In defense of the Cuban Revolution Dangers posed to Cuba by the Gorbachev-Bush accords

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ES IMPAGABLE Y BE SER BORRADA Sign reads: "The external debt of Latin America is unpayable and should be erased.' Such slogans make Cuba dangerous U.S. 14 SOCIALIST ACTION FEBRUARY 1990

NAT WEINSTEIN

The U.S. invasion of Panama last December sent a signal throughout the world that the U.S. government is now willing to intervene directly with U.S. troops against any and all oppressed people fighting for their self-determination.

Seizing upon what they believed would be a popular issue at home-the war on drugs-U.S. policymakers sent in 24,000 combat troops to capture former CIA operative Gen. Manuel Noriega. In the process they leveled the working-class neighborhoods of San Miguelito and Chorrillo, killing as many as 3000 Panamanian citizens, according to estimates in the Mexican press.

The night of the invasion, a series of U.S. administration officials and leading Congressional Democrats and Republicans were paraded across national TV to hail the invasion. One of them, Rep. Charles Hayes (D-IlI.), candidly spelled out one of the main reasons for the invasion in an interview with CNN News.

"I think the main objective of the President," Hayes stated, "was to warn Daniel Ortega and Fidel Castro that we will no longer tolerate Communist dictatorships [sic] in the region. ... The President was telling them, 'I hope you don't sleep well tonight."

In other words, Cuba and Nicaragua could be the next targets of a U.S. invasion.

In the case of Nicaragua, the U.S. State Department is already waging a large-scale campaign through the media to try to convince the American public that the Feb. 25 elections will be undemocratic. (According to all the polls, the Sandinistas are expected to win by a large majority.)

The United States is preparing the stage to be able to claim that the Sandinistas did not really win the elections. This could justify possible U.S. military action to install the "rightfully elected" U.S.-backed candidate Violeta Chamorro.

Fidel denounces invasion

The meaning of the U.S. invasion of Panama wasn't missed by Cuban President Fidel Castro. In a speech delivered Dec. 21, in which he denounced the invasion as a "savage act of genocide against the people of Panama," Castro stated that the Cuban people were fully prepared to confront and repel a U.S. invasion of Cuba.

"If they dare to invade our homeland," he stated, "they know very well what will happen. We have confronted this empire for 30 years, and the more aggressive it becomes the more we prepare ourselves to confront it with our own forces, which are sufficient to defend our homeland. ...

"One single municipality, even the smallest in our country, " Castro continued," could wage a long war against the same number of troops the imperialists have employed in Panama. So we are prepared and we are trained. ... Let the imperialists do what they will. They will never force Cuba to surrender!"

Castro was not grandstanding. The Cuban people are well armed and well trained. The Cuban revolutionary government has shown great confidence in its people, arming them thoroughly and, through mass mobilizations and rallies, informing them of the stakes involved in the ongoing struggle against U.S. imperialism.

On Jan. 30, 1990, CNN television showed millions of Cubans, "in cities across the island," demonstrating in defense of their socialist revolution and in determined opposition to American imperialist saber rattling. The significance of this is underscored, by contrast, with the millions in East Europe who have brought Stalinism to its knees. The cost to the U.S. government of an invasion of Cuba would be enormous.

"Made in Malta" agreement But the danger to Cuba does not stem solely from U.S. imperialism. Prior to the Malta summit last December, President George Bush appealed to Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev to put pressure on Fidel Castro to stop arms shipments to Nicaragua and El Salvador.

Bush was essentially demanding that Gorbachev rein in the Cuban leadership in exchange for increased U.S. aid to the Soviet leader's perestroika reforms at home.

At a press conference following the Malta summit, both Gorbachev and Bush told reporters that they had seen "eye to eye" on events in Central America and were both committed to "resolving the conflict in the region."

Gorbachev, in fact, showed his commitment to Bush three days later by dispatching Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Yuri Nosenko to Central America to put the screws on Fidel Castro and Daniel Ortega.

According to the Costa Rican daily La Nación (Dec. 11, 1989), Nosenko explicitly threatened to withhold vitally needed economic and military aid to Cuba and Nicaragua if (1) all arms shipments to El Salvador were not halted, and (2) Ortega did not agree to a peace proposal that Costa Rican President Oscar Arias was going to present to a Dec.12 summit of the five Central American presidents.

Arias's plan—which was later signed by the five presidents, including Ortega-called for political support to Salvadoran President Alfredo Cristiani. It equated the FMLN combatants with the contras, calling for their prompt demobilization.

