Part III - Imperialist provocations in Cuba and out of its time and place ML statements and commentaries
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On the accusations of Cuba.
III
Let’s start analysing the “critiques” of Cuba with Lenin’s assessment;
“Following its seizure of political power, the principal and fundamental interest of the
proletariat lies in securing an enormous increase in the productive forces
of society and in the output of manufactured goods. This task, which is
clearly formulated in the Programme of the Russian Communist Party, is
particularly urgent in our country today owing to post-war ruin, famine,
and dislocation. Hence, the speediest and most enduring success in restoring
large-scale industry is a condition without which no success can be achieved
in the general cause of emancipating labour from the yoke of capital and securing the victory of socialism.
(23)
I should mention the fact that other than all the emptiness of “critiques” goes back to this assessment of Lenin, it is
important to read between the lines Lenin’s use of words “securing the
victory of socialism” at a time when there was no increase in the
productive forces, but the acquired political power .
In order to prevent the most likely demagogies and accusations of “eclecticism”, the quotes from Lenin will be longer, and must be read.
One of the typical accusation that was used against Soviets and Stalin
now being used against Cuba is “state capitalism”. They argue that Cuba is not socialist but a state Capitalist Country. The first and basic question to ask these critiques is “in Cuba which class owns the means of
production, who regulates the relations of production and for whose interest”.
Second basic question that any average person would ask, if Cuba is Capitalist
why she would resist to USA- the largest capitalist country- rather than
surrendering to some of their demands and making Cuba “rich!!” in a very short
time. Only the tourism industry would cover most of her needs (by almost
destroying the same industry in South Florida- which is one of the reasons for
the blockade) and health-drug industry would be the second largest one.
Any revolution in countries where the large scale industry is already
present, it probably would be ridiculous to speak of “state capitalism.
However, in countries where -let alone the large scale industry-, capitalism is not developed, the use of state capitalism
in some form and degree would be most
likely application for the purpose of development and increase in in the
productive forces of that given society.
Let’s read Lenin what he says about “State Capitalism” – in a country
which is incomparable to Cuba as far as any industry and economic resources is concerned;
“State capitalism is capitalism that we
must confine within certain bounds; but we have not yet learned to
confine it within those bounds. That is the whole point. And it rests with us
to determine what this state capitalism is to be. We have sufficient, quite
sufficient political power; we also have sufficient economic resources
at our command, but the vanguard of the working class which has been brought to
the forefront to directly supervise, to determine the boundaries, to demarcate,
to subordinate and not be subordinated itself, lacks sufficient ability for
it. All that is needed here is ability, and that is what we do not have.
Never before in history has there been a situation in which the
proletariat, the revolutionary vanguard, possessed sufficient political
power and had state capitalism existing alongside it. The whole question
turns on our understanding that this is the capitalism that we can and must
permit, that we can and must confine within certain bounds; for this
capitalism is essential for the broad masses of the peasantry and for
private capital, which must trade in such a way as to satisfy the needs of the
peasantry. We must organise things in such a way as to make possible the
customary operation of capitalist economy and capitalist exchange, because this
is essential for the people. Without it, existence is impossible.
You have the advantage over the capitalists in
that political power is in your hands; you have a number of economic
weapons at your command; the only trouble is that you cannot make proper use of
them. Look at things more soberly. Cast off the tinsel, the festive communist
garments, learn a simple thing simply, and we shall beat the private
capitalist. We possess political power; we possess a host of economic weapons.
If we beat capitalism and create a link with peasant farming we shall become an
absolutely invincible power. Then the building of socialism will not be the
task of that drop in the ocean, called the Communist Party, but the task of the
entire mass of the working people.
What was lacking? Political power? No.
The money was forth coming, so they had economic as well as political power.
All the necessary institutions were available. What was lacking, then?
Culture.
instance shows that it is not a matter of
possessing political power, but of administrative ability, the ability to
put the right man in the right place, the ability to avoid petty conflicts, so
that state economic work may be carried on without interruption. This is what
we lack. “ (24)
And again in “The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Government”
Lenin states;
The task of administering the state, which now
confronts the Soviet government, has this special feature, that, probably
for the first time in the modern history of civilised nations, it deals
pre-eminently with economics rather than with politics. Usually the word
“administration” is associated chiefly, if not solely, with political
activity. However, the very basis and essence of Soviet power, like that of
the transition itself from capitalist to socialist society, lie in the
fact that political tasks occupy a subordinate position to economic tasks.
