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Title: The Cuban Revolution Author: Sam Dolgoff Date: 1977 Language: en Topics: Cuba, revolution, critique, history Source: https://libcom.org/history/cuban-revolution-critical-perspective-sam-dolgoff
Between reactionary "pro-Batistianos" and "revolutionary Castroites," an
adequate assessment of the Cuban Revolution must take into account
another, largely ignored dimension, i.e., the history of Cuban Anarchism
and its influence on the development of the Cuban labor and socialist
movements, the position of the Cuban anarchist movement with respect to
the problems of the Cuban Revolution, and libertarian alternatives to
Castroism.
Today's Cuban "socialism" differs from the humanistic and libertarian
values of true socialism as does tyranny from freedom. There is not the
remotest affinity between authoritarian socialism or its Castro variety
and the libertarian traditions of the Cuban labor and socialist
movements.
The character of the Latin American labor movement -- like the Spanish
revolutionary movement from which it derived its orientation -- was
originally shaped, not by Marxism, but by the principles of
anarcho-syndicalism worked out by Bakunin and the libertarian wing of
the International Workingmen's Association -- the "First International"
-- founded in 1864.
The Latin American labor movement was, from its inception, greatly
influenced by the ideology and revolutionary tactics of the Spanish
anarcho-syndicalist movement. Even before 1870, there were organized
anarchist and anarcho-syndicalist groups in Buenos Aires, Argentina;
Mexico, Santiago, Chile; Montevideo, Uruguay; Rio de Janeiro and Sao
Paulo, Brazil.
In 1891, a congress of trade unions in Buenos Aires organized the
Federacion Obrera Argentina which was in 1901 succeeded by the
Federacion Obrera Regional Argentina (FORA-Regional Labor Federation of
Argentina) with 40,000 members, which in 1938 reached 300,000. The
anarcho-syndicalist La Protesta, one of the best anarchist periodicals
in the world, founded as a daily in 1897, often forced to publish
clandestinely, is still being published as a monthly.
In Paraguay, anarcho-syndicalist groups formed in 1892 were in 1906
organized into the Federacion Obrera Regional Paraguaya. The
anarcho-syndicalist unions of Chile in 1893 published the paper El
Oprimido (The Oppressed). In the late 1920s the Chilean Administration
of the IWW numbered 20,000 workers. Before then, many periodicals were
published and the labor movement flourished. The journal Alba, organ of
the Santiago Federation of Labor, was founded in 1905. The anarchist and
anarcho-syndicalist groups and their publications were very popular with
the workers in San Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica (where
the anarchist paper Renovacion first appeared in 1911).
To illustrate the scope of the anarcho-syndicalist movement in Latin
America, attention is called to the organizations participating in the
syndicalist groupings, convened by the FORA of Argentina in Buenos
Aires. Besides the FORA, there were represented Paraguay, by the Centro
Obrera Paraguaya; Bolivia, by the Federacion Local de La Paz and the
groups La Antorcha and Luz y Libertad; Mexico, by the Pro-Accion
Sindical; Brazil, by the trade unions from seven constituent provinces;
Costa Rica, by the organization, Hacia la Libertad; and the Chilean
administration of the IWW. These examples give only a sketchy idea of
the extent of the movement. (sources: The Anarchist historian Max
Nettlau's series of articles reprinted in Reconstruir, Rocker's
Anarcho-Syndicalism, India edition, pgs. 183-184; no date)
Insofar as the history of anarcho-syndicalist movements in Argentina,
Chile, Uruguay, Brazil, and other Latin American lands are concerned,
there is a voluminous literature in Spanish, and some, though by no
means enough, works in English. Unfortunately there is scarcely
anything, in any language, about the history of Cuban
Anarcho-Syndicalism.
The anarcho-syndicalist origins of the Cuban labor movement and its
influence is substantiated by the Report on Cuba, issued by the
conservative International Bank for Reconstruction and Development:
... in the colonial days, labor leadership in Cuba came largely from
anarcho-syndicalists of the Bakunin school. A strong thread of their
ideology with its emphasis on 'direct action', its contempt for
legality, its denial that there can be common interests for workers and
employers, persists in the Cuban labor movement in modern times ... it
must be remembered that nearly all popular education of working people
on how an economic system works and what might be done to improve it,
came first from the anarcho-syndicalists ... (quoted in Background to
Revolution: Development of Modern Cuba; New York, 1966, p. 31, 32)
Even the communist historian Boris Nikirov concedes that
... the labor movement of Cuba has had a long tradition of radical
orientation. Anarcho-Syndicalist influence was important from the late
1890's to the 1920's (quoted ibid. p. 135) [Anarcho-Syndicalist
influence certainly spans a longer period.]
Even less is known about the anarcho-syndicalist roots of the Puerto
Rican labor movement, which as in Cuba, traces back to the latter half
of the 19th century. The editor of the excellent anthology of labor
struggles and socialist ideology in Puerto Rico, A.G. Quintero Rivera
asks:
... who even in Puerto Rico knows about readers in tobacco workrooms?
[as in Cuba and Florida, workers paid readers to read works of social
and general interest to them while they made cigars] Who knows that
Puerto Rican study groups in the first decade of this century studied
the works of the [anarchists] Bakunin, Kropotkin, Reclus and the history
of the First International Workingmen's Association ... that as early as
1890, Bakunin's Federalism and Socialism was published by anarchist
groups in Puerto Rico and widely read by the workers? ...
Quintero informs the reader that in 1897, the anarchist, Romero Rosa, a
typographer, was one of the "principal founders of the first nationwide
union in Puerto Rico -- the Federacion Regional Obrera." Together with
Fernando Gomez Acosta, a carpenter, and Jose Ferrer y Ferrer, also a
typographer, Romero Rosa founded the weekly Ensayo Obrera to spread
anarcho-syndicalist ideas among the workers.
Louisa Capetillo, the Emma Goldman of Puerto Rico, whom Quintero calls a
"legendary figure in the history of the Puerto Rican labor movement,"
was a gifted speaker and organizer who addressed countless meetings all
over Puerto Rico in the late 1890s and early 1900s. She championed
women's rights and preached free love (further defying convention by
wearing pantaloons).
A prolific writer, Louisa Caprtillo wrote -- in Spanish -- such
libertarian essays as: Humanity in the Future; My View of Freedom;
Rights and Duties of Woman as Comrade, Mother and Free Human Being. She
also wrote and spoke extensively on art and the theater and carried on
an extensive correspondence with foreign anarchists.
Between the years 1910 and 1920, anarchist and syndicalist periodicals
were published in Puerto Rico and syndicalists carried on an intense
agitation and militant action in labor struggles. (source: Lucha Obrera
en Puerto Rico; 2nd edition, 1974, pgs. 1, 14, 34, 153, 156, 161.)
The example of Puerto Rico illustrates how little is known about the
anarcho-syndicalist origins of the labor and socialist movements in the
Caribbean area. This work tries to trace the remarkable influence of
anarchism in the development of the Cuban revolutionary movement and to
present the anarchist view of the Cuban Revolution.
The repercussions of the Cuban Revolution are still being felt in Latin
America and throughout the world. The character of the Revolution is
being passionately debated. Many of Castro's original leftist and
liberal supporters who have witnessed the gradual degeneration of the
Revolution into a totalitarian dictatorship have been forced, much
against their inclinations, to accept this disappointing reality. In the
process of accounting for the degeneration, these friendly critics
clarify certain crucial facts about the Cuban Revolution which confirm
the libertarian position, although most of them vehemently deny that
this is indeed the case.
Still others, the more fanatical pro-Castroites, in trying to explain
the dictatorial measures of the regime, fall into the most glaring
contradictions -- which serve only to emphasize the unpleasant facts
they try to camouflage. A few typical examples are arranged
chronologically to illustrate the progression of events.
Waldo Frank's Cuba: A Prophetic Island (New York, 1961) is particularly
disappointing because he had always been a consistent anti-state
communist, strongly influenced by libertarian ideas, which he amply
demonstrated by his sympathetic attitude towards the CNT
(anarcho-syndicalist union confederation of Spain). That Frank with 40
years study of Spanish and Latin American history should have allowed
his pro-Castro euphoria to becloud his judgement to the point where he
could not recognize the obvious earmarks of a dictatorship in the making
is unpardonable.
Although Frank was granted a two year subsidy by the Cuban government to
write his book, he insists that his "only obligation was to seek the
truth as I found it" (Preface). Nevertheless Frank's "unbiased"
evaluation of Castro's personality and achievements rivals the tributes
heaped upon Stalin by his sycophants. Thus:
... the Chevrolet rolled into the first streets of Matanzas ... the
crowd blocking Castro's way had, somehow, the shape of Casto ... and
what was the shape of Castro? Was it not Cuba itself? (p. 79) ... in his
exquisite sensibilities ... Castro is less the poet and the LOVER ... to
call Castro a dictator is dishonest semantics ... (p. 141, Frank's
emphasis)
In the very next paragraph Frank unwittingly marshalls crushing
arguments against himself. Castro will not tolerate criticism:
... he likes to have intellectuals around him, not so much to discuss
ideas as to fortify his actions and ideas ... (p. 141) [in other words,
Castro must, like Stalin, surround himself with fawning flatterers]
Castro is not a dictator, [but] ... there always comes a time, when
leaders must dare, for the people's sake, to oppose the people ... (p.
62) ... there are times of nation ferver when an opposition press
becomes a nuisance ... [just because there are no elections in Cuba] ...
the opposition slanders Castro. [How dare they call him] "'totalitarian'
'communist'!?" (p. 16)
... [In spite of Frank's pro-Castro obsession, traces of
anarcho-syndicalist influence come through] ... the Cubans do not know
that mere natiuonalization of their industries is no goal, that it may
enthrone a bureaucracy even more rigid than capitalist possession.
Nationalization is not necessarily true socialization, an end which
demands [that there be workers in each industry to run these industries
in coordination with the other sectors of the economy]. (p. 134)
Does Frank indict Castro for instituting nationalization? By no means!
On the contrary, he considers that Castro summary
... act of nationalization was an intelligent, courageous deed ... to
defend the Cuban Republic against those hostile forces that would
destroy it ... (p. 134) [Frank is even afraid] that ... technicians from
the Soviet Union will bring with them the communist ideology ... equally
alien, equally unwelcome ... (p. 136) [But Frank hastens to dispel such
fears] ... the leaders are GOOD and what they are attempting to do is
GOOD ... they will tell you in plain words that they have not overthrown
the overlordship of the United States in order to submit to a new master
... the Soviet Union or anyone else ... (p. 136) (Frank's emphasis)
Unfortunately, it turns out that the "good" men destined to save Cuba
from totalitarian domination are themselves authoritarian communists:
Armando Hart, Carlos Rafael Rodriguez, and irony of ironies! Castro
himself, a few days after the American publication of Frank's book,
confessed that "I am a Marxist-Leninist and will remain one until the
last day of my life."
In spite of Castro's own statement that the so-called peasant
cooperative farms (granjas del pueblo) are modeled after the Russian
style "Kolkhozes," Frank still nurtures the forlorn hope that the:
... cooperative farms and industries of Cuba could well become the
nuclei of a radical syndicalism, developed from the tradition of
anarcho-syndicalism, which has long appealed to Spanish and Hispanic
workers ... far more than the crude kolkhoz within communism,
libertarianism might flourish within a revived syndicalism ... (p. 186)
In early 1963, members of the Cuban Libertarian Movement in Exile (CLME)
addressed a letter to Pablo Casals, a co-sponsor of the Spanish Refuge
Aid Committee, informing him that Waldo Frank, also a co-sponsor, had
been commissioned by the Cuban Government to write a book in which he
eulogized Castro. In its Bulletin for April 1963, the CLME published
Casals' reply:
... like you, I too believe that all lovers of freedom ... must condemn
all dictatorship, "right," "left" or whatever the name ... I feel
strongly the anguish of the unfortunate people of Cuba, who, having
suffered under the dictatorship of Batista, are now, anew, being
subjected to the dictatorship of his successor, Fidel Castro ... as to
the attitude of Waldo Frank and his support of the Castro regime, I will
immediately request the Spanish Refugee Aid Committee to order a
thorough investigation of your charges, and if -- as it seems -- Waldo
Frank violates the ideals of the organization, he be removed as member
and co-sponsor ... With best wishes, Pablo Casals.
In 1964 Monthly Review, a Marxist-Leninist journal, published a special
96 page essay, Inside the Cuban Revolution, written by Adolfo Gilly, a
fanatical "left wing" pro-Castro Argentine journalist who lived among
the Cuban people for more than a year. Although Gilly acknowledges the
deformation of the Cuban revolution, he is "... still unconditionally on
the side of the Revolution." (preface, p. vii) Gilly was nevertheless
bitterly denounced by Castro. The following excerpts from his essay best
illustrate the kind of muddled thinking which leads to the most glaring
contradictions by "leftist" Castroite critics:
Statement: "the State defends the position ... and concrete economic
interests of the functionaries, the State itself, the Party and the
union bureaucracy ... the people have no direct power ... the State
creates and defends positions of privilege." (p. 42) Contradiction: "The
State is the workers' very own" (p.46)
[i] Statement: "Just as there has not appeared in the Cuban leadership
any tendency that proposes self-management, neither has there appeared
any which looks to the development of those bodies which in a socialist
democracy express the will of the people; soviets, workers' councils,
unions independent of the State, etc. ..." (p. 40-41) Contradiction:
"... in Cuba the masses feel that they have begun to govern their own
lives ..." (p. 78)
Statement: "When it comes to decisions of the government, it never
allows dissent or criticism or proposals for change ... nothing can be
published without permission ..." (p.28) Contradiction: "There is no
country today where there is greater freedom and democracy than in
Cuba." (ibid.)
Like Gilly, the editors of the Monthly Review, Leo Huberman and Paul
Sweezy, also combine extravagant praise with what adds up to a
devastating indictment of the Castro regime:
... the success achieved by the Cuban Revolution ... the upsurge of mass
living standard to create a quantity and quality of popular support for
the Revolutionary Government ... and its supreme leader Fidel Castro ...
has few, if any, parallels (Socialism in Cuba; N.Y., New York, 1970, p.
203, 204) ... there have been remarkable achievements in the economic
field and there will be even more remarkable ones in the future ... (p.
65)
Huberman and Sweezy then inadvertantly deny their own statements:
nearly everything is scarce in Cuba today (p. 129) ... there is the
continuing difficult economic situation. Daily life is hard, and after
ten years many people are tired ... tending to lose confidence in the
leadership's ability to keep its optimistic promises ... the ties that
bind the masses to their paternalistic government are beginning to erode
... (p. 217-218)
While the examples of the alleged economic "achievements" are indeed
rare, the catastrophic collapse of the economy and the mass discontent
for which the "Revolutionary Government" is directly responsible are
overwhelmingly documented. (see pgs. 74, 81, 82, 86, 103, 107, 200,
205-207, 217-220)
To create material incentives and reduce absenteeism the Revolutionary
leadership, to its everlasting credit ... has at no time committed the
folly of restoring the capitalist wage system in which ... whoever works
harder gets more ... Castro is quoted: "to offer a man more for doing
his duty is to buy his conscience with money." (p. 145)
A few pages later, Huberman and Sweezy again refute themselves. The
Revolution can be saved only if the capitalist wage system is restored.
Now, the "... Revolution cannot afford to rely exclusively on political
and moral incentives"; it will even have to resort to
semi-militarization of work!" (p. 153)
The assertion that the "... Cuban Revolution has resorted to very little
regimentation" is refuted in the same paragraph:
... there are doubtless evidences of this in the large-scale
mobilizations of voluntary labor ... indeed, there are already signs of
this regimentation in the growing role of the army in the economy
bringing with it military concepts of organization and discipline ... an
example of this is the Che Guevara Trail Blazers Brigade, organized
along strictly military lines [which] has been clearing huge amounts of
land ... (p. 146) Cuba's system is clearly one of bureaucratic rule ...
[nor has the government worked out] an alternative ... (p. 219-220)
For Huberman and Sweezy, the realization of socialism is, in effect,
based upon the omnipotence of the State. The people are not the masters
but the servants of the "revolutionary" leadership who graciously grant
them the privilege of sharing "in the great decisions which shape their
lives..." (p. 204)
To ignore the lessons of history and expect rulers to voluntarily
surrender or even share power with their subjects is -- to say the least
--- incredibly naive.
Herbert Matthews -- foreign correspondent and later a senior editor of
the New York Times, now retired -- was granted his sensational interview
with Fidel Castro in the Sierra Maestra on February 17, 1957. Matthews
has since then been welcomed to Cuba and granted interviews with Castro
and other leaders. His attitude towards the Castro dictatorship
resembles that of the doting parent who inflates the virtues of his
offspring and invents excuses for the child's transgressions.
... Fidel's personality is overwhelming. He has done many things that
enraged me. He has made colossal mistakes ... but we must forgive him,
he has to deal with difficult problems which no man could have tried to
solve without making errors and causing harm to large sectors of Cuban
society... (p. 4)
Not the least of the privileges accorded to despots is the right to make
mistakes at the expense of ordinary mortals.
How Castro, who is "... a great orator ... the greatest of his times,"
is "not able to express his emotions" (p. 44) is a peculiar failing that
Matthews does not deem it necessary to explain.
Although his latest work (a big 486 page volume, Revolution in Cuba; New
York, 1975) contains a great deal of valuable information about the
situation in Cuba, it suffers from his clumsy efforts to reconcile his
unabashed admiration for Castro with the brutal, bitter facts. Out of
the chaotic mass of contradictions, absurdities and distortions,
startling facts about the degeneration of the Cuban Revolution emerge. A
few examples:
Castro is a dictator. His revolution is "autocratic," but it is still --
strangely enough -- "... a government by consensus, based upon popular
support ..." The support comes from the members of the Committees for
the Defense of the Revolution (CDR) comprising "almost every able bodied
adult in Cuba ... everyone PARTICIPATES in the Cuban Revolution..." But
this grass-roots consensus which is not "a democracy ... has nothing to
do with civil liberties ..." (p. 15, Matthews' emphasis)
It should be obvious that a regime that has "nothing to do with civil
rights" is by definition a dictatorship. It soon becomes apparent that
this is indeed the case. Matthews notes that "... many Cubans are uneasy
over the fact that the CDR [this model of participatory democracy] ...
is now completely under the control of the Communist Party of Cuba ..."
(p. 15, Matthews' emphasis)
... we Americans think of the Rights of Man in civic terms: equality
before the law, non-discrimination, freedom of the press, sacredness of
the home ... In Cuba, as in Latin America, individual rights are
cherished too (p. 7) But on page 129, Matthews reverses himself: "... I
do not believe that the Cubans cared enough about civic freedoms to
fight for them ... the emphasis is not on civil liberties but on
personal attributes: personal dignity, preservation of family life...
Matthews, however, tries to camouflage the fact that personal attributes
cannot be exercised in Cuba because the State regiments the life of the
individual from the cradle to the grave. He unintentionally documents
this fact in his chapter on the Cultural Revolution.
On the flimsy and insulting pretext that the "... Cuban people do not
have the Anglo-Saxon mania for privacy ..." Matthews tries to minimize
the fact that "Cuba is a goldfish bowl." (p. 15)
"Castro made the mistake at his Moncada trial in 1953 and in the Sierra
Maestra in 1957, of promising to implement the liberal democratic
constitution of 1940." (p. 40) Castro did not make a mistake. He knew
full well and later openly confessed (in his "I am a Marxist-Leninist"
speech, Dec. 1, 1961) that Batista could be overthrown and his clique
come to power, only on the basis of a democratic program acceptable to
the anti-Castro bourgeoisie, The Church and other non-radical forces.
"... in the circumstances [comments Matthews] to get them to accept
revolution was an ... impossibility ..." (p. 125) Castro is an astute
politician. He did not make the mistake of antagonizing these elements
by prematurely initiating expropriation of property and other radical
measures. He waited until his regime was strong enough to neutralize,
and if necessary, smother the opposition.
Matthews even tries to condone Castro's atrocities. For him the crimes
committed by the Castro regime in the first ten years of the Revolution
-- 1959-1970 -- "has only historic meaning today ... they were in
Fidel's breathtaking word [?] an apprenticeship ..." (p. 2) In short,
the Dictator was learning his trade at the expense of his victims!
In connection with the restoration of the death penalty and the
execution of prisoners without a fair trial, Matthews asserts that "...
I was in Cuba twice while executions were going on and I did not then,
nor ever, hear or read of an innocent man being condemned ..." (p. 134)
But Matthews himself unwittingly presents overwhelming evidence to the
contrary:
... I felt critical over the summary nature of Cuban trials. Herman
Marks, a native of Milwaukee, reportedly with a criminal record, was the
executioner at the Cabanas fortress in Havana ... he became a captain in
Che Guevara's column. He was used to avoid killing by Cubans. He was
like a butcher killing cattle in an abatoir ... (p. 135) ... ordinary
courts lost much of their authority. Lawyers who defended those accused
of being counter-revolutionaries ran the danger of prosecution
themselves ... (p. 143). Habeas corpus was suspended in 1959. (p. 142)
... the evidence in the Matos case [see below] could not stand up in a
Western court of law ... but we must not blame the dictators ... this
was a Cuban court of law in the midst of a perilous revolution ... the
vilification of Castro in the Matos case is unjustified ... (p. 142) The
prisons were filled to overflowing. The interrogation rooms of the G2,
Castro's secret police, were scarcely less vile than the torture
chambers of Batista's SIM ... there were more prisoners now than Batista
ever had ... (Hugh Thomas quoted by Matthews, p. 142)
It is impossible to understand how Matthews, in view of his own
evidence, could deny that such atrocities did take place and then
reverse himself. His attitude is all the more incomprehensible, when in
respect to the Matos case, he, at the request of Matos' family, tried to
intercede with Castro on their behalf and his plea was ignored. (see p.
142)
Castro's refusal to honor "his repeated promises to hold elections for a
multi-party democratic government" is justified on the pretext that this
outrageous violation of elementary rights would crystallize a "strong
congressional opposition to Castro's revolutionary policies at every
step." But Castro is a better dictator than Franco was because "he never
perpetuated the hypocrisy of a plebiscite as in Franco Spain ..."! (p.
147)
After revealing that "Havana University was stripped of whatever
autonomy remained to it in July 1960 and purged ... and two thirds of
the professors went into exile ...", Matthews tries to condone these
crimes because "... as with so much happening, unscupulous means had to
be used to achieve desirable ends ..." As is means can ever be separated
from ends! Matthews himself admits that the "University became an organ
of the Marxist-Leninist government, but it also became a disciplined,
serious, center of learning, which in the 1970s is undergoing an
extraordinary rebirth ..." (p. 183)
With respect to the criminal mismanagement of the economy and the
proliferation of a new bureaucracy, Matthews gives examples:
... the Central Planning Board (Jucesplan) was created to control the
economy as a whole but it did little of practical value ... Fidel, Che,
and a few others had the real authority which they failed to coordinate
or use systematically ... There was a decline in the national income ...
too many cattle were slaughtered in 1961, bringing severe shortages from
1962 onwards ... rationing of foodstuffs was instituted in the summer of
1961 ... something had gone seriously wrong with the economy. Even in
World War II, there was no need for rationing ... Che Guevara, the
Minister of Industry, reported many errors ... much of what they were
planning was impossible. Naturally a huge bureaucracy evolved ... (pgs.
167-169)
Reasonable people, taking into account the accumulating mountain of
evidence, naturally came to realize that the Cuban Revolution was over.
Not Mathews. His faith remains undimmed: "... they were all so young!
The group had any amount of faith ... honesty and energy ..." Mathews
comes to the ridiculous conclusion that although the "economy was
failing ... the Revolution was succeeding ..." The blundering despots
who are largely responsible for the collapse of the Revolution "... put
the Revolution on the rocky, unevenly advancing path it has followed
since then ..." (p. 167-169)
Reviewing all the vast literature about the Cuban Revolution is beyond
the scope of this work. We center our discussion on Rene Dumont's
analysis because it is by far, the most profound, and especially,
because it is, in important areas, relevant to the position of the Cuban
anarchists and anarcho-syndicalists -- a position formulated long before
Dumont's two books were published. (see his Cuba: Socialism and
Development; New York 1970, and Is Cuba Socialist? New York 1974)
We will summarize Dumont's critique of Castro and his policies; the
libertarian content of his constructive proposals; and how he departs
from the libertarian implications of his work and contradicts himself.
From the jacket blurb of Is Cuba Socialist? we gather that the
significance of Dumont's book lies not so much:
... in his richly detailed ... devastating portrait of economic disorder
and militarization but [primarily because it] comes from a friend of the
Revolution, who at earlier times praised Castro's efforts to create a
socialist nation ... Dumont, a distinguished agronomist, a veteran
[pro-communist] activist, who in the 1960's paid [on Castro's
invitation] several long visits as an expert adviser to, and sympathizer
with, Castro's Cuba...
The book "created a sensation throughout Europe" because for Dumont to
dispute the infallibility of Castro, or even dare deny the socialist
nature of the Cuban Revolution, is, for the Castroites, a heresy
comparable to a papal encyclical questioning the existence of God. The
phrasing of the chapter headings alone, constitutes a devastating
indictment of the Castro regime:
STATIST: CENTRALIZATION: HERETICAL REVOLUTION
CENTRALIZED PLANNING WITH BUREAUCRACY: 1961-1968
THE PARTY: DESIGNATED RATHER THAN ELECTED
THE STATE: SUBORDINATED TO THE PARTY?
COMMUNISM: A MILITARY SOCIETY OR PERSONAL POWER
AN AGRARIAN DRILL FIELD: THE GUEVERA BRIGADE
THE DEATH OF THE FARM
THE ARMY APPRAISES POETS
NEW MAN OR MODERN SOLDIER?
RE-STALINIZATION: PRIVILEGES AND THE NEW BUREAUCRACY
PROTO-SOCIALISM WITH A NEW FACE
IS CUBA SOCIALIST?
That the answer is a resounding NO!, can be gathered from the text,
which also explains why both Dumont and his books are banned in Cuba.
What follows is a representative selection of Dumont's critical remarks.
(Unless otherwise noted, all quotations are from Is Cuba Socialist?)
... note should be taken of the diminishing role of the unions which are
due to disappear entirely since the state is -- in principle -- supposed
to be the State of the workers ... (p. 52) The government's decisions
seem to be intended FOR the people, but it was not government BY the
people ... they used to have a capitalist boss, and now they have
another boss ... the State. (p. 22, Dumont's emphasis)
Dumont quotes Armando Hart, a member of the political bureau of the
Popular People's (Communist) Party who speculated hopefully that it
would be a good idea:
... if all the labor force were in encampments, like columns of soldiers
... the development of the Cuban economy would be accelerated by the
militarization of the labor force ... it is toward this that we must
work ... (p. 94)
In mid-1969, ... the Minister of Labor warned that severe measures would
be taken against ... undisciplined work, absenteeism, and negligence ...
a month later, in September, the government promulgated a law under
which each new worker must have a dossier and work book in which will be
noted the places in which he works, his comings and goings, etc. (p.
114)
... the number one man in Cuba is Castro. Castro is Prime Minister of
the Revolutionary Government, Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces,
and First Secretary of the Cuban Communist Party ... As an official,
one's job depends upon Castro's confidence and on personal conections
... leadership of the essential agencies is placed in the hands of men
in whom the Boss [Castro] has confidence (p. 51) ... Cuban society
remains authoritarian and hierarchized; Fidel maneuvers it as he sees
fit. The result is a militaristic society ... (34)
In public everybody is for Castro. In private his partisans are less
numerous. Everybody goes to the demonstrations in the Plaza de la
Revolucion. It is obligatory (p. 59) ... Castro has confidence only in
himself. He is no longer content with claims to military and political
fame. He has to feel himself the leader in both scientific research and
agricultural practice [about which he knows next to nothing] (p. 107)
Nobody dares oppose him if he wants to hold his job. (p. 108) ... when
he throws his beret on the ground and flies into one of his rages,
everybody quakes and fears reprisals ... (p. 111)
There exists vigilance [spying] with the increasing control of
neighborhoods by the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution [CDRs]
standing in for and helping the police. Everybody belongs to the CDRs,
unless he wants to miss out on many advantages... Capitalism robs the
worker of his dignity ... Police inquisition in the Cuban Revolution
again denies it to the poorest worker ... (p. 119) [In exposing press
censorship, Dumont quotes Marx] "... the censored press CONSTANTLY
lies." I challenge Granma to publish this [Marx's] sentence ... [Granma
is the official organ of the Communist Party of Cuba.]
Dumont cites the case of Heberto Padilla, the renowned Cuban poet and
former editor of Granma. Padilla had been relieved of his editorial post
because he commented favorably on the work of Guillermo Cabrera Infante,
a prominent poet, who was at that time out of favor with the Party.
In 1968 Padilla was awarded the Casa de la Americas literary prize for
his collection of critical poetry Out of the Game (two examples are
reprinted below). The Writers Union published the book, including their
disclaimer, charging that the poems were against the Revolution.
Padilla's verses were judged Counter-Revolutionary by Granma and the
weekly newspaper of the Cuban Army, Verde Olivo (Olive Green -- color of
the uniform).
On March 27, 1971, Padilla was jailed for 37 days. He was also denied
work for a year. His case aroused a world-wide storm of protest by
prominent pro-Castro and other intellectuals and writers. Dumont in true
Stalinist fashion confesses that he was guilty of adopting
"counter-revolutionary" attitudes and in the words of Dumont "...
providing information to CIA agents like myself and K.S. Karol (p.
120ff.; Karol is a friendly critic of Castro, was like Dumont invited to
visit Cuba by Castro, and author of Guerillas in Power).
The poet, get rid of him
He has nothing to do around here
He does not play the game
lacks enthusiasm
He does not make his message clear
does not even notice the miracles.
He spends the whole day thinking
always finds something to object to
That fellow, get rid of him
Remove the party pooper
the summer malcontent
who wears dark glasses in the new dawn
of time without history
He is even out of date
He likes only the old Louis Armstrong
Humming, at most, a song of Pete Seeger
He sings 'Guantanamera' through clenched teeth
No one can make him talk
No one can make him smile
each time the spectacle begins
In the first place: optimism.
Secondly: be correct, circumspect, submissive.
(Having undergone all the sports tests)
and to finish, march
as do all the other members:
one step forwards
two or three backwards:
but always applauding
... the new man is a model soldier, ever obedient to his leaders ...
children are enrolled in organizations as soon as ten years old ...
young teachers are subjected to programs that smack of the convent and
the barracks: 'WORK AND Shut Up!' 'The Leaders Are Always Right!' 'Fidel
Doesn't Argue!' (p. 122) Technological training was under the control of
the Vice-Minister of the Armed Forces. Military training was given at
all levels. By the time they are eight, young people are marching in
step ... (p. 92)
... In Cuba the military are taking over command of the economy ... (p.
179) ... it is becoming clearer and clearer that the army is
transforming Cuban society. (p. 8 of the new 4) Militarization was urged
not only to eliminate inefficiency and disorganization, but to cope with
the passive resistance of a growing number of workers. (p. 100)
... it became increasingly difficult to distinguish between the
Communist Party and the army, since they both wore uniforms and carried
revolvers ... This sort of Cuban communism is devilishly close to army
life ... This military society ... follows a path leading away from
participation of the people; it leads to a hierarchized society with an
authoritarian leadership headed by Castro who decides all problems,
political, economic and technical ... (p. 112-113)
Under the heading Agrarian Reform Law and Cooperatives, Dumont deplores
that the
... estates confiscated in 1960 were cooperatives in name only ... they
were state farms ... by August 1960, after my second visit, the
cooperative formula was definitively set aside without those involved
being advised or consulted (p. 22) [Dumont quotes law 43]: "the INRA
[National Institute of Agrarian Reform] will APPOINT their
administrators ... and the workers will accept and respect [whatever
commands the INRA] will dictate." (p. 47) [Dumont remarks that] "the
workers have the mentality of paid employees ... their boss is the
state." (p. 22) [Dumont concludes that] "Cuban agriculture is certainly
becoming more and more militarized ... all important jobs are entrusted
to the army, headed by a Major, Captain or a First Lieutenant." (p. 96)
The typical attitude of the Marxist-Leninist left toward the Cuban
Revolution was perhaps best summarized in one of its well known organs
the New Left Review (issue #3, 1960) in the course of an ecstatic review
of Cuba: Anatomy of a Revolution by Huberman and Sweezy, editors of the
Marxist-Leninist Monthly Review:
... as a result of the final period of nationalization completed this
past October, Cuba has become a sovereign socialist state ... the first
nation to have achieved socialism without benefit of Marxist-Leninist
orientation...
Dumont rejects this brand of "socialism." He does not equate socialism
with nationalization. Although a professed Marxist-Leninist, Dumont
touches on anarchist themes insofar as he advocates a decentralist
voluntaristic variety of socialism, not only because it is desirable,
but also because it is eminently more practical than nationalization and
other authoritarian alternatives. As an expert agronomist, Dumont
concentrates on the problems of the agrarian revolution. But his general
conclusions are applicable to the whole economic setup. He insists that
"... socialism demands true popular participation at all levels of
decision making..." (p. 140)
... an agrarian socialism does not require collectivization from above
... I sought a solution that would tend to more decentralization, more
responsibility at the base ... self-management of basic units ... (p.
97) [To stimulate the creativity of the individual and encourage him to
take the initiative in the self-management of a cooperative society] ...
socialism must learn to be more respectful of his dignity and therefore
of his autonomy. (Cuba: Socialism and Development, p. 161)
... the moral incentive would be respect for his individuality as a
worker, the irreplaceable feeling on the part of the worker that he is
PARTICIPATING in the management of the enterprise, that he PERSONALLY
contributes to the decisions about the nature and quality of his work
... more initiative, more autonomy, more responsibility ... (Is Cuba
Socialist? p. 137; emphasis Dumont's)
In Russia the anarchists bitterly criticized the Bolsheviks because they
extirpated the grass-roots voluntary organizations and set up a state
dictatorship. Dumont, too, does not think:
... it is a good idea to suppress pre-revolutionary cooperatives which
are useful for the training of management personnel [and believes that]
the cooperative formula ... applies to handwork, distribution,
small-scale industry, shops, services, etc. [where] the workers take
better care of the material belonging to the group than that which
belongs to the state ... (Cuba: Socialism and Development, p. 163)
Under headings like "An Agrarian Socialism With Little Work
Collectives;" "A Multiplicity of Socialist Patterns of Change" (Cuba:
Socialism and Development, p. 160-170) Dumont's proposals read almost
like excerpts from Kropotkin's anarchist classic, Fields, Factories and
Workshops:
... in 1960 I suggested that the hypertrophied city of Havana be
surrounded with a 'green belt' of market gardens and fruit farms as far
as the adaptability of land and availability of water allowed. I urged a
second concentric belt for the production of sweet potatoes, potatoes,
plantains, etc. and that a dairy farm should be established. Other
cities could have adopted the same plan ... I even suggested a plan by
which each major agricultural unit could supply itself with a
significant portion of its food supply. The prolongation and aggravation
of scarcities only emphasized the value of this project which was never
undertaken. (Is Cuba Socialist? p. 33)
... if every family that wanted to had been able to have a small garden
plot, it could have raised a good portion of its own food ... (p. 66.)
The workers would organize their own work themselves. The farm groups
would evolve not so much as giant cooperatives as TOWARD A FEDERATION OF
SMALL COOPERATIVES. ... (Socialism and Development, p. 160; emphasis
Dumont's)
Unfortunately, Dumont's modifications negate his libertarianism and
render his work useless to arrest the deformation of the Revolution and
guide it in a libertarian direction. He makes this unmistakeably clear:
... Democratic Centralism which elsewhere has too often been the cover
[read consequences] for totalitarianism, which would take on a new
meaning [back to Lenin the architect of "communist" tyranny]. Within
this structure [cooperatives] the top echelon [i.e. the state] would be
responsible for the economic plan ... for the allotment of state funds
[which gives the state life and death power over the cooperatives simply
by granting or witholding funds] ... the heads of cooperatives would be
APPOINTED [until] such time as they were elected within a cooperative
framework [until as in Russia the State "will wither away"?] (Cuba:
Socialism ... p. 160; our emphasis)
Dumont unwittingly endorses de facto paternalism on the part of Castro.
For example:
... if Castro could rid himself of his mystics and utopians and surround
himself with real representatives of the people, he [Castro the savior]
COULD LEAD the Cuban People to prosperity ... (p. 122; our emphasis) ...
[Since Castro] ... would not accept control from below because he
enjoyed personal power too long to GIVE IT UP GRADUALLY ... it is
therefore up to the country's political leaders, especially Raul Castro,
Dorticos, Rafael Rodriguez, Armando Hart and Blas Roca, to advise Castro
to do so IF THEY HAVE THE COURAGE AND IF THEY REALIZE THAT THE PRESENT
PERSONAL DICTATORSHIP may lead to catastrophe ... (p. 140-141, Dumont's
emphasis)
Since they have neither "the will nor the courage" to take Dumont's
advice, the situation is hopeless. Is it at all likely that these
hardened, cynical politicians who make up the "innermost ruling group,"
would, no more than Castro himself, "accept control from below," since
they too "enjoyed power too long to give it up gradually"? Is it at all
likely that this "communist bourgeoisie ... which clings to power by
flattering Castro," whose very lives depend on Castro's good will, would
summon up "the courage" to correct Castro? (p. 141)
That a realistic observer like Dumont could entertain the faintest hope
that these puppets would willingly sacrifice themselves, is hard to
understand. Especially, when Dumont himself cautions us "not to forget
that despotism and its paternalistic variety has always been badly
enlightened ... and power corrupts ...", and in the very next paragraph
flatly contradicts himself be suggesting that the remedy for Castro's de
facto "... absolute monarchy is a more modern version of what I will
simplify in calling ... LIMITED IF NOT CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY ..." (p.
