Posted August 20, 2014

     In 1935, a number of organizations formed the popular opposition to the Batista government.  There were significant differences among them with respect to conceptions and tactics.  There was disagreement, for example, concerning whether or not to participate in the elections convoked by the government for 1936.  There were differences concerning how to unite the opposition groups, with some advocating an alliance based on defined propositions and objectives, with each organization maintaining full independence; and others favoring an organizational unity through the creation of a single party, but without a clear programmatic definition.  The opposition groups were anti-imperialist, but their conceptions ranged, on the one hand, from clear opposition to US imperialist interests and the Cuban oligarchy; and on the other hand, to a mere rejection of US interference in Cuban affairs and the seeking of an accommodation between the popular movement and the Cuban oligarchy (Chang 1998:361-62).

     At its Sixth Plenary of Central Committee, held on October 21-22, 1935, the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) adopted a policy of the formation of a united popular anti-imperialist front.  This represented an about-face from its policy since 1930, when the PCC refused to cooperate with organizations that did not subordinate themselves to its direction.  At the Sixth Plenary, the party proposed to create a broad popular front for “the complete political and economic independence of Cuba, for democracy and social progress.”  It also called for the strengthening of unions and the unification of all workers, regardless of ideology or political affiliation.  And it called for a great mass mobilization to obligate Batista to comply with his demagogic promises (Chang 1998:362).

     In accordance with the policy for the formation of a popular front, party leaders met with the leaders of various organizations of the popular opposition.  The PCC proposed participation in the 1936 elections, with the popular organizations united behind the candidacy of Ramón Grau San Martín, using the slogan, “Vote for Cuba and against imperialism.”  PCC proposed a platform that advocated: complete Cuban independence, without foreign interference; nationalization of foreign telephone, electric, railroad, mining and sugar companies; repudiation of the debt to Chase National Bank (see “Machado and the promise of reform” 7/16/2014) and a moratorium on all debt payments; elimination of the 1934 reciprocal treaty with the United States (see “The US-Cuba neocolonial relation deepens” 8/19/2014); ample guarantees for democratic freedoms; measures for the improvement of the social and economic conditions of workers and peasants; political, economic, and social equality for women and blacks; and the convoking of a democratic and popular Constitutional Assembly.  As can be seen, the proposal was a radical proposal for national liberation.  But it was rejected by Grau and his important party, the Authentic Cuban Revolutionary Party, which favored non-participation in the elections; and it was rejected by the organizations that were following the road of armed insurrection. With the rejection of the proposal for unity around the candidacy of Grau, the PCC proposed united action in support of a boycott of the elections.  But this proposal also failed to attain the united support of the opposition organizations (Chang 1998:362-63). 

     In July 1936, the PCC again tried to create a united anti-imperialist popular front.  It convoked a meeting of eight opposition organizations, and several work sessions were held in Miami.  The conference adopted flexible positions, maintaining that all questions concerning strategy and tactics should be decided by a leadership structure representing the various organizations, in accordance with the conditions in a particular moment and the opinions of the member organizations.  This flexible approach made possible an agreement for the formation of the National Liberation Front (NLF), with a leadership directorate formed by three members from each organization.   Its platform was less revolutionary and more reformist than the PCC proposal with respect to the Grau candidacy.  The proposed NLF platform included defense of national industry, the protection of democratic rights, the organizing of peasants, the reconstruction of workers’ organizations, the satisfaction of student demands, and full social and political equality for blacks and women (Chang 1988:364).

     The NLF was aborted, however.  During the third work session, the Authentic Cuban Revolutionary Party (PRC-A) of Grau rejected the proposal and abandoned the conference.  Subsequently, the PRC-A, seeking a different popular front strategy, established the Popular Revolutionary Bloc (BRP), which sought to forge a united electoral bloc with respect to elections for a Constitutional Assembly.  The formation of BRP effectively brought to an end the PCC initiative of the National Liberation Front (Chang 1988:364-65). 

    At the same time, the BRP was not successful.  Inasmuch as it limited the popular front to the issue of the Constitutional Assembly, some opposition organizations did not participate.  Moreover, unlike the NLF, in which all member organizations had equal power, the BRP was under the control of Grau’s PRC-A.  When a dialogue with representatives of the bourgeois political parties was announced, the BRP came to an end (Chang 1998:365-66).

    In contrast to the failure of the National Liberation Front initiated by the Communist Party of Cuba, a united popular front was forged successfully on three occasions in Vietnam by the communist party under the leadership of Ho Chi Minh: the Democratic United Front of Indochina, formed in 1936; the Vietminh Front, established in 1941; and the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam, created in 1960 (see “The Vietminh and the taking of power” 5/13/2014; “The National Liberation Front (NLF)” 5/21/2014).  Why was the formation of a united popular front for national liberation by the Communist Party of Cuba unsuccessful, in contrast to the success of the strategy in Vietnam?  Two factors were can be identified.  First, the processes of colonialism and neocolonialism were much older and far more developed in Cuba than in Vietnam.  Cuba already was beginning its transition to neocolonialism during the last quarter of the nineteenth century, when the process of French colonialism in Indochina was initiated.  By the 1930s, US neocolonialism in Cuba had attained a degree of sophistication, including the forging of important bourgeois and petty bourgeois sectors that were aligned with US imperialism, and the extensive penetration of anti-communist ideology.  These dynamics made possible an undermining of the popular front by various pro-imperialist but reformist actors, most clearly represented by Grau.  Secondly, in contrast to the situation in Vietnam, Cuba in 1936-37 lacked a charismatic leader.  Its principal charismatic leaders were gone:  Julio Antonio Mella and Antonio Guiteras had been assassinated, and Rubén Martínez Villena had died of tuberculosis.  Charismatic leaders play an important and necessary role in exposing the distortions and deceptions of the allies of imperialism and in forging unity among the various currents within the revolutionary movement.  This vital role was fulfilled in Vietnam by Ho Chi Minh from 1930 to 1968, as it would be fulfilled later in Cuba by Fidel Castro, as well will explore in subsequent posts.  For various posts on the role of charismatic leaders in revolutionary processes, see the section on Charismatic Leaders..


References

Chang Pon, Federico.  1998.  “Reajustes para la estabilización del sistema neocolonial” in Instituto de Historia de Cuba. 1998.  La neocolonia.  La Habana: Editora Política. 

López Segrera, Francisco.  1972.  Cuba: Capitalismo Dependiente y Subdesarrollo (1510-1959).  La Habana: Casa de las Américas.


Key words:  Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, Cuban Revolution, neocolonial republic, Batista

Posted August 22, 2014

     During 1938, the Batista government initiated a series of reforms that involved the restitution of political and civil rights that are central to the functioning of representative democracy.  The process began in December 1937, when a government decree of amnesty resulted in the release of 3,000 political prisoners.  In 1938, the government ratified the autonomy of the University of Havana, a long-standing demand of the student movement; announced the postponement of the Plan for Social-Economic Reconstruction, which had been rejected as demagoguery by the popular movement (see “Batista takes control” 8/18/2014); and announced its decision to convoke a Constitutional Assembly, another long-standing demand of the popular movement.  In addition, Batista met with Ramón Grau San Martín, the head of the Authentic Cuban Revolutionary Party, and Grau agreed that his party would abandon its persistent policy of abstaining from elections.  And on September 13, 1938, the Communist Party of Cuba and other organizations were legalized, so that the PCC could now conduct its work of organization and popular education openly and without fear of repression (Chang 1998:372).

     Various factors pushed Batista toward a democratic opening.  First, the usurpation of power by Batista and the military had generated opposition from the Cuban oligarchy, on whom he was dependent for support.  He therefore needed to make concessions to the civilian political actors that represented the interests of the bourgeoisie.  Secondly, during 1936 and 1937, Batista had been developing fascist structures.  But this move toward fascism could not reach its culmination, as a result of the changing world situation.  The emergence of fascism in Europe was giving rise to a global conflict between fascism and democracy.  Cuba, totally dependent on the United States, had to ally itself with the democratic camp and participate in the emerging global anti-fascist front.  Thirdly, on August 17, 1937, Jefferson Caffery was replaced by J. Butler Wright as US ambassador to Cuba.  Whereas Caffery had close ties with Batista, Wright was more attentive to the interests of other sectors in the development of US policy.  Fourthly, the popular movement was growing in strength, in spite of the repression and demagoguery of the regime.  The opening of political space for the popular movement was necessary for political stabilization (Chang 1998:371-72).

