Cassius Clay
7th March 2003, 11:37
Here is a article originally written by the Communist League from the UK in 1992. It is a critical view of Socialism in Cuba, Castro and the dependence upon the USSR. By no means do I agree with it all and I have argued against some of the points made in it previously on another board. But it does raise some interesting points and valid criticisms and is worth the read.
It's title is 'Cuban Revisionism'.
''Cuba is the largest and most westerly of the Greater Antilles island chain. It has a total area of approximately 110,000 square kilometres (about half the size of Britain) and a population of some 15 million. It lies about135 miles south off the tip of Florida Keys (USA). Its capital, Havana, has a population of about 2 million. The official language is Spanish, and its unit of currency is the peso.
After securing independence from Spain with United States assistance in 1902, Cuba remained until 1959 a semi-colony of United States imperialism, under the dictatorship of the Cuban comprador capitalist and landlord classes exercised in the last years under the puppet dictator Fulgencio Batista*.
>It was at the point of acquiring her independence that Cuba began to develop, and develop fast, all the characteristics of a colonial dependency Creole landowners, lacking economic resources to prevent massive American penetration, could not turn themselves into that class of entrepreneurs which presides over normal >capitalist development.= Cuba was transformed into a paradise for compradores, speculators and other agents in the service of the new masters. A (K.S.Karol: >Guerillas in Power: The Course of the Cuban Revolution=; London; 1971; p. 61).
AThe United States obtained the right to oversee Cuban foreign and internal affairs as well as to establish a naval base at Guantanamo Bay,@ (>New Encyclopaedia Britannica=, Volume 3: Micropaedia; Chicago; 1992; p. 773).
"Having at last established itself as a free republic (1902), Cuba became dependent upon the United States and remained so for half a [email protected] (>Encyclopedia Americana=, Volume 8; Danbury (USA); 1981; p. 294).
THE CUBAN REVOLUTION (1953-59)
On 26 July 1953 a band of guerillas led by Fidel Castro* made a raid upon an army post at Moncada in Santiago de Cuba.
The raid was not successful, and for his participation in it Castro was imprisoned from October 1953 to May 1955.
Following his release from prison, Castro went to Mexico where, in July 1955, he launched the >26th of July Movement=.
In December 1956 Castro led a small guerilla force of 82 men to >invade= Cuba from Mexico in a boat called the >Granma=. The guerillas set up a mobile base in the Sierra Maestra, a mountain range in southern Oriente province.
ABy 1958 Castro had about 300 armed men in the Sierra [email protected] (Jaime Suchlicki: 'Historical Dictionary of Cuba'; Metheun 1988; p. 259; (USA);
In May 1958 Batista launched a military offensive against Castro's guerilla force, but this failed and by the onset of winter his army was disintegrating.
On 31 December 1958 Batista resigned and fled, with his principal accomplices, to the Dominican Republic, later to Madeira.
THE NEW STATE (1959-62)
On 1 January 1959 the victorious >26th of July Movement= formed a new administration, with Manuel Urrutia* as President of the Republic.
On 7 February a new Constitution was adopted:
ALegislative power was to be vested in the [email protected], (Hugh Thomas: 'The Cuban Revolution'; London; 1986; p. 416).
headed by Jose Miro* as Prime Minister.
On 13 February Miro resigned as Prime Minister following a dispute over gambling casinos:
Awhereas Dr. Miro wanted them to be permanently suppressed, Dr. Castro advocated their [email protected] (>Keesing=s Contemporary Archives=, Volume 12; p. 16,901).
On 16 February he was succeeded as Prime Minister by Castro.
On 17 July 1959, Urrutia resigned as President and was succeeded by lawyer Osvaldo Dortico=s*, previously Minister of the Laws of the Revolution.
In the autumn of 1960, >Committees for the Defence of the Revolution= (CDR) were formed throughout the country as an adjunct to the police
Aessentially to ferret out counter-revolutionaries (Boris Goldenberg: >The Cuban Revolution and Latin America=; London; 1965; p. 270).
By 1962: AThere were about 100,000 such committees=.(Boris Goldenberg: op. cit.; p. 270).
THE US COUP AGAINST BATISTA (1957-59)
One of the myths of the Cuban Revolution is that a tiny guerilla group was able to overthrow a dictatorship backed by the United States imperialists.
In fact, the assault of Castro=s guerilla group was successful because it happened to coincide with a US coup against the Batista dictatorship. As Guevara expressed it in April 1961:
AThe monopolies, as is common in these cases, began to think of a successor to Batista, probably because they knew that the people were opposed to him. . . . What more intelligent stroke than to depose the unserviceable dictator and replace him with new >boys= who would, in good time, serve the interests of [email protected](Ernesto Guevara: >Cuba - Exception or Vanguard?=, in: John Gerassi (Ed.): >'Venceremos! Speechees and Writings of Che Guevara=; London; 1969; p. 198).
As early as June 1957, Robert Hill*, then responsible for the US State Department=s relations with Congress, told the newly-appointed US Ambassador to Cuba, Earl Smith:
AYou are assigned to Cuba to preside over the downfall of Batista. The decision has been made that Batista has to [email protected] (Hugh Thomas: op. cit.; p. 165).
In the autumn of 1957:
AThe United States began to hold up Batista=s orders for military hardware. In March 1958 an embargo on the shipment of arms and ammunition to Cuba was [email protected] (Philip Bonsal: >Cuba, Castro and the United States=; Pittsburgh; 1971; p.21).
The withdrawal of United States support from the Batista regime caused severe demoralisation among Batista=s officer corps:
ABatista=s soldiers, demoralised by the general repudiation of the government they served and by the accelerated corruption among their own officers and elsewhere... simply melted away as a fighting force after mid-1958. . .Batista now saw all the elements of his power eroded, his large army useless, his political support at home non-existent, his henchmen looking for exile, and the Washinton backing he had so long enjoyed [email protected] (Philip Bonsal: op. cit. p. 19, 23).
All this had
AA moral and psychological effect on the Cuban armed forces that was demoralising to the nth [email protected] (Philip Bonsal: op. cit.; p. 21).
ABatista=s commanders were beginning to [email protected] (Hugh Thomas: op. cit.; p. 234).
In May 1958 Batista attempted to launch an offensive against the guerillas, but by the end of June his High Command had become:
Aa demoralised gaggle of corrupt, cruel and lazy officers without combat [email protected] (HughThomas; op. cit.; p. 215).
The final US moves to oust Batista were entrusted to William Pawley*, an American diplomat and business man who was close to President Dwight Eisenhower*:
ASince November the US government had been taking urgent steps to remove Batista from power.... William D. Pawley, the former Ambasssador to Peru and Brazil and a personal friend of President Eisenhower, was about to be sent as a secret emissary to negotiate with Batista, Pawley would be authorised to offer Batista the opportunity to live with his family in Daytona Beach, Florida, if the dictator would appoint a caretaker government. . . . The key aspect of the plan was* that Pawley would be authorised to speak to Batista for President [email protected] (Ramon L. Bonachea & Marya San Martin: >The Cuban Insurrection: 1952-1959'; New Brunswick (USA); 1974; p. 304).
Pawley=s scheme was:
ATo get Batista to capitulate to a caretaker government satisfactory to us, whom we could immediately recognise and give military assistance [email protected] (Hugh Thomas: op. cit.; p. 233)
It was felt that this caretaker government should be a military junta:
AEveryone thought that the best idea was for the US to support a military junta=. (Hugh Thomas; op. cit.; 235).
and that this junta should be led by an officer with a history of opposition to the Batista dictatorship. The choice fell on Colonel Ramon Barquin, then in prison for leading an unsuccessful revolt against Batista:
AOnly Colonel Ramon Barquin met those [email protected], (Ramon L.Bonachea & Marya San Martin: op. cit.; p. 323).
On 17 December 1958, Barquin=s release was arranged by the CIA, after which he proclaimed himself chief of the armed forces in Havana:
AHe (Barquin - Ed.) owed his release to the somewhat delayed intervention of the CIA, who on 30 December had dispatched a man . . . to offer the head of the prison ,100,000 to release this prisoner (Hugh Thomas; op. cit.; p. 246).
But, unknown to the CIA, Barquin was a member of Castro=s >26 July= Movement, and he immediately subordinated himself to that movement:
ABeing himself at this time a member of the >26 July= Movement, he (Barquin -- Ed.) . . . subordinated himself to the >26 July= Movement". (Hugh Thomas; op. cit.; p. 246).
On 14 December:
AAmbassador Smith received instructions to the effect that it was time to tell Batista to leave. At long last, and for reasons other than the condemnation of Batista=s brutal regime, the US government was withdrawing its support from the Cuban [email protected] (Ramon L. Bonachea & Marya San Martin: op. cit.; p. 304),
Finally, on 17 December Smith met Batista and informed him that the State Department desired his resignation:
AOn 17 December Smith finally saw Batista and said on instructions that the State Department believed . . that it would avoid a great deal of bloodshed if he were to [email protected] (Hugh Thomas; op. cit.; p. 237).
Thus, Castro=s guerilla force:
Adid not defeat Batista=s army in any military [email protected] (Theodore Draper: >Castro=s Revolution: Myths and Realities=; 1962 (hereafter listed as: >Draper (1962)=; p. 14).London;
AThe collapse of Batista=s army was far more a political and psychological phenomenon . . . than a defeat by a superior enemy [email protected](Theodore Draper: >Castroism: Theory and Practice=; London; 1965' (hereafter listed as >Draper (1965)=; p. 136).
In other words, Castro=s guerilla force was victorious because its attack on the Batista regime happened to coincide with a coup against that regime by US imperialism.
THE ROLE OF THE >OLD= COMMUNIST PARTY OF CUBA (1925-52)
The Communist Party of Cuba:
Awas founded . . . in August 1925"'. (K.S. Karol: op. cit.; p. 60).
In its early years, the party was Marxist-Leninist in its orientation or, as K. S. Karol expresses it:
ACuban Communism was Stalinist from the very outset. This did not at first prevent it from making spectactular advances, or from becoming the most important Communist Party in Latin [email protected] (K.S. Karol: op. cit.; p. 60).
And it carried on a determined struggle against the Batista dictatorship. As Blas Roca*, the General Secretary of the Party, told the 6th Plenum of its Central Committee in the autumn of 1935:
ABatista, that national traitor in the pay of the imperialists, the faithful executioner of the orders of Caffery*, has drowned the March strike in blood, has turned the university into a barracks, has smashed the workers= trade unions and burned down their headquarters, has destroyed the Medical Federation of Cuba, has filled the prisons with more than 3,000 men, women and adolescent defenders of liberty and democracy, has unleashed a barbarous terror campaign of street murder against his adversaries, has banned all anti-imperialist parties (Blas Roca: Speech at 16th Plenum of CC, Communist Party of Cuba, in: K.S.Karol: op. cit.; p. 81).
Less than three years later, however, at the 10th Plenum of the Central Committee in July 1938, Blas Roca was hinting at the possibility of an agreement with Batista:
AAsked if we would come to an agreement with Batista, we reply quite openly . . . that it all depends on Batista=s attitude to the basic problems of [email protected] (Blas Roca: ASpeech at 10th Plenum of CC, [email protected] in: K. S. Karol: op. cit.; p. 84).
Batista took the hint, and as a result:
AThe Communist Party was legalised for the the first time in its 13-year history on September 25, [email protected] (Robert J. Alexander: >Communism in Latin America=; New York; 1957; p. 279).
and the party was then given government assistance in return for its political support:
AThe rise of the Communists to influence . . . was due to their deal with Batista, whereby they were given complete freedom of action and positive government aid in the trade union field in return for political support for Batista=s presidential [email protected] (Robert J. Alexander: ibid.; p. 69-70).
Reporting the 3rd National Congress of the party (January 1939), the
American Communist Party leader William Z. Foster* wrote:
ABatista . A . continues to carry through his progressive line. Freed from this repression by Batista=s progressive policy,. the Cuban people are experiencing a tremendous political [email protected] W.Z. Foster: >The Congress of the CP of Cuba=, in: >World News and Views=, Volume 19, No. 7 (18 February 1939); p. 148).
AThe foreign policy of its (Cuba=s - Ed.) Government, inspired by Colonel Fulgencio Batista, Constitutional Head of the Army, acquires greater anti-fascist content and Latin American scope. Colonel Batista has become an integral part of the progressive forces. We must work openly for the support of the masses for Batista=s [email protected] (R. A.Martinez: >The Latin American Significance of the Cuban Democratic Upsurge=, in:>World News and Views=, Volume 19, No. 18 (1 April 1939); p.367, 368).
The policy of the party at this time was to seek to form a national united front around Batista. As Blas Roca, expressed it:
AWe fight for a great national united [email protected] (W.Z. Foster: op. cit.; p. 148).
In 1944, Batista even:
ATook two CP Ministers into his [email protected] (Peter Taafe: >Cuba: Analysis of the Revolution=; London; 1975; p. 5).
and in the same year, for purely opportunist reasons, the revisionist Communist Party of Cuba changed its name to that of the >'Popular Socialist Party=:
AIn 1944, with a view to drawing into its ranks some people from the trade unions - an attempt which, however, did not produce results - it adopted its present name, >Popular Socialist Party= (Blas Roca: >Eighth National Congress of the Popular Socialist Party of Cuba=, in AWorld Marxist [email protected], Volume 3, No. 11 (November 1960); p.35).
THE ROLE OF THE POPULAR SOCIALIST PARTY (1952-57)
Barred constitutionaly from a further term as President, in March 1952, Batista seized dictatorial power in a second coup. In the new situation of >cold war=, there could be no further collaboration with the PSP, which was declared illegal in July1953:
ABatista outlawed the Party in 1953". (Robert Scheer & Maurice Zeitlin: >Cuba:An American Tragedy=; Harmondsworth; 1964; p. 125).
The PSP criticised the Batista coup in words:
AThe Communist Party . . . roundly condemned Batista=s [email protected]; (K.S. Karol: op. cit.; p. 129).
but opposed revolutionary struggle against the regime in favour of:
Aresisting the government with every peaceful expression of the popular [email protected](Popular Socialist Party: Letter to the 26th of July Movement, 28 February 1957, in: Theodore Draper (1965): op. cit.; p. 30).
