RIP Fidel Castro August 13, 1926 – November 25, 2016

[littlebabyjesus]

And in Havana, although rather more quietly for fear of getting their bollocks wired to the mains.

Everyone I met in Cuba fucking hated him and his shit stinking regime.

Not a random sample, though. I'm guessing you were there on holiday, and irrc you don't speak too much Spanish (correct me if I'm wrong), meaning that the Cubans you will have spoken to will basically have been the jineteros - those who seek out tourists to make some money, who speak some English, and who mostly are looking for a way to get out of the country.

tbh some of the very nicest people I met when I lived there were people still committed in some way to the revolution, despite everything. Such people do exist.

The imponderable, as ever, is what difference the blockade made. Did it in some ways sure up the regime? Hard to find objective statements about that, but one thing can safely be said, I think: Castro's regime squandered the help it received from the USSR and failed to maintain or improve basic infrastructure. His legacy includes vastly improved schools and hospitals, but it also includes cities that are (literally) falling down, roads that haven't seen a workman since the revolution and a system so inefficient that, on a fertile tropical island, people go hungry every day.

 

[Raheem]

Is this a joke?

A question.

 

[butchersapron]

A question.

Yes these thing happened.

 

[Raheem]

Yes these thing happened.

I was hoping for a proper answer, like the name of someone whose fate I could google.

 

[Pickman's model]

Not a random sample, though. I'm guessing you were there on holiday, and irrc you don't speak too much Spanish (correct me if I'm wrong), meaning that the Cubans you will have spoken to will basically have been the jineteros - those who seek out tourists to make some money, who speak some English, and who mostly are looking for a way to get out of the country.

tbh some of the very nicest people I met when I lived there were people still committed in some way to the revolution, despite everything. Such people do exist.

The imponderable, as ever, is what difference the blockade made. Did it in some ways sure up the regime? Hard to find objective statements about that, but one thing can safely be said, I think: Castro's regime squandered the help it received from the USSR and failed to maintain or improve basic infrastructure. His legacy includes vastly improved schools and hospitals, but it also includes cities that are (literally) falling down, roads that haven't seen a workman since the revolution and a system so inefficient that, on a fertile tropical island, people go hungry every day.

Such a contrast to the United states or uk

 

[butchersapron]

The blockade may have accelerated the authoritarianism of the regime. It didn't introduce it. It was in always there in both its ideology and its justification for its current and future actions and institution building in the only possible conditions which could exist in Cuba - nationally and internationally. It was always the plan.

 

[rekil]

Hottest take of the day.

 

[Brainaddict]

Interesting, hadn't realized about the degree of repression - how much was in response to the reaction against Cuba by the US?

And balanced somewhat you'd think by the record on education and (despite the blockade shortages) healthcare and helping third world countries by sending doctors.

People try to say his repression was in response to the US trying to undermine him. A bit of truth to it I'm sure, but he spent a lot of time persecuting internal political enemies nobody really suspected of having US links. He also persecuted gay people just because he didn't like gay people.

I'd recommend Before Night Falls by Arenas for an account of a gay writer in Castro's Cuba (and a very good read). You could say it isn't 'objective', but it's hard to be objective when all your friends are dead or in prison.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B004FLJ6NW/

 

[Idris2002]

Very close relations, and an apparent mutual admiration, with the Spanish Franco regime too.

For real?

That's an interesting contrast with his apparent assessment of Somalia's Siad Barre:

 

[littlebabyjesus]

The blockade may have accelerated the authoritarianism of the regime. It didn't introduce it. It was in always there in both its ideology and its justification for its current and future actions and institution building in the only possible conditions which could exist in Cuba - nationally and internationally. It was always the plan.

Don't know if you've seen Memories of underdevelopment by Gutierrez Alea. It was the product of a brief period in the 60s when internal criticism, some of it quite frank, was still possible. That space then pretty much disappeared.

 

[butchersapron]

I was hoping for a proper answer, like the name of someone whose fate I could google.

You want a single name for someone worked to death in UMAP labour camps for homosexuals that he set up? Or you want a name of an oppositionist executed?

 

[butchersapron]

Don't know if you've seen Memories of underdevelopment by Gutierrez Alea. It was the product of a brief period in the 60s when internal criticism, some of it quite frank, was still possible. That space then pretty much disappeared.

If i remember right, the right to dissent was limited to party and regime friends. Try setting up an independent union or political party.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

If i remember right, the right to dissent was limited to party and regime friends. Try setting up an independent union or political party.

Yes, you do remember right. The criticism could only come from a position that supported the revolution.

 

[Brainaddict]

Also, just to throw this into the mix, have any of you actually read Che Guevara? He and Castro bought into a fundamentally authoritarian vision of how politics should be done - I don't think Cuba could ever have gone any other way.

 

[butchersapron]

Yes, you do remember right. The criticism could only come from a position that supported the revolution.

In fact, this period of freedom was the period of the crushing of the anarchist agricultural collectives. With predictable results.

 

[J Ed]

For real?

That's an interesting contrast with his apparent assessment of Somalia's Siad Barre:

Yes, Castro even declared a week of mourning when Franco died.