     Elections for the Constitutional Assembly were held on November 15, 1939.  The elections were complicated by the continuing divisions among the opposition parties.  Eleven parties nominated candidates. They were grouped in two electoral blocs: the Democratic Socialist Coalition, headed by Batista; and the opposition bloc, led by the Authentic Cuban Revolutionary Party (PRC-A) of Grau.  The Communist Party, then known as the Communist Revolutionary Union, proposed to incorporate itself into the PRC-A, but this proposal for the fusion of the parties was rejected, with Grau maintaining that the communist party candidates ought to be presented in the elections as members of the Communist Revolutionary Union.  At the same time, the bourgeois political parties that belonged to the Batista coalition proposed the inclusion of a popular program in its platform and an alliance with the Communist Revolutionary Union.  Thus, the voters were presented with a confusing scenario.  There was, on the one hand, the opposition bloc headed by the well-known reformer but anti-communist Grau; and the bloc headed by the dictator Batista, who had been cultivating a democratic image and who was now allied with the communist party.  In the end, of the seventy-six delegates elected, forty-one belonged to the four parties of the opposition bloc; and thirty-five pertained to five parties of the Batista bloc, including the Communist Revolutionary Union (Chang 1998:376-77).     

       The Constitutional Convention was convened on February 9, 1940.  With delegates of nine parties participating in the debates, and with all delegates free to express their personal views, a wide variety of positions were expressed.  Juan Marinello, Blas Roca, and Salvador García Aguero, three of the six delegates of the Communist Revolutionary Union, provided important defenses of the rights of workers, peasants, and other popular sectors.  The new constitution was approved by the Constitutional Convention on June 8, 1940, and it was signed on July 1, 1940, in a ceremony held in Guáimaro, in the place of the signing of the first Constitution of an independent Cuba, establishing the Republic of Cuba in Arms, on April 10, 1869 (Chang 1998:378-81).

     A product of the advances in theory and in practice of the Cuban popular movement, the Constitution of 1940 was advanced for its time. It recognized the full equality of all, regardless of race, color, sex, class, or similar social condition, and it affirmed the rights of women to vote and hold public office.  It included articles on the regulation of work, including the obligation of the Cuban state to provide employment, the establishment of a maximum work day of eight hours and a maximum work week of forty-four hours, and the recognition of the right of workers to form unions.  It recognized the principle of state intervention in the economy, and it declared natural resources to be state property. It proscribed large-scale landholdings, and it established restrictions on the possession of land by foreigners.  It established protections for small rural landholders, and it obligated taxes on sugar companies (Chang 1940:379-80). 

     With respect to the restrictions of foreign ownership of land, it should be noted that the US government and its Cuban allies had attempted to limit the scope of the Constitutional Convention, concerned that it could establish restrictions on foreign ownership.  But these interventionist maneuvers were denounced and repudiated by the popular sectors (Chang 1998:376).  At the insistence of the people, the story of the Platt Amendment would not be repeated (see “The ‘democratic’ constitution of 1901” 6/30/2014). 

     In accordance with the democratic opening, general elections were convoked in 1940.  Batista and Grau were the contenders for the presidency.  With the support of the alliance of the bourgeois parties and the communist party, Batista attained a solid victory, with 800,000 votes, as against 300,000 for Grau.  (The population of Cuba at the time was four million and one-quarter).  The election was accepted by all as clean and fair (Arboleya 2008:111-12).

       With the re-establishment of representative democracy in Cuba, and with a deepening of the core-peripheral relation with the United States (see “The US-Cuba neocolonial relation deepens” 8/19/2014), Cuba arrived to be a “perfect neocolonial system” (Arboleya 2008:112).  During the Cold War, the global powers would establish the Cuban neocolonial system as the general model for world capitalist domination (Arobleya 2008:114).  Today, as in Cuba three-quarters of a century ago, the neocolonial world-system seeks to develop structures that promote “representative democracy,” “human rights,” “free trade” and “the free market.”   These political-economic structures and ideologically-rooted terminology obscure the true character of the world-system as colonialism in a different form.  But the peoples of the Third World today are seeing through the fictions of neocolonialism, for they experience the poverty that is deepened by free trade agreements and other components of neoliberal packages, and they see that representative government responds not to their concrete needs but to the interests of national and international elites.  They are forming movements that seek to transform their neocolonial reality and establish a more just and democratic world-system.  

     In Cuba, the conditions that made possible the emergence of a perfect neocolonial system in 1940 never would be repeated in the history of Cuba (Arboleya 2008:112).  The Cuban system would again fall into crisis, giving rise to a renewal of the Cuban revolution and its triumph, establishing the island nation as a symbol of dignity for the peoples of the world who today struggle against global structures of neocolonial domination.  We will pursue these themes in subsequent posts.

References

Arboleya, Jesús.  2008.  La Revolución del Otro Mundo: Un análisis histórico de la Revolución Cubana.  La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales.

Chang Pon, Federico.  1998.  “Reajustes para la estabilización del sistema neocolonial” in Instituto de Historia de Cuba. 1998.  La neocolonia.  La Habana: Editora Política. 


Key words:  Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, Cuban Revolution, neocolonial republic, Batista, Constitution of 1940

Posted August 25, 2014

     We have seen that with the deepening of the US-Cuba core-peripheral economic relation from 1934 to 1940, and with the return of representative democracy during the period 1937-40, Cuba became a model neocolonial nation and the ideal for the development of the neocolonial world-system during the post-World War II era (“The US-Cuba neocolonial relation deepens” 8/19/2014; “The return of “democracy,” 1937-40” 8/22/2014).

     During the Batista presidency of 1940-44, economic conditions in Cuba were more favorable than they had been since the “crack” of 1920 (see “Instability in the neocolonial republic” 7/2/2014).  World War II halted sugar production in many countries, provoking an increase in sugar prices.  At the same time, the war disrupted the flow of US manufactured goods to Cuba, creating a degree of space for Cuban national industry.  However, serious economic problems continued: the expansion of unemployment in some sectors; and an increase in the cost of living, as a result of decline in the purchasing power of the national currency.  These dynamics had significant negative repercussions for the people, generating popular discontent with the Batista government (Arboleya 2008:114, 116; Le Riverend 1975:324-26).

     Capitalizing on the struggle in opposition to the dictatorships of Machado and Batista, the Authentic Cuban Revolutionary Party emerged as the “great hope” of the people.  Ramón Grau San Martín won the elections of 1944, defeating Carlos Saladrigas, the presidential candidate selected by Batista.  True to the reformist orientation that characterized Grau’s political career, Grau promised support for all sectors.  He proposed to harmonize labor-management relations, without necessarily implying support for the workers in just demands that impinge on the interests of the national bourgeoisie.  He promised agrarian reform, without specifying how, and without challenging the interests of the landed oligarchy.  Recognizing an international context defined by a global conflict between democracy and fascism, he pointed to Cuba’s system of representative democracy, and he proposed to increase economic and cultural relations with the United States (Arboleya 2008:114-15; Vitier 2006:147).

