ROCA'S DEFENSE OF THE SLANEEES AGAINST DROTSIYISH 1 thas’
[In ‘successive issues, World Outlook has sought to provide: as complete a documentation as possible on the dispute touched off” by Fidel Castro in his January 15 speech closing the Tricontin- _ ental Conference in which he attacked "Trotskyism" in terms -reminiscent of the frame-up charges in the infamous Moscow trials ‘of ‘the. thirties.’ We published the full text of Castro's speech itself, plus various replies, including one made by the United Secretariat ol of the ‘Fourth International ‘and an editorial by the Monthly Review. 06
{We also published the only ‘attempted rebuttal we were ‘aware: of up to the end of ‘April -- one by Gus Hall, the main spokesman |: of the American Communist party. This, together with a reply by Joseph Hansen,, ‘appeared in our issue of May 6.
(Below we have published another attempted ‘defense. of Fidel ee Castro's revival of the old Stalinist slanders. The author of this so attempt is .an old hand at ‘this game. He is Blas Roca, ‘the SECTe=! ts tary general of the Cuban Communist party in the thirties “in the” : heyday of Stalinism and the secretary general of its continuation .{% in the form of the Partido Socialista Popular. Today Blas Roéa dis: ° 2) a member of the Secretariat of the newly organized Communist’ party 2 e| of Cuba. The title of his article is "The Trotskyist Slanders SLES Cannot Tarnish the Cuban Revolution" ("Las Calumnias Trotskistas Ts No Pueden Manchar a la Revolucién Cubana"). oR cen
[We do not know, as yet, whether Blas Roca's article was published | in Cuba, although we assume that it was. Sincé we do not have at Hand an official English version, we have ‘provided a translation from the text published in the May 1 issue of ‘the Mexico City. semimonthly magazine Politica.
{In our. “next issue we will publish a reply by Joseph’ Hansen, the editor of The Militant and former secretary to Leon’ Trotsky. J
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The vigorous and illuminating denunciation of the anti-Cuban propaganda of the Trotskyists which Companero Fidel Castro made in his speech closing the Tricontinental : Conference , | was ° indispensable.
Not of course because of» any significance ascribable to. the a Trotskyists. in themselves, but because of the relation their propagandistic campaign has to the action Yankee imperialism'is developing against the Cuban Revolution and because of the damage : which, under the circumstances created by the differences involving various socialist states in the international Communist movement., their confusionist campaign could cause in some incipient sector of, the’ rising revolutionary movement’ in Latin. America.
Trotskyisn is, in itself, in its politics and its’ theory, a corpse. Extended internationally in opposition’ to Leninism and: the
Leninist thesis of the possibility of the; triumph of socialism in one country, historic experience defeated all its major theses and reduced it to small groups isolated from the masses, whose principal function remained limited “ko combating the Soviet Union and the 1 Communi st. parties. po in . The. Yankee imperialists have found in the Trotskyists very” achive. guxiliary forces in their efforts to destroy in- the eyes of the Latin-American peoples the prestige of the Cuban Revolution by utilizing slanders and confusionist propaganda. These efforts are part of the. imperialist campaign against Cuba: they complement . the “attacks by” military means, the actions of infiltrated agents -sabotage, crime, espionage ~-..the economic. blockade, .the breaking of: diplomatic relations by. the Latin-American countries, etc.
On the one hand, directly and in ‘the name. of its. widely known agencies, the Yankee imperialists carry out an intense campaign in Latin America to convince the bourgeois and pettybourgeois sectors that,.Cuba,.-and not the United States, constitutes a danger to the independence of their countries; that Cuba and not the United States, is the interventionist power in the continent; that Cuba and not the. conditions of national humiliation, underdevelopment, backwardness, unhealthy conditions, lack of culture, reactionary coups d'état, repression and persecution, conditions created, reinforced or maintained through the intervention and domination of North American neocolonialisn, is the. cause of the uprisings, guerrillas, protests and struggles of the Latin- American peoples.