 

[Idris2002]

Also, just to throw this into the mix, have any of you actually read Che Guevara? He and Castro bought into a fundamentally authoritarian vision of how politics should be done - I don't think Cuba could ever have gone any other way.

Yes, I've read Guevara's Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War. And it comes through very strongly that it didn't bother him to kill, at all. "We shot a 14 year old kid for thieving, it was no big deal".

 

[Brainaddict]

Yes, I've read Guevara's Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War. And it comes through very strongly that it didn't bother him to kill, at all. "We shot a 14 year old kid for thieving, it was no big deal".

His idea of internal discipline was also deeply unpleasant and arose from authoritarian personal tendencies (and authoritarian politics). I tend to think anyone who wears him on a t-shirt is a dickhead tbh.

 

[Raheem]

You want a single name for someone worked to death in UMAP labour camps for homosexuals that he set up? Or you want a name of an oppositionist executed?

Either or both would do. I am actually interested.

I hope I have already been clear though, that it's not my case that Casto has nothing to answer for, just that your claim that he would kill or lock up anyone who disagreed with him doesn't strike me as perfectly fair and balanced. Happy to eat my words if it turns out to be accurate.

 

[rekil]

Hottest take of the day.

View attachment 96160

Even if he's just being naughty, it's gonna set a lot of Pro-Assad twitter lefts off on one I think.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Either or both would do. I am actually interested.

I hope I have already been clear though, that it's not my case that Casto has nothing to answer for, just that your claim that he would kill or lock up anyone who disagreed with him doesn't strike me as perfectly fair and balanced. Happy to eat my words if it turns out to be accurate.

He would kill or lock up anyone who opposed him. There was zero space to oppose the regime in Castro's Cuba. 'We are all revolutionaries.' The slogans are overblown somewhat but were intended to be heartfelt: Socialismo o muerte, Hasta la victoria siempre. The revolution wasn't something that happened in 1959 and then ended. It was an ongoing and permanent process, and it brooked no opposition.

 

[Brainaddict]

A review from Amazon of Before Night Falls, to encourage you to read it:

This isn't a book for the prudish or the faint-hearted. From chapter one it describes not just homosexual activities but bestiality, incest and a general array of sexual experiences described in blunt honesty. That aside, I loved this book. It describes life as a poor peasant under Batista's regime, life as a revolutionary under Castro, life as a writer in Cuba in the face of censorship and opression, life as an ordinary Cuban, trying to survive financially despite shortages and the blockade, life as a prison inmate, and finally, of course, it describes life as a homosexual in a country which considered it a perversion.

For me it was a valuable and detailed account of the various aspects of life in Communist Cuba. The most striking quality however was that it communicated the extent to which mistrust, uncertainty and duplicity are a part of daily life in Cuba. As someone who spent nearly five months living in Havana, I had previously thought that never knowing who you can trust, and being lied to by people who claim to be your friends, was an experience specific only to foreigners in Cuba. Reading this book I came to realise that a sad reality of life under Castro's regime is that noone ever knows who they can trust. As people like Arenas did their best to be true to themselves either as writers or as homosexuals, the government, with its vast network of social and political controls was doing its very best to supress opposition and anything it considered counter-revolutionary.

Networks of informers and committees for the defense of the revolution were not only expressions of Castroist support, but also constituted opportunities for social and economic advancement and, at times more importantly, refuges of protection against a government which seemed to consider almost everyone its enemy. In such an environment, the ability to portray both an authentic and a false persona were essential to survival, and at times people Arenas considered some of his truest friends, were also informing on him to the government, as a means of avoiding punishment for their own 'counter-revolutionary' activities.

 

[mather]

And in Havana, although rather more quietly for fear of getting their bollocks wired to the mains.

Everyone I met in Cuba fucking hated him and his shit stinking regime.

Your a class A cunt!

 

[Spymaster]

Your a class A cunt!

You can't spell

 

[Idris2002]

Yes, Castro even declared a week of mourning when Franco died.

I still remember Umberto Eco's take on Castro's decision to back the Argentine junta over the Malvinas: "Castro must be more familiar with Errol Flynn than Marx".

 

[mather]

Go suck Batista's putrefied cock.

 

[bi0boy]

I still remember Umberto Eco's take on Castro's decision to back the Argentine junta over the Malvinas: "Castro must be more familiar with Errol Flynn than Marx".

He'd backed the junta for many years previously.

 

[Brainaddict]

He'd backed the junta for many years previously.

Unfortunately Latin America has it's own form of kneejerk 'anti-imperialism'. It relies on the deeply ahistorical idea that Europe and the US are the colonial powers and Latin American nations are their victims, who must band together to fight the imperial powers.
Even otherwise sound lefties in LA often buy into this in some form or other. Subject for another thread really, but you only have to look at it from the perspective of indigenous people to see what a load of simplistic old bollocks it is.

 

[Idris2002]

He'd backed the junta for many years previously.

Not a bit of the story I'd heard before, but it looks like you're right:

Castro Helped the Devil in Argentina

Cables document relations between Castro and Argentine junta - World Socialist Web Site

 

[J Ed]

I still remember Umberto Eco's take on Castro's decision to back the Argentine junta over the Malvinas: "Castro must be more familiar with Errol Flynn than Marx".

He'd backed the junta for many years previously.

Wow, I had no idea about this.