     The Authentic Cuban Revolutionary Party was a party of the reformist national bourgeoisie, formed principally by an emerging industrial bourgeoisie.  But the industrial bourgeoisie continued to be weak with respect to the landed estate bourgeoisie that controlled sugar production and that was allied with US capital.  New industrial enterprises were created as a result of the decline of manufactured imports during World War II, but the number of new companies was not great, and some of the new investments in industry came from the landed oligarchy.  Thus, the Cuban national industrial bourgeoisie continued to be subordinate to the Cuban landed estate bourgeoisie and to foreign capital.  Its political party was in no position to propose a project of ascent through the protection of national industry and through the strengthening of the domestic market by increasing the purchasing power of the people.  Although some members of the national industrial bourgeoisie proposed such reforms, the Authentic Party was not in a position to propose a combination of import-substitution industrialization and concessions to popular demands, thereby placing its interests in tension with those of the Cuban estate bourgeoisie and foreign capital, as was occurring in other countries of Latin America at the time (Arboleya 2008:115-16).     

       When political actors who have recently arrived to power are unable to pursue a national project for economic and social development, they tend to focus energy on satisfying personal ambitions through newly available opportunities for enriching themselves.  Accordingly, the Grau government turned to corruption, creating new forms of plundering the public treasury, surpassing what had been previously established by Machado and Batista.  The Italian-American mafia in the United States, which had entered Cuba in the 1920s and had concluded lucrative agreements with Batista, found a new partner in the Authentic Party (Arboleya 2008:116).  This turn of the Grau government to corruption was disheartening to the people, given the role that Grau had played in the Revolution of 1930-33.  The corruption of the neocolonial republic had arrived to be so pervasive that even the ideals of the revolution had become corrupted.  Vitier writes:

     With election of Carlos Prío Socarrás to the presidency in 1948, the unresponsiveness of the Cuban system of representative democracy to the needs of the people continued.  Prío had been a prominent member of the University Student Directorate of 1930, a member of the Grau “government of 100 days” of 1933, and a prominent member of the Authentic Cuban Revolutionary Party.  But in spite of his previous connections to reformist and revolutionary tendencies, the economic program of the Prío government supported the interests of the Cuban oligarchy and foreign capital.  And in spite of Prío’s campaign promise to reduce corruption, unrestrained corruption continued during his presidency (Arboleya 2008:116-17; Virtier 2006:148; Le Riverend 1975:333).

     In reaction to the corruption of the Authentic Party government of Grau, the Orthodox Party of the Cuban People was established in 1946.  When Grau selected Prío as his successor, Eduardo Chibás, who had been a prominent member of the Authentic Party, accepted leadership of the Orthodox Party (Arobleya 2008:117).  Arboleya writes of Chibás:

     The Orthodox program proposed important economic and political reforms rooted in the Constitution of 1940 (see “The return of ‘democracy,’ 1937-40” 8/22/2014), but Chibás’ speeches were superficial and lacked an informed analysis of the causes and the solutions of the problems of the neocolonial republic.  However, he was enormously popular among the people.  Backed by the pseudo-industrial national bourgeoisie, and with the slogan of “shame on money,” he likely was headed toward winning the presidential elections at the time of his suicide (Aboleya 2008:117-18; Le Riverend 1975:332-33, 336).

     Meanwhile, Batista was preparing for a return to power.  He had formed the Unitary Action Party and had been campaigning for president in the 1952 elections.  However, it was evident that the Orthodox Party was headed to victory, in spite of the death of Chibás.  Accordingly, in order to check the popular movement, and with the support of the national bourgeoisie and international capital, Batista carried out a coup d’état on March 10, 1952, shortly before the presidential elections.  The chiefs of the army and the police were replaced with the military officers who had been involved in the coup. The Congress was dissolved.  The Constitution of 1940 was abolished.  The presidential elections of 1952 were cancelled (Arboleya 2008:119-20; LeRiverend 1975:336-37; López Segrera 1972:275; Vitier 2006:150).

      For decades, the Cuban system of representative democracy had been characterized by the pursuit of particular interests, deception, robbery of the public treasury, repression of popular movements, assassination of charismatic leaders, and the replacement of representative democracy by dictatorships when the popular movement emerged as a serious threat.  By 1952, the people were disgusted and disheartened.  They rejected the Batista coup of March 1952, but they also received it with indifference.  As Arboleya comments, “Nearly no one would cry for the loss” of representative democracy (2008:119).

     There were exceptions to the popular indifference.  University students demonstrated their rejection of the coup, and they asked Prío for arms to defend his constitutional government.  But Prío did not give the students arms; he instead boarded a plane for the United States in order to enjoy his millions.  Cuba went from representative democracy to military dictatorship without a single shot being fired (Arboleya 2008:119).

     A remembered exception to the popular indifference was a document submitted to the Emergency Court of Havana on March 12, two days after the coup.  The document maintains that Batista had committed crimes for which, if he were to be sanctioned according to the law, would deserve a punishment of more than 100 years.  And the document maintains that society requires a legal order rooted in historical and philosophical principles.  The author of the document was a 25-year-old lawyer, whose name was Fidel Castro (Virtier 2006:180).


References

Arboleya, Jesús.  2008.  La Revolución del Otro Mundo: Un análisis histórico de la Revolución Cubana.  La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales.

Le Riverend, Julio.  1975.  La República: Dependencia y Revolución, cuarta edición revisada.  La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales.  Reimpresión, 2001.

López Segrera, Francisco.  1972.  Cuba: Capitalismo Dependiente y Subdesarrollo (1510-1959).  La Habana: Casa de las Américas.

Vitier, Cintio.  2006.  Ese Sol del Mundo Moral.  La Habana: Editorial Félix Varela.


Key words:  Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, Cuban Revolution, neocolonial republic, Batista, Grau, Prío

Posted August 26, 2014

     The career of Ramón Grau San Martín is a good example of a kind of reformism that functions to undermine popular revolution.  It reveals the cynical character that reformism sometimes has.

     Grau was among the founders of the University Student Directorate (DEU), established in 1930.  DEU condemned the repression and the corruption of the Machado dictatorship and called for the restoration of constitutional democracy.  Its program was essentially reformist rather than revolutionary, in that it did not advocate the popular taking of power nor the breaking of the neocolonial relation with the United States (see “The Cuban popular revolution of 1930-33” 8/5/2014).

     Grau was named the President of Cuba on September 10, 1933, in the aftermath of the sergeant’s revolt of September 5.   His government, which lasted only until January 15, 1934, was the only government during the neocolonial republic that was independent of the United States.  As we have seen, the government was divided into three factions, and Grau headed the reformist faction, which proposed the distribution of land to peasants, but not in a manner that conflicted with the interests of Cuban or foreign landholders; and which defended the sovereignty of the nation, but not in a form that would threaten US neocolonial interests (see “Guiteras & the ‘government of 100 days’” 8/11/2014).

     In February 1934, in the wake of his resignation from the presidency and the de facto taking of power by Batista, Grau formed the Authentic Cuban Revolutionary Party.  The program of the Authentic Party was reformist, calling for respect for the interests of the Cuban large landholders and foreign investors in Cuba; the honest management of public funds; the improvement of labor-management relations; and the convoking of a Constitutional Assembly.  It was opposed to the revolutionary program of Joven Cuba and Antonio Guiteras, who had headed the revolutionary faction in Grau’s “government of 100 days” (Instituto de Cuba 1998:324-25; see “Guiteras and Joven Cuba” 8/12/2014).

    Consistent with its reformist orientation, Grau and the Authentic Party were resolutely anti-communist.  The Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) advocated not merely concessions to working class but the taking of power and the formation of a government composed of popular councils of workers, peasants, soldiers, and sailors; and its anti-imperialist perspective involved not merely non-interventionism but the breaking of the neocolonial relation with the United States (see “The Cuban popular revolution of 1930-33” 8/5/2014).

      When the Communist Party of Cuba attempted to form a united anti-imperialist front (National Liberation Front, NLF) of Cuban popular organizations in 1936, the Authentic Party played a negative role in undermining the initiative.  First, it abandoned the talks for the formation of the NLF, even though significant progress had been made in defining its parameters.  Subsequently, in 1937, the Authentic Party in 1937 formed another front around elections for a Constitutional Assembly, effectively killing the NLF (see “The failure of the Cuban NLF, 1936-37” 8/20/2014).