141, our emphasis)
Disregarding contrary evidence such as: the massacre of the Kronstadt
sailors; the exile, persecution and murder of political prisoners by
Lenin's secret police and other crimes for which Lenin is directly
responsible; Dumont, nevertheless asserts that the "... freedom of
discussion and popular control advised [but never practised] by Lenin
has been forgotten by the Castroites ... Lenin's theory of democratic
centralism has been interpreted to justify the unlimited dictatoship of
personal power ..." (p. 116)
Dumont, like the other Marxist-Leninists, whitewashes Lenin's crimes. He
ignores the incontestable fact that it was Lenin himself who set the
precedent followed on a wider scale by his successor Stalin. Dumont's
remedy for the chronic afflictions of the Castro regime does not even
begin to measure up to his excellent diagnosis.
Like his colleague K.S. Karol, Dumont assumes a similar
self-contradictory attitude in respect to the Chinese Revolution,
oscillating between extravagant praise and severe criticism:
... developing countries will most certainly find in China the basis for
a new faith in Man and in his possibilities for progress. Socialist
consciousness has attained a very high level ... the people are almost
exclusively concerned [not with personal affairs but] with the general
interest ...
Dumont then contradicts himself devastatingly exposing the true
character of Mao's despotism:
... fundamental decisions, such as foreign policy and the economic plan
are all made by the top hierarchy and a small minority of managers ...
without consultation or intervention of the famous 'popular' control
called for [but never practiced] by Lenin ...
Dumont then immediately proceeds to justify these outrageous violations
of elementary rights by pointing to the "... hypocrisy of the false
friends of democracy ..." As if one evil automatically justifies another
Dumont:
... salutes the devotion of the Chinese rulers to the welfare of the
nation and the workers ... if we prefer for OUSELVES more freedom of
information and only formal democracy, IT IS SURELY NOT FOR US TO
PRESCRIBE WHAT IS BEST FOR THE CHINESE ...
(above quotes from L'Utopie ou la Mort; Paris, 1973, pgs. 156-158;
Dumont's emphasis)
If Dumont were consistent, he would at least add that the totalitarian
despots who rule China also have no right to "prescribe what is best
for" THE CHINESE PEOPLE.
Like Dumont, the other loyal leftist critics of the Cuban Revolution do
not realize that their own analysis leads inevitably to the conclusion
that NO STATE CAN EVER PLAY A REVOLUTIONARY ROLE. It is their inability
to grasp this fact. It is their orientation that enmeshes the
Marxist-Leninists in a series of massive and insoluble contradictions.
Their writings project a distorted, utterly false image of the Cuban
Revolution; they are never a guide to meaningful alternatives.
The myth, induced by the revolutionary euphoria of the pro-Castro left,
that a genuine social-revolution took place in Cuba, is based on a
number of major fallacies. Among them is the idea that a social
revolution can take place in a small semi-developed island, a country
with a population of about eight million, totally dependent for the
uninterrupted flow of vital supplies upon either of the great
super-powers, Russia or the U.S. They assume falsely that these
voracious powers will not take advantage of Cuba's situation to promote
their own selfish interests. There can be no more convincing evidence of
this tragic impossibility than Castro's sycophantic attitude toward his
benefactor, the Soviet Union, going so far as to applaud Russia's
invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, a crime certainly on a par with the
military coup in Chile, which Castro rightfully condemned. To assume,
furthermore, that the Cuban social revolution can be miraculously
achieved without simultaneous uprisings in Latin America and elsewhere,
is both naive and irresponsible.
To equate nationalization of the economy and social services instituted
from above by the decree "revolutionary government" or a caudillo, with
true socialism is a dangerous illusion. Nationalization and similar
measures, under the name of "welfareism," are common. They are
widespread, and in many cases deep-going programs, instituted by
democratic "welfare" states or "benevolent" dictators as an antidote to
revolution, and are by no means equivalent to socialism.
Another fallacy about the nature of the Cuban Revolution can perhaps be
best illustrated by contrasting the early stages of the Russian
Revolution of 1917 with the Cuban events. Analogies between the Russian
and Cuban Revolutions--like analogies in general--fail to take into
account certain important differences:
Czarism was OVERTHROWN by the spontaneous revolts of the peasant and
proletarian masses only after a prolonged and bloody civil war.
In Cuba, the Batista regime COLLAPSED WITHOUT A STRUGGLE for lack of
popular support. There were no peasant revolts. No general strikes.
Theodor Draper (and many other observers) argues persuasively that since
there were at least "500,000 agricultural workers in Cuba" there could
not have been many peasants in a
. . . guerrilla force that never amounted to more than a thousand. . .
there was nothing comparable in Cuba to the classic peasant revolution
led by Zapata in Mexico in 1910. . . there was no national peasant
uprising. Outside the immediate vicinity of the guerrilla forces,
revolutionary activity, in the country as a whole, was largely a middle
class phenomenon, with some working class support, but without working
class organizations...(Castroism: Theory and Practice; New York, 1965,
p. 74-75) [This takes on added significance when we consider that the
unions comprised ONE MILLION out of a total population of about six
million when the Revolution began, Jan. 1, 1959.]
In Russia, the masses made the social revolution BEFORE the
establishment of the Bolshevik government. Lenin climbed to power by
voicing the demands of, and legalizing the social revolutionary DEEDS of
the workers and peasants: "All Power to the Soviets," "The Land to the
Peasants," "The Factories to the Workers," etc. In Cuba, Castro, for
fear of losing popular support, carefully avoided a social-revolutionary
platform--assuming that he had one. Unlike Lenin, he came to power
because he promised to put into effect the bourgeois-democratic program.
History is full of unexpected twists and turns. Ironically enough, these
two different revolutions had similar results: Both Lenin and Castro
betrayed their respective revolutions, instituted totalitarian regimes
and ruled by decree from above.
The well-known anarcho-syndicalist writer and activist, Augustin Souchy,
makes a cogent comparison between the Spanish Revolution (1936-1939) and
the Cuban Revolution (both of which he personally witnessed):
. . . while in Spain, the confiscation of the land and the organization
of the collectives was initiated and carried through, by the peasants
themselves; in Cuba, social-economic transformation was initiated, not
by the people, but by Castro and his comrades-in-arms. It is this
distinction that accounts for the different development of the two
revolutions; Spain, mass revolution from the bottom up; Cuba, revolution
from the top down by decree . . . (see Cuba. An Eyewitness Report,
below)
Which brings to mind the celebrated phrase of the "Apostle" of Cuban
independence Jose Marti: "To Change the Master Is Not To Be Free."
The Cuban Revolution draws its specific character from a variety of
sources. While not a Latin American "palace revolution" which produced
no deep seated social changes, it nevertheless relates to the tradition
of miltarism and bogus paternalism of Latin American "Caudillismo," the
"Man on Horseback." "Caudillismo"--"right" or "left," "revolutionary" or
"reactionary"--is a chronic affliction in Latin America since the wars
for independence initiated by Simon Bolivar in 1810. The "revolutionary
caudillo" Juan Peron of Argentina, catapulted to power by "leftist" army
officers, was deposed by "rightist" military officers. Maurice Halperin
calls attention to the ". . . expropriation of vast properties in Peru
in 1968 and in Bolivia in 1969 by the very generals who had destroyed
Cuban supported guerrilla uprisings in their respective countries. . . "
(The Rise and Fall of Fidel Castro; University of California, 1972, p.
118)
The militarization of Cuban society by a revolutionary dictatorship
headed by the "Caudillo" of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro follows,
in general, the Latin American pattern. Like other revolutionary Latin
American "Caudillos, " Castro would come to power only on the basis of
programs designed to win the indispensable support of the masses. Edwin
Lieuwen marshalls impressive evidence:
. . . In Chile in 1924, Major Carlos Ibanez established a military
dictatorship [that] was notably successful in combining authoritarian
rule with policies aimed at meeting popular demands for greater social
justice. Successful but short lived revolutions took place during 1936
under the leadership of radical young officers inspired by ideas of
social reform and authoritarian nationalism. . In Bolivia a clique of
radical young officers came to power. Major David Toro and Colonel
German Busch successfully headed regimes that had social revolution as
their goals. . . they catered to
the downtrodden and pledged to build a new nation. Toro and Busch based
their dictatorial regimes on attempts to win mass support ... (Arms and
Politics in Latin America; New York, 1961, pgs. 60, 62, 78, 79)
When in 1968, a "revolutionary" military Junta seized power in Peru, the
new military government proclaimed the fundamental principle underlying
all "radical" military regimes":
. . . the final aim of the State, being the welfare of the nation; and
the armed forces being the instrument which the State uses to impose its
policies, therefore, . . . in order to arrive at collective prosperity,
the armed forces have the mission to watch over the social welfare, the
final aim of the State... (quoted, Modes of Political Change in Latin
America, ed. Paul Sigmund, New York, 1970, p. 201)
Dr. Carlos Delgado, Director of the Information Bureau of the
Revolutionary Government of Peru, after stressing that the revolution
was " . . . initiated from above" by decree, boasted that the
dictatorship in "...the last four and a half years" accomplished more
for the betterment of the people than in the "whole epoch of Republican
rule." The revolution was hailed, boasted Delgado, even by the French
Marxist thinker, Henri Lefebvre, as one of the most important historical
events of the contemporary world..." (see Reconstruir, anarchist
bi-monthly, Buenos Aires, Nov.-Dec. 1974)
There is an umbilical connection between militarism and the State, fully
compatible with, and indispensable to, all varieties of State
"socialism"--or more accurately State Capitalism. George Pendle (and
other observers) with respect to Peron's social and welfare programs
initiated to woo mass support concludes that:
...Peron's National Institute of Social Security...converted Argentina
to one of the most advanced countries in South America. . . it was not
surprising that the majority of workers preferred Peron to their
traditional leaders...they felt that Peron accomplished more for them in
a few years than the Socialist Party achieved in decades...(Argentina;
Oxford University Press, London, 1965, pas. 97, 99)
. . . In Havana Premier Fidel Castro proclaimed three days of mourning
and Cuban officials termed Peron's death a blow to all Latin America. .
.(New York Times, July 2, 1974) This cynical proclamation was not made
solely for tactical reasons, but in recognition of the affinity between
the Casro and Peron regimes. As early as 1961, there were already
informal contacts between Che Guevara and Angel Borlenghi "... a number
two man in Peron's government and his Minister of the Interior for eight
years ... Che told Borlenghi that there's no question about it that
Peron was the most advanced embodiment of political and economic reform
in Argentina ... and under Che's guidance a rapport was established
between the Cuban Revolution and the Peronist movement ... Che has in
his possession a letter from Peron expressing admiration for Castro and
the Cuban Revolution and Che had raised the question of inviting Peron
to settle in Havana . . . " (quoted by Halperin, from Ricardo Rojo's
work, My Friend Che; ibid. p. 329-330)
Herbert Matthews supplements Rojo's revelations:...the Argentine
journalist Jorge Massetti who went into the Sierra Maestra in 1958,
became friends with Guevara. He was trained for guerrilla warfare in the
Sierra Maestra and in 1964 was killed in a guerrilla raid in Argentina .
. . Massetti was credited with convincing Guevara that Peronism
approximated his own ideas. Hilda Gadea--Guevara's first wife--wrote
that for Ernesto Guevara, the fall of Peron Sept. 1955 was a heavy blow.
Che and Massetti blamed it,...'on North American Imperialists'...(ibid.
p. 258)
[Carmelo Mesa-Lago notes the connection between State Socialism and
militarism. Castro enthusiastically hailed] " . . . the Peruvian Social
Revolution as a progressive military group playing a revolutionary role.
. ." (Cuba in the 1970s: University of New Mexico Press, 1975, p. 11])
In an interview, Castro emphatically maintained that social revolution
is compatible with military dictatorship, not only in Peru, but also in
Portugal and Panama.
[When the military junta in Peru] took power...the first thing they did
was to implement agrarian reform which was MUCH MORE RADICAL than the
agrarian reform we initiated in Cuba. It put a much lower limit on the
size of properties; organized cooperatives, agricultural communities; .
. . they also pushed in other fields--in the field of education, social
development, industrialization. . . We must also see the example of
Portugal where the military played a decisive role in political change.
. .and are on their way to finding solutions. . . we have Peru and
Panama--where the military are acting as catalysts in favor of the
revolution. . . (Castro quoted by Frank and Kirby Jones, With Fidel; New
York, 1975, p. 195-196)
[The evidence sustains Donald Druze's conclusion that] . . . the
programs of modern 'caudillos' embodies so many features of centralism
and National Socialism, that it almost inevitably blends into
communism...(Latin America: An interpretive History; New York, 1972, p.
570)
Militarism flourishes in Cuba as in latin America. Castro projected
militarism to a degree unequalled by his predecessor, Batista: total
domination of social, economic and political life. In the Spring of
1959, a few months after the Revolution of January 1st, Castro, who
appointed himself the "Lider Maximo" ("Caudillo") of the Revolution and
Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, promised to cut the size of the
army in half and ultimately to disband and replace it by civilian
militias and police. "The last thing I am," said Castro, "is a military
man . . . ours is a country without generals and colonels. . . "
Within a year after the disintegration of the Batista Army, Castro
turned Cuba into a thoroughly militarized state, with the most
formidable armed force of any in Latin America. For the first time in
Cuban history, compulsory military service was instituted. Now, Cuba has
adopted the traditional hierarchical ranking system of conventional
armies. The Cuban army differs in no essential respect from the armies
of both "capitalist" and "socialist" imperialist powers.
Insofar as relations with the communists are concerned, Theodore Draper
notes the striking resemblance between the policies of Batista and
Castro:
. . . Batista paid off the communists for their support, by among other
things, permitting them to set up an official trade union federation,
the Confederacion de Trabajadores de Cuba (CTC) with Lazaro Pena as its
Secretary-General. In 1961, Castro paid off the communists for their
support, by, among other things, permitting Lazaro Pena to come back
officially as Secretary General of the CTC...(ibid. p. 204)
If we accept at face value Castro's conversion to "communism," his
"communism" embodies the Latin American version of Stalinism, absolute
personal dictatorship. But "Caudillos" are not primarily ideologues.
They are, above all, political adventurers. In their lust for power,
they are not guided by ethical considerations, as they claim. In this
respect, there is no essential difference between capitalist states and
"revolutionary socialist states." All dictators conceal their true
visage behind the facade of a political party, paying lip service to
goals supposedly popular with the masses. Castro became a "communist"
because he considered that his survival in power depended on cementing
cordial relations with his saviors, the "socialist" countries (former
enemies) and by extension with Batista's former allies, the domestic
"communists." To promote his ends, Castro established relations with
Franco Spain and the Vatican. Nor did he hesitate to side with the Arab
oil magnates--lords over their impoverished subjects--in the mid-east
disputes, or to endorse the Russian invasion of Czecho-Slovakia.
Albert Camus observed:
. . . the major event of the twentieth century has been the abandonment
of the values of liberty on the part of the revolutionary movement, the
weakening of Libertarian Socialism, vis-a-vis Caesarist and militaristic
socialism. Since then, a great hope has disappeared from the world, to
be replaced by a deep sense of emptiness in the hearts of all who yearn
for freedom... (Neither victims Nor Executioners)
Whether Castro is working out his own unique brand of "Cuban Socialism"
is a relatively minor question. Even if Castro had no connection with
the communist movement, his mania for personal power would lead
inevitably to the establishment of an "independent" totalitarian regime.
What is decisive is that the Cuban Revolution follows the pattern
established in this century by the aborted Russian Revolution of 1917.
This pattern is the counter-revolution of the State.
To understand the character of Cuban anarchism it is first necessary to
summarize the main principles of Spanish anarcho-syndicalism from which
the Cuban revolutionary movement derives its orientation. These
principles were formulated by Bakunin and the libertarian sections of
the old "First" International Workingmen's Association (IWMA) founded in
1864. Francisco Tomas, one of the organizers of the Spanish Region of
the IWMA, reported that "...relations with the Cuban sections were
frequent after 1881..." (Max Nettlau: Reconstruir; Jan. 15, 1975)
The Declaration of Principles of the International Alliance of Socialist
Democracy, drafted by Bakunin in 1868 could be called the "Magna Carta"
of Spanish Anarchism. The most relevant paragraph reads:
. . . The Alliance seeks the complete and definitive abolition of
classes and the political, economic, and social equality of both sexes.
It wants the land and the instruments of labor like all other property
[not personal belongings] to be converted into the collective property
of the whole society for the utilization [not ownership] by workers:
that is, by agricultural and industrial societies [unions] and
federations. It affirms that existing political and authoritarian
states, which are to be reduced to simple administrative functions
dealing with public utilities, must eventually be replaced by a
worldwide union of free associations, agricultural and industrial...
Bakunin stressed that the organization of the free society must be based
on the " . . . various functions of daily life and of different kinds of
labor . . . organized by professions and trades. . . " (Program of The
International, 1871) He envisioned that the "free productive
associations''' which will include members of cooperatives, community
and neighborhood groups, cultural associations etc., will voluntarily
organize "according to their needs and skills." They will eventually
"... transcend all national boundaries and form an immense world-wide
federation..." (Revolutionary Catechism 1866)
The Resolution of the Basel Congress of the IWMA (1869) after repeating
that the wage system must be replaced by the "federation of free
producers . . ." sketched out a form of organization, which, in the
main, corresponded to the structure of the libertarian economy
established in wide areas during the Spanish Revolution of 1936-1939:
...the structure of the new economy was simple: Each factory organized a
new administration manned by its own technical and administrative
workers. Factories in the same industry in each locality organized
themselves into the local Federations of their particular industry. All
the local Federations organized themselves into the local Economic
Council of the territorial community in which all the work places were
represented [coordination, exchange, sanitation, culture,
transportation, public utilities and the whole range of public services
including distribution of commodities by consumer cooperatives and other
associations.] Both the Local Federations of each industry and the Local
Economic Councils were organized regionally and nationally into parallel
National Federations of Industry and National Economic Federations...
(Diego Abad de Santillan, anarchist writer, Minister of Economy of
Catalonia during Spanish Revolution. Por Que Perdimos la Guerra; Buenos
Aires, 1940, p. 82)
Adapting Bakuninist conceptions to Spanish conditions the Spanish
anarcho-syndicalists between the founding Congress of the Federation of
the Spanish Region of the IWMA (Barcelona, 1870) and the Madrid Congress
of 1874, worked out the basic principles and organization of Spanish
anarcho-syndicalism. (Rejecting the artificial national boundaries
imposed by capitalism and the State to segregate and divide the workers
into hostile camps, the IWMA designated its affiliated organizations of
different countries as "Regional Federations of the IWMA") Briefly
stated, the leading principles could be formulated in the following
manner:
The working class must build a new world based on workers'
self-management of the economy, collective ownership and administration
of social wealth, full individual, sexual and cultural freedom based
upon the principle of federalism. Federalism means coordination through
free agreement, locally, regionally, nationally and internationally
constituting a vast coordinated network of voluntary alliances embracing
the totality of social life. Under federalism the associated groups and
organizations reap the benefits of unity while still exercising autonomy
within their own spheres. Through federation the people expand the range
of their own freedoms.
This can be accomplished only by the Social Revolution which will
forever do away with private property in the means of production and
distribution; abolish the State and its satellite institutions, the
armed forces. the church, the bureaucracy and all forms of domination
and exploitation of man by man. ". . .on the ruins of capitalism, the
State and the Church we will build an anarchist society; the free
association of free workers' associations ..."
Parliamentary action, collaboration with any form of the State is
rejected:
. . . all governments are evil. To ask a worker what kind of government
he prefers is to ask him what executioner he prefers. . . the great
United States Republic is an example. There is no king nor emperor, but
there are the giant trusts: the kings of Gold, of Steel, of Cotton...
While the means of production, (land, mines transportation, etc.) must
become the property of the whole society, " . . . only the workers'
collectives will have the use of these facilities..." In this respect
differing from true communism where goods and services will be
distributed according to NEED.
In such a society the authoritarian institutions which foster the " . .
. spirit of nationalism and break the natural solidarity of mankind..."
will disappear to be replaced by the world-wide commonwealth of labor.
The free society will ". . . harmonize freedom with justice and achieve
solidarity..." (quotes are from Anselmo Lorenzo's El Proletariado
Militante, pgs. 80, 81, 178, 179, 192. Mexico City, Ediciones Vertice,
no date)
The revolutionary "direct action" tendency in the Spanish labor movement
has always rejected parliamentarianism and class collaboration with the
employers and the State in favor of direct action on the economic front.
The tactics of the general strike, partial strikes, passive "folded
arms" strikes, the boycott, sabotage and insurrections were developed by
the workers in the course of bitter class struggles long before the
founding of the IWMA. The IWMA itself arose in response to the need for
international solidarity in strikes.
Clara E. Lida and other historians trace the ideas and tactics of
revolutionary syndicalism in Spain from the early 1800s to the
revolution of 1854 and the great Catalonian general strike a year later,
15 years before the organization of the IWMA in Spain. (Anarquismo y
Revolucion en Espana, Madrid, 1972) The lessons learned in the course of
bitter class struggles made the Spanish proletariat receptive to the
ideas of Bakunin. They were inspired by the great watchword of the IWMA:
"The emancipation of the working class is the task of the workers
themselves."
Bakunin formulated a fundamental principle of anarcho-syndicalism: that
in the process of struggling for better conditions within existing
capitalist society and "studying economic science... the worker's
organizations bear within themselves the living seeds of the new social
order which is to replace the bourgeois world ... they are creating not
only the ideas, but also the facts of the future itself..." (quoted,
Rudolf Rocker, Anarcho-Syndicalism, p. 88 India edition)
At the Basel Congress of the IWMA the Spanish delegates (and the other
libertarian sections) also emphasized the twofold task of
anarcho-syndicalism: the unions of the workers must not only carry on
the daily struggle for their economic, social and cultural betterment
within the existing exploitative system. They must prepare themselves to
take over the self-management of social and economic life and become the
living cells of the new, free society.
The structure of the Federation of the Spanish Region was designed to
assure the greatest possible amount of freedom and autonomy commensurate
with indispensable and effective coordination. To prevent the growth of
bureaucracy there were no paid officials. All union affairs were
coordinated after working hours. When this was not possible delegates
were paid only for the time lost away from work. The power of the
Federal Commission and the General Congresses were strictly limited only
to carrying out the instructions of the membership never to set policy.
Decisions had to be ratified by the majority of the membership. The
agenda for conferences, congresses of local, provincial and national
assemblies were prepared and thoroughly discussed months in advance. In
line with this tradition the CNT (National Confederation of Labor) with
over a million members in 1936, had only one paid official--the General
Secretary.
The Madrid Congress of the CNT (Dec. 1919) unanimously adopted an
anarchist-communist Declaration of Principles stating that "...in accord
with the essential postulates of the First International (IWMA) the aim
of the CNT of Spain is the realization of Comunismo Libertario..." (Jose
Peirats: La CNT en la Revolucion Espanola-Toulouse, 1951, p. 5) The
Declaration of Principles of the IWMA reorganized by the
anarcho-syndicalists in 1922 also proclaimed tnat "...its goal is the
reorganization of social life on the basis of Free Communism. . . "
Strongly influenced by the ideas of Peter Kropotkin who worked out the
sociology of anarchism the anarchist Isaac Puente (killed on the
Saragossa front during the Spanish Civil War--1936-1939) envisaged the
structure of an anarchist society on the basis of "From each according
to his ability; to each according to his needs."
... Libertarian Communism is the organization of society without the
state and without capitalism. To establish Libertarian Communism it will
not be necessary to invent artificial social organizations. The new
society will naturally emerge from "the shell of the old." The elements
of the future society are already planted in the old existing order.
They are the Union [in European usage, the Syndicate] and the Free
Commune [sometimes called "free municipality"] which are old, deeply
rooted, non-statist popular institutions, spontaneously organized, and
embracing all towns and villages in urban and rural areas. Within the
Free Commune, there is also room for cooperative associations of
artisans, farmers and other groups or individuals who prefer to remain
independent or form their own groupings to meet their own needs
[providing, of course, that they do not exploit hired labor for
wages]..."
"... the terms 'libertarian' and 'communism' denote the fusion of two
inseperable concepts, the indispensible prerequisites for the free
society: collectivism and individual freedom..." (El Communismo
Anarchico)
Although the impact of Spanish anarchist ideas on Cuban labor was indeed
great it is not to be inferred that they were artificially grafted to
the Cuban revolutionary movewent. These ideas were adapted to Cuban
conditions. Anarcho-syndicalist principles were accepted, not because
were imported from Spain (the masses did not know where these ideas came
from) but because they corresponded to the asperations and experiences
of the Cuban workers on Cuban soil.
Both anarchist ideas and the development of the Cuban labor movement
trace back to the middle of the nineteenth century. Even today's Cuban
communists recognize that:
...in spite of the efforts of Paul Lafargue (Marx's son-in-law,
stationed in Spain) and other marxists, the proletariat of the peninsula
(Spain and Portugal) were strongly influenced by anarchist and
anarcho-syndicalist ideas. And these ideas carried over to Cuba in the
last quarter of the 19th and first quarter of the 20th century,
decisively influencing the Cuban labor movement which was invariable
anarchist. . . " (Serge Aguirre; Cuba Socialista--a Castroite
monthly--September, 1965.)
. . . During the whole epoch (from the 1890s until after the Russian
Revolution) it was the anarcho-syndicalists who led the class struggles
in Cuba, and the anarchist ideological influence that prevailed. . .)"
(Julio de Riverend, Cuba Socialista, Feb. 1965)
In Cuba the anarchist movement did not, as in some countries, develop
independently of the labor movement. They grew so closely together that
it is impossible to trace the history of one without the other the
forerunners and organizers of the Cuban labor movement were the Spanish
anarcho-syndicalist exiles who in the 1880s came to Cuba. It was they
who gave the Cuban labor movement its distinct social revolutionary
orientation, spreading the anarcho-syndicalist ideas of Bakunin and the
Spanish internationalists--men like Enrique Messinier, Enrique Roig San
Martin, and Enrique Cresci.
One of the early labor organizations was the Sociedades Economicos de
Amigos del Pais (Economic Society of the Friends of the Country). We
lack detailed information about the ideology of the Association of
Tobacco Workers of Havana organized in 1866--but it was vaguely
syndicalistic. The workers were passionately interested in
self-education. The tobacco workers of Havana (like their countrymen in
Florida) paid readers to read works of general interest to them while
they worked. During the reader's rest period they avidly discussed what
they had learned. An employer rash enough to interfere with these
proceedings would be unceremoniously escorted from his premises.
In 1885, an informal federation of unions, Circular de Trabajadores de
la Habana (workers' clubs) was organized. Two years later, it held a
Congress in which two opposing groups, "reformists versus radicals"
heatedly debated the future orientation of their organization.
The anarchist propaganda groups stressed the necessity for organization
along anarcho-syndicalist lines, rejecting Marxian ideas on the
necessity for parliamentary-political action by social-democratic
political parties. In 1886, the Workers' Center was founded to spread
the ideas of anarcho-syndicalism through its organ El Productor, (The
Producer) founded and edited by the anarchist Enrique Roig San Martin.
In 1892, the first Workers' Congress celebrated the First of May by
demonstrations for the independence of Cuba, which provoked the
premature closing of the Congress by the Spanish authorities. The
resolutions for the independence of Cuba were drafted by the anarchists
Enrique Cresci, Enrique Suarez and Eduardo Gonzalez. The congress
approved a resolution stating that " . . . the working class will not be
emancipated until it embraces revolutionary socialism, which cannot be
an obstacle for the triumph of the independence of our country. . ."
(quoted by Maurice Halperin: The Rise and Fall of Fidel Castro,
University of California 1972, p. 4)
Around 1874 the revered "apostle" of Cuban independence, Jose Marti,
frequently referred to anarchist groups named for Fermin Salvochea,
Bakunin and others. In his paper, La Patria, he printed articles by the
anarchist Elisee Reclus and others. Marti wrote:
". . . we live in a period of struggle between capitalists and workers.
. . a militant alliance of workers will be a tremendous event. They are
now creating it. . . " (quoted Halperin, ibid. p. 6-7)
The anarchist Carlos M. Balino, active among the tobacco workers of
Florida, was an associate of Jose Marti. And the Enrique Roig Club
included the anarchist and socialist supporters of Marti. We cite these
facts to demonstrate the social-revolutionary character of the
independence movement which was not merely nationalistic.
Enrique Messenier became the first president of the Liga General de
Trabajadores, organized by the anarchists in the 1890s. This period also
marked general strikes of longshoremen in Cardenas, Regla and Havana.
The Liga conducted the first general strike for the eight hour day,
which was brutally suppressed by the government.
A contemporary intimate account of the state of the Cuban anarchist
movement during the crucial years preceding independence can be gleaned
from the report of Pedro Esteve, a pioneer of the 20th century anarchist
movement which flourished in the United States. (A Los Anarquistas de
Espana y Cuba; Reported to the International Anarchist Congress, Chicago
1893; published by El Despertar, Paterson, New Jersey, 1900.) Esteve was
in close touch with the Cuban anarchists in Cuba and with the Spanish
anarchist exiles in Cuba. The following remarks were based upon a
frustrated propaganda tour cut short by the police after a three month
stay.
The authorities tried to cripple, and if possible, extirpate our
movement, not by outright violence--which would have aroused a storm of
protest--but by a no less effective, persistent and devilishly clever
campaign of petty harassments (landlords were pressured not to rent
premises for our meetings.) While not resorting to open censorship, our
weekly La Alarma was forced to suspend publication. It reappeared under
the name Archivo Social and was again suppressed. Our Circulo de
Trabajadores Workers' Center was closed down on false charges concocted
by the "sanitation inspectors" etc., etc.)
The attentats of Emil Henry and other anarchist terrorists which
precipitated the brutal persecution of the anarchist movement in Europe,
likewise became the pretext for the Cuban government's crackdown on our
movement...
Esteve recounts the effects of racism on the healthy development of the
Cuban labor and socialist movements, for, in spite of the abolition of
slavery and proclamation of equal rights, rampant racial discrimination
was still common.
. . . not even the exemplary conduct of the anarchists who unfailingly
welcomed the negroes on equal terms at meetings, schools and all other
functions on a person to person basis, sufficed for a long time to shake
the belief that all whites were their natural enemies... Nevertheless we
continued our agitation with dedication and attracted to our ranks
genuine proletarian elements. We held meetings in various Havana
neighborhoods and in other cities and villages. We were invited to
explain our ideas in non-academic popular schools, and in our Center, we
gave popular courses in sociology and other subjects...we also initiated
other projects of workers' education...at the invitation of workers in
the La Rosa de Santiago cigar factory, I gave a well received talk on
anarchism . . . these are only a few examples...little by little,
anarchists who had been inactive for a long time returned, and new
adherents came to us . . . our movement revived slowly, but on firmer
foundations...
1868 marked the beginning of the ten-year guerrilla war for independence
from Spanish colonial domination, "El Grito de Yara. " On October 10,
1868, Carlos Manuel de Cespedes, a wealthy sugar plantation owner in
Oriente province attacked the village of Yara with less than 40 men. The
attack was repulsed and only 12 men survived. "El Grito de Yara," ("The
Call To Rebellion") became the symbol and watchword of the struggle for
independence. More than 200,000 militants were killed in the ten-year
war, uncounted thousands were wounded. Total casualties could not be
estimated. The most prominent military leaders of the independence
movement were General Maximo Gomeiz Gomez and Antonio Maceo. In 1869
Cespedes was elected President of the Provisional Republic. This, and El
Grito de Yara earned him the title "Father of Independence."
Spain sent General Valeriano Weyler, "The Butcher," to extirpate the
independence movement. He locked hundreds of thousands of men women and
children into concentration camps. In Havana alone, 52,000 people
perished. In rebel areas, cattle and crops were destroyed to starve out
the freedom fighters and their families. The peasants retaliated by
burning down vast Spanish owned sugar plantations. Weyler was recalled
to Spain in 1879.
After the abolition of slavery in 1880, the big landlords expected the
Spanish government to compensate them for the losses entailed by the
emancipation of the slaves. But the condition of the workers remained
practically unchanged. The Revista de Agricultura wrote:
. . . A worker in a sugar mill camp awoke at 2 a.m., drank a glass of
hot water for breakfast, worked till 11 a.m. After a two hour lunch
break the worker went back and worked till 6 p.m., ate supper and then
worked several hours more. . . (quoted in Castro organ Cuba Socialista
clipping--no date)
The most militant elements in the insurrections of 1895 for the
independence of Cuba were primarily the peasants (and to a relatively
Iesser extent the numerically inferior urban workers). From the
beginning to the end of the war for independence the international
anarchist movement supported the revolts, and many young anarchists came
to Cuba to fight with the Cuban people. Many anarchists were in the
forefront of these struggles, among them Rafael Garcia, Armando Andre
(one of the commanders of the rebel army, later murdered by the Machado
assassins) and Enrique Cresci.
Anarchist participation in the independence struggles was based upon the
following considerations: For the exploited, oppressed masses, bourgeois
independence was of secondary importance. For them, abolition of
colonial despotism also signified the end of their age-long servitude,
and with it, the inauguration of a new era of economic equality, social
justice and personal freedom. The people's struggle for independence
simultaneously took on a social-revolutionary character. Anarchist
propaganda, and above all ACTION, encouraged the masses to turn the
struggle for political independence into the struggle for the Social
Revolution.
The U.S. imperialists feared the social-revolution of the Cuban people
as much as their Spanish colonial and domestic exploiters. In this
connection the views of two well qualified historians are well worth
quoting:
. . . during the negotiations for the treaty of peace after the victory
over Spain [in the Spanish-American War, 1898] Spain expressed fear that
if left to itself the island...might be prey to frequent revolutions
with the result that neither property nor personal rights would be
protected. To save Cuba from the possible consequences of 'premature'
independence, Spain wished to have the United States keep at least a
degree of control sufficient to insure order. . . (Chester Lloyd Jones;
quoted in Background to Revolution, New York, 1966, p. 63)
Professor Jones points out that the United States shared Spain's fear of
Revolution in Cuba and agreed to "...discharge its obligations under
international law. . . " (p. 64)
And Professor William Appleton Williams sums up the true motivations of
U.S. imperialism in respect to Cuban independence:
. . . the United States sought the prompt and permanent pacification of
the island. . . to insure military control. . . and facilitate and
safeguard United States economic predominance ... the United States
thereby set itself in opposition to the Cuban revolutionaries as well as
the Spanish government ... Cuba was to be reconstructed along lines
satisfactory to the United States, and only finally handed over to the
Cubans after such vital limits on their freedom of action and
development had been established to insure indefinite American
predominance ... (quoted in anthology Background to Revolution; pgs.
188-190)
With the defeat of Spain in the Spanish-American War, Cuba became an
independent republic. It was the revolutionary masses of Cuba, the
humble peasants and urban workers, who by their heroism undermined
Spanish rule and made possible the easy victory of the United States.
Between 1898 and 1902, the American military occupied and governed Cuba
on the pretext that a transition period was necessary to prepare Cuba
for self-rule. The American troops left after the first presidential
election. But the Platt amendment of 1901 granted the U.S. the right to
intervene in Cuban affairs and permanently occupy the Guantanamo Bay
naval base. (The administration of the Isle of Pines was revoked in
1925.)
Tomas Estrada Palma was elected President of the new republic in 1902.
His fraudulent re-election in 1906 and the "liberal" coup which deposed
him created the pretext for the second intervention of U.S. troops. The
administration of Palma's successor Jose Miguel Gomez (1909-1912) was
incredibly corrupt. He boasted, "...in all my life, I have been jovial
in spirit, with a smile on my lips. . ." Hubert Herring remarks: "
..with a smile, Gomez emptied the treasury and allowed his Cuban and
American cronies to fatten on concessions. . . " (History ol Latin
America; New York, 1955, p. 401) The new independent republic turned out
to be just, or almost as reactionary as the deposed colonial despotism
of Spain. Scarcely less bitter was the struggle between the oppressed
people of Cuba and the corrupt new State with its bureaucracy and its
military and police forces.
In the Spring of 1900, during the United States occupation, the group
publishing El Mundo Ideal (The Ideal Society), invited the well known
anarchist Errico Malatesta to tour Cuba and speak to the workers and
peasants. But the Government expelled him. Upon leaving Cuba Malatesta
wrote a farewell letter to his Cuban comrades, from which we excerpt the
following passages:
". . . Upon leaving this country for which I harbor a strong affection
permit me to salute the valiant Cuban workers, black and white, native
and foreign, who extended me so cordial a welcome ...
". . . I have, for a very long time, admired the self-sacrifice and
heroism with which you have fought for the freedom of your country. Now
I have learned to appreciate your clear intelligence, your spirit of
progress and your truly remarkable culture, so rare in people who have
been so cruelly oppressed. And I leave with the conviction that you will
soon take your place among the most advanced elements in all countries
fighting for the real emancipation of humanity . . . "
". . . I assume that the libertarians fighting against the existing
government will not put another government in its place; but each one
will understand that if in the war for independence this spirit of
hostility to all governments incarnated in every libertarian, will now
make it impossible to impose upon the Cuban people the same Spanish
laws, which martyrs like Marti, Cresci, Maceo, and thousands of other
Cubans died to abolish..."
