TROTSKYISM
VERSUS STALINISM IN THE CUBAN REVOLUTION
By Joseph Hansen
- [The following article is in reply to Blas Roca's attack against Trotskyism published in the May 20 World Outlook. ]
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Why did Blas Roca feel impelled to take up the cudgels against Trotskyism? He says that Trotskyism, "in its politics and theory," is a "corpse." Wasn't Trotskyism reduced to that state by the late Stalin himself decades ago; not just once, but repeatedly, and not just polemically, but with frame-up trials, deportations and executions? Didn't both Khrushchev and Mao in their polemics finish the dead dog once again? Finally, wasn't the cadaver disposed of so effectively by Fidel Castro in his speech of January 15 that any hope of its ever being:resurrected was ended once and for all?
What an unexpected Sight, then, only three months after .. Castro’ S speech against Trotskyism, to see the Earl Browder of Cuba* rushing to the rescue of the prime minister, as if unexpected weaknesses had suddenly been exposed in the January to speech -- or unexpected life in the overkilled corpse!
Karl Marx, and Hegel before him, taught that what men propose ~- even the most powerful and authoritative -- often fails to be’ realized and, indeed, can end in just the opposite of their aims and intentions. This appears to have been the case with that section of Fidel Castro's January 15 speech which was directed against the "Protskyites" and intended to consign them to oblivion.
By employing old Stalinist slanders,. ‘long ago exposed as frame-ups, by lumping opposites together: -=+ the:method of amalgam .: typical of Stalinism -- by eschewing reasoned: political argument, ° Fidel Castro's attack led to an outcome utterly unexpected by the advisers who supplied the prime minister with the material he used in his speech. Three things: happened.
*Blas Roca became secretary general of the Cuban Communist: -organization, if we remember correctly,, shortly after Stalin initiated "popular frontism" in 1945. Like his American counterpart, Blas Roca did much to advance Stalin's class~collaborationist line,. achieving enduring fame for a conspicuous success -- a coalition with Batista. The revolution that toppled the hated dictator also displaced the old CP. However, Blas Roca has remained a prominent: figure in Cuban politics despite the decline of such old-time fellow bureaucrats as Anibal Escalante. Recently he served as editor of the official party publication Hoy until it was supplanted by Granma; and last October he was named to the Secretariat of the restructured. Communist party of Cuba which is headed today by Fidel Castro. —
instrument of imperialisn and reaction" was “not accepted, “the days of the Stalin cult are gone. The de-Stalinization process has destroyed forever the atmosphere when such vile accusations need only be asserted from on high to be believed. Castro's attack, on the contrary, provoked shock arid dismay ‘and led to widespread protests. The editors of the Monthly Review only voiced the general reaction in radical circles when they recalled that "the accusation has no foundation whatever, as anyone who has seriously studied the history of the communist movement since the October Revolution must know"; that it was:"precisely this accusation which provided the rationalization for the Soviet purge trials of the 1930's"; that if: "anything has. been proved -- and not least by the Soviet government itself -- it is that the trials were a shameless frame-up"; .and | that Fidel Castro "should not décéeive himself that he can sway any but cowards and sycophants ‘by mere | denunciation. ne
(2) Through. the wide publicity it afforded and the sympathy it evoked for the slandered movement -- undoubtedly the most maligned in all history -- Castro's attack had the unanticipated effect of stimulating interest in the-cause of Trotskyism and. attracting further attention to its authentic ideas. :
(3) In the resulting discussion, the key issues involved in
the attack began to emerge. They happen to be of vital concern to »: every revolutionary socialist and colonial freedom fighter: (a) What is the nature of the revolution now on the agenda in many countries, particularly Latin America? Must it first go through a bourgeoisdemocratic stage under bourgeois leadership? Or can a victory be. projected under the leadership of a revolutionary-socialist party that frankly espouses from the very beginning the need to pose socialist tasks? (b) What is the role. of proletarian democratic norms in the revolutionary process, including free discussion and the exclusion of such abominations as slandering or muzzling oppositional' views? Are thesé norms utopian, or are they really applicable and, in fact, a vital ‘necessity?
‘These issues lie at the heart of the dispute and: constitute its main interest. We will consider them in the process of analyzing Blas Roca's contribution in detail.
