Blogging will be well down my list of priorities, but I do promise one or two posts.

In particular, I intend to visit the town of Guantanamo one weeked, so I try and give you a report back on what there is to see.

A few words on the Havana music scene may also be in the offing.

Best wishes to all readers, and if you are going away yourself ... enjoy.

Normally, picking up some cheap replacement clothes to tide yourself over would not be much of problem. But this is sunshine Stalinism. It is hard actually to buy anything whatsoever.

I am staying with a family in what passes for a middle-class district in Havana. Vegetables and meat are more or less readily obtainable at a market nearby, although it isn't open every day.

Those who need such basics as bottled water, booze, chocolates, cigarettes, booze - oh, and did I mention alcohol? - face a 40 minute walk there and back to the nearest outlet.

Clothes and items for the home require a 30 minute taxi ride to central Havana. Even there, the choice is limited and of poor quality.

That said, there is a certain seductive character to this place. To quote Bobby
Dylan, there is music in the cafes at night and revolution in the air. All the constant invocations to Socialismo o Muerte have a pavlovian effect on this old heart of mine.

And the band at the main jazz club last night was absolutely cracking, although I suspect I am going to be all cubopped out by the end of the trip.

Anyway, I have now found an internet cafe within 40 minutes walk that only necessitates half an hour of queuing before you can get a terminal!! More on the spot blogging later, including some political verdicts when I have done a bit more research.

Press freedom does seem to come at a premium here. The only newspaper I can get my hands on - and that with great difficulty - is Granma, published by the ruling CP. Imagine an eight-page daily edition of Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! and you kind of get the picture.

One item last week was slightly chilling. Apparently there was an annual press awards dinner in Havana. Presiding over the occasion was a certain Alberto Alvarino, vicejefe of the Ideological Department of the Central Committee. Hmmmm.

As I understand it, some smaller groups such as the Communist League and the Revolutionary Communist Group pretty much regard this place as pretty much akin to what their idea of socialism would look like.

As a western Marxist, I stepped off the plane with some baggage. Not unfortunately baggage in the physical sense, as KLM managed to lose my suitcase. But political baggage, in the form of a preconceived analysis of what the country would be like.

It would be all too easy to come over all orthodox Trotskyist about this place. Indeed, I have been reading a copy of La Revolucion Traicionada I picked up in a flea market, and am struck by just how acute the Old Man´s general analysis of the economic problems of building socialism in one country remains to this day.

Yes, it is meaningful to talk about ´the gains of the revolution´. There is universal literacy, an absence of the shanty towns that scar most other third world capitals, and good healthcare too, if not up to the first world levels that AN seems to think they have reached. All of this strikes me as a pretty good way of organising things in a poor country.

But ... reality check. I have been using the time-honoured research methods of the journalistic profession to find out what the population think about this place. Yes, that has entailed extensive conversations with taxi drivers and the purchase of drinks for whichever pissheads are happy to give my street Spanish a work-out in exchange for a bevvy.

I think I deserve a pat on the back for all this. While the educated classes here speak a very pure form of the language, most locals have a strong, strong accent that only gets harder to understand once they start slurring their words.

What strikes me is that not one ordinary person has expressed support for the government. Sure, people aren´t stupid. You point out that they are better off than they would be in Haiti or Jamaica or Columbia, and yes, they know that.

But they are still ground down by the daily struggle to get by, the need to find some scam or other to earn the convertible currency required by the black market, where a small back of fish changes hands for more than a week´s wages. It is not really unreasonable to want to have toothpaste.

And where socialism doesn´t have mass popular support, it inevitably turns into its opposite.

So thanks to the commenters on the last post, who have alerted me to the rumours that FC has kicked the bucket. Some sources online even suggest that a military coup may be in the offing.

All I can add here is that life in Havana is absolutely unchanged since last Sunday's dramatic announcement over el comandante's health. No tanks on the streets or anything, and the population is going about its business as ever.

Hope there isn't a coup this weekend. It would rather spoil my sightseeing plans.

Despite the media black-out, increasing numbers of Cubans have heard the rumour that FC has diet. But most seem to write it off as propaganda.

Interesting chat in a bar last night with a guy who insisted that Cubans support socialism, but want democracy with it. Mind you, he went on to spoil his chances of being designated an 'unconscious Trotskyist' in the annual Pablo Memorial Awards by immediately thereafter offering to pimp any chica in the room that caught my eye.

Meanwhile, I have sent many emails of the last week, but have had no responses. I don't know if they are getting through OK or not. Apologies to those expecting to hear from me.

As I mentioned in my last post, I did see a number of troops in the main tourist area last weekend. Since then ... nothing. No tanks in the streets. No distant sounds of artillery fire. I feel cheated.

