In Cub Neapons Respect

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ton wants to prevent Nicaragua from following Cuban road.

"The Cubans have nothing to fear from mass mobilizations and the extension of the socialist revolution."

But it is a major error to give political support to "good" capitalists or to their political representatives. There are no anti-imperialist representatives of U.S. capitalism. Imperialism is not a policy, it is a stage reached by capitalist society. All representatives of capitalism in the imperialist countries are, by definition, imperialist.

Castro's previous statements in support of President Carter during the 1980 election campaign and against Reagan in the 1984 campaign remove any doubt as to the meaning of his latest remarks. Cuba's dependent relationship with the Soviet bureaucracy has exerted its influence over the Cuban revolutionaries. They have shown the effects of this influence.

Pressures and legacy of Stalinism The underlying motivation for the the policies of the Soviet bureaucracy is the reactionary strategy of "socialism in one country,' or, as it is more popularly known today, "peaceful coexistence."

"Socialism in one country" was the formula invented by Joseph Stalin to take the Communist International off the road leading to socialist revolution. It was window-dressing for a policy of sacrificing workers' interests in every country in exchange for diplomatic concessions by the imperialist countries to the Soviet state.

Political support granted to capitalist politicians by the Castroists is likewise harmful, whether in the Contadora group of nations or in the heart of imperialism here in the United States. It carries with it the false message to workers and peasants that things will go better for them if these so-called progressive, anti-imperialist, anti-oligarchic or anti-monopoly representatives of capitalism are placed in power-with the aid and support of the workers.

It is not possible to wage an effective struggle while in a strategic bloc or alliance with the enemy class or a section of it. Political alliances with capitalists dictate support to the minimum demands of the capitalists, the most important of which is their right to exploit the workers. This requirement alone attacks the basic premise of the revolutionary workers' movement.

Moreover, when proletarian revolutionaries, or those that may have such a conception of themselves, counsel even limited confidence in capitalists to the workers, the workers' own living experience, refuting such confidence, will undermine the authority of their counselors.

The Castroists are paying this price. After the political support granted by Castro to the Velazco Alvarado junta in Peru from 1969 to 1975, or the support to the various bourgeois regimes in Mexico, the great authority the Castroists once had is being eroded in these countries and beyond. The Cuban revolution, and the revolutionary state created by revolution, loser.

Revolutionists of action

But despite this strategic outlook of the Cuban revolutionaries, one should not draw hasty conclusions. It is far more important to keep in mind that Fidel Castro and the revolutionary current he represents are a different political breed than some of those presently associated with him-like Carlos Rafael Rodriguez, who comes out of the old Stalinist, Popular Socialist Party of The Castroists, have an unequalled history of transcending programmatic misapprehensions such as those under which they presently labor. The July 26 Movement, which destroyed capitalism in Cuba, came to power committed only to democracy-not socialism. Their break with their preconceptions, when the needs of the revolution required it, was relatively swift and sure.

Every attack by Cuban capitalists and U.S. imperialists during the first two years after the defeat of Cuban dictator Batista was met by ever deeper mobilizations of the workers. Matching blow for blow, they armed the workers, systematically mobilizing them to take control over Cuban and U.S. property and relentlessly dismantling and destroying capitalist power.

In so doing-and here too they distinguished themselves from others who were similarly driven by events-they unleashed in far greater measure the independent power of the workers.

The Castroists are archetypical "revolutionaries of action, a term describing pragmatic revolutionaries who have displayed a capacity to go beyond their limited strategic goals in their genuine commitment to advance the interests and material well-being of the masses.

Revolutionists of action is an apt term describing the fighters in Nicaragua and El Salvador today as well. This current, too, is genuinely committed to conquering a better life for the workers and peasants in their countries. This is not at all the case with the so-called socialists and communists with whom they nominally share similar political positions and perspectives.

Despite their strategic misconceptions, the Sandinistas, for example, have taken important steps forward that would have seemed ruled out by their initial political program—although they have yet to follow the road of Cuba all the way.

In sharp contrast, those parties that opponents of socialist revolution.

Strengths and weaknesses