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Title: The June Error Author: Gustavo RodrĂguez Date: September 18, 2010 Language: en Topics: Cuba, Fidel Castro, Leninism, The Utopian Source: Retrieved on 5th August 2021 from http://utopianmag.com/archives/tag-The%20Utopian%20Vol.%209%20-%202010/el-error-de-junio Notes: Published in The Utopian Vol. 9. Translation by Luis Prat.
“Freedom without socialism is privilege and injustice; socialism without
liberty is slavery and brutality”
M. Bakunin
In the past month (June 2010), we have seen a proliferation of articles
about “critical collaboration” from the “contradictory insider,” along
with calls for “revolutionary cohesion” and “dialogue without
sectarianism” and invitations to reach consensus—in the revolutionary
ranks—about the supposedly unavoidable transition to Socialism in Cuba.
These calls have occurred in the context of an undeniable atmosphere of
mild criticism that has been growing in strength within certain quarters
that still remain devoted to the Castro brothers’ government and their
sole and exclusive Party.
It is rather remarkable that in these crucial times the old slogans have
returned, reworked into new formulations that timidly feature the very
same points that, fifty years ago and in a much stronger fashion, the
anarchists from the Cuban Libertarian Association (AsociaciĂłn Libertaria
Cubana—ALC[1] raised in a manifesto[2] written at the beginning of 1959.
At that time, they criticized in no uncertain terms the growing “state
centralism” of the Castro regime that was leading to an “authoritarian
order,” while recalling the principal role that Cuban anarchists had
played in the struggle against the dictatorship of President-General
Fulgencio Batista. They also denounced the obscene strategy of the
Communist Party of Cuba (Partido Comunista de Cuba -PCC) that aimed to
“recover the hegemony that [...]it enjoyed during the period of
Batista’s rule. In a similar vein, the February 15, 1959 issue of
Solidaridad GastronĂłmica, in a Manifesto to the Workers and the People
in General, warned, in the face of the Castro regime’s top-down
decisions to leave in their leadership posts the pack of PCC cadres that
so loyally served Batista’s dictatorship while simultaneously removing
the anarchosyndicalists from the proletarian ranks: “It is imperative
that it be the workers themselves who decide the ousting of the past
leaders, otherwise we will fall into the same procedures we fought
against yesterday”.[3] The anarchist journal, in its editorial of March
15 1959, also condemned the “dictatorial means [...] agreements and
mandates from above that impose rules, and install and remove leaders,”
denounced the “uncritical elements [...] in assemblies, who, not even
part of the union organization, still raise their hands in favor of the
decisions of the leadership,” and went on to describe some of the
intimidation techniques used to achieve hegemony: “[...] they fill the
assemblies with armed militiamen who flagrantly threaten people; they
don’t respect the rules of order [...] and use any means to maintain
control of the unions.”[4]
Of course, as the saying goes, “Better late than never.” But the truth
is that not only do the recent calls arrive rather late in the day; they
are also written in a kind of weak digital Morse code. Curiously, they
repeat the old criticisms. They openly accept that “the dangerous
sectarian practice continues to this day” and affirm that “In Cuba today
we can see with full clarity the reactionary sectarian character of
those actions that create divisions and resentments and impede the
advancement of socialism”. Yet they avoid recognizing that these same
warnings were made at the very beginning of the revolutionary process by
those committed to Socialism and Freedom. They also avoid an in-depth
examination of the roots of the problem.
As comrade RamĂłn GarcĂa Guerra correctly points out, “the question
requires delving into the problem of the consequences of policies. It
also demands an analysis of who benefits and who doesn’t [...] the
current critique speculates about popular discontent while appealing to
common sense. The critics know that uncertainty makes people unhappy. As
a solution, they now offer us a return to the times when everything
seemed to work well in society. (Curiously, this comes from those who
think they will benefit from a return to the past.) The opposite
reaction would be to foster immobility in the face of the need for
change in society. This policy is another way to speculate with common
sense. Then they appeal to fear. In the end, we are held hostage to
collective dreams and fears that impede imagining other possible
realities. In contrast, the criticism we make seeks to turn the malaise
into consciousness that will facilitate change [...]”[5]
The new critics propose an alternative “vision,” an alternative they do
not wish to impose on anyone. Instead, they want to “spread it, debate
it and look for a way to include it as part of the solution; although
this discussion and its publication in the official media are
prohibited”.[6] But they ignore the fact that at the beginning of the
Revolution, the anarchists proposed for consideration by Cuban society a
whole set of questions and alternatives that went much farther and much
deeper. But not only were the anarchists denied a hearing; they were
also crushed with much violence and relish. Perhaps it is ignorance of
this that answers to those “collective fears that impede imagining other
possible social realities” that GarcĂa Guerra talks about.
