r/askcommunists

I would appreciate help working through my mixed feelings about Cuba. Hoping for some guidance, opinions, rebuttles, and/or reading materials to challenge ingrained biases / American propaganda.

TL;DR:
Cuban-American with Leftist Politics, but don’t like Communism because of my view of easy corruption. Still can’t get behind a one party system from weak anecdotal “evidence”, but still feel strongly about it. Hoping to have my beliefs challenged and pointed to good counter arguments and reading material to possibly break free of personal bias and US propaganda. Specifically Cuba.

I’m going to give some context.

I am technically first generation American. I say technically because both of my parents were born in Cuba, but came to the US very young, and grew up here in the states. I spoke spanish with my family, but english with my parents. Although technically being “first generation” is true, it just doesn’t feel fitting to what one would come to think of as “first generation”, nor is the experience the same.

My whole blood family is Cuban.

Politically, I consider myself leftist. I very much dislike liberals (to me they’re just conservatives), and I ESPECIALLY hate conservatives (although I do feel bad for working class conservatives. As stupid and lost I think they are, they’ve been duped. I like to think that if they learned class consciousness it can change a decent amount of them. Even though I really hate them and they hate me, I still think they should have access to every benefit and live a good life).

I think both parties here in US are on the same team and create division of the working class to uphold their ruling class / capitalist society. But this is something you all already know.

I’ve been a lefitst all my life, but its been hard to label my beliefs under a specific label. Ideally I like Anarchism; community organization and direct action to make the system obsolete. But that goal is a long term one. I think it’s kind of naive and unrealistic to say it can happen anytime soon, even decades. But I still think community organization and action is important and good no matter what.
So I maybe I fall somewhere as a Socialist or Democratic Socialist. I know those two labels have many differences but thats a different conversation.

I grew up and live in the biggest Cuban diaspora in the US (just saying this you can 100% guess where lol).
So I’ve always been around discussions and arguments over the situation in Cuba all my life.

Luckily I grew up with liberal/progressive parents and grandparents. Which is not so common.

Cubans tend to be republicans by default. Even though they have been, in my opinion (and objectively), the most helped (latin) immigrant population here in the states. I’m also aware of why.
So many Cubans benefit and rely on government programs yet are MAGA and hardcore republicans. It doesn’t make sense, but there a whole psychology behind that, and that’s a different conversation.

But, here’s what my post is really about:

I don’t like communism because:

I just don’t like a one party system.
(Yes I’m aware we’re kind of living under that right now in the US).

I am very aware of why Castro was so popular in his rise to power. It wouldn’t be wrong to say 80-90%+ of Cubans supported him during his rise to power. Even a lot of the wealthy class did. This level of support was before him leaning into Marxist/Leninist/Communist ideas, from my understanding, I could be wrong.

I am aware of the good things Castro did. Literacy rates went up, access to health care, etc etc.

I am very aware of how much the American embargo has devastated Cuba. It’s horrible. From my understanding, Castro went to the US to try to negotiate, US said nooooo, they wanted to keep their interests. Castro rightfully said screw y’all and went to the Soviets (which then lead to the embargo). Although less, Cuba managed well. Then in the 80’s the Soviet Union was having financial troubles (Marielito’s refugee wave) then finally collapsed ‘89-‘91.

Then Venezuela, with much less resources and abilities, supported Cuba. Until Trump/US took Maduro.
And now Cuba has the same full embargo, with no help, and is collapsing.

I am so against the embargo and find it appalling that Cubans here in the states support it, because at the end of the day, it’s our own people that are ultimately hurting and suffering.

Enough rambling: ultimately , I can’t get behind a one party system. Although anecdotal, I can see how people in power put friends and family in positions of power. It happens everywhere. I just don’t think Communism is immune to that, and have (anecdotal) heard otherwise.

But I know I shouldn’t take that as concrete evidence, and should challenge these notions and beliefs.
I thought maybe here is the right place.

I’m almost there with being communist, except how the party system works, and how easily (my opinion) it can be corrupted. Being that party leaders have access and distribute resources and privilege within themselves, while the common Cuban suffers.
But I could be totally wrong.

I hope some of y’all can guide me and maybe debunk, or give new perspectives to my ideas. I just want to learn.

Feel free to ask any questions if needed.
Thanks in advance.

I've seen this question about who will live in the castles if you abolish the feudal system asked by the hypothetical peasant

But it did get me thinking, what would be done with the semi-military/luxury infrastructure of a castle or it's modern day equivalent ? Would things like that just be turned into government storage space, military (defense) Garrison's ? ​

Modern day mansions and other physical buildings that support unsustainable luxury lifestyles are probably not as easily repurposed but what would happen to them?