      In spite of Grau’s opposition to the program of the Communist Party and to the Joven Cuba of Guiteras, and in spite of his anti-revolutionary perspective, Grau astutely cultivated a popular image of commitment to the Cuban revolutionary process.  This was possible for two reasons.  First, because Grau’s “government of 100 days” had implemented significant measures in defense of popular interests, as a result of initiatives undertaken by Guiteras and his revolutionary faction.  The people were aware that Guiteras was the force behind these popular measures, but the image of Grau also benefitted from his government’s implementation of popular measures.  Secondly, the people did not have a fully developed understanding of the difference between reform and revolution, and they therefore could not fully understand the long-range issues that were at stake in the divisions between the Authentic Party, on the one hand, and the PCC and Joven Cuba, on the other.  Accordingly, as Arboleya writes,

In essence, Grau and the Authentic Party were revolutionaries in rhetoric but not in substance.

     Utilizing the rhetorical strategy of appearing to be revolutionary, and capitalizing on the memory of Guiteras and on the tradition of popular revolutionary struggle, the Authentic Party won the elections of 1944.  But the government, as we have seen, was defined by corruption (“The failure of “democracy,” 1940-52” 8/25/2014).  And the Minister of Work in the Grau government, Carlos Prío, in accordance with the shift in the international scene from the “popular front” to McCarthyism, expelled communists from leadership positions in the workers’ movement and replaced them with reactionary leaders (Arboleya 2008:117; Vitier 2006:148).

    The kind of reformism represented by Grau is cynical, for it pretends to be what it is not.  It plays with the sentiments and hopes of the people, giving the impression of being on the side of the people, when in fact it seeks to protect the interests of elites.  It pretends to possess revolutionary virtues, when in fact it is anti-revolutionary.  It is deliberately ambiguous with respect to the difference between reform and revolution, but recognizing that a true popular revolution would cast reformism aside, it attacks revolutionary projects and leaders. Reformism confuses and divides the people, and it plays a central role in preventing revolutions from taking power.

     In the next post, we will pursue further this issue of the characteristics of reformism and its relation to revolution.


References

Arboleya, Jesús.  2008.  La Revolución del Otro Mundo: Un análisis histórico de la Revolución Cubana.  La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales.

Instituto de Historia de Cuba. 1998.  La neocolonia.  La Habana: Editora Política. 

Vitier, Cintio.  2006.  Ese Sol del Mundo Moral.  La Habana: Editorial Félix Varela.


Key words:  Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, Cuban Revolution, neocolonial republic, Grau, reformism

Posted August 27, 2014

      When I was a young man encountering the student anti-war and black power movements at Penn State from 1965 to 1969, I thought that reform was a good thing, for it made changes for the good of the people.  We young radical students understood in a general sense that there was a difference between reform and revolution: revolution involves fundamental structural change and a change in who exercises power; reform involves significant changes, but it does not change fundamental structures or who governs.  Revolutionaries, we thought, were antagonistic to reform because they wanted to change things more deeply and more quickly.  However, during twenty years of listening to Cuban revolutionaries, I have come to understand that revolutionaries are against reform not only because it is not fundamental and does not change who governs.  But also because it often has a cynical and sinister character, formulated from above with the deliberate intention of braking the revolution from below. 

     So let us distinguish reform from below and reform from above.  Reform from below seeks to improve the conditions of the people, and it places no limits on these improvements, and they can include changes in structures and in who governs.  When reform from below accepts limited changes, it does so because of its perception of what is possible, taking into account the existing arrangement of political forces.  Reform from below accepts changes that do not touch structures or power, not because it is fully satisfied, but because it believes that nothing more is politically possible at the moment; if it were possible, reform from below would want deeper changes. 

     In contrast, reform from above does not want deeper changes in structure and power.  Reform from above wants to maintain the established structures and the prevailing distribution of power in the established economic-political-social system.  Therefore, reform from above seeks to undercut the popular movement, by offering significant concessions that do not change structures or power.  When reform from above has success, some of the people are seduced and confused by its maneuvers, and divisions in the popular movement occur, weakening its force.

     We have seen important examples of reform from above in the political careers of Ramón Grau and Carlos Prío, who were the presidents of the Cuban neocolonial republic from 1944-48 and 1948-52, respectively.  They pretended to be inheritors of a revolutionary tradition that dated backed to 1868, but their legacy was to deliver eight years of unprecedented corruption, dashing the hopes of a people that was seeking to develop a more just and dignified nation, in accordance with the dreams of Martí (“The failure of ‘democracy,’ 1940-52” 8/25/2014).

      The difference between reform from above and reform from below can be difficult to see in practice, because both include concrete measures designed to increase the level of education, health and housing of the people.  The difference can be discerned when we observe the packages of which these measures are part.  The reform from above package includes no specific measures that adversely affect the interests of the ruling elite; it sometime pretends to be opposed to elite interests, but careful analysis reveals that its measures are superficial or full of loopholes.  Reform from above sees specific measures in defense of popular interests as having satisfied the demands of the people, and it often turns to repression of the popular organizations that push for more changes.  In contrast, the reform from below package sees the specific measures in defense of popular interests as small but important steps in the empowerment of the people in a process that could lead to fundamental structural change.  For reform from below, the specific measures are most important not in the needs that they satisfy, but in teaching the people the power that they possess, if they act collectively. 

     Reform from above is cynical, for it pretends to be revolutionary, when it is not.  And it is pernicious, because it confuses and divides the people, thus weakening the revolutionary movement.  In moments of crisis, reform from above often allies with the reactionary sector of the bourgeoisie or with fascism.

     Whereas reform from above is cynical and pernicious, reform from below has good intentions.  But it is wrong-headed.  Although reform from below sees itself as part of the revolution and always is opposed to the oppression of the revolution, it is not revolutionary.  It mistakenly believes that fundamental structural change and the taking of power by the people are not possible.  It lacks revolutionary faith, a belief that the people through united action, rooted in understanding, can take power and establish an alternative political-economic-social system. Lacking the clearly-defined goal of the taking of power by the people, reform from below often allies with reform from above in important moments of confrontation, undermining the popular revolution when it stands ready to take power.  Reform from below lacks the clear understanding and revolutionary faith that are necessary for the taking of decisive steps at critical moments.   

     On a global scale, reform from above has been tried on various occasions: the New Deal and Keynesian economics, the Good Neighbor policy of FDR, the important-substitution project of the Latin American urban and industrial national bourgeoisie, the Alliance for Progress of Kennedy, and the Human Rights policy of Jimmy Carter (see “Imperialism and the FDR New Deal” 9/20/2013; “The Alliance for Progress” 9/26/2013; “Jimmy Carter” 10/1/2013).  FDR’s reformist vision of a peaceful neocolonial world-system characterized by cooperation among the global powers and significant concessions to newly-independent governments of Africa and Asia as well as to Latin American governments was not implemented following the death of FDR, as it was cast aside by the ideology of the Cold War (see “Post-war militarization of economy & society” 9/23/2014).  These examples of reform from above are all characterized by the making of concession to the popular sectors without undermining the interests of the elite. 

    But reform from above on a global scale is not workable.  The structures of the world-system are designed to super-exploit the workers and peasants of the peripheral and semi-peripheral zones, generating profits for the elite and a higher standing of living for the working and middle classes of the core.  The concessions that can be made to the superexploited global masses, without affecting the benefits to the core, are necessarily limited, and they will not be enough to politically satisfy the global masses and establish global political stability, particularly in a time in which the world-system has reached the geographical limits of the earth, reducing its capacity to expand.  Reform of the neocolonial world-system is not possible.  A stable world-system can be developed only on a foundation of structures that respect the social and economic rights of all persons and the sovereignty of all nations.  This requires not the reform of neocolonialism, but its abolition.

      With the historically demonstrated failure of the reform of the world-system from above, and with the devastating consequences of the turn of the global powers to a neoliberal economic war against the poor and to imperialist militarism, a global popular revolution has emerged in our time.  It is constituted by an alliance, on a global scale, between reform from below and revolution.  It seeks to construct an alternative, more just, democratic and sustainable world-system, in which neocolonialism would be eradicated, for its structures would defend the sovereignty and true independence of all nations.
      

