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CUBA A NECESSARY BALANCE SHEET Brauments about the nature o WorKerS Brate In tais, it sougar to
the state by the worker and peasant leading group has allowed the unions - an essential instrument for defending the Interests of the workers even In the transitional phase-to remain under the control of the old Stalinist bureaucrats of the PSP [Partido Soparty, the name of the Communis patty arder Batista, even relegating them, in hasty generalisations, to an horting the workers to greater proFinally, the Cuban leaders' statement of the need to build a Marxiet. Leninist party, accompanied at the be ginning by original attempts at coun tering the dangers of bureaucratization, has not been translated into action except to an absolutely insufficient degree. It is symbolic that ten years after the conquest of power, the Tirat congress of the party has yet to In these conditions it has been difficult for the vanguard of the proletariar to accomplish its tasks in reality. And more generally, the working class has been able to exercise its hegemony in democratic structures at the top levels, the inadequacy of the unions, and srave smitations in the functioning of the party have left wolds which, In one way or another, had to be illed. Thus a atratums of leaders and functionaries has progressively been created, which in practice has Interpreted the deciaions made by the lead Ing group at the top to suit its own In a situation that-despite the his toric advance indicated above-re mained marked by scarcity, to entrust the leading functions to a narrow stratum inevitebly meant the development of conditions of privilege and the mentality associated with them.
There ls no doubt that social differentiation and privileges are still ver, Timited and, In any case, qualitatively different from those In the Soviet Unlon, the people's der cracles, and even China. Differentiation, however. does exiet and a dangerous political and social dynamic is operating. This in all the more dangerous because the embryonie Cuban bureaucratle strata can take advantage of the relationship of forces on the international level, and, more precisely, the convergence between their interests and their aspirations and the Interests and aspirations of the bureaucratic caste in the USSR, which for well-known reasons is now able to subject Cuba to all sorts of pressures, if not actual black4. The revolutionary and antibureaucratie orientations of the Cuban leading group, Its Initiatives In Latin America, Its polemice with the Communist parties and the Soviet leadership itself have made a powerful contribution to the crists of Stalinism and the bureaucratic organizations of the International workers' movement.
However, because of their education and the conditloning they have undergone, the Cuban leaders have not ac quired -have not shown —a rounded understanding of the phenomenon of the bureaucratization of the Communiet parties and the degeneration of transitional societies. This theoretical deficiency has had serious practical impitcations and will have more in the future if It is not overcome in time. This is why the revolutionary Marzists of the Fourth International Their lack of clarity about the noure of the Communiat partles has led the Cuban leaders several times to harbor Illuslone about the possibility of these parties contributing to advancing the revolutionary struggle in Latin America. The most dramatic reach an agreement with the Bolivian struggle led by Che Guevara. In thin way, the Cubans' analytical and methodological deficiencles in approaching the problem of the nature of the bureaucratized workers states played a large role in their stand on the invasion of Czechoslovakia. And this position in practice led them to line up with Moscow and the most conservative (and most anti-Castroist) CommuThere is no need for me to recall here how much such an attitude damaged the prestige and influence of the the workers states oppressed by bureaucratie domination and the young vanguarde that are the driving force of the new upsurge in the most Industrialized capitalist countries. in the case of these new vanguards more specifically, the Castrolst leading group's reticent attitude toward the May 1968 events in France aleo 5. The historle Impetus that the CuAmerican revolution and the aid the Cuban workers state has assured the overebadow the negative facts at the coot of the crisis in relations between the Castroist leadership and a series of movements that were inspired by Castroism at the time of their forma On the level of generalizations and strategic guidelines, the Cubans gave a boost to erroneous or at least one-sided Interpretations of the Cuban revolutionary experience itself (for exthe masa Influence Fidel Castro already had before the landing, the effect the existence of the anti-Batista move ment in the cities had on the development of the armed struggle, etc.). At the same time, in the attempt to refute -which was the right thing to doopportunist theorizing about the exceptionaliam of the Cuban road, the Havana leadership went to the point of ignoring or seriously underestimating the actual peculiar conditions in volved, which very probably will not be assembled in a revolutionary strug gle in any other countries. (I need only part of the Latin American bourgeoithat believed the Batista regime had no future and expected Fidel Cartro, once in power, to follow the traJectory of other leaders of petty-bourSimilarly, while starting off from a correct assessment of the revolutionary tenelons on a continental level and the unquestionable necesaity of refuting the tendentious analyses of the reformiate and centrists, the Cubane formulated an ambiguous and schematie theory of the foco guerrilla nucleus. In this way, they promoted Illusione In many revolutionists, who had courage but no political training or linka with the masses, that they could repeat the experience of the Sierre Maestra as soon ae a minimum of "technical" conditions were assembled. It in true that this theory has been most systematically and explicit ly stated in Regis Debray's little book.