The plan did not, however, stipulate any measures or deadlines for disarming the contras. The Nicaraguan president came away empty handed. It was a "Made in Malta" agreement that could not have made the warmakers in Washington more happy.

Cuba: A bargaining chip?

Fidel Castro responded with great anger to the "peace" initiatives agreed to by Gorbachev and Bush at the Malta summit. In a major speech delivered Dec. 7 to a ceremony honoring the Cuban internationalists who died in combat, Castro said:

"They speak of peace, but what kind of peace? Of peace between the major powers, while imperialism reserves the right to overtly intervene in and attack the Third World countries. There are many examples of this:

"The imperialist government of the United States demands that no one help the Salvadoran revolutionaries and tries to blackmail the USSR into ending its economic and military assistance to Nicaragua and Cuba because we express solidarity with the Salvadoran revolutionaries....

"Meanwhile, that same imperialist government which is demanding an end to solidarity with the Salvadoran revolutionaries is helping the genocidal Salvadoran government and sending special combat units to El Salvador, supporting the counterrevolution in Nicaragua, organizing coups d'etat in and Moscow News-that were "full of poison against socialism" and were "calling for an end to the fair and equitable trade relations that were established between the USSR and Cuba during the Cuban revolutionary process." Castro argued that these magazines were undermining the Cuban Revolution and therefore had to be banned in Cuba. (We will return to this question later on.)

Castro's fear is fully justified. An article in the New York Times reported that "the Soviet Union may be less willing to bolster the struggling Cuban economy.... Moscow's diplomats say that a decline in aid and trade is likely as Soviet industry becomes more profit-oriented and more cash is required for domestic development." (Jan. 28, 1990)

Seventy-five percent of Cuban trade is with the Soviet Union. It is estimated that the Soviet Union provides up to $5 billion in annual subsidies to Cuba through the purchase of Cuban sugar at prices above market levels and the sale at bargain rates of Soviet petroleum, much of which Cuba then resells at a profit.

"From the crisis that has emerged in the socialist camp," Castro said referring to the Stalinized workers' states, "we can only expect negative consequences for our country."

Rejecting perestroika reforms At the Third Congress of the Cuban Communist Party in 1986, Fidel Castro and the Cuban leadership launched a "rectification" campaign in response to perestroikatype economic measures introduced in Cuba in the late 1970s.

Those measures had allowed the introduction of free farmers' markets and other limited forms of material incentives to enhance production. The result, however, was the proliferation of middlemen who, through speculation and price gouging, made small fortunes.

Seeing the dangers to the revolution posed by the development of this privileged and parasitic social layer, the Cuban Communist Party (CP) slammed on the brakes and returned to the campaign of moral and ideological incentives characteristic of the early years of the Cuban Revolution.

Fidel Castro and the Cuban CP also began to use extremely harsh language to condemn the pro-capitalist perestroika reforms pursued in the Soviet Union by Mikhail Gorbachev.

In his annual July 26 rally in 1988, for example, Castro warned that "Cuba will never adopt methods of capitalism.... It has never occurred to us to think that we have to copy what the Soviets do. Socialism and capitalism are diametrically different by definition and essence."

Castro went on to reject the introduction of unemployment in a "socialist" society, arguing that, "We don't want anyone jobless on the streets."

In his Dec. 7, 1989, speech, Castro reiterated these denunciations of perestroika:

"People in most of those ["socialist"] countries aren't talking about the anti-imperialist struggle or the principles of internationalism. Those words aren't even mentioned in their press.... Meanwhile, capitalist values are gaining unheard-of strength in those societies.

"Capitalism means ... prostitution, drugs, gambling, begging, unemployment, abysmal inequalities among citizens, the depletion of natural resources, the poisoning of the air, seas, rivers, and forests, and especially the plundering of the underdeveloped nations by the industrialized capitalist countries....

"Capitalism, its market economy, its values, its categories, and its methods can never pull socialism out of its present difficulties."

Incorrect response to events Castro's strong stance against the introduction of pro-capitalist reforms in the workers' states represents a breath of fresh air. Today virtually every leader in the Soviet Union, China, and Eastern Europe is hailing the (continued on next page)

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•If Castro has now reached the conclusion that Nicaragua must follow the example of Cuba, this would mark an extremely important development for the Latin American revolution?

