The Cuban state making concessions to private business is the result of decades of external threat and blockade. Like this is clearly an idiot on Twitter, but I can’t imagine any leftist of any variety thinking this is a good thing. This is a compromise in the face of destruction.
The Cuban national assembly was faced with either doing this or having widespread starvation. As much as we want a socialist state to stick by its principles, sometimes the entire world is against you and you are forced into making compromises.
How will this prevent widespread starvation? The US doesn’t want compromise, it wants complete capitulation and subjugation. The geopolitical situation doesn’t change just because Cuba enters a period of reform and opening up to private investment; unless the national assembly is dissolved and they make Marco Rubio the new king of Cuba the oil blockade is going to continue.
It isn’t to stop starvation because Cuba, at the moment, isn’t at risk of mass starvation. They are, however, on the brink of complete economic stagnation and contraction, which would incentivise further depopulation through immigration. Getting a private investment lobby going, either through the U.S. or China, is not a terrible idea, as long as the party maintains peimary control of the state. The development model pursued by Vietnam and China has shown to pay dividends for the population.
This isn’t good, but it does create an incentive for the creation of a domestic lobby that opposes direct invasion, much like the role of Chevron likely played within Venezuela.
The development model pursued by Vietnam and China can’t necessarily be applied in this case, they could actually attract capitalist investment through their market reforms and develop the MoP that way. They also had their own raw material inputs from their own mostly untapped natural resources. Cuba can’t repeat those successes because it’s an island with few of its own resources and it’s being sanctioned as a “state sponsor of terror” - investors would be subjected to secondary sanctions.
I can see Russian capitalists investing in Cuba because they don’t have any reason to care about secondary sanctions. Maybe that’s what the oil tanker was for - a promise to break the oil blockade and pour in investment in exchange for market reforms.
But, aside from Russia, I do not expect these market reforms to attract much other investment.
Again, it depends on the how the lobbying efforts go. You are assuming a conclusion to a process and negotiation that is and will be ongoing.
Correct, Russia would be extremely interested in this, as would China, who has been shipping solar panels to Cuba in the thousands without the U.S. fucking with them and whose companies have plenty of experience evading or avoiding U.S. see secondary sanctions.
And this is beside the point that if you think there aren’t aspects of the m Cuban lobby in Miami won’t immediately be interested in investing and getting in on the ground floor here. If anything, this will create a schism in the Cuban lobby from those who do not care about the party and simply want to invest, and those who simply want to invade.
This is a good tactic to pursue for a society in crisis. It is a better alternative to the total disintegration of the socialist system, as was experienced within the USSR, and knowing Cuban democracy, this has likely gone through multiple rounds of debate at all levels within the government.
Yeah, I’m assuming the US wants complete capitulation and subjugation. There’s no reason for the US to negotiate, it can just continue its sanctions and embargo regime until Cuba disintegrates like the USSR. Cuba has no leverage to lobby with.
I didn’t think about a split in the Cuban diaspora, though! Many of them are ideologically committed to the destruction of the revolution, but maybe more of them would be looking to make money off of Cuba opening up? If their lobby flips from “destroy Cuba” to “exploit Cuba” then the sanctions regime will likely end, which would change everything.
We’ll see. I’m skeptical, I think the US might still be more interested in disintegration and not be satisfied with anything else.
And it very well might be. However, to assume the end point of a large scale political process like this is usually a bad idea, especially when we are dealing in unprecedented historical times.
My point is that this is a reasonable step to be taking at this point in time, and not the sign of a disintegration of government or an abandoning of the revolution or scientific socialism. How the U.S. itself responds to these measures is unclear, as they seem to have taken ‘mad-man’ doctrine to a whole new level. I am not sure the U.S. blob is a rational entity that can be reasoned with, but in the event that it is, this is a good decision.
The big thing with Iran and Venezuela is that control of the larger oil markets is at stake and can be considered a justified military objective, Cuban at this point would purely be for pride, it isn’t like the U.S. doesn’t have more than enough sugar or anything else that Cuba produces domestically.