As the Executive Committee of the party summed it up after the Revolution:
ADuring most of the years of the tyranny, the Party tried to avoid [email protected] (Theses of the Executive Committee of the Popular Socialist Party, in: >World Marxist Review=, Volume 2, No. 4 (April 1959); p. 69).
Indeed, the PSP strongly repudiated the Castroists= attack on the Moncada barracks as
A a putschist attempt, a desperate form of adventurism, typical petty-bourgeois circles lacking in principle and implicated in [email protected] (Popular Socialist Party; Statement of August 1953: in: K. S. Karol: op. cit.; p. 139).
As an organisation, therefore, the PSP took no part in the Cuban Revolution. The first contacts with the 26th of July Movement by the PSP were not made until July 1959, when one of its leaders,
ACarlos Rafael Rodriguez*. . . went to the Sierra to confer with Castro, apparently [email protected](Robert Scheer & Maurice Zeitlin: op. Cit.; p.129).
In spite of this contact, no formal agreement was made by the PSP to assist the >26th of July Movement=. Conrado Bequer, General Secretary of the Federation of Sugar Workers of Cuba, testified in 1959:
AThe Communists never helped the 26 July Movement until 26 December -five days before the fall of the Batista [email protected](>New York Times=, 31 May 1959, Section 4; p. 4).
In fact,
ABy January 1, 1959, the guerilla movement had won, . without the PSP ever clearly defining its position with respect to Castro (Andres Suarez ACuba, Castro and Communism: 1959-1966"; Cambridge (USA); 1967; p. 29).
Thus, the Popular Socialist Party played no role as an organisation in the Cuban Revolution of 1952-59.
Or, as Blas Roca admitted apologetically at the National Congress of the PSP in August 1960:
AThe Party . . . failed to grasp the profound significance of Fidel Castro=s revolutionary [email protected] (Bias Roca: Speech at National Congress of PSP, August 1960, in: K. S.Karol:op. cit.; p. 149).
THE CHARACTER OF THE CUBAN REVOLUTION (1953-59)
Marxism-Leninism maintains that only a revolution which places the working class
in political power can lead to the building of a stable socialist society:
"The proletariat . . . alone is able . . . to retain power sufficiently long to suppress completely all the exploiters as well as all the elements of disintegration". (V.I. Lenin: 'The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Government', (March-April 1918), in: 'Collected Works' Volume 27; Moscow; 1965; p. 265).
But the working class played virtually no role in the Cuban revolution:
"Neither in its first, nor in its second phase can the revolution be described as proletarian; the proletariat . . . had taken little part in the struggle".(Boris Goldenberg: op.cit.; p. 295).
"The alleged role of the working class in this revolution is fanciful" (Theodore Draper (1952): op. cit.; p. 45).
"Working class action could not be the decisive factor owing to a number of circumstances". (Blas Roca: 'The Cuban Revolution in Action'' in: 'World Marxist Review', Volume 2, No. 8 (August 1959); p. 17).
"Labour had in no way participated (in the revolution -- Ed.)". (Jose R. Alvarez Diaz: 'The Road to Nowhere: Castro's Rise and Fall'; Miami; 1965; p. 5).
"Our revolution is not a revolution made by labour unions or wage workers in the city or by labour parties, or by anything like that". (C. Wright Mills: 'Listen, Yankee: The Revolution in Cuba'; New York; 1960; p. 46).
Nor was the revolution made by the peasantry:
"As for the 'peasants', most of them . . remained passive during the whole period (of the revolution - Ed.). .The revolution was not a peasant revolution". (Boris Goldenberg: op. cit.; p. 145, 295),).
"The peasantry never had its hands on any of the levers of command of the revolution, before or after the victory". (Theodore Draper (1962): op. cit.; p. 44).
The revolution was in fact made by petty bourgeois intellectuals.
Of the two pre-eminent leaders of the '26th of July Movement', Fidel Castro was
"A 32-year-old lawyer, the son of a wealthy sugar planter"; ('Keesing 's Contemporary Archives', Volume 12; p. 16,631).
while Argentinian-born Ernesto Guevara* (known as 'Che', an Argentinian word
meaning 'pal') was: "A doctor of medicine". ('Webster's Biograohical Dictionary'; Springfield (USA); 1974; p. 639).
"The armed struggle was initiated by the petty bourgeoisie. The political leadership of the armed struggle was in the hands of the petty bourgeoisie". (Blas Roca: 'The Cuban Revolution in Action , in: 'World Marxist Review', Volume 2, No. 8 (August 1959); p. 17).
"Those who had started and directed the revolution belonged primarily to the middle class". (Jose R. Alvarez Diaz: op. cit.; p, 5).
"The frustrated young intellectuals . . . played a leading role". (Boris Goldenberg: op. cit.; p. 297).
"Its (the revolution's -~ Ed.) leaders have been young intellectuals": (C.Wright Mlills: op. cit.; p. 46).
"The Cuban revolution was exclusively a middle-class revolution. The character of an army is established by its leadership and cadres, which remained almost exclusively middle class throughout. Every one attended a university (some in the United States), came from an upper- or middle-class home, and became or aspired to become a professional or intellectual. The revolution was made and always controlled by declassed sons and daughters of the middle class. When I visited Cuba (in 1960-- Ed.) . . . everyone I met in any position of authority was obviously petty bourgeois in origin". (Theodore Draper (1962): op. cit.; p. 10, 13, 54, 44, 117).
But Marxism-Leninism teaches that the petty bourgeoisie is a social class which is incapable of holding political power or even of independent class action:
"The petty bourgeois democrats are incapable of holding power". (Vladimir I. Lenin: Theses for a Report on the Tactics of the RCP, 3rd Congress of Communist International (June 1921), in: Collected Works; Volume 32; Moscow; 1965; p. 461).
"Owing to the basi features of its economic position, the petty bourgeoisie is incapable of doing anything independently". (Vladimir I. Lenin: 'The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky' (October-November 1918), in: 'Collected Works', Volume 28; Moscow; 1965; p.301).
"The petty bourgeoisie . . . cannot, by the very economic nature of things, be anything else than the expression of class impotence (Vladimir I. Lenin: 'The Tax in Kind' (April 1921), in: 'Collected Works', Volume 32; Moscow; 1965; p. 359).
The petty bourgeoisie is capable of class action only in the service of the bourgeoisie:
"The petty bourgeois democrats have always tailed after the bourgeoisie as a feeble appendage to them (Vladimir I. Lenin: 'Lessons of the Revolution' (July 1917), in: 'Collected Works', Volume 25; Moscow; 1964; p. 238).
"The petty bourgeois democrats . .always serve merely as a screen for the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, and a stepping stone to its undivided power". (Vladimir I. Lenin: Theses for a Report on the Tactics of the RCP, 3rd Congress of the Communist International (June 1921), in: 'Collected Works', Volume 32; Moscow; 1965; p. 461).
"The petty bourgeoisie are in real life dependent upon the bourgeoisie and follow the bourgeoisie in their outlook". (Vladimir I. Lenin: 'The Tasks of the Proletariat in Our Revolution'' (September 1917), in: 'Collected Works', Volume 24; Moscow; 1964; p. 62),
In the myth which they created, the leaders of the revolution presented themselves as spiritual representatives of the peasantry:
According to Castro himself, the Cuban Revolution was:
"A peasant revolution". (Fidel Castro, in: Theodore Draper (1962): op. cit.; p. 7).
"The revolution was principally the work of the dispossessed peasantry of Cuba". (Fidel Castro, in: Theodore Draper(1965): p. 124).
And Guevara was in agreement:
"The strength of the revolutionary movement centred around the peasants at first". (Ernesto Guevara: 'On Sacrifice and Dedication', in: John Gerassi (Ed.): 'Venceremos! The Speeches and Writings of Ernesto Che Guevara'; London; 1969; p. 146).
"The guerilla fighter is above all an agrarian revolutionary. He interprets the desires of the great peasant mass". (Ernesto Guevara: 'Guerrilla Warfare'; Harmondsworth; 1969; p. 126).
""Fidel Castro is . ..the embodiment of the revolutionary will and energy of the peasantry"; (Leo Huberman & Paul M. Sweezy: 'Cuba: Anatomy of a Revolution'; London; 1960; p. 78).
Also, the Cuban guerilla force was not led by a Marxist-Leninist Party --or, indeed, by any party at all -- nor guided by Marxist ideology:
"In Cuba it was not the party that was the directive nucleus of the popular army. The ideology of the Cuban Rebel Army was not Marxist". (Regis Debray: 'Revolution in the Revolution? Armed Struggle and Political Struggle in Latin America' (hereafter listed as 'Reigis Debray, (1968); New York; 1967; p. 106-07), Harmondsworth; 1968; p. 105).
In fact, prior to the autumn of 1959 Castro made no attempt to conceal his opposition to Communism. He was indeed:
"A radical middle-class democrat whose ideal was democratic capitalist America". (Peter Taaffe: op. cit.; p. 5).
In February 1958 Castro told the American magazine 'Coronet':
"We have no plans for the expropriation or nationalisation of foreign investments here. Foreign investments will always be welcome and secure here". (Fidel Castro: 'Why we fight', in 'Coronet', Volume 43, No. 4 (February 1958); p. 84, 85).
After the victory of the revolution, on 2 April 1959, just before he left for a visit to the United States at the invitation of the American Association of Newspaper Editors,
"Castro told a television audience . . . that he was going to the US to secure credits". (Hugh Thomas: op. cit.; p. 425).
Minister of the Economy Regino Boti, who accompanied Castro to America, is on record as telling economist Felipe Pazos on their arrival:
"We have no intention of asking now, during Castro's visit, for aid, but you, Pazos, will return in a fortnight to make a request (Hugh Thomas: op. cit.; p. 425).
During his visit to the United States, Castro assured his audiences his anti-Communist views and the safety of foreign investments in Cuba. said on American TV:
"I am not a Communist, nor do I agree with communism". (Fidel Castro" 'Meet the Press' Programme, in: 'Castro'; Paul Humphrey: Hove; 1981; p. 42-43).
"Dr. Castro . . . has stated repeatedly that his movement is not Communist and that if Cuba can obtain some degree of prosperity, Communism cannot grow there". ('Times', 20 April 1959; p. 8).
"Dr.Fidel Castro . . . went before the National Press Club here today to repeat his assurances made so often during his visit to the capital that he means nothing but friendship to the United States, that there are no Communists in his Government, that he has no plans to expropriate any foreign holdings in Cuba"., ('Times', 21 April 1959; p. 11).
Castro had no difficulty in convincing the CIA of his anti-Communism:
"Even more bizarre, Castro was prevailed on to meet the CIA's chief expert on Communism in Latin America, a Central European named Droller: the two talked privately for three hours, and afterwards Droller told Lopez Fresquet: 'Castro is not only not a Communist, he is a strong anti-Communist fighter"' (Hugh Thomas: op. cit.; p. 431).
After leaving the USA, on 21 May 1959 Castro described Communism as a system
"Which suppresses liberties, the liberties which are so dear to man." (Fidel Castro, in: 'Revolucion, 21 May 1959, in: Theodore Draper (1965): op. cit,; p. 37).
He told an old friend:
"Communism is the dictatorship of a single class and I . . . have fought all my life against dictatorship". (Hugh Thomas: op. cit.; p. 432).
On 21 May 1959, Castro said in a televised speech:
"Capitalism sacrifices man, the Communist state sacrifices man. . Our revolution is not red, but olive-green, the colour of the rebel army". ('Guia del Pensiamento politicoeconomico de Fidel' (Guide to the Politico-economic Thought of Fidel); Havana; 1959; p. 48).
Writing in the 'New York Times' in July 1959, Herbert Matthews*, a senior editor on the newspaper, declared emphatically:
"Castro .. . is not only not a Communist, but decidedly anti-Communist". (Herbert Matthews: 'New York Times', 16 July 1959; p. 2).
The US Ambassador to Cuba, Philip Bonsal*, was convinced
"That Castro was not a Communist (Jaime Suchlicki: op. cit.; p. 30).
And as late as November 1959, the Deputy Director-General of the CIA, Charles Cabell*, was assuring the Senate Internal Security Committee:
"The Cuban Communists do not consider him (Castro -- Ed.) . . even a pro-Communist."(Robert Scheer & Maurice Zeitlin: op. cit.; p. 120).
THE AGRARIAN REFORM (1959-62)
We have seen that) in the myth which they created, the leaders of the Cuban Revolution presented themselves as spiritual representatives of the peasantry. Accordingly, the first major piece of legislation adopted by the new Cuban government, in May 1959, was a land reform law.
Prior to the reform:
"Only 16% of the land was directly cultivated by its owners. Tenant farming, sharecropping and hired farm labour were the norm." (Jaime Suchlicki: op. cit.; p. 8).
This position was radically altered by the agrarian reform, as a result of which
"It was estimated that about 8.3 million acres of expropriated land would be available for redistribution." ('Keesing's Contemporary Archives', Volume 12; p. 16,902).
"The first Agrarian Reform Law was the fist major act of the new revolutionary government on coming to power. It expropriated the latifunda from the major landowners . . distributed part of them to such peasants as were landless, and set an upper limit to the amount of land which could remain in private property". (John & Peter Griffiths (Ed.): 'Cuba: The Second Decade'; London; 1979; p.84).
"The first Agrarian Reform Law. distributed land to the small. farmers who cultivated food and tobacco, and expropriated the large latifundios -- turning the cattle ranches into granjas (state farms - Ed.)". (Martin Kenner & James Petras (Eds.): 'Fidel Castro Speaks'; London; 1970; p. 37).
"Tenants . . were the first to benefit from the land reform decree of May 17 1959. They were given the titles to the land they farmed, had their holdings increased to a total of 190 acres, and were granted subsidies to work them efficiently". (K.S. Karol: op. cit.; p. 22).
"More than 5,500 poor peasants had benefited from the reform by the spring of 1961". (K. S. Karol: op. cit.,; p. 30).
Expropriation of land and industrial enterprises (mainly sugar-mills) estates was subject to compensation in state bonds:
"Compensation for expropriated land or industrial installations would be in Cuban Government bonds bearing 4.5% interest per annum and repayable in 20 years". ('Keesing's Contemporary Archives', Volume 12; p. 16,902).
