After the Second World War, the weakening of imperialism and the formidable rise of the colonial revolution-symbolized by the victory of the Chinese revolution in 1949—forced the bourgeoisie of the metropolitan countries to carry out a tactical retreat. The old colonial empires were gradually dismantled. Nearly all the old colonies acquired political independence. Where Does the Nonaligned Movement" Come From?
This retreat was in no way, however, accompanied by abandonment of the economic hold of imperialist capital on the former colonies, which became semicolonial countries. It was even combined in many cases with maintenance of military bases and the inclusion of the countries that had attained formal political independence in military pacts that ensured imperialist control of the key strategic zones of the world.
The aim of imperialism's tactical retreat was to transform the possessing classes of the former colonies-and especially their industrial bourgeoisie, which had undergone a certain growth during the war and the immediate postwar period-into junior partners of the international imperialist system. In return for some crumbs from the table, the partners were to assure the permanence of the bourgeois order in their own country and contain the wage demands of the masses-if necessary, with the help of anti-imperialist nationalist demagogy.
Imperialist capital tries to achieve this plan at the lowest possible cost. In fact, after the Korean War "boom," the share of the surplus-value on a world scale that has gone to the possessing classes of the semicolonies has hardly risen. One might even maintain that for two decades it has been declining. As a result, the semicolonial bourgeoisie became quite discontented.
Moreover, it was exposed to growing discontent on the part of the mass of peasants, workers, and pauperized urban plebians in their own countries. For these masses the achievement of the political independence of their respective countries had been seen as indissolubly linked to the solution of their pressing material problems-hunger, poverty, sickness, illiteracy, wretched housing, lack of social and cultural infrastructure, and so on.
But with the maintenance of the rule of the indigenous ruling classes, who could not break the links with the international imperialist system and the superexploitation that goes with it, these problems remained insoluble.
A considerable portion of the masses found that their poverty increased, even in absolute terms. This was the case despite some progress in industrialization and some limited agrarian reforms (often, at the expense of the poorest layers of the population).
The masses in the semicolonial countries were, for a period of time, prepared to place confidence in the bourgeois leaders who had led the struggle for political independence. But this confidence had a time limit. Moreover, these leaders were much too frightened by the increasingly explosive character of the social contradictions in their own countries to envision violent confrontations with imperialism. Such confrontations would be impossible without a large-scale mobilization of the disinherited masses.
Therefore they opted for a strategy of peaceful pressure on imperialism, using the discontent of the colonial masses and the risks of revolutionary explosions as forms of blackmail. The aim was to obtain more than "crumbs"—a more substantial share of the world surplus-value.
In order for this policy of bourgeois nationalist populism to be credible to the masses it had to involve a certain degree of disengagement from military alliances with imperialism. For it to be credible to the imperialists, it had to be accompanied by rejection of any alliance with the main workers states-the USSR and China.
This is the source of the "disengagement with regard to the two blocs." The material goal to be reached is expressed in the ideology of "economic development." The weakness and the fundamental contradiction of the semicolonial bourgeoisie is expressed in the assertion that these objectives can be achieved through the peaceful road, through "mutual respect," "inviolability of national sovereignty," "peaceful coexistence," and so on.
All these fundamental characteristics of the strategy of the semicolonial bourgeoisies were combined in the doctrine of the "Nonaligned Movement," the true founders of which—Nehru, Nasser, Sukarno, and to a lesser extent Perón-moreover perfectly typified it.
From Bandung to Colombo
The "Nonaligned Movement" was formally established at the Bandung Conference in 1955, and Tito, the head of a workers state, was a quite active participant there. The motivation of the Yugoslav bureaucracy was obviously different from that of the semicolonial bourgeoisie. Tito was first and foremost looking for allies against the constant threats of Soviet and imperialist military intervention that had jointly weighed on his country since Stalin had excommunicated it.
Therefore the "rejection of bloc politics," the rejection of all "hegemonism," and the policy of "active [and armed] neutrality" were the common denominator that could unite the Yugoslav bureaucracy with the leading wing of the nationalist-populist semicolonial bourgeoisie.
