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by PHIL COURNEYEUR
The Progressive Workers’ Movement (PWM, Canada's Maoist group) have come out with the startling revelation that Cuba all this time has only been "masquerading" as a socialist revolution but is really only "a bourgeois democratic revolution". Worse, "Castro aime at no more than a patching up of the capi tacniy systen"’ and girs and hia coll eagues... are not socialists and°4r/intrinsically (sic) * Lech ier In short, Ci is capitalist! / S anti-i-porinlist.
These choice slandere of the Cuban revolution etick out like bandaged thumbs in what purports to be a review of Debray' ® Revolution Wsaus. kecocics € to the Bittore of this official publication, this represents "4 systematic presentation of the Progressive Workers Movement's position" based on a "critical examination" of Debray's book.
The review has no merit aside from the light it caste upon the present attitude of Maocism towards the Cuban revolution. Summing up the whole experience of the insurrectional struggle against Batista by the July 26th Movement, the editors declare:
"Batista's regime was on an extremely shaky foundation from
the every moment he seized power and it grew rapidly weaker
with each passing day....Finally the U.S. imperialists re-
fused any longer to subsidise Batista with loans and his
regime staggered to its doom, to be replaced by the Castro
led rebels in mountains who enjoyed a wide measure of pop-
ular support for no other reason than that they opposed
Batista with arms." (emphasis added.)
The next paragraph goes on to accuse Castre of declaring "the establishment of 'Socialiam' by decree" -- implying that this was enacted only to get aid from the "revisionists" in the Soviet Union. On top of thie, the editors assert that "the Cuban revolution held few jessons for Marist-Leninists but many illusiona for the unwary". This assertion is probably intended to help cover up the silence maintained by the Maoist leadership in China on the death of Che Guevara and the revolutionary positions stated by him in his last message published in
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Tricontinental magazine. The Macist leadership has maintained a similar silence on the historic decisions taken by the conference of the Organisation of Latin-American Solidarity insisting on the road of armed atruggle for the socialist revolution across Latin America.
Following suit, Canada's Maoist grouping, the PWM, have dummied up. They failed even to carry commemorative mention of Che in their press. The growing hostility of the Macists towards the Cuban revolution can = be traced to a dispute around the 1965 rice deal and Castro's charges of economic pressure from China. The roots of the disagreements, however, go mach deeperthan trade problems. The most fundamental questions of revolutionary strategy in cur epoch have come up between the Cuban and Chinese leaders, just as they have between the Cubans and the Russians. The most immediate and pressing question is the defense of Vietnam from the imperialist aggression.
The Maoists were atung by Che's moving appeal for real solidarity with Vietnam and by his call for a genuine united front at the state level between China and the Soviet Union, His daring to criticise the Chinese sectarian attitude on this question placed him beyond the Maoist pale and outside the rahks of the faithful. Also galling to the Maoists were Che's conclusions on the socialist character of the Latin-American © revolution with his now famous statement: "either a socialist revolution or & make-believe revolution". The OLAS conference marked a parting of the ways with the old theory of alliances with the so-called progressive bourgeoisie.
Canadian Macists == like most of their strain throughout the world =~ are arch nationalists and uphold the "bloc of four classes" programme. This policy enacted so tragically in Indonesia by Aidit's pre-Peking Communist Party, is becoming more and more discredited among revolutionary currents in the colonial world. Nevertheless, the whole programme — of the PWM for Canada has been to graft this nationalist programme onto working class politics in this country. They advocate an all-inclusive multiclass "United Front" to drive out U.S, imperialist investment, repatriate the economy and free Canada from U.§.-domination. Even “independent Canadian capitalists" will have a place in what PWM calls the "great movement of national resurgence". But we are assured that the resurgence would leave no place for "“capitaliam of the old style".
What the new style "national resurgenc#" has in store for the workers is left to the imagination except for statements such as the following: "We reject the contention that Canadians will not be prepared to make any initial sacrifices that may be necessary in the way of foregoing any unessential comforts and luxuries, so as to establish our national independence on a firm footing". (Quoted from March 1966 Progressive Worker)
It seems ludicrous to even point to the abyss between the arrant nationalism of the PWM and the socialist internationaliam of the Cuban revolution and the vanguard revolutionaries in Latin America.
A, ee eee ee oe ee
Cont. from page 26,
By their fight for the victory of socialist democracy based on councils, the Polish students have strengthened the anti-imperialist front of Vietnam, Cuba, and all the insurgent masses of the world, For cutting out the bureaucratic gangrene from the countries which heve abol= ished capitalism will deprive imperialism of one of its last political arguments .
Free Modzelewski, Kuron, and all the imprisoned hig -school and university students!
Long live the united struggle of the Polish students and workers for socialist democracy based on councils!
Long live the united struggles of students and workers of all countries against imperialism and for the defence of the Vietnamese revolution!
Long live the world socialist revolution!
SLT VsSSS SS eS ee ee ee eS ee ee eee SST SS SSS Cont. from page 35.
But the price for failing to adhere to Mao's thought is very severe. Overnight you can be changed from a socialist to a fascist, from a revclutionary to a reactionary. Overnight a workers state can become oapitalist. The Cuban revolution can, by PWM decree, cease to be socialist and become, as they put it, a "bourgeois democratic state masquerading as socialist". The criterion for determining the class character of a given party, programme or state, is no longer rooted in the real world, but in the omnicient, omnipresent and omnipotent thoughts of Chairman Meo, as interpreted by faithful clerics like the editors of Progressive Worker.
Strangely enough, the imperialist strategists on Wall Street and their hirelingsin the Pentagon haven't noticed the revelation about Cuba being capitalist. Neither have the Cuban people, nor the revolutionary vyanzuard in Latin America.
(editors note. This article was first published in World Outlook Vol.6.
No,16) Tail-piece. Some British Maoist's are no less super-patrictic.
Point two, no less, of The Marxist's programme is
"Fight for the national independence of the Britsh
People."
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