TACKLES THE PROBLEM OF BUREAUCRACY
MEXICO CITY -- In the proletarian revolution, an internal struggle is required against the bureaucracy that arises in the revolutionary process itself. In the decisive initial period in a colonial country, the revolution struggles with all its force against the external foe and its national bourgeois allies. Upon the consolidation of victory, the people turn their eyes to what has been accomplished ‘by the revolution within the country.
Rooted in the international level, the proletarian energy penetrates the anticapitalist economic and social structure. With the same intransigeance with which it struggled against imperialism, it now begins the battle for democracy and. equality within its own ranks,
The biggest obstacle it encounters in the new stage is the bureaucratic social layer formed in the shelter of the revolutionary institutions. Made up of "functionaries" of the revolution, this sector does not appear openly counterrevolutionary. It is filled with the most rigid "Marxist Leninists” anxious to continually demonstrate their "revolutionary" wisdom, The bureaucrats can be former revolutionists but in the most part their ranks are made up of petty-bourgeois newcomers of all kinds who have recognized that the revolution is an accomplished fact, and who ' * joined up" without waiting. Gener-_ ally they have not participated in the” action that engendered the movement; there are even "revolutionary" bureaucrats who were notorious counterrevolutionaries on the eve of the popular triumph.
The Cuban Revolution did not escape this law, as shown by the experience crystallized in the speech of Fidel Castro on January 2.
That Fidel Castro is conscious of the problem of bureaucracy, of its rise within the revolutionary process, is proved by the following: ,
"What fault must we eradicate? You would say bureaucratism? There we are in absolute agreement.
"But how are we going to do this? By creating unemployment, laying off people? No! We must not do it that way. . . It would not be correct; it would not be just; because, gentlemen, if we are going to lay off anyone, we should begin by laying ourselves off first of all, because we are the ones who created bureaucratism. Certainly, pureaucratism came from the past, but in some cases we developed it, -and in others we didn't fight it in an effective way.” (Emphasis added. )
This indisputable fact did not prevent Castro from denouncing the phenomenon with all his characteristic vehemence. Going to the heart of the problem, he declared: "We must not confound administration with bureaucratism. Bureaucratism is in the first place a concept, the belief that everything is done from an office, a complete, hundred-
per-cent petty-bourgeois concept -- the world made in the image and likeness of a petty bourgeois, from an office, with the whole atmos~ phere and surroundings that are not proletarian surroundings. Second: -it is. the hypertrophy of certain administrative functions, often the product of the concept which we have created in these six years,"
The administrative functions are indispensable. But their "hypertrophy" implies the appearance of “parasitic organisms, that: Js, unproductive organisms, which can also be created under socialism,’ This parasitic sector, which usurps resources that could be at lltted
to raise the standard of living of the producers, must be combatted. No injury must be done to elements indispensable for the construction of socialism. Still more, its growth places in danger the principles of socialism itself, deforming them and bringing about the' ‘Peappearance of social inequalities.
This danger which confronts all victorious revolutions (above all in backward countries) is consciously stressed by Fidel when he exclaims with exceptional vigor and clarity: "I believe with all my heart that socialism has to guard itself against bureaucratism as much as against imperialism. This must not.be forgotten, because it is a> clandestine enemy. You have heard millions of people speak against imperialism. How many have you heard speak against bureaucratism?... Certainly,. certainly, they are few. But it is a great evil which we. have not taken into account, of which we are not conscious. And, nevertheless, it is an extreme evil; it upsets production; it consumes much of the energy of the people." (Emphasis added.)
The measures to take against it? Fidel proposes an amplification of popular culture, the elevation of the political level of the masses.
The entire thrust of the speech, however, was to go beyond this, for Fidel raised in principle the Bolshevik concept of socialist democracy as opposed to the arbitrariness and authoritarianism of the period under Stalin.
But what repercussions will this have in the official bureaucratized Communist movement, particularly in the superbureaucratized workers states?
Through allusions that were nevertheless very clear to those “who have ears to hear," Fidel expressed his opposition to the bureaucratic methods common in the socialist camp.
Referring to the necessity to work out a "concrete" policy that takes into account the particular situation of a given nation and party, without taking orders from anyone divorced from experience, Castro cryptically replied to the Soviet pressure (indirect in the best of cases) on him to take a position openly against the Chinese.
Most important of all, however, was what he said about the - Soviet and general "socialist™ aid to Cuba. Admitting its essential importance for the survival of the revolutionary island, he elaborated a quite improbable hypothesis but one which served to show his opposition ‘to a position maintained sotto voce in Communist party circles, It is irresponsibly affirmed there that Cuba owes its very existence to the USSR. Conclusion: the Cubans must be uncritical in their support of the Soviet Union. They even go so far as to claim that. Cuba ' is treated in a different way, that it lives at the expense of the socialist world, that. trade between the island and the socialist camp" is. unilaterally in favor of the former. .
Fidel clearly replied to these anti-Cyban "rumors". in stating that even "if" there had been neither a socialist camp nor socialist aid, Cuba would have survived.
In Cuba in 1965 some of the most important problems are being raised, not only for Cuba itself but for the whole Hemisphere and the other workers states. On a continental scale the struggle is between the Revolution and "peaceful coexistence" in the class struggle. In the island republic the struggle ‘is between ‘workers democracy _ and 7 bureaucratic inequality. The outcome of this struggle. can have wide repercussions throughout the noncapitalist world and in still broader areas.
i "Once Again on the Situation in the Angolan Movement,"
by Livio Maitan. _A cogent analysis of differences that have
appeared among the freedom fighters.
Directeur-Gérant: Pierre FRANK. 1'éditeur).