What do the Popes and the Castros have in common?

Neoprene--

What the fuck are you babbling about? First, I'm no anarchist, and second there are no rantings whatsoever. RC asked what "immanent critique" meant. I told him.

Pointing out the material limits to a revolution, and/or the less than savory role so-called "heroic guerrillas" played during a real working class struggle for power doesn't amount to anything except.......Marxism.

Neoprene W,

Do believe the liberation of the working class will be the task of the working class itself?

When I look at Cuba, I see a bourgeois revolution that took the path of alignment with the East Bloc when the West wasn't a practical option.

How bourgeois revolutionaries succeed might be one interesting topic to study but revolutionaries should be clear in such studies that the guerrillas are not us, that we are not and should be the organizers of proto-states ready to replace the existing state.

And it is certainly true that the Cuban revolution had a proletarian component. Most bourgeois revolutions do. The litmus test isn't whether the proletariat is active but whether it is autonomous from the bourgeois. And in this regard, I think one can also argue that even those events closest to proletarian revolutions also have had a bourgeois component but that in these situation (Russia 1917 or where-ever) the key thing was that the working class did attain some autonomy (and even here not enough as the state of this present world attests).

"Most bourgeois revolutions" have a proletarian component??

Care to expand on that, because I don't find such a component in the English Revolution, the French, the US Civil War [not a perfect example].

Uneven and combined development does not mean bourgeois revolutions have a "proletarian component." It means that a "bourgeois revolution" is an historic anachronism, an archaic formation and formulation that cannot be brought to fruition.

And we could push this a bit further as to ask where is the historically specific bourgeois mode of production in the revolution in Cuba. I mean I'd ask that, but then I'd probably be accused of making a non-anarchist rant.

S. Artesian: you gave us as something worthy I presume an interview that was announced this way:
"Interview with the Spanish libertarian militant and veteran of the anti-Franco struggle Octavio Alberola on the anarchist angle on Cuba, originally published in the Venezuelan monthly El Libertario in 2004."

It it therefore no insinuation, when I call this "anarchist", but it is something people with more sympathy than I have, attributed to this. Second: I was explicitly disappointed by this showpiece for a correct view on the Cuban developments and called it "rantings" because it is disappointingly contentless, more than the antidictatorship stance this leftists did not feel worth mentioning.

Actually that was Mike, not S. Artesian. Very characteristic of your spartacist approach that we are all one undifferentiated mass to your ingorant proselytisation.

For the record, here's a snippet of that "anarchist rant" (btw, you do know this is an anarchist forum, right? - even if non-anarchist militants who have the ability to engage in debate with integrity are welcome - a category, so far, you don't appear to fall into).

So there you go. This, according to you, is a mere rant, lacking in any analysis and taking an "anti-dictatorship" line, indistinguishable from the liberals and Miami anti-Castroites. What was that about honesty?

Frankly I find reading Alberola more interesting than the dreck from GSP posted in the OP. I think you got lost on your way to revleft...

Thanks to Ocelot.

Neoprene, works better when you can properly distinguish among ranters.

Here's a short rant for you to practice with: Turn blue.

The minor point first:
I think it is of the least importance, who "personally" writes here something. These kind of forums are about arguments political positions, actual facts and basically not about persons. Especially as most of us (for good reasons) dont post under the bourgeois names anyway. So I apologize for the wrong quotation.

The counterattack ad hominem as well as against organisations unfortunately underscore my humble question, whether this is all. A lot of strong verbiage (ignorant, Dreck, inhonest, you name it).

Now to the far more interesting points, at least to ocelot:
The prospects for the Cuban mases are not very promising as the Cuban regime is intent on restoring capitalism proper. I will not object to this one. By the way it was the content of the public forums and articles of GegenStandpunkt recently to picture this out in all detail. For me personally very boring, as I think it is not more convincing if you point to every lineamento where this can be seen. I think it minimizing the ideological counter forces to attribute this courseto Mafias. This is a poliy fought out in public, in the media and nothing behind the backs of the people.

Abd of course it looks like safe bet to expect for a Cuban future something along the bad history of the dissolution of the COMECON-states.