The main thrust of the "Nonaligned" was first aimed at those European imperialist powers that were holding onto the remains of their colonial positions. Relations were initially better with American imperialism, which was putting itself forward as the champion of "decolonization," for reasons of both world political strategy as well as interimperialist competition. To this end, Washington was at the point of intervening in October 1956 to stop the Anglo-French-Israeli aggression against Nasser's Egypt.
But precisely the more the old colonial empires were collapsing, the more Ameri can imperialism had to play an increas ingly active role as the imperialist cop on a world scale, having already played that role in Latin America. The intervention of U.S. marines in Lebanon in 1958 and the second Indochina war, in which the American army completely took the place of the French army, symbolize this transformation that took place between the 1950s and 1960g.
The Soviet bureaucracy profited from this by presenting itself as the champion of the cause of "national liberation" in the "Third World." Khurshchev chose the line of long-term alliance with the semicolonial bourgeoisie. (Zhou Enlai had already preceded him along this road. Zhou was responsible for formulating the "five principles of peaceful coexistence" approved at the Bandung conference.)
This line was codified in the program adopted by the Twenty-second Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, under the thin cover of a supposedly "noncapitalist [and nonsocialist!] development"
"Nonaligned."
that characterised the Brezhnev, who is even more pragmatic and cynical, abandoned even this pretense. Now it is only a question of favoring "national independence" and the "economic development" of the "Third World," with all classes jumbled together.
During the first phase of the Sino-Soviet conflict, the Chinese bureaucracy tried to profit from the détente between American imperialism and the Kremlin by presenting itself as the most resolutely antiimperialist power and as the best champion of the "peoples of the Third World." Its 1962 military conflict with the Indian bourgeoisie temporarily distanced it from the "Nonaligned." But China never abandoned its orientation toward "peaceful coexistence."
As China evolved toward a rejection of "the hegemonism of the two superpowers,
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with its foreign policy increasingly becoming a search for alliances with the most reactionary forces throughout the world, it returned to a rapprochement with i the semicolonial bourgeoisie. It entered into competition with the Kremlin on this level as well as on the level of developing closer collaboration with imperialism.
What we are thus witnessing is a double and triple play of pressure and blackmail. The "Nonaligned" bourgeoisie tries to cash in on the anger and the menacing explosions in the semicolonial countries to obtain political and economic concessions from the imperialist bourgeoisie, concessions summed up in the formula of a "new world economic order."
The Soviet bureaucracy (and to a lesser extent the Chinese bureaucracy) offers economic and military aid to the "Nonaligned" in order to obtain better conditions of "peaceful coexistence" with imperialism. The "Nonaligned" threaten to go to Moscow or Peking to get what Washington, London, Bonn, Tokyo, or Paris refuse them.
But all are in agreement that the fundamental structure of the international capitalist system should not be called into question by "uncontrollable forces" (meaning revolutions). All seek to modify the relationship of forces and the division of profits within the system, not to overturn it. Despite all the demagogic calls to the contrary, all have acted to conserve and not to upset the "world economic order."
The Three False Claims of the Nonaligned
The only way that the "Movement of Nonaligned Powers" can put itself forward as such and can as such influence the masses who are in latent or open revolt in the colonial and semicolonial countries is by making use, in a gross or subtle way, of three false claims.
There is no "movement." There are no "nonaligned." And there aren't "coun-
1. In Havana Castro said that the USSR does not exploit, but rather aids Cuba, no doubt referring to the purchase of its sugar at a price above the world market. This is true, but one would have to add that this is the exception and not the rule. Because the USSR generally applies the world market price in its trade with the semicolonial countries and thus contributes to maintaining the imperialist "world economic order," the unequal exchange and the superexploitation of the people of the so-called Third World that this implies.
tries" or "powers" in the "Third World" that act "in concert."
Rather there are nations divided into social classes, with antagonistic interests. There are states (and governments), each with a specific class character, that involve themselves in political maneuvers to defend their differing interests.