Key words:  Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, Cuban Revolution, neocolonial republic, Grau, reformism

Posted August 28, 2014

     In the elections of delegates to the Constitutional Assembly in November 1939, the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) was part of a bloc headed by Fulgencio Batista; and in the presidential elections of 1940, the PCC supported the presidential candidacy of Batista.  The Cuban scholar and diplomat Jesús Arboleya maintains that the alliance was politically costly for the PCC, and that many Cuban historians consider it to have been a “strategic error,” a phrase that implies an error from which there is no recovery (Arboleya 2008:110).

     The alliance between the Cuban dictator and the Communist Party of Cuba was rooted in factors that were both national and international.  At the national level, Batista had been moving since 1937 to a democratic opening, which resulted in the PCC being declared a legal political party, able to engage openly in its work of organization and education.  In addition, the bourgeois political parties that belonged to the Batista bloc offered the incorporation of important popular measures of the PCC program into the Batista bloc platform. At the same time, a proposal for the fusion of the PCC and the Authentic Party of Grau with respect to the Constitutional Assembly was rebuffed by the Authentic Party.  Grau represented a kind of reformism that was anti-communist and that was opposed to fundamental structural change and to the taking of power by the popular sectors (see “Grau and reformism” 8/26/2014).

     The Batista turn to democracy was pushed in part by international developments.  With the taking of power by fascist parties in Germany, Italy, and Spain, a global division between democratic and fascist camps were emerging.  On an international plane, there was a growing tendency toward a “popular front” alliance between bourgeois political parties and the communist parties, in opposition to the forces of fascism.  With the democratic reforms that began in late 1937, Batista was becoming a part of the democratic camp, and his government was recognized as such by the United States.  This interplay of national and international dynamics established the context for the alliance between the PCC and Batista during 1939-40, and it was to a considerable extent accepted by the people as a necessary consequence of the exceptional dynamics of the time, defined by a World War in Europe that would soon include the Soviet Union and the United States (Arboleya 2008:110-11).

     The strategies and tactics of the Communist Party of Cuba also can be understood as influenced by the directives of the Communist International.  The Third (Communist) International had been formed in 1919 by the Russian (Bolshevik) Communist Party, with the intention of combatting the Second International and the reformist tendencies of European social democracy.  The Third International was composed of the communist parties from many nations.  At the Congresses of the International, delegates from the various national parties debated a wide variety of issues and informed the leadership concerning the particular conditions in their nations.  However, a condition of membership in the International was acceptance of its directives (Ramos 2010:17-19). 

     As a result of the limited experience of the communist parties in many nations, the battle initiated against social democracy led to a form of extremism that Lenin denounced as the “infantile disorder of Leftism in communism,” and the Second Congress of the Third International in 1920 was dedicated to overcoming the errors of “Leftism.”  Such errors included the dictating of ultimatums to the workers, disdaining patient organization and education; engaging in electoral boycotts rather than participating in parliamentary elections; and abandoning workers’ unions in order to form separate “red unions.” In opposition to these negative tendencies, Lenin and the Second Congress called for the patient education and organization of the working masses, and participation of the party members in the unions formed by the working masses (Ramos 2010:20-22). 

     Benefitting from the revolutionary wave in Europe of 1917-20, the Communist International had sixty national sections by 1922.  But the subsiding of the revolutionary wave created a new international situation, which led the Third Congress of the International in 1921 to direct the communist parties of the various nations to adopt the tactic of the “united front” with social democratic and socialist parties in opposition to the bourgeois political parties, on the basis of common political, economic, and social demands (Ramos 2010:22-24).

     With the death of Lenin in 1924 and the fall of the Russian Revolution to a petit bourgeois bureaucratic counterrevolution that put Stalin at the head (see “Reflections on the Russian Revolution” 1/29/2014), the Communist International began to assume the role of appendage to the foreign policy of the Soviet Union, which above all was oriented to seeking global allies in the protection of Soviet borders against foreign attack.  In the Fifth Congress of the Third International in 1924, the perspective of supporting a world proletarian revolution was abandoned, and the concept of “socialism in a single country” was adopted.  This indifference to global revolution defined the Communist International in the period 1925 to 1927 (Ramos 2010:30-31; Grant 1997:146-51).

    In 1928, with the theoretical formulation by Stalin of a new stage in the world revolution, the Communist International did an about face.  It adopted an extreme Left position, directing the parties to avoid alliances with social democracy, which according to Stalin’s theory, had evolved into “social fascism.”  This policy has disastrous and tragic consequences for Germany, in that the extreme Leftist direction of the Communist International prevented the German Communist Party from joining forces with German social democracy in order to prevent the taking of power by fascism, even though communism and social democracy together had twice the number of the Nazi party.  This dysfunctional extreme Leftism of the Communist International guided its directions to the national communist parties from 1928 to 1934 (Grant 1997:151-53; Ramos 2010:31-33).

     The triumph of fascism in Germany in 1933 constituted a serious threat to the Soviet Union and to the world, and Stalin sought the support of Western powers in opposition to Nazi Germany.  Accordingly, the Seventh Congress of the Communist International of 1935 adopted the policy of the “popular front,” and it directed the national communist parties to seek alliances with the parties of the bourgeoisie in opposition to fascism.  The popular front continued to be the policy of the Communist International until 1943, when the International was abolished by Stalin, at the insistence of the Western powers (Ramos 2010:33-34; Grant 1997:154-58).  

     We can see the negative consequences of the zigzag policies of the Communist International for the Communist Party of Cuba.  Intense popular activity erupted in Cuba during the period 1930-33, coinciding with the Stalinist turn to extreme Leftism of 1928 to 1934.  During this period, consistent with the directives of the Communist International, the Communist Party of Cuba refused to cooperate with parties that would not subordinate itself to its direction.  This dysfunctional position prevented the PPC from allying with the Revolutionary Union and the Joven Cuba of Antonio Guiteras, and it led to PPC opposition to the “government of 100 days,” which included the revolutionary faction of Guiteras.  This division between the PPC and the forces of Guiteras permitted the rise of Batista and his consolidation of power (see “The Cuban Communist Party of the 1930s” 8/13/2014; “The lesson of sectarianism” 8/15/2014).  Thus, the consequences of the directives of the International for Cuba were similar to what occurred in Germany. 

     After the Communist International adopted its popular front strategy in 1935, the Communist Party of Cuba attempted to form in 1936-37 a popular anti-imperialist front that included the bourgeois reformist party of Grau.  The front, however, failed to materialize as a result of the sabotage of the bourgeois party (“The failure of the Cuban NLF, 1936-37” 8/20/2014).  And in the period 1939-40, the PCC allied with the dictator Batista, who united behind him the forces of the national bourgeoisie, a strategic error that was politically costly for the Communist Party of Cuba. 

     For Cuba, the zigzags of the Communist International, the rigid attitude of the party toward alliance with progressive popular organizations in the early 1930s, and the popular front strategy of alliance with bourgeois political parties that resulted in alliance with the dictator in 1939-40, destroyed the capacity of the Communist Party of Cuba to lead the popular struggle, even though the Party,  founded in 1925, had arrived at the forefront of the popular movement by 1930 (see “Julio A. Mella and the student movement” 7/8/2014; “The Cuban popular revolution of 1930-33” 8/5/2014).  The old Communist Party of Cuba never recovered from these errors.  In the 1960s, a new Communist Party of Cuba was formed through an integration of the 26 of July Movement (directed by Fidel), the Popular Socialist Party (the name of the old communist party at the time), and the 13 of March Revolutionary Directory (a student organization).