Of course, it isn’t necessary to have knowledge of all the initiatives
that were attempted in the past in order to initiate new socialist
alternatives to the reactionary barbaric sectarianism that still remains
after fifty one years of absolute hegemony. However, we do consider the
thorough study of the history of the social-revolutionary movement a
requisite of vital importance (not just in the Cuban case but also in
the international social-revolutionary movement as a whole) in order to
avoid repeating the same errors or to succumb to the same perils and/or
deviations.
However, it would be regrettable if the real preoccupations of the Cuban
anarchists were to become, once again, an ethereal polemic, while we are
again diagnosed with a “desire to show off ”, with “opportunist
political behavior”, and with a tendency to”lean towards political
gains.”[7] To make such charges reveals a congenital perversity and/or
chronic ideological illiteracy.
At the beginning of this piece, we noted the proliferation— particularly
during the month of June (2010)—of articles, proposals, attacks, and
replies dressed up as “critical collaboration” from the “contradictory
insider,” as well as repeated calls for “revolutionary cohesion” and
“dialogue without sectarianism” towards the unavoidable transition to
Socialism in Cuba.[8]
Among these many “messages,” one can discern two messengers with
differing political agendas, in spite of certain analogies and a
similarity of objectives between them.
At first sight, we have two opposing factions with identical return
addresses:
One is the “historical vanguard” of the Partido Comunista Cubano, of
clear Stalinist style, majoritarian and octogenarian; now serving in
high public places and/or being held in reserve under the “pajama plan.”
The other is a new, reformist generation of Communist Party militants
and other cadres, of Trotskyist inspiration, close to this institution,
minoritarian, aged between 40 and 60, currently serving as low- and
middle-level members of the Cuban ruling elite.[9] Also close to this
current we find a much more heterodox group of intellectuals who follow
a wide spectrum of political doctrines from Swedish SocialDemocracy and
the Italian “communism” of Refundazione, to the Spanish Izquierda Unida
and the Bolivarian “socialism of the XXI Century” of Venezuelan
president, Hugo Chavez.
As comrade Armando Chaguaceda writes, the former group prefers the
current option of “a hybrid of barracks communism and capitalist policy
(in its state and neoliberal versions)”[10] in addition to the Coca[11]
reforms initiated by the President-General. The latter opts for the
Fifth Socialist Participative International and proposes as a “solution”
the Programmatic Proposal for a Participative and Democratic Socialism
(SPD) “proposed from inside the revolution and the Communist Party.”[12]
Of course, were we to choose the lesser evil without the slightest
questioning, we would adhere to this latter faction. But this is not the
case. Although we know beforehand that it is possible to enter into a
debate (and even a dialogue) with the representatives of this reformist
current—in fact, for several years we have maintained an open polemic
that I would dare to describe as fraternal, depending more on the
personality of our counterparts rather than the ideas s/he professes—we
note gross contradictions in their proposals that inevitably make us
hesitate to support them.
Even so, we see a huge difference between the voices of the SPD, full of
good intentions, as they are, and their barracks grandparents. At least
the reformists can not be accused of a single murder, accusation,
sentence, beating, or treasonous act; while the barracks Stalinists have
been the direct authors of virtually every evil deed committed in Cuba
in the past 77 years. Despite this, we observe with astonishment how the
the former sign up— perhaps involuntarily, due either to inertia or to
fear—to repeat the very same errors their progenitors committed in the
past.
Let’s just note the following sentence by Campos[13] in order to analyze
the hesitations mentioned above: “[...] more than ever, cohesion is
needed in the revolutionary ranks, without stopping the internal
ideological struggle to advance socialism” (our emphasis). Two
paragraphs below, Campos writes, “[...] the enemies of dialogue,
interchange, and understanding, those who would sharpen the
contradictions, will always oppose such a movement and will try to
sabotage it in order to exacerbate the tensions.” This falsely conflates
“those who would sharpen the contradictions,” that is, the social
revolutionaries conscious of their role, with “the enemies of dialogue,
interchange, and understanding”.
A half-way rational analysis leads us to the conclusion that we are
facing a rather acute contradiction that demands questioning Campos
about such dialectical acrobatics, at least by asking a couple of
questions:
How can one pretend to have “cohesion in the revolutionary ranks without
ceasing the internal ideological struggle to advance socialism” without
sharpening the contradictions or aggravating the tensions natural to the
struggle between the excluded and the included?