It le also true bat Cuban documents of approximately the same date (Dotably the report of the Cuban delegabook, Moreover, Guevara also had many remarks to make about thie This does not take away from the that the success of Revolución en la revolución? was due to Cuban publicity and support, which It would be legitimate to interpret as approval. Here we touch again on the negative consequences of the Cutheoretical weakness, their empiriciem both in the way they criticized the Communist pardes and In the way they have approached the vital question of the revolutionary Régis Debray's book, which no one defende today but which was greeted with veritable rave enthusiasm when it appeared, was well suited to give the maximum encouragement to the adventurist and spontanéist tendencies already widespread in Latin America In the aftermath of Fidel Castro's vicmovement has paid for these errore has not yet been fully assessed, but As one of the articles Included In volume? points out, the Cuban revolution has entered into a crucial where opposing conceptions and forces are locked in conflict. Thie struggle has an international dimenalon because the relationship of forces between the masses and the embryonte bureaucratic strata In Cuba is also Influenced by the relationship of forces the world scale (and at this level the most powertul bureaucratic force, the ruling caste in Moscow, still has very great resources and considerable Only windbage or ignoramuses can underestimate the terrible difficulties of bullding sociallem in the altuation that existe (It must not be forgotten for one instant that, over and above any possible tactical pretenses, kee Imperialiam remains footing). But those who refuse to accept the outlook of resigning themand an opportunitie softening of polley (which in the last analysis would Isolate the regime from the masses and make the laland more vulnerable to possible imperialist attacks) are virtually duty bound to try to offer solaLLOOS 1i is necessary to malntain an exceptional productive effort for a prolonged period (this is the only way to guarantee that the needs of the people will be progressively met). This Involves rationaliting the economy. And to accomplish this, raising the produc#vity of labor le a sine qua son The leadership must rely on constantly mobiliaing and activating the masses. And It can do this only by profoundly reorganising the workers state on a revolutionary democratie pattern that can enable the working class and the masses in general to participate in fact in administering the polltical and The positiona Fidel Castro has taken, especially since be was forced to recognize the failure of the campaign to harvest 10,000,000 tons of sugar, indicate that at least a part of the leading group is conscious of the tenat work and of the necessity to wage a determined battle for workers' democracy. The reorganization of the unions by holding elections at the various levels represente a first step.
A shake-up has occurred here in precisely the sector where the old and new On the level of statements, what Castro sald in a recent speech (December 7, 1970) evoking the historic expertences of the Paris Commune and the signifieant He affirmed the need no.
tably for "manifold forms of representation through which citizens can be represented in different ways and for a perspective of developing institutional structures that can enable the people representatives in framing lawa and measures of the revolutionary governIf the leading group resolutely pursues this course, does not put off implementing it, and draws much more then in the past ence led and workers' movement, it can make a contribution to blocking dangerous tendencies and creating the preconditons for exemplary sociallat construc.
It goes without saying that a positive evolution would be conditionel at the same time on adopting an orlentation corresponding to the needs of the Latin American revolutionary of the Cuban leaders In this regard seema to confirm that they are holding to a prudent course, prolonging their event, It seema, on the one band, that certain Debraylat" concephave been abandoned or set TODS salde; on the other, that a very definite effort is being made to exploit the situAllende's vletory in Chile, and -to a lesser extent - Torres's coming to No revolutioniat can find fault with the Cuban goverument for Its attempts to exploit differences and cries ariaIng in the enemy front and to break the economie, military, and diplomatic blockade. What would be very negaive would be any Inclination toward giving theoretical Justifications for opportunist concesatons and, still worse, subordination of the needs of the conjunctural peeda of Cuban state the case of Peru, for example, it is proper for the Cubans to exploit the openings offered them by the orientation of the present military regime. But what is unacceptable is characterking the Peruvian army as revolutonary and forgetting in fact every Che Guevara explained about the nature of the revolution in Latin America and the impossibility of relying on alliances with the so-called national As regards the struggies of revolutionists in Latin America more directly, after a perlod of partial reticence, the Cuban press la again devoting considerable space to the activity of struggle (fret of all in Uruguay, Argentina and Brazil). And in his speech last July 26, Fidel Castro also devoted considerable attention to this subBut what the Latin American revo lutionists are walting for is a redefiniion of the Cuban position regarding orlentations and methods of struggle. A wait-and-see aftitude, which would ultimately, If it became too prolonged, mean opting for empiriciem and spontanélem, la no solution whatever for • leadership whose reaponablittles are directly proportional to ita and which Itself has vital Interest in seeing revolutionary vietories in Latin America In the near future.