Seay The basic content of Blas Roca’ s article.in the May 1 issue of Politica merely reechoes the central theme of. Castro's attack: Trotskyism is. "a vulgar instrument of imperialism and reaction" -- _ which itself was an echo of the standard Stalinist slanders. He ~ ~ repeats the very phrase insistently, ‘as if mere repetition a number of times by someone as authoritative as, Blas Roca would make up for Castro! S: unaccountable failure to make. it stick. , -_
os ‘There. are, “however, _ some instructive “differences between the two attacks. While, in Castro! S speech, the target was the Fourth International, you would never know that the references were to a
fake "Fourth International" set up.by one J. Posadas. Castro did not even mention the name of Posadas.- The connection of members of this group-with the MR-13 guerfilla movement in Guatemala was used to brand that movement as Vinfiltrated" by "Trotskyites" whom Castro dubbed "agents of imperialism" under the general slanderous charge levelled against Trotskyism as such. Then independent journals, or the journals: of organizations: having no connection with Trotskyisn, were amalgamated with the fake Posadas "Fourth International" either because they raised questions about Guevara's leaving the Cuban political scene. or because they published articles by Adolfo Gilly, a revolutionary=socialist journalist, whose views on some points demonstrably coincide with those of Posadas. In brief, Castro's attack read a great deal like similar attacks made by Blas Roca himself as far back as 1961. (See, for instance, Blas Roca's book The Cuban Revolution or the pamphlet I wrote in 1962 , Trotskyism and the Cuban Revolution -- An Answer to Hoy. )
In contrast to Castro's original presentation of "Trotskyism" as a Single movement, the nature of .which could be judged from statements judiciously selected from the writings of the unnamed Posadas, or the statements of a creature of the UPI like Felipe Albaguante, who was exposed in 1963 by the United Secretariat of the Fourth International, Blas Roca now presents "Trotskyism" as "a medley of | such confusion, of groups and subgroups, that some Trotskyists deny that other Trotskyists are Trotskyists." As a result, for the first time to my knowledge, Blas Roca deigns to identify Posadas as the author of some of the quotations which he finds so useful. He refers to a genuinely Trotskyist newspaper, The Militant, for the first time, although in a very peculiar manner, as we shall see. And, ranging far and wide, he brings in The Newsletter, the newspaper of the Socialist Labour League in Britain.
The purpose of this procedure soon becomes. obvious. Responding to the emergency, Blas Roca is picking up the pieces of Castro's January 15 attack on Trotskyism and trying.to build a better structure by using more boards, stronger glue, sturdier mortar to plaster the cracks and a thick coat of demagosy to paint things up and dazzle the eye.
This is a small-scale replica of the pattern Stalin followed in his notorious series of frame-up trials from 1936 to 1938. When glaring contradictions exposed the falsifications of his political ; police ina given frame-up, Stalin made up for it by - Staging a bigger: and more imposing show trial. To use such methods-in an effort to. forestall Castro from rectifying a serious error -~-due, we may suppose, to bad advice -- really injures the prestige and authority of the Cuban Revolution; that is, if Blas Roca can get-away with it.
Some Deny Others Are Trotskyists
Now that he admits it involves something proader than the tiny Posadas group, Blas Roca seeks to ridicule the Trotskyist movement by saying that in it such confusion reigns "that some Trotskyists deny that other Trotskyists are Trotskyists." The argument only
makes its author look ridiculous. Ultrareactionaries likewise sneer | at some Communists denying that other Communists are Communists; and they point to the polemics, which are not always models of comrade-. liness,. between the Khrushchevists, Maoists , Titoists and...Fidelistas. .
(mat would an . independent-minded revolutionist , ‘who ‘mows the positions of the leaders of the Cuban Revolution, say if someone argued like’ Blas Roca and coolly told an audience that the Cuban = jeaders were - "imperialist agents," the proof being the evident con— fusion and mutual recriminations because of different positions taken on crucial issues by the Communist capitals -- such as Belgrade's friendly attitude toward the Betancourt-Leoni government in | contrast to Havana's hostility, Moscow's class-collaborationist | attitude toward U.S. imperialism in contrast to Peking's intransigence, and Peking's sectarian rejection of a united front in defense. of the Vietnamese Revolution in contrast to the appeals of all the © others for a common front? The revolutionist would shout that this is ‘utter: nonsense and that the-Cubans have their own positions -very good. positions as can be determined by reading their declarations and judging their actions. To which the orator would respond in the crushing style of Blas Roca: "What a joke! Everyone in this medley claims to be a Communist, whatever they call each other. I repeat.what I said about the Cuban leaders no matter how much you | squirm, and as proof I have scrupulously copied down the following stupidities from Hsinhua on the united front." 7
The truth is that Blas. Roca belongs to the Stalinist school which considers any critical opposition to the monolithic line handed down from the unchallengeable leader to be a reflection of .... imperialist pressure, if not a direct plot fomented by such agencies as the CIA. That the revolution should really be a "school of unfettered thought" is inconceivable to such ossified bureaucrats, for in a revolutionary party this involves the right to form tendencies and factions; and in a workers state it means the right of the proletariat to form a multiple party system so long as the various parties remain basically loyal to the revolution and its conquests. Democratic centralism means democracy in reaching decisions as well as centralism in carrying them out.
