[Marxism] What is wrong with the ISO's and the US SWP's positions on Cuba

[Joaquin Bustelo]

	The back and forth between Louis and Walter on the list about Cuba
and the ISO and the SWP (USA) piqued my interest.

	I believe EXACTLY THE SAME THING is wrong with the SWP's position on
Cuba as with the ISO's diametrically opposite position. The mistake they
BOTH make is that they HAVE a position on the road forward for working
people in Cuba.

	This may seem an odd statement for me to make, since I obviously
have an opinion on that, at least in general terms, and largely the same one
that Walter and Louis hold. But I ALSO have an opinion that Babylon 5 is an
absolutely AWESOME science fiction series, and hope that many comrades share
this correct position on Babylon 5.

	But when I was a member of Solidarity, I was unalterably OPPOSED to
putting my position on Cuba up for a vote -- and not mainly because it would
have lost -- but because I don't think it is right for a U.S. political
organization to have such a position. As for Babylon 5, the thought of
getting Soli to collectively engage on that --frankly-- never crossed my
mind.  

	OK, sorry about the TV joke. Back to Cuba. Why am I against making
Cuba, or Lula in Brazil, or Chavez in Venezuela, a "line" question? Because,
for one thing, it is undemocratic, at a very fundamental level. Most people
in the United States --including most socialists-- are not in a position to
follow internal developments in Cuba or Brazil or wherever even in the most
general way. They have no way of testing for themselves a "line" for Cuba,
nor discussing with comrades directly engaged in that work their
experiences, the way they might have, say, in relation to trade union
tactics. 

	In reality, this means that the big majority of the membership have
to take someone's word for it. The relationship between "the expert" and the
bulk of the membership is a hierarchical, masculinist and disempowering one.
Votes taken on this sort of basis are purely bourgeois electoralism, and the
very opposite of the participatory democracy of working people that we
should strive to begin learning and applying.

	In addition, I am just plain against political organizations in the
United States having votes or positions on general theoretical or historical
questions, including the line in some other country. For one thing, if we
haven't yet understood that the bit in the Communist Manifesto about
"workers of the world, unite" means us socialists here also, I really doubt
that we're very qualified to impose homogeneous positions on theory in any
meaningful way within the plague of myriad groups that we do have.

	I was reminded of this recently by reading parts of Volume III of
Marx's Capital. Some people might remember that for a while, I was trying to
understand just why it was that unequal exchange took place, and other
questions related to imperialism.

	A few weeks ago, a comrade sent me off-list a reference to a couple
of articles by Ernest Mandel on the MIA. And in one of those there was a
discussion of unequal exchange, saying something to the effect that as Marx
pointed out in Capital, exchanges of commodities between more developed and
less developed countries were of necessity unequal, and explaining Marx's
argument.

	What struck me upon reading that and the relevant section of Volume
III, which explained it with such simplicity and clarity that I felt like an
idiot for not having seen it all along, is that no one on the list had
pointed me in that direction when I raised the subject and asked for help in
understanding it, nor presented Marx's explanation. Now, I don't flatter
myself in thinking that everyone or even most people on the list read what I
write, but I'm pretty sure at least a few, and probably a few dozen do. 

	And one woulda thunk that, given the importance of unequal exchange
to imperialism and the way the world works, among the ten, twenty or thirty
Marxists on this list that would have read the posts, at least one or a
couple would have had a recollection of Marx's argument and pointed me in
that direction. 

	I don't think the low theoretical level that this suggests is an
accident, including MY OWN low theoretical level, as evidenced by this. This
list is largely, though not exclusively, an expression of the Marxist
movement in the United States and then somewhat less of the movement in the
other English-speaking imperialist countries. It is an indication of the
backwardness or belatedness or however you want to label it of the social
movement against capitalism in these countries, compounded by elements of
blind spots and miseducation in the Marxist traditions/currents that we grew
up in politically, and further compounded by our own individual mistakes and
misunderstandings.