(Solidaridad Gastronomica--Anarcho-Syndicalist food workers union organ,
Aug. 15, 1955)
In 1902, Havana tobacco workers, organized by Gonzales Lozana and other
anarchists, called a general strike, the first under the Republic. This
action, the famous "strike of the apprentices," sought to end the
exploitation of apprentices, whose status had been, in effect, that of
indentured servants bound to their employers for a given period. The
tobacco workers were joined by the Havana port workers. The government
tried to break the strike by force, provoking a violent battle in which
twenty workers were killed. Using the threat of U.S. intervention, the
government finally broke the strike.
The period between 1903 and 1914 was marked by many strikes in which the
anarchist actively participated. Among the more important we list:
1903. During a major strike of sugar workers, the anarchists Casanas and
Montero y Sarria were murdered by order of the then Governor of Las
Villas Province, Jose Miguel Gomez, later President of Cuba. The long
Moneda General Strike, led by the anarchists (Feb. 20th to July 15th)
was called because the workers refused to accept payment in devalued
Spanish pesetas. They demanded payment in American dollars worth more in
purchasing power. Also in 1907, the anarchist weekly Tierra! was
severely persecuted for inciting a railway strike for the eight hour day
and other demands. The Tobacco workers again went on strike, this time
for 145 days. They were joined by maritime, construction and other
workers.
1910-1912. Anarcho-syndicalists played an important part in the strike
of Havana and Cienfuegos sewer workers of June 1910. The bitter 1912
restaurant and cafe workers strike also involved anarchist militants.
One of the most active strikers was Hilario Alonso. Other strikes of the
period included the bricklayers strike for the eight hour day; the
railway workers' strike; the violent Havana tunnel workers strike and
the deportation of Spanish anarchists and syndicalists who were
particularly militant.
During these years the anarchist movement flourished. The weekly Tierra!
with its excellent articles from the pen of the most distinguished Cuban
and Spanish writers; the libertarian journal, El Ideal, and the
widespread circulation of works by Elisee Reclus, Kropotkin and other
anarchists in popular priced editions.
This period also marked the significant growth of the workers'
cooperative movement in which the anarchists were very active. Payment
of a moderate monthly fee gave workers the use of recreation and
cultural facilities, medical services and other benefits. The movement
reached a total of 200,000 members. In spite of the opposition of
industrialists, the workers organized producers' and consumers' housing
and other cooperatives.
The anarchists also spearheaded the organization of agrarian
cooperatives, a movement which the Castro government crushed in favor of
State farms. The libertarian movement of Cuba had always given top
priority, not only to the organization of urban workers, but also to
peasant struggles. They built up peasant organizations throughout
Cuba--in San Cristobal, Las Placios, Pinar del Rio--wherever there was
the slightest opportunity. In Realengo 18, yentas de Casanova, Santa
Lucia and El Vinculo anarchist militants like Marcelo Salinas, Modesto
Barbieto, Alfredo Perez and many others fought bravely. Our
unforgettable comrades Sabino Pupo Millan and Niceto Perez were militant
peasant revolutionaries in the immense sugar plantations of Santa Lucia,
and in Camaguey. During this period, and at least up to 1925, anarchists
were the only militants influential among sugar workers. Millan was
murdered October 20, 1945, by paid assassins of the Monati Sugar Company
for stirring peasant resistance and organizing peasant cooperatives.
Perez was also assassinated; the Peasant Federation of Cuba commemorated
the date of his murder as "The Day of the Peasant: a day of struggle for
the demands of the hungry and exploited agricultural workers."
The termination of World War I and the Russian Revolution fired the
imagination of the advanced sections of the labor and radical movements
around the world. Many anarchists expected an immediate revolution and
the realization of the just society worldwide. In 1919 a number of Cuban
anarchists, succumbing to the revolutionary euphoria, issued a manifesto
in favor of joining the communist Third International, dominated by the
Bolshevik Party.
But with more complete and reliable information, and a more sober
obiective analysis of Russian events, the Cuban anarchist movement
entered a new phase. Enthusiasm for the Russian Revolution died out as
the dictatorial outrages of the Bolsheviks became obvious and as
critical comments from Kropolkin, Voline, Berkman and other anarchist
refugees in Europe and elsewhere reached Cuba.
The years between 1917 and 1930 marked bitter and widespread class
struggles: local and national strikes for more wages, the eight hour
day, union recognition, campaigns against obligatory military service;
tremendous demonstrations against scarcity and the high cost of living,
etc. All these manifestations of popular rebellion called forth
government persecution of the radical movement. Spanish anarchists were
deported, halls closed down one day by the police were reopened the
next; papers suspended one day, reappeared the next day under another
name. In spite of the repressions, hundreds of young men and women
joined the anarchist organizations.
The anarchists were feverishly active, above all in the labor unions
among the tobacco workers, bricklayers and masons, gypsum workers,
bakers, engineers, railroad workers, factories etc. The libertarians
published the weeklies, Nueva Aurora and Labor Sana; the magazines, El
Progreso, Voz del Dependiente (clerks), El Productor Panadero (bakers),
Nueva Luz (New Light), Proteo, El Libertario, and other periodicals.
This agitation and strike activity resulted in the organization of the
Havana Federation of Labor, and much later, the National Labor
Federation of Cuba. Both these organizations adopted anarcho-syndicalist
forms of struggle and organization. Here is a partial listing of the
main events:
1918--Bloody strike of the Havana construction workers. Invoking the
1893 anti-anarchist law, the government tried to extirpate the anarchist
influence in labor organizations by imprisoning anarchist organizers and
activists on trumped-up charges of sedition and conspiracy to overthrow
the state. The police opened fire on a demonstration called by workers,
unions against the high cost of living.
1920--In April a national congress was called under the auspices of the
Havana and Pinal Pinar del Rio Federation of Weavers, in which many
anarchists held important posts. Corruption in government was rife. (In
1921, for example, Alfredo Zayas, nicknamed "the Peseta Snatcher" by his
victims, was elected President of Cuba.)
1924--A congress of anarchist groups united all the anarchist tendencies
into the newly organized Federacion de Grupos Anarquistas de Cuba. The
tiny scattered papers were consolidated into one really adequate, well
edited, well produced periodical. The new journal Tierra! (Land)
attained a wide circulation, until forced to suspend publication by the
Machado dictatorship. (Tierra! continued publication intermittently till
the late 1930s).
One of Tierra's most brilliant collaborators, Paulino Diaz, took a very
prominent part in a workers' congress held in Cienfuegos, which laid the
basis for what later (1938) became the Confederation of Cuban Workers
(CTC). But the anarchists never controlled the CTC, which became, and
remains to this day, a quasi-governmental agency, dominated successively
by the Grau San Martin, Batista, and Castro governments.
The first General Secretary of the National Confederation of Cuban
Workers (CNOC) was the anarchist typographer, Alfredo Lopez. There were
also socialist and communist groups in the CNOC. The growth of the
anarchists had been severely curtailed as a result of the struggles
under the regime of President Menocal, by deportations to Spain, and by
police repression. Recognizing the need for a better organized and more
efficient labor movement, the anarchists reorganized the craft unions on
an industrial basis--based on factories and industries--regardless of
crafts.
The anarchists and anarcho-syndicalists practically controlled one of
the strongest unions in Cuba, Sindicato de la Industria Fabril (Brewery
Union--SIF). With the cooperation of the anarchist groups, the
anarcho-syndicalists also organized sugar cane and railway workers'
unions in the province of Camaguey.
1925--A vicious campaign to obliterate preponderant anarchist influence
in the SIF was launched by the Machado government which accused the
anarchist militants Eduardo Vivas and Luis Quiros of poisoning the beer
in a strike against the Polar Brewing Company. The Subsequent scandal
prepared the way for an all-out offensive against the union and the
anarchist movement. All of the organizers were persecuted. Some
anarchist organizers went into hiding. Others were jailed and
foreign-born anarchists deported. A few were driven to commit suicide.
But in spite of all the atrocities, the great mass of workers, who
during the years still retained their libertarian spirit and approach to
problems, continued to organize and spread anarcho-syndicalist ideas.
When in 1925, at the Congress of the Cuban National Confederation of
Labor (CNOC), in Camaguey, some agents of the employers proposed the
expulsion of the anarcho-syndicalists, the Congress, far from approving
expulsion, expelled those who made the motion for expulsion of the
anarcho-syndicalists. In the same year (1925), paid assassins of the
employers shot and killed the anarchist Enrique Varone, the most
effective organizer of sugar and railway workers in Camaguey and Oriente
provinces. The anarchists also organized the peasants and rural
industrial workers into the Sindicato General de Trabajadores de San
Cristobal, Province of Pinar del Rio.
On May 20th 1925, General Gerardo Machado, a semi-literate power-mad
despot (later known as the notorious "Butcher of Las Villas") became
President of Cuba. His election campaign was a well organized
brainwashing publicity stunt. Posing as a paternalistic, benevolent
democrat, he was, at first, immensely popular. Scarcely a dissenting
note marred the chorus of universal acclaim. But the anarchist weekly
Tierra! published a magnificent editorial ending with the words:
... We go with the common people, with the masses; but when they follow
a tyrant: then we go alone! Erect! With eyes raised high toward the
luminous aurora of our ideal!
In conjunction with the agitation in the University of Havana, ten
people founded the Cuban Communist Party. The Party attracted
intellectuals, students, and few workers. Until the mid-1930s it had
little influence in labor circles. The Party was temporarily outlawed in
1927.
The Machado regime formed a government-sponsored union, Union Federativa
Obrera Nacional (United National Federation of Labor--UFON) and forced
all the legitimate labor organizations underground.
The anarchist labor movement was sadistically suppressed. Alfredo Lopez,
the General Secretary of the CNOC (mentioned above) was thrown into the
sea to be devoured by sharks. The long struggle for control of the CNOC
ended in 1930-31, when the communists, in league with the Machado
government, connived by the foulest means to seize Control of the CNOC
and the labor movement.
Nevertheless' throughout the many popular upheavals of the 1920s and
1930s, the anarchists and anarcho-syndicalists played a significant
role. After the government suppression of the CNOC they were among the
principal organizers of the independent and militant Confederacion
General de Trabajadores (General Confederation of Labor.)
The bloody dictatorship of Machado was overthrown by a general strike
and insurrection. The strike began with the walkout of the trolley and
bus unions. While the communists controlled the bus union, the trolley
workers' union was strongly influenced by the anarcho-syndicalists. The
Havana Federation of Labor called a meeting of all unions to organize
the general strike and elected a number of anarchists to the strike
committee, among them Nicosio Trujillo and Antonio Penichet.
Day by day the strike grew into a formidable threat to the government.
In a last ditch attempt to stay in power and break the strike, Machado
gained the support of the Communist Party and in exchange for its
cooperation Machado promised to legalize the Party and allow its
bureaucrats to control several labor unions. The communists accepted
Machado's offer and tried to break the strike. They failed. The strike
precipitated the fall of Machado in spite of the efforts of the
communists and their leader Cesar Vilar, to help him stay in power.
The Federation of Anarchist Groups issued a manifesto exposing the
treason of the communists and urging the workers to stand fast in their
determination to overthrow the tyrant and his lieutenants. We reprint
extracts from the manifesto as translated in the organ of the Industrial
Workers of the World, The Industrial Worker, Chicago, October 3, 1933.
The Anarchist Federation of Cuba, conscious of its responsibility in
these times of confusion, feels obliged to expose before the
workers--and public opinion--the base actions of the Communist Party. .
. We believe that the truth is the most powerful weapon, and that is the
weapon we use. We want everybody to know the truth. Here it is...
On August 7th (1933), when the general strike against Machado and his
regime had the whole island in its grip, Machado was frightened and
foresaw his imminent fall...At this juncture, the so-called "Central
Committee" of the communist party controlled puppet union, National
Labor Confederation [CNOC] . . . with the full authority of its
Communist leaders offered and arranged an agreement with the Machado
government. . .
The day after the machine gun massacre of unarmed people by the Machado
assassins the Communist labor fakers were transported in luxurious cars
provided by the military officers and Machado's Secretary of War to a
banquet with Machado in the most expensive luxury restaurant in
Havana--El Carmelo. At the banquet, Machado agreed to recognize the
Communist Party legally, and grant other requests. . .
The communists made frantic appeals to the workers to go back to work
because the employers granted their demands But the workers (including
even the Havana bus and transportation union, controlled by the
communists) refused. They decided to obey only their own conscience and
to continue resistance until the Machado regime is overthrown or forced
to flee.
Machado and his communist allies retaliated. No labor union was allowed
to meet. The Havana Federation of Labor [FOH, founded by the
anarcho-syndicalists], to which the largest number of non-political
labor unions were affiliated, could not meet because it did not have a
signed authorization from the government. Only the communists, thanks to
their betrayal, were allowed to meet. Armed with revolvers while all
others were forbidden to hold or carry arms and constitutional rights
were suspended, the communists held meetings, rode in automobiles
burning gasoline supplied by the army because the filling stations were
closed by the strike...
. . in conclusion we want the workers and the people of Cuba to know
that the rent for the offices of the communist party labor front the
CNOC is paid by the Machado regime, that the furniture was forcibly
taken away from the Havana Federation of Labor offices with the
permission and active help of Machado's Secretary of War...
On August 12, 1933, Carlos Manuel de Cespedes, former Ambassador to
Washington became President of Cuba (he bore the same name as his father
who the was the first President of the Provisional Republic of Cuba in
1869--see above) In spite of the all out support of the U.S., his regime
collapsed after being in office only 21 days. Cespedes was overthrown by
the famous "sergeants revolt" (Sept. 4, 1933) led by the then unknown
Fulgencio Batista y Zaldivar.
Fulgencio Batista was born in 1902 in Oriente Province. His father was a
peasant laborer on a sugar plantation. In 1921, he enlisted as a private
in the Cuban army, where he learned typing and stenography. In 1932
Batista became a military court stenographer with the rank of sergeant .
Batista's Revolutionary Junta took power on the basis of a democratic
program summed up in the following extract:
Economic reconstruction of the national government and political process
on the basis of a Constitutional Convention to be held immediately.
Immediate elimination from public life of parasites and full punishment
for the atrocities and corruption of the previous Machado regime.
Strict recognition of the debts and obligations contracted by the
Republic.
Immediate creation of adequate courts to enforce the measures above
mentioned.
Undertake all measures necessary...towards the creation of a new,
modern, democratic Cuba.
Batista promoted himself to the rank of Colonel and Commander in Chief
of the Armed forces. Batista was the de facto dictator of Cuba and ruled
through a succession of puppet presidents (seven in all). The civilian,
Dr. Ramon San Martin (a professor of medicine), was appointed
Provisional President of Cuba by Batista's junta. His administration in
line with Batista's democratic program, enacted a number of reforms
(eight hour day, women's suffrage, repeal of the notorious Platt
Amendment, legalizing U.S. intervention in Cuban affairs, etc.)
Batista lost the 1944 presidential election to Grau San Martin's
Autentico Party and with the millions stolen from the Cuban treasury
retreated to his Florida Estate in 1950. Presidential elections in Cuba
were scheduled for June 1952. The favorite candidate to win was Roberto
Agramonte, Professor of Sociology in the University of Havana. Agramonte
belonged to the Ortodox Party (Partido del Pueblo Ortodoxo). The
Ortodoxos wanted a return to the original principles of the Autentico
Party whose leaders were Presidents Grau San Martin (1944-1948) and
Carlos Prio Socarras (1948-1952). [Fidel Castro was an active member of
the Ortodoxo Party, whose leader Eduardo Chibas, in despair over the
failure of the reform program and the corruption of Cuban
institutions--in the midst of a radio program -- committed suicide,
August 1951]
In the meantime Batista prepared the ground for his return to Cuba and
seizure of power; he spent huge sums to get himself elected Senator from
Las Villas Province; he planted his men in the mass organizations (some
of them were communists who worked with him previously). He organized
support in the army, the governmental bureaucracy among the landlords,
industrialists, and the bankers. He cleverly took advantage of the
widespread venality and colossal corruption of former administrations
and promised democratic reforms. (For example, just before President
Grau Sa in n Martin was about to be tried for misappropriation of
$174,000,000 in public funds during his administration, thieves broke
into the Havana Court House and stole the records.) The presidential
elections scheduled for June 1952 were never held. On March 10 1952,
Batista staged his coup d'etat and seized power.
In January 1940, the Comintern sent representatives to purge and
Stalinize the Cuban Communist Party. Francisco Caldero, (a self-educated
cobbler, who rose to prominence in the Cuban Party and in the Castro
regime, under the name of Blas Roca) became the new secretary of the
Party. After the Seventh Congress of the Comintern (Third International)
decreed the "popular united front" alliance with bourgeois
organizations, the Cuban Communist Party established close relations
with Batista.
In November 1940, the communists supported Batista's candidates in the
elections to the Constituent Assembly. In return for their support,
Batista allowed the communists to organize and control the government
sponsored union, Cuban Confederation of Labor (CTC Confederacion de
Trabajadores de Cuba). The first Secretary General of the CTC was Lazaro
Pena--who, ironically, enough, held the same post in the Castro regime.
In exchange for these favors the communists guaranteed Batista labor
peace. In line with the Communist Party's "Popular Front Against
Fascism" policy, the alliance of the Communist Party with the Batista
was officially consumated when the Party joined the Batista government.
The Communist Party leaders Carlos Rafael Rodriguez and Juan Marinello
(who now hold high posts in the Castro government) became Ministers
Without Portfolio in Batista's Cabinet. To illustrate the intimate
connections between the communists and Batista, we quote from a letter
of Batista to Blas Roca, Secretary of the Communist Party:
June 13,1944
Dear Blas,
With respect to your letter which our mutual friend, Dr. Carlos Rafael
Rodriguez, Minister Without Portfolio, passed to me, I am happy to again
express my firm unshakeable confidence in the loyal cooperation the
People's Socialist Party [the then official name of the Communist Party
of Cuba] its leaders and members have given and continue to give myself
and my government. . . Believe me, as always,
Your very affectionate and cordial friend,
Fulgencio Batista
In the electoral campaign the Communist candidates won ten seats in the
Cuban parliament and more than a hundred posts in the Municipal
councils.
In line with their pro-Batista policy the communists joined Batista in
condemning Fidel Castro's attack on the Moncada Barracks (July 1953 --
the anniversary of the attack is a national holiday in Castro Cuba)
. . . the life of the People's Socialist Party (communist). . . has been
to combat . . . and unmask the putschists and adventurous activities of
the bourgeois opposition as being against the interests of the people. .
. (reported in Daily Worker, U.S organ of the Communist Party, August
10, 1953)
Throughout the Batista period the communists pursued two parallel
policies: overtly they criticized Batista and covertly they cooperated
with him.
The anarcho-syndicalist militant Ernesto Barbieto outlined the problems
of the Cuban Labor Movement and the position of the anarchists in an
article, Los Libertarios Vuelvan (The Libertarians Return:
Estudios--anarchist monthly--Havana, March, 1950)
After the bloody repression of the Machado dictatorship, the libertarian
militants most active in the labor movement were severely persecuted or
forced into exile, and the anarchist influence was consequently
considerably weakened. Another major reason for the decline was state
intervention, de facto control of the labor movement.
The exclusion of the anarchists left the field open for Stalinists,
reformists and professional politicians to widen and tighten their grip
on the unions. The democratic phraseology of the politicians gave the
proletariat the illusion that they were actually masters of their
destiny. This illusion was further fostered by granting certain
immediate demands, obtained without struggle or sacrifices. The workers
did not realize that a coalition of employers, the state and the labor
politicians made these concessions only to stave off militant action by
the workers and above all, to strengthen their own positions and
influence in the unions.
For these concessions the proletariat paid a very high price; direct
interference and de facto state control of their unions, the virtual
destruction of legitimate, independent labor organizations like the
General Confederation of Workers [CGT]. And the vehicle for this
monopoly was the state sponsored Cuban Confederation of Labor [CTC]
[controlled by the Communist-Batista coalition]. It was this threat that
galvanized the militants of the Libertarian Association of Cuba [ALC]
and other independent labor organizations to rally the workers in
defense of the autonomy and independence of the labor movement, to expel
the labor politicians and arouse the revolutionary consciousness of the
working class.
The Third National Libertarian Congress was called (March 11-22, 1950)
to reorganize the libertarian labor movement and adopt concrete radical
measures enabling its militants to again orientate and play a decisive
part in the regeneration of the Cuban labor movement. The Congress
approved the follovving resolutions:
A) fight against the control of the labor movement by bureaucrats,
political parties, religious sects, and class-collaborationists
B) extend the influence of the libertarians by actively participating in
the daily struggles of the urban and rural workers for better wages and
working conditions.
C) encourage workers to prepare themselves culturally and professionally
not only to better their present working conditions, but also to take
over the technical operation and administration of the whole economy in
the new libertarian society.
D) educate the workers to understand the true meaning of syndicalism,
which must be apolitical, revolutionary and federalist, which will help
prevent authoritarian elements to institute a tyrannical type of
unionism, actually becoming an agency of the state.
On tactical problems the Congress resolves to work actively with the
workers of the CGT, the only legitimate national labor orgallization
with syndicalist tendencies, and which is most responsive to the real
needs of the workers.
To warn the workers that the CTC is a state-sponsored union, supported
by the Stalinite faction and allied labor fakers; that the CTC is a
pseudo-proletarian organization without a trace of revolutionary ideas,
spirit or practice; that the CTC is entirely dominated by dictatorial
political parties and a corrupt leadership.
(signed) Ernesto Barbieto
Partial Listing of Libertarian Activities in Cuba in the 1950s (Article
in Views and Comments, organ of Libertarian League, New York, Spring
1965)
In the mid and later 50s, the Libertarian Association of Cuba (ALC) had
functioning local groups (delegations in Havana. Pinar del Rio, San
Cristobal, Artemisea Artemisa, Ciego de Avila, and Manzanillo, as well
as a heavy scattering of members elsewhere). Their sympathizers and
influence were in complete disproportion to their actual membership.
Anarcho-syndicalist groups consisted usually of a few members and a
larger number of sympathizers existed in many local and regional unions
as well as in other organizations. The following is s partial listing
(from one exiled comrade's memory) of the libertarian activities and
influence in the six provinces of Cuba. The listing is by provinces and
municipalities from west to east.
City of Pinar del Rio--There was a delegation of the ALC that
coordinated the activities in the province and which on occasion ran
local radio programs. In addition, our comrades influenced and
participated in the leadership of the following unions: tobacco workers,
food workers, electricians, construction workers, carpenters, transport
workers, bank employees and medical workers. The magazines of the
tobacco, bank workers and electricians unions were edited by
libertarians.
San Juan Martinez--Libertarians influenced and led the tenant farmers
union which covered a large agricultural zone.
Viñales--A comrade pharmacist personally influenced various activities
of local civic institutions.
San Cristobal--There was a delegation of the ALC whose members
influenced and led the Municipal Agrarian Association, the Sugar Workers
Union and the Association of Tobacco Harvesters, exerting also some
influence among metal workers and commercial employees.
Artemisa--There was a delegation of the ALC. The libertarians influenced
and led the Tobacco Workers Union (one of the strongest in Cuba) having
also some influence in Transport, sugar and food industries as well as
among high school students. The group also had occasional radio
programs.
City of La Habana--Seat of the National Council of the ALC, which also
functioned as the Local Delegation. Edited the newspaper El Libertorio
Libertario (formerly Solidaridad) which had been able to appear with but
few interruptions since 1944. There were occasional radio programs and
some books and pamphlets were published.
There were weekly forums at the headquarters and public mass meetings
were occasionally held in La Habana and other points throughout the
country. Our comrades influenced and participated in the leadership of
the following unions: Electricians, food workers, transport, shoemakers,
fishermen, woodworkers, medicine, metal and construction. To a lesser
degree their influence was felt amoing the dockers, slaughterhouse
workers, movie industry, graphic arts, and journalists, as well as in
the Naturist Association and the Spanish Republican Circle. In the food
workers sector, the libertarian group published a monthly periodical
Solidaridad Gastronomica for over eight years without interruption.
Libertarians wrote regularly for the publications of the unions of other
industries imparting what doctrinal orientation they could.
Sporadically, it was possible to influence various professional and
student organizations.
Arroyo Naranjo--In this town our comrades influenced and led the
Parents, Neighbors and Teachers Association, the Progressive Cultural
Association and the Consumers Cooperative.
Santiago de las Vegas--Here our members sparked the "Mas Luz" Library,
and the Cultural Lyceum.
San Antonio de los Baños--Influence in the Workers Circle and among the
tobacconists.
City of Matanzas--Some influence in the textile, graphic arts and bank
employees unions as well as in the Spanish Republican Circle.
Limonar--Strong influence in the Sugar Workers Union.
Cardenas--Some influence among commercial employees and in the Sccondary
School.
Colon--Influence in the tobacco workers union.
Itato--Intluence and leadership in salt workers union.
Santa Clara--Some influence in the electricians union.
Camajuani--Influence in the tobacco selectors union.
Zaza del Medio--Some influence in the Association of Tobacco Harvesters.
Isabela de Sagua--Some influence in the dockers union.
Sancti Spiritus--Influence in the unions of construction workers and
medicine, and also in the Association of Secondury School Students.
Camaguey--Strong influence in the Agrarian Federation and some in the
railway workers union and journalists.
Jatibonico--Strong influence in the Sugar Workers Union and in the
peasants" association.
Ciego de Avila--There was a delegation of the ALC which for a time
maintained a daily radio hour. Influence in the peasants association,
medical workers union and among the sugar workers of the Steward and
Estrella Centrals.
Santa Cruz del Sur--Influence in peasant organizations and in the Santa
Marta sugar central.
Moron--Influence in the sugar central Violeta. Active among the tobacco
harvesters of Tamarindo and in the Agricultural Union of Florencia.
Nuevitas--Traditionally this zone has always had strong libertarian
tendencies. Together with Moron it can be considered the cradle of the
strong anarcho-syndicalist movement of the 20s. For decades there was no
other socio-political movement in the region. In the 40s there was an
active ALC delegation in Nuevitas that took the initiative in the
formation of various unions and of the local peasants association which
was the best known peasants' organization of the island. It seized a
large extension of uncultivated farmland establishing the Cooperative of
Santa Lucia. In the ensuing struggle with the landlords and the
Government, there were killed and wounded on both sides including one
ALC member. The peasants won and retained possession of the land.
Santiago de Cuba--Strong influence in the food workers union and some in
textiles and transport.
Victoria de las Tunas--Some influence in the sugar workers union.
Holguin--At one time there had been a delegation of the ALC--some
influence remaining in local unions.
Bayamo--Some influence among electricians and in the Peasants
Association.
Palma Soriano--Influence in the Union of Commercial Employees.
Manzanillo--Delegation of the ALC with influence among food workers and
carpenters.
Contramaestre--The Miners union here had been organized and was still
influenced by the libertarians.
San Luis--Some influence among bakers, commercial employees and sugar
workers.
Guantanamo--Many years ago the Coffee Producers Cooperative of Monte-Rus
was organized by libertarians and since then the anarchist influence has
remained strong in the area, especially among the sugar workers and
peasants.
During the struggle against Batista those of our comrades not then in
prison or who had not been forced into exile by being too well known as
enemies of the tyranny, were in the forefront of the struggle in many
localities.
When Batista collapsed, there were in the Province of Pinar del Rio
attempts by several peasant groups under libertarian influence to
establish agricultural collectives. These were set up by the local
people who seized the land they had been working. However the Government
of Fidel Castro promptly saw the danger to itself of such action and
crushed the collectives by force. State farms have been established in
their place. Big Brother felt he knew best!
This is the title of an article published in El Libertario (organ of the
anarcho-syndicalist Libertarian Association of Cuba [ALC] July 19, 1960
Scarcely a year later, the anarchist press and groups were suppressed by
the Castro "revolutionary government."
. . .The ALC was from the very beginning in the midst of the battle
against The Batista regime. On March 10, 1952, when Batistats hordes
staged their 'coup d'etat' to seize Cuba, the ALC proposed the full
fighting solidarity of all revolutionary organizations to reorganize
armed resistance and repulse the Batista troops. But the cowardice and
demoralization of the Socorras government--"It is too late. We must
avoid bloodshed"--gave Batista an easy victory. Later the blood flowed
in torrents! Not for an instant did the ALC relax in the struggle to
topple Batista.
In 1956, the ALC published a pamphlet Projecciones Libertarias
denouncing the disastrous policies of the Batista government and stating
our position. In a speech delivered to the CTC Cuban Confederation of
Labor National Council (1957) our comrade Moscu on behalf of the ALC
openly attacked the top-heavy leaders who controlled the CTC, accusing
them and their lieutenants of outrageous corruption. His speech was
widely reported in the Cuban press. Later that year (1957) the ALC
published a manifesto--50,000 copies--publicly exposing the filthy
maneuvers and corruption of the labor movement, clearly explaining the
position of the ALC.
The ALC at all times welcomed and made its premises available to the
underground militants and rebel organizations. Thus, on December 31,
1958, we hid in our hall--in spite of the risks--a young man hunted by
the police for allegedly violent acts committed in Marianao against the
Batista regime.
Most of our comrades were active in the insurrectionary movement: The
Directorio, Obrero Revolucionario, The Federation of University
Students, etc., etc. Our hall was often the gathering place for many
rebels belonging to other organizations. It was even used by the Castro
26th of July Movement to train men in the proper use of firearms. And
our hall became a distribution center for mountains of anti-Batista
literature.
Literally hundreds of our comrades were persecuted, tortured, driven
into exile, murdered. Here are a few:
Boris Santa Coloma; killed July 26, 1953 in the celebrated Castro-led
attack on the Moncada Barracks. Aquila Iglesias; exiled. Alvarez y
Barbieto, exiled. Miguel Rivas; disappeared. Roberto Bretau; prison.
Manuel Gerona; prison. Rafael Serra; tortured. Modesto Barbieta, Maria
Pinar Gonzalez, Dr. Pablo Madan, Placido Mendez, Eulegio Reloba and his
sons, Abelardo Iglesias, Mario Garcia and his son: all of them in
prison, tortured and in some cases barely escaping assassination. Isidro
Moscu; imprisoned and left for dead after brutal tortures. With Moscu, a
numerous group of comrades were also imprisoned and tortured for
preparing an armed insurrection in the province of Pinar del Rio.
Our hall was raided many times by the Batista police. Shootings took
place. Comrades were arrested and brutally beaten. Books and
organization records were confiscated. But in spite of all these
atrocities, our movement, after truly heroic sacrifices, survived to
carry on the struggle with undiminished dedication...
As Batista became more and more tyrannical, more and more people joined
the opposition, until by far the bulk of all classes (each for reasons
of their own) rose against him and his corrupt regime. When Batista
could no longer depend even on the armed forces which had always
sustained him, his regime collapsed. On January 1st, 1959, he and his
entourage fled Cuba.
The Cuban anarchists were jailed, tortured, driven into exile by
successive governments. The "communists" and the corrupt politicians
powerfully backed by Machado and Batista, took advantage of the
persecution of the anarchists to seize control of the labor movement.
Now, again hounded and outlawed by the Castro dictatorship, the ranks of
the anarcho-syndicalists have been reduced to a mere handful of
dedicated militants. The Cuban anarcho-syndicalist movement has in a
century of struggle written a glorious, indelible page in the history of
the revolutionary movement, from which new generations of fighters will
continue to draw inspiration.
(Note on sources--Aside from references noted in the text, information
for this chapter was derived from a series of powerful articles by the
Cuban anarchist, Justo Muriel, printed in an the organ of the
Libertarian Federation of Argentina, Reconstruir; Buenos Aires, numbers
39-41 Dec.-April 1966; articles in various issues of Solidaridad
Gastonomica--organ of the anarcho-syndicalist food and cafe workers
union, El Libertario, organ of the Libertarian Association of Cuba,
Havana, the anarchist papers Ahora and Combat, published in Cuba in the
1940s and 1950s; conversations with Cuban anarchists; files in the
Centre International de Recherches sur l'Anarchisme, Geneva, and some
data from the International Institute for Social Research, Amsterdam.)
To arrive at an objective assessment of the character of the Cuban
Revolution, and the validity of the claims made both for and against it,
it is first necessary to examine the economic background. The
information here assembled is meant to dispel widespread misconceptions
and establish the facts.
Cuba, the largest of the Caribbean islands, with an area of 44,218
square miles, is greater in area than Austria, Hungary, Belgium, Israel,
Israel, Iceland, or Ireland. Its population in 1961 was 6,900,000 with
an annual birth rate of 2.3% as against the U.S. rate of 1.7%. By the
1970's Cuba's population reached 8,400,000. About 73% of the population
is white; 12% black and 15% mestizo. Density of population was 153
inhabitants per square mile in the 1960s. The island was densely
populated, but because of the high proportion of arable land, was not
overcrowded.
To better understand the social-economic background of the Cuban
Revolution it is necessary to take into account class differences in
rural Cuba. In this connection the views of Ramiro Guerra are well worth
quoting:
. . . Cuba was precisely NOT a peasant country. . . to talk of Cuba's
"peasantry" as if the population were an undifferentiated mass of
impoverished peasant landowners is to miss entirely the complexity of
rural Latin America. Peasants who by a swift process of sugar plantation
developments have been transformed into rural proletarians are no longer
PEASANTS...there were, in 1953, 489,000 agricultural wage workers in
Cuba and only 67,000 unpaid family laborers who were the wives and
children of the small-scale land owners, the highland peasantry, Los
Guajiros of Cuba. . . the big sugar plantations are an urbanizing force
within which the rural population must concentrate itself densely. . .
by standardizing work practices, the plantations create a factory
situation--albeit a rural one. And factories in the field are urban in
many ways, even though they are not in cities. A rural proletariat
working on modern plantations inevitably become culturally and
behaviorally distinct from the peasantry...its members have no land.
Their special economic and social circumstances lead in another
direction. They prefer standardized wage minimums, adequate medical and
educational services, increased buying power, etc...when it is noted
that there were more than 489,000 agricultural laborers in Cuba in
1953...a gross indication of the difference between peasantry and rural
proletariat is provided us. . . (quoted by Sidney W. Mintz in the
anthology Background to Revolution; New York, 1966, p. 182-183)
These views are confirmed by the fact that the agricultural laborers,
primarily in the sugar plantations, constituted one of the strongest and
most numerous federations affiliated to the Cuban Confederation of Labor
(CTC).
Cuba, the "Pearl of the Antilles," though by no means a paradise, was
not, as many believe, an economically backward country. Castro himself
admitted that while there was poverty, there was no economic crisis and
no hunger in Cuba before the Revolution. (See Maurice Halperin: The Rise
and Fall of Fidel Castro, University of California, 1972, pgs. 24, 25,
37)
Armando Hart, a member of Castro's innermost ruling group, made the
extremely significant observation that:
. . . it is certain that capitalism had attained high levels of
organization, efficiency and production that declined after the
Revolution. . . (Juventud Rebelde, November 2, 1969; quoted by Rene
Dumont, Is Cuba Socialist?, p. 85)
Paul A. Baran, an ardent pro-Castroite in the equally ardent Monthly
Review pamphlet, Reflections on the Cuban Revolution (1961)
substantiates what every economist, as well as amateurs like Castro, has
been saying:
...the Cuban Revolution was born with a silver spoon in its mouth. .
.the world renowned French agronomist, Rene Dumont, has estimated that
if properly cultivated as intensively as South China, Cuba could feed
fifty million people. . . the Cuban Revolution is spared the painful,
but ineluctable compulsion that has beset preceding socialist
revolutions: the necessity to force tightening of people's belts in
order to lay the foundations for a better tomorrow. . .(p. 23)
Theodore Draper quotes Anial Escalante, (before he was purged by Castro)
one of the leading communists, who admitted that:
...in reality, Cuba was not one of the countries with the lowest
standard of living of the masses in America, but on the contrary, one of
the highest standards of living, and it was here where the first great .
. . democratic social revolution of the continent burst forth. . . If
the historical development had been dictated by the false axiom
[revolutions come first in poorest countries] the revolution should have
been first produced in Haiti, Colombia or even Chile, countries of
greater poverty for the masses than the Cuba of 1958. . . (quoted in
Draper's Castro's Revolution: Myths and Realities; New York, 1962, p.
22)
The following statistics indicate the rate of production before the
Revolution (Jan. 1,1959). (Sources are two United Nations publications:
Economic Study of Latin America, 1957, and the Statistical Annual, 1961.