So instead, let me share with you a couple of examples of the clear devotion the Cuban people for el comandante, as published in Granma - the only available newspaper - this week. On Thursday, Atilio A Boron gave us his perspective on the Cuban revolution, adding:

'Fidel is the personification of this extraordinary achievement. He is Spartacus triumphant, who defeated the American Rome, the unyielding Quixote who synthesises the clairvoyance of Marti, the heroism of Che and the iron will of Ignacio de Loyola.'

Some guy, then. Yesterday, a bunch of Cuban orphans saw their letter to FC published on page one, under the headline 'We have confidence in your unwavering spirit'. This is how they see the man:

'We lost our fathers when we were very small ... but we have always felt by our side a greater Father, the father of all Cuban revolutionaries. From you we have always received attention, affection and the example of an irreproachable revolutionary.'

See WaPo for the official Washington take.

If you stay in one of the five star hotels, Cuban is a fabulous place for a holiday. Sit down by that swimming pool and bask in the Caribbean sunshine as you light up a cigar from beyond the wilder shores of Freudian symbolism and knock back cocktails blended from the finest rum in the world. And if it’s nightlife you want, there’s hot jazz and salsa clubs that stay open until four AM.

But for most ordinary Cubans, life is pretty damn tough. I saw that for myself this summer, when I spent four weeks in an ordinary home in Havana. Even such basic foodstuffs as rice are rationed. Water supplies are sporadic, and power cuts regular occurrences. The housing stock is badly run down. Many everyday items are simply unobtainable.

Yes, of course the US blockade and the economic effects of the collapse of the USSR are part - although by no means all - of the explanation. But there is no getting away from the conclusion that Cuban society is deeply polarised as a consequence.

Beyond a layer of older people who lived through the revolution in the late fifties, there are few strong supporters of the government. The younger a person is - and the darker the colour of their skin - the more likely they are to be hostile. Many of those at the sharp end of the multiple hardships would rather be living in Miami, and don’t think twice about saying that to a foreign journalist.

The thing is, Cuba is the last country with even a semi-credible claim to be somehow ‘socialist’. Few nowadays regard China as anything other than an extended neoliberal sweatshop with the chutzpah still to fly the red flag, or see North Korea as more than a famine-ridden hellhole suffering under a particularly ghastly hereditary quasi-monarchy.

Accordingly, many lefties in the developed world maintain a soft spot for the homeland of Fidel Castro. After all, the Cuban system wasn’t imposed by the Red Army, was it? It emerged from a genuine revolutionary process that grew over from nationalism to socialism.

True, Cuba is a one party state. There are no independent trade unions, and the government maintains the strictest imaginable censorship over the media. In plain English, it is a dictatorship. But it is dictatorship lite.

There are political prisoners, but no gulags. Party cadre are privileged, but to an extent limited in comparison to other historical examples. And Che did try to export revolution rather than build socialism in one country. Welcome Sunshine Stalinism.

And at the risk of sounding like an apologist, democracy is not the sole criteria on which to judge a country. Turkey holds regular elections, but still brutally represses the Kurdish population. In multi-party India, hundreds of millions starve.

Cuba, on the other hand, provides universal education and the highest standards of health care in the third world. It’s the only poor country I have ever seen that isn’t scarred by shanty towns. Even those locals that grumble most don’t dispute that. Havana might not by Heaven, but it isn’t Haiti either. It’s just that - not unreasonably - they want a system that provides them with toilet paper. Oh, and some fresh fish once in a while.

They are also envious of a layer in Cuban society that clearly does have plenty of cash. For instance, entry to Havana’s premier salsa spot costs more than a month’s white collar wages. Yet most of the several hundred strong crowd are young Cubans.

Some of them have jobs in the tourist sector. Bellboys can earn more than university professors, provided they are tipped in convertible pesos. And to get to be a bellboy - so I was told by a qualified architect currently working as a cinema usher - you need ‘connections‘.

Other obviously well-off people benefit from remittances from abroad. Havana is not immune from globalisation. Starbucks and McDonalds are unable to set up shop, thanks to the US embargo. But Benetton and some Spanish hotel chains are already running local operations.

Perhaps the clearest reason for socialists not to go starry-eyed over the place is the massive social weight of the Cuban armed forces, so typical for Latin America. That is probably the real significance of Fidel’s Castro decision to hand over power to kid brother Raul. Power stays with the guys that dress up in olive green.

Some commentators even suggested that what took place was actually a disguised military coup. If so, all I can say is that military coups are not all they are cracked up to be. No tanks on the street, no rattles of gunfire in the distance.

