In the 1950s Tony Cliff developed an analysis of the USSR and the
satellite states that while theoretically flawed at least had the merit
of being engaged with a palpable reality, namely that Stalinism violated
everything that socialists believed in. It was such an evil system that
they applied a term to it that was intended to convey the ultimate form
of opprobrium in our lexicon. It was “state capitalist”. By calling
these countries “capitalist”-after a fashion-you draw a clear class
line, whether or not of course it corresponds to reality.
Since Marx described capitalism as a social system that revolved around
profit (”Accumulate, accumulate! That is Moses and the prophets”), it
was rather hard to describe the plodding Soviet system that was by all
evidence indifferent to profits in those terms. Leaving aside this key
distinction, the main merit of the state capitalist ideology is that it
allowed its defenders to feel superior to their Stalinist enemies and
the old-school Trotskyists who still insisted that the USSR rested on
collectivized property relations.
When the Cuban revolution took place, the state capitalists were thrown
a curve. Since socialism could only be carried out from “below” by
parties that had mastered the profundities of state capitalist theory,
they had to make Cuba look as much as possible as the USSR. Workers had
to be seen as being trampled under foot inside Cuba and the foreign
policy of the Cuban government had to be represented as inspired by the
same kind of narrow, nationalistic motivations that governed the
Kremlin. To shoehorn Cuban reality into a state capitalist schema
required careful selection of facts that help to support the foregone
conclusion. While historical materialism is understood by its
practitioners as a method that bases itself on a scrupulous examination
of social reality, its state capitalist adherents are not above changing
the rules when it comes to something like the Cuban revolution which
undermines their own, self-privileged “vanguard” status.
Of particular use to the state capitalist have been the books and
articles of Sam Farber, a Cuban-American professor whose articles have
appeared with some regularity in the International Socialist
Organization’s press. The ISO is one of the more important state
capitalist groups but has no connection to the equally important British
SWP which expelled it from their international movement about a decade
ago. I have quite a bit of respect for the ISO, particularly their work
in the Green Party in years past, but find their reliance on Sam Farber
to be most regrettable.
Despite (or perhaps because of) his academic credentials, Farber is not
above making things up to support his judgments against Cuba. For
example, in an interview with the Shachtmanite New Politics (a magazine
with some affinity for the state capitalists politically, but differing
on the exact class character of the former Soviet Union), Farber claimed
that Cuba-just like the USSR-put political opponents in mental
hospitals. There was only problem with this allegation. It was false as
I demonstrated in a rebuttal written in September 2003.
Farber seems to be at it again. In an article titled “Contradictions of
Cuba’s foreign policy” that appears in the ISO newspaper and that was
originally published in Le Monde Diplomatique, Farber makes the case
that Cuban foreign policy is self-serving even if most people on the
left regard it as revolutionary internationalism of the highest order.
full:
http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2009/01/16/sam-farber-the-iso-and-the-angolan-revolution/
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