It'd be expensive to maintain them all as museums and it's not clear to me that the materials could be easily repurposed

Like what's the plan? Has anybody written about what to do with that kind of stuff beyond the handful of historically valuable examples that Merit preservation as museums

Why are all the local parties not working together and creating a counter propaganda to spread ideas and eventually begin a revolt with enough people? Is it because of the leftist infighting? Or a possible accusation of being called terrorists? Or maybe becoming a target of CIA..? A bit stupid but had to ask

1. Communism is the end goal of humanity

2. Capitalism is a necessary phase to pass through before achieving it

Then why are we so adamant on trying to manually take control of nature anyway. To begin a revolution and get communism to work we will require enough economists and scientists to work on it and more importantly have the masses suffer throughout capitalism so they revolt seeing the expanded wage gap. It's not supposed to happen in a single country but rather throughout the world and it's going to require every worker(including the uneducated ones) to naturally overthrow this system not by reading the theory but suffering through it, then why are we being a possible interruption to inevitability?

EDIT: So if anyone stumbles across the same question, my assumption of point 2 is wrong. From Principles of communism - "In Germany, finally, the decisive struggle now on the order of the day is that between the bourgeoisie and the absolute monarchy. Since the communists cannot enter upon the decisive struggle between themselves and the bourgeoisie until the bourgeoisie is in power, it follows that it is in the interest of the com-munists to help the bourgeoisie to power as soon as possible in order the sooner to be able to overthrow it. Against the governments, therefore, the communists must continually support the radical liberal party, taking care to avoid the self-deceptions of the bourgeoisie and not fall for the enticing promises of benefits which a victory for the bourgeoisie would allegedly bring to the proletariat. The sole advantages which the proletariat would derive from a bourgeois victory would consist

i) in various concessions which would facilitate the unification of the prole-tariat into a closely knit, battle-worthy, and organized class; and

ii) in the certainly that, on the very day the absolute monarchies fall, the struggle between bourgeoisie and proletariat will start. From that day on, the policy of the communists will be the same as it now is in the countries where the bourgeoisie is already in power." So there is no highest point, Capitalism is the problem no matter which stage.

I learned some more things about DPRK recently and how it’s far from the crazy nonsensical dictatorship people make it out to be. But it does seem kinda obvious that the people aren’t very free in many ways (whatever that means). Just looking at videos of tourists visiting DPRK, why are they not allowed to talk to the people? Why do the guides start acting extremely awkwardly everytime the camera is filming?

I know that DPRK follows the Juche ideology, is all of that needed for this ideology? Is there another reason for it? Or ami totally wrong and people are actually totoally free?

I’ve seen this online in some spaces but it doesn’t make much sense to me.

For jewelers, for example, I thought that communism generally says that: when they sell their jewelry, they should get paid for the materials and any of the surplus value generated from the sale. When a capitalist creates a factory for jewelry, they take that surplus value away from the jeweler, and that’s bad, and so on…

When we talk about an artist, or maybe a writer more specifically, writes a book, wouldn’t the destruction of IP law prevent the writer from getting any surplus value from their efforts if some one could copy the transcript and print it on their own terms?

Does it have to do with the belief that creative works don’t have any material value? Or that art shouldn’t be commodified? If this is true, does that mean no person should/can be able to persue a career as a full-time artist?

Title sounds a bit stupid but I’m starting to realise all the western propaganda I’ve been subjected to my whole life and now that I’m moving away from it and learning about communism im scared that I’ll fall into « communist propaganda » like twisted and dishonest information that benefits the communist/socialists

In recent times I’ve come to learn more and more about china I’ve started appreciating what it has done for its people since the century of humiliation (though it had many big setbacks at the end of Mao’s term and hurt the people a lot)

But It seems that many people in china are denied some civic liberties. Like freedom of speech seems to be restricted a lot, the press is not independent and filled with propaganda. Some regions are being culturally repressed etc…

Would loosening the screws a bit around these things stand in the way of a functioning transition to socialism?

Or are these things I say just the result of western propaganda and the people of china are actually completely free (if that’s the case please provide sources etc… cause if I want to use that as an argument I’ll need something to support it.)

Thanks in advance to this amazing sub that is always here to help me!

I'm currently stuck on this question, how would a revolution inside the imperial core be carried out? I'm not a third-worldist, quite the opposite, I think that revolution should come from inside the first world for the best outcome, I'm just a bit confused on how it would work. Books, articles or just explanations on here would be greatly appreciated. I'm also interested in tactics of people's warfare and also how would such state survive afterwards if it's small and doesn't have enough resources on it's own? Does it need to give concensions to the global bourgeoisie for resources or does it somehow deal with lower quality of life for it's citizens?