Introduction

For some reason, the Republic of Cuba is often hailed as "anti-revisionist." It is not. In fact, it has played a giant role in revisionism in the Western Hemisphere and abroad. From the bourgeois-democratic revolution to its existence as a Soviet colony, it has practiced half-hearted economic policies that mainly served its patron. Many a new Marxist have believed that Cuba was anti-revisionist, and many a new Marxist have been painfully awakened to the fact that it is not. Therefore, we must provide new Marxists with criticism of Cuba in order to explain to them its faults.

The Bourgeois Revolution in Cuba

Let us begin by understanding the bourgeois-democratic revolution in Cuba and its historical role. Blas Roca, the head of the Communist Party of Cuba before the revolution, described the latter as such:

Our revolution is not Communist, not because it is Cuban, but because it is not now applying Communist measures or laws, because it is not constructing or organizing a Communist regime now, because it is carrying out anti-imperialist and anti-latifundist objectives, national-liberation, agrarian and industrial objectives for advancing toward the new tasks that social progress will impose upon it.
- Blas Roca, The Cuban Revolution. A Report to the Eighth National Congress of the Popular Socialist Party of Cuba, 1961

A more well-known figure, Che Guevara, said the same thing:

I see this Movement as one of the many inspired by the bourgeoisie’s desire to free themselves from the economic chains of imperialism. I always thought of Fidel as an authentic leader of the leftist bourgeoisie, although his image is enhanced by personal qualities of extraordinary brilliance that set him above his class.
- Che, Diario de la revolución cubana, Dec. 1957

From its inception, the Cuban revolution was never meant to be a proletarian revolution, and never was. The revolutionaries worked with industrialists instead of proletarians to achieve their goals, and allowed capital to exist, meaning that the Cuba's mode of production was necessarily capitalist. Compare Stalin to Castro.

Commodity production leads to capitalism only if there is private owner-ship of the means of production, if labour power appears in the market as a commodity which can be bought by the capitalist and exploited in the process of production, and if, consequently, the system of exploitation of wageworkers by capitalists exists in the country.

- J.V. Stalin, Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R., 1951

Little businessmen industrialists have credit today. The revolution has no interest in nationalizing them. The revolution has enough to do with developing the sources of wealth it now has at its disposal. The revolution feels that there can be collaboration from the little businessman and little industrialist. It believes that their interest can coincide with those of the revolution. [emphasis mine: A.G.]
- Fidel Castro, May Day Celebration: Cuba is a Socialist Nation, 1961

Another "socialist" country which allows capital to exist is China, lead by Xi Jinping, whom Fidel Castro, who lead the Cuban revolution, praised.

Xi Jinping is one of the strongest and most capable revolutionary leaders I have met in my life.
- Fidel Castro, Granma: "Holocausto palestino en Gaza", 2014

In regards to China, Fidel Castro was anything but materialist:

I beg you to receive [this award] as further proof of the respect and sincere affection of all Cubans for you and your heroic people, and for our enormous admiration for legendary and revolutionary China, one China, unique, intangible and immortal. [emphasis mine: A.G.]
- Fidel Castro, China Is Most Promising Hope for Third World, 2017

All this shows a startling picture of a bourgeois-democratic revolution pretending to be proletarian. All this shows a startling picture of revisionism. You may answer this with "Oh, but what of Ernesto 'Che' Guevara, who praised Stalin? Isn't he an anti-revisionist?" No, dear reader, he is not.

Che Guevara's Neo-Revisionism

In 1960, after the revisionist takeover of the Soviet Union and the "Secret Speech", Che Guevara praised the revisionists such as new Soviet rulers and reccomended pupils of Marxism to read their works:

Beginning with the revolutionary Marx, a political group with concrete ideas establishes itself. Basing itself on the giants, Marx and Engels, and developing through successive steps with personalities like Lenin, Stalin, Mao Tse-tung and the new Soviet and Chinese rulers, it establishes a body of doctrine and, let us say, examples to follow. [emphasis mine: A.G.]
-Che, Notes for the Study of the Ideology of the Cuban Revolution, 1960

He was also in explicit support of the "socialist camp", in 1964, showing that he believed the Soviet Union to be a trusted socialist power:

Of all the burning problems to be dealt with by this Assembly, one of special significance for us, and one whose solution we feel must be found first — so as to leave no doubt in the minds of anyone — is that of peaceful coexistence among states with different economic and social systems.