»: On the other hand, through channels that are not easily identifiable as imperialist and groups that employ a superrevolutionary language, they carry out a:campaign to confuse the intellectual, . student, worker and peasant. sectors, spreading among them slanders such as that the Cuban Revolution is a failure, that it is. not socialist, that it is not granting the aid or solidarity due the Latin-American peoples, that its leaders have been "purged" by tortuous means, that it is being consumed in internal quarrels between men and factions fighting for power, that Cuba has been converted into a satellite of the Soviet Union, that Cuba's actions are determined by Soviet pressure, etc. .
While the direct North American propaganda "justifies" its intervention in Santo Domingo with the pretended danger of a coup by "Communists trained in Cuba," the indirect propaganda by way of the Trotskyists accuses Cuba of not having given active solidarity to the Dominican revolution. While the OAS condemns Cuba "for. sending arms to the Venezuelan guerrillas," supposedly revolutionary “1 propaganda is circulated throughout the continent accusing Cuba of "turning its back to the Latin-American revolution."
This is the dual aspect of the propaganda war which the Yankee imperialists are developing against Cuba. In this war, Johnson, Rusk, McNamara; the CIA, the counterrevolutionary groups and grouplets are given the task, with the help of the AP and the UPI, of
presenting Cuba as a revolutionary danger to the continent which must be smashed; while the Trotskyists and other pseudorevolutionary elements undertake the dirty task of promulgating that the revolutionary power in Cuba is not revolutionary nor undertaking its duties of solidarity with the peoples, etc.; that is, the task of promulgating those things that help the imperialists in their effort to destroy the prestige and authority of the Cuban Revolution. The firm and unconditional defense of the anti-imperialist and socialist revolution, triumphant in Cuba, is a duty for every honest revolutionary, whatever his party affiliation.
This defense must be mounted whether it involves a military attack, an economic attack or an ideological and political attack of the enemies of the Revolution. This defense is not only a duty of solidarity, but in the direct interest of the movement for the revolution, for the sovereignty and independence of every country, for progress and socialism.
When Yankee imperialism seeks to destroy the prestige and authority of the Cuban Revolution in the eyes of the Latin-American peoples, it does not do so with the sole aim of weakening and isolating Cuba in preparation for a military attack. It does it also to weaken the resistance of any Latin-American country to its claims to domination and imposition of its will in order to weaken the revolutionary movement for national and social liberation in all the Latin-American countries, to weaken the faith of their peoples in revolution, in the final outcome of their combats and sacrifices.
The Trotskyists and other elements of like stripe, while they speak an ultrarevolutionary language, instead of conducting a struggle in honest defense of the revolution, collaborate with imperialism in the campaign to undermine its prestige and authority in the eyes of the masses.
All this is one more proof that, as Companero Fidel said, Trotskyism became a vulgar instrument of imperialism and reaction. With citations from declarations and writings of Trotskyist individuals and publications he showed convincingly that the campaign they are conducting is that of agents of imperialism.
Well, are the individuals and publications Trotskyist as was said in the speech of the first secretary of our party before the delegates of the First Conference of Solidarity of the Peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America?
Strange as it may seem, it is necessary to answer this question, Since Trotskyism is a medley of such confusion, of groups and subgroups, that some Trotskyists deny that other Trotskyists are Trotskyists. This, for example, is what The Militant, the newspaper of the North American Trotskyists does, when it tries to puncture the denunciation of Trotskyism made by Companero Fidel Castro through the very simple device of claiming that the Trotskyists cited by him are not Trotskyists.
According to this newspaper, neither the review Marcha of Montevideo, “nor I] Nuovo Mondo of Rome, nor the Monthly Review of New York are Trotskyist; so that it-considers that "the proofs cited by Castro to: prove his assertions (against the Trotskyists) are flimsy. "
The Newsletter, - on: “the other hand, says that the review Marcha. is an organ of the Posadas group, although. it considers ‘the latter : not -to be:genuinely Trotskyist.
