of the last century, with the US blockade as their faithful shield.
There is, however, another group that seems to be the minority, but in my opinion is much more ethical, serious, and decent. I’m talking about a part of the anti-capitalist left that has managed to balance its support for the gains made in Cuba after 1959 with a critical view towards the often contradictory policies and actions of the Cuban government.
Socialists of various political bents understand the depth of the changes in the Cuban social and political system of the last century, and also recognize the adverse effect of interventionist United States’ policies. However they don’t accept the undemocratic, authoritarian and recently pro-capitalist policies implemented by the Cuban government.
- See more at: http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=101601#sthash.iV3cqNUO.dpuf

another group of Brazilians who uncritically totally identify with the institutional processes that evolved and are being developed in the island. Their unwavering support is displayed even in times of layoffs, golf courses, and state budget cuts.

Brazilian socialist revolutionaries.

In order to embellish their own ideologies with their middle class communist dreams and their anti-capitalist posture, these people “keep alive an idyllic image of revolution and justify any contradiction with arguments of the last century, with the US blockade as their faithful shield.
There is, however, another group that seems to be the minority, but in my opinion is much more ethical, serious, and decent. I’m talking about a part of the anti-capitalist left that has managed to balance its support for the gains made in Cuba after 1959 with a critical view towards the often contradictory policies and actions of the Cuban government.
Socialists of various political bents understand the depth of the changes in the Cuban social and political system of the last century, and also recognize the adverse effect of interventionist United States’ policies. However they don’t accept the undemocratic, authoritarian and recently pro-capitalist policies implemented by the Cuban government.
- See more at: http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=101601#sthash.iV3cqNUO.dpuf

another group of Brazilians who uncritically totally identify with the institutional processes that evolved and are being developed in the island. Their unwavering support is displayed even in times of layoffs, golf courses, and state budget cuts.

Brazilian socialist revolutionaries.

In order to embellish their own ideologies with their middle class communist dreams and their anti-capitalist posture, these people “keep alive an idyllic image of revolution and justify any contradiction with arguments of the last century, with the US blockade as their faithful shield.
There is, however, another group that seems to be the minority, but in my opinion is much more ethical, serious, and decent. I’m talking about a part of the anti-capitalist left that has managed to balance its support for the gains made in Cuba after 1959 with a critical view towards the often contradictory policies and actions of the Cuban government.
Socialists of various political bents understand the depth of the changes in the Cuban social and political system of the last century, and also recognize the adverse effect of interventionist United States’ policies. However they don’t accept the undemocratic, authoritarian and recently pro-capitalist policies implemented by the Cuban government.
- See more at: http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=101601#sthash.iV3cqNUO.dpuf

another group of Brazilians who uncritically totally identify with the institutional processes that evolved and are being developed in the island. Their unwavering support is displayed even in times of layoffs, golf courses, and state budget cuts.

Brazilian socialist revolutionaries.

In order to embellish their own ideologies with their middle class communist dreams and their anti-capitalist posture, these people “keep alive an idyllic image of revolution and justify any contradiction with arguments of the last century, with the US blockade as their faithful shield.
There is, however, another group that seems to be the minority, but in my opinion is much more ethical, serious, and decent. I’m talking about a part of the anti-capitalist left that has managed to balance its support for the gains made in Cuba after 1959 with a critical view towards the often contradictory policies and actions of the Cuban government.
Socialists of various political bents understand the depth of the changes in the Cuban social and political system of the last century, and also recognize the adverse effect of interventionist United States’ policies. However they don’t accept the undemocratic, authoritarian and recently pro-capitalist policies implemented by the Cuban government.
- See more at: http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=101601#sthash.iV3cqNUO.dpuf

another group of Brazilians who uncritically totally identify with the institutional processes that evolved and are being developed in the island. Their unwavering support is displayed even in times of layoffs, golf courses, and state budget cuts.

Brazilian socialist revolutionaries.