[...]

 All this, distinguished delegates, this new will of a whole continent, of Latin America, is made manifest in the cry proclaimed daily by our masses as the irrefutable expression of their decision to fight and to paralyze the armed hand of the invader. It is a cry that has the understanding and support of all the peoples of the world and especially of the socialist camp, headed by the Soviet Union. [emphasis mine: A.G.]
-Che, At the United Nations, 1964

In 1960, he went as far as to say that Cuba was friends with the revisionist Soviet Union:

They must answer with all their might that the Soviet Union, China and all the socialist countries are our friends, as are many colonial or semicolonial countries that have freed themselves.  [emphasis mine: A.G.]
- Che, Speech to the First Latin American Youth Congress, 1960

Ernesto "Che" Guevara claimed to support Stalin, but still bastardized his legacy, supporting the revisionist Soviet Union. This support aided in Cuba becoming a Soviet colony.

Cuba: A Soviet Sugar Colony

The revisionist, social-imperialist U.S.S.R took the opportunity to take "socialist" Cuba and claim it as its own. This was not a new development in Cuba's history. The United States used the colonialism of the Spaniards against Cuba in order to create a colony out of it themselves.

In fact, Cuba only called itself socialist for of the USSR, but this socialism was not genuine, instead having been petty-bourgeois and idealist. When the U.S. turned on Cuba, a key potential ally was the U.S.S.R., which called itself socialist. As a diplomatic act, Cuba did the same.

They never wavered in their support for the social-imperialist U.S.S.R., and said this several times:

On our honor, we swear that up to that moment we had not had the opportunity even to exchange letters with the distinguished Prime Minister of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev. [emphasis mine: A.G.]
- Castro, The Problem of Cuba and its Revolutionary Policy, 1960

Their dependence on the U.S.S.R. is highlighted by what occurred after it collapsed. When this happened, Cuba entered an economic crisis known as the "special period." During this period, nutrition and health distinctly dropped, with widespread food insecurity around the nation. This was, in all accounts, including those of the government itself, directly caused by the fall of the social-imperialist U.S.S.R., something that was obviously going to happen ever since the revisionist Khrushchev took power.

Cuba's Military; Running Dogs for Social-Imperialism

The Cuban Military is known to have intervened in wars several times on behalf of many different governments. For example, see South Yemen, a country that was a friend of a the revisionist Soviet Union that the Cuban military helped. This was to the point that Soviet relations with Southern Yemen started one day after South Yemen even established its existence. Cuba also helped revisionist Ethiopia, which in truth was a military dictatorship, and was an open military government. In fact, Cuba's military was the organized military of social-imperialism, the major imperialist bloc headed by the Soviet Union.

Cuban Market Reforms

After the special period, the Cuban government instituted several "market reforms." This was highlighted in a 2018 article from the newspaper Granma, of the Cuban Communist Party, in which they talked about loosening restrictions on private property (even though, as they themselves noted, it had already existed):

The recognition of private property, among the different forms of property, has attracted attention. The Constitution does not create it, it has existed. The changes introduced in the economic model, derived from agreements reached at the Sixth and Seventh Party Congresses, make viable the existence of this form of property, which goes beyond what has been called self-employment, since the possibility of hiring a workforce is in place.
- Homero Acosta, "Cuba's future Constitution is a collective work", Granma, 2018

The private sector was quite dramatically expanded:

The economy of the private sector is flourishing and provides jobs and income to 4 out of every 10 Cuban of working age. In qualitative terms, the private economy has advanced: the fragile micro-enterprises have given rise to wider projects of small-scale involved in a significant accumulation of capital.
- Richard Feinberg, La Economía de Cuba Después de Raúl Castro: Historia de Tres Mundos, 2018

In fact, Fidel Castro droned on and on about how regulations upon private property were loosened:

In Cuba [...] we have many forms of private property. We have hundreds of thousands of farm owners. In some cases they own up to 110 acres. In Europe they would be considered large landholders. Practically all Cubans own their own home and, what is more, we welcome foreign investment.
- Fidel Castro, China Is Most Promising Hope for Third World, 2017

More and more you can see crises of overproduction and underconsumption in Cuba. More and more you can see that Cuban capitalism is harming the Cuban populace. But for some reason, Cuba is still seen as socialist, and the only question you can ask is: Why? So, let's ask that question.