     The fate of the Party in Cuba was very different from what occurred in Vietnam.  The Indochinese Communist Party, founded by Ho Chi Minh in 1930, was so weak in the early 1930s, as a result of repression and limited popular consciousness, that the International’s rigid policy of disdaining alliances with social democracy, implemented by Ho, did not negatively affect Party’s popular image.  In 1936, the Indochinese Communist Party turned to the popular front strategy and effectively used it in leading the Vietnamese Revolution to triumph in 1945 (see “The Indochinese Communist Party” 5/12/2014; “The Vietminh and the taking of power” 5/13/2014).  The conditions in Vietnam were favorable to the success of the popular front strategy.  French colonialism and Japanese occupation were the defining factors, and neocolonial structures of economic and ideological penetration were much less developed than in Cuba.  AS a result, a bourgeois nationalist and reformist party allied with imperialism and able to undermine the popular front had not emerged as a decisive political force, except in the area of Saigon.  In Vietnam, the popular front strategy was not only directed by the Communist International, but it was also forged in theory and practice by Ho Chi Minh, who even before its adoption by the International, understood it to be an intelligent policy in the Vietnamese context.  In Vietnam, a broad-based alliance that included progressive sectors of the bourgeoisie was successfully implemented by the Party, and it earned the Party the high respect of the people and placed it at the head of a triumphant revolutionary movement.   

      There were two fundamental errors of the Communist International. First, it was an error for the International to function in service of the foreign policy interests of one particular nation, thus distorting the revolutionary practices of communist parties in other nations. Secondly, it was an error for the International to formulate directives with respect to strategy and tactics, for the most intelligent and effective strategy depends on particular national conditions.  These errors were a consequence of two factors: the triumph of Stalinism in the Soviet Union, and the general world-wide tendency toward sectarianism in movements of the Left during the twentieth century.

      Today, the Soviet Union and the Third International are gone.  The popular movement in Latin America, however, has moved to a more advanced stage, and it has developed a new style of international with characteristics that are appropriate for global conditions today.  The Sao Paulo Forum was founded in 1990 in Brazil, as an organization of political parties of the Left, on the initiative of Fidel Castro and Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who later would become President of Brazil.  The Sao Paulo Forum today consists of political parties of the Left and social organizations.  It defines a fundamental program for the Left, avoiding directives, divisions, and sectarianism.  Its tenth meeting is being held this week in Bolivia.  We will be discussing the Sao Paulo Forum in subsequent posts, seeking to understand its similarities with and differences from the Communist International.


References

Arboleya, Jesús.  2008.  La Revolución del Otro Mundo: Un análisis histórico de la Revolución Cubana.  La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales.

Grant, Ted.  1997.  Rusia—De la revolución a la contrarrevolución: Un análisis marxista.  Traducción de Jordi Martorell.  Madrid: Fundación Federico Engels.

Ramos, Juan Ignacio.  2010.  “Introducción” in La Internacional Comunista: Tesis, manifiestos, y resoluciones de los cuatro primeros congresos (1919-1922).  Madrid: Fundación Federico Engels.


Key words:  Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, Cuban Revolution, neocolonial republic, Communist Party of Cuba, Communist International, Third International

Posted August 29, 2014

     Cuban poet, critic, and essayist Cintio Vitier writes that there were three periods of disillusionment and fatalism during the Cuban revolutionary process that began in 1868.   The first followed the Pact of Zanjón of 1878, which ended the first Cuban war of independence without the attainment of independence or the abolition of slavery (see “The Cuban war of independence of 1868” 6/17/2014).  The second followed the US intervention of 1898, which ended the second war of independence with US imposition of the structures of the neocolonial republic (“The US intervention in Cuba of 1898” 6/28/2014).  And the third followed the fall on January 15, 1934 of the only independent government during the neocolonial republic, leading to the consolidation of power by Batista and the deepening of the core-peripheral neocolonial relation with the United States (see “Guiteras & the ‘government of 100 days’” 8/11/2014; “The US-Cuba neocolonial relation deepens” 8/19/2014).  Each period of disillusionment lasted approximately twenty years, and they were characterized by a fatalistic belief that the transformation of unjust structures of domination through heroic action was impossible (2008:151).

     Following the fall of the 1933 “government of 100 days,” the popular movement with its internal conflicts and lack of unity continued to struggle, and these efforts culminated in the Constitution of 1940.  But with the election of Batista as president in 1940, Cuba had evolved to be a “perfect neocolonial system” (Arboleya 2008:112).  The fictions of the neocolonial republic prevailed.  The Reciprocity Treaty of 1934 deepened the historic core-peripheral axis of capitalist exploitation, reinforcing conditions of underdevelopment and massive poverty, yet it was presented as a progressive policy of the “Good Neighbor” to the north.  Politicians elected on false promises robbed the public treasury and pretended to be public officials with legitimate authority in a system of representative democracy.   The materialist consumerism of the “American way of life” pervaded the island, provoking distorted and unrealistic expectations among the people.  The country was empty and hollow (Vitier 2008:152).

     But the soul of the nation was alive.  “It lived in the quiet suffering of the poor or middle class family, in its capacity for resistance and hope, in its irrepressible popular laugh, in its unbeatable music, in the lamp of the intellectual, in poetry” (Vitier 2008:152).  The nation that Martí had envisioned lived, hidden in the quiet sufferings and hopes of the people.

     Vitier maintains that intellectuals kept the soul of the nation alive during the period 1933 to 1953 with various forms of intellectual work. Many sought “to discover and show the true face of the nation” in different ways, but united in “the common faith in education and culture as the road to national salvation” (2008:153).  Some, for example, sought to discover and exalt the ethical values that formed the foundation of Cuban nationality in the nineteenth century (Vitier 2008:153-57).

     Considerable intellectual work during the period was dedicated to analysis of the complex work of José Martí.  Various works focused on particular dimensions of Martí’s thought, including the ethical, political-social, literary, journalistic, philosophical, and educational dimensions. Juan Marinello made a presentation at the Union of Writers and the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union, demonstrating the anti-imperialist character of Martí’s political thought and its opposition to the Cuban neocolonial regime.  Marinello and others also placed the work of Martí in the context of Latin American thought (Vitier 2008:157-62).

    The anthropologist Fernando Ortiz described the saving virtues of Cuban culture, with particular emphasis on the immense contribution of the population with African roots to the Cuban social conglomerate.  His works also attacked racial discrimination.  The Cuban historian Julio Le Riverend described the work of Ortiz as pointing to a de-colonization of Cuban culture (Vitier 2008:162-63).

     Nicolás Guillen, a member of the Communist Party of Cuba since 1937, represents a style of militant writing.  His work gave voice to the people, the concrete, exploited, and suffering people of the frustrated republic.  He and other communist intellectuals believed that literary and artistic expression was a form of struggling for liberty and justice (Vitier 2008:164-67).

     The frustrations of the neocolonial republic also gave rise to a form of poetic expression that affirmed the possibility of the impossible. Rejecting an interpretation of the impossible as meaning “not possible,” this poetry sustained that the impossible possesses a light that most people cannot see, and a force that the prevailing attitude does not know.  But the hidden light of the impossible can be made visible, and its unknown force felt.  Human hopes can experience incarnation.  In the depths of the national soul is found a thirst for the historical coming, for the incarnation of poetry in reality (Virtier 2008:170-71). 

     Thus, during the period of disillusionment from 1933 to 1953, Cuban intellectuals kept hope and faith in a dignified Cuban nation alive.  They affirmed an ethical attitude in the face of corruption and the pursuit of personal gain and particular interests.  They prevented the country from falling into a corruption so pervasive that the soul of the nation was corrupted.

    The ethical attitude expressed and sustained in the works of the intellectual class provided the foundation for heroic action in 1953, a year that marked the one-hundredth anniversary of the birth of Martí. We will see that heroic action in 1953 would break the prevailing popular mood of fatalism and disillusionment and would establish a new period of popular struggle.
  

References

Arboleya, Jesús.  2008.  La Revolución del Otro Mundo: Un análisis histórico de la Revolución Cubana.  La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales.

Vitier, Cintio.  2006.  Ese Sol del Mundo Moral.  La Habana: Editorial Félix Varela.