N interesting point is the thesis of a genuin social revolution that the Castroites were able to castrate. When did it happen, who fought for it and when and how was it defated?

" Unfortunately, forty odd years of dictatorship and communist demagogy have wiped out what was left of the workers' movement and its tradition of pressing claims and imposed resignation and disunity among workers. However, Cuban workers will have to come together and fight once again against private capitalism."

Hard to argue against this bitter summary, but why "will" as if this is task for the future? And a little bit more content than "Indipendence" would be nice too.

RedHughs, if you give the political developments the charakter "bourgeois revolution", then it must be explicated, what the bourgeois character of this was. And, what I assume you mean with this, why it still was capitalist. As it very soon was adapted to the Moscow model it basicaly is a question what character the COMECON-states had.

One problem for the left regarding Cuba from the start was the obvious fact that the masses there, and especially not the relative smal numbers of proletarian workers, where not the participants not even the most importsnt supporters of this regime change. Nevertheless quite a few leftist tendencies came out calling it a socialist revolution. It started with the Stalinists but even in the Trotskyist milieu ( where I personally come from) very soon there could be found ardent supporters of these "unconscious Marxists". The american SWP had a fight over this then when some youth did not accept this positve verdict. By the way amongst others with your argument that this cannot qualify as a genuin proletarian revolution if the working class plays no active role.

Priceless, pathetic, and hilarious. And all at once. You think it's of least importance who says what-- except you used what was said to accuse me of political positions not held, political arguments not made, and emotional attacks not expressed. Mere technicalities, I'm sure when compared to the laws of the universe, but of slightly greater significance when engaging in........uhh, political arguments about political positions, you self-aggrandizing moron.

And let's get this straight..I'm saying the above about you, so don't go blaming Ocelot or anybody else.

Oh yeah, and when you find time, can you explain what a "bourgeois name" is? Please???? As opposed I guess to an "anti-bourgeois name" or an "anti-capitalist name" or an "anti-imperialist name," or maybe a "deformed worker's name."

You're not worth engaging, and I'm saying that too, although others are free to agree.

A "bourgeois name" is the literal translation of "bürgerlicher Name" in German. It is the name that you find in the passport of a person. I am astonished to see a semantic diatribe here, but the motto seems to be everything goes, I am afraid.

Deleted (missed the above)

Eat your wheaties today, Artesian, eh?

Anyway, I should have said many rather most, I've not been keep a running tally on this.

But the thing is, I wasn't calling them proletarian revolutions, they weren't. When I said "proletarian component", I meant that many bourgeois revolutions have involved a mobilization of the poor and dispossessed, for example the Diggers. Maybe you have come super tight definition of what "proletarian component" means. If so, please share it.

And surely you can have bourgeois revolution which involves a potential bourgeois appearing to organize a potential bourgeois regime? Indeed, how else would one call the plethora of anti-colonial revolutions after WWII? Most of the countries involved there were far less developed than Cuba?

We can chest butt around definitions all day if you'd like but why don't you show us your terminology before we start the festivities?

If the Moscow Model is something that could be adopted by fiat by a given regime, could the "Moscow Model" be communism?

I'll OK with making one's terminology really rigid and so refusing to call our Moscow Model capitalism. Whaterver. But changing the terminology can't be able to change reality. The Moscow Model wasn't the human community or any step towards it. The combined world system encompassing the Eastern Bloc and the Western Bloc showed itself to be a systemic opponent of the working class and communism. Looking at the internal political economy of the USSR is interesting endeavor but findings about the exact resource allocation methods there can't be our most fundamental guidepost.

It is far simpler to see that the Castro regime could adopt the Moscow Model because this model is still only something imposed on the working class (and the peasant class back when such a group might be distinguished).

But I don't think you "get it". I don't believe there's anyone here who would say "now why did those people do such an opportunistic and confused act". Even the folks here who aren't explicitly against the left, like the syndicalists, are explicitly against the historic Leninist left. Why did the CP engage in such this? Because they'd already been reduced to the puppets of Moscow by then. Not only would I expect the CP to support something like the Castro Regime, I'd expect them only support that kind of regime. They were scum.

