https://www.sm28.org/articles/j11-the-return-of-the-cuban-proletariat/ I’m wondering your thoughts on this. I think they are ancoms and/or leftcoms, so obviously I took everything with a grain of salt. They have both been to Cuba in the last few years, and talked to people there. I’m pretty sure they are talking about “#soscuba.” This is what they claim:
-the Cuban people have become disillusioned with communism -since the economy is mostly based on tourism the state puts a lot of money into resorts for foreigners instead of caring for their people, Cuba therefore basically already has capitalism, especially because most of their economy relies on exports and trading with companies like nestle -the people were originally supportive of the revolution, but since Fidel died stuff has gotten worse -Cuba really peaked in the 90s when people took care of each other and there were cool farming programs and stuff -since, the farming stuff has ceased and most people are food insecure -the government is bureaucratic and is very strict not wanting people to do anything they don’t directly approve of -at this point the Cuban people don’t even care about political ideology, they just want an end to it -one claimed most people on the street will express disapproval of the gov, while the other claimed most people say they want capitalism -they say Cuba has a very small amount of crime and then claim that they have a high incarceration which is mostly political prisoners -the Cuban anarchist they interview claims there was no cia involvement, but if there were they would have welcomed it
My assumption was that the sanctions on Cuba are what is causing most of these problems, but they deny it as the underlying problem. They acknowledge the “Stalinist” talking points that Batista was worse, etc and say they’re right, but that doesn’t mean Cuba’s gov isn’t bad. Then they say something about Communism naturally coming to be hated by people in places like Cuba and the USSR, (of course they think their own specific brand of communism would be better), and this rubs me the wrong way, as the people of the USSR didn’t want it to end, in fact they almost voted the communist party back into power after the undemocratic dissillusion. So, what do you think? Is the US’ strategy of sanctioning countries til their people get desperate working? Is cuba a degenerated workers state?
Unless they have some solid data, this just sounds like typical anticommunist rambling about Cuba. I’ve heard plenty of Cuban people praising their system; there will always be some who don’t in any socialist country, whether they’re misguided or malicious. There’s no way Cuba could have thrived (relative to its circumstances) as it has – guaranteed housing, near-zero unemployment, free high-quality healthcare, free education, etc. – if they were a capitalist society, especially not when under a genocidal embargo (which is likely the reason for their reliance on tourism to get foreign currency)
Yeah, my assumption was it was mostly because of the embargo, though I’m prone to believing anecdotal evidence and haven’t personally been there.___
The embargo is absolutely crippling. For example, many people died because it prevented the government from buying or accepting syringes during the initial spread of COVID. If Cuba wasn’t socialist, Amerika would have no need for the embargo
i think context is important so here is as far as i can tell the context for the protests:
the Cuban economy right now is very reliant on tourism, and when covid hit the restrictions Cuba implemented to keep its people safe basically put tourism on hold in the island, which left it with relatively little income this made ongoing shortages worse and made the food situation a lot worse (to be clear its not a famine or anything like but the government is rationing food more and the systems thru which its doing it is annoying and complicated for people to interact with).
also around this time the government ended its long standing dual currency system which was meant to keep inflation down (i do not understand this decision at all and as far as i can tell was a mistake which tell me i provably dont know enough but genuine mistakes do happen if that is what it is) which led to a period of pretty wild inflation in a country that had seen extremely mild inflation for decades.
and to top it all off for the last few years Cuba has been struggling to keep its power grid on; old thermoelectric plants have been breaking down and there is a shortage of fuel which isnt helped by the inefficiency of said old plants, which has resulted in long programed blackouts and if you have never been without electricity for hours regularly it makes people very angry.
of course the root of most of these problems is the blockade Cuba would not have had to deindustrialize and focus on tourism if it could import energy and export its production, Cuba’s food situation wouldn’t have been precarious to begin with if it could trade with the world, and Cuba’s electricity infrastructure would be so fucked if they could import newer technology and actually had the money to buy it.
but either way that is the reality that made a lot of people vulnerable to agitation by american assets. the scale and duration of the protest may have been greatly exaggerated by western media but they did happen and a lot of the grievances people had were very real and the government responded by doing or promising to do whatever it could to address those problems which is a huge part of why the protest ended so fast.
and no i dont think the american strategy will work, recently diaz cannel basically made the rounds thru every country that was friendly to Cuba to secure trade agreements and it seems he was pretty successful also with the reemergence of multipolarity looking more real by the day i dont think american sanctions will be as big of a problem. Cuba held out for the past 30 years when it was at its weakest and the american empire was at its strongest i dont think will give up what they have built now.
https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvx070m4
It’s about a decade old now but still worth a read to get a general idea of the wider context.
The blockade is crippling, but but also crippling is the currency reunification project that has been ongoing since 2013 or so. When the split currency was introduced, it was quite unpopular; now that it’s been undone, the results of that are also unpopular. The government was basically dragged kicking and screaming to do it by the populace, despite knowing that. Hardly the actions of a government that can dominate its people.
As for these people specifically, it’s a waste of time to go canvassing people in the street. It’s a waste of time when BBC News does it, and it’s a waste of time when they do it. Any argument based on that sort of method is just… pointless.
