Formal retreat: Fidel Castro quits Communist Party's central committee

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

Source: International Business Times

Cuban strong man Fidel Castro has resigned from the Communist Party's central committee, formalising a gradual retreat from spotlight that started in 2006.

The 84-year-old leader wrote in a newspaper column that his brother Raul Castro, who has been running the affairs of the country since 2006, is aware of his decision not to be part of the top leadership of the party.

Castro underwent an intestinal surgery in 2006, and was away from public life for months on end. Raul took charge of the country in his brother's absence. In 2008, Fidel officially stepped down as president.

Fidel called on the younger generation of leaders to turn around the country’s economy. The new generation should now "rectify and change without hesitation everything that should be rectified and changed,” Fidel wrote on the website of cubadebate.cu.

Read more: http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/135828/20110419/fidel-castro-resigns-communist-party-leadership-quits.htm

[Kolesar]

1. To his credit, he ran the gangsters and the pimps out of Cuba ... eom

[socialshockwave]

3. True...

He also ran everybody else out of Cuba too.

[joshcryer]

4. Which is why those Italians were prosecuted for the murder of a child prostitute...

...and why prostitution in Cuba is perfectly legal.

There are even travel guides online that show you how to get prostitutes in Cuba.

[Turbineguy]

2. Sooner or later

everybody discovers that communism really doesn't work.

[Imajika]

6. Yet there are true believers right here on DU...

...who want to give it another go. In fact, right now there thread in GD where someone is pushing this failed ideology yet again.

Even Cuba is now going to allow private property as a means of resurrecting their basket case command and control economy. As they begin laying off public workers and allowing the market to work, it looks to me like they are hoping to replicate what China is doing - that is, hold onto the reigns of power by denying most political freedoms but dump the failed communist economic model.

Communism does NOT work anywhere, ever. It never has worked and it never will. Via the bureaucracy it introduces, communism can pull a backward agrarian state into something more modern, but that is about all it can accomplish. Communism is simply too inefficient, too static, stifles innovation and suppresses the kind of risk taking and entrepreneurship that push the envelope of modern economic and technological advancement.

[bigworld]

11. It works for a short time, in some circumstances

Some aspects of communism can achieve some good in limited circumstances. Look at Israeli kibbutzes, or some of the successful American utopian communities like Amana. The early days of the USSR saw real promise, as did Cuba in the 60s. Unfortunately, when the authoritarians take over and bureaucracy gets out of control, things rot very quickly. If everyone played the same game, Communism on a national scale would work. Unfortunately, human nature being what it is, it never will.

[Imajika]

17. Yup, agreed...

"If everyone played the same game, Communism on a national scale would work. Unfortunately, human nature being what it is, it never will."

Precisely.

[WatsonT]

14. Well there's always a chance that *this* time they'll get it right

I think it's a combination of wishful thinking and distrust of the sources for all the contradictory data.

Same as the thinking that goes in to homeopathy or vaccines causing autism.

[Schema Thing]

22. It worked in Cuba

As they transition to social democracy, they are on VERY solid footing as a society. They are hard-working, entrepreneurial, well-educated, healthy people who are very accustomed to taking part in their own governance (with the exception of electing the Top Spot).

If you could invest in countries, I would be bullish on Cuba.

[Imajika]

24. What worked in Cuba?

They are effectively dumping communism and your claiming it worked? The system stagnated their economy for 50 years and you see it as a success?

Very solid footing? The economy is an absolute basket case? What is so solid about it.

Are you actually trying to argue that this 50 years of Cuban communism was the planned precursor to a market based social democracy? Please. These changes are driven out of necessity, not because they were some cleverly planned transition to the supposedly hated free markets of the Yankee oppressor.

[Schema Thing]

26. as I said, they are on solid footing.

Cuba is a successful society in every way except monetary wealth, and I wager that they will continue to be a VERY successful society as they transition.

Castro has kicked your ideological ass, and you are now an American Knight with it's arms and legs cut off, hollering "come back here, I'll bite your leg off!".

[joshcryer]

27. No dude, it goes socialism to communism, not socialism to capitalism.

The communist party in Cuba had 50 years to create ... capitalism. :rofl:

[Schema Thing]

31. what are you blathering about?

Cuba is transition from Communism to something nothing like American capitalism.


Deal with it.

[joshcryer]

33. No, it'll be more like a Chinese capitalism.

[Imajika]

29. Are you actually serious?

This is what the Castro apologists are reduced to? Your communist model has failed and your trying to pretend it was all part of some great plan?

"Cuba is a successful society in every way except monetary wealth"

Translation: Cuba is poor, dirt poor.

"and I wager that they will continue to be a VERY successful society as they transition."

Why yes, as Cuba dumps its communist economic model they will likely be successful in resurrecting their economy. The more of the command and control marxist stuff that is thrown overboard, the better the economy will do.

"Castro has kicked your ideological ass"

Yes, because utter failure kicks ass! Let me clue you in, you haven't kicked ideological ass when you have to dump your economic model in favor of one you've condemned for 50 years.

[Schema Thing]

30. lol... how bad was the economic debacle of 2007?

Which countries did it hit again?


how many Americans don't have health-care?



ooh noooos!!! someone is poor! they can't possibly be successful if they don't have the American dream of a big screen tv and easy access to credit card debt.



Get real. Cuba, even after reform, will not look anything like American style capitalism. At least if they're smart they won't.

[Imajika]

32. Your post simply makes no sense at all...

I wasn't going to respond because I just don't know what your talking about, but here goes...

"Which countries did it hit again?"

