[Marxism] Che Guevara versus Raul Castro?

[Walter Lippmann]

Since the formal transfer of responsibilities from Fidel to Raul,
some people on the left have begun to take distance from the Cuban 
revolution and, in particular, its leadership. For years some have
counterposed Fidel to Che on the basis that Che was really a lot 
more revolutionary than Fidel, Che was reading Trotsky in the
mountains of Bolivia, and so on. Jon Lee Anderson wrote an entire
book with conflict between the two leaders as their underlying
conception. Various groupings on the left also have this approach.
Bourgeois journalists do this all the time, talking about how we
are now seeing the resurrection of capitalism in Cuba, every time
some modest adjustment is made in the Cuban political economy.

Though Che Guevara was granted Cuban citizenship as a result of
his revolutionary activity, Che was Argentine by nationality and
had told Fidel before they went to Cuba that he would want to take
his own path as an internationalist separately after the triumph.
That is precisely what Che did, first in the Congo, then in Bolivia.

One can debate the reasons, as many have in the intervening period
of more than four DECADES, but those missions were not successful.

Recently I've noticed that the Grant-Woods tendency has taken up 
the cudgels against Raul, trying to counterpose Fidel to Raul.
It's an approach which, in my opinion, ought to be avoided lacking
any actual confirming evidence. The Grant-Woods people are today
suggesting to the world that Cuba has dumped its internationalism.
This, of course, is without any empirical foundation.

Here's what Grant-Woods wrote after Raul became president of Cuba:

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Since Raul Castro took on more political responsibility in the
running of the country as a result of Fidel Castro's illness, he has
portrayed an image of himself as being a "pragmatist", more concerned
with economic efficiency than politics. This is the first thing that
an average Cuban will tell you, particularly taxi drivers and people
in a position to rent rooms to foreigners. They tell you that Fidel
is more of an "idealist", that he is more concerned with "politics"
and "international affairs", while Raul is more sensitive to the
"everyday concrete problems of the people".

It is highly significant than in his first speech as President of the
country, on February 24, he did not make one single reference to the
Venezuelan revolution, whose fate is without a doubt decisive for the
Cuban people and their revolution. In this same speech Raul
highlighted a number of important political and economic measures. 
He linked "any changes related to the currency" to the aim that
"everyone's living standard corresponds directly to their legally
earned incomes, that is, with the importance and quantity of one's
labour contribution to society."
http://www.marxist.com/where-is-cuba-going.htm
*************************************************************************

Che understood that Cuba couldn't build a complete, self-sufficient
socialist society in a single country, much less an island with a
population of only a few millions. That's why he set his sights on
overcoming Cuba's isolation through his internationalist missions.

His concept of "two, three, many Vietnams", as spelled out in the
MESSAGE TO THE TRICONTINENTAL made this quite clear. It's worth
reading and re-reading, but with a critical eye, since things have
not quite turned out as he projected back in the day. The Soviet
Union and Eastern Europe are today capitalist. Vietnam defeated
the United States, and China and Vietnam are today using private
capital and capitalist mechanisms to build up their economies.
Alas, these choices have had complex and contradictory results.

The idea that Cuba, on its own, can escape the forces of the 
international capitalist economy is not correct. The idea that
Cuba could be a model of revolutionary purity in a world where
capitalism, however rotten and degenerated, remains quite strong,
is also mistaken. Cuba's policy is to do what it can to extend and
expand its possibilities through regional integration in all of
its forms (ALBA, PETRO-CARIBE, OPERACION MILAGRO, etc., etc.,)
while supporting those elsewhere fighting as they can to change
their countries. 

Had Che been alive today, he might and presumably would have been
sober and realistic and thus have understood the changes and made
proposals based on changed circumstances. Of course I cannot tell
you would Che would have said about today's needs, beyond ideas
like solidarity and anti-imperialism. As far as specific methods
and projects within the island, one can really only glean a broad
and general sense, not specific or precise measures.

One good thing about Che was that he felt that as long as people
were on the same side, he was happy to hear, discuss and debate
alternative points of view.

Here's a letter which I've just scanned from THE CHE READER which
Ocean Press published, containing a terrific selection of Che's
writings. Two of his important points are:

"the lever of material interest is still the arbiter of the well-being
of the individual and of the small collectivity (factories, for
example). And that is where I see the root of the evil. Conquering
capitalism with its own fetishes, having removed their most magical
quality, profit, seems like a tricky business."
--------------
"I don't pretend to have exhausted this theme, much less to have given
the papal "amen" to these and other contradictions. Unfortunately, in
the eyes of most of our people, and in mine as well, apologetics for
a system can have more impact than scientific analysis of it. This
does not help us in the task of clarification, and our whole effort
is aimed at inviting people to think, to treat Marxism with the
seriousness this towering doctrine deserves.