The third source is The University of Miami Cuban Studies, reported in
the journal Este y Oeste, Caracas, Jan. 1969)
1949-1951 compared with 1957-1958
Commodity ………. % of increase
raw sugar ............ 11
plantains ............ 30
rice ................ 120
leaf tobacco ......... 50
potatoes ............ 28
flour ............... 114
% of increase
cement ................ 55.5
fertilizer ............ 48.8
cotton ................ 33.6
sulfuric acid ......... 32.3
artificial silk ....... 18.1
rubber goods .......... 65.5
construction ......... 120.8
gas and electric ..... 157.5
manufactures ......... 118.7
(source, University of Miami Cuban Studies reported in Este y Oeste)
...according to the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United
Nations, total agricultural production in 1969, 10 years after the
Revolution, was 7% below that of 1958...(Carmelo Mesa-Lago, Cuba in the
1970s; University of New Mexico Press, 1974, p. 56)
As for sugar production, Halperin writes that while it is true that:
. . . in 1961, by harvesting uncut sugar cane left over from previous
years, Cuba produced close to seven million metric tons of sugar, the
largest crop in history. Production, however, fell sharply in the
following eight years, averaging well below the yields in the decade
preceding the Revolution [1949-1959]. . .per capita production of sugar
in 1945 was about 30% higher than in 1963. . . In the 1950s, on the
average, a labor force of 500,000 working three months produced
500,000,000 tons of sugar, forty tons per man year. In the 1970 harvest,
500,000 persons working twelve months producd 8.5 million tons of sugar,
or only seventeen tons per man year. . . (ibid. p. 62, 241, our
emphasis)
Cuba was NOT a one crop country. In 1957, sugar represented only 27% of
total agricultural income. Growing crops were only PARTIALLY listed
above. Cattle raising, (per 100 head) increased from 3884 to 6000 in
1958 (University of Miami Studies)
...before Castro, Cuba was one of the richest underdeveloped countries
in the world, with Gross National Product, per-capita income in the mid
1950s of $360, Cuba was well ahead of Japan ($254 per-capita) and Spain
($254 per-capita)... (Robert Blackburn, quoted in the anthology Fidel
Castro's Personal Revolution: 1953-1973; New York, 1975, p. 134)
Cuba had one automobile for every 39 inhabitants, compared with
Argentina's one for every 60 and Mexico's one for every 91 people.
Cuba had one radio for every 5 people, second in Latin America only to
Argentina with one for every 3 inhabitants.
the wage rate for industrial workers in Cuba was the highest in Latin
America (as of 1957) and 9th highest in the world.
agricultural wages were the highest in Latin America
Cuba's mortality rate of 7 per thousand was the lowest in Latin America.
Its infant mortality rate was by far the lowest.
Cuba had one doctor for every 1,000 inhabitants, exceeded only by
Uruguay with one for every 800, and Argentina for every 760 people.
Cuba ranked fifth in Latin American manufacturing.
Though living standards were much lower than in the U.S., Canada and
Western Europe, Cuba's was the third highest in Latin America, and
almost as high as Italy's.
Cuba had more railroads per square mile than any other country in the
world.
Its one telephone for 38 persons was exceeded only by the U.S. with one
for every 3 and Argentina with one for every 13; way ahead of Russia's
with one for every 580 people.
It must be borne in mind; however, that statistics can be misleading and
conditions were by no means as rosy as implied. Favorable comparison
with the already low living standards of Latin America does not mean
that the Cuban unskilled workers (and far less the peasants) enjoyed a
SATISFACTORY standard of living. To be a little better off than the
WORST does not signify that it is the BEST. There is another, darker
side to this picture. Compared to American standards, Cuba's per-capita
income was 1/5 of the average U.S. income: far lower than in any of the
Southern states.
The big minus sign of the Cuban economy is that it is not
self-sustaining in the indispensable paraphernalia of modern life. Cuba
is totally dependent for the uninterrupted flow of vital supplies; oil,
coal, iron and steel, trucks and buses, cars, chemicals, sophisticated
machinery etc. And it was precisely this hopeless and impossible attempt
to make Cuba a highly industrialized country without these vital
resources, that just about wrecked the Cuban economy. Cuba has not yet
recovered from this catastrophic, totally unpardonable miscalculation,
taken against the advice of qualified economic experts. Castro and his
staff of fumbling amateurs, were forced to abandon this suicidal policy,
but they still persist in meddling with things the know absolutely
nothing about.
These serious drawbacks notwithstanding, Cuba is far from being a
totally undeveloped country with a primitive economy. Given intelligent
use of its natural wealth of resources, the potential for raising the
living standards of its population is almost limitless. On this point
there is no doubt. That the Castro "revolutionary" regime, far from
developing these potentials, has not even equalled the admittedly
inadequate standards attained before the revolution, is unfortunately
also true.
Distribution of the national income was not balanced. The lower standard
of living of the agricultural laborers was particularly atrocious,
especially during the "dead season" between sugar harvests:
. . . the standard of living of the privileged classes of the cities
[writes Dumont] was in violent contrast with the misery of the peasants
. . . who were unemployed an average of 138 days a year . . . the
unemployed numbered 250,000 even in the middle of the harvest season on
the sugar plantations. . .(Cuba: Socialism and Development, p. 14)
And C. Wright Mills informs us . . . "that only 3% of peasant 'Bohios'
[huts] had indoor toilets. Two thirds of the children were not in any
elementary school and most of those that were, dropped out . . . in
1950, 180,000 children began first grade, less than 5000 reached eighth
grade. . ." (Listen Yankee!; New York, 1960, p. 44-45)
It is well worth noting, as one observer remarked, " . . . that a
substantial fraction of the town population were [like the rural
proletarians] also very poor. . . squatters were living in shacks, and
there were slum tenements. In 1953, no less than one fifth of families
lived in single rooms and the average size of these families was five. .
. taking the urban and rural population together, 62% of the
economically active population had incomes of less than $75 a month. . .
" (Dudley Sears in Background to Revolution, ibid. p. 213)
The Castro government is directly responsible for the awful economic
situation of the Cuban people. The rising standard of living is a myth.
Rene Dumont, the distinguished agronomist and economist, marshalls
overwhelming evidence that Castro and his bumbling amateurs wrecked the
economy of Cuba. There is no serious disagreement on this point:
. . .Cuba's shortages of food and other necessities are to a large
extent due to the dogmatism of its leaders. . . in 1963, the harvests
were 25% lower than in 1960 although the number of days worked had been
rising rapidly. . . The standard of living in Cuba remained stationary
in 1961, and with strict rationing, went down perhaps 15% to 20% in
1962. . . There are still, as I had seen in Santa Clara in 1960, no
recognition of the difficulties involved in managing an economy . . .
they were not trained and badly prepared. . . professors at the
Institute of Technology did not even know the names of the most common
plants or their requirements...the government is increasingly calling
for more effort and sacrifices as well as the acceptance of increased
authority...despite constant reorganization, it is unable to put its
house in order...(Is Cuba Socialist? pp. 100, 20, 92, 149, 29, 206.)
The economic consequences of transforming reasonably productive cattle
and dairy farms and other agricultural enteprises into notoriously
inefficient "people's" farms was predictably catastrophic...to the
thousands of law-abiding families evicted without warning, it appeared
to be an arbitrary act of brutality. . .
[The peasants retaliated; Halperin writes that:] the impression obtained
in usually well-informed government circles that over a period of
several years, some 50,000 troops were engaged in liquidating peasant
disaffection...a sizeable military effort had been under way to put down
the uprising, which was not finally liquidated until well into
1964...Castro reminisced about "the uprisings that occurred mainly, but
not exclusively, in the Escambray Mountains. . . organized groups
existed all over the island...there were 1,000 bandits in the Escambray
Mountains alone." (Halperin, ibid. p. 283, 284. Halperin credits the
Castro quote to Granma, June 13, 1971)
Maurice Halperin also reports that:
"...food riots occurred in a number of towns in the western provinces,
including Cardenas, a sizeable urban center and seaport about 100 miles
east of Havana. Here at a mass meeting, June 17, 1962, President of Cuba
Dorticos had to be protected by tanks during a speech he made to calm
the inhabitants..." (The Rise and Decline of Fidel Castro; Univ. of
California, 1974, p. 162)
In addition to the Cardenas riots, the Bulletin of the Cuban Libertarian
Movement in Exile (Miami, June 1962) reports that:
. . . in El Cano, a little town in Havana Province, violence was so
great that the authorities did not even try to suppress it. But
afterwards, the authorities took revenge by expropriating furniture and
personal belongings . . . Food riots also occurred in Cienfuegos...[in
view of the fact that these]...sacrifices have been going on since 1961
and have been unbearable for the Cubans [Dumont asks:] To what extent
has a ruling class the right to impose its singleminded conceptions of
the future--and to impose it in so disorganized a manner--that the
results are further aggravated? (ibid. p. 70-71)
Dumont, we are sure, will agree, in view of his own analysis, that
economic disaster is not the cause, but only a symptom of the inner
degeneration of the Cuban Revolution.
On a par with the vulgar display of Lenin's embalmed corpse, the
deliberate deification of Castro and his tiny band of disciples in the
Sierra Maestra obscures the exploits of the mass of anonymous heroes and
almost forgotten resistance groups who brought about the downfall of
Batista.
After Castro's deservedly celebrated, ill-fated attack on the Moncada
Barracks (July 26, 1953) the Matanzas garrison was stormed by a group of
heroic young militants from the Autentico Party (April 1956). All the
attackers were massacred and many have not yet been identified. There
were many other incidents.
Now, Castro brazenly and falsely takes credit for the daring assault of
the Revolutionary Student Directorate on the Presidential Palace to kill
Batista (March 13, 1957) in which all the raiders (including the leader,
Jose Antonio Echeverria) were massacred. Herbert Matthews. the
pro-Castro journalist, reveals that:
. . . Fidel was not consulted and did not approve (he heard about it
indirectly). Castro called it a useless expenditure of blood...he was
afraid that Echeverria would become a rival hero and revolutionary
leader...the issue of Bohemia for May 28, 1957, in which Castro
expressed his criticisms, would be embarassing for him if resurrected,
because Echeverria and other victims became martyrs of the Revolution.
March 13 is commemorated every year as a glorious landmark of Castro's
revolution...[Those who survived the attack on the palace set up an
independent guerrilla force in the Escambray Mountains, the "Second
Escambray Front"] (Revolution in Cuba; New York, 1975, p. 89; our
emphasis)
One of the bloodiest battles of the anti-Batista rebellion took place on
September 5, 1957. The Naval Base of Cienfuegos, 200 miles from Havana,
was captured by navy mutineers and civilian underground group members.
The sailors distributed weapons to the people in the area. There was
supposed to be a simultaneous uprising in Havana, which miscarried
probably for lack of coordination (although a dozen bombs were
exploded). Air and ground reinforcement finally dispersed the rebels
after bitter door-to-door fighting. An eyewitness reported that "...a
common grave was dug by a bulldozer in the cemetery and I saw 52 bodies
dumped into it. Officials said they were bodies of men killed in battle.
. . " The revolt was crushed, but a second front had been opened near
Sierra de Trinidad, only 60 miles from the vital communications center
of Santa Clara.
The same observer graphically depicts the exploits of the spontaneously
organized underground movement that blanketed Cuba with an intricate
network of militant activities:
. . .the rebel underground stepped up its sabotage and terroristic
activities throughout the country, including Havana. Homemade bombs
would explode intermittently at different points in the Capital and
people would be driven from motion picture "heaters and other places of
amusement. Fire bombs were also employed, and show windows of stores
suffered from the impact of the explosions. Rebel bands harassed army
outposts and even ventured into towns to capture arms. [Havana was
without water for three days and the airport was completely gutted by
fire.] . . . buses, both in cities and on highways, trucks carrying
freight and merchandise, passenger and freight trains, railroad and
highway bridges, public buildings and homes and businesses of
"Batistianos" were blown up or burned as part of the agitation and
terror designed to maintain a constant state of alarm. . .
Real terror was answered by the government with tenfold reprisals.
Bodies of men and boys were found hanging from trees or lamposts or
lying lifeless in automobiles with grenades on their persons, to convey
the impression that they were caught in terrorist acts . . . there was
hardly a communist among those detained... (Jules Dubois: Fidel Castro;
Indianapolis, 1959, p. 182, 183)
While Castro's guerrilla group was occupied 300 miles away, the
Directorio Revolucionario opened the independent Second Escambray Front
in the Escambray Mountains MANY MONTHS before Batista fled Cuba (Jan. 1,
1959). The city of Cienfuegos was this time besieged for weeks by the
Second Escambray Front. This time the attack succeeded. The Batista
troops surrendered Cavo Cayo Loco Naval Base and the rebels took over
the whole city (population 60,000).
All Cuba was in the flames of revolt. Powerfully reinforced by massive
expenditionary landings of war materiel, financed and manned by exiled
Cuban militants, the fall of Havana, and all of Cuba was inevitable
WITHOUT the intervention of Castro's little group of rebels. Castro's
campaign undoubtedly expedited the fall of Batista, but his efforts were
by no means the decisive factor.
The reasons are obvious. Out of 82 Castro guerrillas who landed from the
Granma on Dec. 2, 1956, only about 20 escaped to the Sierra Maestra
mountains. Professor Maurice Halpern, an expert on Cuban affairs who
spent six years in Castro's Cuba (1962-1968) sums up the situation:
. . .As Fidel himself explained on January 18, 1960, as late as June
1958 his 'army' consisted of 300 men; and when he began his final
offensive in August he had 800 men. . . In fact what are termed
'battles' in the reminiscences of rebel leaders were skirmishes with
rarely more than a score or two guerrillas involved and frequently
fewer. This does not detract from the. . . heroism displayed by the men
in combat, but does provide perspective on the [degree] of involvement.
. . (The Rise and Decline of Fidel Castro; University of Calfornia,
1972, p. 37-38)
And K.S. Karol demonstrates the insignificant role of Castro's tiny band
in the anti-Batista resistance as contrasted with the decisive role
played by the great masses of the Cuban people:
. . . the urban front was by far the most important and the
'guerilleros'. . . played a subordinate part. It was the cities which
supplied the 'guerilleros' with arms, money, information and provisions;
and from start to finish the vast majority of 'guerilleros' were
recruited in the towns. It was the towns which, in February 1957,
launched a great publicity campaign in favor of the 'sierra' [mountain
fighting bands] inflicting serious blows to Batista's prestige. . .and
waged an efficient political and military campaign of their own. . .
(Guerrillas in Power; New York, 1970, p. 164-165)
BEFORE Castro landed in Cuba, Dec. 2, 1956, while his boat, the Granma,
was still at sea en route to Mexico, the 26th of July Movement led by
Frank Pais, with little resistance, virtually took over Santiago de
Cuba. Revolt flared all over Cuba. In April 1956, there was a Batista
army uprising led by the Batista Minister of Education, Major Jose
Fernandez, a captain in the regular army, and Colonel Ramon Barquin,
Military attache to Washington. Julio Camacho Aquilar and Jorge Soto
assisted by three Americans, staged a foray at the eastern end of the
Sierra Maestra near the U.S. Guantanamo naval base.
There were already groups of rebels scattered in the Sierra de Cristal
before Raul Castro arrived. They joined him later. Matthew tells that
"...Che Guevara had the task of imposing Castro's authority over three
or four groups of Guerrillas fighting on their own in the mountains
south of Havana. . ." The Guerrillas were already fighting the Batista
troops before Guevara "arrived to impose Castro's authority over them."
In 1958, ". . . Roman Catholic priests and leaders were showing sympathy
for Castro and opposition to Batista. The church hierarchy came out for
Batista's resignation. Both Fidel and Raul had priests and protestant
ministers with them. . . "
Raul Castro encountered no opposition when he came to the Sierra de
Cristal in March 1958; bands of Guerrilla fighters were already there.
And very effective groups from the Student Directorio were fighting in
the Sierra de Trinidad. (Source: Matthews, ibid. pp. 73, 74, 76, 100,
102, 107)
Barely able to survive in the Sierra Maestra wilderness, Castro's
isolated group could even with the greatest difficulty function only on
the periphery of the vast popular resistance movement convulsing Cuba.
Almost entirely shut off from the outside world, there could be no
direct contact with the other anti-Batista organizations: not even with
Castro's "own" 26th of July Movement, a fact which Castro's
second-in-command Ernesto Che Guevara repeatedly deplores:
. . . we wanted closer contact with the 26th of July Movement. Our nomad
existence made it practically impossible to contact the members. . . (p.
35) Fidel did not have a radio then and he asked a peasant to lend him
his. . . (p. 51) Peasants were not yet ready to join the struggle, and
communication with the city bases was practically nonexistent. . .(p.
18--all quotes from Episodes of the Revolutionary War; Havana, 1967)
It is necessary to correct the erroneous impression that either Castro's
26th of July Movement or the anti-Batista organizations, constituted a
unified body based upon a clearly defined program and a common ideology.
The fact is that Castro did not control the rank and file membership,
and certainly deserves no credit for their achievements. What Theodore
Draper writes about the composition of the 26th of July Movement is also
true in respect to the rest of the anti-Batista opposition:
. . .The 26th of July Movement was never homogeneous, and the larger it
grew in 1957 and 1968, the less homogeneous it became. It included those
who merely wished to restore the bourgeois constitution of 1940 and
those who demanded a 'real social-revolution.' It attracted those who
admired and those who detested the United States. It took in fervent
anti-communists and ardent fellow-travelers... (Castro's Revolution;New
York, 1961, p. 75)
Guevara not only deplores " . . . the lack of ideological [but also]
lack of moral preparation of the combatants. . . the men who would find
the flimsiest excuses to justify their demand to be released, and if the
answer was in the negative, desertion would follow. . . in spite of the
fact that deserters [would be immediately] ...executed and desertion
meant death...(p. 61)." In another place, Guevara complains that
Castro's Sierra Maestra combatants "...had neither ideological awareness
nor 'esprit-de-corps'..." (p. 35, 23) "...due to the lack of discipline
among the new men. . .it was necessary to establish a rigid discipline,
organize a high command and set up a Staff...(p. 91) Fidel addressed the
troops urging a more strict discipline. . .he also announced that crimes
of insubordination, desertion, and defeatism were to be punished by
death. . . " (p. 23)
These, and similar remarks scattered throughout Guevara's book, reveal a
great deal about the true nature of Castro's ARMY. We emphasize the word
ARMY to demonstrate that an allegedly voluntary association of dedicated
idealists, in which a member who avails himself of his right to resign
is called a "deserter" and shot on sight differs in no essential respect
from any other traditional army of disciplined conscripts. Castro's
military conduct is wholly consistent with his domineering personality.
Commandante (now General) Castro and his officers, true to form, have
turned Cuba itself into a MILITARY STATE.
With the flight of Batista, Castro moved swiftly to consolidate his own
power and neutralize or eliminate the other revolutionary organizations
with whom he did not want to share power. The other rebel groups
anticipated this and acted accordingly. Before Castro arrived in Havana
from the Sierra Maestra, the Revolutionary Directorate, with 500 rifles,
5 machine guns and armored tanks taken from the San Antonio de Lo's
Banas los Baños Arsenal near Havana, occupied the University of Havana
Campus and turned it into an armed camp. (See the eyewitness account of
Jules Dubois, Fidel Castro, p. 353) Together with the fighters of the
Second Escambray Front, the students also occupied the Presidential
Palace--the seat of government.
When Castro and his escorting force arrived in Havana, the rebels
refused to evacuate the Palace and turn it over to his newly-appointed
President of the Republic, Manuel Urrutia. They were outraged because
Castro had set up his own "Provisional Government" in Santiago de Cuba
without consulting and without the consent of other revolutionary groups
which had been fighting against Batista. They did not trust Castro. His
verbal assurances that he would not seize power and would respect the
rights of other anti-Batista groups and tendencies were not enough.
Castro made united front agreements when it suited his purposes, and
broke them when he saw fit. In speaking of the Pact, based on the Sierra
Manifesto, Guevara contends that Castro was justified in breaking it
because some of the provisions were rejected by the other groups. The
Pact was broken only five months after it was signed because the other
organizations (which Guevara calls the enemy) " . . . broke the Pact
when they refused to acknowledge the authority of the Sierra [of the
Castro band]" (ibid. p. 88).
According to Guevara and Castro the phrase "...here in the Sierra
Maestra we will know how to do justice to the confidence of the people,
meant that Fidel and only Fidel knew how. . . " (ibid. p. 88) Guevara
cynically acknowledges that Castro & Co. did not intend to honor the
agreement in the first place. (p. 86)
Castro brazenly arrogated exclusive monopoly of power to his own 26th of
July Movement (which Castro identified with his own person): " . . . Iet
it be known, [he proclaimed] that the 26th of July Movement will never
fail to guide and direct the people from the underground and the Sierra
Maestra. . ." (Dubois, p. 206)
After he came to power, Castro liquidated all resistance groups which he
could not control. He disbanded the Directorio and the Second Escambray
Front by persecuting its members or mollifying some of its leaders.
(Castro appointed Faure Chomon, one of the leaders of the Directorio,
Ambassador to Russia and later other posts) He disbanded the Civic
Resistance Movement, headed by his once close friend Manuel Ray, who
later left his post as Minister of Public Works in Castro's Government.
Through his stooge, Rolando Cubela, Castro dominated all groups who
questioned his dictatorship, accusing them of "counter-revolution."
Castro finally ended by purging "his" own party, the 26th of July
Movement. One of Castro's vociferous apologists at that time, the French
writer Simone de Beauvoir, explained that Castro purged his own party "
. . . because it was petty bourgeois and could not keep pace with the
Revolution after Castro took power. . .the party had to go, to be
replaced by reliable elements. . . " (See Yves Guilbert: Castro
L'Infidele; Paris, 1961, p. 170) These elements, of course, were the
Communist Party and Castro's entourage of sycophants.
The mass exodus from Cuba, before emigration almost was cut off, reached
the staggering figure of more than half a million and included tens of
thousands of anti-Batista workers and peasants. Thousands of political
prisoners who fought against Batista overflow the jails of Cuba.
Absenteeism, slowdowns on the job, sporadic protests, instantly
squelched, and other manifestations of popular discontent, demonstrate
that the revolt of the obscure anonymous masses against tyranny cannot
be permanently stamped out by Batista, or his successor, Fidel Castro.
Ingrained legends are exceedingly hard to dispel. But historic justice
should still be accorded to the neglected and persecuted fighters fought
and continue to struggle so valiantly for the freedom of Cuban people.
Augustin Souchy is a veteran German Anarcho-Syndicalist. He was a
delegate of the German Syndicalist Union to the Red International of
Trade Unions (a Russian Communist Party front set up to dominate the
world labor movement) in Moscow 1921. During the duration of the Spanish
Civil War and Revolution (1936-1939) he was in charge of the
International Information Bureau of the Spanish Anarcho-Syndicalist
National Confederation of Labor (CNT) and in other capacities. Souchy
observed at first hand the rural libertarian collectives and urban
socialization and wrote extensively on this subject. He is an
outstanding authority on collectivization, cooperatives and other
problems of agrarian organization.
With the Franco victory in Spain and the coming of World War II, Souchy
lived as a refugee in France. He came to Mexico in 1942 and for many
years traveled extensively in Latin America, Israel, etc. to study at
first hand rural collectivization and cooperative experiments in
semi-developed countries.
In 1960, Souchy toured Cuba, gathering direct information about the
Cuban Revolution, particularly agrarian cooperatives and land reform
measures set up by the Castro government. Although his reports were in
many respects very favorable, the authorities could not tolerate adverse
criticism, however well intended. The printing of Souchy's observations
was prohibited, and Souchy himself left Cuba just in time to escape
arrest. His articles were published in pamphlet form, by the excellent
libertarian bi-monthly Reconstruir (Testimonial Sobre la Revolucion
Cubana; Buenos Aires, December, 1960)
This pamphlet falls into two parts. The first is Souchy's over-all
evaluation of the Cuban Revolution. It was written when Castro's gradual
moves toward full-fledged totalitarian rule first became apparent. While
acknowledging what turned out to be the Revolution's temporary positive
aspects, Souchy's observations reflected his growing concern about the
authoritarian deformation of the Cuban Revolution. The second part, a
direct report of his visits to various peasant "cooperatives,"
government "collectives," etc. is a concise critique of the disastrous
consequences of Castro's Agrarian Reform program. Since "Agrarian
Reform" is considered the Revolution's major achievement, Souchy's
analysis takes on added significance. [S.D.]
The Cuban Revolution is much more than a mere political change in the
form of government. The Revolution initiated a vast economic-social
transformation, which to a certain extent resembles what took place in
Spain after the 19th of July, 1936 [beginning of the Civil War]. There
are, nevertheless, certain important differences. While the Spanish
Revolution, in the period of struggle against the existing order as well
as the period of social-political reconstruction, was the work of the
great masses of workers and peasants, the Cuban Revolution was propelled
by a minority of self-sacrificing dedicated revolutionaries. . . The
character of both revolutions springs from these differences.
In Cuba, the old professional army was replaced by workers' and
peasants' militias [this is no longer the case]. The Revolution attacked
the economic poverty of the masses, cultural backwardness and
expropriated big private enterprises.
In Spain, the masses organized collectives. In Cuba, the state created
and controlled cooperatives. In Cuba, as in Spain, rents were lowered in
the cities, but in respect to changes in rural property, there was an
important difference... While in Spain, the confiscation of the land and
the organization of the collectives was initiated and carried through by
the peasants themselves; in Cuba social-economic transformation was
initiated not by the people, but by Castro and his comrades-in-arms. It
is this distinction that accounts for the different development of the
two revolutions; Spain, mass revolution from the bottom up; Cuba,
revolution from the top down by decree--i.e. Agrarian Reform Law, etc.
The old motto: "The Emancipation of the Working Class is the Task of the
Workers Themselves," is still eminently relevant. The Cuban Revolution
will advance only with the participation of the people and only if the
revolutionary spirit will penetrate all social stratums. Centralizing
tendencies exist in every revolution and can be dangerous for liberty.
The surest way to prevent centralization of power in the hands of a few,
is the initiative and action of the masses of the people. In Cuba, the
revolutionary fighters, the men of the Sierra Maestra, constituted a
strong fighting force, and it was they, not the professional militants
who "temporarily" constituted the new government.
The new regime came to power on a wave of popular enthusiasm and
admiration for the heroic fighters. . . But enthusiasm comes and goes.
Emotions are fickle. A power acquired by past exploits, however heroic,
is not a firm base for the establishment of a permanent government. And
if in the course of events, as is always the case, certain discontented
popular groupings threaten or question the leadership, the "de facto"
government, to remain in office, and carry out its program, resorts to
threats of outright violence. The inevitable consequence of this
situation is revolutionary terror, whose classical representatives are
Robespierre and Stalin. . .
The revolutionary government of Cuba is making enormous efforts to
legitimate and justify its existence by enacting deep and popular
economic and social changes. The liquidation of the old corrupt
administration, 50% reduction of the salaries of the new ministers,
drastic reduction in rents, telephone and electric rates, construction
of new hygienic housing for the masses, the installation of public
beaches and recreation centers, and finally, the crowning of all these
reforms by the Agrarian Reform Law, are enthusiastically applauded by
the majority of the Cuban people and the whole world. . .
But in the radiant revolutionary springtime [Souchy wrote before the
storms of winter] there are some dark clouds and shadows: censorship of
the press, unilateral indoctrination by radio and television, the new
foreign policy which is placing the country under the de facto
domination of red imperialism, and above all, the organization of a
state dominated economy, are naturally not liked by the people [in spite
of propaganda to the contrary!. One has but to speak to Cubans in all
walks of life, in the Capital and in the provinces, to plainly see the
growing disillusionment and discontent. An infinite number of workers,
thousands of people who have always fought for freedom now oppose the
policies and conduct of the government. . .
The Cuban Revolution achieved great social progress for the people, with
a rapidity unmatched in any other Latin-American country. But all this
is not the work of the people themselves. We must insist that the
Revolution is rapidly turning into a dictatorship. The dictators,
Mussolini, Peron, Perez Jimenez, (and how many others!) to justify their
tyrannies and glorify their names, also built houses etc. for the poor,
(public works in Russia).
The social-economic agrarian revolution achieved by INRA [National
Institute of Agrarian Reform] are truly remarkable. Protected by
privileged legislation the INRA is the most powerful State
Monopoly not only in Agriculture, but almost all economic activity. INRA
is Cuba's number one trust.
The road to the Sierra is very rough. In certain places our jeep almost
overturned and so detracted somewhat from the pleasure of viewing the
beautiful panorama of hills and beautiful valley with its luxurious
tropical flora. After some hours of difficult travel, we reached the
shore of a stream. A group of peasants were harvesting malangas and we
soon learned that they belonged to a cooperative.
"We decided ourselves to work collectively," declared one of the
peasants, "Work together is so much easier than working alone. Before we
worked because we were hungry, but now, we work because we really enjoy
it. We share our income equally and expect good results." He beamed with
joy.
We were escorted to the "Bohio" (hut) of the peasant Nicola's Pacheo.
His courteous wife, with typical Cuban hospitality, served coffee. .
.The modest "guajero" (peasant) could not give much of an explanation
about the organization of the cooperative, and the other peasants, even
less so. The peasants knew only about their work. For more information
we had to wait for the arrival of the sergeant who represented the INRA.
The sergeant finally arrived. He made no reference to the cooperatives,
but spoke only about the orders he received from his bosses, the higher
executives of the district INRA. He offered no new details, but merely
repeated what we already learned about other cooperatives. Though
lacking positive constructive information, his remarks were interesting
from a negative point of view. Cuba is the only Latin American country
in which agrarian cooperatives are managed by military personnel.
If the sergeant were wearing a Russian uniform, the impression that we
were conversing with a supervisor of a Sovkhoz [Russian State Farm]
would have been perfect. Except for the team working on the outskirts of
the village itself, we got the feeling of the standard routine
procedures of an immense impersonal organization with branches all over
the country, whose watchword is "Bread is more important than Freedom. "
But we must never forget that there are two different freedoms! National
freedom which refers to the autonomy of a nation, and personal freedom
which is much more important. In brutally oppressed countries, with
violent upheavals, and little or no experience of national sovereignty,
the first national autonomy, is more valued than the second, freedom of
the individual. Cuba belongs to the first. Bread there is, but we must
point out on the basis of the most meticulous observation, that the
rationing of human freedom has already begun. [Souchy, of course, wrote
before the full impact of the disastrous economic policies of the
revolutionary government brought about acute shortages and rationing of
food products that before were always in plentiful supply.|
The Sheltered city of Bayamo was one of the provision points for the
rebels of the Sierra Maestra while they were fighting the Batista
dictatorship. Situated in the fertile valley, Bayamo, the commercial
center of a rich agricultural area, is today the district headquarters
of the INRA. Most of the land is owned by relatively more affluent
proprietors, but the creation of cooperatives by the INRA is making
rapid progress. The 8 cooperatives in the district consist of 11,858
hectares (one hectare is about 2 1/2 acres) worked by 2,700 agricultural
laborers.
The administrator, Senor Carbonell, is a young man full of energy and
enthusiasm for the Revolution. The army is inextricably interwoven into
the whole INRA network. The army is deemed indispensable to the proper
functioning of this gigantic and complex organization. The soldiers help
to build houses and do other useful work. But as in all armies, a lot of
time and labor is wasted on perfectly useless, even socially harmful
projects.
There is also a well-equipped machine shop for the repair of
agricultural machinery. The district INRA headquarters called a meeting
to arrange the expansion of facilities to include the manufacture of
certain agricultural tools and equipment. In addition to the workers,
the meeting was also attended by the district manager, two lawyers, and
two army officers.
The plans for the organization of an industrial cooperative to be
managed by the INRA were presented to the meeting. When the workers
asked about wages, the manager replied that wages were of secondary
importance and that to speed up the industrialization of Cuba, certain
sacrifices will have to be made for the sake of the revolution. The
workers plainly showed that they did not like the project. Finally, the
exasperated administrator laid down the law: with or without the consent
of the workers, the "cooperative" project will be organized as planned.
The lawyers drew up the necessary legal documents and the cooperative
was officially established.
The cooperative will be patterned after the state enterprises of the
"socialist countries" behind the "iron curtain." The Ministry of the
Economy will organize production and distribution and manage all
nationalized enterprises. And the workers will, if the "revolutionary"
bosses allow it, be given a restricted share in management. The economic
situation of the workers will be more or less the same as in privately
owned enterprises.
In Manzanillo, in addition to fisheries, there are also many small shoe
workshops, equipped with old machines, manufacturing shoes for the
regional market. Wages were low and there were few, if any, wealthy
employers.
After the Revolution conflicts broke out when the workers demanded labor
laws providing minimum wages, social security and other benefits.
Revolution came to the shoe industry. The employers voluntarily gave up
ownership and decided to work together on equal terms with their former
employees. The small workshops were consolidated into the newly
organized Shoe Manufacturing Collective of Manzanillo.
A quarter century before, during the Spanish Revolution, similar
collectives were established in Spain. In Catalonia, the Levante and
Castille, the isolated workshop collectives later organized themselves
into socialized industries. These developments were based upon the old
libertarian tradition that gave the Spanish Revolution its distinctive
character.
Unfortunately, this popular initiative of the Manzanillo shoe workers
was soon squelched. The Manzanillo section of the Communist Party was
against free cooperatives which clashed with their authoritarian ideas.
They therefore urged Russian style absorption of the voluntarily
collectivized workshops by the INRA. This proposal was enthusiastically
endorsed by the INRA bureaucrats, and the cooperative shoe industry was
taken over.
This destruction of the cooperative is not an isolated example of how a
movement which began by abolishing private ownership to establish free
cooperatives, was finally swallowed up by the state agency INRA,
indicating the fast growing trend toward the Russian variety of state
capitalism mislabeled "socialism."
Cuba consumes enormous quantities of rice. To meet demand, great stocks
of rice must be imported. As part of the campaign to make Cuba
self-sufficient in rice by placing great new areas under cultivation the
district INRA organized the Primavera rice-growing cooperative. The
hundreds of new "cooperators" will be lodged in barrack-like structures
equipped with two-decker beds and fed in one huge dining hall. While
displaying the new accommodations, the manager went into raptures about
how the new cooperative will improve production while bettering quality.
The improvements will no doubt increase production. In other parts of
the world, similar projects under approximately the same conditions and
procedures are in operation: there too, the workers sleep in barracks
and eat in huge dining halls supplied by the companies. The only new or
original feature of this semi-militarized labor army is the name
"cooperative;" a description that no true cooperative anywhere will
accept.
I visit an elementary school. Childrn are marching, chanting:
"Una--Dos--Tres--Cuarto--Fi--Del--Castro." (one-two-three-four etc.) The
proud Principal exclaims: "Behold! Tomorrow's soldiers of The
Revolution! And this beautiful rebuilt school was once an old, ugly army
barracks." Alas! The Principal does not realize how little things have
really changed--how the old military spirit still remains.
When the Vice Minister of the Soviet Union, Mikoyan, visited Cuba,
Castro, to impress him with the achievements of the revolution, showed
him the Hermanos Saenz cooperative--the pride of the new Cuba. The
Hermanos Saenz cooperative, in Pinar del Rio province, is named after
two brothers, 15 and 19 years old, who were tortured and murdered by
Batista's executioners.
The cooperative was organized and built by the INRA. INRA advanced
construction and operating finances. The complex consists of 120
elegantly landscaped houses for the tobacco workers and their families.
A typical dwelling consists of three bedrooms, a dining room, tile
bathroom and a fully equipped kitchen. The buildings are "functional,"
but the roofs are too low and the old peasant "bohios" (cottages) are
better ventilated. Apart from this, we must praise the revolutionary
government for its efforts to wipe out slum housing.
The cooperators make no down payment, nor are there wage deductions.
Construction and maintenance costs are paid for, not by the individual
cooperator, but collectively from the profits of the tobacco industry.
The Hermano Saenz debt to INRA will probably be paid quickly--about six
to ten years. In other places a worker who wants to own a house would
have to make monthly payments for 15 to 20 years.
The pride of the cooperative is the magnificent new school, with its
spacious gardens and playgrounds, an auditorium, an immense dining hall
and fully equipped kitchens where wholesome meals are prepared for the
children.
On the day when Castro inaugurated the new School of the Hermanos Saenz
cooperative a group of 20 peasants of the tiny village of San Vincente
petitioned Castro to help them form a cooperative and new housing. The
peasants had been tenant farmers who were forced to hand over two thirds
of their crops to the landlord. They had no money, no farm machines, no
fertilizers. As Castro promised, the INRA immediately began the
construction of a new cooperative village for the 20 peasant families of
San Vincente. With the help of the revolutionary army and the peasants
themselves, construction was completed in the record time of only two
months. The individual peasants do not own the property of the
cooperative nor the agricultural equipment. They hold shares in the
cooperative. The cooperative (like the rest of the rural economy) is not
administered by the peasants, but by the INRA in accordance with a
national plan. The "cooperative" is actually financed by wages,
disguised as "advances" [payments for construction, maintenance and
equipment furnished by INRA] paid to the peasants by their de facto
employer, INRA.
My guide, the bearded revolutionist, Captain Alvarez Costa, provincial
delegate of INRA, furnished me with information about the cooperatives
in his district. It seems that in the Cuban cooperatives the peasants
sacrifice their autonomy in exchange for economic security. Although the
economic situation of the peasant "cooperator" is better than before, it
is nevertheless inferior to that of the free cooperator, particularly
from the moral point of view. "Is there not a danger (I asked my guide)
that this situation would create a dangerous dilemma: bread without
freedom or freedom without bread?"
The captain, conceding that such a dilemma is indeed possible, replied:
. . . our Revolution is based upon the concepts formulated by Fidel
Castro. If we build cooperatives, those who benefit must accept the
conditions stipulated. There are hundreds of different cooperatives in
our province. Some sell their products to INRA, others in the free
market etc.... In general, the cooperatives are directly administered by
INRA. However, in this district, the cooperative in the village of
Moncada works collectively, on its own initiative. I suggest that you
see how it works.