There is no "movement" because the possessing classes of the colonial and semicolonial countries have a mortal fear of precisely such a development. That is, they fear the concerted action of hundreds of millions of exploited people throughout the world against imperialism.
What is put forward as a "movement" is rhetoric. Resolutions should replace (and prevent) revolutions. If there is "action," it takes place in the wings, taking the form of timid pressure plays, and with generally insignificant results. Imperialism would survive for centureis if this "movement" were all that existed.
There are no "nonaligned" because no real social force is neutral in this lowly world. Numerous "Nonaligned" governments are complete puppets of imperialism. Others are imperialism's loyal allies, even if they sometimes strain at their leashes and have a greater margin of independence. Some are governments of more or less bureaucratized workers states (North Korea, Yugoslavia, Cuba).
The several borderline bourgeois states run by the nationalist petty bourgeoisie, such as Angola, Mozambique, and Ethiopia, or the liberation movements creating "pre-states" such as the Palestine Liberation Organization, the Patriotic Front of Zimbabwe, and the Polisario Front in the Western Sahara, are doing their utmost to combine the military and/or political aid received from the workers states with the maintenance or extension of economic ties with imperialism. For this reason they end up sooner or later flopping into the imperialist camp, politically and militarily, unless a victorious social revolution changes the class character of the state and the economy in their country.
But not one of these categories of states (or pre-states) is "neutral"
aligned," not only with regard to imperial. ism and socialism, but even in their reciprocal relationships. They all tenaciously defend their specific material interests, and do not hesitate in the slightest to trip each other up, despite all the sermons on the "solidarity of the Nonaligned." The relations between the OPEC countries and the "nonaligned" countries that have to import petroleum is a good illustration of this point.
Furthermore, each of the countries represented in the "nonaligned" conferences has a well defined social structure. Most are capitalist countries. The counterposition of classes between capital and labor, the antagonism between the rich and poor is just as pronounced in these countries as in the imperialist countries. In addition, the exacerbation and the explosiveness of social contradictions has led the possessing classes of many of these countries to set up despotic dictatorships that are among the bloodiest in history.
The Argentine government has just been accused by Amnesty International of having "refined" the horror of torture as an ongoing practice of repression to the point that it has even been torturing small children in front of their parents. But the Cuban government was forced to bring General Videla, the head of this infamous dictatorship, to the Havana conference.
If, by chance, the shah of Iran had not been overthrown by the masses of his country, he would undoubtedly also have cut a fine figure in this august gathering of "nonaligned representatives of the Third World."
The semicolonial bourgeoisies' attempt to get the masses to substitute a division of the world into "rich countries" and "poor countries" for the real division between social classes must be denounced as pure demagogic fraud.
It is true that the pauperized peasants and the workers of the semicolonial countries-who make up the big majority of their populations-are much poorer than wage workers in the imperialist coun tries or in the workers states of Europe. But the royal family of Saudi Arabia, which was worthy of participation in the "nonaligned" conference, is the richest family in the world. The Latin American bourgeoisie, the industrialists, bankers, usurers, and wholesalers of Asia and Africa are not at all poor. Even the kulaks of India and Pakistan, and the comfortable middle classes of Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Singapore, South Korea, Kuwait, and Nigeria are in the process of accumulating capital, something that the immense majority of the wage workers of Western Europe, Japan, and the United States are completely unable to do.
This falsifying ideology has a specific practical function: to prevent, retard, and hold back the class political independence of the workers and poor peasants of the semicolonial countries; to prevent, retard, and hold back defense of the class interests of these workers and peasants through their own class organizations.
This class approach to the economic, social, and political problems of the semicolonial countries in no way entails any underestimation of the misdeeds and crimes of imperialism. On the contrary, in all these countries the rule and the direct exploitation by the indigenous possessing classes is inextricably linked to the maintenance of the indirect rule and direct or indirect exploitation by imperialism. One cannot be eliminated without the other.
