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On 11/16/14 4:34 PM, Thomas via Marxism wrote:
When was it that the means of production were seized by the Cuban
working class and a government of their workers' councils elected
from below adminiser the state, you know, like in Russia 1917? Or is
that form of working class rule now some silly old relic no longer
applicable.
http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/mydocs/state_and_revolution/cuba.htm
As the revolution deepened and took on more and more of a proletarian
character, profound political changes began to take place within Cuba.
These changes also acted upon the tempo of the revolution, adding fuel
to the locomotive that was pushing it in a more and more radical
direction. Once Castro had decided to align himself with the workers, he
never turned back. He was never one to waver.
In Edward Boorstein's The Economic Transformation of Cuba, we discover
the ways in which ordinary workers, including blacks--the most
oppressed--asserted themelves:
By October 1960 most of this administrative and technical personnel had
left Cuba. The Americans and some of the Cubans were withdrawn by the
home companies of the plants for which they worked, or left of their own
accord: they found themselves unable to understand the struggle with the
United States, unwilling to accept the new way of life that was opening
up before them.
The Revolutionary Government had to keep the factories and mines going
only with a minute proportion of the usual trained and experienced
personnel. A few examples can perhaps best give an idea of what happened.
Five of us from the Ministry of Foreign Commerce, on a business visit,
were being taken through the Moa nickel plant. In the electric power
station--itself a large plant--which served the rest of the complex, our
guide was an enthusiastic youngster of about 22. He did an excellent job
as guide, but his modesty as well as his age deceived us and only toward
the end of our tour did we realize that he was not some sort of
apprentice engineer or assistant--he was in charge of the plant. I
noticed that he spoke English well and asked him if he had lived in the
States. Sure, he answered, I studied engineering at Tulane. As soon
as he finished, he had come back to work for the Revolution and had been
placed in charge of the power plant.
In another part of the complex, the head of one of the key departments
was a black Cuban who had about four years of elementary school
education. He had been an observant worker and when engineer of his
department left he knew what to do--although he didn't really know why,
or how his department related to the others in the plant. Now to learn
why, he was plugging away at his minimo tecnico manual--one of the
little mimeographed booklets which had been distributed throughout
industry to improve people's knowledge of their jobs.
And so on throughout the Moa plant. The engineer in charge of the whole
enterprise, who had a long cigar in his hand and his feet on the desk as
he gave us his criticisms of the way our Ministry was handling his
import requirements, was about 28 years old. His chief assistants were
about the same age and some of them were obviously not engineers.
Yet Moa was made to function. Even laymen are struck with its delicate
beauty--a testament to American engineering skill. 'Es una joya'--it's a
jewel, say the Cubans. It is much more impressive than the larger but
older nickel plant at Nicaro. Shortly after the nickel ore is clawed out
of the earth by giant Bucyrus power shovels, it a pulverized and mixed
with water to form a mixture 55 percent and 45 percent water. From then
on all materials movement is liquids, in pipes, automatically
controlled. The liquids move through the several miles of the complex,
in and out of the separate plants, with the reducers, mixing vats, etc.
Everything depends on innumerable delicate instruments, and on unusual
materials, resistant to exceptions high temperatures and various kinds
of chemical reaction. The margin for improvising in repairing or
replacing parts is small-much smaller than in the mechanized rather than
the automated Nicaro plant. Yet the Moa plant was in operation when we
were there: two of the main production lines were going-and all four
would have been going jf it had not been necessary to cannibalize two
lines to get replacement parts for the other two.
Except that Moa was an especially complex and difficult operation, jt
was typical of what happened throughout the mines and factories, and far
that matter in the railroads, banks, department stores, and movie houses
that had been taken over. The large oil