To rise to the level of the great tasks it faces, a revolutionary party before and after coming to power requires the free play of thought, not only because this is the best way to develop and lift the intellectual level of its members and leaders, but because it is the most efficient way of exploring all possible political variants and of reaching solid decisions that truly reflect reality and thereby enable the revolutionary party to intervene in the national and international class struggle most effectively. This view is not peculiar to Trotskyism; it Is as old as scientific. socialism and constituted the essence of Lenin! s method of party building.
That serious differences appeared in the world Communist movement after the decades of Stalinist monolithism was in itself.
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a progressive development. Arising fundaiientally from the victory. of the Soviet Union over German’ imperialism, the postwar advance:of the colonial revolution, and a balance of’ world forces favoring the socialist camp, these differences have ‘helped pave the way for a “resurgence of revolutionary Marxism.’ What is bad is the absence of provisions, customs and institutions to carry the discussion of the differences forward to a democratic conclusion. And that lack reflects the continued existence of narrow, self-serving bureaucratic interests that deliberately block a normal resolution of the differences through the process of free discussion.
The Trotskyist movement did not remain unaffected by the advance of the colonial revolution, by the commencement of de- Stalinization, by the differences revolving around the Sino-Soviet confiict, and by other events. In-fact the differential consequences of these developments can easily be found in the positions advocated by the various tendencies claiming adherence to Trotskyism.
A first- rate example of this was the impact: of the Cuban Revolution. The overwhelming majority of the Trotskyists throughout the world considered this to be the- opening of the-socialist revolution in the Western Hemisphere. The appearance ofa new leadership, generated in the very process of a revolution, untainted by Stalinism and imbued with revolutionary determination, was hailed with immense enthusiasm. In the United States, the Socialist Workers party took up the cause of the Cuban Revolution as its own ‘and its candidates put defense of revolutionary Cuba as the first foreign-policy plank in their national election platform in 1960 and‘1964. The Fourth . International as a whole responded in the samé enthusiastic way. This common estimate provided one of the main grounds for the healing in 1964 of a major split in the world Trotskyist movement that had lasted almost ten years. Posadas_ and Healy _
Two groupings, each of them representing small minorities,» stood in opposition and came to consider their differences to be.so great as to transcend their duty to adhere to the principles of democratic centralism. One of these engaged in a split (Posadas of the Latin-American Bureau) and the other rejected participation in the reunification of the world Trotskyist movement (Healy of the Socialist Labour League ).
Posadas, an energetic organizer, had been developing rather eccentric positions of his own inside the movement, and on splitting he cast aside all restraint. He advanced the-idea that nuclear war and revolution.are synonomous; i. €., a. ‘nuclear war will finish. capitalisn. ‘but not socialism, it is.therefore to be welcomed, and in-fa¢t ought to be initiated in a preemptive strike by the Soviet Unions :Among the various tendencies: of the world. ‘Communist movement, Posadas expresses affinity with Mao's thought, which, as he indicates with satisfaction from time to time,. often corresponds with his own "brilliant" analyses. Apparently he is convinced that Mao
reads. his speeches and reports. The Posadas group could be dismissed as a rather bizarre cult were it not for the fact that it has a few followers in. Cuba, has contacts with the Guatemalan guerrilla movement, claims to be the Fourth International, and thus serves Blas . Roca as a convenient ¢ club with which to beat the "corpse" of Trotskyism. os - + -- The Healy group,. reflecting British insularity,. took the position that the Cuban Revolution has not reached the phase of a: workers state, that Cuba remains capitalist, and that Castro is just — a demagogue if not worse.* In this respect, the quotations selected by Blas Roca were accurate enough reflections of Healyite views. It happens,. however, that Healy's position, clearly a prime example of ultraleft sectarian thinking, was thoroughly debated by the world Trotskyist movement. and overwhelmingly rejected as not in consonance with the reality. :
In presenting Healy's nonsense about Cuba as the position of) the Fourth International or The Militant, Blas Roca is deliberately | dishonest. I say this not as an epithet, but as an easily proved | statement of fact. The very article in the February 5 Newsletter _ from which Blas Roca quoted ends up with an attack on the socialist Workers party for its position in relation to the Cuban Revolution and Fidel Castro. —_ oo) ; .
