THE
CONDEMNATION OF ANIBAL ESCALANTE
By Livio Maitan
[The following article was written February 10 on the basis of dispatches from Havana in the European press and the text of Major RaGl Castro's report on January 24 to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba published by Prensa Latina. ]
x * *
The condemnation of Anibal Escalante by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba is only a new episode in the intense struggle that has continued to develop in the international Communist movement; and it cannot be judged correctly without taking into account the specific context in which it occurred.
Everyone is well aware that relations between Cuba and the USSR, the same as relations between Cuba and the Communist parties of Latin America, have undergone manifold changes since the victory of Fidel Castro's movement. Conjunctural factors have swayed things this way or that, but the direction has been determined at bottom by the permanent contradiction consisting of the fact that while on the one hand Cuba, as the most advanced expression of the revolutionary tendencies of the sixties, necessarily comes into conflict with the conservative bureaucrat~ ic system headed by the USSR, on the other hand, Cuba cannot do without the Soviet Union's economic and military aid and the USSR cannot contemplate a possible crushing of the revolutionary Cuban government without very unfavorable repercussions for itself both from the strategic and political standpoint.
The Tricontinental conference at the beginning of 1966 marked the greatest effort by both sides to reach an agreement, no matter how short-lived. But the rapid realization by the Cuban leaders of the impossibility of bringing the Latin- American Communist parties to accept a strategy of revolutionary struggle, which to them represented a vital necessity, led to new confrontations and to new conflicts, the decisions of the OLAS [Organization of Latin-American Solidarity] conference being the logical culmination of this.
Beginning with last October, the struggle entered a new stage -- the death of Che Guevara and the serious setback suffered by the guerrillas in Bolivia were immediately cynically exploited by the bureaucrats of the Communist parties. Backed by Moscow, they launched a counterattack up and down the line. While the Main target of this offensive was obvious-
ly the strategy for Latin America and
the conception of guerrilla war, domestic
Cuban policies also came under fire,
since the basic Castroist concepts have
continued to diverge from the concepts in
force in the USSR and the European peo-
ple's democracies (as well as from the
Chinese concepts, moreover). The latter
critique was partially facilitated by
the difficulties which the Cuban economy
has unquestionably experienced and is
doubtless going to experience, as long
as the present situation exists of block-
ade and isolation from the Latin-American
continent.
This is the context in which the
decisions of the plenum of the Central
Committee at the end of January must be
placed, decisions, one can be sure, which
the Fidelista team did not undertake light-
mindedly and which, moreover, involved a
very difficult choice. It is significant,
also, that at the same time the Central
Committee condemned Escalante and his
"microfraccién," it decided not to send
representatives to the international meet-
ing of Communist parties that is soon to
be held.
The events of 1961-62 had already
brought out sufficiently the nature of
the tendency expressed by Escalante. No
one has forgotten the famous speech by
Fidel against sectarianism, in which he
posed in a very clear and vigorous way
the problem of the necessity for a stub-
born struggle against bureaucratic ten-
dencies. There is no serious reason to
doubt that upon returning to Cuba after
his luxurious exile, Escalante continued
to maintain his concepts, seeking to
prepare the ground for a return to posts
of leadership.
The report presented to the Cen-
tral Committee by Ratil Castro provides
abundant information and documents, which,
taken together, make up a coherent pic-—
ture. One may wonder about this or that
detail, or even hold that this or that
criticism made by Escalante was not en-
tirely unjustified; but it is indis-
putably evident from the document that
Escalante and his friends were partisans
of orientations completely opposed to
those of the present leaders and very
close to the concepts maintained by the
sector of the Communist movement under
Soviet influence. What is striking, more-
over, to those who recall other documents
of analogous accusations is that the re-
port in question makes it possible to
understand very clearly that the opposi-
tionists had a rounded conception with
its own internal logic and that they even
set themselves quite concrete objectives
and that the report avoids resorting to grotesque distortions and still less to describing the persons aimed at as monsters inspired by the most abominable designs.[1] Here, very briefly, are the main points of the Escalante group's platform:
(1) The present ruling group is following a line that is departing more and more from that of the USSR, which, as the country that has the greatest responsibilities, must normally play the leading role in the camp of the socialist countries. Criticisms leveled against the USSR must be rejected, for example, in connection with aid to Vietnam and its attitude on the occasion of the crisis in the Middle East, but also in connection with its orientation in Latin America. (Escalante criticized Fidel's speech of July 26, 1966, on Soviet aid to Chile, Brazil, etc., and held that Soviet intervention in Latin America in this field in reality dealt blows to imperialism. )
(2) The strategy of armed struggle advanced by OLAS is adventurist and does not correspond to the existing objective and subjective situations. The Cuban CP, in fact, is following a "Trotskyist line of exporting the Revolution."