I mean, if you take the post 1945-or-whenever US CP as anything but a vicious counter-revolutionary clique, well you've left any authentic consideration of what is revolutionary behind.

I mean, not everything that is done by an autonomously organized proletariat is going to be communism or even communist-leaning. But nothing done as dictat imposed on the proletariat is going to be communism. As Ocelot said, it seems you've got lost on the way to Revleft.

Also,

This question remains

Well, it is easy to simply answer: Yes of course, either the class liberates itself or there will be no liberation at all.

But as practically every left tendency ever has said this, it is obviously far more important to figure out what this concretely means. Even the most diehard leftist "terrorists" from the Blanquists over the Narodnaya Volya to the German Red Army Fraction long gone by (or smashed in most cases to be more precise) saw their respective spectacular activities only as a starting point to rouse the masses.

Naah....don't like Wheaties. I like meat.

Anyway, I know you weren't calling them "proletarian revolutions." You were calling them bourgeois revolutions with a proletarian component. Right I didn't detect a proletarian component-- and I'm not using any "super-tight" definition, I'm using a definition based on-- uh-oh hold on, class-- the condition of-- uh uh oh oh--labor or, the social conflict between property and the condition of its creation-- see above regarding labor-- anyway as I was saying before I so rudely interrupted myself-- I didn't see a proletarian component in the classic "models" of bourgeois revolution-- although there is certainly that element in the failed models of social revolution, i.e. 1848.

If you'd like an example of a proletarian component to a bourgeois revolution-- I suggest we look at the Mexican Revolution of 1910---1920? 1937? There's a failed proletarian component in a bourgeois revolution if there ever there was one, and it's kind of unique in that regard.

I don't think we can categorize the Russian Revolution, or the Cuban Revolution as bourgeois revolutions since in one, the bourgeoisie were expropriated and suppressed, and in the other they left.

I know I'm a dinosaur in this matter, but I kind of am stuck with thinking for a revolution to be considered bourgeois, there really has to be a bourgeoisie taking power, and by more than some sort of proxy. I mean by that if somehow the Cuban revolutionists of 1959, adopting the fSU model, represent a new class-- then we need to see a mode of production unique to that class. And if there is a mode of production unique to that class, we should see it developing within the production relations of the pre-revolutionary society.

So yeah... I think Cuba, unlike India, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, Argentina under Perons 1,2,3 and Kirchners 1,2, Bolivia under the MNR or MAS, Venezuela under Chavez, Chile under Allende, Ecuador under any one we can name, really did experience a social revolution; a revolution limited, and disorganizing itself in its very organization along the lines of the fSU, with the organization serving to administer, reproduce, the impulse to capitalist restoration.

An inelegant, awkward, confusing formulation for sure, but it's the best I can do on long or short notice. Believe me, I've tried to come up with something better.

And in case I haven't made this transparently clear to the most casual observer, I don't buy into any of the "state capitalism- state capitalists" theories.

Told you I'm a dinosaur about this. Now, where's the meat?

I really, honestly don't understand this sentence and it seems like the crux of your argument. Is your argument for or against the new class conclusion? If you are against the new class conclusion, what is your alternative and if your is for the new class conclusion, what do you see the role of this new class as?

Anyway, the sixty four dollar question is whether the social system which arises within Cuba or within the former USSR generates any "potential" other than the potential to return to traditional market capitalism, right?

Told you it was awkward, inelegant, clumsy but I was hoping that it would be clear that I do not hold to a new class theory because there is no new mode of production unique to what we call generally the bureaucracy.

But there was a real social revolution, in Russia, and transplanted to Cuba, warts and all, or all warts if you prefer.

Is there potential for that to generate into anything other than the restoration of capitalism? Sure, but only by being overthrown by the completion of that revolution, which can only occur internationally-- meaning, Trotskyists please note, the notion of "political revolution" as distinct from economic and social revolution, is an archaic formulation, and a disavowal of the very international conditions, the uneven and combined development, that is at the heart of the matter.

