Yet another typical Communist story, full of youth the guerrillas beat the powerful machine guns and won all the hearts. I have always seen Communists betrayed the Socialist principle of pursuing true democracy, and turned the system into something oppressive. But it is this film that made me look into this matter deeper, for Fidel very much like other 1st generation revolutionaries have that kind of devotion to do good, but yet all of them turned into "dictators". Why? Why can't there be a Washington in the Socialist world? For there are so many "Marxist"(or more actually Soviet modeled) revolutions. Then I realize democracy, elections are way more complicated than what I previously thought. That era, I think we can agree, the capitalism in its rudimentary form was pretty bad(As we see in China today). The laws were not mature, people were not as protected. There is no way to fight for rights with votes in a jungle. How can you possibly not vote for your boss who pay you the very little wage that barely keep you alive? The rich always win, for both parties are backed by the rich, the only difference might be issues of stance on race. That point what people wanted to overthrow is the whole system. How can this capitalism be the final destination of humanity? Obviously we can build something much better. One can argue that people are fooled, but by that time in poor countries, especially those under imperial influences found Marxism a very appealing option, for it is full of international equality and other things that give people hope and dignity. Instead of mild civil disobedient they wanted to completely abolish capitalism, and that might really be the majority of the people. So there, you won, and I want to ask how can you abolish capitalism and build a Marxist world(which is what people at that point wants). Or just simply, how can you build schools in the remote areas and made medical care free for everyone? That is what the majority wants, and they voted by blood. Market don't need remote farmers to be educated and be engineers, for the US company only want cheap labors, which is the selling point. So when your boss say no, you kind of hard to really win it with election. Fidel and the people was disappointed by the coup before the revolution and they fought so hard to get the power, so why would they just release they rich and let them win another election and hand over the victory? The core of the problem is, in this stage of development, once you have a election, the chances are, riches are gonna win, because they had the most power and can easily get most votes, which might not be a bad thing for sure but that was not what the people wanted. So no you can't really use money and put schools everywhere and hospital everywhere, in that stage the market won't allow. What they did, sadly, all the Communist eliminated the multi-party election, for they thought everyone could live under the same dream and in the same party everyone's voice will be heard, and that had the very tragic consequence which destroyed communism and the associated socialism with dictatorship and terror.
So my conclusion is, you can't really jump over the stage of capitalism and go straight for socialism. Reforms have to come naturally and slowly. Without the material and productivity, a socialist society can not function. Productivity determines everything, as Marx said, and I thing there is some truth in it. All the oldest capitalistic countries and empires have become the most socialistic, for the have reached that stage naturally. When people had enough material, their ideology will change. They had the ability to pursue something higher, and could afford helping people and found it is beneficial to society as a whole. Capitalism have the tendency of creating monopolies, but with a stronger and stronger middle class, ordinary people won't allow it to happen anymore and won't let the monopolies take controls, so then a more, I guess I can call it, socialistic/democratic system will be created. How can you prevent monopoly? With laws. What do you get? A more socialistic system. The power will truly shift from wallets to ballot. So now we know, a unnatural abrupt change of the system without the back of the development in productivity(like in Soviet, majority was pleasant so how can you get a Socialistic country?) will lead to the elimination of election which is the only way to keep capitalism and imperialism out. The only way to achieve it might be walk through the whole capitalistic era. Simply I feel, this country in 20 years will be far more socialistic(or liberal if you like) than today, and today's US is way more socialistic than the US 50 years ago. All the Chinese will tell you that, US is more socialistic than China, you have more benefits and cares from states(some of you might hate it). Again, without the back of productivity, a system will fall back to its place, like China fall back into the brutal union of bureaucracy and capitalism, a jungle. So Fidel and all of the Communist revolution failed for the same reason. The method was wrong. But as stated, I believe a socialistic society and even a world is achievable. But crusading is never in our culture so whatever, we will naturally get there, unless you stop your development.
No comments:
Post a Comment