With whom are they trying to launch a dialogue and achieve an
understanding without sharpening the contradictions or aggravating the
tensions?
Campos carefully notes in the same text: “We have insisted for some time
on the need to establish a new consensus about the kind of society the
Cuban people want, which can not be imposed but must be the result of an
exchange of ideas among all revolutionaries and with all Cubans honestly
concerned with the well being of their nation [...] Cuba must change in
many aspects, and many modifications will have to be made to improve the
political system in order to achieve a true participatory democracy, as
a society trying to build the never reached socialist paradigm [...] The
Cuban people have lived in insecurity for decades, subject to infinite
obfuscations and a plethora of regulations of all kinds imposed by
different levels of the bureaucracy that plagues the life of the average
Cuban, who never knows which way the government will go, who is never
able to make long- or even or short-term plans, always vulnerable to the
shifting situation and to decisions over which s/he has no say [...]
Unless we own up, with all the consequences, to the fact that the
bureaucratic system of state ownership, salaried work, and
centralization of all decisionmaking—the heritage of Stalinism—have
already failed and must therefore be changed, the only guaranteed way
forward will be towards ...a deep hole. The rest, such as indefinitely
postponing the VI Congress, not publicizing information about the
people’s proposals, the lack of internal discussion within the
revolution, and other maneuvers, can only be interpreted as a ruse to
gain “time”, hoping for a miracle that will revitalize “the model” ...
of disaster. It is necessary both to socialize and to democratize the
system or it will crumble. Already, many Cuban revolutionaries have
expounded such ideas. So don’t blame imperialism later. The bureaucracy,
particularly the sectarian dogmatism prevalent in the high leadership of
the party and the government, prevents a sincere and committed dialogue
inside the revolution [...] In Cuba today one can clearly see the
reactionary character of sectarianism in those actions that create
divisions, resentments and impediments to the advance of socialism
[...]”. He concludes “[...] some want us to abandon the policy of
critical collaboration with the government-party and take up
confrontation. I will not qualify their tired methods and
intentions—each one knows his/her reasons—but we will not lend ourselves
to campaigns that might even appear to be outside the Revolution or
against it. Everything we do is always within the contradictory inside.
Personally, I will live or die with and for the Revolution [...]”.
I do not doubt that Campos really wants the average Cuban to own his/her
destiny and to participate democratically in the debate in order to
“establish a new consensus about the society the Cuban people want to
live in”, one that can not be imposed but that is “the result of the
interchange among all the revolutionaries and all honestly interested
Cubans” for a change of form and content. But what makes me suspicious
is that, after coming this far, Campos ends up mired in an untenable
position, since any chance for the Cuban people to control the debate
and freely decide the kind of society they want to live in necessarily
involves abandoning the policy of collaboration with the regime and
overcoming the government-party. These actions involve the social/human
emancipation for the full enjoyment of Freedom, a Freedom that does not
merely end in the bourgeois freedoms recognized in the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights or fits within the narrow ballot boxes of an
electoral circus but only becomes real with the individual and
collective capacity to freely decide one’s own life, without any form of
domination to co-opt it. Obviously this has nothing to do with lending
ourselves to counterrevolutionary campaigns, as Campos hints.[14]
I have no doubt that Campos and his current know this perfectly well.
Perhaps, at the end of the road, it can all be reduced to the
inconvenient disparities that occur during times of ideological
maturation. But what is important has not yet happened.
Generally speaking, two classes of intended recipients of these messages
can be identified, without worrying much about the differences in the
“color” of the senders. Both sides of the Party aim their SOS’s in two
directions: abroad and inside:
Abroad, the recipients are their counterparts looking for strategic
support. They need weapons and ammo (even if only
theoretical-ideological) to help them fight the fratricidal war they
face. Gaining control of the Party depends on this. What these foes do
not see is the futility of such a fight. The Cuban Communist Party is a
huge white elephant marooned in a swimming pool. No matter how much it
thrashes, it is destined to drown, either by insisting on swimming to
nowhere or by drinking up all the water that surrounds it. The strength
and utility of the Party was due to the enormous (and now defunct)
imperialist power that supported it. Moscow’s gold allowed these
Stalinists to keep all the positions they had enjoyed under Batista and
to buy as many ministries, directorships, and military ranks they
considered necessary to ensure their survival and hegemonic control. The
tons of weapons and the millions of barrels of oil provided in exchange
for sugar and cannon fodder in overseas military operations assured the
prosperity of the “socialist” viceroyalty during the Cold War. It is not
by chance that Abraham Grobart (Fabio), one of the most faithful
servants of the Comintern on the island, offered the post of General
Secretary of the Party (First Secretary) to “comrade” Fidel in 1965,
during the First Congress of the Cuban Communist Party. Unless they had
so much to offer they would never have survived a bourgeois revolution
of marked nationalist character, much closer (ideologically speaking) to
the Italian national-socialists and Peron’s revolutionary populism than
to the Marxist legacy. Of course, Leninist pragmatism would lead them to
delve into history and justify a common origin (Georges Sorel) of both
ideologies (fascism and Leninism).