Leaving aside the so-called Third Worldist theories put forward by disillusioned former Marxists, the principal link between the ideology of the semicolonial bourgeoisie and currents of the international workers movement is furnished by the Menshevik-Stalinist theory of "revolution by stages"; first to march with the "national" bourgeoisie against imperialism; then, after having eliminated imperialist exploitation, to begin the struggle for the specific interests of the proletariat.
History has shown innumerable times, however, that the possessing classes of the colonial and semicolonial countries are neither able nor want to really break with imperialism. Subordinating the independent struggle and organization of the workers and peasants to a "front" with the "national bourgeoisie" in no way accelerates the defeat of imperialism. Instead it assures the permanence of imperialist domination.
This does not mean that the colonial or semicolonial bourgeoisie can never unleash an action against imperialism, especially when its vital interests are attacked by imperialism. And it certainly does not mean that petty-bourgeois nationalist groupings cannot carry out broad antiimperialist struggles. Whenever such struggles unfold, they deserve the support of the proletariat, and above all they require the unconditional support of the workers in the imperialist countries (otherwise these workers would be adopting an objectively proimperialist position).
We were not neutral in the Sino-
Japanese war, nor in the Algerian war, nor in the 1967 Six Day War in the Middle East, nor in the war led by the Sandinista Front against the imperialist stooge Somoza, nor in the war of the Patriotic Front of Zimbabwe against the Salisbury government. In each case we were for the victory of the camp opposing imperialism and for the defeat of the imperialist camp.
But this clearly means:
1. That we make a clear distinction between real anti-imperialist battles (which do not necessarily take the military form, but can also take the form of the nationalization of imperialist properties, etc.), and purely verbal anti-imperialist demagogy that does not strike any real blow against imperialism (the resolutions adopted at the various "nonaligned" conferences, including the Havana conference, are in this second category rather than in the first);
2. That the workers and poor peasants take part in this common battle with their own forms of action and organization. Far from dissolving themselves into an interclass "front"
in the name of antiimperialism, they make use of the situa tion, particularly to accelerate their organizational class independence; betray the antically compelled to imperialist struggle even when it itself has unleashed it; imperialist domination and allow them to take the first steps along the road of eliminating the dire social effects of underdevelopment.
3. That they be educated in a spirit of permanent vigilance and distrust of the "national bourgeoisie," which is histori-
4. That they be brought to understand that only the seizure of power by the proletariat, in alliance with the peasantry, only the creation of a workers state, can simultaneously liberate their country from
Unless these conditions are fulfilled, the anti-imperialist struggle will reach a deadend, the anti-imperialist mass mobilizations run the risk of being drowned in blood, and the proletarians of the colonial countries will have definitely failed to break the chains that bind them, will have failed to put an end to their inhumane and unbearable poverty.
Did the Havana Conference Reflect a 'Radicalization' of the 'Nonaligned'?
By comparing the resolutions adopted at the "Nonaligned" conference in Havana with those adopted two years earlier in Colombo, Sri Lanka, one could get the impression that there had been a definite political radicalization of the governments represented.
Not only were the Camp David accords condemned with near unanimity, Sadat was completely isolated. The PLO and the Patriotic Front were recognized as "prestates." The conference even called for the withdrawal of the troops of the Suharto dictatorship of Indonesia (another recog nized participant in the "Nonaligned" movement!) from East Timor, the elimination of the American naval base at Guantánamo, Cuba, and the independence of Puerto Rico. The fall of Somoza was hailed, even by governments that had supported him almost to the very end.
But the very nature of the majority of the governments represented in Havananot to speak of the social nature of the states and possessing classes these governments represent-should make any objective observer more than a little skeptical regarding this supposed radicalization. The United National Party (UNP) government in Sri Lanka, far from adopting a more radical anti-imperialist position, is trying its best to break the union movement in its country in order to be able to open the doors wide to superexploitation by the imperialist capitalists in the "free zones." (The way Fidel Castro referred to Julius Jayawardene, head of the UNP, as acting with "wise prudence" will hardly sit well with the workers of Sri Lanka.)
General Torrijos, far from radicalizing, capitulated before imperialism on the question of maintenance of the Panama Canal under Yankee military control.