The economic crash hit pretty much everyone. Your point?

"how many Americans don't have health-care?"

This is the same thing communist Cuban apologist always spew, "But they have universal healthcare and education!" Sorry, that isn't good enough. So did communist Romanian, Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary, etc, etc. Offering people the very basics in exchange for a crappy, backward existence just doesn't cut it.

"ooh noooos!!! someone is poor! they can't possibly be successful if they don't have the American dream of a big screen tv and easy access to credit card debt."

They aren't successful. Period. The Cuban economy is an absolute basket case.

"Get real. Cuba, even after reform, will not look anything like American style capitalism. At least if they're smart they won't."

Dude, if everything is so great why the hell is Cuba essentially dismantling their marxist/leninist economic system? Allowing private property, encouraging private business, market economic reforms, firing hundreds of thousands of government workers, etc, etc.

Hopefully when all is said and done Cuba adopts a more mixed economy allowing the market to generate wealth and spending a higher percentage than we do on social services, but being so close to the US (particularly Florida) and it wouldn't surprise me if they go full bore capitalist. It might even happen faster than we can imagine.

It's over dude. Communism has simply failed everywhere it has ever been tried. It just doesn't work. Market economies suffer economic downturns, communist economies simply implode due to inefficiency, a lack of dynamism, or the people revolting against it.

But hey, you've still got North Korea and Laos. I'd say Vietnam but they are also moving towards a more market oriented economy.

[dipsydoodle]

5. I think you'll find he did so

some years back but didn't bother publishing the fact - its an internal matter only.

[madokie]

7. I think in time it will be shown that he saved Cuba

from the crooks here in the good ol USA. I also think that they aren't that far away from two partys with open and fair elections. I think history will show that the only way to stop the shit that was coming down the pike for Cuba was a strong arm leadership like Castro was. No way could a democracy as we had here in the usa back then could have done anything in cuba to stop the thugs and their thuggery. We should all know for a fact that free and fair elections are a myth as we do them here. They'll do theirs the Cuban peoples way and not modeled after ours. A democracy sorta like Chavez has done for his people.

America has very dirty hands when it comes to Cuba, mid and south America and the whole middle east and I find it perplexing that more people don't realize that. I'm just not sure what tentacles we have in Europe today.

I have a question? How much money has Fidel Castro or Raul for that matter amassed? The answer to that will tell us the real picture of what kind of persons they are.

[hack89]

9. By that logic, Canada should be a dictatorship

along with every other country in Central and South America.

[a la izquierda]

21. Um, most Latin American countries did...

have dictatorships, thanks to pressure from the good ol' US of A. Read a book about the region. Open Veins of Latin America by Eduardo Galeano is a very good start.

The ignorance on this particular region is staggering.

[joshcryer]

10. I think history won't absolve him.

It will show that he stagnated his country for a half century and ultimately ... the country ceded to "capitalism" and "democracy." Privatization? Checkmate.

[roody]

12. The Cubans hate their free health care and education.

[WatsonT]

15. So much so that they flee here in inner tubes

and risk death the entire way.

Yeah, that's true love there.

[joshcryer]

18. You do know that individual Cubans who get a "business license" will be paying for...

...their health care? And that, ultimately, when your work is recompensed with a fixed state-deemed wage, you're paying for your health care?

They're pondering doing away with the ration system too, if that happens Cuba will go full on capitalist.

[Schema Thing]

23. everyone, everywhere, is paying for their healthcare.

In every country.

[joshcryer]

25. That's why we call it single payer and not nobody payer.

[Imajika]

19. Yup, the end of Cuban communism looks to be at hand...

And it appears to be going out with a whimper so far. That Cuban communism is collapsing was predictable, the only thing that isn't is how much longer it will take for the whole rotten infrastructure to implode. Will Cuba be able to implement reforms slowly and transition to a market oriented economic model that works while at the same time retaining a high level of social services? Or will things spiral out of control once liberalizations are introduced the way they did in the Eastern Bloc?

A few months back the signs were clear when the Cuban government announced it was going to lay off half a million or more government workers and encourage people to create their own businesses. Now Cuba is taking the big step and allowing private property. This chops a gigantic hole in the very underpinnings of the communist economic model and effectively signals the end of Cuban communism as we have come to know it.

"It will show that he stagnated his country for a half century"

Yup, Cuba has wasted away in stagnation for 50 years.

[a la izquierda]

20. You really, really should take a class...

on Cuban history. Or for god's sake read a book on it.

[joshcryer]

28. Don't presume to know me.

Substantiate your assumptions about me.

[joshcryer]

16. BTW, as an anarchist I'm really annoyed by ths Trotskyist "strong arm" justification for tyranny.

That is, Trotsky effectively argued that communism could only be implemented if we had a strong arm to implement it. That socialism could not be effected any other way.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/brinton/1970/workers-control/06.htm#h11

At the Congress Trotsky rounded on the Workers' Opposition:

"They have come out with dangerous slogans. They have made a fetish of democratic principles. They have placed the workers' right to elect representatives above the Party. As if the Party were not entitled to assert its dictatorship even if that dictatorship temporarily clashed with the passing moods of the workers' democracy!"

Trotsky spoke of the "revolutionary historical birthright of the Party":

"The Party is obliged to maintain its dictatorship...regardless of temporary vacillations even in the working class...The dictatorship does not base itself at every given moment on the formal principle of a workers' democracy..."

Poof. Gone. Byebye. The Party Above All Else. :puke:

[hack89]

8. 50 years too late. nt

[WatsonT]

13. I thought he was pretty much dead