In the field of education the Castro regime is inordinately proud of
what it considers its greatest achievement: the construction of Ciudad
Escolar--School City--an immense complex named after the great hero of
the Revolution Camilo Cienfuegos. The complex is being built at the foot
of the Sierra Maestra Mountains, Castro's famed stronghold. This
grandiose project, meant to astonish the world, was conceived while
Castro's guerrilla band was still being hunted by the Batista army.
Although the construction was begun only a few months ago, many
buildings have already been erected. The project is truly unique. It
will accommodate 22,000 children of both sexes from 6 to 18 years of
age; most of them from peasant families in the Sierra Maestra region.
The complex will consist of 42 units, each with a capacity of 500
pupils, including dining rooms, class rooms, 4 athletic fields, a motion
picture theater and swimming pool. The central kitchen will prepare
meals for all the 22,000 students. . .
The project will be financed by the government and built by INRA. 9,000
hectares [about 25,000 acres] will be devoted to the growing of rice,
malangas, beans and other vegetables, and the raising of cattle, poultry
etc. The pupils themselves will do the work, and all this vast area will
serve as a school for agriculture. It is expected that the products will
pay for the education and subsistence of the students without a state
subsidy. Thus, 22,000 young people will live by their own labor.
One of the officials boasted: "This will be the greatest educational
project ever built." But quite a few highly qualified educators voiced
serious misgivings about the educational value of the project. A well
known teacher whom I interviewed declared:
educationally speaking, to construct an educational apparatus of this
magnitude is pure insanity. It would have been far better to build a
school in every village in the Sierra Maestre region and the schools
would at the same time constitute a local cultural center and a separate
technical agricultural school could far more easily and usefully be
erected in the provincial capital. . .
The opinion of the veteran teacher makes sense. To separate 22,000
children from their homes and parents is to deprive the children of the
love, affection, and maternal care which is indispensable for their
emotional and mental health. The close rapport between the old and the
new generations will be loosened and perhaps irretrievably severed. The
whole scheme is based on erroneous and distorted concepts. The aim of
education is not only the accumulation of technical-scientific
knowledge, but also to introduce the youth into the life of adults. In
social life, there should be no artificial separation between old and
young, but rather, an inter-penetration, a welding together, a
social-personal bonding which makes possible the co-education of both
the older and the younger generations.
Experience acquired by tradition and confirmed by modern science teaches
us that family life, the rearing and education of children must
constitute a truly harmonious community of love and mutual
understanding.
The School City Camilo Cienfuegos resembles the military training camp
of a modern Sparta; not the free community of scholars in the tradition
of ancient Athens.
This account of the Cuban Revolution was written by the veteran
anarchist, Abelardo Iglesias, who lived through the events he describes.
While still a young man Iglesias dedicated his whole life to the
struggle for freedom and social justice. He was particularly active in
the labor movement of his native Cuba, and much later, for many years in
Spain, where he fought against Franco fascism and for the Social
Revolution from the beginning to the final catastrophic defeat.
Returning to Cuba after the debacle, overcoming the pessimism which for
many militants signified the end of their hopes for the realization of
our ideals, Iglesias again took up the struggle against capitalist
exploitation, political oppression and the monumental corruption of
national life--particularly within the labor movement.
This attitude, shared by all the militants of the Libertarian
Association of Cuba (ALC) led naturally to the struggle against the
corrupt, dictatorial regime of Fulgencio Batista and his friends and
collaborators; the very same leaders of the Communist Party, who now
occupy the same high posts in the Castro-communist dictatorship.
In the crucial period preceding the downfall of Batista, the Cuban
anarchists strove to defend the conquests of the workers and the
independence of their organizations against the corrupt leadership of
the Batista-Communist dominated Confederation of Cuban Workers (CTC).
The following articles by Iglesias were published in pamphlet form by
the Argentine anarchist bi-monthly Reconstruir (Buenos Aires, 1963).
[S.D.]
Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Cuba is a series of articles
written in late 1960 and early 1961, a few months before I left Cuba.
Unfortunately, subsequent events have only confirmed their contentions.
Erroneous ideas about the Cuban Revolution are to a great extent due to
the lack of reliable information. Instead of the objective evaluation
indispensible to an understanding of events, the views of the critics
are distorted by their political prejudices and economic interests.
The reactionaries proclaim the sanctity of private property and religion
as essential for the preservation of the "full dignity of man." Almost
all North Americans extol the virtues of "representative democracy" and
"free enterprise." In Latin-America, opinion is divided based not on the
facts, but on how the critics interpret "American imperialism."
Many Cubans detest Castro, not for his totalitarian methods of
government, but for the communist character of his dictatorship. Many of
those who now oppose Castroism, supported his personal dictatorship from
the time of the Sierra Maestra until they began to suspect that he was
inclined toward Marxist remedies. For them, the totalitarian method of
government was less important than its COLOR. The big landlords, the big
capitalists, the heads of the church and the professional politicians
fully backed Castro as long as they believed that he would be a "blue"
dictator like Franco; they immediately turned against him when he became
a "red" dictator like Stalin. But liberal democrats and revolutionaries
from all social classes, especially in the universities,
enthusiastically accepted Castro in good faith, fought in the Sierras
and in the underground for the immediate restoration of the democratic
regime, which had been overthrown by the Batista coup of March 10, 1952.
And it is they who now constitute the most vocal opposition to Castro in
Cuba and in exile. [Since this was written, most of the opposition has
come from workers and peasants.]
That militant anarchists everywhere hailed the Revolution when it first
began is understandable. It looked like a true social revolution, and
they took the libertarian pretensions of the leaders seriously because
they lacked regular and complete information about the real situation in
Cuba. Another factor was psychological. With the defeat of the Spanish
Revolution (1936-39) the era of popular revolutions seemed closed.
Inevitably, disillusionment set in. To some extent, the Cuban Revolution
rekindled the old revolutionary flame. The spectacle of a heroic handful
of people struggling against seemingly insurmountable odds,
disorganized, poorly armed, carrying on a guerrilla war and defeating a
formidable, powerfully armed force of professional soldiers, was bound
to arouse the sympathy and enthusiasm of all sincere revolutionaries.
But if these facts explain the attitudes of libertarians in 1959, the
first year of the Revolution, they cannot now [1963] justify the
attitude of certain individuals and groups, in several countries, who
still deny the facts and obstinately maintain a position diametrically
opposed to libertarian ideas and traditions.
That which compels us to fight for freedom, should also alert us to the
presence of a barbaric regime, even when it hides its true nature behind
revolutionary libertarian slogans.
At first sight, the expropriation of the holdings of the big landlords
seems logical and correct to a movement that does not believe in private
property, or recognize the validity of rights unjustly accorded to
privileged minorities. But we must realize that the conversion of the
expropriated land into state property creates a slavery infinitely worse
than private capitalism. Libertarians should know that class privileges
are subjected to the state as the supreme regulator of social relations.
And we should know also that the conversion of private into state
property automatically concentrates enormous political power into a
reduced number of men, thereby creating a revolutionary oligarchy
wielding unlimited power.
Fidel Castro has established a typical totalitarian oligarchy. In the
name of liberty, he has shamelessly betrayed a politically naive people
who have allowed themselves to be taken-in by the legendary "hero of the
Sierra Maestra. " This is no mere supposition. It is a crude, brutal,
monstrous fact which libertarians will have to face in all its
magnitude, if they really want to comprehend the immense tragedy now
being enacted in Cuba.
Apart from byzantine discussions, there are these objective facts which
no one can deny. We list briefly the main points:
The so-called revolutionary regime is essentially an oligarchy dominated
by a handful of men accountable to no one for their actions.
In line with their sectarianism they have abolished all individual
rights.
Centralized political and economic power to an extent never known
before.
Constructed an apparatus of terror immensely more efficient than
Batista's repressive agencies.
The land has not been distributed to the peasants, for individual,
family, collective or cooperative cultivation, but has become the 'de
facto' property of the state agency, the Institute for Agrarian Reform
(]NRA).
The nationalization of private enterprises has not benefited the
workers. The industries are administered not by the workers' unions, but
have been taken over to reinforce the power of the state, converting the
former wage slaves into slaves of the state machine.
Public education has become a state monopoly. The state arrogates to
itself the right to impose its kind of education upon the young,
regardless of the opinion of the parents.
The legitimate necessity to prepare against counter-revolutionary
aggression has been the pretext for the unnecessary militarization of
children and adolescents as in Russia and other totalitarian states.
The right to strike has been abolished and the workers must, without
complaint, obey the decrees imposed upon them in their work places. The
unions have lost their independence and are actually state agencies,
whose sole function it is to cajole or force the workers to obey the
commands of the state functionaries without protest.
There are no genuine judicial tribunals. Oppositionists are punished not
for alleged offences, but for their convictions and revolutionary ideas.
Fidel Castro's government is conducted in accordance with Mussolini's
notorious dictum:
Nothing outside of the State!!
Nothing against the State!!
Everything for the State!!
The romantic aura surrounding Castro's legendary exploits must be
dispelled. The myth of his alleged "March on Havana" captured the
imagination of his deluded sympathizers, must once and for all be
debunked. We who lived in Cuba, who witnessed, and to a certain extent
participated in the events, have too much respect for the truth to
remain silent in the face of such serious misconceptions.
The facts of the "March on Havana" are the following: Weeks before
Batista fled Cuba, when the rebel forces advanced in Las Villas Province
without meeting serious resistance from government troops, Fidel Castro,
almost immobilized in Oriente province, contacted Colonel Rizo Rubido,
military commander of the fortress at Santiago de Cuba, and began
negotiations with this officer of the Batista army for the surrender of
the city, the capital of Oriente Province.
When the negotiations reached an advanced stage, Colonel Rubido arranged
a personal interview between Castro and his superior officer.
The interview took place in an abandoned sugar mill in Oriente Province.
With the help of a Catholic Priest, Father Guzman, Fidel Castro and
General Cantillo reached full agreement and General Cantillo surrendered
Santiago de Cuba and the whole Province of Oriente to Castro. These
events were related by Castro himself on television and reported in the
first weeks of 1959 in the magazine Bohemia, which reproduced actual
photographs of the notes exchanged between Fidel Castro and General
Cantillo.
Fulgencio Batista then summoned General Cantillo to Havana and told him
of his decision to abdicate and appoint him (General Cantillo) as
Commander-in-Chief of the army to maintain order and return the country
to normalcy. General Cantillo accepted Batista's offer and immediately
contacted Fidel Castro, informing him that he was ready not only to
surrender Oriente Province, but the whole country. A few hours later,
Batista, together with his entourage, left Havana for Santo Domingo in
three military planes. This happened at dawn, January 1st, 1959.
With the flight of Batista, all the armed forces surrendered immediately
without firing a single shot. General Cantillo transferred command of
his army to Colonel Ramon Barquin who had just been released, after
being sentenced to imprisonment for conspiring against the Batista
government.
Upon assuming command of the armed forces, Colonel Barquin told Fidel
Castro that the army and he personally was at his disposal and under his
orders and that he [Barquin] would remain only as long as Castro wants
him to or until he was replaced.
Fidel Castro immediately ordered his rebel troops to occupy all
installations, barracks and fortresses. In line with these orders,
Camilo Cienfuegos with a force of only 300 men, occupied Camp Military
City after 12,000 Batista troops, including aviation, artillery and tank
units, surrendered without firing a shot. Commander Ernesto Guevara took
over the La Cabana Fortress. Castro's brother, Raul, became Provisional
Commander of the Marina de Guerra naval station. Faure Chamont was
appointed Commander of San Antonio de los Banos Baños air base and of
the Presidential Palace. Other appointees filled the other posts.
Fidel Castro finally entered Santiago de Cuba only after the city had
been peacefully occupied by his troops, commanded by Huber Matos, the
real hero of the armed struggle against Batista. [Major Huber Matos,
military commander of Castro troops who blockaded Santiago de Cuba, was
the Commander of Oriente and Camaguey rebel forces. Because Matos urged
Castro to halt communist penetration of his government he was brought to
trial with 38 other officers and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Despite international appeals for his release and the pleas of his
family he has not yet been freed. His family lives in New Jersey.]
Castro's activity at this time was intense: He designated Santiago de
Cuba as temporary Capital of Cuba; appointed Manuel Urrutia Lleo to be
Provisional President of Cuba; ordered a general strike (which collapsed
for lack of support;) appointed the list of ministers and appointed Dr.
Jose Miro Cardona as Prime Minister; and delivered the first of his
interminable harangues to a carefully staged mass rally.
Only then, when all the power was in his hands; when he was hysterically
acclaimed all over Cuba; only THEN did Castro stage his massive
publicity stunt, the fake "March On Havana; " a 350 kilometer parade
down the Central Highway, escorted by rebel army troops, tanks and
planes etc. Castro could have flown directly to Havana in a few hours at
most. But he deliberately arranged this ostentatious, garish display of
military power, to fool the world into the belief that he had taken by
armed force, a city that voluntarily accorded him a tumultuous welcome.
On January 8, 1959, Fidel Castro entered Havana, without firing a shot,
acclaimed by delirious mobs, a military spectacle which had nothing to
do with a victorious assault on Havana; a vulgar imitation of
Mussolini's "March on Rome."
One of the most controversial issues debated in revolutionary circles is
the spurious nature of Castro's "anti-imperialism." According to his
sympathizers, Castro was provoked into defying the American imperialist
government which strove to perpetuate the economic interests of the
capitalist monopolists in Cuba and to force the Castro regime to submit
to its dictates and policies. . .
We need not produce too many arguments to demonstrate that the question
is not quite so simple. There is evidence that while the United States
did not seriously block the illegal shipment of arms to Castro's rebel
army and anti-Batista resistance groups in Cuba, it slapped an embargo
on arms already paid for on the Batista regime... Batista bitterly
protested this policy. The most widely circulated and influential
American capitalist magazines: Time, Life, Coronet, Newsweek, etc. as
well as leading capitalist newspapers like The New York Times, glorified
Castro and his famous "barbudos" (bearded ones) depicting them as
romantic Robin Hoods, gallantly fighting for the freedom of the Cuban
people.
Another widely circulated myth cleverly concocted by the Castro
propaganda mill is that the peasants enthusiastically support his 26th
of July Movement and 95% of Castro's rebel "army" were peasants. The
fact is, that although Castro's stronghold in the Sierra Maestra was
practically encircled by cane fields and sugar factories and there are
at least three million peasants in Cuba, Castro's "army" numbered only
1500 men when the fighting ended with the flight of Batista. Where were
the peasant masses? The truth is that the most powerful force upon which
Castro depended from the outset was the middle class. Most of the young
insurgents came not from the peasantry, but from the middle class. (1)
The Catholic Church also backed Castro, mobilizing thousands of
clandestine militants. The Accion Catolica and its affiliated workers
and student organizations spearheaded violent anti-Batista action all
over Cuba. The press, the radio, and television networks provided free
unlimited propaganda, stirring the masses against Batista.
In spite of its anti-Batista sentiments, the Cuban bourgeoisie was
nevertheless resolved (with certain modifications) to continue the de
facto subordination of Cuba to the overall interests of the United
States, the "Colossus of the North."
The financiers and the upper clergy, hoped to seize political power by
turning the pro-Castro sentiment of the masses to their account. As the
first step in this direction, they gave ample aid to the Castro
movement.
For all these elements, Castro became the "Lider Maximo," the "Caudillo"
of a popular bourgeois revolution. Castro had at that time given them no
reason to think otherwise. In 1959, only a few months after his victory,
Castro vehemently denied that he was a communist, denying that he was
plotting to replace military dictatorship with "revolutionary
dictatorship." "...capitalism may kill a man with hunger; communism
kills man by wiping out his freedom. . . " (2)
Scarcely a month after the revolution, Castro cautiously began to reveal
his true intentions. Unleashing a violent campaign against the United
States he manifested his sympathy for Soviet imperialism. Any one
criticizing life in the "socialist" countries was reviled as a
"counter-revolutionist." Castro's own comrades-in-arms, Manuel Urrutia
Lleo, Jose Miro Cardona, Manuel Ray Rivero and Huber Matos who held key
positions in his administration were dismissed from office, imprisoned,
or driven into exile when they tried in the latter half of 1959 to
oppose Castro's pro-communist policies: The mysterious death of Castro's
second-in-command, Camilo Cienfuegos, was one of the tragic consequences
of this fierce struggle between the top leaders of the new Cuban
government. An apparently ideological dispute became in reality a war to
the death for the conquest of power.
In exposing Castro's duplicity, we want to make it crystal clear that we
do not in any way intend to justify American policies in Cuba, or
anywhere in Latin-America. We do not for a moment overlook the age long
exploitation of American imperialism and atrocities against the liberty
of the peoples of Latin America. For us, who participated actively in
the Revolution and know the facts, the incorporation of the Castro
regime into the Russian, Chinese and "third world" imperialist bloc, was
due neither to circumstances, nor the U.S. pressure. It was deliberately
put into effect in accordance with treacherous Bolshevik tactics.
Fidel Castro is not an anti-imperialist. He is anti-American and
pro-Soviet. He carried through a series of maneuvers to justify his
total surrender to the Russian-Chinese imperialist camp. (3) To
galvanize public opinion into accepting his duplicity, he not only
provoked the crisis confrontation with the Washington government, but
also renounced that which we libertarians consider most essential: the
possibility of forging unbreakable links of solidarity between the
oppressed people of Cuba and the other oppressed peoples of Latin
America, the only ones who can render unselfish and effective aid to the
Cuban Revolution.
The Cuban people now suffer the horrors of a totalitarian "communist"
regime, massively subsidized by the Soviet bloc with arms, technicians,
military and police experts etc. But the Cuban people have in a thousand
ways demonstrated their unquenchable will to emancipate themselves from
the dictatorial regime that exploits and oppresses them.
The old spirit of independence is not yet crushed. They are determined
to fight for their complete freedom against both their native exploiters
and the dominatiom of their northern neighbor the United States.
Our comrades in Cuba and in exile adhere to and fight for this
revolutionary policy, against both the reactionary emigre forces and the
politicians in exile who would not hesitate to sell their souls to the
devil himself, in order to reconquer the political and economic power
they lost in the January 1st Revolution.
In respect to the middle-class content of the frst Castro Covernment,
Theodore Draper's investigation shows:
...never a single one of Castro's ministers was a peasant or worker in
industry. Every one of them attended a university, came from an upper or
middle-class home and aspired to become a professional or intellectual.
. .I prevailed on one of the ministers to write out in his own
handwriting, on his own stationery, the professions, occupations and
ages of each of the ministers. . . (Castro's Revolution. . . p. 43)
The list included seven lawyers, 2 university professors, 3 university
students, 1 doctor, 1 engineer, 1 architect, 1 mayor and 1 captain.
The main points of the bourgeois-democratic reform constitution which
Castro promised to put into effect included: full freedom of press,
radio, etc.; respect for all civil, political and personal rights as
guaranteed by the Constitution of 1940; democratization of the unions
and promoting free elections at all levels.
In an interview early in 1958 from the Sierra Maestra, Castro pledged
that his:
. . . provisional government must be as brief as possible, just time
enough to convoke elections for state, provincial and municipal posts .
. . the provisional government not to remain in power for more than two
years. . . I want to reiterate my total lack of personal interest and I
have renounced, beforehand, any post after the victory of the Revolution
. . . these are the things we will tell the people. Will we suppress the
right to strike? NO. Will we suppress the freedom of assembly? NO. We
must carry this Revolution forward with all freedoms...When one
newspaper is closed down, no newspaper will feel safe; when one man is
persecuted for his political ideas, no one can feel safe. .. (quoted
Cuban Labor; Miami, Jan. 1967)
When Iglesias wrote this the Cuban and Chinese governments were still on
good terms. To please the Russian rulers, upon whose aid the existence
of the Castro regime depended, relations with China deteriorated
rapidly.
[Notes by Sam Dolgoft]
Strangling the Opposition Press
To explain why the anarchists were forced to break with Castro it is
first necessary to depict the cruel, unbearable harassments which made
it impossible for any of the opposition groupings to function. The
situation is graphically sketched out by a consciencious eyewitness
report in the following extract: (Yves Guilbert; Castro l'Infidele,
Paris, 1961, pp. 174-180) [S.D.]
[Fidel Castro said on television, April 2, 1959] "When one newspaper is
closed down, no newspaper will feel safe; when one man is persecuted
because of his political ideas, no one can feel safe." Officially there
is still freedom of the press in Cuba. There is no law limiting the
right of expression. However, Castro's dictatorship could not tolerate
the existence of a press not entirely devoted to him...
Shortly after the beginning of the [January 1, 1959] Revolution, Castro
requisitioned the newspapers Alerta, Pueblo, Atajo, El Comercio de
Cienfuegos, El Diario de Cuba of Santiago, and also closed down the
journal El Camagueyano, founded in 1902... Although Castro pretends that
the press is not being shackled, there is a great deal of unofficial,
but no less harmful, harassment and sabotage . . .
To create a subservient press, Castro subsidized Revolucion [former
organ of the July 26 Movement], Combate, Diario Libre, La Calle of
Havana, Sierra Maestra, etc. Journals that he could not, for the 119
moment, entirely suppress were neutralized by an ingenious system of
camouflaged censorship. The newspaper workers' union tried to nullify
the impact of articles that did not strictly echo Castro's party line by
printing a coletilla... a sort of disclaimer warning the reader that the
article is "counter-revolutionary." It usually reads, "By virtue of the
freedom of expression which exists in this country, this article has
been printed according to the will of the owners of this publication.
But, by virtue of this same freedom of expression, we, the employees of
this journal, alert the public that this article is contrary to the
truth." Another tactic has been to shut down an obstreperous publication
by cutting off its supply of paper or other necessary materials.
Castro was not at all pleased with coletillas, which had the opposite of
the intended effect, leaving the government open to the accusation of
censorship. Early in 1960, he therefore launched an all-out offensive to
liquidate, once and for all, the independent press.
[for example] . . . the editors of Prensa Libre, savagely attacked by
the Castroites, realized that it too would soon be compelled to cease
publication, and sounded the alarm in a hard-hitting article titled "The
Hour of Unanimity." [Guilbert here quotes from the article] "'Unanimity
reigns supreme in Cuba--totalitarian unanimity... there must be no
discordant voices, no possibility of criticism. The control of every
avenue of expression will facilitate the brain-washing of the public.
Dissident voices will be bull-dozed into silence: the silence of those
who CANNOT speak out or the silence of those who DARE NOT speak out..."
The great illustrated weekly magazine, Bohemia, of Havana, one of the
most widely read Cuban magazines in Latin-America, was edited by Miguel
Angel Quevado. Under Batista, Bohemia constantly fought for freedom and
democracy, and denounced the dictator's outrageous violations of human
rights. Castro considered Quevado one of his close friends. In the
columns of his magazine, Quevado [initially] backed Castro and the
Revolution to the limit. But he could not tolerate the increasing
totalitarianism of Castro's government. [Bohemia, the only non-censored
magazine after 1960, was preparing its "Liberty Edition," with a
painting of Castro on its cover over the inscription "Honor and Glory to
the National Hero!" when] . . . He closed down Bohemia and, on July 18,
1960, left Cuba. Quevado explained why he had to do so in a farewell
message to the readers:
[Guilbert quotes] " . . . a diabolical, skillfully prepared plot to
impose a Communist dictatorship on the American continent has been
organized under the close supervision of Moscow. After listening to the
declaration of Nikita Khrushchev, there can no longer be any doubt that
Cuba is being used as a tool to promote the foreign policies of the
U.S.S.R... Cuba is being pictured as a weak little nation whose very
existence is being safeguarded by the guns of revolutionary Russia, the
120 greatest military power in the world. After Castro's enthusiastic
pledge of solidarity with the U.S.S.R. and the "socialist countries,"
Castro's part in this attentat against freedom has become obvious...
. . . "In making our own revolution, it is not necessary to subject our
people to the oppression and vassalage of Russia. To make a profound
social revolution, it is not necessary to implant a system which
degrades people to the lowly level of state serfdom, to wipe out the
last vestige of freedom and dignity. This is not a genuine revolution...
"These lines should have appeared in the pages of Bohemia, but this is
no longer possible. Barred from publishing this message in our own
magazine, acutely conscious of its moral obligation to the people, to
whom Bohemia has always been honest and faithful, the editor of Bohemia
has made the only decision which these circumstances permit: to proclaim
in these lines the sad truth of what is happening to Cuba, and to go
into exile. . ."
Many other collaborators of Bohemia also left with Quevado. The magazine
was immediately taken over by a gang of Castro Communists--while Castro
hypocritically deplored "the exile of Quevado as one of the hardest
blows to our Revolution."
The Anarchist Press Fights Back
Guilbert is perhaps the only witness who not only mentions the Cuban
anarchists, but appreciates their unflinching dedication to the
principles of freedom and justice.
. . . in the Cuban night some light still flickers. As far as
circumstances over which they have no control permit, the little
anarchist journals still valiantly defend freedom to the utmost. Their
papers, El Libertario and Solidaridad Gastronomica (Organ of the
Anarcho-Syndicalist food and restaurant workers union) still
courageously project their gleam of hope that Castro fears. They, too,
will soon be suppressed...(ibid. p. 178)
In the face of the growing oppression, the libertarian movement while
constrained to modulate its criticism so as not to be confused with the
counter-revolutionary reactionaries or the more liberal bourgeoisie,
nevertheless succeeded in making its position unmistakably clear. For
example, both papers prominently displayed provocative headline slogans:
WE ARE AGAINST ALL IMPERIALISMS! PRIVATE PROPERTY IS THE SYMBOL OF
SLAVERY! SOCIALISM WILL BE FREE OR THERE WILL BE NO SOCIALISM!
THE LAND AND THE INDUSTRIES TO THE SYNDICATES! FOR FREE COLLECTIVES AND
COOPERATIVES!
The anarchist papers were compelled to cease publication about two years
after the revolution. Since Solidaridad Gastronomica appeared monthly
and El Libertario (organ of the Libertarian Federation of Cuba -- ALC)
irregularly, the following excerpts from the more important articles,
though few, should nevertheless give a fair idea of how the anarchists
viewed events during this short period.
The Anarchists and the Revolution
From the Libertarian Association of Cuba to the International Anarchist
Movement Havana, June 1959
Dear Comrades:
What follows are our first tentative impressions of the situation in
Cuba on the morrow of the Revolution.
With the triumph of the Revolution, many of our comrades released from
prison have been joined by ALL our exiled comrades, who have returned to
participate in the revolutionary reconstruction of the new Cuba.
It is still too early to predict what orientation the Revolution may
take in our country. But there can be no doubt--in view of the adequate
measures taken--that the murderous Batista dictatorship will never again
be restored to inflict itself upon our people.
The Revolution is preeminently a true people's revolution. The thousands
of armed men fighting in the mountains, through their audacity and
courage, demolished the dictatorial fortress. Our armed militants
enjoyed the full moral and material backing of the masses. The
widespread clandestine propaganda and militant actions and uprisings of
popular movements all over Cuba, and the fighting solidarity of all
groups, undermined the morale and will to fight of Batista's army and
his civilian allies.
We feel that a new epoch in the life of Cuba has been opened. But we
have no illusions about the character of the institutional changes now
taking place. For the time being--how long nobody knows--we still
possess civil rights, as well as the possibility of reorganizing our
forces and making our ideas and ideals known to the people.
In a widespread revolutionary movement such as this, all sectors are
represented; different groupings, often with conflicting aims, strive to
exert maximum influence. And it is not always those helping libertarian
conceptions that exert the greatest influence.
The doctrine of state centralization has, in Cuba as in so many other
countries, had the most harmful effects. Many who sincerely desire a 122
regeneration of society are unfortunately obsessed with the notion that
a successful revolution is possible only under a rigid and authoritarian
regime. Among these are the extreme nationalists and fanatical patriots
-- a very dangerous tendency which could facilitate degeneration of the
revolution into a sort of Nazism and Fascism, particularly here in
Latin-America.
The formidable Catholic influence is equally dangerous for the
Revolution. The duplicity of the top of the Church hierarchy has been
amply demonstrated in recent years. In return for supporting Batista,
the Church was subsidized with donations of hundreds of thousands, even
millions of pesetas... Nevertheless, many Catholics fought heroically
against Batista, and the lower "rank and file" priests and other clergy
fought bravely on all fronts to topple the Batista regime. When normal
life has been restored, the Church will surely take advantage of this
fact to curry favor with the new regime.
The Communist Party of Cuba is just as dangerous for the Revolution as
are the extreme nationalists and the upper echelons of the Church.
Fortunately, their influence is limited because they are discredited by
their association with Batista and their servility to the Russian
totalitarian dictatorship. Hiding behind the banner of liberalism,
patriotism, mutual tolerance and the coexistence of all anti-Batista
forces, they have been able to infiltrate a number of organizations and
some sectors of the labor movement. Though small in number, the
Communists are skillful connivers, well-organized and totally
unscrupulous; their counterrevolutionary potential must not be
underestimated.
The role the labor movement is to play in revolutionary reconstruction
is a particularly crucial problem. From the fall of the Machado
dictatorship in 1933 to the present, the unions have been the tools of,
and one of the main pillars supporting, the government. The fact that
the new Revolutionary government is moving to consolidate the labor
movement into a single rigidly dominated centralized organization has
fortunately--at least for the time being--not weakened the determination
of the workers to fight for the autonomy and integrity of their own
organizations against dictatorship. The Communists, naturally, are
striving to reconquer their controlling position in the labor movement,
which they enjoyed for so many years under Batista and the others. But
the circumstances are not the same; they are not favorable, and we hope
that, in spite of their efforts, the Communists will not succeed in
dominating the labor movement.
Despite these and other obstacles, we will continue to struggle for the
maximum realization of our libertarian alternatives--in accordance with
the realities of the situation and with unflagging dedication--and
against Statism and the deformation of the Cuban Revolution. 123
Manifesto to the Workers and the People in General
As early as January 18, 1959, only a few weeks after the Revolution, the
Libertarian Association of Cuba already detected the first signs of the
authoritarian character of the new regime and sounded the alarm in its
Manifesto to the Workers and the People in General. The Manifesto reads
in part: ...
In this historic moment of the nation and the working class, the ALC is
obliged to call attention to certain fundamental problems...
The Revolution that recently freed the people of Cuba from the bloody
tyranny of Batista is a people's revolution for liberty and justice,
made by the people. The labor movement of our country was captured by
the tyrants, who used it to promote their own sinister purposes. The
voices of the rebels and the non-conformists were stilled by the prison
officer, the persecutor and the assassin. Unions which dared question
the authorities were immediately taken over by the Secretary-General of
the [collaborationist] Confederation of Cuban Workers (C.T.C.) and/or
the Ministry of Labor. Their freely elected representatives were ousted
[or even arrested] and replaced by hand-picked faithful servants of the
dictatorship, who were imposed upon the membership without the least
semblance of democratic procedure. The workers themselves must see to it
that such atrocities are never again revived in Cuba ...
We are alarmed that the allegedly "temporary" administrations of the
unions and their officials are being installed without consultation or
agreement of the membership or of the various organizations that made
the Revolution ...
In the midst of the revolutionary turmoil, we do not expect everything,
including the labor organizations, to function normally in so short a
time. But it is our duty, and the duty of all the workers, by militant
action, to see to it that the democratic procedures, the freedoms, and
the rights gained by us with the triumph of the Revolution are respected
...
We must immediately hold free elections in the unions, where the workers
will freely choose their representatives ... It is absolutely necessary
that general membership meetings be called immediately to freely discuss
and deal with the great and urgent problems ...
It is absolutely necessary that the workers themselves elect, dismiss or
reinstate their officials. To permit any other procedure would be to
allow the very same dictatorial practices which we fought against under
Batista ...
We, the people who fought a bitter war against the old dictatorship,
must now make sure that the Revolution will built a new social order
that will guarantee liberty and justice for all, without exception...
We workers, who felt on our own bodies the blows inflicted by the old
tyranny, must now, again, defend our fundamental rights.
RESOLVE NEVER AGAIN TO INSTITUTE A REGIME OF SUBMISSION AND SLAVERY!
From Solidaridad Gastronomica
THE WORKERS MUST BE ALERT NOT TO FALL INTO THE SAME ERRORS TWICE!
The heroic fighters who, with so much effort and sacrifice, defeated the
Batista tyranny, merit the eternal gratitude of the Cuban people. Never
again must the Cuban people be subjected to horrors such as the Batista
tyranny.
We are tremendously disturbed to see swarms of adventurers and other
phonies taking advantage of the victorious Revolution, and, by
strong-arm methods, taking over control of the unions... Far from
signifying a real revolutionary change, these methods only repeat the
institutionalized violence of the Batista dictatorship... The Communists
wait in the wings, all too anxious to repeat their betrayals of the
workers--as when they collaborated with Batista to subjugate them.
Now, with the triumph of the Revolution, is precisely the time for the
workers to be doubly alert and watchful not to repeat the same errors,
not to allow the democratic assemblies to be destroyed by tolerating
decrees from above, edicts converting the unions into agencies of the
all-embracing state. The destructive power of the state is the sword of
Damocles hanging over the heads of the workers.
We must avoid centralization. We must impede the surge of new
hierarchies which are no better than the old ones. We must have free and
open assemblies where the will of the majority of the workers can
determine the future of our class and its organizations. (Jan. 15, 1959)
The Labor Racketeers and the Gangsters Return--Beware!
Barely two months after the Revolution overthrew the dictator Batista
and his faithful lieutenant, Eusebio Mujal [fascist thug and
Secretary-General of the Batista "labor front," the C.T.C.], the new
dictators are already conniving to seize control of the unions, and,
like their predecessors, rule the workers by decrees from above.
These tyrants are packing the union meetings with their
stooges--strangers who are not even members--brought in to vote for 125
the labor racketeers. The workers are being intimidated by the presence
of armed militiamen. These and other practices constitute flagrant
violations of the elementary rights of the workers.
The Revolution must guarantee and defend the right of the workers to
freely conduct their affairs without intimidation or interference. The
fate of the Revolution is in our hands; the destiny of our class is in
our own hands! (March 15, 1959)
Warning! Juan Marinello Is Moscow's Stooge and Batista's Friend!
It is reported in the press that "...yesterday afternoon, in a simple
ceremony, Dr. Juan Marinello was appointed to the faculty of the
Department of Languages and Literature in the Escuela Normal de la
Habana [Havana School of Education], the same position from which this
well-known writer and political leader had been ousted by the Batista
Ministry of Education..."
This announcement deliberately gives the one hundred per cent FALSE
impression that Marinello consistently fought the Batista dictatorship.
The phony comrades [of the Communist Party] who now enjoy such great
influence in the new revolutionary government were the staunchest and
most faithful friends and supporters of the Batista dictatorship and
were rewarded for their services by being appointed to very good posts
in Batista's corrupt government. To deny this incontestable fact is
absurd.
Is there a single Cuban who does not yet know that Juan Marinello head
of the Communist Party of Cuba (P.S.P.) was instructed to collaborate
with Batista by his masters the Russian Communist Party officials?
From El Libertario
The following article was published in El Libertario, June 20, 1959
shortly after the promulgation of the Agrarian Reform Law. It accurately
predicted the disastrous consequences of massive seizures of land by the
state, which led to the establishment of state farms (granjas) and the
total domination and subjugation of the agricultural workers and
peasants. [S.D.]
Plows Tractors and the Guajiro
Under the watchwords "Land and Liberty" and "The Land to Those Who Work
It," the anarchists pioneered the organization of agricultural workers.
Such men as Niceto Perez, Sabino Pupo, Casanas and Montero were in the
struggle for the emancipation of the agricultural workers and peasants.
In contrast to the Marxist bias for the urban industrial workers [based
on the fatalistic theory that the realization socialism will depend
exclusively on the technical-scientific development of industry]], our
conviction that the will of man to create his own social structures is
paramount, leads us to attach special importance to the struggles of the
rural masses.
The fact that the two greatest upheavals of our century have taken place
in predominantly agrarian countries, leads us to place our greatest hope
for social change in the vast peasant masses. And it is precisely
because it is too often forgotten that the rural masses have always been
the most downtrodden victims that we passionately encourage and sustain
all measures which promote their rights.
All these considerations lead US to regard them not as passive
automatons and lifeless pawns but on the contrary as dynamic human
beings who are capable of great revolutionary achievements when inspired
by a just and noble cause.
We have been dedicated champions of agrarian reform which we have been
demanding for many years. Nevertheless we view with increasing alarm the
Agrarian Reform Law which gives priority to the purely mechanical as
opposed to the human factors. We view with alarm the government's
mistrust of the peasants the enactment of measures which inevitably lead
to the creation of a state superstructure ruinous to the creative
self-activity spontaneity and initiative of the agricultural workers and
a certain tendency to dismiss the small peasant proprietor as a
conservative-minded "kulak".
We must realize that for every machine and every technical blueprint to
work there must be human beings ready and willing to make the necesssary
try sacrifices for the triumph of our cause. If we lose sight of this
fact our cause is lost.
We must realize that the worst possible danger to the Revolution is the
bureaucratization induced by the deification of technology and the
consequent downgrading of the peasants.
Without underestimating the importance of huge cooperative farms to meet
the need for agricultural products it must be stressed that the small
peasant proprietors can also contribute greatly to agricultural
production by organizing themselves into collectives for the intensive
cultivation of the land in common...
(The reader will note how closelly El Libertario anticipated the
constructive recornmcndations of the agricultural scientist Rene
Dumont--see introduction.)