Presidents Kuanda of Zambia and Nyerere of Tanzania, while letting out with great anti-imperialist sloganeering.
are exerting enormous pressure on the leaders of the Patriotic Front to stop the guerrilla war and work out a compromise. with Salisbury under the aegis of British imperialism, meaning that the Front should collaborate in the consolidation of a neocolonialist regime in Zimbabwe. This list could be expanded without any difficulty.
Therefore, the motions adopted in Havana in no way reflect a "radicalization"
of the "Nonaligned" bourgeois governments, meaning commitment on their part to undertake more resolute anti-imperialist activity. Rather the motions reflect:
1. That the relationship of forces for imperialism has seriously deteriorated with the defeat in Indochina and the fall of the shah. The semicolonial bourgeoisie seeks to profit from this deterioration, not in order to overthrow imperialism, but to get a bigger slice of the pie.
2. That there has been a major revival of the mass movement in a whole series of semi-colonial countries. This revival is symbolized by the Ethiopian, Iranian, and Nicaraguan revolutions, and the rise of workers struggles in Brazil. But it is also seen in the broad struggles in Peru, Egypt, Tunisia, various countries in Black Africa, etc. The semicolonial bourgeoisie is obliged to adopt more radical anti-imperialist language if it is to maintain a chance of containing this thrust.
The tone taken in Havana is therefore revealing about what has already taken place and is not the product of the success of some "left wing" or "radical wing" among the governments that met there, as opposed to a supposed "conservative wing."
Many observers wanted to present the results of the conference as the success of such a "progressive wing." grouped around Cuba, over the "conservative wing," grouped around Tito. It is true that on a goodly number of controversial questions Fidel Castro adopted more radical positions (often identical to those of Soviet diplomacy).
It is also true that in the present international situation the Soviet bureaucracy can profit from the weakness of imperialism to strengthen its diplomatic ties with pettybourgeois regimes such as those in Angola, Mozambique, Ethiopia, and Afghanistan, while maintaining its traditional policy of alliance with the semicolonial bourgeoisie, even under dictatorial regimes like Videla's.
Without doubt Tito adopted the more traditional positions of the "neutralist movement." Fidel Castro proclaimed that the "socialist camp" is the "natural ally" of the "Nonaligned." Tito heid to his position of "equidistance with respect to the two blocs" and rejection of any he gemonism."
But Tito is not a spokesperson of imperialism. He is the spokesperson of the bureaucracy of a small workers state, a bureaucracy that is obsessed with the threat of Soviet military intervention in the event of a political crisis in its country (the precedent of Czechoslovakia proves that this obsession is not without foundation). It reacts in an ultraopportunist way in the face of this danger, of course. But in doing so it is simply following the logic of "socialism in one country," which dominates the policy of all the workers states.
This does not make the Yugoslav workers state or its bureaucracy more
"reactionary" than the bourgeois states (and despotic governments like Iraq's that shoot communists) that supported Cuba on all questions at the Havana conference. To justify such a conclusion, it would be necessary to begin to call into question whether China, North Korea, and Yugoslavia are workers states, as the Cuban and Vietnamese leaderships, moreover, are in the process of doing.
To treat the Peking regime as "fascist" can only lead to the same disastrous consequences that the theory of "Soviet social imperialism" led the Maoist leaders to.
Contradictions in Cuba's Foreign Pollcy
Was it, then, an error for the Castroist leadership to get involved in the "Nonaligned Movement," to agree to hold the conference in Havana? We don't think so.
But neither do we believe that this conference was a big defeat for imperialism. The real defeats were those inflicted upon imperialism by the Vietnamese, Ethiopian, Iranian, and Nicaraguan masses, and the Havana conference was no more than a weak and belated echo of these defeats, an echo that was, moreover, partially distorted.
