Rv livio Maitan
The following article appeared in the January 20 issue of the French-language fortnightly Inprecor, published in Paris. The translation is by Intercontinental Press.]
The crucial problems posed by the present stage of the international situation were a central focus of the Second Congress of the Cuban Communist Party. Fidel Castro spent the entire last section of his very long report to the congress dealing with them, and in his speech to the immense mass demonstration that marked the end of the congress' work, he was even more explicit in laying out the policies that flow from these problems.
The congress very vigorously repeated what has been the basic theme of Cuban policy since the January 1959 victory of the revolution-tenacious and intransigent struggle against U.S. imperialism. The Cuban leaders have never minimized the price their country had to pay and still pays for maintaining that policy, particularly the blockade that for twenty years has been a very serious obstacle to balanced economic growth.
They have never rejected, out of hand, steps that could unblock the situation. At the Second Congress, Fidel Castro reaffirmed that Cuba is ready "to settle the historical differences created by the acts of aggression of the United States imperialist governments and, consequently [to discuss] the normalization of our relations with that country...
But at the same time, Castro noted that the precondition was that the United States must be "willing to lift the blockade, discuss the issue of [the U.S. military base at] Guantánamo and refrain from violating Cuba's sovereignty."
In his rally speech, moreover, Castro explained the price the imperialists were demanding: an agreement could be reached if Cuba renounces its internationalist policy and breaks its alliances. The Cuban response was as clear as could be. It was summarized by a statement that was received with an ovation from the mass of participants at the rally. "If we were to choose between treason and death we would prefer death a thousand times over."
Afghanistan and Poland
As expected, the congress confirmed the alignment of Cuban foreign policy along the central orientations of the USSR's policy. Once again, the leaders of the
Cuban party and state not only stressed the supreme importance that relations with the Soviet Union have had and still have for the country's economy, for its survival, but they also indicated unreserved agreement with the policy of the leaders of the USSR, which was presented as the bastion of socialism against all the imperialist and counterrevolutionary maneuvers and threats.
This was especially expressed in the attitude formulated toward the events in Afghanistan and Poland.
The Cuban leaders had certainly greeted the intervention by Soviet troops in Afghanistan with reticence, particularly since it caused a difficult situation in the so-called Nonaligned Movement.
Despite this, Fidel Castro accepted, without reservation, Moscow's version. His allusions to the errors committed by the "revolutionary Afghans" did not in any way mean that Castro was taking his distance: the propaganda from the Kremlin itself has attacked Karmal's predecessors. The view of the current situationwherein, according to Fidel Castro, "the
Afghan revolutionary leadership new seems to be consolidating itself'—also coincides with what Moscow says.!
It was the same with Poland. According to Fidel Castro, "imperialism is orchestrat-
1. In an interview in Prauda on August 30, 1980, Brezhnev summarized the USSR's policy in Afghanistan as follows:
"Having responded to the appeal of the government of Afghanistan, which asked our aid in responding to aggression, we will fulfill, to the end, our duty in line with the Soviet-Afghan Friendship Treaty and the United Nations Charing a sinister act of provocation," which is at least partly behind the events. He spoke of "the success the reaction has had there," of the "initial setbacks" to "the courageous sons of this heroic people and their communist vanguard...
Does Fidel Castro believe that the big strikes that shook the bureaucratic regime were the work of imperialism? Were the gains won by the huge mobilizations of the working class, and the birth of a union of millions of members a victory for the reaction? Were Gierek, Kania, and Company the Polish communist vanguard?
True, Fidel hopes the Polish Communists can resolve their problems through their "own efforts." But by this he clearly means that they must resolve, to their advantage, the conflict created by "the antisocialists and counterrevolutionaries." Worse yet, if they are not successful in this, Fidel Castro recognizes, a priori, "the socialist camp's right to save that coun try's integrity," meaning the right of the Kremlin's army to intervene as it did in Czechoslovakia.
Here we can concretely see the bad of aligning around the consequences policies. The revolutionary- USSR's democratic and antibureaucratic interests and aspirations of the Polish workers are quite simply ignored, sacrificed on the altar of normalization and of the integrity of the "socialist camp." One could not place oneself more clearly on the side of this bureaucratic caste that continues to rule in Warsaw, and even more so in Moscow!
Industanized Captist Countries Nonaligned Countries and
The congress also confirmed the political orientation toward the so-called Nonaligned countries.
It goes without saying that the Cuban workers state has the right to exploit, to the detriment of the imperialist great powers, the contradictions and conflicts created by the existence of these countries, as well as possible conflicts between the imperialists themselves.