Can the bureaucracy of whatever we want to call it, develop anything, save the impulse to capital restoration, on its own? Absolutely not as the origin of it is the disruption, defeat of the global scope of revolution. For that reason the bureaucracy can't generate anything, anybody, anywhere, except dissolution.

Like I said, awkward, messy, inelegant. And those are its good points.

Hell yeah.

Common name.

LEO is your friend.

"Bourgeois" is pretty much almost never used in an English-speaking context without some kind of political, sociological, or vaguely pejorative connotation.

"bürgerlich" has too many common usages in German that don't directly translate to "bourgeois" in English. Just sayin', if you want to avoid fightin' words while trying to make converts here or on RevLeft.

However, if GSP acolytes want to retain my services as an interpreter in the online world, I hereby offer my services for the super, everyday low-price of 25 euro an hour. Think about it: if Germany retains its role as Exportweltmeister, you can't afford not to have a professional interpreter/translator conversant in the language of the critique of political economy!

Well, Angelus, I am a friend of LEO too, all my sometimes big and heavy paper dictionaries collect dust these days on the shelf. But a dictionary helps only when you think you need help.

And this is not only true for simple words as the name in this case but it far more important in discussions aboutleft categries. Even this little thread already gives some good examoles for this.

Reagarding translations of political texts this is the problem of every leftist tendency/organisation/individual author, that wants the news spread. At least this is a felt need for leftists that the the need for internatinal coherent class struggle. A big part of the left that makes a virtue from its isolation of course does not need things like this.

As the Gegenstanpunkt movement cannot extract money from the state indirectly via the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung as leftists nearer to the Partei Die Linke here in Germany can, as especially you yourself are aware of, I am afraid that they would not could not accept your kind offer even if it where meant sincerely. This I doubt as you seem to be a little distant politically from the views of Gegenstandpunkt, probably not in all points but probably in important ones. And when some serious political differences would show up, probably rather sooner than later, your nice "solidarity price" would be gone anyway, I am afraid.

That's true, I still make up my own mind about what books to read and probably wouldn't take kindly to asking permission...

Another point that still needs clarification is the statement about the trade unions:
"genuine class-based independent trade unions, independent of the state and of any political force that would seek to turn them back into transmission belts"
would be neccessary. This always a very weak formulation as "independence" is without any content. The bigger fundamental question is, why the most important task is to wage "good" trade union struggles for a better living *as workers*. This is a very systemimmanent thing. A connected question then is whether this proposed and demanded trade union is seen as the organization for a still to cone proletarian revolution or if another revolutionary organisation parallel to the trade union(s) are still neccessary.

Angelus obviously it will come as a smal surprise too you, that I too "still make up my own mind about what books to read and probably wouldn't take kindly to asking permission...".
By the way which interesting books dont have the imprimatur from Peter Decker and his comrades?

What's cynical is the fact that you are unable to apply the same critical faculties to articles produced by the sect to which you are loyal - specifically that of the OP. You only deploy your critical faculties against perceived "enemies" - not to engage with them in any honest way, but simply to attack, to denigrate, to slander in a way all too familiar for those of us old enough to remember the Stalinists and the Sparts back when they were still around.

As for stuff like this:

You equate criticism of the suppression of worker's rights to organise with support for bourgeois democracy. This is in the same vein as those hard-core ultraleftists (where the ultrasinistra become the ultra-sinster) who maintain that anyone who says that the arrest and imprisonment of trade unionists and communists/anarchists/leftists in 1933 meant that there was any significant difference between Weimar and the Third Reich is automatically a counter-revolutionary supporter of the left wing of capital, ispo facto. Your non sequiteurs are dishonest, unoriginal and boring.

The quote that RC refered *is* identical to all that gusano propaganda. This "fundamental human rights" thing was *the* battle cry of US-imperialism against the "communist" states. Carter is a good/bad example for this. It is therefore a little bit rich, to argue that this is not meant, even if there is not the slightest distance or difference to be seen, unfortunately for someone who probably sees himself as an arch enemy of imperialism.