(3) Among the leaders, and particularly among some of them, a tendency clearly stands out of collaborating with French capitalism, whose policies are embellished. [2]
(4) With regard to domestic policy, the economy is suffering from inadequate Planning. In agriculture, particularly in sugar production, objectives were set that cannot possibly be attained. Erroneous concepts are advanced particularly in putting the emphasis on moral stimulants that demand a level of consciousness among
{1] "Manuscript No. 2 of Octavio Fernandez" provides interesting material on the perspectives of the group.
As to the parallel with briefs of political accusations, without referring to the classical Stalinist documents which cannot possibly be compared, it suffices to point to certain Chinese documents against Liu Shao-chi, the false and tendentious character of which is instantly transparent and which present the unfortunate victim as a frightful monster who had been plotting with capitalism since the twenties.
[2] In connection with the alleged relations with French imperialism, the "microfraccionistas" did not hesitate to slander Régis Debray in a foul way, attributing his expulsion from the French Communist party to links with the secret po-~ lice of his countsy.
the masses much higher than the actually
existing one. The unions are not fulfill-
ing their function of giving impulse to
the economy and the party leading bodies
are not functioning smoothly.
Ernesto Che Guevara was a special
target of the supporters of the "micro-~
fraccién" and it was particularly against
him that they utilized the characteriza-
tion of "Trotskyist," considered to be
the most damning epithet possible. But
the so-to-speak "sociological" character-
ization applied to the Fidelista leader-
ship as a whole was not any more flatter-
ing. According to the Escalantists, the
events of 1962 signified the defeat of
the proletarian tendency and the victory
of a petty-bourgeois tendency which, in
the final analysis, could lead to resto-
ration of the pre-1959 regime.
Rail Castro's report is under-
standably cautious in dealing with the
relations between the "microfraccién"
and representatives of the USSR and
other workers states. Nevertheless there
are many explicit indications of the re-
lations which Escalante and his group
maintained, whose political significance
cannot be doubted. The report cites names
and circumstances in a precise way, and
that these allegations are well founded
can scarcely be doubted. If they were
really false, how is it to be explained
that the Soviets, the East Germans and
the Czechs have maintained complete
Silence up to now, despite the publicity
given to Rail Castro’ s report and de-
spite the role of certain figures under
fire?
In conclusion, no doubt is pos-
sible as to the political meaning of the
conflict in the Cuban CP nor about the
fact that Escalante and his friends rep-
resented a faction, which, in agreement
with the pro-Soviet CPs, and in support
of totally different concepts of revolu-
tionary strategy and the construction of
socialism, was carrying on oppositional
activity against the present leadership
team. The cleavage around the Escalante
affair internationally will thus once
more follow the already established
lines in the world revolutionary and
Communist movement.
There is another aspect to the
events, however, of which the Cuban
leaders themselves are most of all aware.
Condemnation of Escalante's political
orientation does not automatically imply
unqualified approval of the method adopt-
ed against him and his group. In particu-
lar the fact that the Central Committee's
political sanctions were followed by
penal sanctions provoked and is still
provoking comment that cannot be ignored.