The effecting of the agrarian reform was placed in the hands of a 'National Institute of Agrarian Reform' (NIAR):
"A National Institute of Agrarian Reform, headed by Dr. Castro, would decide which lands were to be expropriated and redistributed, provide financial help to new tenant-farmers ('Keesing's Contemporary Archives', Volume 12; p. 16,901).
One feature of the agrarian reform was that it included the expropriation of US-owned sugar mills and plantations:
"The agrarian reform law involved the expropriation of the American-owned sugar-mills and plantations in Cuba - covering 1.7 million acres of land, representing a total investment of about $275 million and accounting for 40% of Cuba's sugar production." ('Keesing's Contemporary Archives', Volume 12; p. 16,902).
Althou8h some of the large-scale farms established by the agrarian reform law were known at first as 'cooperatives', they were not true cooperatives. They did not have members who administered them and divided the profits among themselves; the workers were state employees who received a wage:
"The cooperatives from the start did not ever signify what that word usually means: NIAR appointed the manager of the enterprise. . . . The workers were paid about $2.50 a day'. (Hugh Thomas: op. cit. p. 438).
But the actual amount depended on the profits of the farm.
"The 'cooperatives' . . . were cooperatives in name only. In practice, as Rodriguez later admitted, they had been transformed into granjas del pueblo, or state farms. NIAR administered them from above without in the least taking their members' wishes into account, giving them any voice in their affairs, or even holding pro forma meetings. The cooperatives had all the disadvantages of state farms and none of the advantages, the most important of the latter being a guaranteed wage". (Theodore Draper (1965): op. cit.; p.140).
As a result, the 'cooperatives' quickly became very unpopular with the peasants:
"In November 1961, Castro himself remarked that the peasants had become so 'allergic' to the cooperatives that they 'feared' the very word. In June 1962, Rodriguez reported that the cooperatives had become 'dead organisms' and their members had been shifting to the granias (state farms - Ed.) and private farms". (Theodore Draper (1965): op. cit.; p. 140).
In August 1962, the 'cooperatives':
"Were officially transformed into granjas (state farms --Ed . ) (Theodore Draper (1965): op. cit.; p. 140).
CUBAN-US RELATIONS (1959)
At first representatives of US imperialism were friendly and well disposed towards the new regime in Cuba. On 3 January 1959 it was reported that:
"US Department of State officials are . . . cautiously optimistic about the new Cuban government's future economic and political policies". (Robert Scheer & Maurice Zeitlin: op. cit.; p. 277).
On 8 January 1959 the United States recognised the new Cuban regime, Note of recognition expressing:
"The sincere goodwill of the Government and people of the United States towards the new Government and the people of Cuba". (US Department of State: 'Bulletin', Volume 40, No. 1,022 (26 January 1959); p. 128).
This goodwill on the part of the US imperialists towards the new Cuban government continued in spite of the agrarian reform law of May 1959, which was no more radical than land reform laws adopted in other countries with US support. In the Cuban case, for example,
"The rates of interest proposed on the bonds were higher than the General MacArthur's* Agrarian Reform in Japan… The law of Agrarian Reform, on analysis, turned out to be as modest as many other such laws in democracies.." (Hugh Thomas: op. cit.; p. 437, 442).
The only adverse US action on the law was an official Note to Cuba on 11 June 1959 expressing
"Serious concern", ('New York Times', 12 June 1959; p. 10),
on the grounds that such:
"A widespread redistribution of land, which might have serious adverse effects on productivity, could prove harmful to the general economy". ('New York Times', ibid.; p. 10).
and demanding:
"A prompt, adequate and effective compensation". ('New York Times', ibid.; p. 10).
On 15 June:
"Cuba formally rejected the US Note of 11 June. The Cuban reply was, however, moderate in many ways". (Hugh Thomas: op. cit.; p. 448).
THE CRISIS IN CUBAN-US RELATIONS (1960)
In February 1960 Anastas Mikoyan*, First Deputy Prime Minister of the revisionist Soviet Union, paid an official visit to Cuba. Among the documents signed during his visit was one by which the Soviet Union:
"Agreed to grant Cuba a loan of $100 million . . . bearing a 2.5% interest". ('Keesing's Contemporary Archives', Volume 12; p. 17,589).
and a trade agreement for the exchange of Soviet crude oil for Cuban sugar. This agreement was advantageous for the Cuban government, since it allowed Cuba:
"To import the cheaper Soviet crude -- the Soviets chose to make it cheaper, and besides, Cuba would be paying for it with sugar, instead of dollars, under the Mikoyan accord". (Tad Szulc: 'Fidel: A Critical Portrait'; London; 1987; p. 417).
From the moment this trade agreement was published, the attitude of the United States government towards Cuba became one of undisguised hostility:
"The United States quickly interpreted Castro's . . trade deal with the Soviet Union in 1960 as meaning that Cuba had become a Communist satellite". (William A. Williams: 'The United States, Cuba and Castro: An Essay on the Dynamics of Revolution and the Dissolution of Empire'; New York; 1962; p. 139).
"Beginning in March 1960 the United States began to work for the downfall of the Castro regime". (Lilia Ferro-Clerico & Wayne S. Smith: 'The US Trade Embargo', in: Wayne S.Smith & Esteban Morales Dominguez (Eds.): 'Subject to Solution: Problems in Cuban-US Relations'; Boulder (USA); 1988; p. 80).
"The new American policy - not announced as such, but implicit in the actions of the United States government -- was one of overthrowing Castro by all the means available to the US short of the open employment of the American Armed Forces in Cuba". (Philip Bonsai: op. cit.; p. 135).
Although he had been appointed in January, the arrival of the new American Ambassador for Cuba was delayed until 19 February to demonstrate US displeasure with the Castro government:
"The long delay in replacing Smith by Bonsai involved an official move to show displeasure with the new Cuban government". (William A. Williams: op. cit.; p. 37).
By the beginning of March 1960, the US administration was making preparations to impose economic sanctions on Cuba by introducing legislation empowering the President to cut the Cuban sugar quota (the agreed amount of sugar to be imported into the USA each year). It:
"Introduced a bill into the Senate which gave President Eisenhower power authority to cut the Cuban sugar quota if there should be need". (Hugh Thomas: op. cit.; p. 492).
It was in accordance with this political line that in March 1960:
"The formal American decision to arm and train an exile army was . . . made". (William A. Williams: op. cit.; p. 139).
"President Eisenhower accepted a recommendation of the Central Intelligence Agency to begin to arm and train Cuban exiles". (Hugh Thomas: op. cit.; p. 493).
On 23 May 1960:
"The three large oil refineries in Cuba -- Texaco, Royal Dutch and Standard Oil - were told by the government that a large consignment of Russian oil, in pursuance of the accord of February, would soon arrive, and they would henceforth be asked to process 6,000 lbs. crude oil a day." (Hugh Thomas: op. cit.; p. 506).
On the advice of the US government, the oil companies refused:
"The great oil companies in mid-June at last replied that they would not process Russian oil. . . . The Cubans' case derived from a law of 1938 providing that foreign refineries were required to process Cuban crude oil. . . . The secretary of the US Treasury had strongly urged a refusal by the companies to process the oil". (Hugh Thomas: op. cit.; p. 510).
"The three big oil companies (Jersey Standard, Texaco and Shell), under pressure from the US government, refused to refine the Russian oil". (Peter Taaffe: op. cit.; p. 6).
"The US government had encouraged them not to refine the Soviet oil". (Lilia Ferro~lerico & Wayne S. Smith: 'The US Trade Embargo', in: Wayne S.Smith & Morales Estaban Dominguez (Eds): op. cit.; p. 79).
On 27 May 1960 the USA terminated all economic 'aid' to Cuba as
"no longer in the national and hemispheric interests of the United States". ('Keesing's Contemporary Archives', Volume 12; p. 17,541).
On 28 June 1960:
"Castro signed the order saying that the Texaco oil refinery in Santiago had to refine the Soviet crude oil or be expropriated. . . . On 30 June the Esso and Shell refineries were taken over in Havana." (Hugh Thomas: op. cit.; p. 511).
"Castro seized all three refineries". (Tad Szulc: op. cit.; p. 417).
"The Cuban government . . . 'intervened' (a form of supervision) and put the oil through. The companies retaliated by refusing to deliver oil from Venezuela. Cuba then agreed to take all its oil from Russia". (Peter Taaffe: op. cit.; p. 6).
"When the imperialist enterprises refused to process the crude oil purchased by us from the Soviet Union . . . and threatened to cut off all our oil supplies, introduction of control over the oil refineries became a matter of life or death for the country. There was no alternative. Either we had to do this or surrender, to submit to the diktat of the imperialist companies and agree to the country's economic life being paralysed". (Blas Roca: 'New Stage in the Cuban Revolution', in: 'World Marxist Review', Volume 4) No,. 10 (October 1961); p. 5).
On 5 July the Bill became law empowering the US President
"To determine Cuba's sugar import quota in the USA for the remaining months of 1960 and the first three months of 1961". ('Keesing's Contemporary Atchives', Volume 12; p. 17,542).
Eisenhower immediately acted to cut the quota by 700,000 tons:
"Eisenhower decided to go the whole hog. On July 6 he reduced the quota for Cuba by 700,000 tons". (Hugh Thomas: op. cit.; p. 511).
"Eisenhower stated that 'this action amounts to economic sanctions against Cuba. Now we must look for to other moves -- economic, diplomatic and strategic"'. (Lilia Ferro-Clerico & Wayne S. Smith1 in: Wayne S. Smith & Esteban Morales Dominguez (Eds.): op. cit.; op. cit.; p. 79).
This move:
"Was calculated to bring the Castro regime to its knees. But immediately Russia stepped in and agreed to take the 700,000 tons of sugar". (Peter Taaffe: op. cit.; p. 6).
"The Soviet Union immediately stepped in to announce that it would buy the 700,000 tons of sugar cut by the United States". (Lilia Ferro-Clerico & Wayne S. Smith, in: Wayne S. Smith & Esteban Morales Dominguez (Eds.): op. cit.; p. 79).
Meanwhile, in retaliation for the US action on the sugar quota, on July, a Cuban decree was approved empowering the government to:
"Nationalise the property of all US companies and citizens in Cuba … whenever this was deemed necessary in the national interest… The nationalisation decree was obviously intended as a retaliatory .. action to the impending reduction in the Cuban sugar quota for the US market". ('Keesing's Contemporary Archives', Volume 12; p. 17,541).
"On July 5, Cuba . . . retaliated for the Sugar Act by nationalising all US businesses and commercial property in Cuba". (Lilia Ferro-Clerico & Wayne S. Smith, in: Wayne S. Smith & Estaban Morales Dominguez (Eds): op. cit.; p. 79).
"The Cubans expropriated all US-owned property". (Theodore Draper (1965): op. cit.; p. 144).
On 6 July 1960 the US government sent to Havana a Note of protest at the seizure of the American oil refineries, charging that this was:
"a violation of accepted standards of ethics and morality in the free world". ('Keesing's Contemporary Archives', Volume 12; p. 17,542).
On 19 August 1960 the US government made it illegal for:
"countries receiving US aid to use these funds to buy sugar from Cuba". ('Keesing's Contemporary Archives', Volume 12; p. 17,629).
In the same month, plans were prepared in the CIA to assassinate Castro:
"In August 1960 Mr. Richard M. Bissell approached Colonel Sheffield Edwards to determine if the Office of Security had assets that may assist in a sensitive mission requiring gangster-type action. The mission target was the liquidation of Fidel Castro". (CIA: Internal Memorandum, in: Tad Szulc: op. cit.; p. 422).
In October 1960 the Cuban government took measures of nationalisation measures against other foreign-owned enterprises, as well as against a number of Cuban enterprises:
"The response in Cuba was swift. During the weekend of 14-15 October… INRA took over 382 large private enterprises in Cuba, including all the banks (except two Canadian ones), all the remaining private sugar mills, 18 distilleries, 61 textile mills, 16 rice mills, 11 cinemas and 13 large stores". (Hugh Thomas: op. cit.; p. 519).
"The Government nationalised all Cuban-owned banks and 382 other companies, including most of the large industrial, commercial and transport companies". ('Keesing's Contemporary Archives', Volume 12; p. 17,787).
In this way:
"the Government acquired possession of all the 161 mills in Cuba. . . . The other enterprises affected included all textile factories, 8 railways1 47 commercial warehouses, 13 department stores, 11 coffee companies, 6 distilleries, 16 rice mills and 11 cinema circuits ('Keesing's Contemporary Archives', Volume 12; p. 17,787).
On 19 October 1960, the US government imposed an embargo:
"On all exports to Cuba, except medical supplies and unsubsidised foodstuffs". ('Keesing's Contemporary Archives', Volume 12; p. 17,787).
"The United States retaliated with a trade embargo". (Theodore Draper (1965): op. cit.; p. 144).
"The embargo . . . was intended to serve as a deterrent to other countries that might consider such nationalisations, that is, to thus protect the interests of US property owners (Lilia Ferro-Clerico & Wayne S. Smith1 in: Wayne S.Smith and Esteban-Morales Dominguez (Eds): op. cit.; p. 80).
On 29 October 1960:
"Ambassador Bonsal was withdrawn for an 'extended period of consultation'. He never returned". (Hugh Thomas: op. cit.; p. 519-20).
On 8 December 1960, the Royal Bank of Canada in Cuba was nationalised. ('Keesing's Contemporary Archives', Volume 12; p. 17,833). On 3 January 1961:
"President Eisenhower announced the severing of diplomatic ties with Cuba". (Haynes B. Johnson: 'The Bay of Pigs: The Invasion of Cuba by Brigade 2506'; London; 1964; p. 58).
THE BAY OF PIGS INVASION OF CUBA (1961)
On 17 April 1961, Cuban counter-revolutionaries in exile in the United States staged an attempt to invade Cuba at the Bay of Pigs on the southern coast of the island. ('Keesing's Contemporary Archives', Volume 13; p. 18,151). The operation had been planned by leading officials of US imperialism:
"Although the CIA was entrusted with the day-to-day operation of the Cuban counter-revolutionary force, the overall planning was debated in Washington at the highest level by what was called 'the special group --a group of officials of the State Department, Pentagon, CIA and White House, who met periodically about Cuba". (Haynes B. Johnson: op. cit.; p. 53).