In order to explain this dual conclusion we must begin with a statement that only infantile ultraleftists question: A workers state, and its government, have the full right to maneuver in the camp of the class enemy, to seek to divide it, including on the diplomatic plane. Lenin and Trotsky did this at Brest-Litovsk, at Rapallo, in the conflicts of Kemal Atatürk and the bourgeois Republic of China against imperialism. As long as the socialist revolution has not triumphed in one of the principal countries of the world, such maneuvers are one of the preconditions of survival for the workers state or workers states, whatever their degree of bureaucratization.
Therefore it is quite right that Fidel Castro utilize to his advantage the new rise in the colonial revolution in order to sharpen the contradictions between the semicolonial bourgeoisie and the imperialist bourgeoisie-even if only on paper.
But seeking to profit from intercapitalist contradictions is only one of the elements for survival of the Cuban workers state. And this element is not sufficient to permit a revolution that is on the march-like the Nicaraguan revolution-to escape from the constraints of the world market and the financial institutions of international capitalism. And that's the rub. That's where the contradictions of Cuban foreign policy are highlighted.
Fidel Castro is the head of a workers state that was born in an authentic workers and peasants revolution. He was not trained in the Stalinist school. He has his own doctrine, situated between Stalinism and revolutionary Marxism, which is expressed through contradictory practices. He is not an agent of the Soviet bureaucracy.
The isolation of the Cuban revolution in the Western Hemisphere following the successive defeats of Latin American revolutions (Brazil in 1964, Argentina in 1976) has placed the Cuban workers state in a situation of increasingly pronounced material dependence on the Kremlin. There can be no question but that an interaction has developed between this material depend. ence on the Soviet Union, its political and ideological repercussions, and the process of bureaucratization in Cuba (this article will not try to deal with how far this process has gone in Cuba).
There can also be no question but that this dependence weighs heavily on the shoulders of a portion of the Cuban leaders-and that these leaders would very much like to reduce its weight and regain a wider margin for maneuver with respect to the Kremlin.
But there are two paths toward achieving this goal, and these paths separate too much for one to be able to simultaneously follow both for very long.
The first path is to concentrate on a new extension of the revolution. This is what Castro has done so far in Angola, Ethiopia, Nicaragua, and, of course, this is all to his credit. The future will tell whether he follows this path to its ultimate conclusion in Nicaragua, i.e., whether he encourages or restrains the process leading to the appearance of a second workers state in the Western Hemisphere. This will be an important test of the degree that bureaucratization has reached in Cuba.
The second path is to concentrate on an alliance with the semicolonial bourgeoisies (especially the so-called liberal bourgeoisies of the region, meaning the bourgeoisies of Mexico, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Panama, and even Colombia and Ecuador, although to say the least the governments of these two countries don't show very many "liberal" traits). Herein lies the basic meaning of the Havana Conference, which was perfectly illustrated by Fidel Castro's speech to the UN General Assembly.
At the UN Castro spoke as the head of the Cuban workers state who had become the spokesperson of a bloc with the semicolonial bourgeoisie. Along with excellent socialist agitation, nothing was missing from the speech. There was the evoking of peaceful coexistence, the appeal to reject all "hegemonism" without any distinction of class camp (for which he had previously sharply rebuked Tito and Deng Xiaoping), the support for the austerity policy of the imperialist governments under the cover of the "fight against inflation," the fraudulent presentation of the SALT II accords as a contribution to disarmament while the arms race is accelerating.
In addition the Castroist leadership has already put this second path into practice in Peru, Panama, and Mexico, where it is completely aligned with the policy of the local Communist Parties, and through its silence it supports the Argentine CP. The
Castroist leadership is putting forward a clear adaptation of the theory of "revolution by stages," in counterposition to the practice of the victorious Cuban revolution. There the Cuban leadership followed the logic of permanent revolution, which Che and Fidel at least partially resurrected even on the theoretical plane at the time the revolution reached its highest point (for example Che's famous formula that "the revolution will be socialist or it will not be").
One might object that in Havana and New York Fidel was speaking as the head of state. Under Lenin and Trotsky the Bolsheviks themselves also made a distinction between the language of government and the language of the party and the Communist International.
This objection is not valid. First, Fidel Castro himself does not make this distinetion. There is no Castroist International or Cuban CP speaking in another language than Castro's as head of state.
