CUBAN REVOLUTIONISTS ARE WRITING A NEW PAGE IN HISTORY
By Livio Maitan
After the closing session of the Tricontinental Conference in January 1966, revolutionary militants throughout the world wondered about the significance of this gathering and the real import of the orientation of the Cuban leaders. The attack leveled by Fidel Castro against the Chinese on the very eve of the conference, the concessions made . by the Cubans in adopting some of the resolutions, the preferential placement of the representatives of the pro-Soviet tendency of the Latin-American Communist parties in making up the delegations, the exclusion of some revolutionary delegations, and finally the attack against the Fourth International all seemed to provide grounds for feeling genuinely uneasy. :
For our part, we unhesitatingly rejected all the extreme reactions of the whole spectrum of sectarians, who went so far as to brush aside the fundamental decisions of the conference, interpreting them as pure and simple demagogic camouflage and competing with each other in grotesque denunciations of Castro's "capitulation," his alignment with the revisionists and his "betrayal" of the Latin-American revolutionary movement. We tried to analyze the essential elements in certain choices confronting the Cubans and not to lose sight of the fundamental factors that would continue to influence then, explaining at the same time that a real balance sheet could not be drawn until things became clear in practice.(1)
The balance sheet can now be drawn to a considerable extent and it is entirely to the credit of the Cuban revolutionists. It is impossible for anyone to deny the thrust of a whole series of political decisions and campaigns in the past few months, although they have been dealt with only in summary fashion by the international press, including that of the working-class movement.
In the field of international policy during the past year, Fidel Castro has not let go by a single opportunity in connection with the war in Vietnam to express a position critical of the official leaderships of the workers states, particularly the most powerful ones, to offer Cuban solidarity in concrete form to the Vietnamese and to outline a genuinely revolutionary strategy of struggle against the imperialist aggression and the war. At the same time, independently of both the Soviets and the Chinese, he inspired a move in conjunction with Vietnam and North Korea, calling for counterescalation by the workers states on a scale capable of halting the criminal escalation by inperialism. Those who viewed the Cuban leaders as mere pawns in the strategy and diplomacy of the Soviet leaders have now been dealt the most stinging refutation.
But it is by its orientation on Latin-American problems that the Cuban leadership has best proved its firmness, boldness and complete independence of the Soviet bureaucracy. At the Tricontinental Conference, Fidel Castro made an attempt at a partial conpromise; and, from his standpoint, it remained to be seen how prepared both Moscow and the Latin-American Communist parties were to carry out the line which they had accepted by voting for certain resolutions.
A few months, in fact a few weeks, were sufficient to show that the old CP leaderships had no intention whatever of making any radical change in their ideas and policies, and that Moscow, far from wanting to run any risks in Latin America, had not at all renounced its policy of courting so-called national bourgeois governments and even military and oligarchic ones.
Fidel's answer was not long in coming -- he launched repeated attacks against the phony revolutionaries, against those who criticized the "leftism" and "adventurism" of the Cubans, those who, while making declarations of friendship, suppressed or altered the Cuban documents. To a large degree the polemic with Frei was aimed in reality at the Chilean CP and Soviet policy with regard to Chile. Other Soviet moves were also criticized, in a veiled way for a time, then quite explicitly. The March 13 speech made by Fidel Castro was the culmination of a campaign of mounting intensity -- the Soviet leadership was openly attacked on the score of its economic agreements with reactionary governments which are enemies of Cuba and the organizers of bloody repressions against revolutionary movements; the Venezuelan CP, which had previously been the target of polemics, was now pilloried for following an opportunist policy of liquidating the armed struggle, while solidarity was again voiced for Douglas Bravo and his comrades, who
1. See our article on the Tricontinental Conference published in World Outlook April 1, 1966 and in Quatriéme Internationale, June 1966.
broke with the party and renewed the guerrilla war in a series of bold operations. (2)
It is therefore clear, at least for those who want to understand, that the Cuban leaders are relying more than ever on extending the revolutionary struggle in Latin America, that they are utilizing all possible means (above all the organizational instruments set up by the Havana conference) to stimulate the process of forming new. revolutionary teams and movements and that they no longer have the least hesitation about attacking the traditional working-class parties when their policies prove to be ill-omened in crucial situations.
It is also to the credit of the Cuban leaders that they are not greatly concerned about parrying the accusation which has already been leveled against them in actuality (primarily by the leaders of the Venezuelan CP) about intervening in the internal af-~ fairs of other parties. Such Philistine arguments are unacceptable to people who understand very well that if the policies of a national leadership lead to disaster ~as was the case in Brazil, for example -- the consequences are felt by the revolutionary movement as a whole, including Cuba naturally. The call for a solidarity conference of all the peoples of Latin America, to be held next July 28, under the slogan of "The duty of every revolutionist is to make the revolution," is another indication of the line the Cubans want to follow. This conference will most probably mark an important stage in the Latin-American revolutionary movement.
The development of the internal situation in Cuba is not less positive in the economic field, in politics and the elaboration of theory.
No one can overlook the economic difficulties faced by Cuba, a besieged island, and the leaders holding responsible positions are the first to point them out. But thanks to basically correct decisions, timely readjustments and an enthusiastic mobilization of the masses (particularly in the sugar-harvesting campaign), favorable results have been achieved despite some very serious natural calamities. Those who feared that the decision to stress agriculture for a whole period implied economic stagnation and strict subordination to certain workers states, especially the USSR, have good reason to relax.
