User:RD/9k/Trotskyists care about Cuba (Q42,11)
Main entry
U.S. Trotskyists support Cubans
/ U.S. Trotskyists care about Cuba -> this seems intuitively false but you see them actually in support now so that's very confusing. maybe it's worth investigating the reasons why.
point in favor: referred to creation of Cuba as Communist revolution. [1]
point in favor: put defending Cuba next to overthrowing U.S. capitalism. [2]
point against: if they overthrow U.S. capital, they can hypothetically create Trotskyism in the United States and then start pressuring Cuba. look at both of these videos and you see a subtext that they talk way less about Cuba than their own aims and are almost mentioning Cuba just to make themselves look good.
point for: RCI claims "capitalism was abolished" in Cuba. [3]
point against: claims Cuban revolution happened in contradiction to Stalin as a generic anti-imperialist movement. the peasants defeated the bourgeoisie and then a Marxist party was created [4]
point against: implies that Deng Xiaoping Thought is not allowed. although the factual reasoning, that the national bourgeoisie will not yield to allow Bolshevism to begin, is technically correct. in China the herd of cats just kinda goes on and on and on, and nobody really likes that. the problem is blaming the CPC, when it's not really their fault because they just support whoever protects and unifies China against the outside; they would have been dissolved and replaced with the eight Liberal-republican parties already if they truly were on the same side. [5]
neutral point: claims Fidel Castro and Che Guevara were on the side of the peasants. I think that is historically accurate. [6]
neutral point: claims that in 1962 Cuba was creating Bolshevism, implying that it is on the road to becoming an orange region.
Good Trotskyist strategy
- If Trotskyists wanted to stop imperialism in Cuba, the smart thing to do would not be to align themselves with the United States -> it leaves me heartened yet baffled that real-world Trotskyists have actually sort of figured this out... at least somewhat. they do keep just saying the same wrong things about Cuba's history and Trotskyism, which suggests they haven't actually changed much.
- If Trotskyists wanted to promote Cuba transitioning from pre-Bolshevism to Bolshevism, they would not overthrow the central party because promoting a regime change at the same time the United States is trying to promote a regime change would be aligning themselves with the United States -> this is a bit of a leap that I doubt would describe the behavior of a lot of real-world Trotskyists. like, to get here you have to be smarter than Trotsky, who didn't successfully figure this one out. this is actually a bit of a prescriptive proposition.
Observed Trotskyist theory
Movements act together separately
(Trotskyism onto existential materialism) / Two movements taking immediate action together does not mean they care about each other -> this seems to be a common Trotskyist position over the years on China teaming up with the KMT. unfortunately, it reflects rather badly on Trotskyism in that it means that if they take action with another movement the other movement cannot trust them to not greet it with a "betrayal" later. this is what they say: demonstrate with other movements on the same issues, but don't yield to them. as if they almost don't exist.
this leaves open the question: if this is how Marxist movements are supposed to behave, then why were Trotskyists surprised when Stalin "betrayed" the realization of Trotskyism? according to Trotskyist rules, carrying out the revolution with Trotskyists and then getting rid of them is exactly what Stalin is supposed to do.
Related
- Anarchists can be a class (meta-Marxism) / (9k)
Ideology codes
- IV / Trotskyism
- IV / Revolutionary Communists International
- IV / Revolutionary Communists of America
- MX / meta-Marxism
- MX / meta-Marxism onto Trotskyism