For the democratic left, then, the conclusions are clear. We should start from the position of opposing the US blockade on basic democratic grounds. Ironically from Washington’s viewpoint, it could actually be holding back the development of an indigenous Cuban democratic opposition.

But at the same time, we need to stress that a democratic opening is essential if Cuba is to avoid the build up of discontent on the scale of 1980s Eastern Europe, and the eventual introduction of a particularly savage brand of neoliberal capitalism.
tuff

But for most ordinary Cubans, life is pretty damn grim. I saw that for myself two years ago, when I spent four weeks in an ordinary home in Havana while studying Spanish. Even such basic foodstuffs as rice are rationed. Water supplies are sporadic, and power cuts regular occurrences. The housing stock is badly run down. Many everyday items are simply unobtainable.

Yes, of course the US blockade and the economic effects of the collapse of the USSR are part - although by no means all - of the explanation. But there is no getting away from the conclusion that Cuban society is deeply polarised.

Beyond a layer of older people who lived through the revolution in the late fifties, there are few strong supporters of the government. The younger a person is - and the darker the colour of their skin - the more likely they are to be hostile. Many of those at the sharp end of the multiple hardships would rather be living in Miami, and don’t think twice about saying that to a foreign journalist.

The thing is, Cuba is the last remaining country with even a semi-credible claim to be somehow ‘socialist’. Few nowadays regard China as anything other than an extended neoliberal sweatshop with the chutzpah still to fly the red flag, or see North Korea as more than a famine-ridden hellhole suffering under a particularly ghastly hereditary quasi-monarchy.

Accordingly, many lefties in the developed world maintain a soft spot for the homeland of Fidel Castro. The Cuban system wasn’t imposed by the Red Army, they point out; it emerged instead from a genuine revolutionary process that grew over from nationalism to what it is today. And Che did try to export revolution rather than build socialism in one country. Welcome to Sunshine Stalinism.

But nevertheless, socialists have a duty not to duck some elementary truths. Cuba is a one party state. There are no independent trade unions, and the government maintains the strictest imaginable censorship over the media.

There are no gulags as such, but plenty of political prisoners. Party cadre are privileged, if to an extent limited in comparison to other historical examples. In plain English, Cuba is a dictatorship. A dictatorship lite, perhaps, but a dictatorship nevertheless.

Of course there are counter-arguments aplenty. Important as democracy is, it is not the sole criteria on which to judge a country. Turkey holds regular elections, but still brutally represses the Kurdish population. In multi-party India – the self-styled ‘largest democracy in the world’ - hundreds of millions starve.

Cuba, on the other hand, provides universal education and the highest standards of health care in the third world. It’s the only poor country I have ever seen that isn’t scarred by shanty towns. Even those locals that grumble most don’t dispute that.

Havana might not by Heaven, but it sure ain’t Haiti either. It’s just that - not unreasonably – the population wants a system that provides them with toilet paper. Oh, and some fresh fish once in a while would be good.

Many are openly envious of a layer in Cuban society that certainly isn’t hard up. Entry to Havana’s premier salsa spot costs more than a month’s white collar wages. Yet most of the several hundred strong crowd are young Cubans.

Some of them simply have jobs – formal or informal - in the tourist sector. Some of the women are not prostitutes, you understand; they just put out for foreign men who can show a girl a good time. Even bellboys can earn more than university professors, so long as they pick up tips en convertibles. And to get to be a bellboy - so I was told by a qualified architect currently working as a cinema usher - you need ‘connections‘.

But most of the obviously well-off benefit from remittances from abroad. Havana is not immune from globalisation. Starbucks and McDonalds are unable to set up shop, thanks to the US embargo. But Benetton and some Spanish hotel chains are already running local operations.

Perhaps the clearest reason for socialists not to go starry-eyed over the place is the massive social weight of the Cuban armed forces, so typical for Latin America. That was probably the real significance of the decision of Fidel Castro (pictured) to hand over de facto power to kid brother Raul in 2006, confirmed by his resignation today. Power lies with the guys that dress up in olive green.

For the democratic left, then, the conclusions are clear. We should oppose the US blockade on basic democratic grounds. Ironically from Washington’s viewpoint, it could actually be holding back the development of an indigenous Cuban democratic opposition.

But at the same time, we need to stress that a democratic opening is essential if Cuba is to avoid the build up of discontent on the scale of 1980s Eastern Europe, and the eventual introduction of a particularly savage brand of neoliberal capitalism.

I’d hate to go back in a few years and find that heart-stoppingly beautiful Old Havana had reverted to its former role as one big extended casino-cum-whorehouse theme park for gringos.

This is a slightly edited version of a piece that originally appeared on this blog in September 2006.