Then too, neither Castro's speeches in New York nor in Havana were aimed solely at diplomats. The speeches were disseminated in hundreds of thousands, even millions of copies throughout the world. They move the masses of the semicolonial countries much more than they move their governments. Therefore it is pure fiction to maintain that these speeches simply extend the "diplomatic maneuver." They contribute to influencing the consciousness and ideology of millions of proletarians and poor peasants.
Finally, precisely in this regard, Lenin and Trotsky never practiced a double game. They did not say everything to the bourgeois diplomats-they're not the ones the Bolsheviks were trying to convince of the virtues of the world revolution. But they did not tell the diplomats the opposite of what they told the masses. Since there was always the possibility that their words would be heard by these same toiling masses, or repeated to them, it was important not to lead the masses into error.
Lenin and Trotsky held to the rule that while there was no reason to reject "on principle" any maneuver or any compromise, these should raise the class consciousness of the exploited, their confidence in themselves, their determination to organize themselves and liberate themselves.
But when you characterize the tyrants, the bloodsuckers, the imperialist stooges,
"nouveaux riches" of the including the "Third World" who were present at Havana, as valiant anti-imperialist fighters;?
2. Fidel Castro does not hesitate to assert: "We are firmly anti-imperialist, anticolonial, antineocolonial, antiracist, anti-Zionist and antifascist because these principles are part of our thinking; they constitute the essence and origin of the movement of Nonaligned countries and have formed its life and history ever since its founding." By deliberately mixing up the thinking of the Cuban revolutionaries, the thinking of the toiling masses of the "Third World," and the thinking of the governments of the Movement
when you present the alliance with them as a necessary alliance, when you proclaim it is necessary to preserve the "unity" of the neutralist governments; and even conclude that humanity would be able to spare itself the "revolution" and "the apocalypse," if imperialism would only show itself wise and install a "new economic order"—a proposal that is identical to the one made in 1974 at the same General Assembly of the UN by Mexico's bourgeois President Luís Echeverríawhen you say all this, you are sowing tremendous confusion in the minds of the workers and peasants of the semicolonial countries. You are lowering, not raising, their political class consciousness. You are, therefore, assuredly reducing rather than increasing the chances of dealing decisive blows to imperialism.
Can we avoid putting Fidel Castro's warm welcoming words to the representatives of the Spanish bourgeois state as an observer at the Havana Conference in this same category of spreading inadmissible confusion among the workers? Fidel Castro saluted the representative of the Spanish bourgeois state, with its monarchofascist repressive apparatus intact, and did not hesitate to proclaim in this context: "We also need friends in industrialized Western Europe that are not tied to the imperialist wagon." As if Spain itself were not an imperialist power, closely tiedincluding through military bases!-to American imperialism. As if this state, its king, its army, its possessing class, and its government were not the bitter enemies of the workers and the oppressed Basque and Catalan nationalities.
The enormous confusion sown among the toiling masses of the world regarding who their real friends and allies are and who their implacable enemies are is part of the objective balance that must be drawn up of the Havana conference.
That is why, despite appearances, the conference was in no way a severe defeat for imperialism.
The reason the representatives of the semicolonial possessing classes came to Havana was not because Castro used conciliatory language with respect to them in return for their "hard" language with regard to imperialism. Rather they came to Havana in order to use the prestige of the Cuban revolution-enhanced by Angola, Ethiopia, Nicaragua-with the aim of smothering the revolution in their own countries.
They tell their peoples: "Look, even of Nonaligned Countries," he bestows, whether he wants to or not, a certificate of "antifascism" on dictators Videla, Suharto, and Marcos, and a certificate on "antiracism" on Indian Jan Sangh ministers and on Prime Minister Jayawardene of Sri Lanka, at the very moment that he is launching a racist campaign against the Tamil minority—not to speak of the anti-Kurd chauvinism of the Iranian supporters of Khomeini.
Castro recognizes our merit. Don't encroach on our prerogatives. Let us do it. In exchange, we offer you thunderous antiimperialist resolutions."