Key words:  Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, Cuban Revolution, neocolonial republic, Martí, Marinello, Ortiz, Guillen

Posted September 1, 2014

     In La Edad de Oro, a collection of stories written for children, José Martí wrote, “liberty is the right of all men to be honest, and to think and speak without hypocrisy.” Any person who obeys a bad government or unjust laws is not an honest person.  Many people, he wrote, do not think about what is happening in their surroundings; they are content to live, without asking if they are living honestly.  They are living without dignity (Marti 2006:10). 

      But some persons are not content to live without honesty and dignity.

     Martí identified three such “heroes,” in whom human dignity and the dignity of the people are expressed.  All were leaders in the independence movements of Latin America in the early decades of the nineteenth century: Bolívar of Venezuela, San Martín of Río de la Plata, and Hidalgo of Mexico.  Martí describes them as men who fought for the right of America to be free, and who protested the enslavement of blacks and the mistreatment of the indigenous peoples.  They read the philosophers of the eighteenth century, observes Martí, and they explained the right of all to be honest and to think and to speak without hypocrisy (Martí 2006:9-16).

     Cintio Vitier maintains that Martí considered truth to be the highest duty of the human being.  Accordingly, he believed that there can be no political liberty without spiritual liberty, and that “the first task of humanity is to reconquer itself,” to know the essence of human life at its roots.  He believed that the impossible is possible, and that it can be attained through truth, honesty, and integrity (Vitier 2006:87-88).

      Martí believed that the world is divided between “those who love and found, and those who hate and destroy” (quoted in Vitier 2006:96).  In this conflict of the world between good and evil, our duty is to stand on the side of the good, through the constant practice of generosity, service, and sacrifice; and through the cultivation of knowledge and the prudent exercise of reason.  And reason must be accompanied by heart, by universal love, which brings us to identify with the weak and the oppressed and to cast our fate with the poor of the earth.  Together, reason and heart provide human redemption (Vitier 2006:96-97).

      Martí profoundly influenced the development of the Cuban revolutionary movement, establishing a fundamental moral perspective.  Thus, Julio Antonio Mella, who founded the Communist Party of Cuba in 1925, would embrace the notion of the need to sacrifice in defense of the great ideals.  “All of the great ideas,” Mella wrote, “have their Nazareth” (quoted in Vitier 2006:132). 

     The central concept of heroic sacrifice in defense of the moral world was kept alive by the intellectual class during the period of cynicism and fatalism of 1934-53 (see “The Republic of Martí lives, hidden” 8/29/2014).  As a result, the idea of heroic sacrifice would be central to the generation of the centenarians, young men and women who emerged as decisive political actors in the aftermath of the March 10, 1952 Batista coup, a young generation that possessed a sense of justice and believed that the world promised by the heroes and martyrs was in their hands to attain.  Fidel emerged as a leader among these young activists, who recognized his exceptional capacities.  He understood the attack on Moncada barracks of July 26, 1953 as a heroic act in defense of noble ideas and in response to the prevailing cynicism that had been created by the neocolonial political-economic system (Vitier 2006:186-90).

     Thus, the new stage of the Cuban Revolution that was launched on July 26, 1953 was understood by those who led it as a collective act of heroic sacrifice in defense of noble ideas, in defense of human dignity and the dignity of the nation, and in the memory of the heroes and martyrs who had come before, whose names they invoked as they established legitimacy in the eyes of the people.  

     Sixty-one years later, on July 26, 2014, the Cuban evening television news program Mesa Redonda was dedicated to the theme of heroism.  One of the panelists was Arsenio García, who was among the 82 members of the expeditionary force that arrived with Fidel on December 2, 1956, to launch the guerrilla struggle.  He maintained that heroes are simply those who do heroic things and carry out heroic acts out of a sense of duty.  They believe it is their duty to do these things, and they do them not for themselves but for others, all of the others who form the people of the nation; and they do them from a sense of love and commitment to noble ideas.  Heroism, Arsenio maintained, is above all self-sacrifice for an ideal. 

     In the sixty-four years since the heroic attack on the Moncada Barracks, the Cuban Revolution has formed a people that believes that there are heroes; a people that defends universal human values with sacrifice; a people that stands as a dignified alternative to the cynicism, skepticism, consumerism, and individualism cultivated by the ideology of the neocolonial world-system.


References

Martí, José.  2009.  La Edad de Oro.  La Habana: Editorial Pueblo y Educación. 

Vitier, Cintio.  2006.  Ese Sol del Mundo Moral.  La Habana: Editorial Félix Varela.


Key words:  Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, Cuban Revolution, neocolonial republic, Martí, heroism

Posted September 2, 2014

      As we have seen, the Cuban intellectual class fulfilled an important historic task in the period 1934 to 1953 by keeping alive an ethical attitude in the face of the cynicism and fatalism generated by the neocolonial republic and the inability of the popular movement to transform it (see “The Republic of Martí lives, hidden” 8/29/2014). Nevertheless, by 1952, there had emerged among the people the sentiment that an ethical attitude is not enough; one must act. Therefore, the attack on the Moncada military garrison of July 26, 1953, led by Fidel Castro, can be interpreted as a great act, which broke the barriers that were confining the movement to the verbal expression of an attitude, an act that opened the possibility for a new stage in the Cuban Revolution.

     But Moncada was not only an act, it also was a heroic act, and thus it called into being a new stage of struggle for human and national dignity that would advance through personal courage and sacrifice.  In his address at his trial for the attack, which later came to be known as “History Will Absolve Me,” Fidel expressed the significance of the emergence of a young generation of Cubans prepared to sacrifice in defense of the nation.

     Thus, the Moncada assault was significant in two ways.  First, it was an act of heroic sacrifice, in which young Cubans risked and sacrificed their lives, in a social and political environment defined by generalized skepticism.  It thereby revitalized the Cuban tradition of personal and collective sacrifice in defense of national dignity (Vitier 2008:182). Secondly, it was a collective act, advancing rejection of the established order from ethical attitude to revolutionary practice (Vitier 2008:189). Moncada was an “enormous, ripping and creative new force that would project itself over the future of Cuba in an irresistible form” (Vitier 2008:186). 

      The power of Moncada lay in the fact that it provided the people and the revolution with exactly what they needed in that historic moment.  It provided an example of heroic struggle that the people were able to understand and were ready to support.   As a result, Moncada launched a new stage in the Cuban revolutionary struggle, and it lifted Fidel, the organizer and leader of the Moncada attack, to the position of the charismatic leader of the new stage, a role assumed in earlier historical moments by Martí, Mella, and Guiteras.

     Revolutionary processes can be aided by a Moncada, some dramatic action or event that galvanizes the energy of the people and renews its faith in the possibility of a more just and democratic nation, and that lifts up a charismatic leader.  It can be a dramatic action undertaken by the popular forces from below, such as the failed coup d’état led by Lieutenant Coronel Hugo Chávez in Venezuela in 1992, an event that converted him into “the most popular man in the country, venerated in the popular barrios, glorified in the walls of the cities,” as described by the well-known French academic, journalist and activist Ignacio Ramonet (2014:23).  Or a Moncada can be created by the conduct of the forces of domination: the police brutality in Birmingham in 1963; or the barbarous brutality of the US war in Vietnam from 1965 to 1973.  The bail-out of finance capital by the United States and Western European governments during the financial crisis of 2008 provided an opportunity for the mobilization of popular energy, but the popular organizations of the United States and Western Europe did not have the capacity to use it to educate and mobilize the people for a sustained revolutionary process, a theme we will address in future posts. 

     The Moncada event itself is not enough; the energy that it galvanizes must be captured and creatively channeled and sustained. And here the role of the charismatic leader is vital, for a discourse rooted in a deep understanding of the sources of the problems must be formulated, and practical solutions to the problems must be proposed; and these formulations and proposals must be expressed in a form that connects to the people.  The channeling of the energy generated by a Moncada event into a sustained popular revolution requires the presence of a person with exceptional qualities.