Even so, it does not follow that the Cuban CP and its leadership should proter. No one should have any doubts on that subject.
We are for a political settlement of the situa tion. The only path to that is through cessation of the counterrevolutionary intervention through an agreement between the government of Afghanistan and those of its neighbors, especially Pakistan.
vide ideological cover to these ruling groups, which, in the majority of cases, brutally exploit and oppress the masses in their own countries. Even less does it follow that the Cuban CP must put forward sociopolitical characterizations that confuse the situation.
In expanding the list drawn up in the past, the report to the congress listed among the countries "that have opted for socialism or adopted a socialist orientation: Ethiopia, Angola, Mozambique, Congo, Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde, Madagascar, Benin, São Tomé and Guinea in Africa; Algeria, Democratic Yemen, Iraq, Syria, and Libya... 2
This is grotesque from a theoretical point of view. But, even more serious, it has practical consequences. One example will suffice. It is perfectly legitimate that Cuba, which has a position of responsibility within the Nonaligned Movement, should work to end the military conflict between Iran and Iraq. But the affair becomes more complicated when Fidel Castro speaks of "two peoples engaged in revolutionary processes." In this way he places on the same level the Iranian revolution and the Iraqi Ba'ath regime that has put itself in the "vanguard" of the struggle against the Iranian revolution.
The least one could say is that the Cuban Communists are avoiding a question that is very concretely posed before all revolutionaries.
On the other hand, the report very clearly defined Cuba's policy toward the capitalist countries other than the United States. "This policy is based on the possi bility to maintain ties of fruitful cooperation and mutual respect, regardless of differences in social systems. It differentiates between countries with an average level of development that have not yet become great powers and those with greater economic power, which have never possessed colonial territories and avoid hegemonistic attitudes. It likewise takes into account the inevitable contradictions existing between major capitalist powers which lead them to positions which are not always unanimous; this had made it impossible for Yankee imperialism to have greater success in its policy of blockade against revolutionary Cuba. ...
To repeat, no one could question Cuba's right to profit from the contradictions between capitalist countries and to exploit special interests. Provided that this does not lead to inventing theories or covering over the role of certain governments or certain figures.?
An Overall Appraisal
An essential part of Castro's report is devoted to an overall appraisal of the international situation. He places stress on the evolution of the relationship of forces to the detriment of imperialism in the years since the first party congress (1975). We agree with that judgment, especially since Castro states that:
"The important peoples' victories that have been won in the last five years should not, however, lead us to have a distorted view of the international scene-much less underestimate the great dangers that threaten the peoples' peace and national liberation.
"The threat posed to international dé- tente by the most reactionary sectors of imperialism—a threat denounced by the 1st Congress-has become more and more evident.
The election of Ronald Reagan to the presidency of the United States naturally increases these dangers, especially regarding Latin America.
Nor does Fidel Castro skip over another problem: the possibility that the imperialists might react to Soviet actions "in any other part of the world" by striking at Cuba. More specifically, one need not resort to science fiction to raise the possibility that, in the event of a Soviet intervention in Poland, the United States might use that to carry out an intervention in Central America.
The response that Fidel Castro lays out to such an intervention is a response in the spirit of intransigence, the two pillars of which are a radicalization of struggles in Latin America and the preservation at all costs of the "integrity of the socialist camp."
It is not at all excluded that this attitude might be dictated, among other things, by fear that the Soviet leadership could seek a compromise with the United States at the expense of the peoples of Central America, and, in the final analysis, of Cuba.
We have already indicated what the implications are within Poland itself of an attitude that gives a blank check to a Soviet invervention in that country. We should add that from the international standpoint such an intervention, far from representing a blow to imperialism, would instead provide imperialism with much greater maneuvering room and would hit the international workers movement very hard because it would provoke disarray and demoralization and would help to discredit socialism.
n the final analvsis. Cuba and Centra merica would he much more exnospr t blackmail and aggression by their enemies, and any Cuban solidarity with a move by the Soviet Red Army in Poland would be a major obstacle to an international anti-imperialist mobilization.
Regarding the other pillar, the radicalization of struggles in Latin America, the only response, according to Fidel, would be uncompromising struggle, carried out to the final consequences, a gigantic revolutionary mobilization on the scale of the entire continent. Only if faced with the perspective of a new Vietnam in Cuba, Central America, and other countries in Latin America will imperialism hesitate to and decide not to launch its aggression. If imperialism did not drop its aggressive plans, it would run the risk of being swept into an adventure that would have incalculable consequences for its future on a world scale.