"US journalists reported the existence of bases in Guatemala where US military instructors were training Cuban exiles in commando warfare and in the use of the most modern US weapons". (Ivison Macadam (Ed.): 'Annual Register of World Events: A Review of the Year 1961'; London; 1962; p. 192).
In view of its clear violation of international law, American participation in the operation was kept secret:
"It was vital for the American involvement to be kept both secret and at a minimum in the actual landing and fighting". (Haynes B. Johnson: op.cit.; p. 66).
Nevertheless, the US President, John Kennedy*,
"Permitted the US navy to convoy the invaders to Cuban waters ('Encyclopedia Americana', Volume 8; Danbury (USA); 1981; p. 304).
The invasion failed, and :
"Over 1,200" were captured. ('Keesing's Contemporary Archives', Volume 13; p. 18,151).
On 26 April 1961 Cuba was excluded from the Inter-American Defence Board. ('Keesing's Contemporary Archives', Volume 13; p. 18,716).
On 30 April 1961 the US government advised all US nationals living in Cuba to leave the island". ('Keesing's Contemporary Archives', Volume 13; p. 18,154).
CUBA BECOMES A SOVIET SEMI-COLONY(1961-63)
The Soviet revisionists were, of course, prepared to offer 'aid' to Cuba only at a price -- and the price was the acceptance by Cuba of a semi-colonial status to the Soviet Union. Thus,
"by March 1962, Soviet bloc 'advisers' had become ubiquitous in the Cuban administrative apparatus". (Theodore Draper (1965): op. cit. p. 148).
Eventually, Cuba became:
"much more dependent on the Eastern countries than it had been on the United States'. (Boris Goldenberg: op. cit.; p. 200).
In 1986, Hugh Thomas* could write:
"Russia plays almost as great a part in Cuban politics as the US did in the past". (Hugh Thomas: op. cit.; p. 701).,
For its part, the Cuban government:
"Aimed to increase their leverage over the Soviet Union by becoming its indispensable ally in the Third World". (Sebastian Balfour: 'Castro'; London; 1990; p. 120).
In April 1961 Guevara could still stress the necessity for Cuba to break with the semi-colonial pattern of dependence upon a single export crop, in favour of industrialisation and diversification:
"Under-development or distorted development, carries with it a dangerous specialisation in raw materials, containing a threat of hunger for all our people. We, 'the underdeveloped', are those of the single crop, the single product, and the single market. A single product whose uncertain sale depends upon a single market, which imposes and sets conditions. This is the great formula of imperial economic domination which is combined with the old and always useful Roman formula, 'divide and conquer". (Ernesto Guevara: 'Cuba - Exception or Vanguard?', in: John Gerassi (Ed.): op. cit.; p. 135).
"Once settled in the Ministry of Industries, Che began to speed up the industrialisation of Cuba. . Along with industrialisation went the companion aim of diversification (Daniel James: 'Che' Guevara'; London; 1970; p. 123).
"The regime in Cuba intended now to diversify her agriculture so that in a very short time. . . . she need no longer rely on sugar". (Hugh Thomas: op. cit.; p. 512).
But diversification and industrialisation were not compatible with the desires of the Soviet revisionists that Cuba should take up a semi-colonial position to the Soviet Union. Under Soviet pressure, therefore, these plans were abandoned in favour of continued concentration upon the growing of sugar for export.
In August 1963:
"Castro announced . . . that his whole new economic policy was postulated on a spectacular increase in sugar production, aimed at reaching 10 million tons by 1970. Agricultural diversification went backward instead of forward. For example, rice production had advanced to a high point of 181,000 tons in 1957, two years before Castro, and plunged to 95,400 tons in 1962, after three years of Castro. Cuba had been forced to reorganise its entire economy'. (Theodore Draper (1965): pop. cit.; p. 172, 227, 230).
As Guevara had expressed the position earlier:
"We must change our entire system of production to adapt it to those countries that supply us with raw materials and spare parts (Ernesto Guevara, in: Boris Goldenberg: op. cit.; p. 20).
"Castro announced a reorientation of the Cuban economy towards agriculture, in particular the growing of sugar cane and cattle-raising". ('Keesing's Contemporary Archives", Volume 18; p. 24,524).
Alban Lataste, the Deputy Minister of the Economy, explained this to a Yugoslav correspondent in 1964 in typical revisionist double-talk:
"We are now aware that we can overcome monoculture solely by developing that same monoculture further". (Alban Lataste, in: 'Borba' (Struggle), 28 December 1964; p. 3).
To the Cuban people, the increased dependence upon sugar exports was put in the pseudo-Marxist terms of the 'international division of labour':
"In his report on his Soviet tour on June 4 (1963-- Ed.) Castro made known that an international division of labour' was necessary, according to which Cuba should specialise in what she was best fitted for by nature, namely agriculture". (Thedore Draper (1965): op. cit. p~ 169).
THE FORMATION OF A SINGLE PARTY(1960-61)
We have seen that the leaders of the Cuban Revolution, while claiming to represent the interests of the Cuban peasantry, objectively represented initially the interests of the Cuban national bourgeoisie, whose interests were served by national liberation from American imperialism. On the other hand, the leaders of the Popular Socialist Party, with their policy of 'striving for national liberation from imperialism by peaceful means objectively represented the interests of the pro-imperialist Cuban comprador bourgeoisie.
Once the revolution had achieved victory, however, the Popular Socialist Party, although it had played no active role in the revolution, having claimed to stand for national liberation -- had no alternative but to declare its support for the revolution:
"The Party . . . supports the new regime". (Theses of the Executive Committee of the Popular Socialist Party of Cuba, in: 'World Marxist Review', Volume 2, No. 4 (April 1959); p., 69).
Forced by circumstances to accept a semi-colonial position to Soviet imperialism the Cuban leaders sought to make this position as little onerous as possible and themselves as secure as possible from the ever-present threat of US imperialist intervention.
They calculated that these objectives were most likely to be achieved if they could present Cuba as a 'fraternal socialist country', morally entitled to the support and protection of the Soviet bloc.
This ploy required a party that could be presented as a 'Marxist-Leninist Party'. As we have seen, those who had led the revolution had nothing that could be called a political party of any kind, and they were therefore compelled to turn to the only left-wing political party which did exist, the revisionist Popular Socialist Party which, although it had taken no active part in the revolution, declared its support for this revolution once it had been victorious:
"Fidel Castro . . . needed the help of the trained cadres of Cuba's Communist Party (the PSP -- Ed.) in carrying Out his ambitious programme" ('Encylopedia Americana', Volume 8; Danbury (USA); 1981;
"In a country without political organisation and without institutions, the attractions for Castro of turning to the Communist party (the PSP --Ed.) must have been strong". (Hugh Thomas: op. cit.; p. 444).
But the revisionist PSP was severely:
"Tarnished by its previous association with Batista and by its refusal until almost the last moment to engage in armed struggle against him". (Theodore Draper (1962): op. cit.; p. 205).
In these circumstances, it was clearly impossible for the Castroites to join the Popular Socialist Party.
What they needed was the help of the experienced cadres of the PSP in building a
new party under their:control
"Fidel could not simply join the PSP without losing face. . . . A new organisation, which did not have to bear the burden of the PSP's long and chequered history, was obviously preferable". (Theodore Draper (1962): Op. cit.; p. 122).
"Castro insisted from the outset that the 'old' Communist Communist Party be absorbed into a 'new' Communist Party under his leadership". (Tad Szulc: Op. cit.; p. 377).
The PSP had little choice but to accept this position:
"The Communists (the PSP -Ed.) agreed to recognise Castro as the leader of the new party; Castro agreed to recognise the party as the leader of the revolution". (Theodore Draper (1962): op. cit.; p. 142).
The first step in the programme was that:
"Classes began in Marxism-Leninism", (Hugh Thomas: op. cit.; p. 536).
organised by the cadres of the PSP. Then, in March 1961, on Castro's initiative, all existing political parties - the Castro's '26th of July Movement', the students' 'Revolutionary Directorate' and the 'Popular Socialist Party' -- were merged into a single organisation, the 'Integral Revolutionary Organisations' (IRO):
"Castro . . . authorised the first stage in the development of single government party . . . in the form of the IRO"; (Theodore Draper (1965): op. cit.; p. 136).
This was a federal organisation, in which:
"Each party retained its identity and autonomy". (Tad Szulc: op. cit.; p. 379).
For the first six months of its existence the IRO was under PSP control:
"The IRO had been functioning for at least six months on the basis of virtually complete PSP control". (Theodore Draper (1962): op. cit.; p. 206).
having as organiser a PSP leader, Anibal Escalante*:
"Anibal Escalante . . . was given the task of organising the IRO". (Tad Szulc: op. cit.; p. 462).
In July 1961 Castro announced that it was the government's intention that Cuba should
"Eventually become a one-party State," ('Keesing's Contemporary Archives', Volume 13; p. 18,502).
On 1 December 1961 the 'Integral Revolutionary Organisations' was transformed into a unitary party, the 'United Party of the Socialist Revolution '.
A 'SOCIALIST' REVOLUTION(1961)
Continuing the process of presenting Cuba as a 'socialist' state deserving of fraternal support from the Soviet bloc, on 16 April 1961, in a speech by Castro,
"The revolution in Cuba was officially declared a socialist revolution": (Blas Roca: 'New Stage in the Cuban Revolution', in: 'World Marxist Review', Volume 4, No. 10 (October 1961); p. 2).
This propaganda was aimed at giving a measure of protection to Cuba against the threat from US imperialism:
"Castro soon saw . . . that the Soviets were not likely to provide the defence umbrella he wanted unless Cuba were a Marxist-Leninist state. Only then would there be a doctrinal imperative for them to come to his defence. Thus, the day before the Bay of Pigs invasion, in a transparent effort to force the Soviets to guarantee Cuba's security, Castro declared his revolution to be socialist". (Wayne S. Smith: 'US-Cuba Relations: Twenty-Five Years of Hostility', in: Sandor Halebsky & John M. Kirk (Eds.):'Cuba: Twenty-Five Years of Revolution:1959-1984' (hereafter listed as: 'Sandor Halebsky & John M. Kirk (Eds.) (1985)'; New York; 1985; p. 337).
And on 1 December 1961, Castro publicly declared:
"I am a Marxist-Leninist, and I will be one until the last day of my life". (Fidel Castro: Speech of 1 December 1961, in: Theodore Draper (1962): op. cit.; p. 147).
THE CONTRADICTIONS WITHIN THE UNIFIED PARTY
We have seen that the Castroites initially presented themselves as representing the interests of the Cuban peasantry, while in fact, objectively, they represented the interests of the Cuban national bourgeoisie. In the circumstances of liberated Cuba, where capital was now in extremely short supply, the Castroites took the view that the independent economic development of Cuba could be achieved only by using the state machinery to develop capitalism, that is, only by developing state capitalism.
As we have seen, the leaders of the Popular Socialist Party represented the interests of the Cuban comprador bourgeoisie. After the victory of the revolution, they could no longer do this directly. They therefore argued against state capitalism, against nationalisation of the enterprises of the national bourgeoisie and in favour of their encouragement as private entrerpreneurs, understanding that -- in the post-Liberation conditions of Cuba -- this would necessarily involve aid from, and therefore dependence upon, foreign imperialism.
At the 8th Congress of the PSP in August 1960, Blas Roca of the PSP insisted that:
"Private enterprise that is not imperialistic . . . is still necessary". (Blas Roca in: Hugh Thomas: op. cit.: p. 513).
And he wrote in 1961:
"Another question of great import in this process is that of maintaining contact with the still-remaining private-capitalist sector. The procedure which we used in uprooting US imperialist domination, latifundism and big parasitic capital cannot be applied in extirpating the survivals of capitalism". (Blas Roca: 'New Stage in the Cuban Revolution', in: 'World Marxist Review', Volume 4, No. 10 (October 1961); p. 7).
In line with this strategy, the PSP insisted that the new revolutionary regime represented the interests of a coalition of classes, including the national bourgeoisie. It :
"Borrowed from Mao Tse-tung the concept of the 'four-class' bloc or alliance, made up of the middle class, peasants, workers and national bourgeoisie." (Theodore Draper (1965): op. cit.; p. 82-83).
As the PSP said:
"Power has passed into the hands of the 'Movement of July 26', led by Fidel Castro . . . with the national and petty bourgoisie playing the leading role". (Theses of the Executive Committee of the Popular Socialist Party of Cuba, in: 'World Marxist Review', Volume 2, No. 4 (April 1959); p. 68).
It insisted that the party would strive:
"To preserve and strengthen the alliance of all revolutionary and popular forces represented by the working class, the peasantry, the petty bourgeoisie and the national bourgeoisie (Theses of the Executive Committee of the Popular Socialist Party of Cuba, in: ibid.; p. 69).
"Anibal Escalante . . . opposed the confiscation of all private property, . . . adding that 'we maintain the strategy of the alliance of classes with which the revolution originated'. (Anibal Escalante, in: Tad Szulc: op. cit.; p. 421).
This was the main factor which created contradictions within the unified party that included both Castroites and former PSP leaders.
In a televised speech on 26 March 1962, Castro denounced former PSP leader Anibal Escalante for attempting:
"To systematically purge from high posts members of Castro's 26th of July Movement and substitute them with PSP cadres." (Jaime Suchucki: op. cit.; p. 101).
And for:
"Converting the IRO into an instrument for personal ends, into a 'tyranny', a 'strait jacket". (Theodore Draper (1962): op. cit.; p. 204).
"Castro singled out Anibal Escalante for some of the most withering accusations in his formidable arsenal of sarcastic invective. lie informed Cubans that Escalante had created 'a counter-revolutionary monstrosity' in IRO, that he had built up his own machine to take over the party and the government'. (Tad Szulc: op. cit.; p. 463).
Escalante:
" had been despatched the day before to Prague, being succeeded in his job at IRO by President Dorticos". (Hugh Thomas: op. cit. ; p. 601).