In order to embellish their own ideologies with their middle class communist dreams and their anti-capitalist posture, these people “keep alive an idyllic image of revolution and justify any contradiction with arguments of the last century, with the US blockade as their faithful shield.
There is, however, another group that seems to be the minority, but in my opinion is much more ethical, serious, and decent. I’m talking about a part of the anti-capitalist left that has managed to balance its support for the gains made in Cuba after 1959 with a critical view towards the often contradictory policies and actions of the Cuban government.
Socialists of various political bents understand the depth of the changes in the Cuban social and political system of the last century, and also recognize the adverse effect of interventionist United States’ policies. However they don’t accept the undemocratic, authoritarian and recently pro-capitalist policies implemented by the Cuban government.
- See more at: http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=101601#sthash.iV3cqNUO.dpuf

another group of Brazilians who uncritically totally identify with the institutional processes that evolved and are being developed in the island. Their unwavering support is displayed even in times of layoffs, golf courses, and state budget cuts.

Brazilian socialist revolutionaries.

In order to embellish their own ideologies with their middle class communist dreams and their anti-capitalist posture, these people “keep alive an idyllic image of revolution and justify any contradiction with arguments of the last century, with the US blockade as their faithful shield.
There is, however, another group that seems to be the minority, but in my opinion is much more ethical, serious, and decent. I’m talking about a part of the anti-capitalist left that has managed to balance its support for the gains made in Cuba after 1959 with a critical view towards the often contradictory policies and actions of the Cuban government.
Socialists of various political bents understand the depth of the changes in the Cuban social and political system of the last century, and also recognize the adverse effect of interventionist United States’ policies. However they don’t accept the undemocratic, authoritarian and recently pro-capitalist policies implemented by the Cuban government.
- See more at: http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=101601#sthash.bBrrzhkc.dpuf

another group of Brazilians who uncritically totally identify with the institutional processes that evolved and are being developed in the island. Their unwavering support is displayed even in times of layoffs, golf courses, and state budget cuts.

Brazilian socialist revolutionaries.

In order to embellish their own ideologies with their middle class communist dreams and their anti-capitalist posture, these people “keep alive an idyllic image of revolution and justify any contradiction with arguments of the last century, with the US blockade as their faithful shield.
There is, however, another group that seems to be the minority, but in my opinion is much more ethical, serious, and decent. I’m talking about a part of the anti-capitalist left that has managed to balance its support for the gains made in Cuba after 1959 with a critical view towards the often contradictory policies and actions of the Cuban government.
Socialists of various political bents understand the depth of the changes in the Cuban social and political system of the last century, and also recognize the adverse effect of interventionist United States’ policies. However they don’t accept the undemocratic, authoritarian and recently pro-capitalist policies implemented by the Cuban government.
- See more at: http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=101601#sthash.bBrrzhkc.dpuf

My Books of 2012

It's the time of the year for "best" and "top" lists.  As in 2011, 2010, and 2007, I've looked back over the books I've read this year to come up with  my top book list. I'm considering only books I read for the first time this year and ones published fairly recently, basically in 2010-2012 and for the most part I am excluding books on economics and unions which deserve separate list. That will help keep the total to just over ten. This is not a rank listing.

1. Sam Farber, Cuba Since the Revolution of 1959: A Critical Assessment.

I really enjoyed reading Farber's book. One of the most well-informed and astute analysts of Castro's Cuba,  Farber writes from what he describes as "the classical Marxist tradition that preceded Stalinism in the USSR."  In the intro, Faber says he will concentrate on "those questions that I believe have been subject to a great deal of mythmaking, fallacies, and misunderstandings..." So there is a polemical quality to this books which makes it delightful reading.

Farber's book has won endorsements from leading academics such as Carmelo Mesa-Lago, Jorge Dominguez, and Adolfo Gilly.  It has also received in-depth coverage from Havana Times, and has been favorably  reviewed by Pablo Velasco and Sacha Ismail at Workers' Liberty and Charles Post at New Politics.

2. Sean Wilentz, Bob Dylan in America.

This is must reading for all serious Bob Dylan fans. Wilentz is a Professor at Princeton University and author of such works as The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln (W.W. Norton, 2005) won the Bancroft Prize.  He also has an interest in American popular culture, having teamed with rock historian Greil Marcus to edit Rose and the Briar: Death, Love and Liberty in the American Ballad.

Wilentz knows his Dylan and he knows American popular culture and links them in enlightening ways.  There are occasions when I think Wilentz lets his aesthetic judgment be outweighed by his appreciation of Dylans ties to earlier American culture.  For example, I don't understand Wilentz's praise of Dylan's Christmas CD, which I thought was horrible.

