ON THE NATURE OF
THE CUBAN REVOLUTION
1. Pre-revolutionary Cuba was marked to the highest degree by the contradictions typical of a semi-colonial country in the grip of imperialism; industrial development was very limited and conditioned by the economic needs of the imperialists; agricultural production was largely one-crop in nature, directly dominated by foreign trusts; unemployment was very high, with a considerable percentage of the labor force not utilized; the masses in general existed at very low living levels; the "national" bourgeoisie was limited, incapable of the slightest autonomous developand essentially parasitical and graft-ridden; the political power was dictatorial, based on ferocious repression and lacking any bourgeois-democratic guarantees
In the given context of the international and Latin American situations, these underlying objective conditions were eminently favorable lo the revolutionary initiative shown by the Fidel Castro vanguard. Despite the very serious difficulties it had to faoe at the outset, with sectors of the poor peasantry of the Sierra Maestra produced deep changes the initial prospects of the movement. In these circumstances Fidel Castro began to sketch a draft programme of agrarian reform. these conditions the Fidelist vanguard was capable allying itself quite rapidly with sectors of the peasant masses, of gradually broadening its influence by winnin the support of other strata of the laboring population, establishing itself in one region of the country, and thus of preparing within a relatively short time the victorious insurrection. It is basically the birth, growth, and maturity of a very powerful mass movement, unprecedented in this part of the world, that caused the defeat of the Batista dictatorship, made possible the broader and broader offensive, first against imperialism, and then against the native capitalist forces, and represented the n° l obstacle to the aggression by which the imperialists would like try to overturn a situation disastrous for their interests. 2. The Cuban revolution has so far had three phases: the first, in which, after having limited its goals and its methods to a programme of "moralization of the regime" and of armed action exercised by a limited group which tried to win over a sector of the army, the Fidelist movement developed a programme of struggle against the regime, mainly aimed at bourgeois-democratic demands and at more and more advanced peasant demands; the second, marked by the first revolutionary conquests and especially agrarian reform; culminating were the mortal blows against imperialist property in the Summer of 1960 and the decisive wave of nationalincluding those of native capitalist properties, October of the same year.
On the specifically political level, in the first phase the people's revolutionary forces signed (July 1958) a with the representatives of the bourgeois and petty-bourgeois democracy: the second phase was marked by the formation (January 1959) of a government participated in by liberal-conservative elements, with Urrutia as President. Finally the inevitable break with these last-named occurred - a break caused above all by the promulgation of the agrarian reform.
In its first two phases, therefore, developed as a radical anti-imperialist democratic revolution, whereas in the third it carried out its transformation into a socialist revolution that eliminated not only the imperties. On the level of political leadership, the evolution had far more form than substance, for the real power was in the hands of the Ejercito Rebelde and the Fidelist staff, even during the period of dual power sui generis that ran from the taking of power to the fall of Urrutia.
The Cuban revolution represents a new and brilliant confirmation of the permanent nature that the revolution cannot fail to have in a colonial or semi-colonial country if it is really determined to triumph over its enemies, carry out its fundamental purposes, and give an answer to the masses' elementary economic, political, and social requirements.
eminently transitional period through which the revolution is now going, Cuba has ceased to be capitalist state, and is becoming a workers' state through the application of the nationalization measures of October 1960. This sociological characterization is based essentially on the three following factors: a) After the measures nationalizing foreign enterprises the Cuban bourgeoisie, its political power, still maintained its economic position new post-revolutionary structure permitted it to continue to accumulate its surplus value. But after the government's decisions of 14 October, power of the native bourgeoisie is also eliminated, and capitalist property - including the sugar-plantations — practically disappears from the island. It is true that secof medium-sized and small property continue in principle to exist, and even to enjoy a certain aid, but represent, especially in a country like Cuba, secondary economic and social element which under the given conditions would not be able to be decisive from the viewpoint of social characterization. b) The agrarian reform has not involved and probably will not within a short time involve, a genuine socializain the rural regions matter, has not been carried out in the USSR and the other workers' states, either. But what is in question a very advanced reform that has eliminated imperialist property and the capitalist latifundia and created a very broad coöperative structure on its way to rapid development. With the IN R A as intermediary, the state has, moreover, every possibility of intervening and exercising control, by preventing potentially capitalist petty-bourgeois elements from exploiting to their own advantage the contradictions that are inevitable at this stage in the new agricultural structure (economic differentiation among coöperatives, conflicts of interests between the peasants who are members of the coöperatives and those who the hiatus between the sector where the agricultural structure is coöperative and where individual peasant property continues to exist, etc). c) The state has set up what is essentially a monopoly of foreign trade, and can by this means exercise influence on economic life important in that Cuba is a country has played and still plays a role of capital importance).