I’ve got zero trust in Russian capitalists, TBH, they can’t hold back from selling their own country, and I expect even less from them on Cuba.
Because this presumably brings in outside investment, which is a strategy Cuba has done before with things like real estate and water systems. A Spanish company actually operates about half the water supply in some districts of Havana, something that began in 2000. I haven’t read the reform but I wouldn’t be surprised if there are aspects of it that deal with importation of food or energy. Cuba has had constant blackouts throughout this year, plus sudden flour shortages.
By compromise I don’t mean Cuba is compromising with Amerikkkan imperialism. I mean Cuba is compromising with the situation itself. The Cuban economy is unstable and the state lacks the capacity to stabilize it, because that would require the blockade to end. I don’t mean to imply the blockade will suddenly end if Cuba allows privatization, what I meant is that Cuba sometimes has to engage in privatization as a strategy of dealing with an ongoing blockade. It’s a survival tactic, not a way of placating empire.
Cuba has always done these reforms hesitantly and cautiously. I have faith in the Cuban people and the revolution to continue doing what they have to do in order to survive.
This seems to assume that markets and privatization are better at handling instability than the state, so Cuba has to compromise with market reforms. That seems wrong to me. Markets and privatization make instability worse because they create their own instability.
Investment from where, by the way? The sanctions are still in place. Russian capitalists won’t care about secondary sanctions so I can see them taking advantage of market reforms, but I doubt any other investors will be interested.
Anarchism is when you support American Imperialism. These people are just reactionary liberals pretending to be leftist and actively sabotaging any left-wing movement, they hate all people from the Global South.
I know so many wonderful anarchists who I am in community with and who do good things and who I have great intellectual discussions with about leftism. None of them have shit takes like this. They’re too busy doing mutual aid and doing shit in their community to have time to have shit takes on Cuba. Online anarchists aren’t real anarchists otherwise they too would be too busy doing shit that matters.
Real-life anarchists support Cuba because it is the right thing to do. Same reason why some libertarians also support Cuba or praise Fidel and Che. These online “anarchists” are nothing more than liberals who pretend to be on the left because they like the aesthetics, but they hate the actual theory and praxis behind what it means to be on the left, they just want to be “right” about everything without doing anything and get angry at those who actually improve the lives of others.
What have these online “anarchists” actually achieved in real-life? Nothing. What have real anarchists achieved; workers’ rights and minority rights in places like Italy, Argentina, Brazil, Japan. They participated in revolutions in Cuba and over Latin America. Organized with other left-wing groups. Actual meaningful stuff.
None of them have shit takes like this. They’re too busy doing mutual aid and doing shit in their community to have time to have shit takes on Cuba.
Are you sure about this? Do you have access to their social media accounts?
I’ve heard takes like this 1000x times and frankly I’m a bit skeptical. You can do amazing local activism and still have shit takes on imperialism. One of the most active organizers I’ve ever met was an anarchist guy, great dude, put me to shame frankly with all the stuff he was organized in. Still had some bizarre ass takes whenever anything outside of the borders of US came up, he supported a “humanitarian” intervention in the DPRK to overthrow the “Kim Dynasty”.
A lot of the “awesome real life anarchists” y’all purport to know may have some ghastly takes if you actually pressed them on the matter.
And a lot of them don’t. This one dweeb on Twitter deserves to be mocked for chauvinism here. I dont see how this situation proves or disproved anarchism in any way.
We don’t really have hard stats on this either way, but as a former Anarchist myself, I think the “a lot” is quite as “a lot” as you think. Anarchists hate all states, that’s their thing, and AES states are states. Some are smart enough to realize they’re the “lesser evil” to capitalist imperialism, but the whole concept of “red fascism” has melted a lot of brains. I’ve seen quite the number of anarchists out there who consider the US the “lesser evil” in the Cold War. And I do think the prevalence of these kinds of sentiments within Anarchist spheres is reflective of many Marxist-Leninist criticisms of Anarchism, the ML line has always been that Anarchism is basically just a radical form of liberalism that prioritizes individual liberty over social progress, so yeah sympathizing with liberal capitalist regimes that at least afford their citizens more pedestrian behavioral liberties than socialist state that regulate citizen behavior more in the name of social cohesion makes sense.
