Cuba advances on the capitalist road

"Cuba: The Evaporation of a Myth" is a pamphlet published in 1977 by the Maoist Revolutionary Communist Party. The text was originally published in RCP's magazine "Revolution". The pamphlet is surprisingly free of the extreme or formulaic rhetoric often found in publications of this type. My guess is that it was penned before RCP's ultraleftist turn under Bob Avakian.

RCP argues that the Soviet Union (post-Stalin) has become "capitalist" and imperialist, and that Cuba is a Soviet colony in the Third World. Their main argument is that Cuba is a sugar-producing monocrop exploited by and entirely dependent on the Soviet Union. The Castro regime's relationship to the Soviets is therefore similar to pre-revolutionary Cuba's colonial dependency on the United States. At one point, the RCP tacitly admits that the USSR might actually be subsidizing the Cuban economy rather than exploiting it, but points to the U.S.-Israel relation as an obvious capitalist equivalent. The Soviets use Cuba to spearhead their imperialist ventures in Angola and elsewhere.

But what is the RCP's alternative? It turns out to be a curious mixture of Maoist self-reliance, calls to diversify the Cuban economy, and proposals that are really "to the right" of the Cuban leadership. Thus, the RCP accuses the Cuban leadership of carrying out a forced collectivization of the peasantry. It seems that the RCP to some extent want to preserve private property in land, at last for the time being. They also criticize Castro for attacking small businesses and peddlers. The RCP oppose both the early economic system of the revolution (associated with Che Guevara and often seen as very radical), which they regard as chaotic, and the later Soviet-style system (often regarded as more realistic, at least compared to the earlier situation).

While criticizing the Soviet system for being "capitalist", the RCP tacitly admits that their preferred alternative would also include "capitalist" categories such as price and profit, tempered by government commands from above, which is arguably the very same Soviet system they claim to oppose! RCP's calls to immidiately diversify the Cuban economy even if it entails some sacrifices is a real difference with Castro's emphasis on sugar production and Soviet aid, but even this idea is "capitalist". Diversification and industrialization, after all, is how the capitalist Western nations (and some East Asian nations) became succesful.

It seems the Maoist myth-busters of the Revolutionary Communist Party ends up restoring capitalism on Cuba - or at the very least Soviet "state capitalism" - all the while claiming to oppose it!

How utterly ironic.