Siqueiros referred to the "French youngsters" in the follow-
On the Cultural Congress of Havana
"ZA RUBEZHOM" BRINGS THE
A rather spicy account of the World Cultural Congress in Havana appeared in the Soviet weekly Za Rubezhon, No. 4, for January 19-25, 1968. Over the byline of one V. Polyakovsky, the article purported to be a roundup of foreign press reports, rather than a firsthand account. Za Rubezhom, which runs articles and commentary on world affairs, specializes in reprints from foreign publications.
Polyakovsky starts off with a few incidental tidbits: the idea for the congress originated with Fidel Castro in early 1967; a document about the congress was presented to mass meetings throughout Cuba; a nationwide seminar on it present-~ ed Che Guevara as the highest example for intellectuals to follow.
Polyakovsky's introductory remarks include the facts on the number of delegates and where they came from. He makes special mention of the delegates from the European and Asian workers' states, excluding China, but notes that the Western European delegates were the most numerous.
The theme of the congress and the titles of the commissions (or workshops) are related. Cuban President Dorticés' opening remarks, calling for a "broad dialogue on a world scale," are quoted. The point is stressed that the congress was not supposed to be a forum for any one point of view.
With that, the juicy part begins. "According to press reports," says Polyakovsky, "exceptionally stormy discussions broke out in the commissions, often reaching the point of verbal skirmishing. These arose apparently because among the partic-— ipants of the congress there turned out to be more than a few so-called ‘ultralefts.' Moreover, from the very beginning of the work of the commissions the tendency was observable for a certain group of delegates to try to impose their views on the congress no matter what."
Things were especially bad, to
ing way:
"The chair called them to order at
the congress. They didn't succeed in dis-
rupting the proceedings of the congress.
That was the end of the matter."
"And what happened to the girl?"
"A kick from a girl is pleasing
at times."
REAR GUARD UP TO DATE
Polyakovsky's mind, in Commission No. 2.
There a Mexican delegate proposed to
discuss in detail how imperialism diverts
the youth from both politics and culture.
"Instead of that," declares Pol-
yakovsky, "a group of commission members
representing certain West European coun-
tries tried to bring openly pro-Chinese
theses into the discussion and gave
speeches attacking the Soviet Union, try-
ing to draw the congress away from the
questions on the agenda. Especially zeal-
ous in this regard was the Belgian Trot-
skyist professor Verstreeten.* Echoing
Peking radio, he called the USSR a 'Men-
shevik' country, while China, Vietnam,
and Cuba were 'Bolshevik.' His favorite
thesis was the 'bourgeoisification' of
the European socialist countries and
their loss of ‘revolutionary spirit.'
The Soviet delegate G. Sharapov, along
with representatives from the German
Democratic Republic, Italy, and Switzer-
land, gave the Trotskyist a deserved
rebuff, characterizing his speech as
provocatory. (Incidentally, in the com-
mentaries of the Western press, which
played up these attacks on the USSR, it
was noted that in both this commission
and the others the organizers of the
congress failed to react in the neces-
sary way to instances of disruption of
normal conditions. )"
Polyakovsky continues his sad
tale: "After the speech by the Rumanian
delegate Valeriu, who told of the great
significance attributed in his country
to the struggle of the youth for peace,
several Cuban delegates immediately took
the floor. In their opinion, education
of youth in the spirit of fighting for
* Polyakovsky does not indicate why he
decided to label Prof. Verstreeten a
"Trotskyist." The epithet, of course, has
long been used by Stalinist apologists to
refer to any revolutionist of whatever
political tendency. -- W.O.
peace was unacceptable for the congress, since the youth should be educated in the ‘spirit of rebellion,' in the spirit of struggle against imperialism."
In Commission No. 3, matters were not much better from Polyakovsky's point of view. There the Uruguayan writer Benedetti opened the discussion with the argument that "any oversimplification, partic-— ularly the demand that intellectuals should immediately become heroes and armed soldiers...could prove to be a dangerous thesis."
The Cuban Fornet noted in his paper that the task of the intellectual in an underdeveloped country was to 'teach literacy, learn to handle a weapon, and cut sugar cane.'
"The Mexican and Argentine representatives took issue with the idea of the Guinean delegate that there was a necessity for intellectuals to participate in armed struggle. The Indian delegate Lajpat called for a 'boycott of imperialism in the field of culture.' Representatives from Ecuador, the USSR, and other countries noted that not only a boycott but also an active struggle with the aim of propagandizing socialist ideas was necessary."
With such goings-on in Commission No. 3, how did things fare in No. 4? At first things were calm, as Polyakovsky tells it. "However, this Commission, too, did not get by without its share of attacks on the USSR. For example, the Ecuadorian Adoumu was not pleased that M. Sholokhov [Soviet novelist] had ‘accepted the Nobel Prize.' In reply, V.V.Volsky made clear that all seven Nobel prizes received by Soviet citizens had been given to the aid fund for Vietnam. He told of Soviet aid to Algeria, and other Arab countries, to Vietnam, and Cuba."
In Commission No. 5, according to Polyakovsky's “gleanings" from the foreign press, a Soviet delegate's report on the role of the intelligentsia in the building of communism was approved by a
THREE BLACK STUDENTS KILLED