References

Castro, Fidel.  2014.  History Will Absolve Me: Speech at the Court of Appeals of Santiago de Cuba, October 16, 1953.  La Habana: Editora Política.

Ramonet, Ignacio.  2014.  “Introducción” in Hugo Chávez, Mi primera vida: Conversaciones con Ignacio Ramonet. La Habana: Editorial José Martí.

Vitier, Cintio.  2006.  Ese Sol del Mundo Moral.  La Habana: Editorial Félix Varela.


Key words:  Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, Cuban Revolution, neocolonial republic, Fidel, Moncada

Posted September 4, 2014

     The intention of the assault on the Moncada military garrison in Santiago de Cuba of July 26, 1953 was to seize weapons for the launching of a guerrilla struggle in the mountains.  The assault failed, and 70 of the 126 assailants were killed, 95% of them murdered after capture by Batista’s solders in a four-day period following the assault.  But in spite of its failure as a military action, the attack galvanized the people, and it marked the beginning of a new stage in the Cuban Revolution (see “Moncada: a great and heroic act” 9/2/2014). 

     In a manifesto released three days before the assault, Fidel called upon the people to “continue the unfinished revolution that Céspedes initiated in 1869, Martí continued in 1895, and Guiteras and Chibás made current in the republican epoch” (quoted in Vitier 2006:181). The revolution, he maintained, was the revolution of Céspedes, Agramonte, Maceo, Martí, Mella, Guiteras, and Chibás.  Accordingly, Fidel understood the revolution to be entering a “new period of war” within a single revolution that had evolved through different stages (quoted in Vitier 2006:181).

     Following the failed assault, Fidel himself was able to regroup with 18 followers, and they proceeded to the mountains to attempt to continue the struggle.  As the army pursued them, Fidel divided them into smaller groups.  He and two of his companions were surprised in their sleep at dawn on August 1, and they were arrested.  A trial en masse of more than 100 persons, most of whom had not been involved in the attack, began on September 21, and journalists from all over the island were present.  On the first day, Fidel testified for two hours, responding to the questions of the prosecutor and twenty defense attorneys.  Saying that he had nothing to hide, he described the financing of the attack, showing that it was not financed by ex-President Prío, as Batista had alleged in a radio broadcast of July 27.  And he testified to the non-involvement of those who were falsely accused. After his testimony, Fidel, a lawyer by profession, was given permission to sit among the counsel for the defense rather than in the prisoner’s dock.  During the second session of the trial, on September 22, Fidel cross-examined witnesses in a form that exposed the murderous conduct of the army in the days following the attack.  After the second session of the trial, he was barred from the trial, placed in solitary confinement without access to books.  Following the completion of the trial of his comrades and their sentencing to prison on the Isle of Pines, Fidel was brought to trial in a separate procedure that was held in a hospital rather than in the Palace of Justice, and which was not open to the public.  He was permitted to address the court, and his address of October 16 was delivered from memory.  A written version of the address was smuggled out of his prison cell, and it subsequently was distributed clandestinely.  Fidel concluded the address by saying, “History Will Absolve Me,” and the underground document became known by that phrase (Castro 2014).

      In his October 16 address to the tribunal, Fidel described the organization and the carrying out of the assault, its intentions, the reasons for its failure, and his capture (Castro 2014:15-21).  He condemned the soldiers who had tortured and murdered captured revolutionaries, maintaining that they had degraded the uniform of the army (2014:22-24, 50-51, 56-61).  He harshly criticized the career of Batista and his deceitful message to the people on July 27 (2014:44-49).  He praised the courage and heroism of the young insurrectionists who had carried out the attack (2014:42, 51-52, 61-62).    

     Fidel argued that the assault of the Moncada garrison was legal.  He maintained that in early 1952, although the people were not satisfied with government officials, they had the power to elect new officials, and they were in the process of doing so.  They were engaged actively and enthusiastically in public debates in anticipation of elections.  The Batista coup of March 10, 1952 ended this process. Fidel referred to the writ that he had submitted to the Court on March 12, maintaining that the coup was a criminal act that violated several laws of the Social Defense Code, and asking that Batista and his seventeen accomplices be sentenced to 108 years of imprisonment, in accordance with the Social Defense Code.  But, he notes, the Court took no action, and the criminal strides up and down the country like a great lord.  The assault on the Moncada garrison, he maintained, was an attempt “to overthrow an illegal regime and to restore the legitimate Constitution” (2014:62-66).

     Fidel notes that Batista established the so-called “Constitutional Statutes” to function as a replacement to the 1940 Constitution, and in this Batista was supported by the Court of Social and Constitutional Rights, which was established by the 1940 Constitution.  But, Fidel argues, said Court violated the Constitutional article that established it, and thus its ruling is not valid or constitutional.  Fidel maintained that the 1940 Constitution remains in force, including Article 40, which affirms the right of insurrection against tyranny (2014:67, 72-76).

     And the Batista regime, he maintains, is tyrannical.  It has eliminated civil liberties and suffrage, and it has uprooted democratic institutions. In “using tanks and soldiers to take over the Presidential Palace, the national treasury, and other governmental offices, and aiming guns at the heart of the people,” Batista has established “Might makes right” as the supreme law of the land.  As soon as it took power, the regime engaged in repression against popular organizations, cultural institutions, and journalists, including arbitrary arrests, beatings, torture, and murder.  Furthermore, the regime has placed in top positions the most corrupt members of the traditional political parties. The previous regime was guilty of plunder of the public treasury and disrespect for human life, but the Batista regime has increased pillage tenfold, and disrespect for human life a hundredfold.  It has served the great financial interests, and it has redistributed loot to the Batista clique (2014:67-70).

     Fidel proceeds to remind the tribunal that the right of the people to revolt against tyranny was recognized by the theocratic monarchies of Ancient China, the city-states of Greece, and Republican Rome, and it was affirmed by the philosophers of Ancient India.  In the Middle Ages, the right of the people to violently overthrow a tyrant was confirmed by John Salisbury, Saint Thomas Aquinas, and Martin Luther.  In the early modern era, it was sustained by the Spanish Jesuit Juan Mariana, the Scottish reformers John Knox and John Poynet, and the German jurist John Althus.  The right of the people to overthrow despotic kings was the foundation of the English Revolution of 1688, the American Revolution of 1775, and the French Revolution of 1789, and it was affirmed by John Milton, John Locke, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Paine, the US Declaration of Independence, and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man.  Fidel provided succinct summaries or quotations from these mentioned sources, with the most extensive quotation being from the US Declaration of Independence of July 4, 1776 (2014:71, 77-82).

     Fidel expresses the patriotism of the young people who assaulted the Moncada garrison.

As we have seen, patriotism was an integral part of the Third World revolutions of the twentieth century, and it continues to be important in the revolutions of the present moment (see “Revolutionary patriotism” 8/15/2013).

    Fidel concludes not by asking for freedom.  He requests to be sent to the prison on the Isle of Pines, where he would be able to join his comrades and share their fate.  “It is understandable,” he proclaimed, “that honest men should be dead or in prison in a Republic where the President is a criminal and a thief. . . .  Condemn me.  It does not matter.  History will absolve me” (2014:83-84; 2007:69-70). 

      Fidel was sentenced to imprisonment for fifteen years on the Isle of Pines.  He and his companions were released on May 15, 1955, as a result of a popular amnesty campaign. 

     An English translation of “History will absolve me” can be found in Fidel Castro Reader (Deutschmann and Shnookal 2007).


References

Castro, Fidel.  2007.  “La historia me absolverá” in Fidel Castro: Selección de documentos, entrevistas y artículos (1952-56).  La Habana: Editora Política. 

__________.  2014.  History Will Absolve Me: Speech at the Court of Appeals of Santiago de Cuba, October 16, 1953.  La Habana: Editora Política.

Deutschmann, David and Deborah Shnookal, Eds.  2007.  Fidel Castro Reader.  Melbourne, Australia: Ocean Press.

Vitier, Cintio.  2006.  Ese Sol del Mundo Moral.  La Habana: Editorial Félix Varela.


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