IB Historiography: To What Extent does Fidel Castro’s Cuba Coincide with Marx’s Theory of Dialectical Materialism?

Part A

Fidel Castro, perhaps one of the most controversial figures of the twentieth century. In 1959, he stablished the first communistic movement in the western hemisphere. As Castro's Revolution celebrates its 61st anniversary, it stands as a monument to successful communism in Latin America. However, following the failure of Leninism/Stalinism, one must question, to what extent does Fidel Castro's Cuba coincide with the idea of dialectical materialism presented by Karl Marx? During the scope of this investigation will investigate these two political philosophies. In order to accomplish this I will first investigate their methods of implementations and finally evaluate their relative successes.

I will reference the books: Laughing Under Castro by Modesto Arocha, The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. I will also look at several interview of the great Cuban president as well as other primary sources, secondary sources and internet media.

 

 

PART B

"Not only did we destroy a tyrannical system. We also destroyed the imperialistic bourgeois state apparatus, the bureaucracy, the police, and a mercenary army. We abolished privileges, annihilated the great landowners, threw out foreign monopolies for good, nationalized almost every industry, and collectivized the land. We are fighting now to liquidate once and for all the exploitation of man over man, and to build a completely new society, with a new class contents."

Philosophy of Dialectical Materialism

• Dialectical Materialism – the science of the general laws of motion and development of nature, human society and thought –a revolutionary philosophy, challenging capitalism in every sphere and substituting science, for dreams and prejudice.
  

Dialectical Materialism method of Implementation

• Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
  
• .A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
  
• Abolition of all rights of inheritance
  
• Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
  
• Centralization of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
  
• Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.
  
• Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
  
• Equal liability of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
  

  Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.
  

• Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production.
  
• The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat organized as the ruling class; and to increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible.
  

 

Implementation of Dialectal Materialism

• "At least in the case of our county, we have no other path. And in our opinion like in a huge majority of Latin American countries, there was no other path than through armed struggle."
  
• The Castro government is still supported by the majority of the Cuban people today
  
• In the first two years of her agrarian revolution she already has confiscated all the big estates and haciendas and nationalized the land.
  
• Of the total of more than 700,000 caballarias of cultivated land in Cuba, 290,000 caballarias are now cultivated as state farms and cooperatives, 270,000 caballarias by peasants owning less than 5 caballarias each and united in the National Association of Small Producers (ANAP), while 140,000 caballarias are operated by proprietors of farms ranging from over 5 to 30 caballarias each. (A caballaria is about 33 acres).
  
• The large rice plantations, as well as the cattle ranches, have been turned into state farms; the sugar plantations into cooperatives run by agricultural workers formerly employed by the sugar firms.
  
• About 115,000 working people immediately joined the cooperatives. Large numbers of landless workers and share-croppers have been given the smaller parcels of land enumerated above.
  
• Cuba has an extensive public healthcare system, to which all citizens enjoy equal access.
  
• Youth literacy rate (15-24years) 100 percent.
  
• During a speech, Castro asks: "Is there one, only one among you, who is hungry?" A poor hapless man raises his hands. He is immediately seized by the police and forced to drink a glass of water, then another, and yet another, until he has drunk ten altogether
  
• What is so shocking about Cuba is this: that a revolutionary movement stemming from the urban middle classes and winning the support of the peasantry, which gained power when the U.S. finally decided to dump its former puppet, Batista, proceeded once in power to follow an authentically revolutionary course. It broke up the old army and police forces and armed the workers and poor peasants, expropriated the major economic holdings of U.S. capital, broke with the representative political leaders of the Cuban liberal bourgeoisie. And all this without the existence (Not to speak of the intervention) of a revolutionary socialist party and without any autonomous action on the part of the working class!
  

  
   

  The inconsistency of all this with certain of our expectations deriving from the Theory of Permanent Revolution is only too obvious. If we rightly believe that every revolution in our time must go beyond "bourgeois-democratic" bounds in order to achieve real success, and can find full vindication for this aspect of the theory in the Cuban Revolution, we also have believed that this process can take place only under the leadership of the working class and with the guidance of a Marxist party!
  

Ideology

• When we left the University, especially in my own particular case, I had already been greatly influenced — I wouldn't say that I was a Marxist-Leninist, far from it. It is possible that I had two million petit bourgeois prejudices and a string of ideas that I'm glad not to have anymore, but fundamentally — if I did not have all those prejudices, I would not have been in the position to make a contribution to the Revolution, as I did.
  