Internally, the messages have but one recipient: the President-General.
Both factions coincide in the search for recognition and in offering
their services as “managers,” posing as the way to salvation in the face
of the immanent implosion. Some try to sell “the unknown good” and
others—with their worn-out pajamas or in trusted positions— continue to
offer “the known evil”, a true and tried product that has allowed the
aged brothers to remain in power for over half a century. In sum, the
only thing that seems to unite the Party’s factions is the search for
recognition and the continuity of Power, and for that they offer their
services to the President-General. Both the representatives of the SPD
and the defenders of barracks Stalinism fall over themselves in their
rush to supply the oxygen mask that will revive the moribund regime:
Opportunism is inherent in Leninism.
Old Marx was right when he said that history repeats itself, the first
time as tragedy, the second as farce. No doubt the Cuban Leninists have
already prepared for the stage a mediocre comedy and aspire to their
second performance. Once again, they are preparing to betray the social
revolutionary movement and the workers and the people in general; only
this time the date has been pushed forward by two months.
These words, so full of optimism and encouragement, appeared at the
conclusion of the Solidaridad GastronĂłmica editorial of January 1959, in
which, as I mentioned at the beginning of this piece, the Cuban
anarchists warned of “state centralism” and the obvious “authoritarian
order” that was beginning to take shape under the direction of the
Castro brothers with the approval of the barracks Leninists. Fifty one
years later these words will once again become significant, but only if
we reach “cohesion”[15] of the most heterodox of the revolutionary
ranks, when “dialogue without sectarianism” is really established, not
with the regime’s hierarchy, but among the anti-authoritarian socialists
searching for alternatives to capitalism, and if, and only if, a
consensus is achieved among ALL the tireless fighters for the
unavoidable transition to Socialism in Cuba.
Bakunin was able, early on, to observe the deviations and deformations
that would ensue if we did not adequately reconcile Socialism and
Freedom. His brilliant adage ”Liberty without Socialism is privilege and
injustice, Socialism without Liberty is slavery and brutality”— assumes
even greater importance in the light of our direct experience
-literally, in the flesh—of the havoc wrought by Leninism under the
State capitalism of those regimes cynically baptized as “real existing
socialism”.
We will never achieve “the never-attained socialist paradigm” with
abstractions and dialectical maneuvers or with semantic accommodations
and well-meaning declarations. If we really want to build a true, direct
democracy—self-managed, participatory and decisive—based on Socialism
and Freedom, we need to pay attention to welldefined political
exigencies that can not take us on any other course than to the end of
institutionalized threats of repression. In other words: if we really
want to extend direct democracy and encourage popular participation, we
have no alternative but the establishment of a broad regime of freedoms
built on popular consensus and the cohesion of the moving forces of
anti-authoritarian socialism. This is in our hands, not those of the
President-General or of any other reactionary leader. It will only be
possible by means of the abolition of social prohibitions and the
derogation of repressive laws and decrees; by the recognition and
respect for individual and collective freedom (freedom of assembly,
expression, and movement); promoting self-management of workers and
peasants collectives; by promoting labor freedom and the autonomy of
workers’ unions, federations, and confederations of workers and
peasants, and by refusing any exclusion. We want a diverse, multi-sided
Cuba, one in which there can be many Cubas. We want to build a new
society without oppressed and exploited, based on Liberty, Equality,
Solidarity, Mutual Aid and respect for the Ecology, biodiversity and
love of the Earth. This is what the Cuban Libertarian Movement (MLC)
proposes in our Six Basic Points of Consensus for Social Change put
forth as a minimal agenda of convergence to promote progress towards
Socialism in Cuba and “with the objective of consolidating the
understanding and of tightening the anti-authoritarian coordination
within and outside Cuba” for the strengthening of the growing socialist
and participative movement.