Independently of what The Newsletter, organ of the English Trotskyists, says, the allegation of The Militant is pure sophistry, since, in the first place, Companero Fidel did not say that the _. reviews mentioned were Trotskyist, but that. they had published articlés and reports:.of known Trotskyists. and, in-the second place, it is more than evident: that the said publications systematically: we diffuse Trotskyist propaganda. Lon
The English Trotskyists as well’ as*the North Americans deny that Felipe Albaguante is Trotskyist.:On J: Posadas, who is the head . of the Latin-American Bureau of. the Fourth International. (Trotskyist), The Newsletter says che following: OL ho oat Lf
"The Posadas group, in particular, ‘is: 'Protskyist! only in name. In Great Britain, ‘its most: prominent leader:-when the group He was founded has openly supported the right-wing witch-hunt against | -. Young Socialists and-councillors, while. calling for: world revolution! (Such political chameleons, it seems, can only be found in Posadas' _ menagerie.)" And The Militant itself, although it accuses Posadas and his groups of holding to stupidities like nuclear war being inevitable and that the: atomic: bombing of Moscow will signify the rebirth of the world proletariat, asserts. that. "to say. that. they constitute a vulgar instrument. of imperialism. and. reaction is,. however, a Slander.
What'-the Trotskyist groups -- including those of The Militant and The Newsletter -- are spreading with respect to the Cuban - Revolution are~slanders, and. very obvious ones. And that these slanders serve only the Yankee imperialists in their propaganda war against Cuba there is not the slightest doubt. And this labor did. not begin now, but from the time they became convinced that they could not infiltrate into the. Cuban Revolution, as they tried, in order to carry out from within their work of provocation, confusionism and conspiracy in favor of the aggressive plans of North American — imperialism. ;
-' In the ‘mimeographed newspaper which was printed in Cuba by an organized Trotskyist group after the triumph of the Revolution with. the assistance of Posadas and Adolfo Gilly -- the latter was in Cuba in 196% advising this Trotskyist group -- the direct and open attacks 'on the Cuban’ Revolution and its leadership became general beginning in 1963. For example, in number 34 of the said newspaper, corresponding to the first part of September 196%, in an editorial
entitled: Cuba must support the Chinese line ‘of world revolution, it is brazenly asserted: "Thefe is ‘an enormous: contradiction betwéen the. critical, and alert revolutionary consciousness of ‘the - masses +: and the 'sea’ wave' which the leadership of ‘the Revolutionary ans Government has’ been. following between these pressures from the’ international ‘to the economic line.
And in number 43, corresponding to the first part of > Rebruary 1964, they likewise posed editorially things like this: "In spite of: the conciliatory and counterrevolutionary line of peaceful | 1: coexistence with imperialism which the Fidei Castro leadership : has’ posed, the masses continue pressing against this tine and go" much. '® 2 beyond it. oe ;
“In other words, as before, at the same time as the United States was giving a new impulsion. to its aggressive policy against: Cuba, with the piratical action of seizing the four Cuban fishing: © boats: and-detaining their Crews , the Trotskyists carried out ‘their counterrevolutionary mission of trying, with their slanders, oto fe undermine the. prestige and authority | of the Cuban Revolution. ]
In the newspaper Frente Obrero, organ: of the Partido Obrero > Revolucionario (Trotskista) of’ Uruguay , corresponding ‘to September: 11,::1963, in a long, extremely confused and at times incomprehensible article or report by J. Posadas entitled The. discussions. on architecture in Cuba, based on the development of the present social struggles and preparation of the atomic war which imperialism is preparing, systematic defamation of the Cuban Revolution is carried
~The article or report refers to the position which the Trot-. skyists had to take at the Seventh International Congress of - Architects held in Cuba from September 29 to October 3 in that year. The fundamental point in this position seems to be to object to constructing homes or to subordinate constructing homes due to the fact that "when war comes it will destroy them" as can be seen inthis confused paragraph which “we have © transcribed as follows: -
"No congress of architecture can be posed without posing. the. war. It is insanity. It is an effort that is going to ask the | Cuban population and the rest of Latin America-and the world to: : do something ‘that is going to be knocked down a few years later." The position, however, is the least of it. What is important is. that throughout the whole article or report, slanders are inserted as baseless as this one which, _ by way of example , we- have: trans-~ cribed as follows: a °
"The congresses which they (the Cubans) hold are genuinely shameful. For example, many youth are attracted to them with~ women and dances. It was this way in '60. The meetings are ‘simply ‘-an excuse. They will do the same with the architects and - teachers."
