Raul's Reforms may strengthen communism

[FUCK THE POLICE]

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jHf0OJAIhHii097ahqPu6beT0YHwD8VQ2PU83

Raul's Reforms May Strengthen Communism

By WILL WEISSERT – Apr 2, 2008

HAVANA (AP) — It's not the stuff of Lenin or Marx, or even of Fidel Castro, but it's hardly free-market capitalism, either. In fact, steps to encourage a Cuban spending spree may help the communist system and its new president survive.

In rapid-fire decrees over the past week, Raul Castro's government has done away with some despised restrictions, lifting bans on electric appliances, microwaves and computers, inviting average citizens to enter long-forbidden resorts and declaring they can even legally have their own cell phones.

More could be on the way. Rumors are rampant the government could ease travel restrictions and tolerate free enterprise that would let more people start their own small businesses. And hopes that it will tweak the dual-currency system that puts foreign products out of reach for most Cubans have sparked a run on the peso.

 

[Timshel]

More access hurts communism. Plus, these are not the Chinese people who have lived under tyranny for thousands of years. Raul is stoking a flame that will burn him and the Castro regime.

 

[FUCK THE POLICE]

More access hurts communism. Plus, these are not the Chinese people who have lived under tyranny for thousands of years. Raul is stoking a flame that will burn him and the Castro regime.

I dunno, RS, looking at all the communist countries that have adopted "market reforms" (properly, not top-down soviet style), it gets pretty depressing thinking of the situation in Cuba.

 

[Diuretic]

They could well lighten up on their own people. The point of an ideology is to have one that delivers, not one that's pure and bloody useless. They dumped Marxism-Leninism from the constitution some years ago, these moves to liberalise conditions are good.

 

[ib1yysguy]

This is a big mistake for Raul. It reminds me of when Gorbechov initiated glasnov and perestroika, which set in motion the forces (free speech, and basic freedoms) that would eventually break apart the Soviet Union.

It's the beginning of the end for Cuban communism. Give it 10 or 20 years.

 

[Damocles]

Yeah, that is the "a little at a time" method where they try to save it by releasing just enough to make it survivable... It doesn't work.

 

[Bonestorm]

This is a big mistake for Raul. It reminds me of when Gorbechov initiated glasnov and perestroika, which set in motion the forces (free speech, and basic freedoms) that would eventually break apart the Soviet Union.

It's the beginning of the end for Cuban communism. Give it 10 or 20 years.

It may be the end of Cuban communism but the beginning of Cuba following the Chinese model of some market reforms (people can buy shit but he government still owns the businesses) with no accompanying political reforms and continued totalitarian governance.