Concentration Camps
Generally speaking, those who now demand that political prisoners be
tortured and locked in concentration camps became "revolutionaries" only
AFTER the Revolution. Many ot these ''Johnny-come-latelies" were a short
time ago humble lackeys of the Batista dictatorship. These vindictive
sadists are far more severe than are the humane, magnanimous
revolutionary veterans who fought on the Sierra Maestra and Escambray
fronts.
The fact that the Revolution must defend itself against the most vicous
and intractable counter-revolutionaries does not mean that it should
become a blind, vindictive nemesis, totally impervious to human
kindness.
The Revolution must not be sullied, corrupted and ultimately undermined
by toleration of the concentration camps and the forced labor
characteristic of the odious regimes of Hitler and Stalin! (June 20,
1959)
Children in Uniform
In the streets of Havana, in towns and villages, all over Cuba
teenagers, and even children, are on parade: goose-stepping like
Prussian soldiers, strutting, puffed up with their own conceit that they
are training to "defend the country." And their commanders boast about
how "revolutionary" they are. How vain their pretensions that they are
really defending the Revolution! How far removed they are from the road
to freedom!
These juvenile patrols remind us of Mussolini's Fasci Combatini
Combattenti, and the parades of Franco's Blue Shirts. In no way do these
little boys resemble the valiant fighters of the mountains, or the brave
underground fighters of the French Maquis. For a future of oppression
and servitude they are needed: but never to forge a tomorrow of
fraternity in a free and happy community. They represent the
militarization of the future, the poisonous herb of the barracks--that
which the Revolution must abolish forever.
It is one thing to train the masses in the use of arms for self-defense.
But it is a grievous error to militarize and corrupt the minds of youth,
to inhibit the unfolding of their personalities and to turn them into a
herd of mindless animals.
Are professional armies really better equipped to meet the hazards of
war and invasion? History demonstrates that a people determined to
defend its rights has been able to defeat regular armies. We who boast
of "military glory," remember the Germany of the Kaiser and
Hitler--their pompous, corseted, goose-stepping generals committing
their most odious crimes! Remember the France of Laval and Petain
betrayed by the militarists! REMEMBER! (Nov. 25, 1959)
Is There Real Freedom Of The Press in Cuba?
More than two weeks ago the C.N.T. exile organization in Cuba received
an urgent appeal from the C.N.T. underground in Spain, asking for
internationa solidarity on behalf of 99 imprisoned anarcho-syndicalist
militants now facing very heavy sentences for opposing Franco-fascism.
[The C.N.T.--Confederación Nacional del Frabajo Trabajo, National
Confederation of Labor--was the anarcho-syndicalist confederation which
fought in the Spanish Revolution and Civil War, 1936-39.] C.N.T.
comrades here in Cuba personally delivered topics of the appeal to the
daily newspapers of Havana, as well as the radio stations, requesting
publication and announcement. But not a single word has thus far been
published or broadcast. Is this freedom of the press? Isn't the
nonsectarian revolutionary press maintained by the public obliged to
print something of general interest, to serve all the people without
discrimination? Or arc the libertarians not liked by those who control
the press?
Those who rightly condemn capitalist monopoliers of the press for their
partisan, reactionary policies, must not sink to their level. They must
not impose their own brand of "revolutionary" monopoly and go so far as
to renounce all moral obligation and refuse to help those who are
fighting fascist barbarism, only because they do not like their
revolutionary ideas...
It would indeed be criminal to deny freedom of the press to a movement
like ours, whose struggles for the emancipation of the oppressed have
been unequaled in the history of the Cuban Revolutionary movement. But
if this sabotage and boycott continues, we will have to ask, IS THERE
REAL FREEDOM OF THE PRESS IN CUBA? ( July 197 1960)
Declaration published in the Bulletin of the MECE; Miami, July-Aug.
1962.
. . .All militant Cuban libertarians fought for the downfall of Batista
and enthusiastically hailed and assisted the Revolution. We hoped that
the Revolution would bring more liberty and social justice to the men,
women and children of Cuba. We tried to help the people's voluntary
organizations (cooperatives, cultural groups, peasant and student
groups, etc.) assume a decisive part in the construction of the new
l.ibertarian Cuba. Little by little, we saw our hopes dissipated as the
new rulers became more and more arrogant, ruthless and dictatorial.
While we saw the outrages and bestialities committed daily by the
members of the revolutionary oligarchy, we remained silent because we
did not want the people to confuse our revolutionary criticism with the
criticism of reactionary elements? who attacked the regime only to
safeguard their economic and political priveleges. We criticized the
Castro-Communist dictatorship, not because it was TOO REVOLUTIONARY, but
because it was NOT REVOLUTIONARY ENOUGH.
Between the spring and the summer of 1960, we exposed ourselves to the
persecution of the regime by attempting to initiate a widespread
discussion which would have given us the opportunity to expose before
the Cuban people the ideological bankruptcy of rhe new dictatorsllip and
present our constructive solutions to the problems of the Cuban
Revolution.
The rulers made a free and open discussion of issues and principles
impossible. We were accused by Blas Roca [leader of the Communist Party,
ex-friend of Batista] of hiding behind the mask of extreme
revolutionism, the better to serve the interests of the American State
Department. 7 (In August, 1960), he said, "Today in Cuba we have
anarcho-syndicalists who publish Declarations of Principles, that are of
wonderful assistance to counter-revolution...they help counterrevolution
from extremist positions with phraseology and arguments that look
leftist."] When we wrote a fifty-page pamphlet replying to these
slanders and outlining our viewpoint, the State Publishing House refused
to publish it, and private publishers were strictly warned not to do so.
We, and other non-conformist groups, were not allowed to print anything.
Our paper Solidaridad Gastronomic was so hounded by the authorities that
it ceased publication March 20, 1961. The best equipped print shops
confiscated from the bourgeois press were opened to the Communists. A
veritable flood of Marxist books and pamphlets were used to brain-wash
the workers and peasants of Cuba.
This, together with appointing Communists to key posts in the
government, the unions, the schools, peasant and cultural organizations,
etc., convinced us that the Revolution was lost. ~ his was the bitter
end of our hopes, and from that time on our opposition to the
increasingly brutal totalitarian regime began.
[The Bulletin also published the following notice dispatched from Cuba:]
Havana, August 16, 1962
Through this little note, we are letting you know that, for reasons too
long and too complicated to explain at this time, the Executive
Committee of the Libertarian Association of Cuba has decided to suspend
publication [of its journal and other activity].
Fraternally yours,
THE SECRETARIAT
Behind these few lines of lie shattered hopes, the despair and the
tragedy of the aborted Cuban Revolution.
Anarchists in Castro's Prisons
This is a partial list of anarchists imprisoned because they refused to
serve the Castro totalitarian regime, just as they fought its
predecessor the Batista tyrannt, remaining always faithful to their
ideals.. (Froom Boletin Informacion Libertaria--Movimiento Libertaria
Libertario de Cuba En Exillioo: Miami, July-August 1962) [S.D.]
Pláacido Mendez: Bus driver, delegate for routes 16, 17, and 18. For
many years, fought against the Batista tyranny and at various times
imprisoned and brutally tortured. In 193X he was forced to go into
exile, returning secretly to Cuba to fight in the Cuban underground
movement against Batista in the Sierra Escambray. With the downfall of
Batista, he resumed his union activities refusing to accept the
totalitarian decrees of the so-called revolutionary government. Comrade
Mendez is serving his sentence in the National Prison on the Island of
Pines, built by the bloody dictator Machado. Mendez has been condemned
by ( Castro's Revolutionary Tribunal to twelve years at hard labor. His
family is in desperate economic difficulties.
Antonio Degas: Militant member of the glorious National Confederation of
Labor of Spain (CNT): living in Cuba since the termination of the
Spanish Civil War, working in the motion picture industry. This comrade
conspired against the Batista tyranny and with the triumph of the
Revolution, unconditionally placed himself at the service of the new
Castro regime. Because of his activities against the communist usurpers
of the Revolution, he was imprisoned by the lackeys of Castro without
trial. Antonio Degas is imprisoned in the dungeons of Cabana Fortress
and subjected to inhuman treatment. His wife and children, under
conditions of at-owing poverty, must also find ways of helping him in
prison where he is under medical treatment.
Alberto Miguel Linsuain: Comrade Linsuain is the son of a well-known
Spanish Revolutionist, who died in Alicante towards the end of the
Spanish Civil War. Linsuain was extremely active against the Batista
dictatorship and joined the rebel forces in the Sierra Cristal, under
the command of Castro s brother, Raúl Castro. For his bravery in battle
he was promoted to Lieutenant in the Rebel Army. With the end of the
armed struggle, he left the army and dedicated himself to the union
movement of his industry. He was elected by his fellow workers as
General Secretary of the Federation of Food, Hotel and Restaurant
Workers of the Province of Oriente. When the communists subtly began to
infiltrate and take over the organized labor movement, Comrade Linsuain
fought the communist connivers. This aroused the hatred of the communist
leaders in general and Rau'l Castro, in particular he had violent
quarrels with Raúl Castro even when he had first met him in the Sierra
Cristal while fighting against Batista. Comrade Linsuain has been in
jail for over a year without trial. His family has not heard from him
for months and fears for his life. (A later Bulletin reported that
Linsuain was either murdered or died in jail.)
SondalioTorres: Young sympathizer of libertarian ideas, who, inspired by
our comrades, fought bravely in his native Cuba, against Batista. With
the triumph of the Revolution, Torres threw himself, body and soul, into
the consolidation and constructive work of the Revolution, moving to
Havana on government construction projects. On the job, he openly voiced
his fears that the Castro government was gradually, but surely, becoming
a ferocious dictatorship. For this, the stool-pigeon members of the
local Committee for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR) accused him of
counter-revolutionary activities. Sondalio was sentenced to ten years
imprisonment. To force him to falsely accuse other fellow-workers of
counter-revolutionary acts, Sondalio was subjected to barbarous torture.
Four times he was dragged out to face the firing squad and four times he
was retrieved just as he was about to be shot. Torres is serving his
sentence in the Provincial prison of Pinar del Kito.
José Acena: Veteran libertarian militant; employed in the La Polar
brewery; Professor (at one time) at the Instituto de la Vibora. For
thirty years Acena carried on an uninterrupted struggle against all
dictatorships, including the first as well as the second periods of
Batista s tyrannical regimes. For his bravery in the underground
revolutionary struggles of the 26th of July Movement, he was made
treasurer of the Province of Havana. With the triumph of the Revolution,
Acena collaborated fully with the new Castro regime, particularly in the
labor and political movements. Acena soon realized that a totalitarian
Marxist-Leninist system was being established in Cuba and quarreled
violently with the new rulers, denouncing Castro personally and telling
him plainly why he hated his regime. From that time on, he was hounded
and persecuted by Castro s henchmen and imprisoned various times.
Finally, after a year without trial, he was accused of
counter-revolutionary acts and sentenced to twenty years imprisonment.
This, in spite of the fact that he still bears on his body the scars of
wounds inflicted on him by Batista s jailers. He is desperately ill and
in need of surgery.
Alberto Garcia: Comrade Alberto Garcia, like so many other militants of
our movement, fought against Batista in the ranks of Castro's 26th of
July Movement. Because of his well-earned prestige earned in the course
of hard underground struggles, Garcia, after the fall of Batista, was
elected by the workers of his industry to be Secretary of the Federation
of Medical Workers. For his uncompromising opposition to the
super-authoritarian conduct of the communists, he was arrested and
sentenced to thirty years at hard labor, flasely accused of
'counter-revolutionary' activitiees. Comrade Garcia is one of the most
valiant young militants in the Cuban Liberation Movement.
(1960-1974)
These documents spanning the course of the Cuban Revolution demonstrate
the consistent approach of the Cuban anarchists toward the problems of
the Cuban Revolution as summarized in the Statement of Principles (first
document) and in the concluding statement, Cuba: Revolution and
Counter-Revolution.All the selected documents emphasize constructive
proposals and practical libertarian alternatives to dictatorship
(strikingly similar to the recommendations of the noted agronomist and
economist Rene Dumont and other qualified critics. (see introduction).
For the anarchists (and with them a growing number of concerned people)
socialist production socialism itself- cannot as the Statement of
Principles insistsbe viewed as a simple technical processthe decisive
factor is the human factorthe sentiments, interests, and the aspirations
of men, women, and children, considered not as mere ciphers, but as
INDIVIDUAL HUMAN BEINGS. [S.D.]
Cuba (Havana, 1960)
WE the Libertarian Syndicalist Group, consider that in this period of
revolutionary reconstruction by the people of Cuba, it is our
inescapable duty to affirm our position in relation to the pressing
problems of the Cuban Revolution. We oppose not only specific acts or
policies of the State, but the very existence of the State and its right
to supreme and uncontested supremacy over every aspect of social life.
We must therefore resist any policy that tends to increase the growing
power of the State, the extension of its functions and its totalitarian
tendencies.
WE, Cuban Libertarian militants, as well as our comrades in other
Countries, believe that it is impossible to make a Social Revolution
without eliminating the State. The social functions usurped by the State
must be returned to and exercised by the grass-roots organizations of
the people themselves such as labor unions, free municipalities,
agricultural and industrial cooperatives, and collectives and voluntary
federations of all kinds; all of them must be free to function without
authoritarian interference.
Politically naïve worshippers of the State believe that human society
was created by the State. In reality, the State owes its origin to the
rise of privileged classes and the consequent degeneration of society.
In spite of all its admirers both right and left may say, the State is
not only the parasitic excrescence of class society, but is also itself
a generator of political and economic privilege and the creator of new
privileged classes. The revolutionary transformation of bourgeois into
socialist society also demands the abolition of the State.
WE, Revolutionary Syndicalists maintain that the labor movement is the
truest expression of the interests and the aspirations of the working
class. It is therefore the historic task of the unions to effect the
economic revolution by substituting the government over men by the
administration of things.The labor unions and the federations of
industry, properly and rationally restructured, contain within
themselves the human and technical elements needed for the most complete
collective development and self-management of industry.
As against the revolutionary and reactionary politicians who strive only
to capture power, the decisive role of the unions in this period of
revolutionary organization is to become the living organisms for the
direction and coordination of the economy. The subordination of the
unions to the political power of the State, especially in this
revolutionary period, constitutes a betrayal of the working class; a
vile maneuver to assure labors defeat, in this historic moment when it
should be fulfilling its most vital socialist task; the administration
of production and distribution in the interests of the whole of
society...
WE, the men and women or the Libertarian Syn,dicalist Group, now, mare
than ever before, stand by our revolutionary watchword: The Land to
Those Who Work It. We believe that the classic cry of the peasants of
all countries, LAND AND LIBERTY, is the truest expression of the
immediate aspirations of the Cuban guajiros (peasants); their own land
to till and the freedom to organize themselves and to administer
agricultural production.
This may be done through family cultivation in some cases, or by
organizing producers cooperatives in other cases; bur ABOVE ALL
[wherever possible] through the organization of COLLECTIVE FARMS. The
form of cultivation must always be decided by the peasants themselves,
never imposed by the State. While the representatives of the State may,
in some cases be technically capable men, they are in most cases,
ignorant of and insensitive to the true sentiments, interests and
aspirations of those who till the soil.
Through long experience and participation in the revolutionary struggles
of the peasantry, we are convinced that the planning of agricultural
production, cannot be viewed solely al a mere technical process.
Although it is true that the condition of the land ald machinery of
cultivation are very important, the decisive factor is for us, the human
factor: the peasants themselves. We therefore declare that we favor the
organization of collective and cooperative work on a voluntary basis
extending to the peasant every necessary technical and cultural tools-
no doubt the best means- of convincing him of collective cultivation as
distinct from and superior to individual or family cultivation.
To act otherwise, to use coercion and force, would be to lay the basis
for the complete failure of the agrarian revolution and consequently,
THE REVOLUION ITSELF.
WE, militants of Revolutionary Syndicalism, maintain that culture must
not be the exclusive property of anyone in particular, but of the whole
of humanity. Culture is a right - not a privilege.
All persons regardless of class, race, religion or sex, must have
compete access to the fountains of knowledge without limitations or
restrictions of any kind. Education should not be monopolized by the
State or any privileged group.
Education at all levels must be free to all (primary and secondary
schools, technical and scientific schools and the universities). The
moral and political education of their children should be considered the
inalienable right of the parents, with no ecclesiastical, political or
Statist interference. In the final analysis, the family is the basic
unit of society and its supreme responsibility is the moral and physical
protection of its youngest members. This responsibility implies rights
that must not be taken away; that of the formation of character, and
ideological orientation of new generations within the family, the home
itself.
WE are opposed to all wars. The instruments of death produced in such
frightening quantities by the great powers must now be converted into
instruments for the abolition of hunger and the needs of impoverished
peoples; to bring happiness and well-being to all mankind.
As revolutionary workers we are fervent partisans of fraternal
understanding between all peoples irrespective of all national
boundaries, or linguistic racial, political and religious barriers...
WE are unalterably opposed to the military training of the young, the
creation of professional armies. For us, nationalism and militarism are
synonymous with fascism. Less arms and more plows! Less soldiers and
more teachers! Less cannons and more bread for all!
We, Libertarian Syndicalists are against all forms of imperialism and
colonialism; against the economic domination of peoples, so prevalent in
the Americas; against military pressure to impose upon peoples political
and economic systems foreign to their national cultures, customs and
social systems as is the case in parts of Europe, Asia and Africa.
We believe that among the nations of the world, the small are as worthy
as the big. Just as we remain enemies of national states because each of
them holds its own people in subjection; so also are we opposed to the
super-states that utilize their political, economic and military power
to impose their rapacious systems of exploitation on weaker countries.
As against all forms of imperialism, we declare for revolutionary
internationalism; for the creation of great confederation of free
peoples for their mutual interests; for solidarity and mutual aid. We
believe in an active militant pacifism that demands an end to the arms
race and rejection of nuclear and all other armaments.
WE are inherently opposed to all centralist tendencies; political,
social, and economic. We believe that the organization of society should
proceed from the simple to the complex; from the bottom upwards. It
should begin in the basic organisms: the municipalities, the labor
unions, the peasants organizations, etc. coordinated into great national
and international organizations based on mutual pacts between equals.
These should be set up freely for common purposes without injury to any
of the contracting parties, each of whom must always retain the right to
withdraw from the agreement should it at any time be felt that such
action would best serve its interests.
It is our understanding that these social organizations, the great
national and international confederations of unions, peasants
associations, cultural groups and municipalities, will carry the
representation of all without possessing any greater powers that those
granted them by the component federated units at the base.
The liberty of peoples can only find adequate expression through a
federalist type of organization, which will set the necessary limits to
the freedom of each while guaranteeing the freedom of all. Experience
demonstrates that political and economic centralization leads to the
creation of monstrous totalitarian states; to aggression and war between
nations; to the exploitation and misery of the great masses of the
people.
WE, Libertarian Syndicalists are firm supporters of individual rights.
There can be no freedom for the community as a whole if any of its
members are deprived of their freedom. There can be no freedom for the
collectivity where the individual is the victim of oppression. All human
rights must be guaranteed. These include freedom of expression, the
right to work, to lead a decent life. Without these guarantees there can
be no civilized basis for human beings to live together in society. We
believe in liberty and justice for all persons, even for those holding
reactionary views.
The Libertarian Syndicalist Group reiterates its will to support the
struggle for complete liberation of our people. Affirming that the
Revolution is not the exclusive property of any individual or grouping,
but belongs to all the people.
Just as we have always done, we will continue to support all
revolutionary measures that tend to remedy the old social ills. At the
same time we shall, as always, continue our struggle against
authoritarian tendencies within the Revolution itself.
We have fought against the barbarism and corruption of the past. We now
oppose all deviations that attempt to undermine our Revolution by
forcing it into authoritarian channelswhich are destructive of human
dignity. We oppose all the reactionary groups that battle desperately to
conquer their abolished privileges and we also oppose the new
pseudo-revolutionary oppressive, exploiting groups that in Cuba can be
already discerned on the revolutionary horizon.
We are for justice, socialism and freedom; for the well-being of all men
regardless of origin, religion or race. Workers! Peasants! Students! Men
and Women of Cuba! To these revolutionary concepts we will remain
faithful to the end. For these principles we are willing to stake our
personal freedom and if necessary our lives.
Libertarian Syndicalist Groups
La Habana, 1960
Statement of Cuban Libertarian Movement Addressed to its Sister
Organizations of All Countries, August, 1961
... The Cuban Libertarian Movement wishes to point out that whenever the
Cuban people suffered the consequences of dictatorship, our movement
joined hands with those who sincerely struggled against such
dictatorships. In the various times that this has happened, it has cost
our movement precious lives.
Long before the present revolutionary organizations did so, the Cuban
Libertarian Movement fought by all means at its disposal, against all
imperialism, especially against North American imperialism, since this
was the one that most directly affected our personal liberties and out
economic development. Thus, our movement cannot be accused at any time
or for any reason of being indifferent to the sufferings of our people
or tolerant towards any imperialism, either democratic or totalitarian.
The Cuban Libertarian Movement feels that in each case it has taken the
position that it should have taken as a revolutionary organization...
... Cuba is controlled by a super-statist regime based upon the most
rigid Marxist school. Its planning, structure and development follow the
historic pattern of similar countries, and if there is some difference
between them, it is only a difference of degree.
In consequence, the Libertarian Movement of Cuba does not see in the
Cuban Revolution any of the principles that can identify it with the
fundamental concepts of our ideology. On the contrary, it would appear
that just as in the other Marxist-Socialist countries all libertarian
thought will be suppressed, man will completely lose his personality,
his dignity and his rights in order to be a mere cog in the machinery of
the State a process already underway. We know that Capitalist, clerical
and imperialist interests are allying themselves against the Cuban
Revolution. But it is also true that great numbers of workers, peasants,
intellectuals and professional people maintain a virile opposition to
the totalitarian regime.
The Cuban Libertarian Movement has at no time made common cause with the
representatives of reaction and will not do so in the future. Nor will
we accept the selfish intervention of any imperialist country in the
Cuban problem. But the peoples of the Latin American continent have
every right to intervene. They have a moral obligation to defend the
minimum rights that have been won at so great a cost, when these rights
are usurped anywhere in Latin America [or anywhere else]. In view of all
we have said, the Cuban Libertarian Movement will maintain its
ideological postulates under all circumstances and will struggle to the
end for the freedom of the Cuban people and for the Social Revolution
The National Executive
(Names have been omitted or changed to prevent official reprisals.)
Message of the Libertarian Movement of Cuba in Exile
To The Fifth Congress of the Libertarian Federation of Argentina
(Buenos Aires, December, 1961)
The many letters we have received from individuals and from groups
indicate that the international libertarian movement is not only deeply
disturbed about the present situation in Cuba, but equally concerned
about our general attitude with respect to Cubas problems and what the
new situation would be, should the Castro dictatorship collapse or be
overthrown.
We will support the revolutionary movement of the masses to solve the
great problems of the country and abolish all special privileges and
injustices. We will resolutely oppose all reactionary elements who today
fight Castro-Communism, only because they yearn to recapture their
political power and bring back the old order with all its greed and
corruption. We fight against the Castro dictatorship because it
signifies the strangulation of the Revolution, submitting our people to
the exploitation and oppression of the new exploiting class, just as
evil as its predecessor. We fight the new tyranny that placed our
country at the service of Soviet-Chinese imperialism.
We must do our utmost to help the Cuban people recapture their freedom
of action, by achieving the revolutionary transformation of their
country in accordance with their own special interests, and in
solidarity with their natural allies, the people of Latin America, who
are fighting against their own feudal and capitalist regimes. We want a
new Cuba, that will reorganize its social life with the most ample
economic justice and most complete political freedom; because we are,
above all, socialists and libertarians.
The concern of the international libertarian movement with our struggle
against Castro-communism should in no way benefit nor have any
connection with the sinister forces of reaction is also our concern.
With all the solemnity that the critical situation warrants, with all
the emphasis at our command, we, the Cuban libertarians, assure our
comrades of the Libertarian Federation of Argentina that we will never
make political dials with anti-Castroites to barter away our
independence as a movement in its fight for freedom; nor will we
subordinate the freedom of the Cuban people to the interests of Russian
or American imperialism or any other foreign power.
We pledge our solidarity with all sincere underground revolutionaries
struggling against the Castro tyranny. We are prepared to fight with all
lovers of freedom for common aims without sacrificing our libertarian
principles nor our identity as a distinct revolutionary organization.
In order to counter-balance the enormous political-economic power of the
reaction which fights Castroism only because it aims to replace the
Cuban dictatorship with the kind of totalitarian regime which after a
quarter of a century is still oppressing the Spanish people, it will be
necessary to forge an equally formidable alliance.
We do not believe that we alone, with our weak forces, can possibly
overthrow Castros revolutionary government, formidablyreinforced by the
technical, economic, political, and military might of the socialist
countries. Furthermore, the Castro government has built up so monstrous
an apparatus that it cannot be dislodged by the Cuban people alone. We
consider that the best (though by no means the only) allies of the Cuban
people in their struggle for justice and freedom, are the other Latin
American peoples who are also fighting to emancipate themselves under
different circumstances- but with the same spirit and the same ideals.To
this revolutionary task we dedicate our best efforts and we urge the
libertarian movement in other lands to take the initiative in uniting
all libertarian forces on the basis of a general program acceptable to
all.
BOLETÍN de Información Libertaria - General Delegation Libertarian
Movement of Cuba - in Exile (Caracas Venezuela, July 1962)
The necessities of the war against the totalitarian regime in Cuba which
has organized a political police apparatus along Soviet lines, impedes
the creation of large concentrations operating openly. It makes
necessary the creation of small, loosely connected, secret resistance
groups carrying on a guerilla war of attrition, to wear down, exhaust
and finally force the collapse of the dictatorshipThe people will make
the hangmen of the revolution pay for the atrocities they have committed
and give them a dose of their own medicine.
We are convinced that the line of total revolutionary action is the only
viable way for the Cuban people to re-conquer their lost freedom and
liquidate the Castro-communist dictatorship. We don not believe that the
Cuban tragedy can be resolved by military adventures, like the invasion
of April 1961. We believe that other Cuban people must learn from the
methods of struggle of the Irish Republicans, the Jewish secret army of
Israel, the Cyprus patriots and the Algerian resistance movements. We
must adapt these methods to Cuban conditions.
For us, the principal function of the exile is to help stimulate the
revolutionary action of the organizations inside Cuba, which represent
the fighting will of the people. Whoever wastes time, trying to create
paper organizations whose aim is to capture power, if and when the
Castro-communist dictators fall is guilty of deceit and is delaying the
liberation of the Cuban people.
As lifelong militant revolutionaries, we fight always for the freedom of
the Cuban people to make their own revolution without becoming victims
of foreign and domestic tyrants. Our main task is to agree on a plan of
united action which will bring about the destruction of the
Castro-communist dictatorship. While we are prepared to fight with all
sincere lovers of freedom for common objectives, we will remain an
independent organization and will not collaborate with the power hungry
politicians who are already plotting to take over and are already
creating Governments in Exile or Governments in the underground.
Agrarian Labo And The Land
(Abelardo Iglesias: Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Cuba.
Boletín de Información Libertaria - Organ of the Libertrarian Movement
of Cuba - in Exile; Miami, June 1966)
The root cause for political and social unrest in Cuba, dating back to
centuries of Spanish colonial domination is the horribly unjust
distribution of the land. A predominantly rural country, with its
economy almost totally dependent on agriculture and animal husbandrymust
of necessity wipe out all vestiges of feudal property and place the land
directly into the hands of the agricultural workers.
While the landed aristocracy allows vast areas of fertile land to remain
uncultivated and great masses of peasants suffer the ravages of disease,
hunger and poverty, the urban population enjoys a standard of living
vastly superior to anything known in Latin-America.
For this reason the Libertarian Movement was always intensely concerned
with the problem of organizing a radical, deeply rooted agricultural
revolution. Following the example of the libertarian militants who in
Mexico had been inspired by the epic of Emiliano Zapata, a group of
valiant Cuban militants dedicated themselves to the emancipation of the
peasants.
From the organization of a producers coffee cooperative in Monte Ruz
over a half century ago, to the organization of the Peasant Federation
of Cuba, in which dozens of our comrades fought, the Cuban Libertarians
carried on the struggle against the rich landlords, inciting the
peasants to forcibly seize uncultivated property and work the land
collectively by organizing themselves into voluntary revolutionary
collectives or similar cooperative organizations...
With the triumph of the Revolution of 1959, the Cuban Libertarians urged
the peasants to seize the land and organize agricultural cooperatives
without waiting for orders from the new Castroite authorities. This
policy was undertaken for two reasons: first, to involve actively the
peasant masses in the construction and administration of the new
agricultural economy through their own voluntary organizations; and
second, because direct action of the peasants would place economic power
in their own hands, thus preventing the revolutionary state from
converting free cooperators into slaves of the totalitarian regime.
After a great deal of resistance, the new dictators dislodged the
peasants from the land by force and threats.
The Cuban anarchists repeatedly warned against dismissing or
underestimating the vital contribution that the small peasant proprietor
who works the land himself with the help of his family and does not
employ hired labor can make to the Revolution (this policy also applies
to artisans, small workshops, cooperatives, and the thousands of
specialized services without which the economy would come to a
standstill. The feasibility of this policy was amply demonstrated during
the Spanish Revolution in the libertarian type rural collectives and
urban socialized industry.) [To remind the reader, this extremely
important point, already discussed in the article Plows, Tractors and
the Guajiro (peasant) is repeated here:]
" ...without underestimating the importance of huge cooperative farms to
meet the need for agricultural products, it must be stressed that the
small peasant proprietors can also contribute greatly to agricultural
production by organizing themselves into collectives for the intensive
cultivation of the land in common.
Joint Statement Of The Libertarians Of The Americas (published in the
U.S.S by the Cuban Libertarian Movement - Miami, 1986)
Whereas: Libertarian principles are unconditionally opposed to all forms
of human slavery...
Whereas: Viewed objectively, the social and political course of the
so-called Cuban Revolution which has led to the establishment of a
Communist regime in Cuba has cynically frustrated the aspirations of the
Cuban people.
Whereas: The Castro-Communist regime is able to maintain its control
over the Cuban people thanks only to the military and economic support
and backing of Russia which has turned the island into one more
satellite of Red Imperialism through a policy of terror, imprisonment,
and crime and inhibiting the resistance and struggle of the people of
Cuba against tyranny.
Whereas: The so-called Cuban Revolution, after offering land to those
who work it has instead taken the land away from its former owners
-including peasants- given in to the State. In the same way, all
industrial and productive centers, transport, distribution, the press
and in short all social, political and economic activity of the country
has been taken over, subjecting the people to the will and authority of
the Totalitarian State.
Whereas: All freedom of thought and expression is forbidden in Cuba, no
citizen being permitted the free expression of disagreement with the
political system and the norms established by the government in power;
that all communications media are totally in the hands of the State;
that all publication of books and other literary material is subject to
the supervision and authorization of the State, and furthermore, that
any oral or written expression of opposition or criticism of the
government is a punishable offense.
Whereas: Over 90% of the Cuban people are against the political system
that has been imposed on them by force and violence, it being a fact
that after nine and a half years of Communist domination there are now
100,000 persons in Cuban prisons with the number increasing. Executions
and murders of fighters for freedom are daily occurrences in the prisons
and the total of these is already more than ten thousand. Over half a
million persons have already fled from Cuba, by every means imaginable.
These have been of all social classes, but mostly workers and peasants,
and their leaving Cuba is a clear demonstration of the rejection by a
people of the regime that enslaves them.
Whereas: The so-called Cuban Revolution does not in the least represent
the aspirations of the Cuban people which fights and always will fight
for its f'reedom with the fullest respect for human life and safety and
for continual improvement in the search for peace and the social good.
Therefore We, the organizations signing this Joint Statement of
l.ibertarians of the Americas, declare:
That the Castro regime is at the service of Russia in its plans for the
future domination of the peoples or the Americas: That the Cuban people
have the legitimate right to combat and overthrow the political regime
that now oppress them: That the present struggle of the Cuban people
against their oppressors and enslavers is just, and should, therefore,
have the support and help of all libertarian organizations and
individuals on the American Continent and of the World: That the
undersigned organizations support the Cuban people in their struggle to
wipe out the Totalitarian Communist State that now oppresses and
enslaves them, and take upon themselves the task of denouncing before
the World by every means at their command, the criminal savagery and
slavery suffered by the Cuban people, as well as giving all the
collaboration and support that they can in the struggle against
Castro-Communism, until the Cuban people achieve their freedom.
MOVIMIENTO LIBERTARIO CUBANA EN EL EXILIO (MLCE)
LIBERTARIAN LEAGUE (USA)
ORGANIZACIÓNES LIBERTARIAS DEL PERU
FEDERACIÓN ANARQUISTA DEL MEXICO (FAM)
MOVIMIENTO LIBERTARIO DEL BRASIL
FEDERACIÓN LIBERTARIA ARGENTINA (FLA)
Message from the Cuban Libertarian Movement - in Exile
(Miami, October 1974)
TO OUR EXILED COUNTRYMEN
TO THOSE WHO SUFFER IN ENSLAVED CUBA
TO THE PEOPLES OF LATIN AMERICA
TO THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES
We will always remain faithful to the noble ideals which we have
proclaimed and defended for so many years against all tyrants and
misleaders of the people, including the Marxist-Leninists and the
Castro-Communists. In defense of our principles we have always fought
with equal determination against the equally bloody right-wing
conservative totalitarians. For this, we have paid a very heavy price in
persecution and lives.
While professing to hate tyranny, the Pope, in the name of Jesus who
preached against violence and slavery, bestows his benediction on
dictato Castro... Fascist Spain relates wellto totalitarian-communist
Cuba... Russia donates arms and supplies to its Cuban satellite... At
the same time, the great American corporations surreptitiously provide
Castro with ample credit to purchase autos, buses, and other equipment.
In view of the co-existence policy between the great Soviet totalitarian
empire and the American-European democracies contending for the
domination of Cuba, our position remains:
AGAINST BOTH POWER BLOCKS!
NEITHER THE ONE NOR THE OTHER!
ALWAYS FOR FREEDOM!
ALWAYS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY!
Without a clear, convincing program of full liberty, full human rights
and well-being for all, the Cubans abroad cannot stir the oppressed
people in cuba to rebel, and even less, the peoples of Latin America.
For, the struggle against Castroism is not only our concern. The Latin
American masses, too, are also threatened with the imposition of a
Castro-type dictatorship. The plight of the oppressed, downtrodden,
impoverished peasants and workers renders them receptive to communist
propaganda. Their weel-trained, well-paid agents promise them a better
life. The masses are naive, they know nothing about the kind of despotic
communism that these agents really want to impose. They feel that they
have nothing to lose, and in despoair they join.
We must counteract this threat.We must reach the masses with our
constructive, practical program and warn them about the real character
of the phony communists. We must tell them:
...you have the right to live decently. If you are a peasant, you have a
right to the land you cultivate, just as you have the right to sun and
air. If you are a worker, you have the right to the full product of your
labor. Your children are entitled to a good education and the sick to
the finest medical attention. You are a human being. You have the right
to learn. To think. To act without humiliating yourself, without bowing
to the will of an omnipotent, omniverous government. BEWARE! Do not
follow false leaders who will enslave you, just as they enslaved your
unfolrtunate fellow workers in Cuba...
[The appeal concludes with a ringing call to]
. . . All the peoples of our America, of all classes, who do not wish to
change one tyranny for another; to the Rebel Youth of this country; to
all who realize the seriousness of the hour to join the crusade for the
liberation of Cuba...
Declaration of the Cuban Libertarian Movement in Exile
(published in March, 1975)
It outlines, not the maximum, full anarchist blueprint for the future
society, but a minimum program as the basis for a united front of all
tendencies of the Cuban revolutionary movement for the immediate task of
achieving the overthrow of the totalitarian regime; It sketches the
first steps toward the regeneration of Cuban society. [S.D.]
Preamble: The Cuban workers are not counter-revolutionaries yearning to
restore the old order. The real counter-revoluionaries are the tyrants
now wielding absolute power over our country, subjecting our people to
the most brutal oppression and economic exploitation. Cuba is not a
socialist society. It is a totalitarian state with a militarized economy
and a militarized social system. The alleged socialist property actually
elongs to the State, and the State is, in fact, the property of the
oligarchy commanded by the maximum leader, Fidel Castro. All political
and economic power is concentrated in the hands of this minority, which
constitutes the new ruling class. Therefore, our first and most
important task is to destroy the totalitarian state. Only then can we
reconquer the freedom to shape our own destiny and prepare the way for a
social system in which the workers and peasants will become the real
masters of all the means of production, distribution and public
services.
Our comrades now living in Cuba in totalitarian slavery are convinced
that the Cuban problem is essentially a political problem, and that our
strategy should be directed toward first recuperating the indispensable
civil liberties necessary to initiate a process of social change leading
to a more just, more cultured, happier and freer life. The following
programmatic proposals accurately express the ideas and sentiments of
our comrades in Cuba.
Political Struclure: (a) The totalitarian State must be replaced by a
political structure which will guarantee unrestricted civil liberties
with the most scrupulous respect for human rights [freedom of speech
assemblage, movement, organization, worship, etc.]. (b) The political
police must be abolished. (c) Entirely autonomous municipalities and
their confederation into free provinces must be established. (d) A
nationally federated system based on a new, decentralized order, must be
organized. (e) Abolition of the army, maintaining only the absolute
minimum of professional officers and minimum military training, is
essential.