Although the criticism was ostensibly directed against Escalante personally, Castro made it clear that a whole group of former leaders of the PSP were involved:
"Castro made it abundantly clear that he was striking through Escalante at many others. The red thread through the whole speech
It's title is 'Cuban Revisionism'.
''Cuba is the largest and most westerly of the Greater Antilles island chain. It has a total area of approximately 110,000 square kilometres (about half the size of Britain) and a population of some 15 million. It lies about135 miles south off the tip of Florida Keys (USA). Its capital, Havana, has a population of about 2 million. The official language is Spanish, and its unit of currency is the peso.
After securing independence from Spain with United States assistance in 1902, Cuba remained until 1959 a semi-colony of United States imperialism, under the dictatorship of the Cuban comprador capitalist and landlord classes exercised in the last years under the puppet dictator Fulgencio Batista*.
>It was at the point of acquiring her independence that Cuba began to develop, and develop fast, all the characteristics of a colonial dependency Creole landowners, lacking economic resources to prevent massive American penetration, could not turn themselves into that class of entrepreneurs which presides over normal >capitalist development.= Cuba was transformed into a paradise for compradores, speculators and other agents in the service of the new masters. A (K.S.Karol: >Guerillas in Power: The Course of the Cuban Revolution=; London; 1971; p. 61).
AThe United States obtained the right to oversee Cuban foreign and internal affairs as well as to establish a naval base at Guantanamo Bay,@ (>New Encyclopaedia Britannica=, Volume 3: Micropaedia; Chicago; 1992; p. 773).
"Having at last established itself as a free republic (1902), Cuba became dependent upon the United States and remained so for half a [email protected] (>Encyclopedia Americana=, Volume 8; Danbury (USA); 1981; p. 294).
THE CUBAN REVOLUTION (1953-59)
On 26 July 1953 a band of guerillas led by Fidel Castro* made a raid upon an army post at Moncada in Santiago de Cuba.
The raid was not successful, and for his participation in it Castro was imprisoned from October 1953 to May 1955.
Following his release from prison, Castro went to Mexico where, in July 1955, he launched the >26th of July Movement=.
In December 1956 Castro led a small guerilla force of 82 men to >invade= Cuba from Mexico in a boat called the >Granma=. The guerillas set up a mobile base in the Sierra Maestra, a mountain range in southern Oriente province.
ABy 1958 Castro had about 300 armed men in the Sierra [email protected] (Jaime Suchlicki: 'Historical Dictionary of Cuba'; Metheun 1988; p. 259; (USA);
In May 1958 Batista launched a military offensive against Castro's guerilla force, but this failed and by the onset of winter his army was disintegrating.
On 31 December 1958 Batista resigned and fled, with his principal accomplices, to the Dominican Republic, later to Madeira.
THE NEW STATE (1959-62)
On 1 January 1959 the victorious >26th of July Movement= formed a new administration, with Manuel Urrutia* as President of the Republic.
On 7 February a new Constitution was adopted:
ALegislative power was to be vested in the [email protected], (Hugh Thomas: 'The Cuban Revolution'; London; 1986; p. 416).
headed by Jose Miro* as Prime Minister.
On 13 February Miro resigned as Prime Minister following a dispute over gambling casinos:
Awhereas Dr. Miro wanted them to be permanently suppressed, Dr. Castro advocated their [email protected] (>Keesing=s Contemporary Archives=, Volume 12; p. 16,901).
On 16 February he was succeeded as Prime Minister by Castro.
On 17 July 1959, Urrutia resigned as President and was succeeded by lawyer Osvaldo Dortico=s*, previously Minister of the Laws of the Revolution.
In the autumn of 1960, >Committees for the Defence of the Revolution= (CDR) were formed throughout the country as an adjunct to the police
Aessentially to ferret out counter-revolutionaries (Boris Goldenberg: >The Cuban Revolution and Latin America=; London; 1965; p. 270).
By 1962: AThere were about 100,000 such committees=.(Boris Goldenberg: op. cit.; p. 270).
THE US COUP AGAINST BATISTA (1957-59)
One of the myths of the Cuban Revolution is that a tiny guerilla group was able to overthrow a dictatorship backed by the United States imperialists.
In fact, the assault of Castro=s guerilla group was successful because it happened to coincide with a US coup against the Batista dictatorship. As Guevara expressed it in April 1961:
AThe monopolies, as is common in these cases, began to think of a successor to Batista, probably because they knew that the people were opposed to him. . . . What more intelligent stroke than to depose the unserviceable dictator and replace him with new >boys= who would, in good time, serve the interests of [email protected](Ernesto Guevara: >Cuba - Exception or Vanguard?=, in: John Gerassi (Ed.): >'Venceremos! Speechees and Writings of Che Guevara=; London; 1969; p. 198).
As early as June 1957, Robert Hill*, then responsible for the US State Department=s relations with Congress, told the newly-appointed US Ambassador to Cuba, Earl Smith:
AYou are assigned to Cuba to preside over the downfall of Batista. The decision has been made that Batista has to [email protected] (Hugh Thomas: op. cit.; p. 165).
In the autumn of 1957:
AThe United States began to hold up Batista=s orders for military hardware. In March 1958 an embargo on the shipment of arms and ammunition to Cuba was [email protected] (Philip Bonsal: >Cuba, Castro and the United States=; Pittsburgh; 1971; p.21).
The withdrawal of United States support from the Batista regime caused severe demoralisation among Batista=s officer corps:
ABatista=s soldiers, demoralised by the general repudiation of the government they served and by the accelerated corruption among their own officers and elsewhere... simply melted away as a fighting force after mid-1958. . .Batista now saw all the elements of his power eroded, his large army useless, his political support at home non-existent, his henchmen looking for exile, and the Washinton backing he had so long enjoyed [email protected] (Philip Bonsal: op. cit. p. 19, 23).
All this had
AA moral and psychological effect on the Cuban armed forces that was demoralising to the nth [email protected] (Philip Bonsal: op. cit.; p. 21).
ABatista=s commanders were beginning to [email protected] (Hugh Thomas: op. cit.; p. 234).
In May 1958 Batista attempted to launch an offensive against the guerillas, but by the end of June his High Command had become:
Aa demoralised gaggle of corrupt, cruel and lazy officers without combat [email protected] (HughThomas; op. cit.; p. 215).
The final US moves to oust Batista were entrusted to William Pawley*, an American diplomat and business man who was close to President Dwight Eisenhower*:
ASince November the US government had been taking urgent steps to remove Batista from power.... William D. Pawley, the former Ambasssador to Peru and Brazil and a personal friend of President Eisenhower, was about to be sent as a secret emissary to negotiate with Batista, Pawley would be authorised to offer Batista the opportunity to live with his family in Daytona Beach, Florida, if the dictator would appoint a caretaker government. . . . The key aspect of the plan was* that Pawley would be authorised to speak to Batista for President [email protected] (Ramon L. Bonachea & Marya San Martin: >The Cuban Insurrection: 1952-1959'; New Brunswick (USA); 1974; p. 304).
Pawley=s scheme was:
ATo get Batista to capitulate to a caretaker government satisfactory to us, whom we could immediately recognise and give military assistance [email protected] (Hugh Thomas: op. cit.; p. 233)
It was felt that this caretaker government should be a military junta:
AEveryone thought that the best idea was for the US to support a military junta=. (Hugh Thomas; op. cit.; 235).
and that this junta should be led by an officer with a history of opposition to the Batista dictatorship. The choice fell on Colonel Ramon Barquin, then in prison for leading an unsuccessful revolt against Batista:
AOnly Colonel Ramon Barquin met those [email protected], (Ramon L.Bonachea & Marya San Martin: op. cit.; p. 323).
On 17 December 1958, Barquin=s release was arranged by the CIA, after which he proclaimed himself chief of the armed forces in Havana:
AHe (Barquin - Ed.) owed his release to the somewhat delayed intervention of the CIA, who on 30 December had dispatched a man . . . to offer the head of the prison ,100,000 to release this prisoner (Hugh Thomas; op. cit.; p. 246).
But, unknown to the CIA, Barquin was a member of Castro=s >26 July= Movement, and he immediately subordinated himself to that movement:
ABeing himself at this time a member of the >26 July= Movement, he (Barquin -- Ed.) . . . subordinated himself to the >26 July= Movement". (Hugh Thomas; op. cit.; p. 246).
On 14 December:
AAmbassador Smith received instructions to the effect that it was time to tell Batista to leave. At long last, and for reasons other than the condemnation of Batista=s brutal regime, the US government was withdrawing its support from the Cuban [email protected] (Ramon L. Bonachea & Marya San Martin: op. cit.; p. 304),
Finally, on 17 December Smith met Batista and informed him that the State Department desired his resignation:
AOn 17 December Smith finally saw Batista and said on instructions that the State Department believed . . that it would avoid a great deal of bloodshed if he were to [email protected] (Hugh Thomas; op. cit.; p. 237).
Thus, Castro=s guerilla force:
Adid not defeat Batista=s army in any military [email protected] (Theodore Draper: >Castro=s Revolution: Myths and Realities=; 1962 (hereafter listed as: >Draper (1962)=; p. 14).London;
AThe collapse of Batista=s army was far more a political and psychological phenomenon . . . than a defeat by a superior enemy [email protected](Theodore Draper: >Castroism: Theory and Practice=; London; 1965' (hereafter listed as >Draper (1965)=; p. 136).
In other words, Castro=s guerilla force was victorious because its attack on the Batista regime happened to coincide with a coup against that regime by US imperialism.
THE ROLE OF THE >OLD= COMMUNIST PARTY OF CUBA (1925-52)
The Communist Party of Cuba:
Awas founded . . . in August 1925"'. (K.S. Karol: op. cit.; p. 60).
In its early years, the party was Marxist-Leninist in its orientation or, as K. S. Karol expresses it:
ACuban Communism was Stalinist from the very outset. This did not at first prevent it from making spectactular advances, or from becoming the most important Communist Party in Latin [email protected] (K.S. Karol: op. cit.; p. 60).
And it carried on a determined struggle against the Batista dictatorship. As Blas Roca*, the General Secretary of the Party, told the 6th Plenum of its Central Committee in the autumn of 1935:
ABatista, that national traitor in the pay of the imperialists, the faithful executioner of the orders of Caffery*, has drowned the March strike in blood, has turned the university into a barracks, has smashed the workers= trade unions and burned down their headquarters, has destroyed the Medical Federation of Cuba, has filled the prisons with more than 3,000 men, women and adolescent defenders of liberty and democracy, has unleashed a barbarous terror campaign of street murder against his adversaries, has banned all anti-imperialist parties (Blas Roca: Speech at 16th Plenum of CC, Communist Party of Cuba, in: K.S.Karol: op. cit.; p. 81).
Less than three years later, however, at the 10th Plenum of the Central Committee in July 1938, Blas Roca was hinting at the possibility of an agreement with Batista:
AAsked if we would come to an agreement with Batista, we reply quite openly . . . that it all depends on Batista=s attitude to the basic problems of [email protected] (Blas Roca: ASpeech at 10th Plenum of CC, [email protected] in: K. S. Karol: op. cit.; p. 84).
Batista took the hint, and as a result:
AThe Communist Party was legalised for the the first time in its 13-year history on September 25, [email protected] (Robert J. Alexander: >Communism in Latin America=; New York; 1957; p. 279).
and the party was then given government assistance in return for its political support:
AThe rise of the Communists to influence . . . was due to their deal with Batista, whereby they were given complete freedom of action and positive government aid in the trade union field in return for political support for Batista=s presidential [email protected] (Robert J. Alexander: ibid.; p. 69-70).
Reporting the 3rd National Congress of the party (January 1939), the
American Communist Party leader William Z. Foster* wrote:
ABatista . A . continues to carry through his progressive line. Freed from this repression by Batista=s progressive policy,. the Cuban people are experiencing a tremendous political [email protected] W.Z. Foster: >The Congress of the CP of Cuba=, in: >World News and Views=, Volume 19, No. 7 (18 February 1939); p. 148).
AThe foreign policy of its (Cuba=s - Ed.) Government, inspired by Colonel Fulgencio Batista, Constitutional Head of the Army, acquires greater anti-fascist content and Latin American scope. Colonel Batista has become an integral part of the progressive forces. We must work openly for the support of the masses for Batista=s [email protected] (R. A.Martinez: >The Latin American Significance of the Cuban Democratic Upsurge=, in:>World News and Views=, Volume 19, No. 18 (1 April 1939); p.367, 368).
The policy of the party at this time was to seek to form a national united front around Batista. As Blas Roca, expressed it:
AWe fight for a great national united [email protected] (W.Z. Foster: op. cit.; p. 148).
In 1944, Batista even:
ATook two CP Ministers into his [email protected] (Peter Taafe: >Cuba: Analysis of the Revolution=; London; 1975; p. 5).
and in the same year, for purely opportunist reasons, the revisionist Communist Party of Cuba changed its name to that of the >'Popular Socialist Party=:
AIn 1944, with a view to drawing into its ranks some people from the trade unions - an attempt which, however, did not produce results - it adopted its present name, >Popular Socialist Party= (Blas Roca: >Eighth National Congress of the Popular Socialist Party of Cuba=, in AWorld Marxist [email protected], Volume 3, No. 11 (November 1960); p.35).
THE ROLE OF THE POPULAR SOCIALIST PARTY (1952-57)
Barred constitutionaly from a further term as President, in March 1952, Batista seized dictatorial power in a second coup. In the new situation of >cold war=, there could be no further collaboration with the PSP, which was declared illegal in July1953:
ABatista outlawed the Party in 1953". (Robert Scheer & Maurice Zeitlin: >Cuba:An American Tragedy=; Harmondsworth; 1964; p. 125).
The PSP criticised the Batista coup in words:
AThe Communist Party . . . roundly condemned Batista=s [email protected]; (K.S. Karol: op. cit.; p. 129).
but opposed revolutionary struggle against the regime in favour of:
Aresisting the government with every peaceful expression of the popular [email protected](Popular Socialist Party: Letter to the 26th of July Movement, 28 February 1957, in: Theodore Draper (1965): op. cit.; p. 30).
