
Literature in Castro’s Cuba - dnetesn
http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2016/07/11/literature-in-castros-cuba/
======
pavlov
I confess to some degree of admiration towards young Castro. He led possibly
the most successful guerrilla war in history. In about two years, he went from
having an army of exactly two people stranded in a tobacco field to defeating
a dictator supported by the world's strongest army.

(In a way he is the ultimate "startup hero" \-- from zero to world-class
disruptor!)

That said, his government has clearly failed all the ideals he touts in this
'60s interview. For example, he speaks in favour of freedom of expression --
if only the means were there for everybody to get published:

 _" The day will come when all the resources will be available, that is, when
such a book would not be published to the detriment of a textbook or of a book
having universal value in world literature. Then there will be resources to
publish books on the basis of a broader criterion, and one will be able to
argue whatever one wishes about any theme. I, especially, am a partisan of the
widest possible discussion in the intellectual realm. Why? Because I believe
in the free man, I believe in the well-educated man, I believe in the man able
to think, in the man who acts always out of conviction, without fear of any
kind. And I believe that ideas must be able to defend themselves. I am opposed
to the blacklists of books, prohibited films, and all such things."_

Well, the Internet became just that medium, but Castro never deemed fit to
give access to the citizens of his country. He and his comrades are just too
old to get it. They should have made room for new generations long ago instead
of clinging to power and the illusion of their own indispensability. Their
extended single-party reign has crippled the Cuban economy more than any
sanctions could.

~~~
marcoperaza
There's nothing to admire. The brutal repression started very shortly after
Castro marched into Havana. The romantacization of his regime by elements of
Western political groups is reminiscent of their praises for Stalin in an
earlier time, or their enthusiastic support of Hugo Chavez more recently. It
requires a willful ignorance of the facts, or a deeply troubling view of the
world that accepts execution of dissidents as acceptable when used to achieve
one's political goals.

Beyond the political executions and purges, one of the first orders of
business for Castro was the establishment of Committees for the Defense of the
Revolution in every neighborhood. Their task? To monitor the population for
disloyalty and errant political thoughts.

My family escaped this horror and had to rebuild their lives from scratch well
into adulthood and with children in a new land, so it really bothers me to see
people praise anything about this monster.

Would you post a comment saying that you admire Hitler for his takeover of a
massive industrial power? So why would you for Castro?

~~~
refurb
I love how all the folks in this thread who actually lived in Cuba (or their
families did) are getting down voted. I'm guessing by people who don't have
the same type of experience.

~~~
calibraxis
I do not know about any posters on this thread, but in general when a country
undergoes a revolution, the families of former elites flee (generals, the
wealthy, etc). In the case of Cuba, many exiles went to the US and even gained
CIA support for ongoing attacks against Cuba and other Cuban immigrants.
([https://books.google.com/books?id=qlny4FXvAzYC&pg=PA88&lpg=P...](https://books.google.com/books?id=qlny4FXvAzYC&pg=PA88&lpg=PA88))

~~~
marcoperaza
Plenty of elites fled, but so did plenty of everyone else. On one side of the
family, my grandfather was a self-made businessman with a 4th grade education
who sold appliances in a rural area. On the other side, my grandfather was a
middle-class computer technician in Havana.

Also, quoting from the Chomsky clan doesn't help your credibility. These are
the same people who sang the praises of Hugo Chavez as he ruled Venezuela by
decree and ran it into the ground.

And yes, the CIA did help organize an invasion force made up of Cuban exiles
who wanted to save their country from communism. It's a shame Jack Kennedy
didn't have the intestinal fortitude to either see it through or cancel it,
instead deciding to cancel air support _after_ landing people on the beaches.

------
rayrod2030
The amount of BS that Castro spouts during this interview is laughable. His
ideology and theories have ruined a nation and imprisoned the minds of
millions of it's citizens. The funniest part of all is that almost 60 years
later Cuba is in shambles and the government still speaks in this way.

~~~
elsurudo
A lot of that is due to their circumstances and the US embargo. I don't quite
see what you are saying here – we may disagree with his policies and ideology,
but he seems very candid and truthful here, admitting many faults of his
country's system. This is something a "Western" politician would rarely – if
ever – do these days.

You also need to be mindful of the situation in Cuba before the revolution,
where the people felt that their country was becoming a satellite of the US,
and losing control over its own destiny.