And. as always, these attacks of Trotskyist propaganda coincide with the intensification.of the attacks of the imperialists, who . in the month of September 1963 had, with their pirate planes, dropped bombs onthe Brasil sugar mill and near the. city of Santa: Clara, and. the month before, in August, with their pirate launches, had machine-gunned Puerto de Casilda and the sulfametal plant in © Santa Lucia.
“We could multiply the: quotations. and show, with them, how on the basis of slanders: and sophistry, the Trotskyists. have. oriented their: propaganda, from the beginning, to pit.the masses against. the leadership of our socialist state, to pit Che against Fidel, to sow division and disunity among the revolutionary forces united. firmly in our country under the guidance of Companero Fidel Castro. This is» the campaign which they are continuing today, to the profit of. imperialism, as vulgar instruments of. imperialisn and reaction,. since more than ever this expression arouses the ire of the. Trotskyists of The Militant. and The Newsletter. The. Newsletter, r the organ of the English Trotskyists, which denies that. ‘Posadas or Albaguante are Trotskyists, hurls epithets and slanders. against the Cuban Revolution not less venomous and false than theirs. They go to the: extreme of brazenly calling.for the overthrow. of the revolutionary power.in Cuba. With. the typical. -phraseology. of - - Trotskyism,. they. call Compafiero Fidel Castro "head of a capitalist state. machine" and “prime minister of. a. Bonapartist. government. an
"Sa lone. as ‘the Cuban state," they write; ‘nests: on ca: italist foundations,our opposition to Castro will - remain fundamental and — implacable. We shall support every attempt, successful or abortive, to replace the Bonapartist dictatorship of Castro with the power of-ithe working-class, with democratically elected Soviets led by a revolutionary frotskyist Party. " . o
This-is clear. The. slander of the ‘Revolution, the’ denial of the socialist.character of the Cuban state, is followed by the proclamation that they will support every attempt to overturn the revolutionary government. The bit about: ‘replacing it with Soviets led by a Trotskyist party is a laughable excuse. The whole world knows, that: the only attempts --.frustrated.by the heroism and the will of the Cuban people closely united around their revolutionary government -- to replace the socialist -power in. Cuba - -are those of the Yankee imperialists. "This does not,',they add, "in any way, cut across the principled defense of Cyba. from imperialist attack. On the contrary, the best defence we can provide .to Cuba is to © assist the Cuban workers to defend themselves militarily and , politically from the attacks of their own ruling class."
- This is even clearer...and more repugnant. The principled "defense" of Cuba against the imperialist. attacks consists in organizing political and military attacks against the revolutionary power. This:explains the coincidence between the.most brazen attacks of Trotskyist propaganda with the piratical aggressions of the Yankee imperialists against Cuba. That is, the propaganda attacks against Cuba is the "defense" of Cuba carried out by the Trotskyists. The
Yankee imperialists and their mercenaries likewise say that their: . crimes against the people of Cuba have the objective of "freeing: .. then" from the Communist tyranny. In cynicism, the Trotskyists’ do not. concede on inch to “the imperialists.
' The: Newsletter and ‘The Militant: defend Adolfo’ Malvagni Gilly and are enraged, like him, over what Compafiero Fidel Castro said.©:..: concerning Yon Sosa and the -labor of the Trotskyists in Guatemala. ~ It seems strange that they’ should defend Gilly, a coreligionist ~ and subordinate of J. Posadas;. while they denigrate him and his | group,°considered by The Newsletter to be a "menagerie" and by The’ Militant as upholding "stupidities." But this is in perfect harmony. with the fundamentally confusionist and provocative role of Trotskyism.