  
   

Part C

On the 17^th of August,1960, Shane Mage, Tim Wolfforth and James Robertson submitted The Cuban Revolution and Marxist Theory to the January 1961 Plenum of the Socialist Workers Party, for the purpose of evaluating the Cuban revolution to the Soviet Revolution standards. This source was valuable to my investigation because not only does this presented a more accurate depiction of Fidel Castro's Cuba, but it assessed to what extent Cuba was Marxist. This is extremely important because during the time this document was created, Cuba claimed to be socialist. It also reveals that Fidel Castro is genuinely loved and cherished throughout the country. However, the source is limited to interpretation to Marxism by individuals raised by communist regime.

However, in 1961, Arminio Savioli interviewed Cuba's great leader, Fidel Castro for the Italian newspaper, L'Unita, Rome, No. 32 on 1 February 1961. This was for the purpose of informing the communist Italians back home of the victory and state of the communist country that took forth in America's back yard. This source is valuable because it introduces us to Castro's original thoughts on communism and he gives his take on the triumphs of his revolution. He even sheds light on the Russia's original distrust for Cuba. However, this source is limited to Fidel Castro's self-censoring, as he promotes his country and thus we did not receive any objective information on the state of Cuba.

 

 

Part D

In 1961, Fidel Castro announced to the world, that Cuba had, "destroyed the imperialistic bourgeois state apparatus..." He boasted that Cuba had once and for all "abolished privileges, annihilated the great landowners, threw out foreign monopolies for good, nationalized almost every industry, and collectivized the land."

However, one could argue that Fidel Castro's Cuba became the exact "tyrannical system" he had sought out to destroy. We could argue that it is through interviews like the one given by A. Savioli for L'Unita , that one party state propaganda is created, presenting the rest of the world with a false representation of Cuba. That Fidel Castro merely replaced the old "imperialistic bourgeois state apparatus, the bureaucracy, the police, and a mercenary army" with his own in the name of the "State"; of the people, as seen in the incident and long running joke in Modesto Aracha's book, Laughing Under Castro, where a man had been forced to drink water until he was full by police as punishment for telling Castro he was hungry. Or as seen in the lines for rations experienced by the people of Cuba.

    Yet, when it comes to fulfilling the list of principles presented by Marx and Engels, Fidel Castro has not missed a beat. Fidel Castro insured the confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels. the centralization of credit in the hands of the state, centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State, and not to mention all factories and instruments of production were also owned by the State. In fact, as stated in part B, in the first two years of revolution all the big estates and haciendas had become nationalized by the State. Fidel Castro had even committed to provide "free education for all children in public schools." As of today the people of Cuba have a literacy rate of 99.99% according to the UNICEF organization.

The only thing one could argue is that Fidel Castro's Cuba failed to complete the notion that this "revolution" would be carried out by the proletariats as they seized control of the means of production, and thus crippling the bourgeoisie. There was in fact no natural cycle as presented in Engel's law of transformation. Since, as he stated himself in the documentary, Fidel Castro, "At least in the case of our county, we have no other path. And in our opinion like in a huge majority of Latin American countries, there was no other path than through armed struggle."

Part E

To what extent did Fidel Castro's Cuba coincide with the principals of Dialectical materialism? While it did accomplish most of the outlines goals for a "workers' paradise" , to simply state that Fidel Castro's Cuba coincided with Marx and Engels' dialectical materialism, would be an understatement. For what Cuba was and what the dialectical materialism suggest are two completely different things .As stated in part B," he was greatly influenced, but would not say that he was a Marxist". And yet he was the leader "a revolutionary movement stemming from the urban middle classes and winning the support of the peasantry, broke up the old army and police forces and armed the workers and poor peasants, expropriated the major economic holdings of U.S. capital, without the existence (Not to speak of the intervention) of a revolutionary socialist party and without any autonomous action on the part of the working class!"

 

 

Part F

Works Cited

Arocha, M., 2003. Laughing Under Castro. 3rd ed. s.l.:Alexandria Library.

Castro, F., 1961. L'Unita Interview with Fidel Castro: The Nature of Cuban Socialism [Interview] (3 January 1961).

Clapp, R., N.D. An Introduction to Dialectical Materialism[Pamphlet]. s.l.:n.p.

Fidel Castro. 1967. [Film] s.l.: s.n.

Mage, W. a. R., 1960. The Cuban Revolution and Marxist Theory, New y: s.n.

Marx, K. E. M. D., 1992. The Communist Manifesto. s.l.:Oxford Universtiy Press.

Roda, A., 2012. FIdel Castro: A Last Minute Marxist, s.l.: s.n.

Taafe, P., 2005. Cuba Revisted. Socialism Today, February.

UNICEF, 2013. Cuba Statistics. [Online]
Available at: http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/cuba_statistics.html

Weisbord, A., 1962. Perspectives of the Cuban Revolution. La Parola del Popolo.

Weston, T., 2012. Basic Concepts of Dialectics. [Online]
Available at: http://marxistphilosophy.org

 

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