And now, especially after the practical experience of over four months of
Soviet government in Russia, it should be quite clear to us that the task of
administering the state is primarily a purely economic task-that of
healing the country’s wounds inflicted by the war, restoring its productive
forces, organising accountancy in and control over production and distribution,
raising the productivity of labour-in short, it boils down to the task of
economic reorganisation.
This task can be said to fall under two main
headings: I) accounting and control over production and distribution in the
broadest, most widespread, and universal forms of such accounting and control,
and 2) raising the productivity of labour. These tasks can be handled by any
form of collective effort or any form of state passing over to socialism
only on condition that the basic economic, social, cultural, and political
preconditions for this have been created in a sufficient degree by
capitalism. Without large-scale machine production, without a more or less
developed network of railways, postal and telegraph communications, without a
more or less developed network of public educational institutions, neither
of these tasks can be carried out in a systematic way on a national scale.
In all spheres of economic and political
life we now find a great number of
bourgeois intellectuals and capitalist businessmen offering their services
to the Soviet power. And it is up to the Soviet power now to make use of
these services, which are definitely necessary for the transition
to socialism, especially in a peasant country like Russia, and should be
utilised on condition that the Soviet government has complete ascendancy, direction
and control over its new assistants and co-operators.
An economic transition of the above nature calls also for a corresponding change in the functions of Soviet leadership. (25)
Another baseless, exaggerated, petty bourgeois childish accusation is the
Trade of Cuba with the Capitalist-imperialist Countries. Aside from the
fact that trade with Cuba is prevented for the most part due to US blockade, it is not something forbidden but a
necessity, an inevitability for a socialist country, either it is developed
or developing. Lenin explains the
interconnection between holding the political power and economic development.
“To ensure the continuous, if slow,
rehabilitation of large-scale industry we must not hesitate to throw
sops to the greedy foreign capitalists, because, from the standpoint of
building socialism, it is at present to our advantage to overpay the foreign
capitalists some hundreds of millions in order to obtain the machines and
materials for the rehabilitation of large-scale industry, which will
restore the economic basis of the proletariat, and will transform it into a
steadfast proletariat, instead of one engaged in profiteering. ……It would be
absurd and ridiculous to deny that the fact that the proletariat is a
handicap. By 1921, we realised that after the struggle against the external
enemy, the main danger and the greatest evil confronting us was our inability
to ensure the continuous operation of the few remaining large enterprises.
This is the main thing. Without such an economic basis, the working class
cannot firmly hold political power. “ (26)
Another typical Trotskyite-like accusation of Cuba is related
to above but separated as “being
compromising and giving “concessions” to capitalists. Every trade
between those who have and who do not, and desperate to have contains in it some
form of “compromise” to some degree. Cuba has not handed out her property
and economy. As Lenin states;
“Concessions are nothing to be afraid of. There is nothing terrible about giving
the concessionaires a few factories and retaining the bulk in our own hands.
Of course, it would be absurd for the Soviet power to hand out the bulk of its
property in the form of concessions. That would not be concessions, but a
return to capitalism. There is nothing to fear in concessions so long as we
retain possession of all the state enterprises and weigh up exactly and
strictly the concessions we grant, and the terms and scale on which we
grant them. Growing capitalism will be under control and supervision,
while political power will remain in the hands of the working class and
of the workers’ state. The capital which will exist in the form of concessions
and the capital which will inevitably grow through the medium of the
co-operatives and a free market, have no terrors for us. We must try to develop
and improve the condition of the peasantry, and make a great effort to have
this benefit the working class. We shall be able to do all that can be done
to improve peasant farming and develop local trade more quickly with
concessions than without them, while planning our national economy for a much
faster rehabilitation of large-scale socialist industry.” (27)
This accusation of Cuba too, again clearly reveals its Trotskyite face
or the influence by them as a typical copy of accusations of Soviets and Stalin.
As Lenin indicated, Trotsky himself and the Trotskyites
never understood and paid attention to the dialectic of Marxism.
Most of all their accusations are one and the same subject, disconnected, separated,
and multiplied for the purpose of creating a confusion and reinforcing their
false accusations with “quantity of problems” . In this sense another accusation is related to
the “backward steps”, “retreat” from the road of Socialism – same accusations
of Soviets and Stalin.