3. Stewart Acuff Playing Bigger Than You Are - A Life in Organizing


A fascinating memoir/autobiography by Stewart Acuff, former organizing director for the AFL-CIO.  It is essential reading for every youngish labor organizer and social justice and activists and for those who are not so youngish.

4. Thomas Frank, Pity the Billionaire: the Hard-Times Swindle and the Unlikely Comeback of the Right.


Frank is great, as usual. And, for this one, he not only gave a reading at Wichita's Watermark Books, but went out for pizza afterwards with a number of  local activists.  Cool.

5. Chuck Collins, 99 to 1

This is a concise (124 pages, plus 14 pages of notes) examination of how wealth inequality is wrecking the economy.  It is well-organized with lots of tables and graphics.  If you want to know how the 99/1 economic divide means in the real world and the damages that it does, this is a great place to start.

One limitation, Collins analysis doesn't really discuss the central role of the attacks of unions and limits on the ability of workers to organize in the dramatic rise of inequality.  Or the necessity to increase the power of workers in turning the situation around.

6. Michael Kazin, American Dreamers: How the Left Changed a Nation.

Kazin, co-editor of Dissent and professor of history at Georgetown has written a new history of the American left, a sort of companion to John Nichols, The S Word, which made my 2011 list.

The publisher describes it this way:

Kazin tells a new history of the left: one in which many of these movements, although they did not fully succeed on their own terms, nonetheless made lasting contributions to American society that led to equal opportunity for women, racial minorities, and homosexuals; the celebration of sexual pleasure; multiculturalism in the media and the schools; and the popularity of books and films with altruistic and antiauthoritarian messages.

7. Manning Marable, Malcom X: A Life of Reinvention

Michael Glitz has a good review on Huffington Post.

The scholar and author Manning Marable died just on the eve of publication of his magnum opus, this sober, detailed, engrossing biography of Malcolm X. One trusts he is resting easy, knowing that the early reviews were rapturous and that the book did justice both to his lifelong work as an educator and champion of progressive causes and to Malcolm X's ever-growing importance as a figure both in the black community and impassioned fighters for freedom and justice around the world.

I'm not sure about the "ever-growing importance" of Malcolm X.

Emahunn Campbell wrote, just before the publication of Marable's biography, on the Activist blog of the Young Democratic Socialists.

I hope that Marable’s book will uncover and develop Malcolm’s relationship to socialists and socialism. Although one cannot refer to Malcolm as a socialist–he did not have a chance to fully develop or move towards a socialist position–he did have strong opinions about the depredations of capitalism, especially after his split with the Nation of Islam (NOI). To be sure, he went from being a proponent of black capitalism, which was an ideological residue from his time as the national spokesman for the NOI, to becoming anti-capitalist due to his engagement with socialist and Marxist literature as well as his travels to Cuba and a number of decolonizing nations in Africa and the Middle East that claimed to be developing their respective national paths to socialism. ...

While no socialist organization can claim Malcolm, one can definitely imagine how profoundly developed his thought would have been if he was around long enough for it to manifest itself in his organizational pursuits.

Lawrence Gulotta describes the relationship between Malcolm X and democratic socialists A. Philip Randolph, Bayard Rustin, and James Farmer here. Gulutta notes

No church wanted to receive Malcolm X’s body, after the assassination, for fear of retribution by the NOI. Finally, after a week of calling Harlem churches, the Faith Temple Church of God in Christ was willing to arrange the funeral and made its auditorium available. A thousand people came to pay respects to Malcolm X and his family. The national civil rights leaders, and Harlem civic leaders, including Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, stayed away from the funeral. It was a small group of democratic socialists, including Bayard Rustin, James Farmer, James Furman, and John Louis, that were present at the funeral. Dick Gregory, not a socialist, was present. King, Whitney Young and Kwame Nkrumah sent condolences. Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee presided over the program. Marable doesn’t mention Clifton DeBarry or George Breitman attending the funeral.