As our dear Spósito would affirm with his customary sagacity: “There is
not nor can there be fantastic operations, and once more we will have to
repeat what has been said so often: a libertarian and socialist creation
can not be conceived as the spontaneous result of a vague historical
legacy, as the mandate of a leader, as an engineering problem under the
guise of central planning, as the autocratic development of technology,
or as serendipity or magic. A libertarian socialist society, in Cuba and
anywhere else, now as at any other time, can only be the fruit of a
profound and autonomous decision and a never ending succession of
struggles and attitudes that take shape in the folds of the collective
consciousness. In simpler words, there will only be self-management and
therefore Socialism in Cuba when and if people want it and when they so
decide, and not as a resul of some generous dispensation from above
[...]”[16]
Unless this happens, there will be no popular participation or direct
democracy—let alone arriving at the neverattained social paradigm—in
Cuba, since this can not happen through the maneuvers and good-will of
the current to which Campos belongs. Instead, we will have “more of the
same” and will continue to be stuck in the pathetic wait for Chronos’
designs. In the meantime, we will have to put up with the dictates from
the hyperbaric chamber of the “Commander’s reflexions” per saecula
saeculorum and the daily speculations about the much heralded reforms of
the President-General. Let’s hope that the spokesmen for the “June
error” will not regret it tomorrow.
For Socialism and Liberty
Gustavo RodrĂguez
San Luis PotosĂ, MĂ©xico, June 25 2010
Translation by Luis Prat
[1] The survivors of the revolutionary anarchism of 1920 to 1940,
gathered in the FederaciĂłn de Grupos Anarquistas de Cuba (FGAC) and
Solidaridad Internacional Antifascista (SIA) decided to hold an assembly
at the beginning of the 40’s with the intention of regrouping the
libertarian effort under a single organization, dissolving both the FGAC
and the SIA in order to form a new organization named the AsociaciĂłn
Libertaria de Cuba (ALC). See Frank Fernández, El anarquismo en Cuba,
FundaciĂłn de Estudios Libertarios Anselmo Lorenzo, Madrid 2000, p. 73.
Around mid-1960 the members of the ALC were imprisoned or exiled. In
1961, exiled former members of this association, formed the current
Movimiento Libertario Cubano (MLC) in New York City.
[2] See Solidaridad GastronĂłmica, Vol X. No. 1, Havana, Jan. 15, 1959,
pp. 6–7.
[3] Signed by the Secretary of Labor of the ALC, dated January 18, 1959
and published in Solidaridad GastronĂłmica of February 15, 1959. Cf.
Solidaridad GastronĂłmica, Vol. X. No. 2, Havana, Feb. 15, 1959, pp. 7
and 11.
[4] See “Hacia dónde va el movimiento obrero”, Solidaridad Gastronómica,
Vol. X, No. 3, Havana, Mar. 15, 1959, p. 2.
[5] RamĂłn GarcĂa Guerra in “Contra el silencio de la flecha” available
at <
/ noticia/por-verdadero-socialismo-cuba”>.
[6] Pedro Campos in “Cuba. Diálogo sin sectarismos: necesario para la
cohesión revolucionaria”, available at <
.
[7] Roberto Cobas in “Cuba y el compromise con su proyecto socialista
mas allá del anarquismo de la polémica” <
”>.
[8] It is worth clarifying that with the objective of facilitating
study, I have gathered together articles of analysis and virulent
anonymous attacks, placed in chronological order, in order to highlight
the increase of these “exchanges” during this month.
[9] In order to confirm this statement we only have to notice the posts
occupied by some of the more notable exponents (whether or not they have
“fallen in disgrace” at any time during their careers: Pedro Campos held
diplomatic posts and was also Chief Project Researcher at the Center of
Studies on the United States of the University of Havana; Roberto Cobas
was a specialist at the Institute of Transportation Research; Soledad
Cruz was the Cuban ambassador to UNESCO; the late Celia Hart was
director of the Abel SantamarĂa Museum, among others.
[10] Chaguaceda Armando, La Campana vibrante. Intelectuales, esfera
pĂşblica y poder en Cuba: balance y perspectivas de un trienio
(2007–2010), Instituto de Investigaciones Histórico-Sociales,
Universidad Veracruzana, Xalapa, Veracruz, April 2010, p. 41.
[11] Co: cosmetic inwardly, and Ca: capitalist outwardly
[12] Campos Pedro, Op cit.
[13] Ibid.
[14] Id.
[15] Not the apparent “unity” that masks the subordination to a single
and hegemonizing thought, as Pedro Campos rightfully notes.
[16] SpĂłsito Rafael (Daniel Barret), De Fidel a RaĂşl: La Cuba de los
Politi-Castros, Montevideo, 2009, p.170. From his book in preparation
“Cuba: El dolor de ya no ser.”