Back to the future

"In defense of socialism" is a collection of four speeches given by Fidel Castro in 1988-89, during the celebrations of the 30th anniversary of the Cuban revolution.

The speeches are relatively uninteresting in and of themselves. They mostly deal with two subjects. First, the Cuban-MPLA-SWAPO military victory in southern Angola. Second, the so-called rectification in Cuba itself, a kind of "anti-perestroika" in which Castro attempted to bring back the early, "heroic" period of the Cuban revolution. The rectification emphasized voluntary labour in the form of "microbrigades" and special building workers' brigades, and took its cue from the economic ideas of Che Guevara, largely scrapped during the 1970's.

Both topics covered in this book seems to have been dealt with more extensively elsewhere, and it's not clear why anyone should buy this particular volume, except perhaps for nostalgic reasons.

"In defense of socialism" was published in 1989 by Pathfinder, the publishing arm of the U.S. Socialist Workers Party (SWP), an ex-Trotskyist organization which acted as a virtual propaganda arm of the Cuban regime during this period. The book therefore has a foreword written by a leading member of this party, Mary-Alice Waters. It deals almost exclusively with the rectification campaign, emphasizing the differences between the Cuban and Soviet models (the SWP, somewhat idiosyncratically, was anti-Soviet while being pro-Cuban).

I was actually present at the public launch meeting of this book in Sweden, at which the Cuban ambassador spoke for several hours (almost like Castro himself). I don't remember the exact month, but 1989 was the year when the Berlin Wall came tumbling down and socialism collapsed in Eastern Europe. This and the collapse of the USSR two years later forced the Cuban leadership to change course once again, scrapping rectification and the economic thought of Che Guevara in favour of "the special period" and eventually, market reforms. This made "In defense of socialism" seem very dated almost from start.

But yes, Cuba is still broadly socialist, and the SWP still support it...

For how long, remains to be seen.