Here what Lenin was saying at the 7th Moscow Gubernia Conference of the Russian
Communist Party, which Cuba is in a similar but continuing difficult situation
especially after the collapse of the Soviet Union had to take back steps;
“the proletariat, which had won political
power, assumed that there would be a more gradual transition to the new social
and economic relations
By the spring of 1921 it became evident that we
had suffered defeat in our attempt to introduce the socialist principles of
production and distribution by “direct assault", i.e., in the shortest, quickest,
and most direct way. The political situation in the spring of 1921 revealed to
us that on a number of economic issues a retreat to the position of state
capitalism, the substitution of “siege” tactics for “direct assault",
was inevitable.
Don’t be afraid to admit defeat. Learn from defeat. Do over again more
thoroughly, more carefully, and more systematically what you have done badly.
If any of us were to say that admission of defeat—like the surrender of
positions—must cause despondency and relaxation of effort in the struggle, we
would reply that such revolutionaries are not worth a damn.
The New Economic Policy was adopted because, in
the spring of 1921, after our experience of direct socialist construction
carried on under unprecedentedly difficult conditions, under the conditions of
civil war, in which the bourgeoisie compelled us to resort to extremely
hard forms of struggle, it became perfectly clear that we could not proceed
with our direct socialist construction and that in a number of economic spheres
we must retreat to state capitalism. We could not continue with the tactics
of direct assault, but had to undertake the very difficult, arduous, and
unpleasant task of a long siege accompanied by a number of retreats.
This is necessary to pave the way for the solution of the economic problem,
i.e., that of the economic transition to socialist principles.
A revival of economic life—and that is what
we must have at all costs—and increased productivity—which we must also
have at all costs—are what we are beginning to obtain as a result of the
partial reversion to the system of state capitalism. Our ability, the
extent to which we shall be able to apply this policy correctly in the future,
will determine to what extent we shall continue to get good results.
We find ourselves in the position of having to
retreat still further, in order, eventually, to go over to the offensive.
That is why we must all admit now that the methods of our previous economic
policy were wrong. We must admit this in order to be able to understand the
nature of the present position, the specific features of the transition
that now lies ahead of us. We are not now confronted with urgent problems
of foreign affairs; nor are we confronted with urgent war problems. We are now confronted
mainly with economic problems, and we must bear in mind that the next stage
cannot be a transition straight to socialist construction.
Now we find ourselves in the position of
having to retreat even a little further, not only to state capitalism,
but to the state regulation of trade and the money system. Only in this way, a
longer way than we expected, can we restore economic life. Unless we
re-establish a regular system of economic relations, restore small-peasant
farming, and restore and further expand large-scale industry by our own
efforts, we shall fail to extricate ourselves from the crisis. We have no
other way out; and yet there are many in our ranks who still do not
understand clearly enough that this economic policy is necessary. When we say,
for example, that the task that confronts us is to make the state a wholesale
merchant, or that it must learn to carry on wholesale trade, that our task is
commercial, some people think it is very queer and even very terrible.
They say: “If Communists have gone to the length of saying that the immediate
task is to engage in trade, in ordinary, common, vulgar, paltry trade, what can
remain of communism? Is this not enough to make anyone throw up his hands in
despair and say, ’All is lost’?” If we look round, I think we shall find
people who express sentiments of this kind, and such sentiments are very
dangerous, because if they become widespread they would give many people a distorted
view of things and prevent them from appraising our immediate tasks
soberly. If we concealed from ourselves, from the working class, from the
masses the fact that we retreated in the economic field in the spring of 1921,
and that we are continuing the retreat now, in the autumn and winter of
1921-22, we would be certifying to our own lack of political consciousness; it
would prove that we lacked the courage to face the present situation. It
would be impossible to work and fight under such conditions.
The position which our New Economic Policy has
created—the development of small commercial enterprises, the leasing of
state enterprises, etc.—entails the development of capitalist relations;
and anybody who fails to see this shows that he has lost his head entirely. It
goes without saying that the consolidation of capitalist relations in itself
increases the danger. But can you point to a single path in revolution, to
any stage and method that would not have its dangers? ... Every step in
this New Economic Policy entails a series of dangers. When we said in the
spring that we would substitute the tax in kind for requisitioning, that we
would pass a decree granting freedom to trade in the surplus grain left over
after the tax in kind had been paid, we thereby gave capitalism freedom to
develop. Failure to understand this means losing sight of the fundamental
economic relations; and it means that you are depriving yourself of the
opportunity to look round and act as the situation demands. .. And when
we changed our economic policy, the danger became still greater, because, consisting
of as it does of a vast number of economic, workaday trifles, which one usually
becomes accustomed to and fails to notice, economics calls for special
attention and effort and more peremptorily demands that we learn the proper
methods of overcoming this danger. The restoration of capitalism, the
development of the bourgeoisie, the development of bourgeois relations in the
sphere of trade, etc.—this constitutes the danger that is peculiar to our
present period of economic development, to our present gradual approach to
the solution of problems that are far more difficult than previous problems
have been. There must not be the slightest misunderstanding about this.