~~~
rayrod2030
I was born in Cuba and just returned from the island 3 days ago. I'm pretty
mindful of the situation there. There is no one to blame for the dire
situation in Cuba other than the regime and it's leaders.

~~~
peterwwillis
The US has increased the regime's oppressive effects, though.

The embargo has created a dearth of medical supplies & knowledge, has
negatively impacted nutrition, lack of resources, lack of tourism dollars, and
provides a bogeyman for the regime to blame for all its ails. It has helped
repress and impoverish the people more than anything else. The United Nations
General Assembly has passed a resolution every year since 1992 opposing it.

It's possible that, like China, the oppressive effects of Communism could have
been lessened (even if just a little) under the benefits of trade with a
Capitalist democracy. Medical crises would have been dealt with quicker, and
they would have had more cash on hand from tourism to invest in agriculture
(or at the very least, import more food).

And you may feel differently about this, but I think the ban on travel really
sucked ass for Cuban families who couldn't visit their relatives, and the bans
on transfer of money to family members in Cuba. But that's not really a regime
thing, that was just the US being dicks.

~~~
vkou
With respect to oppressive effects, how well exactly has capitalism (Or, if we
want to split hairs, imperialism) worked out for Cuba's Carribean and Latin
American neighbours?

Cuba is towards the top of that list, by life expectancy, caloric intake, GDP
per capita, literacy, child mortality.

Cuba has a lot of problems... But still it turned out far better then, say,
Haiti, or Honduras ever will be, despite all the benefits of open markets.
This is consistently missing from the narrative.

~~~
RockyMcNuts
If you're at the bottom of the ladder (possibly Afro-Cuban), you're better off
in Cuba than most other Latin American countries.

If you're one of the educated white folks whose family lost a plantation or
Havana mansion, I can understand you hate the Castros. It's like getting
kicked out of Paris and 60 years later the city is literally crumbling. For a
while it was like a civilization trapped in amber but infrastructure has gone
over the line into complete decay.

On the plus side is good education, good health care, not a lot of crime,
until recently a guarantee of a job that would keep body and soul together.

The Castros still have > 50% popular support, they have managed to maintain
control of the country and the armed forces despite all their failures,
foreign military adventures, withdrawal of Russian support, constant pressure
from the USA.

It's a very mixed bag but not the one-sided disaster we constantly hear about
from people who make a cottage industry of selling that story (someone has got
the US to spend $500m on broadcasts to Cuba no one can receive, and that's
just one example).

Moving to a more liberalized economy and attracting foreign investment without
causing social unrest, giving up control will be a challenge, and the fact
that all the educated people want to leave will not make it easier.

these were interesting [http://fusion.net/story/116226/historic-poll-
top-25-findings...](http://fusion.net/story/116226/historic-poll-
top-25-findings-from-major-cuba-survey/)

[http://ftalphaville.ft.com/2016/03/21/2157021/the-us-and-
cub...](http://ftalphaville.ft.com/2016/03/21/2157021/the-us-and-cuba-
incrementalism-reversal-risk-and-the-dictators-dilemma/)

[http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/cuba-after-
obama...](http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/cuba-after-obama-left)

[https://medium.com/@dtemkin/spending-the-last-week-in-
cuba-w...](https://medium.com/@dtemkin/spending-the-last-week-in-cuba-was-the-
single-most-educational-trip-in-my-life-4d6a628760ec#.id0azu3z2)

~~~
terio
You are just a victim of propaganda. Cuba had decent education and decent
healthcare system by third world standards but the Cuban economy wasn't able
to support either of them and everything came tumbling down when the soviet
money stopped flowing in.

It would be also very interesting to know from where you get that figure that
more than 50% of the population support the Castros as that data is famously
unavailable.

~~~
RockyMcNuts
poll is linked ... read the references ... Cuba's biggest source of FX is
exporting doctors, plus just look at the public health stats. I've informed
myself and, sorry, not the one who's the victim of propaganda.

for the record, it's an effed system and economy and a poor country, just not
quite as effed as people would like you to believe. people flock to the US
from Mexico too, and that's without the wet foot/dry foot policy giving Cubans
automatic asylum.

if they do get decent Internet it will be a pretty good tech hub due to the
education. Americans might even flock there for a cheap, beautiful and
fascinating place to live. Cubans actually have the full US cable/media
package via el paquete and eat it up.

while you're at it, read up on the Fanjuls, some of America's greatest
recipients of corporate welfare, and why US sugar prices are a multiple of
world prices. if you love free markets, best thing we could do for poor
countries is not blockade them while subsidizing politically connected moguls.
(who profit from boycott and generated the constant anti-Castro drumbeat and
policy...until they decided they'd rather do business with Cuba)

[http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2001/02/floridas-
fanjuls-2001...](http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2001/02/floridas-
fanjuls-200102)

[https://www.aei.org/publication/protectionist-sugar-
policy-c...](https://www.aei.org/publication/protectionist-sugar-policy-cost-
americans-3-billion-in-2012/)