At the very least this increases confusion. One will not find any such sources of confusion in the speeches of Lenin and Trotsky, including on the governmental level, including in the course of "diplomatic maneuvers."
Again the objection will be raised that it is necessary to take into account the spe. cific conjunctural and geographic context. In the course of recent months Cuba was the target of increased imperialist maneuvers, pressures, aggressions. There was Washington's decision to maintain the economic blocade. There was the whole fuss around the so-called Soviet brigade, a pretext for strengthening the Yankee military presence in Guantánamo. There was the barely veiled threat of military intervention in the event of the presence of Cuban troops in Central America. There was the creation of a special base and intervention force in Florida to that end.
All this, obviously, is not unconnected to the progress of the Nicaraguan revolution, the fall of Somoza, and its consequences throughout Central America.
Given the clear reluctance of the Kremlin to extend its guarantee of active support to Cuba in the Western Hemisphere, not to mention its refusal to support any sort of "revolutionary adventure" in Central America, Fidel Castro turned toward the "liberal" bourgeoisies of the region (Mexico, Panama, and the "Andean Pact" countries) to try to neutralize the imperialist maneuvers.
These bourgeoisies, frightened by the risks of a generalized conflagration in the region in response to any Yankee aggres. sion, and also subject to the growing pressure of a mass political radicalization in some of their countries, broke the diplomatic isolation that the Cuban revolution had been in.
The most dramatic expression of this turnabout was the refusal of the majority of member governments of the Organization of American States (OAS) to authorize or cover the sending of any military intervention force to Nicaragua. This refusal contributed to the victory of the Sandinista Front and to reducing the pressure on Cuba.
Without question this was a major diplomatic success for Cuba and an important setback for Washington—a success and a setback that in the last analysis are the byproducts of the revolutionary rise in the region.
The Cuban leadership conceived of the Havana conference as the extension of this success. From this angle and in this sense the conference too was a diplomatic success for Castro.
But in longer range terms, the effective defense of the Cuban workers state is not a function of the good will of the so-called liberal Latin-American bourgeoisie, of its fear of or its pressure-plays on imperialism.
The defense of the Cuban workers state depends on the extension and the new triumphs of the Latin American revolution. Any policy of alliances with the "national" bourgeoisie, of alignment around the Latin American CPs' strategic orientation of "revolution by stages,"
condemns this revolution to new and bloody defeats. Far from serving the cause of defense of the Cuban state, in the long run such a policy undermines its defense, whatever the short-term successes might be.
For that reason, telling the unvarnished truth about the bourgeois governments that met in Havana and their real role in the world is not simply an elementary requirement from the standpoint of de. fense of the interests of the toiling masses of the "Third World." It is also an elementary requirement from the standpoint of defense of the Cuban workers state itself.
Torture In Paraguay
Since taking power in a 1954 coup, Paraguay's dictator Gen. Alfredo Stroessner has ruled that country with an iron hand. Some of his methods were recently outlined by Amnesty International, the human rights organization, which has just human rights organization, wers of conadopted thiry-four "
science" in that country.
During the 1975-1976 campaign to break up the small Paraguayan Communist Party, Amnesty Internation reports, the Stroessner regime made a practice of arresting family members of CP activists. Among those seized were old men, pregnant women, and children under six years of age. They were systematically beaten and kicked, given electric shocks, and submerged in dirty, excrement-filled water until they nearly drowned.
Amnesty International also revealed the circumstances of the death of Miguel Angel Soler, general secretary of the CP. Following his arrest on November 30, 1975, he was beaten with rubber hoses and iron bars for four hours. While the police were kicking him in the chest he suffered a fatal heart-attack. His torturers then left the room and reported his suicide.
Notes
3. The Algerian workers will have some question about the justice of Fidel's reference to Houari Boumediene as "a hero of his country's liberation and revolution." While he did indeed play a positive role in the Algerian national liberation struggle, he was nonetheless the head of the counterrevolution that eliminated another "beloved friend" of Fidel, Ahmed Ben Bella.