.Blas Roca could have brought inthe conflicting position of still .another group which claims to represent the Fourth International: a recent minor split-off headed by Michel Raptis (Pablo). Apparently this did not fit in with the immediate job at hand. Up to now this group has not developed views on Cuba differing distinctly from those of the Fourth International. Its differences are in other areas. It considers the de- Stalinization ‘process to be irreversible and synonomous with democratization. In the Sino-Soviet conflict it favors Moscow over Peking and leans most strongly in the direction of Titoism. The sharpest differences with this group occurred over party—-building methods 5 particularly the. observance of democratic centrabisn. .
“The "theoreticians" of the Socialist Labour League consider that their abysmal ignorance of Latin-American politics endows them with a special right to pontificate on the Cuban Revolution. Naturally this offers sport to Blas Roca, who. chortles over such boners as their informing the British public’ “that the independent weekly Marcha of Montevideo is an "organ of the ultraleft Posadas group. For those hardy souls who try to keep up with The Newsletter this is but another sad instance of the notorious unreliability of this publication in handling such pedestrian things as facts. But what should we say then of The Worker, the voice of the American Communist party, which, in its January 24, 1966, issue, printed’ a dispatch from its Havana’ correspondent listing Marcha as a "Spanish Trotskyite weekly"?
Blas Roca's Wonderful "Proofs"
Let us now consider Blas Roca's argumentation on how the Trotskyists allegedly serve as "very active auxiliary forces" in the effort of the Yankee imperialists "to destroy the prestige and authority" of the Cuban Revolution. He seeks to prove this by citing published statements by Posadas selected to coincide with the timing of various piratical forays fomented or engineered by the State Department or the CIA. Posadas coordinates his statements, if we are to believe Blas Roca, so that they appear in published form "as always" to "coincide with the intensification of the attacks of the imperialists..."
Doesn't this sound like the red-baiting formulas of a comic | book? Must we really submit this kind of argument to serious analy- | sis?
(1) What about the declarations made by Posadas between piratical forays? Did they fluctuate markedly in the direction of © a friendly tone? If they did not, if Posadas maintained a uniformly critical position, then his declarations were not timed to coincide with : the | Paratical forays -- and Blas Roca's case falls to the ground. : me =. Lore at
(2) If Posadas' purpose was to undermine the prestige and authority of the Cuban Revolution, why did he make such selfdestructive declarations? The very quotations carefully selected by Blas Roca are devastating -- to Posadas. Read the sentences transcribed by Blas Roca from the article or report by.Posadas on the discussions on architecture:."No, congress of architecture can be posed without the war. It is insanity." And so forth and so on. Even Blas Roca is compelled to;admit that the long text is "extremely confused and at times incomprehensible." He is completely correct. The utterances of Posadas damage only: the. prestige and authority of the author. 4
The alternatives are inescapable: Either Posadas appears bizarre to all who read such declarations, or the intellectual level of the Cuban cadres (and the cadres of the Latin-American revolution as a whole) is so incredibly low that they can be swept off their feet by extremely confused and at times incomprehensible nonsense. Does Blas Roca hold to the latter alternative?
Personally, it pleased me to see Blas Roca quoting so extensively from Posadas:- while at the same time clearly indicating who the author was.:.One could only wish that Blas Roca would be more honest about indicating that this is a small sect and not the voice of the Fourth-International.
Is Blas Roca more fortunate with his quotations from The Newsletter? He asserts that the nature of The Newsletter position "explains the coincidence between the most brazen attacks of Trotskyist propaganda with the piratical aggressions of the Yankee
- Dae
imperialists against Cuba"; but he does not even try to indicate any coincidence in dates as he does in the case of Posadas. Blas Roca relies on barefaced assertion and the impact of: the oo toteee theoretical and political positions voiced by: The Newsletter.
We would ‘like to know in greater detail from Blas Roca, however, exactly how The Newsletter proved to be a "very active auxiliary force" in the efforts of the Yankee imperialists. Can he name any group in all of Latin America that has been influenced by The- Newsletter? We will go further. Can he name a single person in all of Latin America who considers himself a partisan of The Newsletter? The truth is that the position of The Newsletter on the Cuban Revolution is in such utter contradiction to the reality that the Healy group stands in absolute isolation. Its. position on Cuba doesn't play the dirty game of imperialism, as Blas Roca. maintains; it only plays into the hands of Blas Roca. Even the half dozen admirers of the Socialist Labour League to be found in the United States consider that Healy is completely wrong on’ this subject. They sedulously seek other reasons for praising. him.