As the Executive Committee of the party summed it up after the Revolution:
ADuring most of the years of the tyranny, the Party tried to avoid [email protected] (Theses of the Executive Committee of the Popular Socialist Party, in: >World Marxist Review=, Volume 2, No. 4 (April 1959); p. 69).
Indeed, the PSP strongly repudiated the Castroists= attack on the Moncada barracks as
A a putschist attempt, a desperate form of adventurism, typical petty-bourgeois circles lacking in principle and implicated in [email protected] (Popular Socialist Party; Statement of August 1953: in: K. S. Karol: op. cit.; p. 139).
As an organisation, therefore, the PSP took no part in the Cuban Revolution. The first contacts with the 26th of July Movement by the PSP were not made until July 1959, when one of its leaders,
ACarlos Rafael Rodriguez*. . . went to the Sierra to confer with Castro, apparently [email protected](Robert Scheer & Maurice Zeitlin: op. Cit.; p.129).
In spite of this contact, no formal agreement was made by the PSP to assist the >26th of July Movement=. Conrado Bequer, General Secretary of the Federation of Sugar Workers of Cuba, testified in 1959:
AThe Communists never helped the 26 July Movement until 26 December -five days before the fall of the Batista [email protected](>New York Times=, 31 May 1959, Section 4; p. 4).
In fact,
ABy January 1, 1959, the guerilla movement had won, . without the PSP ever clearly defining its position with respect to Castro (Andres Suarez ACuba, Castro and Communism: 1959-1966"; Cambridge (USA); 1967; p. 29).
Thus, the Popular Socialist Party played no role as an organisation in the Cuban Revolution of 1952-59.
Or, as Blas Roca admitted apologetically at the National Congress of the PSP in August 1960:
AThe Party . . . failed to grasp the profound significance of Fidel Castro=s revolutionary [email protected] (Bias Roca: Speech at National Congress of PSP, August 1960, in: K. S.Karol:op. cit.; p. 149).
THE CHARACTER OF THE CUBAN REVOLUTION (1953-59)
Marxism-Leninism maintains that only a revolution which places the working class
in political power can lead to the building of a stable socialist society:
"The proletariat . . . alone is able . . . to retain power sufficiently long to suppress completely all the exploiters as well as all the elements of disintegration". (V.I. Lenin: 'The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Government', (March-April 1918), in: 'Collected Works' Volume 27; Moscow; 1965; p. 265).
But the working class played virtually no role in the Cuban revolution:
"Neither in its first, nor in its second phase can the revolution be described as proletarian; the proletariat . . . had taken little part in the struggle".(Boris Goldenberg: op.cit.; p. 295).
"The alleged role of the working class in this revolution is fanciful" (Theodore Draper (1952): op. cit.; p. 45).
"Working class action could not be the decisive factor owing to a number of circumstances". (Blas Roca: 'The Cuban Revolution in Action'' in: 'World Marxist Review', Volume 2, No. 8 (August 1959); p. 17).
"Labour had in no way participated (in the revolution -- Ed.)". (Jose R. Alvarez Diaz: 'The Road to Nowhere: Castro's Rise and Fall'; Miami; 1965; p. 5).
"Our revolution is not a revolution made by labour unions or wage workers in the city or by labour parties, or by anything like that". (C. Wright Mills: 'Listen, Yankee: The Revolution in Cuba'; New York; 1960; p. 46).
Nor was the revolution made by the peasantry:
"As for the 'peasants', most of them . . remained passive during the whole period (of the revolution - Ed.). .The revolution was not a peasant revolution". (Boris Goldenberg: op. cit.; p. 145, 295),).
"The peasantry never had its hands on any of the levers of command of the revolution, before or after the victory". (Theodore Draper (1962): op. cit.; p. 44).
The revolution was in fact made by petty bourgeois intellectuals.
Of the two pre-eminent leaders of the '26th of July Movement', Fidel Castro was
"A 32-year-old lawyer, the son of a wealthy sugar planter"; ('Keesing 's Contemporary Archives', Volume 12; p. 16,631).
while Argentinian-born Ernesto Guevara* (known as 'Che', an Argentinian word
meaning 'pal') was: "A doctor of medicine". ('Webster's Biograohical Dictionary'; Springfield (USA); 1974; p. 639).
"The armed struggle was initiated by the petty bourgeoisie. The political leadership of the armed struggle was in the hands of the petty bourgeoisie". (Blas Roca: 'The Cuban Revolution in Action , in: 'World Marxist Review', Volume 2, No. 8 (August 1959); p. 17).
"Those who had started and directed the revolution belonged primarily to the middle class". (Jose R. Alvarez Diaz: op. cit.; p, 5).
"The frustrated young intellectuals . . . played a leading role". (Boris Goldenberg: op. cit.; p. 297).
"Its (the revolution's -~ Ed.) leaders have been young intellectuals": (C.Wright Mlills: op. cit.; p. 46).
"The Cuban revolution was exclusively a middle-class revolution. The character of an army is established by its leadership and cadres, which remained almost exclusively middle class throughout. Every one attended a university (some in the United States), came from an upper- or middle-class home, and became or aspired to become a professional or intellectual. The revolution was made and always controlled by declassed sons and daughters of the middle class. When I visited Cuba (in 1960-- Ed.) . . . everyone I met in any position of authority was obviously petty bourgeois in origin". (Theodore Draper (1962): op. cit.; p. 10, 13, 54, 44, 117).
But Marxism-Leninism teaches that the petty bourgeoisie is a social class which is incapable of holding political power or even of independent class action:
"The petty bourgeois democrats are incapable of holding power". (Vladimir I. Lenin: Theses for a Report on the Tactics of the RCP, 3rd Congress of Communist International (June 1921), in: Collected Works; Volume 32; Moscow; 1965; p. 461).
"Owing to the basi features of its economic position, the petty bourgeoisie is incapable of doing anything independently". (Vladimir I. Lenin: 'The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky' (October-November 1918), in: 'Collected Works', Volume 28; Moscow; 1965; p.301).
"The petty bourgeoisie . . . cannot, by the very economic nature of things, be anything else than the expression of class impotence (Vladimir I. Lenin: 'The Tax in Kind' (April 1921), in: 'Collected Works', Volume 32; Moscow; 1965; p. 359).
The petty bourgeoisie is capable of class action only in the service of the bourgeoisie:
"The petty bourgeois democrats have always tailed after the bourgeoisie as a feeble appendage to them (Vladimir I. Lenin: 'Lessons of the Revolution' (July 1917), in: 'Collected Works', Volume 25; Moscow; 1964; p. 238).
"The petty bourgeois democrats . .always serve merely as a screen for the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, and a stepping stone to its undivided power". (Vladimir I. Lenin: Theses for a Report on the Tactics of the RCP, 3rd Congress of the Communist International (June 1921), in: 'Collected Works', Volume 32; Moscow; 1965; p. 461).
"The petty bourgeoisie are in real life dependent upon the bourgeoisie and follow the bourgeoisie in their outlook". (Vladimir I. Lenin: 'The Tasks of the Proletariat in Our Revolution'' (September 1917), in: 'Collected Works', Volume 24; Moscow; 1964; p. 62),
In the myth which they created, the leaders of the revolution presented themselves as spiritual representatives of the peasantry:
According to Castro himself, the Cuban Revolution was:
"A peasant revolution". (Fidel Castro, in: Theodore Draper (1962): op. cit.; p. 7).
"The revolution was principally the work of the dispossessed peasantry of Cuba". (Fidel Castro, in: Theodore Draper(1965): p. 124).
And Guevara was in agreement:
"The strength of the revolutionary movement centred around the peasants at first". (Ernesto Guevara: 'On Sacrifice and Dedication', in: John Gerassi (Ed.): 'Venceremos! The Speeches and Writings of Ernesto Che Guevara'; London; 1969; p. 146).
"The guerilla fighter is above all an agrarian revolutionary. He interprets the desires of the great peasant mass". (Ernesto Guevara: 'Guerrilla Warfare'; Harmondsworth; 1969; p. 126).
""Fidel Castro is . ..the embodiment of the revolutionary will and energy of the peasantry"; (Leo Huberman & Paul M. Sweezy: 'Cuba: Anatomy of a Revolution'; London; 1960; p. 78).
Also, the Cuban guerilla force was not led by a Marxist-Leninist Party --or, indeed, by any party at all -- nor guided by Marxist ideology:
"In Cuba it was not the party that was the directive nucleus of the popular army. The ideology of the Cuban Rebel Army was not Marxist". (Regis Debray: 'Revolution in the Revolution? Armed Struggle and Political Struggle in Latin America' (hereafter listed as 'Reigis Debray, (1968); New York; 1967; p. 106-07), Harmondsworth; 1968; p. 105).
In fact, prior to the autumn of 1959 Castro made no attempt to conceal his opposition to Communism. He was indeed:
"A radical middle-class democrat whose ideal was democratic capitalist America". (Peter Taaffe: op. cit.; p. 5).
In February 1958 Castro told the American magazine 'Coronet':
"We have no plans for the expropriation or nationalisation of foreign investments here. Foreign investments will always be welcome and secure here". (Fidel Castro: 'Why we fight', in 'Coronet', Volume 43, No. 4 (February 1958); p. 84, 85).
After the victory of the revolution, on 2 April 1959, just before he left for a visit to the United States at the invitation of the American Association of Newspaper Editors,
"Castro told a television audience . . . that he was going to the US to secure credits". (Hugh Thomas: op. cit.; p. 425).
Minister of the Economy Regino Boti, who accompanied Castro to America, is on record as telling economist Felipe Pazos on their arrival:
"We have no intention of asking now, during Castro's visit, for aid, but you, Pazos, will return in a fortnight to make a request (Hugh Thomas: op. cit.; p. 425).
During his visit to the United States, Castro assured his audiences his anti-Communist views and the safety of foreign investments in Cuba. said on American TV:
"I am not a Communist, nor do I agree with communism". (Fidel Castro" 'Meet the Press' Programme, in: 'Castro'; Paul Humphrey: Hove; 1981; p. 42-43).
"Dr. Castro . . . has stated repeatedly that his movement is not Communist and that if Cuba can obtain some degree of prosperity, Communism cannot grow there". ('Times', 20 April 1959; p. 8).
"Dr.Fidel Castro . . . went before the National Press Club here today to repeat his assurances made so often during his visit to the capital that he means nothing but friendship to the United States, that there are no Communists in his Government, that he has no plans to expropriate any foreign holdings in Cuba"., ('Times', 21 April 1959; p. 11).
Castro had no difficulty in convincing the CIA of his anti-Communism:
"Even more bizarre, Castro was prevailed on to meet the CIA's chief expert on Communism in Latin America, a Central European named Droller: the two talked privately for three hours, and afterwards Droller told Lopez Fresquet: 'Castro is not only not a Communist, he is a strong anti-Communist fighter"' (Hugh Thomas: op. cit.; p. 431).
After leaving the USA, on 21 May 1959 Castro described Communism as a system
"Which suppresses liberties, the liberties which are so dear to man." (Fidel Castro, in: 'Revolucion, 21 May 1959, in: Theodore Draper (1965): op. cit,; p. 37).
He told an old friend:
"Communism is the dictatorship of a single class and I . . . have fought all my life against dictatorship". (Hugh Thomas: op. cit.; p. 432).
On 21 May 1959, Castro said in a televised speech:
"Capitalism sacrifices man, the Communist state sacrifices man. . Our revolution is not red, but olive-green, the colour of the rebel army". ('Guia del Pensiamento politicoeconomico de Fidel' (Guide to the Politico-economic Thought of Fidel); Havana; 1959; p. 48).
Writing in the 'New York Times' in July 1959, Herbert Matthews*, a senior editor on the newspaper, declared emphatically:
"Castro .. . is not only not a Communist, but decidedly anti-Communist". (Herbert Matthews: 'New York Times', 16 July 1959; p. 2).
The US Ambassador to Cuba, Philip Bonsal*, was convinced
"That Castro was not a Communist (Jaime Suchlicki: op. cit.; p. 30).
And as late as November 1959, the Deputy Director-General of the CIA, Charles Cabell*, was assuring the Senate Internal Security Committee:
"The Cuban Communists do not consider him (Castro -- Ed.) . . even a pro-Communist."(Robert Scheer & Maurice Zeitlin: op. cit.; p. 120).
THE AGRARIAN REFORM (1959-62)
We have seen that) in the myth which they created, the leaders of the Cuban Revolution presented themselves as spiritual representatives of the peasantry. Accordingly, the first major piece of legislation adopted by the new Cuban government, in May 1959, was a land reform law.
Prior to the reform:
"Only 16% of the land was directly cultivated by its owners. Tenant farming, sharecropping and hired farm labour were the norm." (Jaime Suchlicki: op. cit.; p. 8).
This position was radically altered by the agrarian reform, as a result of which
"It was estimated that about 8.3 million acres of expropriated land would be available for redistribution." ('Keesing's Contemporary Archives', Volume 12; p. 16,902).
"The first Agrarian Reform Law was the fist major act of the new revolutionary government on coming to power. It expropriated the latifunda from the major landowners . . distributed part of them to such peasants as were landless, and set an upper limit to the amount of land which could remain in private property". (John & Peter Griffiths (Ed.): 'Cuba: The Second Decade'; London; 1979; p.84).
"The first Agrarian Reform Law. distributed land to the small. farmers who cultivated food and tobacco, and expropriated the large latifundios -- turning the cattle ranches into granjas (state farms - Ed.)". (Martin Kenner & James Petras (Eds.): 'Fidel Castro Speaks'; London; 1970; p. 37).
"Tenants . . were the first to benefit from the land reform decree of May 17 1959. They were given the titles to the land they farmed, had their holdings increased to a total of 190 acres, and were granted subsidies to work them efficiently". (K.S. Karol: op. cit.; p. 22).
"More than 5,500 poor peasants had benefited from the reform by the spring of 1961". (K. S. Karol: op. cit.,; p. 30).
Expropriation of land and industrial enterprises (mainly sugar-mills) estates was subject to compensation in state bonds:
"Compensation for expropriated land or industrial installations would be in Cuban Government bonds bearing 4.5% interest per annum and repayable in 20 years". ('Keesing's Contemporary Archives', Volume 12; p. 16,902).