	And as a practical matter, a genuine advance in the organized
political expression of the Marxist or socialist left in the United States
would mean a group that brought together people from diverse currents. Such
a group would have a hard enough time coming up with a plan of practical
activity to make itself real on the ground right now, never mind figuring
out the road forward in Canada, Colombia, Croatia and Cuba. And if it
understood that it was not QUALIFIED to make medicine for other countries,
that would be even better.

	That's why, BTW, I do not regret having joined Solidarity a few
years ago, and if I thought that building an existing socialist group in
Atlanta under current circumstances was useful and something I could
contribute to, I'd probably rejoin Solidarity despite it being, to a very
significant extent, a syndicalist sect, as another member of Soli called it.
Because at least the Soli comrades --most of them-- have figured out that
much, that having precisely the correct program for the workers and peasants
of the Patagonia doesn't really get you very far in our neck of the woods,
on the contrary, a big focus on that is quite likely a distraction and a
diversion.

	Does that mean that I think studying other revolutionary
experiences, reading "foreign" or historical or theoretical works,
discussing them, writing about them, organizing debates on those subjects is
worthless? On the contrary, I think those things are extremely valuable,
even essential.

	But what those things do --developing your understanding and
theoretical capacity as a Marxist-- is of necessity largely an individual
process, and even when various people are collectively engaged in such
projects (and this list is at least in part that) what each one gets out of
it is still an individual result. There is no way to collectively apply in a
direct sense an understanding that quantity changes into quality, or the
"line" that exchange between more developed and less developed countries is
of necessity unequal to the detriment of the latter.

	What can be collectively decided, applied and concrete results
subjected to truly collective analysis and reflection in a democratically
participatory way are political actions relating to actual struggles in the
society in which we live, action in relation to the actual evolution and
motion of social layers and forces that we are a part of. And there is a
great value in bringing together disparate and partial understandings and
impressions of those things, coming up with a more rounded and generalized
appreciation of them.

	In relation to, for example, Brazil, what a political group in the
U.S. needs to focus on MAINLY is how the U.S. as the central imperialist
power in this epoch relates to Brazil as a semicolonial country. And
actually, having a very developed understanding of the ins and outs of
Brazil's politics, the problems with Lula's administration, etc., CAN (not
necessarily but possibly) cut across what the group needs to COLLECTIVELY
understand and act on. 

	I saw this very much in Soli in relation to the Miami summit where
the FTAA was being discussed. A few people from our branch were going down
to participate in the anti-globalization protests, but the main things
people knew about Brazil (from an internal bulletin with material from
discussions in the Fourth International) were a bunch of problems in
relation to Lula's presidency. The comrades didn't know anything about the
really hot dispute, which was about U.S. and other imperialist agricultural
subsidies, that we were, in effect, blocking with Chavez and trying to push
Lula to go further in confronting and rejecting imperialist demands, and so
on. At first blush, to someone trained in the Trotskyist tradition, this
isn't nearly as "sexy" as a big discussion about Lula and popular frontism
and the tactics of revolutionaries who were then within the PT and so on,
but IN FACT it was much more directly relevant to our real, living political
engagement in OUR OWN country as part of the anti-neoliberal globalization
movement. IN THIS FRAMEWORK, then the stuff about Lula did have its
usefulness and relevance in terms of why we wanted to echo and back
Venezuela's position rather than Brazil's and so on. But actually you didn't
necessarily have to understand anything about Lula and all the stuff in the
FI debates to make the decision to be supportive of Venezuela's stance, that
was evident if you simply approached it from the angle of opposing your own
imperialism.

	So it is our own political engagement, including in relation to
other countries, that is the proper field of collective decisions and
positions of political organizations. Thinking that your "party" has, or
needs to have, the correct line for the workers and peasants and honest
intellectuals of Parador is a mistake.

Joaquín