Nevertheless, The Militant is compelled to confess that: "A complicating factor in the Guatemalan situation is the role of representatives of the Posadas group. This is’a split-off from: the. Fourth © Intérnational; ‘the world party of socialist: revolution founded . by Leon Trotsky; The Pésadas group calls itself ‘Trotskyist! and ‘even makes out-that it constitutes the Fourth International'.. Posadas ‘Happens to: have a few followers in both Cuba and Guatemala. whose ultraleft: ‘stupidities: ‘do isolate them from the masses.".-:.. -» Precisely this is the crime of the irotskyists who: ‘infiltrated the a guerriiis front of Yon Sosa -in’ Guatemala. . .
| With ultraleft slogans and calls for the immediate realization of ‘the © socialist revolution, they isolate this movement from the —, masses, they cut their road of development. With no little frequency they point to socialist Cuba; but in 1958 the Rebel Army. did not proclaim the socialist revolution, but united the people in the practical struggle -to overthrow Batista' s tyranny and.to. destroy his mercefiary army which served to support him and which was. the instrument of neocolonialism and-all the reactionary social forces.
The Trotskyists like to say that the measures of socialist transformation were taken in Cuba under. the pressure of the masses; what they are not even capable of understanding is that the revolutionary leadership’ under the guidance of Companero Fidel. Castro prepared each stépand took it in consonance with the- same state of consciousness which: they had created in the. masses... In. 1959 the proclamation of socialism would have divided the country; in April 1961 the masses unanimously supported the declaration of Compafero Fidel Castro on the socialist character of our revolution and carried it ‘to victory, ~ ‘with their blood, on the beaches of Playa Girén. ;
In Guatemala, on infiltrating into Yon Sosa' s , movement, the Trotskyist elements, if with regard to program they do something like put the cart:before the horse, politically they promote. disunity and antagonisms among the revolutionary forces and isolate the guerrilla fighters, imposing the program of the Fourth International on them.
‘What the Fourth International thus committed, " said Compafiero Fidel, "was a true crime against the revolutionary movement, to
isolate it from the masses, by corrupting it with stupidities, the. discredit and the repugnant. and nauseating thing that is Trotskyism... today within: the field of politics." In the replies attempted by . the Trotskyists to the denunciation by Companero Fidel of their venomous activity, they once more repeat the slanderous speculations on the. absence from Cuba of: Compafmero Ernesto Che Guevara. This is logical © if one keeps. in mind the interest of. the he Yankee imperial- . ists in the question. The Yankee imperialists were, naturally, the first to speculate over the absence of Compafiero Guevara from Cuba. They, above.all, wanted. to know where he was to be found. No sooner did they kill him in Santo Domingo, than they had him traveling through: Central America, gravely ill ina hospital } bed or they put a him in the heart of the Peruvian: jungles. “
At the same time, as was already their custom, they made up and spread all kinds of macabre stories of their own pure invention: Castro had killed Guevara; Che was a prisoner or proscribed; there was a division among the Cuban leaders around the Chinese- Soviet . differences; the Soviet Union had demanded’Guevara's retirement, etc., etc. The letter from Companero: Ernesto Che Guevara to Fidel, written at the time of his leaving Cuba and read by the latter on presenting to the people the recently constituted Central Committee. of the Communist. party, the first of October last year, was a: crush-, ing blow to all the tales woven by imperialism. ;
For the genuine revolutionaries, the words that Fidel said on the subject on that occasion, and the moving and profoundly revolutionary letter from Che, were definitive: they explained the absence of the = ‘Stout and beloved comandante of our. revolutionary war until imperialists and for the Trotskyists no. ~ They. needed to continue the tales about "the mysterious disappearance," in order to continue the campaign to discredit the Cuban Revolution.
