happen, a small country, tradi- along with China, tienally thought to be lazy, Latin fronts the major problem of socialist American, mañana and sun, pre- ocieties, the problem of bureaucracy.
the growth of mammon. For they have sents them with the biggest chal- seen that the traditional Marxists conlenge in history? And what is this cepts of evolution. from socialism into communism are muthical. There is no challenge? It is the challenge man, a vision of man in freedom. automatic road to communism. What chen fore Terene from No Carter free of the dehumanising processes perience is that if left alone socialism of competition and profit, MONATHAN itself. creates a bureaucracy which ali. self-perpetuating, *racaritai importance! Escalante was an old-time Stalinist hack whose expulsion from the Cuban Party should be seen essentially as a slap in the face for the " socialist ' countries who are in favour of preserving the status que. However, there were undoubtedly various aspects of the *trial which have rightly raised doubts in socialist circles outside smoothly.
Cuba. This is why we are printing an article by Livio Maitan, an Italian Marxist and an authority on Latin America.] impulse to the economy and the party licading bodies are not functioning state where a whole series of condiCuba, which was faced with loyal opErnesto Che Guevara was a special positional elements willing to accept target of the supporters of the " micro [fracción" anal particularly certain rules of the game, and who. all were interated in a sustem There is no doubt that in a workers at all to an abstract analogy-every- parties cannot be considered a crime:
one knows what pressures are con- fat most under certain conditions. stantlv exerted on the Cuban Icaders: could represent a violation of disci and, according to Raúl Castro's report. pline. This would seem to hold all the more since it can hardly be thought as to wish that the USSR would that the articles or reports of a Corunline Cadavilla see or alind
and aspiration, man working col lectively. not instituted by acts of drean of the of commun sin of the dissolution of the state, but parliament but by acts of will.
state is still as formidable and And the basic of this vision is the sclerosed as ever. It exists to perpetu reality of struggle, of the fight. For the ate What revolutionary periences from the Cuban revolution has learned its ex- Sierra Maestra. Cuban theory communism are twin realities that go is that SocIalism and twelve isolated men began a hand in hand, that co-exist, that comfight which in two years overthrew munism is created now, not waited for one ef the most oppressive. brutal like the coming of the messiah out of tyrannical regimes in Latin America. heaven.
The impossible being achieved char- Adventurists? Petit bourgeois? acterises the ideology revolution. A struggle as a dialectical Cuban Romantics? Visionaries? Dreamprocess. a revolution that responds ers? I can only conclude with constantly to the pressure and fluctua Lenin. 'Of this kind of dreaming tion of change, of the new replacing there is unfortunately too little in the old because it is a vision of future man arrived at through a series of our movement. And the people Ecrectual datectical connicts. It is the most responsible for this are those expressien of the will of the people.
who boast of their sober views, This process of revolutionary and evelution is fundamental. growth And their closeness to the concrete!
same by the not at ther ante by she Central Committee of the Communist Party of Caba wasronly movement ahder Soviet influcice a new episode in the intense struggle What Is striking, morcover, to those that has continued to develop in the who recall other documents bearing International Communist movement; similar accusations is that the reporr and it cannot be judged correcily with- in question makes it possible to under. out taking into account the specific stand very clearly that the oppositioncontext in which it occurred. ists had a rounded conception with its own internal logic and that they even Everyone is well aware that relations set themselves quite concrete objectives between Cuba and the USSR, the and that the report avoids resorting same as relations between Cuba and to grotesque distortions and still less the Communist parties of Latin to describing the persons aimed at as changes America, since the have undergone manifold Victory of midel monsters inspired by the most abom- inable designs. Here, very briefly, are Castro's movement. Conjunctural fac- TORIN points of the Escalante tors nave swaved finos this wat or group's platform: that, but the direction has been deter- (I) The present ruling, group is fol mined at bottom by the permanent lowing a line that is departing more contradiction consisting of the fact that and mere from that of the USSR, most advanced expression of the revo while on the one hand Cuba, as the which as the greatest responsibilities, must normally country that has the lutionary tendencies of the sixties, play the leading role in the camp of precise way, and that necessarily come into conflict with the socialist countries. Criticisms conservative bureaucratic system head- levelled against the USSR must be ed by the USSR, on the other hand, rejected, for example, in connection Cuba cannot do without the Soviet with aid to Vietnam and its attitude Union's economic and military aid and on the occasion of the crisis in the the USSR cannot contemplate a pos- Middle East, but also in connection sible crushing of the revolutionary Cuban government without very un- with is orientation in Latin America. (Escalante criticised Fidel's speech of favourable repercussiens for itself 26 July, 1966, on Seviet aid to Chile, port of totally different concepts beth from the strategic and political Brazil, etc, and held that Soviet instandpoint. tervention in Latin America in this struction of socialism, was carrying on field in reality dealt blows to imperialThe Tricontinental conference at the ism.) beginning of 1966 marked the greatest (2) The armed struggle effort by both sides to reach an agree- advanced by OLAS is adventurist and ment, no matter how short-lived. But does net correspond to the existing the rapid realisation bv the leaders of the impossibility of bringing Cuban objective The Cuban CP, in fact, is following and subjective SILuRtOns.