The effecting of the agrarian reform was placed in the hands of a 'National Institute of Agrarian Reform' (NIAR):
"A National Institute of Agrarian Reform, headed by Dr. Castro, would decide which lands were to be expropriated and redistributed, provide financial help to new tenant-farmers ('Keesing's Contemporary Archives', Volume 12; p. 16,901).
One feature of the agrarian reform was that it included the expropriation of US-owned sugar mills and plantations:
"The agrarian reform law involved the expropriation of the American-owned sugar-mills and plantations in Cuba - covering 1.7 million acres of land, representing a total investment of about $275 million and accounting for 40% of Cuba's sugar production." ('Keesing's Contemporary Archives', Volume 12; p. 16,902).
Althou8h some of the large-scale farms established by the agrarian reform law were known at first as 'cooperatives', they were not true cooperatives. They did not have members who administered them and divided the profits among themselves; the workers were state employees who received a wage:
"The cooperatives from the start did not ever signify what that word usually means: NIAR appointed the manager of the enterprise. . . . The workers were paid about $2.50 a day'. (Hugh Thomas: op. cit. p. 438).
But the actual amount depended on the profits of the farm.
"The 'cooperatives' . . . were cooperatives in name only. In practice, as Rodriguez later admitted, they had been transformed into granjas del pueblo, or state farms. NIAR administered them from above without in the least taking their members' wishes into account, giving them any voice in their affairs, or even holding pro forma meetings. The cooperatives had all the disadvantages of state farms and none of the advantages, the most important of the latter being a guaranteed wage". (Theodore Draper (1965): op. cit.; p.140).
As a result, the 'cooperatives' quickly became very unpopular with the peasants:
"In November 1961, Castro himself remarked that the peasants had become so 'allergic' to the cooperatives that they 'feared' the very word. In June 1962, Rodriguez reported that the cooperatives had become 'dead organisms' and their members had been shifting to the granias (state farms - Ed.) and private farms". (Theodore Draper (1965): op. cit.; p. 140).
In August 1962, the 'cooperatives':
"Were officially transformed into granjas (state farms --Ed . ) (Theodore Draper (1965): op. cit.; p. 140).
CUBAN-US RELATIONS (1959)
At first representatives of US imperialism were friendly and well disposed towards the new regime in Cuba. On 3 January 1959 it was reported that:
"US Department of State officials are . . . cautiously optimistic about the new Cuban government's future economic and political policies". (Robert Scheer & Maurice Zeitlin: op. cit.; p. 277).
On 8 January 1959 the United States recognised the new Cuban regime, Note of recognition expressing:
"The sincere goodwill of the Government and people of the United States towards the new Government and the people of Cuba". (US Department of State: 'Bulletin', Volume 40, No. 1,022 (26 January 1959); p. 128).
This goodwill on the part of the US imperialists towards the new Cuban government continued in spite of the agrarian reform law of May 1959, which was no more radical than land reform laws adopted in other countries with US support. In the Cuban case, for example,
"The rates of interest proposed on the bonds were higher than the General MacArthur's* Agrarian Reform in Japan… The law of Agrarian Reform, on analysis, turned out to be as modest as many other such laws in democracies.." (Hugh Thomas: op. cit.; p. 437, 442).
The only adverse US action on the law was an official Note to Cuba on 11 June 1959 expressing
"Serious concern", ('New York Times', 12 June 1959; p. 10),
on the grounds that such:
"A widespread redistribution of land, which might have serious adverse effects on productivity, could prove harmful to the general economy". ('New York Times', ibid.; p. 10).
and demanding:
"A prompt, adequate and effective compensation". ('New York Times', ibid.; p. 10).
On 15 June:
"Cuba formally rejected the US Note of 11 June. The Cuban reply was, however, moderate in many ways". (Hugh Thomas: op. cit.; p. 448).
THE CRISIS IN CUBAN-US RELATIONS (1960)
In February 1960 Anastas Mikoyan*, First Deputy Prime Minister of the revisionist Soviet Union, paid an official visit to Cuba. Among the documents signed during his visit was one by which the Soviet Union:
"Agreed to grant Cuba a loan of $100 million . . . bearing a 2.5% interest". ('Keesing's Contemporary Archives', Volume 12; p. 17,589).
and a trade agreement for the exchange of Soviet crude oil for Cuban sugar. This agreement was advantageous for the Cuban government, since it allowed Cuba:
"To import the cheaper Soviet crude -- the Soviets chose to make it cheaper, and besides, Cuba would be paying for it with sugar, instead of dollars, under the Mikoyan accord". (Tad Szulc: 'Fidel: A Critical Portrait'; London; 1987; p. 417).
From the moment this trade agreement was published, the attitude of the United States government towards Cuba became one of undisguised hostility:
"The United States quickly interpreted Castro's . . trade deal with the Soviet Union in 1960 as meaning that Cuba had become a Communist satellite". (William A. Williams: 'The United States, Cuba and Castro: An Essay on the Dynamics of Revolution and the Dissolution of Empire'; New York; 1962; p. 139).
"Beginning in March 1960 the United States began to work for the downfall of the Castro regime". (Lilia Ferro-Clerico & Wayne S. Smith: 'The US Trade Embargo', in: Wayne S.Smith & Esteban Morales Dominguez (Eds.): 'Subject to Solution: Problems in Cuban-US Relations'; Boulder (USA); 1988; p. 80).
"The new American policy - not announced as such, but implicit in the actions of the United States government -- was one of overthrowing Castro by all the means available to the US short of the open employment of the American Armed Forces in Cuba". (Philip Bonsai: op. cit.; p. 135).
Although he had been appointed in January, the arrival of the new American Ambassador for Cuba was delayed until 19 February to demonstrate US displeasure with the Castro government:
"The long delay in replacing Smith by Bonsai involved an official move to show displeasure with the new Cuban government". (William A. Williams: op. cit.; p. 37).
By the beginning of March 1960, the US administration was making preparations to impose economic sanctions on Cuba by introducing legislation empowering the President to cut the Cuban sugar quota (the agreed amount of sugar to be imported into the USA each year). It:
"Introduced a bill into the Senate which gave President Eisenhower power authority to cut the Cuban sugar quota if there should be need". (Hugh Thomas: op. cit.; p. 492).
It was in accordance with this political line that in March 1960:
"The formal American decision to arm and train an exile army was . . . made". (William A. Williams: op. cit.; p. 139).
"President Eisenhower accepted a recommendation of the Central Intelligence Agency to begin to arm and train Cuban exiles". (Hugh Thomas: op. cit.; p. 493).
On 23 May 1960:
"The three large oil refineries in Cuba -- Texaco, Royal Dutch and Standard Oil - were told by the government that a large consignment of Russian oil, in pursuance of the accord of February, would soon arrive, and they would henceforth be asked to process 6,000 lbs. crude oil a day." (Hugh Thomas: op. cit.; p. 506).
On the advice of the US government, the oil companies refused:
"The great oil companies in mid-June at last replied that they would not process Russian oil. . . . The Cubans' case derived from a law of 1938 providing that foreign refineries were required to process Cuban crude oil. . . . The secretary of the US Treasury had strongly urged a refusal by the companies to process the oil". (Hugh Thomas: op. cit.; p. 510).
"The three big oil companies (Jersey Standard, Texaco and Shell), under pressure from the US government, refused to refine the Russian oil". (Peter Taaffe: op. cit.; p. 6).
"The US government had encouraged them not to refine the Soviet oil". (Lilia Ferro~lerico & Wayne S. Smith: 'The US Trade Embargo', in: Wayne S.Smith & Morales Estaban Dominguez (Eds): op. cit.; p. 79).
On 27 May 1960 the USA terminated all economic 'aid' to Cuba as
"no longer in the national and hemispheric interests of the United States". ('Keesing's Contemporary Archives', Volume 12; p. 17,541).
On 28 June 1960:
"Castro signed the order saying that the Texaco oil refinery in Santiago had to refine the Soviet crude oil or be expropriated. . . . On 30 June the Esso and Shell refineries were taken over in Havana." (Hugh Thomas: op. cit.; p. 511).
"Castro seized all three refineries". (Tad Szulc: op. cit.; p. 417).
"The Cuban government . . . 'intervened' (a form of supervision) and put the oil through. The companies retaliated by refusing to deliver oil from Venezuela. Cuba then agreed to take all its oil from Russia". (Peter Taaffe: op. cit.; p. 6).
"When the imperialist enterprises refused to process the crude oil purchased by us from the Soviet Union . . . and threatened to cut off all our oil supplies, introduction of control over the oil refineries became a matter of life or death for the country. There was no alternative. Either we had to do this or surrender, to submit to the diktat of the imperialist companies and agree to the country's economic life being paralysed". (Blas Roca: 'New Stage in the Cuban Revolution', in: 'World Marxist Review', Volume 4) No,. 10 (October 1961); p. 5).
On 5 July the Bill became law empowering the US President
"To determine Cuba's sugar import quota in the USA for the remaining months of 1960 and the first three months of 1961". ('Keesing's Contemporary Atchives', Volume 12; p. 17,542).
Eisenhower immediately acted to cut the quota by 700,000 tons:
"Eisenhower decided to go the whole hog. On July 6 he reduced the quota for Cuba by 700,000 tons". (Hugh Thomas: op. cit.; p. 511).
"Eisenhower stated that 'this action amounts to economic sanctions against Cuba. Now we must look for to other moves -- economic, diplomatic and strategic"'. (Lilia Ferro-Clerico & Wayne S. Smith1 in: Wayne S. Smith & Esteban Morales Dominguez (Eds.): op. cit.; op. cit.; p. 79).
This move:
"Was calculated to bring the Castro regime to its knees. But immediately Russia stepped in and agreed to take the 700,000 tons of sugar". (Peter Taaffe: op. cit.; p. 6).
"The Soviet Union immediately stepped in to announce that it would buy the 700,000 tons of sugar cut by the United States". (Lilia Ferro-Clerico & Wayne S. Smith, in: Wayne S. Smith & Esteban Morales Dominguez (Eds.): op. cit.; p. 79).
Meanwhile, in retaliation for the US action on the sugar quota, on July, a Cuban decree was approved empowering the government to:
"Nationalise the property of all US companies and citizens in Cuba … whenever this was deemed necessary in the national interest… The nationalisation decree was obviously intended as a retaliatory .. action to the impending reduction in the Cuban sugar quota for the US market". ('Keesing's Contemporary Archives', Volume 12; p. 17,541).
"On July 5, Cuba . . . retaliated for the Sugar Act by nationalising all US businesses and commercial property in Cuba". (Lilia Ferro-Clerico & Wayne S. Smith, in: Wayne S. Smith & Estaban Morales Dominguez (Eds): op. cit.; p. 79).
"The Cubans expropriated all US-owned property". (Theodore Draper (1965): op. cit.; p. 144).
On 6 July 1960 the US government sent to Havana a Note of protest at the seizure of the American oil refineries, charging that this was:
"a violation of accepted standards of ethics and morality in the free world". ('Keesing's Contemporary Archives', Volume 12; p. 17,542).
On 19 August 1960 the US government made it illegal for:
"countries receiving US aid to use these funds to buy sugar from Cuba". ('Keesing's Contemporary Archives', Volume 12; p. 17,629).
In the same month, plans were prepared in the CIA to assassinate Castro:
"In August 1960 Mr. Richard M. Bissell approached Colonel Sheffield Edwards to determine if the Office of Security had assets that may assist in a sensitive mission requiring gangster-type action. The mission target was the liquidation of Fidel Castro". (CIA: Internal Memorandum, in: Tad Szulc: op. cit.; p. 422).
In October 1960 the Cuban government took measures of nationalisation measures against other foreign-owned enterprises, as well as against a number of Cuban enterprises:
"The response in Cuba was swift. During the weekend of 14-15 October… INRA took over 382 large private enterprises in Cuba, including all the banks (except two Canadian ones), all the remaining private sugar mills, 18 distilleries, 61 textile mills, 16 rice mills, 11 cinemas and 13 large stores". (Hugh Thomas: op. cit.; p. 519).
"The Government nationalised all Cuban-owned banks and 382 other companies, including most of the large industrial, commercial and transport companies". ('Keesing's Contemporary Archives', Volume 12; p. 17,787).
In this way:
"the Government acquired possession of all the 161 mills in Cuba. . . . The other enterprises affected included all textile factories, 8 railways1 47 commercial warehouses, 13 department stores, 11 coffee companies, 6 distilleries, 16 rice mills and 11 cinema circuits ('Keesing's Contemporary Archives', Volume 12; p. 17,787).
On 19 October 1960, the US government imposed an embargo:
"On all exports to Cuba, except medical supplies and unsubsidised foodstuffs". ('Keesing's Contemporary Archives', Volume 12; p. 17,787).
"The United States retaliated with a trade embargo". (Theodore Draper (1965): op. cit.; p. 144).
"The embargo . . . was intended to serve as a deterrent to other countries that might consider such nationalisations, that is, to thus protect the interests of US property owners (Lilia Ferro-Clerico & Wayne S. Smith1 in: Wayne S.Smith and Esteban-Morales Dominguez (Eds): op. cit.; p. 80).
On 29 October 1960:
"Ambassador Bonsal was withdrawn for an 'extended period of consultation'. He never returned". (Hugh Thomas: op. cit.; p. 519-20).
On 8 December 1960, the Royal Bank of Canada in Cuba was nationalised. ('Keesing's Contemporary Archives', Volume 12; p. 17,833). On 3 January 1961:
"President Eisenhower announced the severing of diplomatic ties with Cuba". (Haynes B. Johnson: 'The Bay of Pigs: The Invasion of Cuba by Brigade 2506'; London; 1964; p. 58).
THE BAY OF PIGS INVASION OF CUBA (1961)
On 17 April 1961, Cuban counter-revolutionaries in exile in the United States staged an attempt to invade Cuba at the Bay of Pigs on the southern coast of the island. ('Keesing's Contemporary Archives', Volume 13; p. 18,151). The operation had been planned by leading officials of US imperialism:
"Although the CIA was entrusted with the day-to-day operation of the Cuban counter-revolutionary force, the overall planning was debated in Washington at the highest level by what was called 'the special group --a group of officials of the State Department, Pentagon, CIA and White House, who met periodically about Cuba". (Haynes B. Johnson: op. cit.; p. 53).