SOCIALIST ACTION FEBRUARY 1990 15 (continued from preceding page) virtues of the "market economy" and the advantages of "peaceful coexistence." Castro stands alone among the recognized leaders of the international revolutionary movement in defending the need for socialism.

But Castro's response to the big events in the world today-principally in Eastern Europe-and his proposed solutions are plagued by severe shortcomings which, if not corrected in time, could prove to be fatal to the Cuban Revolution itself.

These shortcomings center around two themes: (1) the lack of an internationalist perspective to defend and extend the Cuban Revolution, and (2) the lack of institutions of workers' democracy in Cuba.

By far the most serious mistake concerns the unfolding political revolution against Stalinism in Eastern Europe. Instead of hailing these earth-shaking events, Castro has denounced them as "undermining actions by imperialism" that have "accelerated the destabilizing process in the European socialist countries."

Castro recognizes the "undeniable errors" made in the so-called socialist countries and calls for their "rectification." He nonetheless deplores the revolutionary mobilizations of millions of people against the Stalinist bureaucracies-and against the policies of the International Monetary Fund promoted by the bureaucracies.

On these questions, Castro could not be further from the truth.

The Stalinist bureaucracies in Eastern Europe cannot be "rectified," nor do their crimes and brutal oppression of the working class in the name of "socialism" amount to "errors." These bureaucrats must be swept from power and replaced with real institutions of workers' democracy such as the soviets that emerged in the course of the triumphant 1917 Russian Revolution.

It is the Jaruzelskis, Ceaucescus, and Gorbachevs who have opened up the workers' states to imperialist plunder and who have paved the way for the restoration of capitalism-not the Vorkuta miners who have formed their independent union to defend their conquests or the Romanian workers who have formed factory committees and armed self-defense guards in the course of their uprising.

The Eastern European workers who have resisted -and will continue to resist—the introduction of capitalist market mechanisms are the best allies of the Cuban Revolution. Castro should embrace their revolutionary struggles and appeal to them for support in a common fight for socialism.

Were Castro to do this, he would become a source of inspiration and leadership for millions of oppressed people throughout the world who are looking for an alternative to capitalism and Stalinism.

Latin American revolution

The Cuban Revolution has been successful in resisting the imperialist blockade and siege. But it cannot ultimately survive or deepen the gains it has made unless it breaks out of its isolation in the Western hemisphere. For this to happen, the Cuban example has to be extended throughout the rest of Latin America as the road to national independence.

The situation in Latin America today is rotten ripe for socialist revolution. The IMFimposed austerity programs adopted by every national government have created semi-insurrectional riots in Venezuela, Argentina, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic. They have also fueled the development of powerful mass mobilizations (demonstrations, strikes, factory takeovers, and land occupations) in Brazil, Mexico, and Peru.

Were Castro to champion a continental campaign to cancel the imperialist debt-as he began to do in mid-1985, but then abandoned—he would give impetus to revolutionary movements that could effectively challenge the native capitalists for power and pose the need for governments based on the workers and peasants.

For Castro to do this, however, would require breaking with an incorrect strategic framework that has underlied the Cuban CP's approach to revolution in Latin America. This view was best expressed by Castro in a Dec. 24, 1984, interview with The Guardian newspaper. Castro stated:

'In Latin America, socialism is not the question.... Proposing socialism would not only clash with objective economic realities, it would also create obstacles to the revolutionary movement in the rest of Latin America.... I do not believe socialism is on the agenda. What is on the agenda is national liberation.

Given that socialism is "not on the agenda," the Cuban strategy has been to look to the Latin American "anti-imperialist" capitalist factions as allies against U.S. imperialism rather than to the Latin American working class. This has led the Cuban CP to politically support such capitalist governments as that of Alan García in Peru or that of Carlos Salinas de Gotari in Mexico.

Cuba and Nicaragua

In his Dec. 7, 1989, speech, Castro emphasized the lessons of the socialist revolution in Cuba:

"In Cuba, our people created our socialist society in the course of a legitimate heroic struggle.... In Cuba, the revolution, socialism, and independence are indissolubly linked."

Fifteen years earlier, Castro had made this same point in a speech to the First National Congress of the Cuban CP. "Our national and our social liberation," Castro said, "were inextricably bound up. Moving forward [toward socialism] became a historic necessity. Standing still would have been an act of treason and cowardice that would have transformed us once again into a Yankee colony and wage slaves."

