 I just can't see the Cuban Government being able to resist the pressure for change for much longer - look at Eastern Europe and how quickly the old communist regimes collapsed. It doesn't have to mean that a society turns its back on socialism entirely. I speak as a disenchanted comrade who has believed in the superiority of the socialist economic system for most of my adult life, and as someone who slowly became aware of the imperfections in my Arcadian paradise. However, as I have said before - I applaud the Cuban people for their struggle for liberty from the American behemoth - for all the hard work put in by the Youth Work Brigades and Stakhanovite toilers to try and build a better world.
In the end, the challenge is too great; the dice of history are loaded against it. Marx did a brilliant job of analysing the forces that work within society - the dialectic of opposing interests - but he overestimated the capacity for altruism and underestimated the capacity for personal greed in the working classes and peasantry. One of the most disappointing aspects of socialism as I personally observed it in action in the Eastern Bloc countries, was the discourteous and impolite, unhelpful way in which ordinary people (shop-workers, minor officials, bus conductors etc.) treated their fellow-suffering compatriots! The unprofessionalism and inefficiency - the waste and bone-headed lack of initiative was mind-boggling! It saddens me to think about 'How it could have been!'
|
