Hi Hari, It won’t come as a surprise that I don’t share your understanding of Soviet history nor your view that the Cuban revolution replaced the old capitalist and landlord ruling class tied to US imperialism with a new nationalist and anti-imperialist bourgeois ruling class led by Castro and Guevara.
To secure the revolution, the Cuban leadership may have wanted an alliance with the nationalist bourgeois remnant which supported the overthrow of Batista, but in the face of US hostility it gave up on that possibility within months of the revolutionary army entering Havana when it exiled the first president of the revolutionary government, the bourgeois liberal Manuel Urrutia, to Miami. The fact that Cuba has had to progressively make concessions to capitalism at home and abroad is a reflection of its complete isolation following the collapse of the USSR as a counterweight to full domination of the world economy by the US and its lesser allies. This has been the trajectory over the past half century not only of Cuba but of all of the 20th century left-wing regimes which opposed Western imperialism. In any case, what matters for me is less how we choose to describe these regimes and their leaders than that we continue to defend them against imperialism despite their deformations, and in this we appear to be on the same page. Best, Marv PS - Not to worry, David. The discussion with Hari IMO has been remarkably free of mudslinging and has been a good opportunity, for me at least, to learn and test my assumptions against his - the purpose of the list, as I understand it. We're probably done for now. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#31373): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/31373 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/107582765/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