Economic Structure: We advocate (a) the land to those who work it
organized and planned as the peasants themselves decide individual or
family cultivation, creation of voluntary cooperatives and collectives
similar to the Israeli Kibbutzim, etc.; (b) collectivization and
operation of large-scale basic industries by the workers, technicians
and administrators through a system of self-management, supervised by
their respective unions; where necessary for the general welfare and the
economy, allowance for individual or group ownership of small craft
workshops and similar small-scale enterprises by artisans, (c) overall
economic planning by integrated coordinated workers' organizations,
technical and administrative organization... (d) in privately-owned
establishments which, because of special circumstances cannot be
socialized, the system of co-management, participation by the workers,
shall prevail.Social Structure: All social services shall be redered and
administered by the unions, municipalities and other federated bodies,
which will guarantee to all Cubans the following free services:
maternity care, other medical and health services' unemployment
benefits, access to cultural and entertainment facilities... (b) Free
ectucation shall be provided at all levels and in all areas [primary and
high school, university, technical and artistic school, etc.]. (c) Free
housing will be provided for all.
Conclusions: With the passage of time, and under the dictatorship, the
long-suffering people of Cuba have endured profound changes in their way
of life. The mentality of the young people who have come to maturity
under the dictatorship differs greatly from that of the preceding
generation. To try to turn back the clock to a bygone era is both
utopian and absurd. If we are to succeed, we must be realistic, take
into account the present situation and act accordingly: this means
eliminating existing evils, retaining that which is valuable, and
initiating new and progressive changes in the quality of Cuban life.
[After outlining the structure of the proposed united front of the Cuban
libertarian movement of resistance in exile which would insure mutual
solidarity while retaining the full independence of participating
organizations, the Declaration goes on to stress that] In the new Cuba,
the labor movement must be organized according to federalist principles
in industrial unions totally independent of the state and of political
parties. Only thus can we assure freedom of movement, initiative and
creative action.
Summation: Revolution and Counter-Revolution
(Translated from Accion Lihertaria, Organ of the Argentine Libertarian
Federation, Buenos Aires, July 1961)
The heroic impetus of a people that overthrows a dictatorship and expels
the tyrant and his assassinsTHAT IS REVOLUTION.
But to assume absolute power in order to accomplish by dictatorial
methods that which the recently liberated people should themselves do
THIS IS COUNTER-REVOLUTION.
To cleanse the country of the abuses of the regime that has been
overthrown THAT IS REVOLUTION.
But to establish terror for the shameless, pitiless extermination of
those who will not conform to the new dictaorship THIS IS
COUNTER-REVOLUION.
To assume the direct participation of the peoples in all of the new
creations and accomplishments THAT IS REVOLUION.
But to dictate by decree how things should be done and to canalize the
accomplishments under the iron control of the state THIS IS
COUTER-REVOLUION.
To seize the lands for those who work them, organizing them in free
peasant communities THAT IS REVOLUTION.
But to twist the Agrarian Reform, exploiting the guajiro as an employee
of the National INstitute of Agrarian Reform THIS IS COUNTER-REVOLUTION.
To expropriate capitalist enterprises, turning them over to the workers
and technicians THAT IS REVOLUTION.
But to convert them into State monopolies in which the producer's only
right is to obey THIS IS COUNTER-REVOLUTION.
To eliminate the old armed forces such as the army and the police THAT
IS REVOLUTION. But to establish obligatory militias and maintain an army
subservient to the governing clique THIS IS COUNTER-REVOLUTION.
To oppose foreign intervention in the lives of the people, and repudiate
all imperialism THAT IS REVOLUTION.
But to deliver the country to some foreign powers under the pretence of
defense against others THIS IS COUNTER-REVOLUTION.
To permit the free expression and activity of all truly revolutionary
forces and tendencies THAT IS REVOLUTION.
But to recognize only one single party, persecuting and exterminating as
counter-revolutionaries, those who oppose communist infiltration and
domination THIS IS COUNTER-REVOLUTION.
To make the University a magnificent center of culture, controlled by
the professors, alumni and students THAT IS REVOLUTION.
But to convert the University into an instrument of governmental policy,
expelling and persecuting those who will not submit THIS IS
COUNTER-REVOLUTION.
To raise the standard of living of the workers through their own
productive efforts inspired by the feneral welkfare THAT IS REVOLUION.
But to impose plans prepared by the State agencies and demand obligatory
tribute from those who labor THIS IS COUNTER-REVOLUTION.
To establish schools and combat illiteracy THAT IS REVOLUTION.
But to indoctrinate the children in the adoration of the dictator and
his close associates, militarizing these children in the service of the
State THIS IS COUNTER-REVOLUTION.
To give the labor unions full freedom to organize and administer
themselves as the basic organs of the new economy THAT IS REVOLUION.
But to stamp these with the seal of subordination to the dominant regime
THIS IS COUNTER-REVOLUTION.
To sow the countryside with new constructive peoples organizations of
every sort, stimulating free initiative within them THAT IS REVOLUTION.
But to prohibit them or inhibit their action, chaining them to the
doctrine and to the organisms of State power THIS IS COUNTER-REVOLUTION.
To call on the solidarity of all peoples, of the decent men and women of
the World, in support of the revolutionary people who are building a new
life THAT IS REVOLUTION.
But to identify with Russian totalitariansism as a Socialist State of
the type acceptable to the Soviet Empire THIS IS COUNTER-REVOLUTION.
All those forward steps that were taken by the Cuban people under the
banner of liberty, which shone forth as a great hope for all the
Americas and for the World, WAS THE CUBAN REVOLUTION.
The bloody dictatorship of Fidel Castro and his clique, whatever the
masdk it may wear or the objectives it may claim to have, IS THE REAL
COUNTER-REVOLUTION.
To what extent is our assessment of the early years of the Cuban
Revolution still relevant to the Cuba of the late 0960s ans the 1970s?
Have there been significant changes, not in minor respects, but in the
general DIRECTION of the Revolution?
Between 1966 and 1970 the Cuban leaders attemted to steer the Revolution
in another direction. In accordance with the ideas of Che Guevara, they
decided to begin building the new communist society; gradually do away
with money and the money economy; distribute goods and services
according to the essential principle of communism, "From each according
to his ability and to each according to his needs," and in the process,
form the "New Man". The "New Socialist Man" is a self-sacrificing
idealist who willingly and gladly works not for his private gain, but
for the welfare of society. Strongly animated by moral-ethical
incentives, the "New Man" does not have to be compelled to fulfill his
obligations by the authoritarian decrees of a dictatorial government.
Castro declared that: "... the great task of the Revolution is basically
the task of forming the New Socialist Man ... the man of a truly
revolutionary consciousness..." (speech in Las Villas, July 26, 1968)
The Cuban rulers even boasted that in respect to the building of
comunism (distribution, revoutionary consciousness of the people,
equalization of income, etc.) Cuba was far ahead of the Soviet Union.
But all attempts to institute socialism by decree, as Bakunin foresaw
over a century ago, leads inevitably to the enslavement of the people by
the authoritarian State. Their attempt to build communism failed because
the "new socialist man" can be formed only within the context of a new
and free society, based not upon compulsion, but upon voluntary
cooperation. The attempt failed because it was not implemented by
thoroughgoing libertarian changes in the authoritarian structure of
Cuban society. Communization and forming the new manactually camouflaged
the militarization of Cuba. Castro made this clear:
"...today I can see an immense army, the army of a highly organized,
disciplined and enthusiastic nation ready to fulfill whatever task is
set..." In his speech of August 23, 1968, Castro announced his decision
to militarize the whole island and give absolute priority to the
economic battle and to achieve this, the absolute need for a
dictatorship of the proletariat exercised by the Communist Party... (see
K.S. Karol; Guerillas in Power; New York, 1970, p. 447-448, 528).
The communization turned out to be a cruel hoax. It took on the familiar
characteristics of typical totalitarian regimes. This stage of the Cuban
Revolution has been correctly identified as the Mini-Stalin Era.
Moulding the New Manaccording to totalitarian specifications connotes
the process of training people to become obedient serfs ot the state:
and moral incentives becomes a device to enlist the participation of the
masses in their own enslavement. To their everlasting credit the workers
resisted:
"...a wave of sabotage beset the countrys economy. Saboteurs burned a
tannery in l.as Villas Province, a leather store in Havana, a
chicken-feed factory in Santiago, a chemical fertilizer depot in
Manzanillo, a provincial store belonging to the Ministry of Internal
Commerce in Camaguey, and so on... Castro also gave a long list of acts
of sabotage in schools and on building sites... (Karol; ibid. p 447)
The resistance of the people in addition to the suicidal economic
adventures of the dictatorship hastened the collapse of Guevaras scheme.
Since 1968, when Castro endorsed the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia,
the USSR has increasingly dominated Cuban affairs. The Cuban economy has
been even more closely integrated into the Coviet orbit since Cuba in
1972 joined the Comecon (Council for Economic Assistance eight-nation
Russian controlled economic trading bloc).
The extent of Cubas absolute dependence on Russian economic support can
be gauged by the increase of Cubas trade with Russia which in 1972
reached 72% - about the same percentage of trade a with the United
States in the 1950s. Assording to Vladimir Novikov, Vice-President of
the UUSR Council of Ministers, trade between Russia and Cuba in 1970
amounted to three billion rubles a year or about three and a half
million dollars a day; an increase of 60% in four yeras. (see Carmelo
Meas-Lago; Cuba in the 1970s University of New Mexico, 1974, pp.9-11)
Under the terms of the economic agreement between Russia and Cuba, "...
the Cubans committed themselves to accepting Russian advice and planning
of key industries for three years (1973 to 1975, inclusive) .." Russia
agreed to construct two new textile plants, a new nickel and cobalt
combine with a capacity of 30,000 tons a year, thermo-nuclear plants, a
railroad line between Havana and Santiago de Cuba, a factory to rnake
reinforced concrete, reconstruction of Cuban ports, a new television and
radio factory, etc. etc.... (Herbert Matthews, Revolution in Cuba; New
York, 1975, p. 398, 399)
Russian military aid has turned Cuba into one of the most formidable
military powers in Latin America. In 1970, Cuba reccivcd ... one and a
half billion dollars of direct military aid from Russia - double the
amount of United States military aid to the rest of Latin America. . .
(Juan de Onis, report to the New York Times; May 10, 1970). Through a
joint Soviet-Cuban Commission, the USSR not only supervises its military
and economic shipments to Cuba, but also exercises de facto control of
the Cuban economy.
It is this dependence which accounts for Castros conversion to
Marxism-Leninism. His brazen hypocrisy transcends all respect for truth.
Even Herbert Matthews, one of Castro s staunchest admirers, is outraged!
"openly critical of the Kremlins [policy of] 'peaceful coexistence' ...
by 1973 he was brazenly asserting that even the attack on the Moncada
Barracks in Santiago de Cuba twenty years before (1953) was an example
of Marxism-Leninism..." [Matthews quotes Castro] ... without the
extraordinary scientific discoveries of Marx and Engels, and without the
inspired interpretation of Lenin and his prodigious historic feat
[conquest of power in Russian Revolution] a 26th of July could not have
been conceived of... [Speech on the 20th anniversary of the Moncada
attack]
"...this factually was pure nonsense. There was only one Communist in
the 1953 attack and he is a political accident. None of the participants
could have given a thought to Marx, Engels or Lenin, least of all Fidel.
Castro was rewriting history to suit ... political needs..." (ibid. P.
390)
Castro's unrestrained flattery of his Russian saviors, rivals the praise
heaped upon Stalin by his idolatrous sycophants. A front page featured
report of Brezhnev's visit to a new vocational school under the
headline: BREZHNEV INAUGURATES V I. LENIN VOCATIONAL SCHOOL, reads:
"Dear Comrade Brezhnev: During whole months the teachers, workers,
students and students of this school and the construction workers were
preparing for your visit.. ."
"WE WELCOME YOU WITH THE GREAT AFFECTION YOU DESERVE AS
GENERAL-SECRETARY OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE GLORIOUS PARTY OF THE
SOVIET UNION. . . " APPLAUSE!
"It's a great honor and a reason for deep joy and satisfaction for all
of us that this school bearing LENIN'S BRIGHT AND GLORIOUS NAME should
be inaugurated by you, who now occupies his distinguished place in the
Communist Party of The Soviet Union. (APPLAUSE)
"ETERNAL GLORY TO VLADIMIR ILYIICH LENIN!" (APPLAUSE!) "LONG LIVE THE
INDESTRUCTIBLE FRIENDSHIP BETWEEN CUBA AND THE SOVIET UNION "' (APPLAUSE
AND SHOUTS OF "LONG MAY IT LIVE!)
PATRIA O MUERTE! VENCEREMOS! (SHOUTS OF: "VENCEREMOS'")
(OVATION)
(GRANMA February 10, 1974)
It is axiomatic that relations between states are not guided by ethical
moral considerations. To promote their interests states do not hesitate
to resort to the most revolting treachery and hypocricy. The conduct of
the Cuban government confirms this universally acknowledged fact. Castro
established friendly relations with Franco-fascist Spain. Maurice
Halperin remarks that:
"...in 1963 mutual economic benefits proved stronger than ideology ..and
by the end of the year all references to 'fascist Spain' disappeared
from the Cuban media ... trade between Cuba and Spail increased from
eleven million dollars in 1962 to approximately one hundred and three
million dollars in 1966 - making Spain Cuba's third most important
trading partner..." (ibid p. 304) Castro went so far as to agree in 1971
in a trade agreement with Spain to pay Spain for all expropriated
Spanish owned property nationalized by Cuba. (see Matthews, p. 405)
The economic expert on Cuba, Carmelo Mesa-Lago, concludes that
"...agriculture, especially sugar, the backbone of the Cuban economy,
has had a discouragingly bad performance under the Revolution since 1961
... according to the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United
Nations (FAO) total agricultural output in 1969 was 7% below that of
1958 (before the Revolution). (Cuba in the 1970s; University of New
Mexico, 1974, p.56)
Even Dumont, the distinguished agronomist, after recalling that Castro
boasted that Oriente Province would be producing 1.3 million litres of
milk daily by 1969 reversed this optimistic prediction and admitted in
his 26th of July, 1970, speech that "...in the first half of 1970 milk
production decreased by 25%. In 1968 beef deliveries were 154,000 tons
-for 1970, deliveries decreased to 145,000 tons; and Castro declared
that we may end up with a further decline in livestock. . . " (Is Cuba
Socialist? New York, 1972 pp. 90 - 142) (The economist Lowery Nelson
calculates that yearly per-capita meat consumption fell from seventy
pounds in 1958 to only 38 pounds in 1972. See Matthews, ibid p. 367.)
Cubans have been living on a severely restricted diet since rationing of
foodstuffs and other necessities was introduced in 1962. Dumont severely
castigates the Castro regime for this tragic situation. He deserves to
be quoted at length:
"...given its fertile land, its level of technique, its tractors, its
fertilizers -all infinitely superior to China's resourcesthere is no
reason for Cuba's failure to end shortages of fruits and vegetables that
have been going on since 1961 ... neglect of people's needs for food
amounts to contempt... (ibid. p. 142)
"...instead of the green belt for Havana, I had proposed in 1960 (to
make the city practically self-sustaining in fruits, vegetables, etc.)
... in 1969, the peasants forced to plant only sugar cane or coffee, who
had formerly suppled the city, now became consumers instead of providers
of food ... the vegetable and fruit crop for Havana Province decreased
from 90,000 tons in 1967 to 70,000 tons in 1970..." (ibid. p. 67)
"...in 1969 Castro promised: 'We'll have so many bananas, that we wont
sell them to you. We'll GIVE them to you.' But I saw mile upon mile of
banana plantations where the trees were dying because they were platned
in poorly drained soil ... the average peasant would have avoided this
gross error... there were only enough bananas for ill people and
children... no one could buy a single banana; and this in a land where
bananas were not a luxury, but a daily staple preferred to bread..."
(ibid. p. 90)
". . . Everywhere, from Bayamo to Havana, vegetables, fruits and
clothing disappeared from the stores ... shortages which had been
bearable until then became shocking and dramatic..." [Dumont attributes
much of the shortages and lack of services to the abolition of small
shops and severe curtailment of small peasant holdings] ... when the
last small shops and various services went, an important supplementary
food source disappeared, because State production [nationalization] was
unable to replace it. That meant that food was in short supply..."
(ibid. p. 63)
According to Joe Nicholson, Jr., (Inside Cuba: New York, 1974, p. 33)
the 1974 monthly ration for each person was 6 pounds of rice, 3 pounds
of meat, 3 pounds of beans, 2 pounds of spaghetti, 1½ pounds of noodles,
I pound of salt, 12 ounces of flour, 6 ounces of coffee, 15 eggs, 3
containers of canned milk (fresh milk only for children and the aged).
Even sugar was rationed to only four pounds per month per person!
(According to an announcement monitored on Miami Radio Dec. 1975, sugar
is to be removed from the rationing list.)
There is no doubt that Castro together with his amateur economic
adventurers are directly responsible for the continuing deterioration of
the Cuban economy. Their grandiose and impossible 1970 ten million ton
sugar goal turned out to be a major catastrophe. Almost the entire
working population (including students and others not engaged directly
in production) were mobilized in military fashion to work in the cane
fields. ''...many essential activities" (writes Maurice Halperin) "were
brought to a standstill ... this economic nightmare set back the entire
economy to its lowest point since the Revolution (Jan. 1, 1959 ... the
economy held up only because of massive Russian subsidies... " (Rise and
Decline of Fidel Castro; University of California, 1972, p. 316)
Taking full responsibility for this debacle, Castro in a major speech
(July 26, 1970) admitted that;
"...our incapacity in the overall work of the Revolution -especially
rnine ... our apprenticeship as directors of the Revolution was too
costly. . . " (quoted Rene'Dumont; ibid. p. 152)
On the extent of waste, inefficiency and mismanagement there is
voluminous documentation - a few examples:
"...50.000 tractors imported since 1959 were used for all sorts of
non-productive purposes ... driving to baseball games ... visiting
relatives, etc. Castro said, ...the former owner of a private business
had a tractor. It lasted twenty years. But later, when ownershipo passed
to the state, a tractor lasted only two, three, or maybe four years..."
...imported equipment lay unutilized for years ... rusting on the docks
because the building to house the equipment had not been constructed ...
in 1971, 120 million cubic yards of water were lost in Havana alone
because of a neglect of maintenance... of the waterpipe system...
President of Cuba Dorticós reported in early 1972 ... that out of 3000
locomotives only 134 were working ... a time-loss study published in
1970 revealed that from ¼ to ½ of the workday were wasted ... in late
1973, Raul Castro said that it was common in state farms that labor
costs alone exceeded value of production ... on one state farm the
annual wage bill was $48,000 while the value of output was $8,000...
(Mesa-lago; ibid. Pp.33, 34, 37)
To illustrate the bureaucratic maze choking the Cuban economy, Rene
Dumont reveals: ...that in Cuba the exportation of a single case of
vegetables involves authorizations for packing, refrigeration, as well
as loading ... this requires the coordination of thirteen government
bureas none of them in a hurry... (Ibid. P. 90.)
Even the pro-Castro economists, Huberman and Sweezy, deplored the
bureaucratic structure of the Cuban economy, citing the major agrarian
economic agency INRA (National Institute of Agrarian Retorm) as an
example:
...coordination was difficult, often impossible... the situation was no
better industry. Having all industry under the centralized control of
one agency in Havana could not be but an unwieldy and inefficient
arrangement... (Socialism in Cuba; New York, 1969, pp. 82-83)
According to incomplete, scanty data gathered by Mesa-Lago, industrial
production declined in 1969-1970. It improved in 1972: 48% in steel; 28%
in beverages; 11% in fishing; 44% in building materials; 41% in salt;
200% in refrigeration, etc. There were also increases in the production
of telephone wire, glass containers, plastics, cosmetics and great
increases in nickel and copper production. Overall production increased
14% in 1972 and 15% in the first nine months of 1973.
Information about thc ecorlomic sittlation in Cuba is, as Mesa-Lago puts
it, "necessarily fragmentary...there are no accurate statistical data -
and in many areas, none at all-..." Claims by Castro and official Cuban
sources concerning the extent of Cuba's economic progress cannot be
verified and "...must be taken very cautiously..." (All above data,
Mesa-Lago; ibid. pp. 52-60) Rene'Dumont also complains that ...the
organization of Cuba's economy is such that it has become all but
impossible to obtain reliable data..." (Is Cuba Socialist?; p. 71)
Castro is not overly optimistic about the rate of Cubas future economic
progress. He cautions the people not to expect spectacular increases in
production:
the objectives of our people in the material field cannot be very
ambitious ... we should work in the next ten years to advance our
economy at an average annual rate of 6%. (quoted, Mesa Lago; ibid. p.
59).
In view of Castro's record of fantastically exaggerated claims and
broken promises, the prospects for a significant betterment of the
standard of living of the Cuban masses are indeed dim.
In the first phase of authoritarian revolutions, the revolutionary elite
(sometimes commanded by a personal dictator) seizes and consolidates
power on the pretext that it is acting in the "name of the people." But
in order to govern the country and carry out the decrees of the
leadership, every regime must eventually institutionalize its power by
creating a permanent, legally established bureaucratic administrative
apparatus.
To implement institutionalization, Castro, in 1970, launched the
reorganization of his government and the drafting of a new constitution,
proclaiming that the Revolution had now come of age and the people could
now be trusted to more self-rule. Castro promised the enactment of
measures to expedite the decentralization of his administration; expand
local autonomy and worker's self-management of industry, democratize the
mass organizations and create new state agencies designed to encourage
more participation of the people in local and national affairs. (We list
the more important changes and our comments under appropriate headings.)
In 1973 the top governmental structure was reorganized in the following
manner:
1) The division of the government into legislative, executive, and
judicial sections was rejected as "bourgeois." The functions of the
three branches are concentrated into the Council of Ministers, "... the
supreme ... organ of State power ..." In addition to the Council of
Ministers, there are a number of affiliated national agencies such as
Agriculture and Husbandry Development, the Fishing and Forestry
Institute, the National Poultry Board and a number of cultural bodies
(the Institutes of Cinema, Literature, the National Council of Culture
and similar groupings).
2) Actually, the real power is exercised by the Executive Committee of
the Council of Ministers (equivalent to a Cabinet) composed of ten
Deputy Prime Ministers who control and coordinate their respective
departments and agencies. These departments include: basic industry and
energy; consumer goods industries and domestic trade; the sugar
industry; non-sugar agriculture; construction; transportation and
communications; education and welfare. "... The Executive Committee of
the Council of Ministers was created pursuant to the orientation of the
Political Bureau of the Communist Party of Cuba ..."
3) At the intermediate levels, Coordinating Provincial Councils
appointed by the Deputy Prime Ministers of the Executive Committee in
"... coordination with the Provincial Delegates of the Political Bureau
of the Communist Party will carry out ... the directives issued from
above ... by the corresponding central authority ..." (i.e., the Deputy
Prime Ministers of the Executive Committee of the Council of Ministers.)
4) "... the Prime Minister of the Council of Ministers, Fidel Castro
Ruz, who also presides over the Executive Committee of the Council of
Ministers will be directly in charge of the following agencies: Ministry
of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR), Minsitry of the Interior,
National Institute of Agrarian Reform (INRA) and Ministry of Public
Health ..."
Since Castro is also the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the
Communist Party of Cuba (CPC) and since every major ministry and agency
head is a member of the CPC and is appointed by Castro, Herbert Matthews
(a Castro sympathizer) reluctantly concludes that: "... all the organs
of state power are under Castro's direct command. He is all-powerful and
it is his Revolution ... Castro does not want -- or dare -- to create a
self-governing administration, a managerial apparatus, an autonomous
political party, a powerful military elite; because any one of them
could threaten his power ..." [1].
Following the Stalinist pattern, the Cuban State is a structured pyramid
in which absolute power is ultimately exercised by an individual
(Castro) or by a collective dictatorship as in post-Stalin Russia.
There is no independent judiciary. "... the courts [reads the law]
receive instructions from the leadership of the Revolution which are
compulsory..." The judicial system is only an agency of the Council of
Ministers, which regulates and controls all courts and legal agencies.
The highest judicial administrative body is the Council of Ministers of
the Supreme People's Court, which transmits to the lower courts the "...
instructions of the leadership of the Revolution which are
compulsory..." [2] The system centralizes all four judicial branches:
ordinary, military, political, and the People's Courts for minor
offenses. The judges of the People's Courts are laymen. The President of
the Republic, the Ministers, and the members of the Political Bureau of
the CPC are exempt from the jurisdiction of the courts and can be tried
only by special Party courts. [3] Private law practice is prohibited.
Defendants in court cases can be represented only by state appointed
lawyers even when the State itself is being sued. Judges, juries, and
other judicial personnel must be ideologically reliable. [4] "...
knowledge and study of Marxism-Leninism, Marxist sociology, and the
materialist interpretation of history are indispensible prerequisites
for the true integral education of a revolutionary judge..." [5]
Under the name "People's Socialist Party" (PSP) the Communist Party was
organized in 1925. Under Castro, it was known as Integrated
Revolutionary Organizations (ORI); the United Party of the Socialist
Revolution (PURS) and, since 1965, as the Communist Party of Cuba (CPC).
The Communist Party was never on good terms with Castro, not only
because of its collaboration with Batista, but also because it ridiculed
Castro's historic July 26th, 1953, attack on the Moncada Barracks (now
commemorated as a national holiday). The communists called the attack a
"bourgeois putschist adventure." Moreover, the communists took no part
in the fight against Batista and sabotaged Castro's call for a general
strike to unseat Batista. The communists came to Castro only a few
months before the overthrow of Batista, when they saw that Castro was
going to win.
The revolution was made in spite of the opposition of the Party. Since
the Party did not, as in Russia, initiate revolutionary action and seize
power, it was in no position to dictate terms to Castro in exchange for
its collaboration. The Party was accepted only on condition that it
acknowledged Castro's leadership and accepted without question all his
ideological, political and economic policies.
Castro dominates the CPC, much like Stalin. The members of the Communist
Party's Central Committee belong to Castro's clique. Castro himself (as
already noted) is the First Secretary of the Party and his brother Raul
ranks next. There is, of course, no democracy within the Party. Thus,
when Anibal Escalante was accused of "micro-factionalism" (a crime that
is not even listed in the penal code), because he tried to subordinate
Castro to the discipline of the Communist party, he was sentenced to 15
years at hard labor. "...Escalante and his lawyers were deprived even of
the right to address a single word in self-defense to the court and the
public documents contain no defense pleas of any kind..." [6]
The CPC does not make policy. Its function is to carry out government
orders, not to govern, or, as Maurice Halperin puts it: "...the function
of the CPC is to mobilize the population for goals set by Castro
himself..." [7]
In Cuba, the CPC fulfulls the same preponderent role as in Russia and
the other "socialist countries." The expanding role of the CPC in the
reorganization process is manifested in its growing membership, which
increased from 55,000 in 1969 to 200,000 in 1975. The estimated
membership of the Union of Communist Youth is about 300,000. 85% of
armed forces officers also belong to the CPC. An interesting sidelight:
according to Verde Olivio (organ of the Armed Forces) the composition of
the Central Committee of the CPC was 67% military (including 57 Majors),
26 professionals and only 7% workers. In addition to the 6 secretariats
of the CPC in the provinces, there were in 1973, 60 district
secretariats, 401 in the municipalities and 14,360 party cells in mass
organizations, factories and rural areas.
The Communist Party governs Cuba and Castro rules the Communist Party.
The Stalinist subservience of the CPC to Castro was stressed by Armando
Hart (in 1969, Organizing Secretary of the CPC) in a speech at the
University of Havana:
...can anyone analyze or study theoretical questions, raised, for
instance, by philosophy, the roads to Communism; or any field of
culture, mainly those of social science and philosophy, without taking
into account the ideas and concepts of Fidel [Castro] and Che
[Guevara]?...[8]
The first post-Castro Congress of the CPC (Dec., 1975) ratified the new
constitution drawn up by the veteran communist leader Blas Roca and the
juridical committee of the Party Central Committee. The CPC was
proclaimed as the "... supreme leading force of Cuban society and the
State." The national program of the Party was approved and the tentative
first five year economic plan for 1976-1980 inclusive was also
recommended.
Pending implementation of the new directives of the Congress, the CPC is
headed by a 100 member Central Committee. Below the Provincial
Committees are the Regional and Municipal Committees down to the factory
and farm cells. At every level of this complicated, autocratically
centralized organization, the orders of the high command (Castro's
clique) are faithfully carried out.
Driven by the necessity to remain on good terms with his saviors, the
"socialist countries" upon whom his survival depends, Castro falsifies
the history of his relations with the Cuban communists, affirming now
what he vehemently denied before. His mouthpiece, Granma (August 16,
1975) hypocritically stressed that:
... throughout its history our nation's first communist party performed
tremendous work disseminating Marxist-Leninist ideas; fought the local
oligarchy and against imperialism and selflessly defended all democratic
demands of the working class ... [9]
In the summer of 1974 an experiment in democracy and decentralization
was initiated in Matanzas Province. Municipal, district and provincial
Organizations of the People's Power (PPO) were established. 5,597
production and service units were handed over to the PPO. The PPO
performs the combined functions of city council and local
administration, and also takes on certain functions of the Committees
for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR) etc. 90% of the people voted in
the elections, but "60% of the deputies are communists and young
communist members ..." [10]
An interview with a high official of the PPO proves that the much
publicized "decentralization," "democracy," and "people's
self-management of affairs" allegedly being instituted in Cuba is a
brazen fraud:
Q) Is the establishment of self-governing Organs of People's Power (PPO)
to promote mass participation in local and provincial administration
part of the process of reinforcing the Dictatorship of the Proletariat?
A) Actually the establishment of the PPO -- being tried out as an
experiment in Matanzas -- is part of the process. Q) On what principles
are the PPO based? A) The Communist Party is the principal, the
indispensable organism for the construction of socialism in our country
and, as such, directs as it deems best all the organizations and
organisms, including of course the Organs of People's Power. [11]
This system, patterned after the fake Russian "soviets," actually
reinforces the dictatorship.
"... What [asked K.S. Karol] has become of the many rank-and-file
organizations that were once so dynamic? ... these organizations have
ceased to exist on anything but paper. They became puppets ... for
example, the CDR ... spring into action when it comes to tracking down
bad citizens and small traders. The CDR has been reduced to mere
appendages of the "Seguridad" [National Police Force] ..." [12] And
Herbert Matthews writing five years later in 1975 states flatly that the
CDR is now completely "... under the control of the Communist Party ...
Besides spying the CDR also performs certain functions such as helping
to organize vaccinations for polio, diptheria and measles, and sees to
it that parents send their children to school, that food and other
rations are fairly handled, etc. ..." [13]
The CDR is actually a vast, intricate network reaching into every
neighborhood, every home and even into the personal life of every man,
woman and child in Cuba. The following verbatim conversation with a
native Cuban tells more about the operations of the Cuban Police State
and the total obliteration of individual freedom than any number of
abstract academic dissertations or statistical tables:
... I ran into a hurricane of a woman named Mrs. S. "The famous literacy
campaign," she stormed, "was indoctrination. There was no dissent ... It
was like a new Dark Age in Cuba. These spies of the CDR know who visits
me and whom I visit ... Under Mr. Castro, it is suddenly my neighbor's
duty to know how I live. Everybody knows that in a civilized country
your home is your fortress ... Here in Cuba, every jackass is knocking
on your door to give you advice on who is dangerous ... They want to
take the lock off my door ... You think I exaggerate? Well, you don't
live here ... Our deepest need is to be our own selves, different,
non-conformist ... My motto is 'leave people alone' ... It is
intolerable to have only one power in the State ... even a righteous
power ... because human beings have a perverse desire to say NO -- even
to righteousness -- to disagree.
[A medical student told the visitor:] We all know who are the
self-appointed spies. Go and talk to Mrs. Blanco. [The visitor quotes
her:] ... Yes, I know what everybody says about me, but I have to see
that people do not do certain things -- like being absent from work. No
absenteeism on THIS block ... [An absentee who claimed sickness --
"Stress" he called it -- was actually, unbeknwn to his wife, visiting
his girlfriend. When Mrs. Blanco threatened to expose him to his wife;]
... he was all right for two days [she said] -- I checked with his work
place -- Two days, and then more "stress" ... He was hungry for his
girlfriend ... I felt like following him one day and catching him out
... because, after all, it IS MY BUSINESS ... He is a parasite letting
down my block ... I wondered if I should not talk to his girlfriend ...
warn her to keep away from him, break relations ... I am not saying
anything ... but I am watching from here what is happening ... but what
a pain if his wife finds out! ... [14]
Rene Dumont tells that in the barracks of the "machateros" (cane
cutters) working away from home: "... there are sometimes little signs
that read: 'Sleep quietly. The Revolution is watching over your wife.'
As a matter of fact, if a 'machatero's' wife is visited by a man, the
husband gets a telegram from the local CDR ..." [15]
In the spring of 1972, Jaime Crombat, Secretary of the Young Communist
League, complained that among the youth there was a "... backward
minority who neither study nor work --- or do so only under pressure --
those who, permeated by the old ideology ... maintain a conduct contrary
to socialist morals ..." [16] Mesa-Lago's painstaking research unearths
the true situation. He deserves to be quoted at length:
"... in spite of the remarkable progress in education, i.e., reduction
in the illiteracy rate ... serious deficiencies were reported. In April,
1971, out of the number of school-age youngsters 14 to 16 years old,
there were 300,000 who neither worked nor studied: 23% among 14 year
olds, 44% among 15 year olds, and 60% among 16 year olds. The dropout
rate was worse -- more in rural areas (88%) than in urban areas (66%).
In elementary schools, 69% of those who attended classes in 1965 did not
finish in 1971 ... students showed a lack of concern for socialist
property ..." According to the Minister of Education, 50% of the books
sent to school were lost every year due to carelessness. Castro exploded
in indignation: "... there is something wrong when we have to educate
our young people in the need to care for socialist property ... loafers,
people who don't work, criminals are the ones who destroy ..."
... in the same speech Castro denounced the youth for wearing
"extravagant" foreign fashions [Too tight pants and long hair in the
case of boys. Too short mini-skirts in the case of girls.], liking
"decadent literature." In some cases, "... the youth were used by
counter-revolutionaries against the Revolution ..." Castro found
"residual manifestations" of prostitution and homosexuality. In 1967,
minors participated in 41% of all crimes committed in the nation. Four
years later the percentage rises to 50%... [17]
... in 1972, Joe Nicholson, Jr., a sympathetic journalist who visited
Cuba, asked Cuban officials why boys are not allowed to wear long hair.
The official answered that if one boy is allowed to be different in
hair, dress or behavior, the rest might request the right to be
different, too. This in turn, would create controversy, something that
was considered incorrect... [18]
Measures to correct this situation included compulsory military service,
military units to aid production, and to work in construction,
irrigation and other projects. Nevertheless, it was reported that the
number of youngsters in the 13 to 16 year bracket who committed offenses
remained unchanged. Castro alleged that the high juvenile delinquency
rate was due to the fact that they were exempt from criminal punishments
by the courts. In May 1973, legal liability was reduced from 18 to 16
years and tough penalties up to life imprisonment were imposed for
crimes against the economy, abnormal sexual behavior and other offenses.
... The drop-out problem was partially solved through the SMO
(compulsory military service) and the Youth Centennial Columns. The SMO
recruits numbered 300,000 in 1972 (about one third of all youngsters
between 16 and 17). In 1973 both these youth organizations were merged
into the Youth Army of Work (EJT) ... [19]
The promised abolition of house rents and increasing wages of the lowest
paid workers was not kept. Likewise, full pay for sick and retired
workers was eliminated. There was no lessening of the severe food
rations in 1973. One of the main resolutions of the 13th Congress of the
Cuban Confederation of Labor (CTC), Nov., 1973, restored the worst
features of the capitalist wage system -- payment according to output,
instead of according to need. In this speech to the closing session of
the Congress, Castro tried to justify this policy: "... paying the same
wage for the same type of work without taking into account the effort
required to do it, is an equalitarian principle we must correct ...
payment should be measured in physical terms according to the complexity
and skill required to do the job ..." In line with this policy, 132
million pesos were allotted to raise wages for technicians in order to
spur them to "increase their productivity." [20] At the First Congress
of the Communist Party of Cuba (Dec. 1975), the motto "From each
according to his ability; to each according to his WORK." was displayed
in huge red letters.
Wages are linked to work quotas. Every worker is given a quota. If the
quota is not fullfilled, wages are proportionally reduced. Purchase of
scarce appliances (television sets, refrigerators, washing machines,
etc.) are allotted not according to the worker's need but according to
his correct attitude (obeying orders, patriotism, overfullfillment of
work quotas, etc.) The faithful wage slave will be allowed to spend his
vacation at the better resorts and be granted first access to housing.
[21]
Actually, the 13th Congress of the CTC rejected the right of the Unions
to defend the interests of the workers. According to the resolutions,
there are no conflicts. The State, the Communist Party, and the unions
are partners cooperating always to produce "more and better products and
services; to promote punctual attendance at work; to raise political
consciousness; to follow the Communist Party directives ..." [22]
To get a job, every worker must carry an identity card and a file with a
full work record of his "merits" and "demerits." "Merits" include
voluntary unpaid labor, overfullfillment of work quotas, working
overtime without pay, postponing retirement to keep on working, defense
of State property, and a high level of political consciousness.