There has been no stagnation, the industrial sectors having also undergone a real upsurge; the concentrated effort in sugar production has provided the means for benefiting from international trade, and the dependence on other workers states -- which is inevitable to a considerable degree in the present concrete circumstances -- has not involved the imposition of economic and political courses inimical to the interests of the country. Even more important is the fact that the situation is such that very pronising perspectives can be set for the immediate or near future. On February 20, Fidel was able to state: "The time has come to stress the production of steel." Several months earlier he had declared that in 1970 the urban reform would be completed -- from that year on, no Cuban will pay rent for the house he lives in.
On the political level, the team around Fidel has opened with decision an attack against the bureaucratic positions held by the tendencies and men who, in the main, once belonged to the Partido Socialista Popular (Stalinist Communist party) and who still constituted a heavy drag on the revolution. The year 1966 saw the reduction of the most important citadel of the old style bureaucrats. The trade-union congress decided on a radical renewal of its leaders and cadres; and Lazaro Pefia, a bureaucrat despised by the workers, lost his official post. Moreover, the preparatory work for the trade-union congress was a major event in many respects, since it engendered a real mopilization of the rank and file and breathed new life into organs which had become virtually ossified. At the congress itself, Fidel gave one of his most significant speeches. It seems clear that from now on he will try to make the trade unions into a cardinal instrument in the struggle against the conservative and bureaucratic tendencies. At the same time the process of party construction in the form originally conceived after the dismissal of Escalante is continuing and it has been announced that the first congress will be held this year. This will quite likely turn out to be another major event in the political life of the country.
The emphasis on the need to mobilize the masses in order to attain projected economic objectives and the campaign against the swollen administrative staffs and against bureaucratic methods of management and leadership must also be hailed, all the more so because they reflect a real situation. The campaigns to increase production were genuinely accompanied, as we noted, by very wide and enthusiastic participation of the masses;
2. The Cubans gave wide publicity to the series of articles in the Mexican magazine Sucesos on the Venezuelan guerrilla movement.
and a beginning has been made in practice to limit and dismantle useless and overstaffed apparatuses. If we remember the negative implications -- economic, social and political -- which the existence of such apparatuses holds for underdeveloped countries, it is easy to see what an important problem this is.
Moreover, these campaigns have been accompanied by theoretical contributions of increasing clarity. In this field, too, the Cuban leadership has taken a new and spectacular leap forward, achieving a vanguard position.
The long debate on fundamental problems of the transitional phase, in which Che Guevara was the principal protagonist on one side and the old leaders of the Stalinist CP on the other -- with the participation of economists from other countries such as Charles Bettelheim and Ernest Mandel -- came to a close in the spring of 1965 with a rather bastard solution which on the whole represented rather a defeat for the current represented by Che.(3) The situation now appears to be the reverse and Carlos Rafael Rodriguez himself has acknowledged that Guevara's theses have finally won out.(4) The criteria adopted in certain workers states, particularly the priority assigned to individual material stimulants, are openly rejected, being countered by an overall conception which has not yet been rounded out but which, in any case, seems to avoid both the Soviet theorizing, behind which are hidden the interests of social strata with marked privileges, as well as the oversimplifications, colored by an abstract idealism, of some of the recent Chinese concepts.
All this acquires its full significance to the degree that the contributions on the problems of economic categories and stimulants are accompanied by attempts to generalize the key problem of bureaucracy in a more and more structured way. Some of Fidel Castro's recent speeches, certain speeches by other leaders and the four editorials which appeared in Granma during the first part of March, are unequivocal confirmation of the fact that the Fidelist team is completely conscious of the danger to the revolution implicit in bureaucratization, is probing deeply into the problem of its origin and proliferation, and is seeking to find means to struggle effectively against a degeneration of the revolution.
We are not unaware of the fact that, up to now at least, the generalizations by the Cubans on the subject of bureaucracy differ in important aspects from our own Trotskyist concepts, nor are we unaware of the fact that the real test will be supplied in practice. But only incurable sectarians, who consider themselves to be the custodians of eternal truth while remaining incapable of grasping the richness of real processes, could underestimate the historical importance of the fact that leaders of a genuine revolution, through their own experience arrived at the ideas in the Granma editorials and came to the conclusion that "the struggle against bureaucratism constitutes, both in its importance and the power it generates, a veritable revolution within a revolution which, probably, has never been carried out anywhere as yet!"
At bottom it is the literally dramatic specific conditions under which the Cuban revolution is operating and developing which have brought its leaders to the point of posing the fundamental problems of our time and outlining the most revolutionary solutions. Cuba's geographical disadvantage is reason enough to nurse no illusions about its own fate if imperialism is not defeated in Vietnam or worse still goes so far as to unleash a nuclear war. That is why effective support for Vietnam is such a burning question for the Cubans and why they have the most direct interest in a counterblow by the workers states and establishment of a united front. Similarly, the Cubans cannot help understanding that a widening of the revolutionary struggle in Latin America and the establishment of other workers states in this part of the world constitute the best defense for their own revolution, for their own state -- in this field they cannot bargain or concede without endangering their very existence. At the same time, they are fully aware that in their situation, that of a beleaguered fortress, to resist imperialism as well as to develop production, it is absolutely imperative to have the active and enthusiastic participation of the masses. A possible bureaucratization, with its inevitable concomitant of demobilizing the masses and alienating them from the regime, would enormously facilitate the task of the imperialists.
This does not mean that the extraordinary difficulties and contradictions which still exist will necessarily be overcome. But it is of capital importance that a leader-
3. On this subject see the significant speech by Dorticés, May 8, 1965.
4. See the Montevideo weekly Marcha, December 9, 1966. Also a declaration made by José Llanusa in a speech August 16, 1966.
ship team does exist which understands the fundamental needs of the revolution and which is prepared to struggle with all its energy.
March 17, 1967