Cuba

In a recent interview with the US socialist magazine Against the Current, exiled Cuban Trotskyist Sam Farber details the indications that after Fidel Castro's death Cuba may follow the path towards the world capitalist market initiated by Deng Xiaoping in China. Farber reports that Raul Castro (Fidel's presumed successor) has praised the "Chinese model", and notes "the role of the Cuban army, Raul's stronghold, as a big player in joint enterprises, including the tourist industry. "You have a number of army officers who are businessmen in uniform... I see the impetus towards authoritarian...

Harry Glass reviews The Fidel Casto Handbook by George Galloway This is pure hagiography of the last grand Stalinist autocrats by one of his most loquacious apologists. It is the modern equivalent of a biography of Josef Stalin by Stalinist Albanian supremo Enver Hoxha. It is a requiem for Stalinism by one its last loyal servants. The timing of its publication was perhaps originally intended to coincide with Castro’s death, following his illness last summer. But Casto lives on. So this book reveals more about Galloway than it does about Castro. It lays bare Galloway the fawning despot-lover...

“The United States respects your aspirations as citizens and we will stand with you to secure your rights — to speak as you choose, to think as you please, to worship as you wish and to choose your leaders freely and fairly in democratic elections”. Or so Condoleeza Rice said recently — attempting to exploit Fidel Castro’s illness in order to promote a “peaceful transition” to “democracy”. Meanwhile US officials announce plans for a major deployment of Navy and Coast Guard to prevent refugees from reaching the US in the event that these plans are successful. The US’s vision of a “free” and...