"Demerits" are "activities that negatively affect production, disturb
discipline, lower the level of political consciousness ..." [23]
In the Spring of 1971, the government proclaimed a law against
"loafing," compelling all able-bodied men between the age of 17 and 60
to work. Worker absenteeism was 20% in late 1970. Penalties for the
"crime of loafing" fluctuate between house arrest and one or two years
of forced labor. [24]
In September, 1970, Castro announced that we "... are going to trust the
workers to hold trade union elections in every local ... the elections
will be absolutely free ..." Castro the brazenly contradicted himself,
making it clear that "... only workers who would unconditionally follow
government, management and party orders would be elected ..." [25]
The election procedure prohibited candidates from electioneering or
advertising their candidacy. Only the election committee had the
exclusive right to advertise the "merits" of the candidates. More than
half the workers refused to participate in the rigged electoral farce,
because they did not expect any real changes, or because there was only
one candidate on the ballot. When the CTC was discussing election
proceedings, some union members strongly criticized the methods of
conducting the elections and the choosing of the candidates. The
Minister of Labor interrupted the discussion, calling the critics
"counter-revolutionaries" and "demagogues" and warning them that their
"negative attitude" had to be "radically changed." [26]
The 13th Congress of the CTC (Nov., 1973) was the first in seven years
(1966). The Congress was attended by 2,230 delegates allegedly
representing 1,200,000 workers. The main business was automatically
ratifying or modifying details of the "thesis" submitted by the
organizaing commission (over 99%) in favor). The number of national
syndicates was increased from 14 to 22. [27]
The Castro government never seriously intended to allow meaningful
participation of the workers in management (to say nothing about full
self-management of industry). K.S. Karol reveals that in 1968: "...
Castro himself confessed to me that he saw no chance of granting the
workers the right to self-management in the near future -- let alone of
introducing a truly socialist mode of production ..." [28]
Jorge Risquet, the Minister of Labor, declared that: "... the fact that
Fidel Castro and I suggested that the workers be consulted, does not
mean that we are going to negate the role that the Communist Party must
play ... decision and responsibility fall to the management ... one
thing that is perfectly clear is that management should and does have
all the authority to make decisions and act ... management represents
the organization of the State and is charged with the planning and
fulfillment of production and services ..." [29]
In his famous speech of July 26th, 1970, Castro made it clear that: "...
we must begin to establish a collective body in each plant ... but it
must be headed by one man and also by representatives of the Advanced
Workers Movement (The Cuban equivalent of the Russian Stakhanovites, who
excelled all other workers in speed and output -- model workers. Later
Stakhanovism became the prototype for the Socialist Emulation
Movement.), the Young Communist League, the Communist Party and the
Women's Front ..." [30]
A 1965 law established Labor Councils (Consejos de Trabajo). The Labor
Council is composed of five workers elected for a three year term. But
the Council does not manage, administer, or even partially control
production. Its functions are to settle workers' grievances, expedite
the orders and directives of management, enforce work discipline and
process transfers. The transfer of a worker must be approved by both the
Ministry of Labor and the Communist Party nucleus. [31]
The unions are actually transmission belts for the administration and
implementation of production. Raul Castro declared that the "... unions
are supposed to be autonomous, but must be politically guided by the
Party and must follow its policies ..." The 13th Congress of the CTC
declared that: "... the functions of the unions are to cooperate in
improving management performance; strengthen labor discipline; assure
attendance at work, increase production, and eradicate absenteeism,
malingering and carelessness ..." [32]
The union could participate in the administration of the enterprise
through two institutions, Production Assemblies and Management Councils
(Consejos de Direccion). These two institutions are the top
administrative bodies at all work centers ..." "... each Management
Council is composed of an administrator, his or her top assistants, the
worker elected union representative, the Communist Party nucleus and the
local branch of the Communist Youth Organizations ..." [33]
"... the Assembly could make recommendations but the manager could
accept, reject, or modify the recommendations as he sees fit ... unions
are not allowed to intervene in the determination of salaries, hiring or
firing, dismissal of managers, or in planning ..." [34]
European, American and many Latin American workers actually exercise
more workers' control than do the Cuban workers. There was, in fact,
more workers' control before Castro's regime came to power.
K.S. Karol, commenting on the massive militarization of labor, which
reached a high point in the 1968 "Revolutionary Offensive," tells how
"... the whole country, was, in fact, reorganized on the model of the
army ... Command Posts were set up ... in every province ... Labor
Brigades were turned into batallions, each divided into three squads,
led by a Major and a Chief of Operations ... the Che Guevara Brigade [on
the agricultural production front] ... was under the direct control of
the army ..." [35]
According to Gerald H. Reed who studied the Cuban educational system
during his long visit to Cuba: "... the plan for the Technological
Instruction Institutes converted these institutions into military
centers. The students live under strict military discipline and complete
their draft obligations while they study ..." [36]
The Youth Army of Work (EJT) is a branch of the regular army, commanded
by Commandante (equivalent to Major General) Oscar Fernandez Mell. Mell
is also Vice Minister of the Revolutionary Army and a member of the
Central Committee of the Communist Party. The EJT was founded Aug. 3,
1973, in the Province of Camaguey. On its first anniversary, a message
of congratulations grandiloquently signed "Fidel Castro, First Secretary
of the Communist Party and First Prime Minister of the Revolutionary
Government" thanks the EJT for:
... your decisive help in the sugar harvests of 1974. Your formidable
work in fulfilling agricultural plans, in the construction of schools,
factories, housing and ferries surpasses even the extraordinary
achievements of preceeding organizations...
And Castro's brother, who signs himself, "Raul Castro Ruz, Commander of
Division and Minister of the Armed Forces":
... sends our most fraternal greetings to all soldiers, officers, under
officers [non-commissioned sergeants, corporals, etc.] and political
commissars of the Youth Army of Work, and exhorts them to perfect
themselves politically, and ideologically for combat ... as we have
already said on other occasions, we are certain that this army will
become a true bastion of prodcution and defense of the Revolution...
[37]
At the Inception of the Revolution Castro was acclaimed by the people
when he vowed to curb the power of the military, reduced the highest
rank in the rebel army to Major and eventually abolished the army
entirely in favor of the People's Militias.
The process of compulsory military service, begun in 1963, culminated in
1973 with the abolition of the vaunted Militias, "The People in Arms."
"... the Militia has been replaced by civil defense organization under
direct army control. Nor is there anything of a 'People's Army' about
the new organization ... after each excercise, the guns are safely
locked away in the barracks -- a far cry from the days when Fidel
declared that he was prepared to distribute arms 'even to cats'..." [38]
Cuba boasts the most powerful army in Latin America. Russia and "the
socialist countries" supplied Cuba with massive armaments and military
technicians. Hundreds of young officers in the Revolutionary Armed
Forces (FAR) were trained in Russia. [39] As early as 1963, the military
expert Hanson Baldwin considered the Cuban air force to be the "most
modern and potentially the most powerful in Latin America." [40]
It has been greatly strengthened since with Russian MIGs and other
equipment. Cuba has a "formidable array of anti-aircraft missiles, coast
artillery, radar stations," [41] long range cannons, the latest light
and heavy tanks, and other modern weapons.
With the cooperation of Soviet military experts, Raul Castro transformed
the Cuban armed forces into a highly disciplined, highly stratified
military machine differing in no essential respect from the modern
conventional armies of the great military powers.
Raul Castro is a far more capable military organizer and strategist than
is his brother Fidel. Raul, and not Fidel, devised the strategy and
organized the Guerrilla War in the Sierra Maestra and in the Sierre de
Cristal, which precipitated the downfall of Batista. Raul has since then
capably commanded the Cuban army. [42] Nearly all the commanders who
served under Raul became high officers in the Cuban army and government,
and became members of the Central Committee of the Communist Party.
It would be a mistake to assume that Raul Castro is a mere figurehead in
the regime. He not only shares power with his brother Fidel, but also
wields considerable power on his own account. When Castro travels
abroad, Raul rules Cuba in his place until Fidel returns. And Matthews
emphasizes that if Fidel Castro should for any reason disappear, Raul
would easily succeed him as ruler of Cuba, because he would be in a
position to rally all the most formidable power blocs to support him.
"... Raul would have with him a powerful military and police force, a
strong administration, the governmental bureaucracy and the all-powerful
Politburo of the Communist Party ..." [43]
Although Raul Castro cut the size of the Cuban army in half (from
300,000 to 150,000), it is still five times greater than Batista's
30,000-man army, navy and air force. Better organized, better trained,
and better equipped with the most advanced weapons, the numerically
reduced army had been reorganized into a far more formidable fighting
force. So much so, that, at this writing, the Cuban government has, in
collusion with Russia, been able to send thousands of troops to fight in
Angola without noticeably impairing the combat power of the Cuban army.
The hierarchical ranking system of the armed forces has been reorganized
to conform with the prevailing traditional ranking systems of all
military powers, "capitalist" or "socialist." "... Law 1257 leaves Fidel
as Chief Minister of the Armed Forces. Raul Castro, as Minister of the
Armed Forces (directly under Fidel), becomes the only Division Commander
whose equivalent in other countries is Lieutenant General. (Raul is in
fact now called 'Lieutenant General' in Cuba.) Four Brigade Commanders
were named who are the equivalent of Major Generals ... a number of
First Commanders, or Colonels, were also appointed. Below the rank of
Commander (Lieutenant Colonel), the titles of First Lieutenant and
Sub-Lieutenant are used as in other armies... Similar changes are made
for the Revolutionary Navy. (Ship Commander, for Admiral, down to
Covrette Captain, for the equivalent of Commander as in other navies..."
[44]
In justifying counter-revolutionary militarization, Castro said that the
armed forces "... had been distinguised in the past for their modesty of
rank and uniform [plain, shabby olive-green, but that now the]
Revolution had become more mature and so had the armed forces..." [45]
Increasing militarization signifies revolutionary progress! This remark
alone signifies the degeneration of the Revolution -- even without
additional incontrovertible evidence.
While Castro is at present the undisputed ruler of Cuba,
institutionalization is eventually bound to undermine his personal
dictatorship.
It is axiomatic that no State can possibly rule without an
administrative apparatus. The reconstruction of the Cuban government
therefore necessitates the creation of an enormous bureaucratic
administrative machine. The Communist Party, the armed forces, the
educational establishment, the economic agencies, the unions, the local,
regional, provincial and national governmental branches, etc.,
relentlessly compete for more power. As these formidable power blocs
expand and become more firmly entrenched, Castro's machine will
increasingly be obliged to share power with them. Personal rule will
give way to a collective dictatorship and tyranny will be perpetuated.
The institutionalization of the Cuban Revolution is, however, still in
its early stages. Thus far, the first attempts in this direction
indicate that the institutionalization of the Revolution serves only to
re-inforce the personal dictatorship of Fidel Castro and his faithful
lieutenants.
Powerfully abetted by the massive support of the Soviet bloc of
"socialist countries" and its own massive internal apparatus, the Castro
regime is still powerfully entrenched. The Cuban people, unable to
revolt by force of arms, are waging a relentless guerilla war of passive
resistance against the Police State. They have, in the course of their
struggles, developed ingenious ways of harassing and even seriously
frustrating the plans of their tyrants (loafing, slowdowns, evading
laws, sabotage, sporadic acts of violence, ridicule, etcetera).
The rebellion could provide a solid base for a mass underground movement
comparable to the anti-Batista resistance movements. On the other hand,
the ability of modern totalitarian regimes -- both "right" and "left" --
to survive mass discontent indefinitely for generations -- must not be
underestimated. Many hard battles will have to be fought, many lives
lost, before victory will have at last been achieved.
Since the text of the Constitution of the Republic of Cuba arrived after
the completioN of this book, comment is included in the appendix.
(English Translation, Center for Cuban Studies, N.Y. 1976)
Although Article 4 of the constitution proclaims that "...all power
belongs to the working people who exercise it directly or through the
Assemblies of Peoples Power..." the constitution actually
institutionalizes and perpetuates the dictatorship in much the same
manner as the Constitution of the Soviet Union promulgated by Stalin. A
few examples:
[Article 66:] . . . State organs are based. . . upon the principles of.
. . unity of power [and the totalitarian Lenin-Stalin principle of]
democratic centralism...
[Article 5:] . . . the socialist State. . . consolidates the ideology
and rules of living together and of proper conduct in Cuban society. . .
directs the national economy. . . assures the educational, scientific
technical and cultural progress of the country...
[Article 38:] . . . education is a function of the state. . .
educational institutions belong to the state. . . [which promotes]
communist education and training of children, young people and adults. .
.
[Article 52:] . . . citizens have the freedom of speech and the press
[in keeping with] socialist society [but the exercise of that right is
vested in the statel...press, radio, television, movies and other organs
of the mass media are exclusively state property. . .
[Article 19:] The wage system of Cuba is based upon the. . . socialist
principle of 'From each according to his ability, to each according to
his work...'
Following the Russian pattern, the Constitution of Cuba " . . . basing
ourselves on the. . . proletarian internationalism. . . of the Soviet
Union. . ." (Preamble) is a hierarchically structured pyramid in which
the absolute power of the state, through its chain-of-command is imposed
from the top down over every level of Cuban society (homes
neighborhoods, municipalities, provinces etc.) . . . decisions of
superior state organs are compulsory for inferior ones. . . "
[Article 66:] Starting from the local, municipal and provincial
Assemblies of People's Power, the Council of Ministers and the Council
of State, supreme power is ultimately personified in a single dictator:
The President of the Council of State.
[Article 105:] [Decisions of Local Assemblies of People's Power can be]
. . . revoked, suspended or modified . . . by the. . . Municipal and
Provincial Assemblies of Pcople's Power.
[Article 96:] [The Council of Ministers can] ...revoke or annul
provisions issued by. . . heads of central agencies and the
administrative bodies of the local organs [Municipal and Provincial
Assemblies] of People's Power...
[Article 88:] [The Council of State can, in turn,] . . .suspend the
provisions of the Council of Ministers and [even the] Local Assemblies
of People's Power which in its opinion run counter to the Constitution.
. . or the general interest of the country.. ."
The prerogatives of the President of the Council of State match the
absolute power exercised by Stalin:
[Article 91:] . . .The President of the Council of State is Head of the
Government and is invested with the power to: . . . organize, conduct
the activities of, call for the holding of and preside over the sessions
of the Council of State and the Council of Ministers . . . control and
supervise. . . the activities of the ministries and central agencies of
the administration . . . assume the leadership of any ministry or
central agency of the administration ...replace.. the members of the
Council of Ministers [Article 88] . . . represent the state and the
government and conduct their general policy. . .
The totalitarian character of the constitution is best summarized in
this extract from its Preamble:
WE adopt the following Constitution. . . to carry forward the triumphant
Revolution [initiated] . . . under the leadership of Fidel Castro [who]
established the revolutionary power...and started the construction of
socialism under the direction of the Communist Party...
Jan. 1, 1959 Batista flees Cuba: Revolution begins.
Jan. 4 Manuel Urrutia Lleo appointed President of Cuba. Armed Student
Directorio seizes and refuses to evacuate the Presidential Palace, the
seat of government and the University of Havana campus because Castro
unilaterally appointed his "Provisional Government" without consulting
allied anti-Batista fighting groups.
Jan. 10 Habeas corpus suspended. Capital punishment decreed.People's
Socialist Party (PSP-Communists) pledges allegiance to Castro.
Feb. 16 Miró Cardona resigns and Castro appoints himself Premier.
April 5 Censorship of press, radio, television etc. begins. Strikes
prohibited.
May 8 Castro government assumes unlimited power. Council of Ministers
can decree laws and change constitution at will.
May 17 Agrarian Reform Law (National Institute of Agrarian Reform -
INRA) makes illegal ownership of more than 5 caballerias (1 caballeria =
33 ½ acres) of land. INRA institutes state farms on Russian model. Law
43 giving INRA dictatorial powers reads: ". . . the INRA will appoint
administrators and the workers will accept all orders and decrees
dictated by INRA. . . "
June 3 Pedro Luis Diaz, Commander of the Air Force and close friend of
Castro, protests growing influence of Communists and leaves Cuba.
June 9 Resolution 6, gives Castro unlimited power to spend public funds
without being accountable to anyone.
July 7 Article 25 of Fundamental Law further extends death penalty for
"acts hostile to the regime"
July 18 Urrutia resigns. The Communist Dorticos appointed new Presiclent
of Cuba
July 26 The day after he resigns, Castro before a delirious mass
demonstration of 500,000 people withdraws his resignation as self
appointed Premier of Cuba. The carefully staged proceeding was a cheap
publicity hoax.
Sept. 30 Cuba sells 3,300,000 tons of sugar to Russia
Oct. 13 Article 149, regulating private schools and education, prohibits
teaching of subjects not taught in public schools, state dictates
curriculum.
Oct. 20 Castro's close friend and second-in-command, Major Hubor Matos,
Military Commander of Province of Camagüey resigns in protest of
communist infiltration of Cuban government. Arrested by order of Castro
and after fake "trial", sentenced.
Dec. 14 to 20 years imprisonment. Sentence stirred dormant resentment in
armed forces and also civilians who revered Matos, as hero of the
Revolution.
Oct. 27 Nationalization of oil property begins.
Nov. 30 10th Congress of Cuban Confederation of Labor (CTC). Communist
candidates endorsed by Castro are defeated. A little later, officials
freely elected by rank-and-file are dismissed by order of Castro and
replaced by Castro's appointees. The democratically elected Secretary,
David Salvador, is sentenced to 30 year prison term.
Nov. 26 Ernesto Che Guevara (who knows nothing about finance) appointed
President of the Bank of Cuba.
Dec. 27 Law 680 tightens press, radio, television, etc., censorship.
Jan. 1, 1960 Vice-President of Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union,
Anastas Mikoyan, inaugurates Soviet exhibition in Palace of Fine Arts
Feb. 13 Commercial treaty signed by Mikoyan and Castro grants credit of
$100,000,000 and exchanges Cuban sugar for Soviet armaments.
March. 16 Establishment of Central Planning Body (JUCEPLAN) to manage
economy. Blas Roca, veteran communist leader appointed Director of
JUCEPLAN.
April 20 Instituto Superior de Educacion established to indoctrinate
tcachers with Marxist-Leninist principles.
April 22. Gala celebration of Lenin's birthday.
May 7 Formal diplomatic relations with Russia established.
May 8 C ommandante Rolando Cubela (later mortal enemy of Castro)
President of the Federation of University Students (FEU) orders
expulsion of anti-communist students from the University of Havana.
June 3 Death Penalty decreed for misappropriation of funds.
June 6 Law 851 decrees nationalization of property. In successive months
the property of the Cuban Telephone Co., Cuban Electric Co., three oil
companies (Standard, Shell and Texaco) and 21 sugar refineries are
nationalized. (By the end of 1960, the state expropriated 11,287
companies, equal to two-thirds of Cuban industry. By March 1961,
nationalization totalled 88% of industrial production and 55% of
agricultural production.
July 15 Most of the faculty of Havana University resigns in protest over
communist party takeover.
Sept. 28 Organization of the Committees for the Defense of the
Revolution (CDR) to spy on citizens even in their homes.October " . . .
a strike is a counter-revolutionary act in a socialist republic. . ."
(Castro). ". . .The destiny of the unions is to disappear..." (Guevara).
"...the Minister of Labor can take control of any union or federation of
unions, dismiss officials and appoint others. . . " (law 647)
Oct. 13 With nationalization of 376 additional firms and Urban Reform
Law (including housing) Castro proclaims the completion of the first
phase of the Revolution.
Nov. 7 Gala parade in celebration of anniversary of Russian Revolution
with participation of thousands of Russian, Chinese and "socialist"
countries' technicians and "advisors. "
Nov. 22 Cuban Government predicts that in 1961, production of potatoes,
beans, poultry, eggs, corn, and cotton "will have quintuplet)."
Actually, "production between 1958-1963 decreased by 50% (Rene Dumont)
Nov. 30 Cuba and China sign trade agreement. China buys 1,000,000 tons
of sugar and extends $50,000,000 credit to Cuba.
Dec. 31 Castro creates Higher Council of Universities headed by Minister
of Education to rule universities.
Jan. 1, 1961 2nd anniversary of the Cuban Revolution.
Jan. 3 U.S. severs relations with Cuba.
Jan. 4 " . . . any counter-revolutionary activity (as defined by the
dictators) by any worker, either in the public or private sector, will
be sufficient cause for immediate dismissal and additional punishment
for criminal acts under the law. . . " (law 934)
Jan. 21 6 complete factories arrive from Yugoslavia. 100 due to be
delivered by Russia. Cuba sends 1000 children to Russia to learn how to
become obedient communists. Educational collaboration with Soviet
ambassador to Havana, Yuri Gavrilov, and Czechoslovak Vice Minister of
Education, Vaslav Pelishek, to teach Cuban educators methods used in
communist lands.
Jan. 29 Cuban Ministry of Education will train teachers in Minar del
Frío, a communist school, how to become good Marxist-Leninists.
Feb. 10 Stepped up campaign to mobilize hundreds of thousands of
"volunteers" to cut cane and do other important work.
Feb. 23 Guevara appointed Minister of Industry (which he knows nothing
about)
April 17 "Bay of Pigs" invasion by unofficial U.S.-sponsored forces.
May 1 Castro proclaims that Cuba has become the first Socialist Republic
in Latin Anlerica. Thousands parade carrying huge portraits of Castro,
Jose Marti, Khrushchev, Mao, Lenin, Marx and Engels. On being awarded
the Lenin peace prize, Castro exults: "GLORY TO THE GREAT JOSE MARTÍ!"
"GLORY TO THE GREAT VLADIMIR ILYICH LENIN!"
Dec. 2 Castro delivers his "I am a Marxist-Leninist Communist" speech.
March 8, 1962 A forerunner of the Communist Party of Cuba, the
Integrated Revolutionary Organizations (ORI) is organized.
March 12 Law 1015 decrees rationing of most foods and other necessities.
July To combat absenteeism and enforce work discipline the government
announces plans to issue in August and September, identification cats
which all workers must show as condition for employment... ...thereby
guaranteeing full compliance with directives established by the
Revolutionary Government as far as labor is concerned...Ministry of
Labor institutes forced labor in Province of Pinar del Rió
for...employees who comitted transgressions in fulfilllment of their
functions...
Aug. - Sept. Drive against political and social dissenters stepped up.
El Libertario, organ of the Liberation Association of Cuba
(anarcho-syndicalist) forced to suspend publication. Workers threatened
with the loss of jobs if they do not volunteerto work without pay.
Students, housewives an others told they will lose benefits if they do
not volunteer their services. Agricultural cooperatives transformed into
state farms.
Spring, 1963 Compulsory service for 15 to 17 year-old delinquents
decreed to provide a labor force for a wide range of agricultural and
civic projects. Formation of the United Party of the Socialist
Revolution (PURS), another version of the future post-Castro Communist
Party of Cuba (CPC)
Oct. 4 Second Agrarian Reforn, restricts ownership of land to five
caballerias.
Nov. For the first time in Cuba compulsory military service is decreed
in preference to volunteer service in militia.
Feb. 14, 1964 Castro takes personal charge of INRA.
Summer, 1965 The much vaunted militia, "The People in Arms" is
practically liquidated as an independent force. Nationwide disarmament
of the militia is decreed. Militia officers and civilians are commanded
to turn their weapons in by Sept. Ist or face severe penalties. Members
of the military reserve and communities for the Defense of the
Revolution must also comply.
July 4 Havana Longshoremen refuse to load meat for Italy because of meat
shortage in Cuba. 200 arrested and later released with only stern
warnings for fear of further complications.
Oct. 3 Militarily orgarlized labor camps established to rehabilitate
"delinquents."Havana University is again purged. Writers and artists
sent to penal camps, ostensibly to "purify the Revolution."
March, 1966 Rolando Cubela (former favorite of Castro) sentenced to 25
years at hard labor for conspiracy to assassinate Castro because he
betrayed the Revolution.
Aug. 22-26 12th Congress of the CTC adopts resolution stating that: " .
. . the labor movement directed and guided by the Communist Party, must
effectively contribute to the mobilization of the masses in fulfilling
of the tasks assigned by the Revolution and strengthening
Marxist-Leninist theory . . . "
1967 Organization ot the Vanguard Workers Movement. Like the
Stakhanovites in Russia, the Vanguard Workers are expected to set the
pace and initiate speedup of their fellow workers. In exchange, Vanguard
Workers get special privileges.A program of Youth Reeducation Centers
established for youngsters under 16 found guilty of minor offences. They
are to perform "a full day's work" and get military training.
Oct. Ché Guevara killed in Bolivia guerrilla campaign.
Jan. 28, 1968 Castro asserts his domination over the Communist Party.
Anibal Escalante, a prominent communist, is sentenced to 15 years at
hard labor for plotting to subordinate Castro to the discipline of the
Party. He was accused of the typical Stalinist crime of
"microfactionalism."
March 13 Castro introduces the "Great Revolutionary Offensive" by
nationalizing 58,000 trades, shops and services. Young people are
mobilized, military fashion, for agriculture and sugar production.
Aug. 2 Castro defends the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.
Aug. 17 The Minister of Labor, Jorge Risquet, announces introduction of
llabor card" recording acts of indiscipline, work record, etc.
Oct. 22 A "social-security law" providing incentives for workers who
demonstrate "exemplary" behavior is decreed. Those who exhibit
"communist work attitudes," renounce overtime pay, are not absent
without authorization, exceed work quotas and enthusiastically perform
"voluntary" labor become eligible for special benefits.
Jan. 2, 1969 Castro introduces rationing of sugar!
July 9 Castro praises revolutionary achievements of the military
totalitarian Junta that seized power in Peru.
Sept. 24 Arrnando Hart (prominent member of Casto's ruling junta)
praises Soviet achievements under Stalin and urges Cubans to follow
Stalin's example.
1970 The whole labor force is mobilized Imilitary fashion) for
harvesting the 10 million ton sugar crop while the rest of the economy
is neglected. The campaign fails and Castro himself takes the blame for
setting back the rest of the economy to the lowest levels since the
Revolution, declaring that: "...I want to speak of our own incapacity in
the overall work of the Revolution. . tour responsibility to must be
noted . . . especially mine. . . Our apprenticeship as directors of the
Revolution has been too costly. . . "
Sept. A series of drastic measures to strengthen weak labor discipline
enacted by the Labor Ministry and CTC bureaucracy. Sanctions against
absentees include denial of right to purchase goods in short supply (new
housing, repairs, loss of vacations and other privileges. In extreme
cases offenders can be sent to labor camps etc. There is a dossier for
each worker which every worker is obliged to show, detailing his work
record. Less than half of the workers participate in rigged union
elections. Castro's henchmen screen all candidates. In some locals there
was only one candidate on the ballot.
March 1971 Dissident poet Herberto Padilla arrested on trumped up
charges of "counter-revolution" for writing critical poetry and articles
about Cuban dictatorship. Later, in true Stalinist fashion Padilla
"repents his sins" and is "rehabilitated." The case aroused world-wide
protests.
Dec. 1972 Creation of the super-centralized Executive Committee of the
Council of Ministers.
Between 1972 and 1975 the institutionalization and reorganization of the
Revolution was being implemented.
Mid-1971 Reform of the judicial system. Courts and all legal bodies
dominated] and completely responsible to the Executive Committee of the
Council of Ministers. There is no independent judiciary. The Prime
Minister, the President of the Republic, other ministers, and the
members of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of Cuba are
exempt from the jurisdiction of the regular courts.
April Militias ("People in Arms") abolished.
May Liability of 18 year olds for "crimes" against the economy, abnormal
sexual behavior, etc., etc., applied to 16 year old "offenders."
Aug. 2 Creation of the Youth Army of Work (AYW), a paramilitary
organization controlled by the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR).
November 13th Congress of the CTC endorses and promises to carry out the
dictatorial policies of the Regime.
December Law 1257 decrees creation of regular, conventional army
complete with ranking system and discipline of great military powers.
May 8, 1974 With the establishment of the People's Organization of
Popular Control (PCP) an experiment in "decentralization" and "direct
democracy" designed to promote mass participation in Local, Regional
administration is initiated in Matanzas Province (to be extended to rest
of Cuba in 1976). The system patterned after the fake Russian "soviets"
actually reinforces the dictatorship.
July 2 Castro proclaims 3 days of mourning for the death of the fascist
dictator of Argentina Juan Perón. With Congress of the Communist Party
of Cuba (Dec. 1975) the institutionalization of the Revolution was
substantially completed. The permanent, legally sanctioned, totalitarian
apparatus intlicts itself on future generations.
ALC Libertarian Federation of Cuba
MLCE Libertarian Movement of Cuba in Exile
CNT National Confederation of Labo (Spanish Anarcho-Syndicalist)
IWMA International Workingmens Association (Abbreviations of Cuban
organizations with date of founding)
CDR Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, 1960
CTC Confederation of Cuban Workers, 1939
EJT Youth Army of Work, 1973
FAR Revolutionary Armed Forces, 1961
INRA National Institute of Agrarian Reform, 1959
JUCEPLAN Central Planning Board, 1960
OPP Organs of Popular Power, 1974
ORI Ubtegrated Revolutionary Organizations, 1961-1963
PCC Communist Party of Cuba
PSP Socialist Popular Party, 1925-1961
PURS United Party of the Socialist Revolution, 1963-1965
SMO Compulsoray Military Service, 1963
SS Compulsory Social Service, 1973
UMAP Military Units to Aid Production, 1964-1973
UNEAC National Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba, 1961
UJC Young Communist League
A full bibliography of writings on the background of the Cuban
Revolution and the Revolution itself would easily fill several volumes.
It is therefore necessary to list such works in English as seems best
for the general reader.Interestingly enough, the sources are the
speeches and writings of Castro and members of his inner circle
(official government publications, periodicals, newspapers etc.) Another
excellent source is the works of the pro-friendly critics. Both the
Cuban officials in the process ot justifying their dictatorial measures
and the friendly critics in trying to account for the degeneration of
the Revolution inadvertently supply valuable information about the
nature of the Cuban Revolution.
Castros speeches and writings are easily available - a convenient
compilation is The Selected Works of Fidel Castro: Revolutionary
Struggle; Rolando Bonachea and Nelson P. Valdes (M.I.T. Press Cambridge,
1971 - First ot three volumes.)
Johrl Gerassi, Venceremos! The Speeches and Writings of Ché Guevara (New
York, 1968.)
Ché Guevara, Episodes of the Revolutionary Struggle (Book Institute,
Havana, 1967.) An invaluable, intimate first-hand account ot the early
struggles of Castro's guerrilla band in the Sierra Maestra.
Granma Weekly Review (English Language Edition) - official organ of the
Communist Party of Cuba. Good for current events, official notices,
proclamations, etc.
Cuban Studies Newsletter; published twice yearly by the Center for Latin
American Studies; University of Pittsburgh. Contains many informative
articles, theses and other writings.
The University of Miami's Center for Research on Caribbean Studies; also
the Cuban Economic Research Project, an excellent research staff manned
by Cuban specialists.
Yale University's Antilles Program.
Center for Cuban Studies, New York.
United Nations publications.
Background to Revolution; a collection of essays on Cuban history
leading to the Cuban Revolution. A good general survey by competent
authorities (Edited by Robert F. Smith, New York, 1966).
Jaime Suchlicki, From Columbus to Castro, New York, 1974, also his
excellent collection of essays by ten specialists, (University of Miami,
1972). Suchlicki's works are particularly important because he
participated in the Revolutionary Students' Movement in his native Cuba.
Although Hugh Thomas' massive history The Pursuit of Freedom has been
widely acclaimed, his atrocious work on the Spanish Civil War
(1936-1939) should be borne in mind when reading his Cuban volume.
Jules Dubois' Fidel Castro; (Indianapolis, 1959). Dubois, late
correspondent for the Chicago Tribune, interviewed and was on very
cordial terms with Fidel Castro and associates. An excellent account of
events from Castro's landing in Cuba, to the fall of Batista, plus
interesting biographical data.
Herrbert Matthews, New York Times correspondent who first interviewed
Castro in the Sierra Maestre, was welcomed to Cuba several times since
then. Matthews has written extensively on the Cuban Revolution. Among
his writings are: Fidel Castro; (New York, 1959) and Cuba in Revolution;
(New York, 1975). Though strongly biased in favor of Castro, the latter
work contains valuable information.
Rufo López Fresquet: My First Fourteen Months With Castro; (New York,
1966) and Andres Suárez, Castroism and Communism: 1959-1966; (MIT Press,
Cambridge, 1967). Both Fresquet, former Minister of the Treasury in
Castro's cabinet, and Suárez, the Assistant Minister of the Treasury,
broke with Castro because they disagreed with his pro-communist
policies. Their revelations contribute greatly to an understanding of
the Cuban Revolution.
Under the intriguing title, Does Your Father Eat More Than Castro? (New
York, 1971), Barry Reckord, a Jamaica dramatist, describes the daily
life of ordinary Cubans, and in so doing, tells more about the effects
of the Cuban Revolution than any number of abstract statistical studies.
The same is true of the journalist, Joe Nicholson Junior's Inside Cuba
(New York, 1974.)
Fidel Castro's Personal Revolution: 1959-1973 (New York, 1975); an
anthology edited by James Nelson Goodsell, is a good general survey.
Adolfo Gilly's Inside the Cuban Revolution (New York, 1964), although
passionately pro-Castro, is nevertheless a penetrating critique.
In his Castro's Revolution: Myths and Realities (New York, 1962),
Theodor Draper dispels the euphoria surrounding both the character and
achievements of the Cuban Revolution. A realistic analysis. His
Castroism: Theory and Practice (New York, 1965) develops his themes more
fully. K.S. Karol's Guerrillas in Power (New York, 1970) - Karol, a
Marxist-Leninist writer who was welcomed to Cuba by Castro, was later
excommunicated for his critical insights and revelations about the
unfavorable features of the Cuban Revolution. His work constitutes an
able political history of the Cuban Revolution, fal superior to Huberman
and Sweezy's Socialism in Cuba (New York, 1969).
Maurice Halperin's The Rise and Decline of Fidel Castro (University of
California Press, 1972) deals primarily with the complex relations
between Castro and the Soviet Union and foreign affairs. His
observations on the situation in Cuba itself enhance the work. Halperin
taught at the University of Havana for six years and in Russia for three
years. His is one of the better works.
The analytic books of Rene' Dumont: Cuba: Socialism and Developmetn (New
York, 1970 and Is Cuba Socialist, (New York, 1974), and the
painstakingly researched work of Carmelo Mesa-Lago, Cuba in the 1970s
(University of New Mexico, 1974) have already been discussed and need no
further comment.
[1] Herbert Mattews, Cuba in Revolution; New York, 1975, p. 379
[2] Carmelo Mesa-Lago, Cuba in the 1970s; University of New Mexico,
1974, p. 68
[3] ibid. p. 68 (unless otherwise noted, Mesa-Lago's sources are from
Granma, the official organ of the Communist Party of Cuba)
[4] Mesa-Lago; ibid. p.68
[5] Granma; Jan. 6, 1974
[6] K.S. Karol, Guerillas in Power; New York, 1970, p. 472
[7] The Rise and Decline of Fidel Castro; University of California,
1974, p. 133
[8] Granma, Sept. 28, 1969 -- quoted, Halperin, ibid. p. 17
[9] International Affairs Monthly; Moscow, Nov. 1975, p. 17
[10] ibid. p. 17
[11] Granma, May 28, 1974
[12] Karol, ibid. p. 457
[13] Mattews, ibid. p. 15
[14] Barry Reckord, Does Fidel Eat More than Your Father?; New York,
1971, pgs. 60-69
[15] Rene Dumont, Is Cuba Socialist? New York, 1974, p. 137
[16] Mesa-Lago, ibid. pgs. 93-96
[17] Mesa-Lago, ibid. pgs. 93-96
[18] Mesa-Lago, ibid. pg. 97
[19] Mesa-Lago, ibid. pg. 96
[20] Mesa-Lago, ibid. pg. 43
[21] Mesa-Lago, ibid. pgs. 44-45
[22] Mesa-Lago, ibid. pg. 3
[23] Mesa-Lago, ibid. pg. 87, 88
[24] Granma, Jan. 17, 1971
[25] Resumen Granma Seminal, Oct. 10, 1970
[26] Mesa-Lago, ibid. 77-88
[27] Mesa-Lago, ibid. 77-88
[28] Karol, ibid. p. 546
[29] Speech to closing session of the 13th Congress of the CTC
[30] quoted by Andrew Zimablist, paper presented to 2nd annual Congress
on Workers' Self-Management; Cornell University, June 1975
[31] Zimbalist, ibid.
[32] Mesa-Lago, ibid. p. 82,83
[33] Zimbalist, ibid.
[34] Mesa-Lago, ibid. p. 84
[35] Karol, ibid. p. 444-445
[36] Comparative Education Review; June 1970, pgs. 136, 143
[37] Granma, Aug. 18, 1974
[38] Karol, ibid. p. 457; also Granma, April 22, 1973
[39] Mattews, ibid. p. 187
[40] Mattews, ibid. p. 102
[41] Mattews, ibid. p. 102
[42] Mattews, ibid. p. 102
[43] Mattews, ibid. p. 407
[44] Mattews, ibid. p. 407
[45] Granma, April 22, 1973