WELCOME OMISSION IN FIDEL CASTRO'S SPEECH
The speech giveh by Fidel Castro at the closing session of the Tricontinental Conference in January 1966 has been rebroadcast in installments over Radio Habana. This was the speech that at once stirred up sharp controversy among revolutionary circles throughout. fatin America and other countries.
On the one. hand the speech contained a powerful denunciation of American imperialism and a firm affirmation of the revolutionary road as the only one through which an oppressed people can win their freedom. On the other hand the speech included a strange and mystifying attack against “Trotskyism" in terms reminiscent of the worst period of Stalinism. The MR-13 guerrilla movement in Guatemala came under particular fire as having been "infiltrated" by “"Trotskyites."
The sectors of the speech dealing with American imperialism and the need for socialist revolution were well received. The attack on "Trotskyism" came under heavy fire from some of the strongest friends and supporters of the Cuban Revolution. The attack, in the opinion of many of them, put a question mark over the actual direction in which the Cuban leaders were moving.
Under this strong criticism, Blas Roca, an old-time Stalinist hack guilty of periodically leveling similar attacks against "Trotskyism," responded with a long article that: sought to prop up those sectors of Castro's speech that had repeated the ancient Stalinist slanders.
Blas Roca's defense in turn came under blistering attack from those who considered it completely unseemly for Fidel Castro to engage in Stalinist mudslinging. [See in particular "Protskyism Versus Stalinism in the Cuban Revolution" by Joseph Hansen in the May 27, 1966, World Outlook. ]
Fans of Radio Habana, familiar with this background, therefore listened with some forebodings of a fresh outbreak of controversy as Fidel Castro's speech came over the air loud and clear from the tapes made at the final session of the Tricontinental Conference. To their surprise and relief, the entire section of the speech dealing with "Trotskyism" and the MR-143 guerrilla movement, including the attacks on various journals like Monthly Review and Marcha were left out!
No explanation was given as to why this material had been omitted. Someone hearing the speech for the first time would never know that this was a shortened version.
Whatever the reasons for leaving out the divisive attack on "Trotskyism," the decision to do so could only be welcomed by the revolutionary vanguard.
CUBAN CP