In such a context, we might add, it would be enormously more difficult for the bureaucracy of the USSR to work out a compromise with Washington, and especially to impose it on Cuba and the other peoples of Latin America.
This approach is based on the best internationalist motivations and traditions of the Cuban revolution. It relies on the Cuban people's inexhaustible capacity for mobilization and spirit of self-sacrifice, and on the hope for "the day when all the peoples of Latin America are as willing to defend their country as Cuba is to defend itself....
The imperialists would be making a grave error if they viewed this attitude as simple demagogy. Many times in the past* we pointed out that a whole series of attitudes and policies adopted by the Cuban leadership since the early 1970s flowed from their analysis that revolutionary upsurges were not on the short-term agenda in Latin American countries.
Fidel Castro expressed this point of view most explicitly in his July 26, 1972 speech. In 1975, at the First Congress, he repeated that "At this moment, Latin America is not immediately on the threshold of overall changes leading, as in Cuba, to sudden socialist transformations."
Today the perspective has changed radically. Castro stresses the "resounding victories of the peoples of Nicaragua and Grenada and the irrepressible struggle of the peoples of El Salvador and Guatemala. ..." He notes "the readiness of the masses to fight—which has reached unlevels"
precedented generally more throughout Latin America and the Carib-
He notes that "revolutionary nabean.
tional liberation movements with a strong social content are on the rise," and points to the continuing opposition of the Chilean people to the junta, "the staunch resistance of the Bolivian people," to "strikes of unprecedented magnitude" in Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia, to "the workers of Argentina [who] have continued their struggle."
Such a situation, and especially the events in Nicaragua, which marked the turning point, represented a challenge and a test for Cuba. Its leaders have shown they understood the test and are determined to rise to the challenge.
We do not feel that all their present policies regarding Latin America are correct, or that all their ambiguous, confused, or clearly incorrect positions have been overcome. For example, it is hard to share their line of support for the Peruvian PSR, a party of those nostalgic for the military reformism of Velasco; or their apologetic attitudes toward the Mexican PRI government of López Portillo, which can only complicate the task of those who are fighting for the independence of the workers movement in Mexico; or the lack of a defined attitude toward the Argentine military regime as such.
In addition, one could raise questions about the concrete content that is sometimes given to the "unity of revolutionary forces" that is a central axis of the Cuban attitude in a whole series of countries in struggle. (In some cases this unity seems to involve bourgeois forces with whom it would be more correct to establish specific convergences and agreements on a case by case basis.)6
Nevertheless, it is absolutely clear that Cuba was and is committed, in all fields, to contributing to the victory of revolutionary struggles in Central America, while accepting enormous risks. This is part of the decision they have made to defend the revolution and the workers state by extending the revolution in other countries.
This is the basic difference between the Cuban leadership and the bureaucratic leaderships in all the other workers states.
5. However, we should note that during the year that just ended, the Cuban press devoted considerably more attention than in the past to resistance to the Videla dictatorship and to the struggles of the Argentine workers.
6. The congress clarified the party's attitude toward a "new element in the Latin American situation: the presence of the social democrats." The notion raised in the report of the "social democratization of old bourgeois and oligarchic Latin American parties" could create some confusion unless it is made clear that despite their transformation, these parties remain bourgeois and therefore qualitatively different from the Social Democratic parties of Western Europe, which remain part of the workers movement.
But the idea expressed in the report of, on the one hand, exploiting the contradictions and breeches that can be opened in the adversary's front, and, on the other hand, seeking convergences in the anti-imperialist struggle with sectors of the masses who are beginning to mobilize under the Social Democratic influence, is absolutely correct.
Notes
2. The notion of "states with a socialist orientation" is part of the ideological arsenal of the Soviet bureaucracy. This was confirmed by Boris Ponomarev during last October's conference of representatives of Communist Parties and national liberation movements. According to the minutes, Ponomarev, however, had a list that was a little different than Castro's-Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Angola, Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde, and Afghanistan.
3. This is not a gratuitous point. During the visit to Cuba of Spanish Premier Adolfo Suárez, Fidel Castro made a eulogizing assessment of the role Suárez played in post-Franco Spain.
4. See especially our articles "Problems of the Cuban Workers State" in the Autumn 1975 Quatrième Internationale, and "Cuba Twenty Years After the Revolution" in the April 23, 1979 Intercontinental Press, p. 419.