In Cuba, consequently, a workers' state of peculiar origin and of a new type has been created. 4. The apparatus of the old bourgeois state has been essentially destroyed by the revolution: destruction pressed particularly in the form of the destruction of the apparatus of military and police repression.
Nevertheless, the old apparatus has not been replaced by a new one corresponding to the new ownership relations, by a democratic apparatus based on workers', peasants' and soldiers' councils, and this grave deficiency
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL present stage the main weakness of the revolution. But in substance the Ejercito Rebelde — whose role is far from being purely military — and the militia have ensured a specific though quite inadequate form of renovation of the apparatus, on the basis of the peasant, worker, and radical petty-bourgeois classes.
On the other hand, in spite of important bureaucratic limitations, the masses have taken a more and more active part in political life through the unions, coöperatives (whose leadership is elected, not appointed), the 26th July political movement, and other political groups. Mass participation in gigantie meetings and the attention paid to televised speeches, ete - these are another form of mars mcbilization, a form of "plebiscitary democracy," which, though essentially paternalistic and laden with dangers, has nevertheless had so far a concrete meaning for the masses, compared to pro-revolutionary political conditions. 5. The advanced nature of the Cuban revolution is confirmed by a whole series of reforms which either preceded or followed the underlying structural reforms: reforms — such as those in education, in rents and housing, in conditions of certain disinherited or declassed categories, ete — which have a really revolutionary scope and represent a complete break with a barbarous past. 6. The Cuban revolution has both features in common with other revolutions of our period and features specific Ir the country itself (or to a category of such countries).
The featares in common are: a) the preponderant weight of the peasantry, especially up to the taking of power; b! the fact that the proletariai of the cities, despite quite serious political and trade-union traditions, played a less decisive role than that of the revolutionary army, socially composed predominantly of peasants; (.) the part played by the cadres emerging bourgeois strata.
To explain the vietory of the revolution, however, account must be taken of certain specific factors: a) the peasants were able to play an eminently revolutionary role net so much because of their numerical preponderance (which is much less in Cuba than in similar countries), as because of their particular social composition (decisive weight of the agricultural workers and extreme poverty of the small land-owning peasants); it must be added that in the Cuban rural regions, certain historically retarding ideological factors (e g, the influence of the Church) operated to only a very limited extent;
b) the presence of an important number of workers in the sugar industries who worked in the rural regions and had many connections with the peasants, aided a de facto alliance between the peasants and the far more concentrated proletarian nucleus;
c) the hard grip of Yankee imperialism gave anti-imperialist motives a great and explosive radius among the widest popular sectors, while the existence of the ferocious Batista dictatorship aided the mobilization of the petty bourgeoisie and even of certain liberal bourgeois sectors.
And lastly it must be specified that, though the role of the proletariat was not decisive for the overthrow of Batista, it was essential in preventing a petty-bourgeois or liberal bourgeois grip on the new regime, and, a fortiori, permitting the consistent anti-imperialist and anticapitalist development of the revolution.
All these factors, taken together, made possible the victory of the revolution - given the fact also of the extreme weakness of the native bourgeoisie and its complete dependence on imperialism and of a world context where imperialism was not in a position to intervene directly in order to support the old ruling classes, unable by themselves to face the powerful movement of the peasant and proletarian masses.
7. The Fidelist leadership emerged as a Jacobin staff, of non-proletarian and petty-bourgeois social composition and
49 ideology, but it linked itself right from the beginning with the peasant and later, especially after taking power, with the proletarian masses. In a situation such as that in Cuba, and in the given international context, it was to undergo more and more the influence of these masses, free itself of the petty-bourgeois and even conservative bourgeois elements with which it had reached temporary agreements, and adapt itself empirically but audaciously to the logic of the permanent revolution by going far beyond the goals that it had itself conceived.
Even in estimating the nature and role of the Fidelist leadership, the radical character of the peasantry with which it was linked up must not be forgotten. Furthermore, on the ideological level, despite their theorizations infused with fundamentally petty-bourgeois eclecticism ("humanism"), Fidel Castro and his companions have never expressed a flatly capitalist ideology, and above all they quite soon demonstrated a clear political consciousness of the driving forces of the revolution. This much reduced the negative range of their empirical procedures.
Neither must we underestimate the undeniable fact that, in the Fidelist leadership, an important part was played by men who had learned and understood the fundamental lessons of Marxism. 8. The importance of the Cuban revolution cannot be limited to its internal extent, even though that is immense.
The 1959-60 revolution has struck a tremendous blow at the prestige of US imperialism, for which it has represented a major political defeat. It has contributed to a further deterioration of the correlation of forces on a world scale to the disadvantage of capitalism.
It is destined to have a very great influence on the evolution of the mass movements in colonial or semi-colonial countries, especially in Latin America, where it is already exerting a powerful force of attraction.