_ We thus come to a. key Question. Is this the best that Blas Roca can do in trying to bolster and: shore up the contention that. Trotskyism is a "vulgar instrument of imperialism and reaction"?. The answer is yes. That's the best he can do.
Some Telling = Omissions”
Two omissions ° ‘from Blas Roca's~ list are truly. telling. The. first is the Fourth International. He does not offer a single quotation from the genuine publications of the Fourth International. In all its declarations -- and there-are many of them -~ he. could not. ‘find a single phrase that lent itself'to his work! The reason is simple. The Fourth International espoused’ the cause of the Cuban. - Revolution from the very béginning,: has energetically participated in its defense, and has pointed again and again to the Cuban Revolution as one more mighty verification of the validity of Trotsky's theory of the permanent revolution. That is why Blas Roca found nothing to say. about the main stream of the Trotskyist movement when he set out. to do his smear job.
The other omission is the Socialist Workers party. If. Trotskyism became a "vulgar instrument of imperialism and reaction" and the Trotskyists are "very active auxiliary forces" in the efforts of the Yankee imperialists to destroy the prestige and authority of the Cuban Revolution, the most crushing proof surely ought to be found in the’ imperialist U.S.A. itself. And this. should be all the easier, one would imagine, because ‘there is Beebe. no question about who represents Trotskyism in the United States -- it is the Socialist. Workers party.
Did Blas Roca-fail to ‘Search here ‘for evidence? We doubt it. He or his. American cothinkers combed the pages:of:The Militant and the International Socialist Review, the public declarations of. ‘the
American Trotskyists and their pamphlets and books, looking for something that could be used in the attack against *rotskyism. They could not. find a Single sentence!
“The truth is that among the radical groupings in the United - States, the record of the Socialist Workers party is unimpeachable — and outstanding; so outstanding, in fact, that Blas Roca himself. . has been very. cautious about attacking it even when pinned down on. the subject. For instance, in dune of 1962, Blas Roca did a smear. job on Trotskyism in Hoy, utilizing quotations from Posadas (whom 7 he did not name as the Source ) in the way now familiar to us. But. only a few months before that, in its April 16, 1962, issue, the National Guardian printed an exclusive interview in which Blas Roca was asked if he welcomed to the ranks of Cuba's friends and partisans in| the U.S. “people of any orientation, for example Trotskyists.
Blas: Roca equivocated somewhat but: obviously felt that he could not openly attack the American Trotskyists. "I am not well acquainted with those who call themselves Trotskyists in the U.S.," he said. "We are separated from Trotskyists in general by fundamental points of view, and from some in particular by their actions as enemies. But I think that all in the U.S. who sincerely defend and. support the Cuban revolution, and the right of self-determination of the Cuban and other. Latin American peoples, do a worthy revoluveonery Jop and we value them whatever their ideological concepts may be. "
The Militant has consistently printed the main declarations of Fidel Castro and Che Guevara despite the limited number of pages at its disposal and is a well-known source of truthful information about the Cuban Revolution. At the big turns like Playa Girdén and the 1962 "Caribbean crisis," The Militant went all out in defense of the Cuban Revolution and denunciation of American imperialism. It did this, not from outside the country, but inside the imperialist monster itself. And its record of activity in defense of Cuba’ is superior to that of Blas Roca” S sister organization, the American Communist party. :
_ The record of The Militant - is so irreproachable in this — respect, that Blas Roca was apparently puzzled as to how to smear it. His solution was the frame-up technique of the amalgam. He took the ultraleft sectarian position of the Socialist Labour League, which the Socialist Workers party had opposed so vigorously as to drive Healy to split from the Fourth International, and quoted. it in close association with references to The Militant. To prove how deliberately this was done it-is only necessary to take the .... January dL issue of The Militant in which we first. responded: .to the attack in Castro's January 15 speech, compare it with the February: 5 issue of The Newsletter, which deals with the same subject, including an attack on the Socialist Workers party, and then check how Blas Roca pasted these opposites together in his article. It is an example for the textbooks on the polemical methods of the Stalinists.
- Evades Challenge of "Monthly Review"
There is still another remarkable omission. When Blas Roca. wrote his article, he had before him a copy of the April issue of the Monthly Review which contains the stand taken by editors Leo Huberman and Paul M. Sweezy on Castro's January 15 speech. Yet hedoes not say a word about the Monthly Review or the. very important issues raised by the two editors. He acts as if he had never heard. about the deduction made by the Monthly Review concerning advisers. who possibly supplied