YUGOSLAVS SCORE THE TRICONTINENTAL CONFERENCE -
[The dispute between Havana and Peking, which Fidel Castro brought into the public arena last January, has tended. to obscure the differences between Havana and Belgrade that go back some time. Thus some analysts, seeing Castro evidently coming out on the side of Moscow in the Sino-Soviet conflict, reached the conclusion that the Cuban revolutionists no longer seek to- neaintain their own independent position. - :
CA recent exchange between Borba, the official organ of the League of Yugoslav Communists, and Granma, the official organ of the Central Committee of the Communist party of Cuba, should serve as a. reminder that the situation is not that.simple. The polemics: between the two publications occurred over estimates of the aims and results of the Tricontinental Conference held in Havana. during the first: part of January. We have translated the two editorials, publishing them below. In the case of Borba, we utilized the version reprinted in the February 12 issue of Granma. The Cuban reply appeared the following day in the same publication.
- [According to Granma, the Borba editorial: appeared January. 24, bore the title, "After the Tricontinental Conference in Havana. Negative Estimates in’ Latin America," and was signed by Z. Bozic.
[We should like to call the special attention of the ultraleft sectarians to these two editorials. The theoreticians of the Socialist Labour League in London have argued that the "main purpose" of the Tricontinental Conference ."was to provide a safety-valve for middle-class charlatans like Cheddi Jagan and upper-class demagogues like Allende to blow off steam against imperialism, neocolonialism and what-have-you." (Michael Banda in the February 5 Newsletter.) This conclusion, it would appear, flows from the SLL view that Cuba is not a workers state but a "capitalist state." The very same theoreticians agree, however -- unless they have recently changed -that Yugoslavia is a workers state. The exchange between Havana and Belgrade should thus provide valuable subject matter for further lucubrations from these experts enlightening us on how it is possible for the peculiar Cuban. joopstalist state" to stand to the left of the Yugoslav: workers atate.] a . 7
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The first reactions of the governments of many Latin-American countries :to. the: deliberations and final documents of the Tricontinental Conference in Havana:have been resoundingly negative. Already in the short period.:since the conference ended there have been energetic efforts to attack and condemn in principle the conclusions of the Havana Conference, as they were understood by most governments, and: to create a practical mechanism to fight. -them. In addition, the . right: redoubled. its crusade against everything progressive, using the conclusions of the Tricontinental Conference as. motive for its. brutal measures.
At the request of Peru, the Council of the OAS [Organization ‘of American States] met in Washington on Monday to examine the possible hemispheric repercussions of the Havana Conference and the measures to be taken against its decisions. One of the representatives of Peru stated that the meeting would deal in particular with the fact that the Soviet Union gave its support to the: proliferation of subversive activities against Peru and other countries in Latin America ‘barely. two:weeks .after the. UN adopted: the resolution condemning “intervention of any kind. The Peruvian initiative is declared to be::similar: to the. actions of the OAS in 1962, during the Caribbean Crisis, when that organization took a position against | the Soviet.) Union: and’ supported all “the... U. 8. ‘actions against Cuba. cere
To the surprise of many, ‘the government of Uruguay, one: of. ‘the most liberal in the hemisphere, which condemned the American intervention in the Dominican Republic with extraerdinary sharpness, yesterday described the Tricontinental Conference ‘as an attempt to organize an international system. of subversion’ that would -represent: a.. . brutal destruction of the principles of nonintervention | and self-.. determination. ee
In particular the creation of a special Latin-American organization by this conference was condemned.
‘In certain liberal bourgeois journals it was emphasized that the dedaisions of the Havana Conference impeded the principled struggle -of: the broad front of progressive Latin-American forces. against the designs of the right to definitively liquidate the principles of nonintervention and self-determination. It is general knowledge that the U.S. is working for the formation of an inter- American armed force and that this, in essence, will be the principal theme of a series of OAS meetings on the ministerial level (Panama, Buenos Aires). These journals stress that the practical effect of the decisions of the Havana Conference is to strengthen the U.S. position and to strengthen its previously feeble arguments.
It is. expected. that an overwhelming majority - of the. governments will condemn the decisions of the Tricontinental Conference.
In. “addition it- seems: that a certain number of the Communist Parties of Latin America_also hold reservations about the Conference and the tactics of struggle it decided on.
. of.the CPV (Communist party of Venezuela], in prison since, 196 have decided to break publicly with the FAL [Fuerzas Armados de Liberacion Nacional], whose tactic of guerrilla struggle they consider to be erroneous and harmful. They stress that armed struggle in Venezuela ‘has no possibilities’ of success at present, that it only: separates the Party: from the masses, and that it makes.it impossible to.carr out any broad: political activit In Havana, the representative. of. the FALIN was treated as the representative of the most PROBFESSINE movement in Latin. America.
[the editors. of. Granma do. not indicate ‘whether the: emphasis. .
is in the original or has been added. ]
In the meantime, the right has initiated new “attacks. against the: progressive movements.
The Dominican army: stepped. up its campaign of terror shortly after the Movimiento Popular Dominicano issued its call for a general struggle. The Movimiento. Popular Dominicano has been branded as proa- Peking. The Dominican navy maintains a strict watch in the passage between the Dominican Republic and Cuba. General Rivera Caminero | justifies the use of repressive measures out of desire to root out Communist subversion in the country. Many constitutionalists have perished in the excesses of the rightists, and a few days ago the son of Juan Bosch was mortally wounded.
There are indications that full-blown anti- Communist hysteria _ will be ignited. It is symptomatic that the police in Sao Paulo the day before yesterday confiscated as subversive 25,000 books valued at -LOO million. cruzeiros. This included, among others, the well-known works of the Nobel Prize-winner Dimitri Sholokhov, all of the works of Karl Marx, Engels, Plekhanov and Feuerbach; and even some of the works of anti-Communist writers were picked up because . they contained a few paragraphs quoting from the works of Marx.. ae
The order called:for books to-be confiscated if the titles contained the words, Marxism, Socialism or Communism, and:all books by Russian authors... Even today's: Jornal do Brasil condemned this action of the Sao Paulo Police. as ridiculous and absurd.
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