8. Cornelius L. Bynum, A. Philip Randolph and the Struggle for Civil Rights. 

I've written on the importance of A. Philip Randolph before here on the NAR, so I looked forward to this book. And I was not dissapointed. Bynum, Associate Professor of History and Associate Director, African American Studies and Research Center, Purdue University, has written a very valuable intellectual history of A. Philip Randolph through the post-WWII campaigns to end Jim Crow in the military and to establish a permanent Fair Employment Practices Commission. It does not explicitly discuss Randolph's key role in the civil rights movement of the 1950s. the 1963 March on Washington, or the 1965 Freedom Budget for All Americans. 
 
Bynum's books discusses the evolution of Randolph's thought and action as he dealt with the dual problems of class exploitation and racial repression.

9. Michael G. Long (editor) I Must Resist: Bayard Rustin's Life In Letters

A fascinating and educational collection of 150 letters by Rustin, the organizer of the 1963 March on Washington, advisor to Martin Luther King, Jr., and trainer of generations of activists in non-violent social change.

Sociologist William Julius Wilson writes

"I Must Resist: Bayard Rustin's Life in Letters provides fascinating insights into Bayard Rustin’s activist life. It includes hundreds of letters in Rustin's own words that reveal his tireless and brave efforts to promote American civil rights, as well as his personal tragedies. All aspects of Rustin’s experiences are captured in these letters, including his struggles with opponents dedicated to silencing him as an international symbol of nonviolent protests against racial injustice. This remarkable and deeply moving publication is a must-read."

10-11  Van Jones Rebuild the Dream and Robert Kuttner, A Presidency in Peril

Two leading progressives examine frustrations with the Obama administration and what the left should do.

12.  William Cunningham, The Green Corn Rebellion

A reprint of the 1935 novel by William Cunningham about  the 1917 rebellion by Oklahoma farmers against the draft and World War I. There is a fine, informative introduction by historian Nigel Sellars, author of  Oil, Wheat, and Wobblies: The Industrial Workers of the World in Oklahoma.  I half-expected this to be mainly of historic and regional interest.  But, I was pleasantly surprised. It was a really good read and stands alongside Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath and Upton Sinclair's better works.

Here's a nice review by Elizabeth Breau.  
 

Occupy Havana?

According to a March 23 report in the Havana Times, human rights activists entered several Catholic churches a week ago and planned to stay there as a protest reminiscent of the Occupy movement in the US and globally. After they refused to leave, Catholic Bishop Jaime Ortega called on the police to have them removed.

Re-emergence of anarchism in Cuba

A UK anarchist site has this report  (Hat tip: Poumista)

Recently, on 13th & 14th of March there was in San José de Las Lajas, near Havana in Cuba, the 4th Critical Observatory event organised by the Haydee Santamaría Professorship[?]. There were a good group of attendees from across the island who presented, listened and debated around the libertarian idea and practical self-organization alternatives for today's Cuban society.
Without doubt this is an encouraging sign for those who have hoped for a long time to see a strong remergence of the path laid by Enrique Roig San Martín, Alfredo López, Enrique Varona, Marcelo Salinas and many other men & women as recollected in Frank Fernández's impressive book "Anarchism in Cuba". So it's necessary that we abroad strongly support this effort at reconstruction that is going ahead in very difficult conditions and in the face of all kinds of obstacles.

For more information, visit the blogs: http://observatorio-critico.blogspot.com and http://elblogdelacatedra.blogspot.com, or search the internet for the terms "Observatorio Crítico" y "Cuba" to find many recent references.

Sent in the name of the Cuban comrades, who have agreed to the distribution of all that this message says.

Fernandez book is recommended.  It should be interest to more than anarchists.  The link above is to a Spanish version.  Fortunately, there is an English translation by Charles Bufe available from See Sharp Press.

Left should push for democratization of Cuba

Wise words from Marc Cooper

Obama's move Monday, his clean break with the last half-century of American policy, in itself begins to rob the Cuban government of its convenient bogeyman. Who in Cuba is going to believe that an Obama-led America poses a threat of invasion? (Answer: only a few dozen "revolutionary" Americans who at any given moment can be found in a Havana hotel bar telling themselves they are vacationing in Paradise).

I never bought the argument that the reality of a belligerant Bush admin in Washington somehow justified censorship, repression and oppression in Havana. It's a non-sequitor. We don't believe the threat of Al Qaeda justifies suspension of the U.S. constitution, do we? Are Cubans somehow entitled to a lower grade of civil liberties than we are?