Why is Cuba So Often Hailed as a Modern Socialist State?

The answer to the question is, mainly, Brezhnevism, that popularized the idea that colonies of the USSR, centered in the Warsaw Pact, were in a "socialist community", and that they were "Actually Existing Socialism." One of the members of this "socialist community", of course, was Cuba:

It is in a difficult external situation that the glorious Republic of Cuba—an inseparable part of the community of socialist states—is solving the tasks of its development. The Soviet Union firmly and invariably supports and will continue to support the fraternal Cuban people. We wholeheartedly wish them further achievements in socialist construction, we wish them peace and prosperity.

[...]

This, indeed, is the spirit in which our relations are shaping with the other countries of the socialist community—Bulgaria, Hungary, Vietnam, the German Democratic Republic, Cuba, Laos, Mongolia, Poland, Romania, and Czechoslovakia.

[...]

You, dear Comrade Raul, the first comrade-in-arms of the leader of the Cuban revolution Fidel Castro, are well known in the Soviet Union. We highly appreciate your loyalty to the cause of Soviet-Cuban friendship and your contribution to the strengthening of cooperation between the armed forces of our countries, which stand on guard of freedom and peace.
The Cuban revolutionaries have traversed a long and difficult road. They have had and still have to meet all kinds of challenges and provocations on the part of imperialism. But Cuba has proved that it will be able to uphold its interests. I am taking this opportunity to stress that the Soviet Union was, is and will be in solidarity with socialist Cuba.
I wholeheartedly congratulate you, dear comrades, on the high awards of the Soviet Union. I wish you good health, happiness and the best success in all your deeds. [emphasis mine: A.G.]
- Brezhnev, Our Course: Peace and Socialism, 1981

Brezhnev wrote much about Cuba saying they Cuba and the U.S.S.R fraternal friends, while their actual relationship was more like a dog kept on a tight leash.

Over these years, the Central Committee has devoted constant attention to strengthening co-operation with the Republic of Cuba and the Communist Party of Cuba. As a result of joint efforts, considerable successes have been achieved in developing Soviet-Cuban relations. The peoples of the Soviet Union and of Cuba are comrades-in-arms in a common struggle, and their friendship is firm.

[...]

Our co-operation with many Latin American countries has been making considerable headway of late. Beyond question, this is a result of the consolidation of their independence and of far-reaching anti-imperialist and democratic changes in those countries. Convincing evidence of these changes is provided by the marked strengthening in Latin America of the political positions of heroic revolutionary Cuba, whose leader, our dear friend and comrade, Fidel Castro, we are happy to welcome in this hall today.

[...]

During our meetings Fidel and other Cuban comrades had told me a great deal about their Homeland. [...] We are deeply moved by the kind words spoken here about our country, our people, our Communist Party, we are sincerely grateful for this to Comrade Fidel and to all of you, dear friends.

[...]

The 20th century has entered in the honour book of history forever the names of Emiliano Zapata, Augusto Sandino, Che Guevara, Camilo Cienfuegos, Salvador Allende and many other outstanding fighters for the people’ cause. Not only in Latin America but on other continents, too, the peoples know well the name of Comrade Fidel Castro, our friend and comrade-in-arms, the leader of the Cuban socialist revolution. [emphasis mine: A.G.]
- Brezhnev, Following Lenin's Course, 1972-1975

As you may remember, the whole reason Cuba claimed to be socialist was because they needed aid from the U.S.S.R., so the U.S.S.R. kept the myth going because they didn't want to lose one of their favorite pawns.

Conclusion

Cuba was never a socialist country, however much it claimed to be. This was obvious from the moment the very revolution that brought it to where it is today began. This is important to talk about, as Cuba has become a prime example of an anti-revisionist country, while it's revisionism is obvious. The Cuban proletariat will win against revisionism. The global proletariat will gain power of the world that they build. It's only a matter of time, and the revisionist Cuban government is only getting in the way of it.

Workers of the world, unite!