I think the anti-sectarian rule has caused people to blunt their experiences and criticisms here. I get Hexbear isn’t officially ML but lets be honest, it’s by far the most popular ideology with he user base and nothing I’ve said above would be considered odd in any other ML space online. If anything most would say I’m soft balling.
Yeah but almost all of the ones I know at least support Cuba. This guy is a specific kind of online weirdo.
See my experiences were always a little hit or miss there.
Even their apology form meme reeks of “I have no idea what I’m talking about, but I will be incredibly condescending about it.” Just empty smug bullshit and CIA talking points and stuff they’ve obviously just copied from a different version of the meme. Just pure liberalism in an anarchist punk jacket.
I feel like I’m going insane whenever I hear takes like this. Like, how does any leftist outside Cuba believe that they understand the economic situation of Cuba better than Cubans themselves?? I’ve said this to many people and they reply “we should criticise everything”, and I fully agree, but what makes you believe that your criticism is on solid ground compared to the knowledge of their economy of the revolution that has withstood 70 years of siege 20km away from the USA?
Yeah I’m an anarchist but this is an L take and anarchists need to focus on the Cuban people and their suffering. Like this is not a fucking good thing. Lots of innocent Cubans are suffering because of AmeriKKKan imperialism, i.e. being crushed by an absolutely overwhelming imperialist force. Obviously I have my disagreements with non-anarchist socialists, but IMO no political system has a good answer to being overwhelmed by sheer numbers.
Obviously I have my disagreements with non-anarchist socialists, but IMO no political system has a good answer to being overwhelmed by sheer numbers.
The only thing that could stop this would be if basically all of Latin America backed Cuba against the USA (which is one of the many reasons why CELAC was created), but that won’t happen because the left have been weakened thanks to the 2010s conservative coup and election wave.
why hasn’t the person running that twitter account killed marco rubio?
It’s so obnoxious (and not to sound like some woke scold, but also privileged) to read a headline whose contents will impact thousands of lives and smugly post about how you were right in some made up debate. It reduces the people actually affected to an abstract debate point in a way that feels like this person is observing events in the same way that someone observes things happening in a map based video game.
Holy doomerism: the empire wins as always
They are caught in a stalemate against Russia, got humiliated in Iran, and have no answer against China.
They recently ate shit in Iran so not always, but definitely more often in Latin America
Loss of strength gradient is real.
It’s ironically the reason I have such contempt for these types. We have been shown one method (Communism) that has worked to create a socialist revolution which by existing is the largest work of anti-capitalism in history. We must be critical of that history. We must learn from it. You must find a way to explain the new world created both by the successes and the ultimate failure of the Soviet sphere but if you’re still grinding this axe as an online anarchist who is probably from the USA or Western Europe all I can conclude is that you just want to be right online not actually win or change the world and it’s all just a game or an aesthetic. And because they are insulated in the core the remoteness of democracy is academic to them and they are cynical of Cuban democracy and lo their cynicism is vindicated. I can’t feel like they risked anything on that bet but I guess they feel cool winning it? This the best the terminally online anti-tankies can do? If you can’t square anti-imperialism with anti-capitalism you have an incomplete understanding of modern capitalism. I’m already writing too much, nobody needs to read this.
Edit: trying and failing to edit this for coherency
Any anarchist worth their salt dedicates most of their thoughts about Cuba to permaculture, fix-it culture, and new possibilities under the Family Code. Oh and maybe some ice cream as a treat.
Surplus: Terrorized Into Being Consumers is an anarchist film, and it portrays Fidel in an unambiguously moral light.
¡Que clase de basura!