It has, what is more, permitted a further concretization of the de facto alliance between the workers' states and the colonial revolution. 9. From the Cuban experience the revolutionary Marxist movement can and must draw a whole series of political and theoretical lessons of primary importance.
The Fourth International must concentrate its full attention on these problems by seizing so priceless an occasion to enrich its theoretical heritage and it must work up the proper strategy to be able to be prepared to intervene in similar phenomena which could occur in countries of analogous structure and in analogous situations.
The lessons to be drawn concern particularly: the role of advanced peasant strata in certain specific situations, the scope of a guerrilla with a predominantly peasant base as a form of anti-capitalist revolution, the role of the cadres emerging from the radical petty-bourgeoisie, the rapid generalization of a coöperative experiment in the rural regions, the organization of militia, and the role that the revolutionary army can play at certain exceptional periods, even for economic organization. Above all, however, the problem is raised of the genesis, training, formalion, and coming to maturity of a new revolutionary leadership under conditions that are specific though probably not unique; for the most original element, in a revolution that is nevertheless so original in many aspects, is that for the first time a capitalist regime has been overthrown by a movement whose leadership was not linked up with the traditional workers' parties or influenced by the Soviet bureaucracy.
10. If the successes of the Cuban revolution can without any exaggeration be described as historic, the tasks that remain to be accomplished are gigantie.
In the immediate future Cuba must confront the threat, evers the military threat, of imperialism. But apart from possible military defense, the fate of the revolution depends on its capacity to ensure to the country a harmonious
50 economic development based above all on a real industrial. ization. On the political level, a new proletarian-democratic structure has to be built from scratch.
The revolution is now enjoying total popular support: that is due both to the revolutionary political results achieved and to the economic advances already accomplished, as also to the improvement in the masses' standard of living. But it is necessary to strengthen this position, steadily to advance, gradually to eliminate the contradictions that remain.
The task of our Cuban comrades is especially to work up a detailed transitional programme to be proposed 1o the Cuban workers, peasants, and intellectuals.
Here we shall limit ourselves to stressing in general the following points: a) The revolution musi make sure of the active solidarity of the masses in the other colonial and semi-colonial countries, especially in Latin America, and of the proletariat in the advanced capitalist countries. duty of the sections of the International to stimulate and organize in all countries. every form of solidarity with the Cuban revolutionaries, among others that of encouraging the sending of technicians, the formation of Committees for the Defense of the Cuban Revolution, and brigades of volunteers. b) In a situation which will in any case be difficult in various ways for a rather long period, the new regime can itself and become unshakable only by organizing a genuine workers' and peasants' democracy that enthe workers and peasants the real and direct exercise of political power and the leading role in economic management. Such a proletarian-democratic structure would obviously be nothing like the traditional bourgeois democracy mourned by the capitalists. c) Economic planning with a view to industrialization becomes a more and more pressing objective necessity. It cannot be carried out without setting up a whole series of democratic organs of planning, composed of technicians, workers, and peasants. d; The popular masses will support the revolution without weakening if it is able to avoid any bureaucratic deformalion in a spirit of socialist equality. A return of economic administrators, technicians, and political, economic, and military leaders in general must be avoided.
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL e) Ir is the duty of the workers to make the sacrifices imposed by the economic development of the guarantee that their interests will be adequately defended. That means they must keep their full right to trade-union organization, and that the unions must remain independent of the state.
to it their collaboration in building socialism and in defending the revolutionary state. f) All proletarian and peasant political parties, groups, and tendencies that accept the new revolutionary legality must keep the right to organize and to express themselves freely.
In the later phases of the revolution, in the process of industrialization and economic class is destined to play a decisive role. At the same time, the need for a much more organic and less monolithic economie and administrative state apparatus is objectively becoming more and more necessary. On this level also, the role of the working class will be irreplaceable.
Thus simultaneously the need becomes greater and the conditions more favorable for a consistent revolutionary Marxist leadership, capable of overcoming the empiricism, the contradictions leadership.
The role of the revolutionary party will be, basically, leadership, conseus olute revoins at inade has, ahid leadership, conscious capable both of wisely selecting transitional objectives and of choosing adequate means thereto.
This leadership must at the same time carry out the destruction of the last vestiges of imperialism and native capitalism and be on the watch against the danger of a bureaucratization which, though limited today dynamism of the masses, fundamentally exists wherever there are to be found the objective conditions now present in Cuba (backward economic situation, low cultural and technical level, pressure on the revolution from outside).
The revolutionary party must furthermore insist on the prospect of a Socialist Federation of Latin America as the real solution to the economic and social problems of this region of the globe, beginning by putting forward the strategic task of the Socialist Federation for the whole of Central America, as a powerful element for the mobiliza-