reply of the Venezuelan Communist party leaders.
(The text used is the one that appeared in El Dia and the translation is by World Outlook. J
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(1) Fidel Castro, General Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba, in power as the Prime Minister of the socialist government of Cuba, utilizing the considerable advantages of his position, has attacked the Communist Party of Venezuela, an underground party, with hundreds of members in prison, with dozens who have fallen in the mountains and streets of the country, a party subjected to such implacable persecution that every single day -- even while Fidel Castro was speaking -- it has new victims. The same man whose intemperate outbursts are met with tolerance thanks to the fact that Cuba stands in the front-line trenches of the anti-imperialist struggle, ought to display the elementary courtesy of watching his language when he refers to the Communist party that is struggling in the country experiencing the worst intervention by Yankee imperialism in all of Latin America and which is fighting under the most difficult conditions. From a rostrum with a worldwide audience and being who he is, Fidel Castro did not hesitate to slander a Communist party which, due to the repression, is scarcely in position to reply to him. Thus Fidel Castro's action is ignoble, self-seeking and CP REPLY TO FIDEL CASTRO
perfidious, devoid of the nobility and dignity that have always characterized the Cuban revolution.
(2) Fidel Castro has made a negative judgment on the assassination of Iribarren Borges, including claiming the right to express his opinion in this matter. Nevertheless, with surprising effrontery, he tries to deny the PCV [Partido Comunista de Venezuelal the same right. Fidel Castro, it seems, does not want the Communist Party of Venezuela, which operates in Venezuela, to have an opinion on, to judge a Venezuelan political happening, which occurred on Venezuelan soil and which therefore deeply affects the life of the PCV. On the other hand, he, seated in Cuba, can have an opinion. In accordance with his peculiar point of view, we said something and played into the hands of the government; he does it. and claims to be the voice of an untouchable revolutionary oracle. This strange way of reasoning reveals an irresponsible arrogance and self-sufficiency unbecoming to a Head of State. As for the matter itself, the PCV says exactly the same as Fidel Castro. Neither more nor less. In reply, we state that what does play into the hands of reaction and imperialism are speeches like the one made by Fidel Castro, slanders like those he leveled against our party, his attempt to split it, and deeds like the assassination of Iribarren Borges.
(3) The PCV claims its right to project its own policies without interference from anyone. In the sense that Cuba has traveled a hard revolutionary road with honor, it constitutes an inspiring example for us; but what we have not been, are not, and never will be is agents of Cuba in Venezuela, as we are not in any other Communist party in the world. We are Venezuelan Communists, under the tutelage of no one, no matter how great his revolutionary merits. If there is any revolutionary group in Venezuela that wants to submit to the tutelage and paternalism of Fidel Castro, that is their affair. The PCV will never do it. If Fidel doesn't like it, so much the worse for him. So why did Fidel Castro intervene precisely at this moment against the PCV? Because the PCV had already begun to defeat in practice and not only ideologically the budding antipartyism of Douglas Bravo, because the party and the Communist Youth had obtained big political and organizational successes in applying its policy, because the recent feat of rescuing comrades Pompeyo, Guillermo and Teodoro filled the country's Communist militants with enthusiasm and renewed energy, and because, finally, the anarcho-adventurist policy of the antiparty group ended in an irretrievable fiasco and helped enormously in clarifying the problems under discussion. Precisely because of this, Fidel Castro threw all the weight of his prestige
against the PCV, in a desperate attempt to "aid" the anarcho-adventurist group which he is fostering and stimulating in order to split the PCV. Nevertheless our policies and our deeds demonstrate each day how much worth there is in the epithets of "vacillating," "limping" and "opportunist" which Fidel Castro applied to the leadership of the PCV. And this is being demonstrated here in Venezuela even despite bad turns like those which Fidel Castro dealt us and which he will certainly continue to deal us. But let him and the whole PCV understand very clearly: we will not even argue over the sovereignty of the PCV.
(4) Fidel Castro has characterized the leadership of the PCV as "cowardly" in a new demonstration of this irritating tendency of his to think he has a monopoly on courage and valor. We Venezuelan Communists are not puerile exhibitionists walking around proclaiming our qualities in this field, but when Fidel Castro was still a boy, Gustavo Machado, the great patriarch of Venezuelan Communism, was already assaulting Curagao and invading Venezuela arms in hand. And from then on, the history of the PCV, which is a political history, is likewise the history of the men who faced the terror of Gémez and that of Pérez Jiménez, who led the insurrection of January 23, 1958, whose efforts made it possible for Fidel Castro to receive a planeload of arms when he was still in the Sierra Maestra, and who in the last eight years have not hesitated to lay down their lives. Fidel Castro has in this very reply the best denonstration of what the leadership of the PCV is like. Accustomed to believe in his power as the revolutionary Grand Lama he obviously thinks that his speech flattened and confounded us. He was completely mistaken and now Fidel Castro will see why Yankee imperialism and its agents sought with such energy to liquidate this Venezuelan Communist party.
(5) In his speech, Fidel Castro tried once more to assume the role of a kind of arbiter of the revolutionary des-~ tinies of Latin America and of a superrevolutionary who in the abode of all the Communists of Latin America has already made the revolution. On another occasion we will take up the characteristics of the Cuban struggle and where Fidel Castro would still be if it had occurred to him to raise the red flag in the Sierra Maestra. For the time being we only want to reject the role of revolutionary "Pope" which Fidel Castro arrogates for himself. We categorically reject his pretension ~408-
that he and no one other than he is to decide what is revolutionary in Latin America. In Venezuela this question is up to the PCV to decide, as it and the Venezuelan people see fit. And -no one else. But to this Fidel Castro, supreme dispenser of revolutionary titles, who asks what North Vietnam would say if Cuba traded with South Vietnam, we would only like to ask if he has thought of what the Spanish people say about his trading with Franco and with the Spanish oligarchy or what the Negro people of Zinbabwe (Rhodesia) and the patriots of Aden might think of his trading with imperialist England. Or does Fidel Castro consider it to be opportunism in others while in him it is washed away by the purifying waters of his own self-sufficiency?
(6) This is a disagreeable polemic which arouses joy in the enemy. But it is obviously unpostponable. We reached a linit which Fidel Castro himself forces us to break with his speech. So be it. Let's discuss. And just as we claim our connection with Simén Bolivar and the Fathers of our Country in our anti-imperialist struggle, so we likewise tell Fidel Castro that the descendants of Simén Bolivar and Ezequiel Zamora will absolutely not tolerate from anyone the insolent and provocative language which he utilized in his speech of March 13. The Venezuelan does not claim to stand above or below anyone else but if there is anything that arouses his fierce pride as a fighter it is slander. And in this matter Fidel Castro will already have begun to take account of the fact that he stumbled into something different when he stirred up the Venezuelan Communists.
(7) We are not unaware that an action like this one by Fidel Castro creates difficulties for us. But we feel no despair. We have the tranquil conviction of those who know they are backed by reason. And we have the revolutionary passion to defend iv.
March 15, 1967
Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Venezuela
POMPEYO MARQUEZ
GUILLERMO GARCIA PONCE
ALONSO OJEDA OLACHEA
PEDRO ORTEGA DIAZ
EDUARDO GALLEGOS MANCERA
TEODORO PETKOFF
GERMAN LAIRET