; It ‘is ‘by no means accidental that the declarations of the Trotskyist elements and newspapers which Fidel mentioned in his. speech, were made after the.first of October; that is, when the letter from Che--was fully known throughout the world. The Militant, in replying now, dwells on the theme and holds that what Castro ought to have done in face of the Trotskyist slanders is send a message to Che so that he, in a letter, might quash the rumor of his ‘death. But in view of the facts, of: what use would it have . been? If before, with the last letter from Che, read by Fidel himself, the slanders and malicious speculations of.these elements — not only did not cease but multiplied, wouldn't they have responded in the same way to a new letter?
the ‘Newsletter, with greater cynicism, repeats the slanders. | "Guevara," if says; “was killed or incarcerated in a special prison in Cuba or, and this seems more likely, he was exiled and his wife and children: held as hostages in case he decided to do something rash -- like speaking to the press or writing his memoirs. That Castro's fear of Guevara is real," it adds, "was demonstrated recently when the: Cuban government decided to disarm the militia
on the flimsy pretext that ‘the guns were not. Beane f maintained Prop-
The slanders of The. Newsletter are “repeated by Gilly: "The vertiginous political evolution of the Cuban leadership in recent months," he writes, "confirms. the opinion that it is true that. they have either: assassinated Guevara.or that they are restraining him .-by some means. or other from expressing himself politicallys" «..
For. ‘them the. Tricontinental Conference: was prepared pureaucratically, it was only a rostrum for Cheddi Jagan and Allende. or it was a failure. In all their slanders against Cuba their innate hatred for: ‘the Soviet Union stands out.
All the- ‘Drotskyist slanders* now being repeated have as one. of their aims to discover, for the benefit of. the North American . imperialists, the place where Companero Ernesto Che Guevara is and, therefore, the concrete revolutionary activities which he is carrying on in accordance with his unshakable revolutionary vocation and his conviction as an anti-imperialist and socialist combatant. Along with this is the aim of serving, once more, the imperialist campaign to discredit the Cuban Revolution. Today this is one of their principal tasks inasmuch as Cuba represents the example, stimulous and support of peoples orienting toward a revolution against imperialism and its lackeys, servants and puppets.
Of course, their slanders will not get very far. Their tricks and divisionist intrigues can cause damage in countries like Guatemala and confuse sectors like those under the command of Marco Antonio Yon Sosa. But neither will they prosper there for very long. The practical results of their tricks will show the masses and honest revolutionaries what they really are.
There is no slander, whether from the imperialists or from the Trotskyists or anyone else that can change the facts or destroy the prestige of a Revolution like the one in Cuba, made by dint of heroism and carried forward to its ultimate and necessary consequences.
The dignity, the firmness and the honesty of the leadership of the Cuban Revolution stand above any miserable slanderer. Faithfulness to proletarian internationalism, unlimited solidarity with the peoples struggling against imperialism, repeated a thousand and one times, have been proved by Cuba under all circumstances and before all the revolutionaries.
National sovereignty, seized in a revolutionary way from the Yankee neocolonialists who preempted it, has been maintained in a dignified way by Cuba, as the very reason for its struggle, as a banner for the peoples still subjugated, as the beginning of relations in the rising world of the new society without exploiters or exploited, in which countries, holding equal rights, are related fraternally with mutual respect and mutual collaboration.
‘There is no slander against the reality of our socialist revolution, which stands at the very doors of Yankee imperialism, of the reality of our successes and advances in the construction of socialism, ofthe reality of the unity of our people around.theworking class and the unbreakable confidence which it has in» our. Marxist-Leninist party, in: its Central Committee and in: its chief and guide,* ‘Compafiero | Fidel Castro. There is no slander that can! tarnish the: revolutionary call of. the Second Declaration of Havana nor diminish the revolutionary importance of the resolutions of the First Conference of» Solidarity of the Peoples oF Asia, Africa and Latin’ imerica, :
In one word, there is no “slander that | can extinguish in the. eyes of the masses of Latin America the burning flame of the inspiring example of the Cuban Revolution, victorious in face of all the aggressions, attacks" and difficulties.