We must understand that the present concrete
conditions call for the state regulation of trade and the money system, and
it is precisely in this field that we must show what we are capable of. There
are more contradictions in our economic situation now than there were before the
New Economic Policy was adopted; there is a partial, slight improvement in the
economic position of some sections of the population, of the few; there is an
extreme disproportion between economic resources and the essential needs of
other sections, of the majority. Contradictions have increased.” (28)
Another childish, learned by rote and sloganized
accusation of Cuba is the accusation of “bureaucratism”.
An accusation applied to a socialist country with the bourgeois meaning
and context of the word in a way that there should not be or could not be bureaucracy
in a Socialist country. Criticizing the accusations from right, “An old and often repeated objection to
socialism” says Lenin,” is that socialism means “barracks for the
masses” and “mass bureaucracy”. (29) And clarifies the Marxist
understanding of it by stating;
“an apparatus for policy (=reviewing and
correcting relations between classes), and not a policy for the apparatus!
(A good) bureaucracy in the service of
policy, and not a policy in the service of (a good) bureaucracy.”
(30)
Anarchist utopia that expects the building of socialism in the
morning of revolution and withering away of state in the following days,
expects the self-administration of the masses – meaning the elimination of
bureaucracy. What is destroyed with the bourgeois state is the bourgeois bureaucracy.
As Stalin explains; “with the abolition of the old apparatus of state
administration, bureaucracy was smashed, but the bureaucrats remained.” (31)
Stalin explains as follow;
“ to rid the state of the elements of
bureaucracy, to transform Soviet society into a free association of working
people, the people must have a high level of culture, peace conditions
must be fully guaranteed all around us so as to remove the necessity of
maintaining a large standing army, which entails heavy expenditure and
cumbersome administrative departments, the very existence of which
leaves its impress upon all the other state institutions. Our state
apparatus is bureaucratic to a considerable degree, and it will remain
so for a long time to come” (32)
It is simply because the question of “Bureaucracy”
is no different than the question of “state” , it requires the economic, social,
cultural, and habitual foundation to be
set for it, and requires the absence of capitalist encirclement. As Lenin puts it “The economic foundations for the
withering away of the state”: in this case we also have the “economic
foundations” for the withering away of bureaucracy.” (33)
Another though not widely, indirectly made accusation is related to the Trotskyite approach to "trade unions" which was brought in Cuba within last five years is, as expected, to confront the Political Power and Trade unions and create a division and conflict between them. It is exactly the same issue Lenin criticized in Soviets. Although question has been discussed in a group (in Cuba) and widely rejected, it is important and beneficial to state Lenin's critique here, since indirectly related to such accusations are being made.
'To achieve this success in Russia, in her present state, it is absolutely essential that all authority in the factories should be concentrated in the hands of the management. The factory management, usually built up on the principle of one-man responsibility, must have authority independently to fix and pay out wages, and also distribute rations, working clothes, and all other supplies on the basis and within the limits of collective agreements concluded with the trade unions; it must enjoy the utmost freedom to manoeuvre, exercise strict control of the actual successes achieved in increasing production, in making the factory pay its way and in increasing profits, and carefully select the most talented and capable administrative personnel, etc.Under these circumstances, all direct interference by the trade unions in the management of factories must be regarded as positively harmful and impermissible.It would be absolutely wrong, however, to interpret this indisputable axiom to mean that the trade unions must play no part in the socialist organisation of industry and in the management of state industry. Their participation in this is necessary in the following strictly defined forms. (34)
It is quite clear that each major accusations of Cuba not only do not have any factual base and supporting data, but have no Marxist Leninist theoretical base either. What is ironic is that same accusations have been made against Soviet Russia and Stalin. This fact alone indicates that such accusations are driven by Trotskyites and by those who are intentionally or unintentionally tailgating the Trotskyites.
There have been some other accusations that are not even worthy of any critique. Like most, in final analysis, disguised in left phrases they justify the counter revolutionary, provocative protests, one of which rather than seeing them as they are; provocateurs, anti-communists, pro US intellectuals and singers, they portray them as “lumpen proletariat”.
Conclusion
A return to the correct Leninist course demands
deeds, not words; Support of anti-imperialist struggles in general, and unconditional
support of Cuban struggle against imperialists.
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