here we have a unique case of a maoist calling cuba a "banana republic" of the soviet union because it received aid from it
I suppose it’s mildly true, that Cuba did not diversify its economy as much as it could have because they had valuable exports that were difficult to source for the eastern bloc, which is part of what made the special period so difficult, but “neo-colony?” Come on.
No western economy has ever become over reliant on primary exports. Economies like Norway and Australia are definitely super diversified.
Russia didn't lose tons of its economic diversity in the nineties transitioning its economy to primarily oil extraction, nope.
Actually before December 1958 Cuba was perfect and an amazing place to live especially if you were working class or a peasant.
I wonder who was the greater influencer of Cuban foreign policy post-revolution - the Soviets thousands of miles away or the Americans ninety miles away. You can watch old interviews of Castro in the fifties and it seems like he wanted to have a good image in the American press, but that was made impossible for him when it became clear he was a communist and the narrative turned against him, leaving him frankly with no good choice.
but that was made impossible for him when it became clear he was a communist
There’s quotes from Castro saying almost the opposite - if you look at his early beliefs he was really just for a progressive national liberation movement. He said later that it was only after seeing the way the communists treated independent Cuba, versus how the capitalists treated them, that turned him into a committed communist.
Hanging out with Che helped of course :P
I thought he became a communist during the revolution itself, but if it happened afterwards partially as a response to US coldness that's a bit different.
STRUGGLE SESSION: Part of the reason why Che left the island was because he gradually became more and more interested in the maoist model and diversifying to a peasantry based agrarian society. Fidel listened to soviet attaches instead and became overly focused on the traditional cashcrop, sugar. In retrospect the island should have focused on boosting food security, especially in the east of the island.
I agree that Cuba should have tried that (and to some extent did). But I also think that Cuba had a number of points like being relatively more modernised that meant a primarily Soviet Model worked better over a more Maoist one.
And I think that's enabled Cuba's ability to maintain a more robust grassroots democratic system than other AES states. Of all the Communist states Cuba has made the least ideological compromises.
Remember when Castro got desperate in the 90s and tried to sell people a bunch of golf courts? Cuba is better than most but let's be honest, right now it is overreliant on Canadian tourism and simply wishes to become either the next Burma or the next Vietnam depending on how much the Americans force them to rely on chinese trade.
Oh, they're not perfect, absolutely. But seige socialism is a bitch to deal with.
Fidel himself recognized that they should've listened to Che more often when it comes to economics. He talks about it here , if you speak spanish or portuguese.
No revolution is perfect, but to call the only successful one in the Americas a neo-colony is at the very least distasteful.
Making every country 100% self-sufficient -- I'm thinking particularly all the little clusters of European countries -- is a big detriment to efficiency since they have to duplicate labour and means of production for more industries. Especially if you're competing with capitalist powers that do this a lot. There's no real good solution to this, especially while capitalism is still a global power.
sugar decreased as a share of production & exports in the decades following the revolution. the soviets paid above the market value for the sugar too.
Paul morrin's new china video is emberassing, i think i lost major braincells from listening to some of that insane gongzoloist pompeo-level yellow scare shite
What is breadtube’s problem with week-long video essays?
They are """""leftist""""" memesters.
That take was so wack that I almost starting thinking about it seriously. But real question: Was the deployment of soviet missiles in Cuba a necessity? It seems like it was, mainly due to the - alarmingly re-emergent - desire of American empire to revert to Batista-Land (and you know, the whole Bay of Police Officers thing).
I think it was both a way to defend cuba from US agression and to have a responce to US missiles in turkey
Every socialist country should have nukes until no more capitalist states have them.
Cuba actually wanted the missiles to defend. People here have been railing against the US military bases for decades but noooope.