--------------------------------------------------

Ernesto Che Guevara

To José Medero Mestre

Havana, February 26, 1964 
"Year of the Economy 


Mr. José Medero Mestre 
Havana

Compañero,

Thank you for your interest and your comments. In order to convince
me, you have touched a sore spot; you quote my adversaries.
Unfortunately, because of the time involved I cannot continue this
polemic by mail. Future issues of Nuestra Industria Económica will be
carrying articles by a select number of Soviet technicians showing
their concern with similar questions.

Just one statement for you to think about: counterposing socialist
efficiency to capitalist inefficiency in factory management is to
confuse wishes with reality. It is in distribution that socialism
achieves unquestionable advantages, and it is in centralized planning
that it has been able to overcome its technological and
organizational disadvantages with respect to capitalism. With the
break up of the old society, an attempt has been made to establish
the new one with a hybrid. Man as a wolf, the society of wolves, is
being replaced by another genus that no longer has the desperate urge
to rob his fellow man, since the exploitation of man by man has
disappeared. But he still does have some urges of that type (although
quantitatively fewer), due to the fact that the lever of material
interest is still the arbiter of the well-being of the individual and
of the small collectivity (factories, for example). And that is where
I see the root of the evil. Conquering capitalism with its own
fetishes, having removed their most magical quality, profit, seems
like a tricky business.

If this is very obscure (my watch says it's past midnight), perhaps
another simile will make it clearer: the lever of material interest
under socialism is like Pastorita's lottery; it can neither light up
the eyes of the most ambitious nor budge the others' indifference.

I don't pretend to have exhausted this theme, much less to have given
the papal "amen" to these and other contradictions. Unfortunately, in
the eyes of most of our people, and in mine as well, apologetics for
a system can have more impact than scientific analysis of it. This
does not help us in the task of clarification, and our whole effort
is aimed at inviting people to think, to treat Marxism with the
seriousness this towering doctrine deserves.

Because of this, because you think, I thank you for your letter;
least important is the fact that we do not agree.

If you ever have to tell me anything else, remember, I am not a
teach-am just one of many men struggling today to build a new Cuba,
but whir had the good fortune to be at Fidel's side during the most
difficult moments of the Cuban Revolution and some of the most tragic
and glorious morning the history of the worldwide struggle for
freedom. That is why you know who I am, while I don't remember your
name. It might have been the of way around, except that in that case
I would have had to write you from some remote part of the world,
wherever my wandering bones might haw taken me, since I was not born
here.

That is all.

A revolutionary greeting,

Patria o muerte Venceremos

Commander Ernesto Che Guevara

Scanned from THE CHE GUEVARA READER (Ocean Press), pp. 377-378 by
Walter Lippmann, July 2008

http://www.walterlippmann.com/che-02-26-1964.html
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LOUIS PROYECT writes:
Che Guevara had some of the most interesting insights into the 
problems of socialist construction since the days of Lenin. He is 
better known as a guerrilla fighter, but his essays on planning and 
other economic matters deserve to be better known.

The main importance of Guevara is that he provides an alternative to 
the false dichotomy set up between Stalinist "planning" and the 
implicitly capitalist logic of "market socialism". During our fierce 
debate over "market socialism" on the Marxism list, any number of 
Guevara's statements could have been brought to bear on the discussion.
---------------------------------------
Simply put, Guevara believed that the law of value operates as a 
"blind, spontaneous force" under capitalism. Socialism, on the other 
hand, would allow conscious action upon the law of value in 
accordance with an understanding of the greater needs of society. In 
his Manual of Political Economy, Guevara spells out the way the 
socialist state can make use of the law of value.

"We consider the law of value to be partially operative because 
remnants of the commodity society still exist. This is also reflected 
in the type of exchange that takes place between the state as 
supplier and as the consumer. We believe that particularly in a 
society such as ours, with a highly developed foreign trade, the law 
of value on an international scale must be recognized as a fact 
governing commercial transactions, even within the socialist camp. We 
recognize the need for this trade to assume a higher form in 
countries of the new society, to prevent a widening of the 
differences between the developed and the more backward countries as 
a result of the exchange. In other words, it is necessary to develop 
terms of trade that permit the financing of industrial developments 
even if it contravenes the price systems prevailing in the capitalist 
world market. This would allow the entire socialist camp to progress 
more evenly, which would naturally have the effect of smoothing off 
the rough edges and of unifying the spirit of proletarian internationalism.

"We reject the possibility of consciously using the law of value in 
the absence of a free market that automatically expresses the 
contradiction between producers and consumers. We reject the 
existence of the commodity category in relations among state 
enterprises. We consider all such establishments to be part of the 
single large enterprise that is the state (although in practice this 
has not yet happened in our country). The law of value and the plan 
are two terms linked by a contradiction and its resolution. We can 
therefore state that centralized planning is the mode of existence of 
socialist society, its defining characteristic, and the point at 
which man's consciousness is finally able to synthesize and direct 
the economy toward its goal--the full liberation of the human being 
in the framework of communist society." 

PROYECT's full article:
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/marxism/2008-July/031453.html


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     WALTER LIPPMANN
     Los Angeles, California
     Editor-in-Chief, CubaNews
     http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/
     "Cuba - Un Paraíso bajo el bloqueo"
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