So those of us who wish to lift the embargo now have the obligation to demand that the Cuban government start to make some tangible concessions toward democratization.

Raul Castro putting a few cell phones up for sale and his family members suddenly embracing the same gays and lesbians that were once relegated to UMAP labor camps ain't gonna cut it.

If Obama can enact a policy -- no matter how modest-- of creating an opening toward a "hostile" nation, then the Cuban government ought to be able to do the same in regard to its own population.

Why Castro Sucks, Reason #1,169

This happened in August but I only learned about a couple of days ago. When the mis-named Pastors for Peace come through your town on their propaganda tour for a dictator, represser of labor rights, presecutor of gays, enemy of democracy, I suggest you organize a punk rock concert for Gorki Aguila.

From The Daily Telegraph

Cuban rocker Gorki Aguila on trial for 'social dangerousness'

A Cuban punk rocker is being charged with "social dangerousness" because his songs denounce the communist government.

Gorki Aguila, lead singer of Porno para Ricardo, has been in police custody since Monday.

He is due to appear at the Playa municipal court in western Havana charged with subverting "communist morality."

Should he be convicted, he faces up to four years in prison for openly defying the revolution and poking fun at Fidel Castro and his brother Raul, who became Cuba's president in February.

Police arrested 39-year-old Aguila at his home where he was putting the finishing touches to a new album which was provisionally called Geriatric Central Committee, a reference to the ageing Castro regime.

His arrest has sparked protests from artists and human rights groups with supporters due to assemble at Havana's Malecon promenade to protest.

The government often applies the "social dangerousness" charge in cases of public drunkenness or as a way to keep large groups of unemployed Cubans - or those simply skipping work - from congregating on city streets during business hours.

Porna para Ricardo, formed 10 years ago, are banned from official airwaves, and make up part of an underground music movement.

The Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation, an illegal but tolerated group, said in a statement: "Gorki Aguila has not committed any specific crime as defined by the current criminal code."

The rock star has asked for "diplomatic observers" to attend the trial but refused legal help from US-based Cuban American National Foundation.

Ciro Diaz, the band's guitarist, said: "These kind of trials are very biased. It's difficult for someone to be absolved.

"A lawyer can do very little because there's no evidence of criminal activity presented, only what the police say."

Fortunately, Gorki was found innocent of the most serious charges.

Castro steps down

Wise comments from Dave Osler, a British leftist who spent time in Cuba last year

Stay in one of the five star hotels, and Cuba is a fabulous place for a holiday. Sit down by that swimming pool and bask in the Caribbean sunshine, light up a cigar from beyond the wilder shores of Freudian symbolism and knock back cocktails blended from the finest rum on earth. And if it’s nightlife you want, there’s hot jazz and salsa clubs that stay open until four am. That’s on the weeknights. Convertible pesos only, of course.

But for most ordinary Cubans, life is pretty damn grim. I saw that for myself two years ago, when I spent four weeks in an ordinary home in Havana while studying Spanish. Even such basic foodstuffs as rice are rationed. Water supplies are sporadic, and power cuts regular occurrences. The housing stock is badly run down. Many everyday items are simply unobtainable.

Yes, of course the US blockade and the economic effects of the collapse of the USSR are part - although by no means all - of the explanation. But there is no getting away from the conclusion that Cuban society is deeply polarised.

Beyond a layer of older people who lived through the revolution in the late fifties, there are few strong supporters of the government. The younger a person is - and the darker the colour of their skin - the more likely they are to be hostile. Many of those at the sharp end of the multiple hardships would rather be living in Miami, and don’t think twice about saying that to a foreign journalist.

David Corn on the Mother Jones blog

Please, no tears for Comrade Castro, as he finally gives up power in Cuba. It's a good thing he's going. But his departure has taken far too long (in fact, decades too long) and, alas, in all that time he did little to ease the transition to the free society that Cuba will eventually be. His exit leaves Cuba a repressive state and a nation not prepared for the future.

Sam Farber, in an interview last year in Solidarity, detailed the indications that after Fidel Castro's death Cuba may follow the path towards the world capitalist market initiated by Deng Xiaoping in China.

Farber reported that Raul Castro (Fidel's presumed successor) has praised the "Chinese model", and notes "the role of the Cuban army, Raul's stronghold, as a big player in joint enterprises, including the tourist industry."