ties to accept a strategy of revolution- the Latin-American Communist par- a "Trotskyist line of exporting Revelution.? the ary struggle, which to them represen- (3) Among the leaders, and particuted vital necessity, led to new larly among some of them, a tendency confrontations and to new conflicts, clearly stands out of collaborating with the dericione of the OLAS (Organi- French capitalism, whose policies sation of Latin-American Solidarity) embellished. In connection with the conference being the logical culmina- alleged relations with French imperialtion of this. ism, the micro-fraccionistas" did not hesitate to slander Régis Debray in a Beginning with last October the way, attributing his expulsion stage-the from the French Communist party to death of Che Guevara and the serious links with secret police of his setback suffered by the guerrillas were immediately cynically in (4) With regard COuntry to domestic policy. exploited by the bureaucrats tHe economy suffering from inCommunist parties. Backed by Mos- adequate planning. In agriculture, parcow. they launched a counter-attack ticularly in sugar production, objecup and down the line. While the main tives were set that cannot possibly be target of this offensive was obviously attained. Erroneous concepts are adthe strategy for Latin America and vanced particularly in putting the the conception of guerrilla war, domes- phasis on moral stimulants that tic Cuban policies also came under mand a level of consciousness fire, since the basic Castroist concepts the masses much higher than have continued to diverge from actually existing one. The unions concepts in force in the USSR and however. of which the Cuban leaders people's bureaucracies not fulfilling their function of giving (as well as from the Chinese concepts, maranter critique was partially facilitated br the difficulties which the Cuban economy has questionably experienced and is doubtless going to experience, as long as the nresent Citation exists of blockade and isolation from the Latin-American continent ha report presented to the Central Committe by Raul Castro provides abundant information and documents, which, taken together, make up a herent picture. One may question various details, or even hold that ces. rain criticisms made by Escalante were not entirely unjustified; but it is indisputably evident from the document ther Escalante and his friends were partisans of orientations completel opposed to those of the prescat leaders of workers parties and dered to be the genuincy, sociological characterisation applied possible. But the so-to-spe nationalist relationshibs, hose charged against Escalante woul crimes like to the Fidelista leadership as a whole was not any more flattering. Accord- find it acceptable that the condemna ing to the Escalantisis, the events oli tion of a political orientation mean 1962 signified the defeat of the prole- judicial proceedings. But what tarian tendency and the victory of a occurred must be judged in a concrete petty-bourgeois tendency which, in the context, one characterised by a war 1o final analysis, could lead to restoration the knife within the international of the pre-1959 régime. Communist movement itself, where methods are currently being used that Raúl Castro's report is understandably have nothing to de with democratic cautious in dealine with the relations and revolutionary methods. It is suffibetween the "microfracción" and re- cient to recall here, by way of example, presentatives of the USSR and other present employment of economic workers states. Nevertheless there are blackmail and extortion, which in the many explicit indications of the rela- case conflict between China DODS which Escalante and his group and the USSR brought with it maintained, whose political signifi- tremely grave consequences for the cance cannot be doubted. The report Chinese people. The reference is not cites names and circumstances in a these allegations well founded can scarcely be doubted. que es la historia In conclusion, no doubt is possible as to the political meaning of the conflict de Cuba sino in the Cuban CP nOt about the fact that Escalante and his friends represented a faction, which, in agreement la historia de with the pro-Soviet CPs, and in sup of América Latina revolutionary strategy and the cononpositional activity against the present leadership team. The cleavage aranna the Recalante Internationally will thus once more follow the already established lines in the world revolutionary and Communist MOVe COL There is another aspect to the events, themselves are most of all aware. Condemination Escalante's political orientation does not automatically imply unqualified approval of the method adopted against him and his group.
In particular the fact that the Central Committee's political sanctions Were followed by penal sanctions provoked and is still provoking comment that that cannot be ignored. On the one hand sincere rawn nitionicte 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 n certain methods.
It would be easy to show that 209 001 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. by having very Reevous tor ine country, could icad castro 10 correct his artitude!
As for revolutionaries, particularly the would Let me add, finaily, that despite the Latin-Americans, their task is not to and reticence of the report cause unnecessary alarm or Icans; to the Central Committee, it is clear their task is not to forget for a single that Escalante and his group trans- instant that the fate of Cuba will be mitted confidential texts and docu- settled, in the final analysis, in the ments, the knowledge of which could held of revolutionary struggle in other be injurious to the interests of the countries, particularly Latin-America. revolutionary government, and it is is by organising that struggle, it is not excluded that through their rela. by carrying it forward to a victorious tions with the leaders of the Latin- that one also participates American Communist parties they practice ourcome in the struggle which the undertook actions prejudicial 1o the Cuban revolutionists are carrying on struggle of the revolutionists on the their own country. By the same continent. It must not be forgotten token the possibility is increased that that in this field, too, a ferocious battle the Cuban régime will not be ruined continues to develoD the phenomena and tendencies (4) In my opinion the circulation of which led to the degeneration of other the documents of other Communist revolutionary régimes.
TH" BLACK DWARP 19.3