Unfortunately, Castro and the Cuban CP have been unwilling to apply the lessons of the Cuban Revolution to the rest of Latin America and the other countries of the semi-colonial world. For the past 10 years, for example, Castro has strongly defended the Sandinista government's commitment to a capitalist mixed economy.

Numerous reports have appeared in the mainstream press in recent weeks indicating that Castro may have changed his view on the Nicaraguan mixed economy. According to New York Times reporter Mark Uhlig, Castro has strongly objected to the Sandinista government's latest economic program of concessions to the native capitalists—a policy known as concertación. Uhlig writes:

"The Nicaraguan economy, despite impassioned pleas from Castro, has also been placed on a track that diverges widely from the strict Communist model. After intense debate in the ruling Sandinista Directorate last January [1989], Nicaraguan leaders rejected the near-total goverment control advocated by Castro and sought instead to revive their battered economy with an austerity program so conventional and market-oriented that it has been compared to the methods of the International Monetary Fund." (New York Times, Jan. 21)

In the past, Castro and the leadership of the Cuban CP have shown a capacity to go beyond their mistaken strategic outlook in Peter Turaley/Black Star their genuine commitment to advance the interests and well-being of the masses. If Castro has now reached the conclusion that Nicaragua must follow the example of Cuba, this would mark an extremely important development for the Latin American revolution.

Yet Castro has not publicly stated his change of position. It is not sufficient to speak privately to the nine Sandinista commanders. Castro must address the Nicaraguan workers and peasants directly, explaining that genuine national liberation in Nicaragua requires breaking with the capitalist mixed economy and embarking on the road to socialism. Such an address, moreover, would provide much-needed direction to the ongoing struggles in the rest of Central America.

Lack of socialist democracy Unlike the Stalinist bureaucracies in Eastern Europe and Asia, the Cuban leadership rules with the highest degree of consent and support from Cuban workers and peasants. They systematically mobilize their people by the millions in enthusiastic defense of the considerable material gains of the Cuban Revolution.

Unfortunately, however, direct forms of workers' rule that would permit Cuban workers to decide domestic and international policy have not been institutionalized in While repression of worker dissidents is rare in Cuba, the workers still do not have the right to politically organize independently of the Cuban Communist Party, the only legal party in the country. Neither do they have the right to organize themselves into a tendency or current within the Cuban CP to put forward and argue for a point of view that may be at variance with the official one.

This right, including the right to elect and recall the delegates to the highest decision-making bodies of the state, is still denied the Cuban workers. The denial of institutionalized forms of workers' democratic control over all aspects of economic, political, and social life in Cuba is a serious shortcoming that weakens the Cuban revolution and the workers' state on which it rests.

Glasnost-type pressures for greater political democracy will inevitably filter into the Cuban population. Banning Moscow News and other Soviet publications could prove counterproductive. The Cuban leadership need not fear these or any other ideas. They should allow these publications to circulate in Cuba, but at the same time answer every charge and claim made by the Gorbachevites.

The existence of organized channels for genuine discussion, participation, and debate are not a liability or danger to the Cuban Revolution, as Castro has continuously stressed. Nor do they represent a "luxury" the Cuban Revolution could do without, as others argue.

In the face of the growing isolation of the revolution, institutionalizing direct forms of workers' democracy has become a life-ordeath necessity. Workers' democracy is the best guarantee for defending the revolution and for advancing it and the world socialist revolution.

Rare historic position

The Cuban revolutionists are in a rare historic position to give a major impetus to the concept of world socialist revolution as the Bolsheviks did at the time of the October 1917 revolution.

The Bolsheviks saw their own revolution as both an end and a means to the higher goal of a worldwide proletarian victory over capitalism-the only real consolidation of their national victory.

In the words of Lenin, the Bolsheviks saw their victorious workers' state as the "advanced outpost of the world socialist revolution."

The Bolsheviks understood that the workers' conquest over Russian territory must be subordinate to the extension of the revolution, particularly to the developed countries of the world. Were they alive today, the Bolsheviks would unquestionably embrace and seek to advance the unfolding political revolution in Eastern Europe.

The Communist International formed by Lenin and Trotsky in 1919 fought to construct sections of the world party of the working class in every land, fighting to overthrow capitalism.

This is the road that should be followed by Castro and the leadership of the Cuban Revolution.

MYTIRES Almi Dynamics of an Unfinished Revolution, by Alan Benjamin. To order, send $8.95 (includes postage) to 3435 Army St., Rm. 308, San Francisco, 94110. Make checks payable to Walnut Publishing.

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