The incapacity of “state socialism” to renew itself and the tasks of the left

By Pedro Campos and Armando Chaguaceda

HAVANA TIMES – Stalin killed Trotsky, Bukharin, Zinoviev, Kamenev and Tomsky, prominent members of the Politburo of the Leninist era, for disagreeing with his ultra-centralist and anti-democratic line.

Gorbachev’s Perestroika was buried by a coup of hard line neo-Stalinists, leading to the restoration of capitalism in Russia.

Years before, the Communist Party in China started with the rehabilitation of the old regime of exploitation.

In Cuba, state capitalism, established in the name of socialism, is trying to reinforce itself with the support of national and foreign capital. The modest, positive changes made by Raul Castro’s government are insufficient to power a socialist renewal.

The proposals of the democratic socialist left have been taken into account to a limited degree only and the most important glossed over in the “guidelines” adopted by the Sixth Congress of the PCC.

Because of our positions, reprisals have been taken against many of us in different forms and attempts made to link our analysis and suggestions to those of the imperialist enemy to try to discredit us.

The conclusions are obvious: In Cuba, the old, failed model of state socialism is not showing any signs either of a willingness to renew itself and, just like in China, its traditional supporters aspire to “develop the country’s economy on the basis of a capitalist restoration controlled by the Communist Party.”

The intolerance to change, the official sectarianism and the total control by the party-government of all the economic, political, social and media levers make it virtually impossible for any real discussion to be undertaken in our country on socialist renewal.

This resistance to change, is what happened in the USSR and other socialist countries, making the political pendulum swing to the opposite extreme.

Those who are hindering the proposals of the democratic, socialist left, are the ones, and the only ones, responsible for the capitalist restoration in Cuba and its real or virtual annexation to the USA.

Since “state socialism” in Cuba is also demonstrating its incapacity for auto-renewal, the Cuban democratic, socialist left has no other alternative at its disposal but to prioritize the struggle for the democratization of the political system, in order to freely defend its ideals in the same way as the Casa Cuba Laboratory has done.
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