On the other hand sincere revolutionists
wonder about the meaning of a measure that
appears to be in contradiction with the
antibureaucratic concepts maintained by the Cubans; on the other hand, the Stalinist and neo-Stalinist attorneys claim that the Escalante trial only confirms the inevitability of certain methods.
It would be easy to show that no analogy can possibly be drawn between what has occurred in Cuba and the tragic experiences which the USSR and the people's democracies underwent respectively in the thirties and the fifties.[3] But that would not be sufficient.
There is no doubt that in a workers state where a whole series of conditions existed which do not exist in Cuba, which was faced with loyal oppositional elements willing to accept certain rules of the game, and who, above all, were integrated in a system of workers parties and states founded on genuinely democratic and internationalist relationships, crimes like those charged against Escalante would be inconceivable and no one would find it acceptable that the condemnation of a political orientation meant judicial proceedings. But what has occurred must be judged in a concrete context, one characterized by a war to the knife within the international Communist movement itself, where methods are currently being used that have nothing to do with democratic and revolutionary methods. It is sufficient to recall here, by way of example, the present employment of economic blackmail and extortion, which in the case of the conflict between China and the USSR brought with it extremely grave consequences for the Chinese people. The reference is not at all to an abstract analogy -- everyone knows what pressures are constantly exerted on the Cuban leaders; and, according to Rail Castro's report, Escalante and his friends went so far as to wish that the USSR would undertake economic measures which, by having very grievous repercussions for the country, could lead Castro to correct his attitude!
Let me add, finally, that despite the caution and reticence of the report to the Central Committee, it is clear that Escalante and his group transmitted confidential texts and documents, the knowledge of which could be injurious to the interests of the revolutionary government, and it is not excluded that through their relations with the leaders of the Latin~American Communist parties they undertook actions prejudicial to the struggle of the revolutionists on the continent. It must not be forgotten that
(3] Escalante himself wrote, moreover: "T am aware that the leadership of the party did not turn me over to the State Security because of my opinions but because of my activities."
in this field, too, a ferocious battle
continues to develop. [4]
It is probable that the Escalante
trial will lead some to be concerned
about the danger of the Cuban regime be-~
coming bureaucratized. We have no reason
to revise the idea we advanced at the time
of the most positive moves undertaken by
the Cuban leaders in the antibureaucratic
struggle. In the domestic and interna-
tional situation in which the Cuban so-
cialist experience is unfolding ~- given
the economic limitations and constricting
bottlenecks caused by the blockade and
isolation, given the technical and cul-
tural backwardness, despite the prodi-
gious efforts of the last years, and,
last but not least, given the powerful
means of pressure at the disposal of the
Soviet bureaucracy and its allies -- the
objective tendency toward bureaucratiza-
tion cannot be eliminated for an entire
period and certain actual bureaucratic
deformations are, in the final analysis,
inevitable. Against this, the eminently
positive factor remains of the existence
of a leading group conscious of the dan-
ger and disposed to struggle resolutely
against it.
As for revolutionists, particular-
ly the Latin Americans, their task is
not to make a hue and cry over their
fears, nor to take their distance or to
worry about keeping up their prestige as
people capable of analyzing all phenonm-
ena in time, utilizing this or that
cautious formula to prove it; their task
is not to forget for a single instant
that the fate of Cuba will be settled,
in the final analysis, in the field of
revolutionary struggle in other coun-
tries, particularly Latin America. It
is by organizing that struggle, it is
by carrying it forward to a victorious
outcome that one also participates in
practice in the struggle which the
Cuban revolutionists are carrying on
in their own country. By the same token
the possibility is increased that the
Cuban regime will not be ruined by the
phenomena and tendencies which led to
the degeneration of other revolutionary
regimes.
{4] In my opinion the circulation of the
documents of other Communist parties can-
not be considered a crime; at most, under
certain conditions, it could represent
a violation of discipline. This would
seem to hold all the more since it can
hardly be thought that the articles or
reports of a Corvalan or Codovilla are
of a kind to trouble the thinking of
Cuban militants.
REPORT BY MAJOR RAUL CASTRO ON