"US journalists reported the existence of bases in Guatemala where US military instructors were training Cuban exiles in commando warfare and in the use of the most modern US weapons". (Ivison Macadam (Ed.): 'Annual Register of World Events: A Review of the Year 1961'; London; 1962; p. 192).
In view of its clear violation of international law, American participation in the operation was kept secret:
"It was vital for the American involvement to be kept both secret and at a minimum in the actual landing and fighting". (Haynes B. Johnson: op.cit.; p. 66).
Nevertheless, the US President, John Kennedy*,
"Permitted the US navy to convoy the invaders to Cuban waters ('Encyclopedia Americana', Volume 8; Danbury (USA); 1981; p. 304).
The invasion failed, and :
"Over 1,200" were captured. ('Keesing's Contemporary Archives', Volume 13; p. 18,151).
On 26 April 1961 Cuba was excluded from the Inter-American Defence Board. ('Keesing's Contemporary Archives', Volume 13; p. 18,716).
On 30 April 1961 the US government advised all US nationals living in Cuba to leave the island". ('Keesing's Contemporary Archives', Volume 13; p. 18,154).
CUBA BECOMES A SOVIET SEMI-COLONY(1961-63)
The Soviet revisionists were, of course, prepared to offer 'aid' to Cuba only at a price -- and the price was the acceptance by Cuba of a semi-colonial status to the Soviet Union. Thus,
"by March 1962, Soviet bloc 'advisers' had become ubiquitous in the Cuban administrative apparatus". (Theodore Draper (1965): op. cit. p. 148).
Eventually, Cuba became:
"much more dependent on the Eastern countries than it had been on the United States'. (Boris Goldenberg: op. cit.; p. 200).
In 1986, Hugh Thomas* could write:
"Russia plays almost as great a part in Cuban politics as the US did in the past". (Hugh Thomas: op. cit.; p. 701).,
For its part, the Cuban government:
"Aimed to increase their leverage over the Soviet Union by becoming its indispensable ally in the Third World". (Sebastian Balfour: 'Castro'; London; 1990; p. 120).
In April 1961 Guevara could still stress the necessity for Cuba to break with the semi-colonial pattern of dependence upon a single export crop, in favour of industrialisation and diversification:
"Under-development or distorted development, carries with it a dangerous specialisation in raw materials, containing a threat of hunger for all our people. We, 'the underdeveloped', are those of the single crop, the single product, and the single market. A single product whose uncertain sale depends upon a single market, which imposes and sets conditions. This is the great formula of imperial economic domination which is combined with the old and always useful Roman formula, 'divide and conquer". (Ernesto Guevara: 'Cuba - Exception or Vanguard?', in: John Gerassi (Ed.): op. cit.; p. 135).
"Once settled in the Ministry of Industries, Che began to speed up the industrialisation of Cuba. . Along with industrialisation went the companion aim of diversification (Daniel James: 'Che' Guevara'; London; 1970; p. 123).
"The regime in Cuba intended now to diversify her agriculture so that in a very short time. . . . she need no longer rely on sugar". (Hugh Thomas: op. cit.; p. 512).
But diversification and industrialisation were not compatible with the desires of the Soviet revisionists that Cuba should take up a semi-colonial position to the Soviet Union. Under Soviet pressure, therefore, these plans were abandoned in favour of continued concentration upon the growing of sugar for export.
In August 1963:
"Castro announced . . . that his whole new economic policy was postulated on a spectacular increase in sugar production, aimed at reaching 10 million tons by 1970. Agricultural diversification went backward instead of forward. For example, rice production had advanced to a high point of 181,000 tons in 1957, two years before Castro, and plunged to 95,400 tons in 1962, after three years of Castro. Cuba had been forced to reorganise its entire economy'. (Theodore Draper (1965): pop. cit.; p. 172, 227, 230).
As Guevara had expressed the position earlier:
"We must change our entire system of production to adapt it to those countries that supply us with raw materials and spare parts (Ernesto Guevara, in: Boris Goldenberg: op. cit.; p. 20).
"Castro announced a reorientation of the Cuban economy towards agriculture, in particular the growing of sugar cane and cattle-raising". ('Keesing's Contemporary Archives", Volume 18; p. 24,524).
Alban Lataste, the Deputy Minister of the Economy, explained this to a Yugoslav correspondent in 1964 in typical revisionist double-talk:
"We are now aware that we can overcome monoculture solely by developing that same monoculture further". (Alban Lataste, in: 'Borba' (Struggle), 28 December 1964; p. 3).
To the Cuban people, the increased dependence upon sugar exports was put in the pseudo-Marxist terms of the 'international division of labour':
"In his report on his Soviet tour on June 4 (1963-- Ed.) Castro made known that an international division of labour' was necessary, according to which Cuba should specialise in what she was best fitted for by nature, namely agriculture". (Thedore Draper (1965): op. cit. p~ 169).
THE FORMATION OF A SINGLE PARTY(1960-61)
We have seen that the leaders of the Cuban Revolution, while claiming to represent the interests of the Cuban peasantry, objectively represented initially the interests of the Cuban national bourgeoisie, whose interests were served by national liberation from American imperialism. On the other hand, the leaders of the Popular Socialist Party, with their policy of 'striving for national liberation from imperialism by peaceful means objectively represented the interests of the pro-imperialist Cuban comprador bourgeoisie.
Once the revolution had achieved victory, however, the Popular Socialist Party, although it had played no active role in the revolution, having claimed to stand for national liberation -- had no alternative but to declare its support for the revolution:
"The Party . . . supports the new regime". (Theses of the Executive Committee of the Popular Socialist Party of Cuba, in: 'World Marxist Review', Volume 2, No. 4 (April 1959); p., 69).
Forced by circumstances to accept a semi-colonial position to Soviet imperialism the Cuban leaders sought to make this position as little onerous as possible and themselves as secure as possible from the ever-present threat of US imperialist intervention.
They calculated that these objectives were most likely to be achieved if they could present Cuba as a 'fraternal socialist country', morally entitled to the support and protection of the Soviet bloc.
This ploy required a party that could be presented as a 'Marxist-Leninist Party'. As we have seen, those who had led the revolution had nothing that could be called a political party of any kind, and they were therefore compelled to turn to the only left-wing political party which did exist, the revisionist Popular Socialist Party which, although it had taken no active part in the revolution, declared its support for this revolution once it had been victorious:
"Fidel Castro . . . needed the help of the trained cadres of Cuba's Communist Party (the PSP -- Ed.) in carrying Out his ambitious programme" ('Encylopedia Americana', Volume 8; Danbury (USA); 1981;
"In a country without political organisation and without institutions, the attractions for Castro of turning to the Communist party (the PSP --Ed.) must have been strong". (Hugh Thomas: op. cit.; p. 444).
But the revisionist PSP was severely:
"Tarnished by its previous association with Batista and by its refusal until almost the last moment to engage in armed struggle against him". (Theodore Draper (1962): op. cit.; p. 205).
In these circumstances, it was clearly impossible for the Castroites to join the Popular Socialist Party.
What they needed was the help of the experienced cadres of the PSP in building a
new party under their:control
"Fidel could not simply join the PSP without losing face. . . . A new organisation, which did not have to bear the burden of the PSP's long and chequered history, was obviously preferable". (Theodore Draper (1962): Op. cit.; p. 122).
"Castro insisted from the outset that the 'old' Communist Communist Party be absorbed into a 'new' Communist Party under his leadership". (Tad Szulc: Op. cit.; p. 377).
The PSP had little choice but to accept this position:
"The Communists (the PSP -Ed.) agreed to recognise Castro as the leader of the new party; Castro agreed to recognise the party as the leader of the revolution". (Theodore Draper (1962): op. cit.; p. 142).
The first step in the programme was that:
"Classes began in Marxism-Leninism", (Hugh Thomas: op. cit.; p. 536).
organised by the cadres of the PSP. Then, in March 1961, on Castro's initiative, all existing political parties - the Castro's '26th of July Movement', the students' 'Revolutionary Directorate' and the 'Popular Socialist Party' -- were merged into a single organisation, the 'Integral Revolutionary Organisations' (IRO):
"Castro . . . authorised the first stage in the development of single government party . . . in the form of the IRO"; (Theodore Draper (1965): op. cit.; p. 136).
This was a federal organisation, in which:
"Each party retained its identity and autonomy". (Tad Szulc: op. cit.; p. 379).
For the first six months of its existence the IRO was under PSP control:
"The IRO had been functioning for at least six months on the basis of virtually complete PSP control". (Theodore Draper (1962): op. cit.; p. 206).
having as organiser a PSP leader, Anibal Escalante*:
"Anibal Escalante . . . was given the task of organising the IRO". (Tad Szulc: op. cit.; p. 462).
In July 1961 Castro announced that it was the government's intention that Cuba should
"Eventually become a one-party State," ('Keesing's Contemporary Archives', Volume 13; p. 18,502).
On 1 December 1961 the 'Integral Revolutionary Organisations' was transformed into a unitary party, the 'United Party of the Socialist Revolution '.
A 'SOCIALIST' REVOLUTION(1961)
Continuing the process of presenting Cuba as a 'socialist' state deserving of fraternal support from the Soviet bloc, on 16 April 1961, in a speech by Castro,
"The revolution in Cuba was officially declared a socialist revolution": (Blas Roca: 'New Stage in the Cuban Revolution', in: 'World Marxist Review', Volume 4, No. 10 (October 1961); p. 2).
This propaganda was aimed at giving a measure of protection to Cuba against the threat from US imperialism:
"Castro soon saw . . . that the Soviets were not likely to provide the defence umbrella he wanted unless Cuba were a Marxist-Leninist state. Only then would there be a doctrinal imperative for them to come to his defence. Thus, the day before the Bay of Pigs invasion, in a transparent effort to force the Soviets to guarantee Cuba's security, Castro declared his revolution to be socialist". (Wayne S. Smith: 'US-Cuba Relations: Twenty-Five Years of Hostility', in: Sandor Halebsky & John M. Kirk (Eds.):'Cuba: Twenty-Five Years of Revolution:1959-1984' (hereafter listed as: 'Sandor Halebsky & John M. Kirk (Eds.) (1985)'; New York; 1985; p. 337).
And on 1 December 1961, Castro publicly declared:
"I am a Marxist-Leninist, and I will be one until the last day of my life". (Fidel Castro: Speech of 1 December 1961, in: Theodore Draper (1962): op. cit.; p. 147).
THE CONTRADICTIONS WITHIN THE UNIFIED PARTY
We have seen that the Castroites initially presented themselves as representing the interests of the Cuban peasantry, while in fact, objectively, they represented the interests of the Cuban national bourgeoisie. In the circumstances of liberated Cuba, where capital was now in extremely short supply, the Castroites took the view that the independent economic development of Cuba could be achieved only by using the state machinery to develop capitalism, that is, only by developing state capitalism.
As we have seen, the leaders of the Popular Socialist Party represented the interests of the Cuban comprador bourgeoisie. After the victory of the revolution, they could no longer do this directly. They therefore argued against state capitalism, against nationalisation of the enterprises of the national bourgeoisie and in favour of their encouragement as private entrerpreneurs, understanding that -- in the post-Liberation conditions of Cuba -- this would necessarily involve aid from, and therefore dependence upon, foreign imperialism.
At the 8th Congress of the PSP in August 1960, Blas Roca of the PSP insisted that:
"Private enterprise that is not imperialistic . . . is still necessary". (Blas Roca in: Hugh Thomas: op. cit.: p. 513).
And he wrote in 1961:
"Another question of great import in this process is that of maintaining contact with the still-remaining private-capitalist sector. The procedure which we used in uprooting US imperialist domination, latifundism and big parasitic capital cannot be applied in extirpating the survivals of capitalism". (Blas Roca: 'New Stage in the Cuban Revolution', in: 'World Marxist Review', Volume 4, No. 10 (October 1961); p. 7).
In line with this strategy, the PSP insisted that the new revolutionary regime represented the interests of a coalition of classes, including the national bourgeoisie. It :
"Borrowed from Mao Tse-tung the concept of the 'four-class' bloc or alliance, made up of the middle class, peasants, workers and national bourgeoisie." (Theodore Draper (1965): op. cit.; p. 82-83).
As the PSP said:
"Power has passed into the hands of the 'Movement of July 26', led by Fidel Castro . . . with the national and petty bourgoisie playing the leading role". (Theses of the Executive Committee of the Popular Socialist Party of Cuba, in: 'World Marxist Review', Volume 2, No. 4 (April 1959); p. 68).
It insisted that the party would strive:
"To preserve and strengthen the alliance of all revolutionary and popular forces represented by the working class, the peasantry, the petty bourgeoisie and the national bourgeoisie (Theses of the Executive Committee of the Popular Socialist Party of Cuba, in: ibid.; p. 69).
"Anibal Escalante . . . opposed the confiscation of all private property, . . . adding that 'we maintain the strategy of the alliance of classes with which the revolution originated'. (Anibal Escalante, in: Tad Szulc: op. cit.; p. 421).
This was the main factor which created contradictions within the unified party that included both Castroites and former PSP leaders.
In a televised speech on 26 March 1962, Castro denounced former PSP leader Anibal Escalante for attempting:
"To systematically purge from high posts members of Castro's 26th of July Movement and substitute them with PSP cadres." (Jaime Suchucki: op. cit.; p. 101).
And for:
"Converting the IRO into an instrument for personal ends, into a 'tyranny', a 'strait jacket". (Theodore Draper (1962): op. cit.; p. 204).
"Castro singled out Anibal Escalante for some of the most withering accusations in his formidable arsenal of sarcastic invective. lie informed Cubans that Escalante had created 'a counter-revolutionary monstrosity' in IRO, that he had built up his own machine to take over the party and the government'. (Tad Szulc: op. cit.; p. 463).
Escalante:
" had been despatched the day before to Prague, being succeeded in his job at IRO by President Dorticos". (Hugh Thomas: op. cit. ; p. 601).
Although the criticism was ostensibly directed against Escalante personally, Castro made it clear that a whole group of former leaders of the PSP were involved:
"Castro made it abundantly clear that he was striking through Escalante at many others. The red thread through the whole speech