I am convinced that the Cuban revolution has not yet shown Its potentialItles. Thie la why I have drawn attenton to the tasks which, In my opinion. the Cuban leaders must accompllah. This ls why today more than in the past, in determining their perspectives and orlentations, the Latin American apired by an awareness of their duty anticapitaliat struggle to defend the Cuban workers state. After ten years, thie regime has not ceased to represent the boldest and cheekiest challenge to the most powerful Imperialtam In the history of the capitalist 1. As the Fourth International did not fall to strees nt the August 1968 speech also contained a rathsharp criticiam of the burenseracy's misdeeds, which explains why it tus not seen published in Moscow despite its sup 2. See "Une etape cruciale pour la revo A tilable holish TranslAted in 1970, pages 1041-48.]
the guerrilla legacy argentina in Venezuela, Turcios Lima in Guatemala, Carlos Marighella in Brazil. Although Uruguay, it seemed that the strategy of which they were the focal point was doomed to failure, Most of the Latin American Communist Parties had adopted the strategy of armed struggle very reluctantly and were eager to abandon it at first opportunity. Undoubtedly in purely military terms this phase of armed struggle had met defeat in its crucial engagements and undoubtedly this defeat Yet already it seems that the overall results of the guerrilla campaigns have been much more mixed than any purely military assessment would indicate: the military defeats contained elements of future political victories. Those who so rapidly reverted to revisionism and reformism find this impossible to understand or explain, Because there is no doubt that the strategy of armed struggle has helped to hasten the crisis of imperialist domination which is now undermining the ruling order in Latin America. The masses have become more aware of the social and economic contradictions which plague them, they have become more aware that something must be done about them and, most important of all, they are aware that a revolutionary challenge to the ruling order can be made. The political and moral stature of the revolutionary left has been immeasurably enhanced by the heroic sacrifices of Che Guevara and the other guerrilla fighters.
Only a complete philistine can ignore this element in the present critical conreformism in Bolivia and Peru was in part a response to the political challenge in Bolivia this shift and crisis in the ruling order has permitted the working class to pose again the fundamental questions of class power. The mineworkers are again securing control of the areas where they work and re-establishing armed peasants and students as well as workers, has begun to dispute the legitimacy of the Torres regime. In Chile the election of Allende's Popular Unity Govemment while in no sense a revolutionary act, certainly inaugurates a perilous experiment for imperialist domination in Chile. Under pressure from the revolutionary left, the Popular Unity coalition was forced to adopt a more radical programme than any Popular Front has ever advanced in the past. Yet at the same time direct Argentina is the most hughly urbanised and industrialised country in Latin America Over 20% of its labour force workers in manufacturing industry: but this sector, which provides more and more profits to foreign capital and its local associates, is creating few new jobs.
Throughout the continent new industry is increasingly capital intensive, with the mose to high productivity plants accelerated in the face of demands from organised labour.
With production in the agricultural sectors generally stagnant-not only in subsistence crops but also, in view of low or falling prices in the world market, in production for exportunemployment is therefore increased. Even on official figures, which don't take disguised unemployment into account, the figures for the Cordobs and Rosario areas have fluctuated between 6 and 11% in the past decade.
With the changing nature of the interests of imperialism, the meat-packing firmas, which form the oldest processing industry in Argentina and were an early fouthold for American capital, have lost their importance for foreign Investment, DELTEC, the combine which owns the Rosurio Swift factory, is the chief remaining foreign-owned concern, and has closed down a lot of its other plants, But it's no part of the work of socialists to help solve the problems of capital by accepting this situa tion. The problem of the Argentiniun revolutionaries has been to find ways of fighting on the question of unemployment in a The recent period in Latin America witnessed a string of setbacks for revolutionary guerrilla warfare in Latin America, of which the defeat of Che Guevara' Bolivian campaign was only the best known. Besides Che many other guerrilla commanders wete killed: Luis de la Puente in Peru, Camilo Torres in Colombia, Fabricio Ojeda guerrilla movements still operated in Colombia, Guatemala, Venezuela, Brazil and expressed a weakness in the political strutegies accompanying the guerrilla actions. juncture in Latin America. The appearance of demagogic military nationalism and represented by the guerrillas even after they had been defeated militarily. Already groups, and their radio station while in La Paz a National Assembly, representing situation where physical repression i the certain result of any mass movement of workers against both employers and government.
to identify the enemy, international capital, and to use revolutionary violence to obtain sorne redress for the Rosario workers.
Inter-imperialist rivalries notwithstunding, British and American capital will feed each other where they can. The dual role of the Rosario consul is merely a sympton of this, and is no innovation-in the Caribbean area there have been instances since 1900 of the appointment to consular posts of British employees and associates of the United Fruit Company. But the reminder of the part played by British imperialism is very important in the case of Argentina, even though it's now L.5, cupital which makes the rumming over half the direct industrial investment is U.S. owned. a large proportion of the rest coming from the countries of the EEC From the late 1880s to the carly 1940s Argentina was ruled by British capital and its allies, the big landowners. Throughout the period some 10% of British foreign investment was going to Argentina, extracting up to 12% of the profits on British capital exports. The rate of profit reached between 5 and 63 In the 1920s, making Argentina the most lucrative of British colonies, without any need for direct political rule. British capital went overwhelmingly into the organisation of the export sector, the transport and other facilities for masses and the setting up of institutions of armed popular power. Debray's this profound gulf between on the one hand, a radically anti-imperialist and - situation the responsibilities of those who understand the necessity of armed Debray's Conversationa). The outcome of these struggles will be decisive in determining the fate of the worker's movement in Chile. The tradition and mortal class conflict now underway in Chile.
regime and exposed its impotence has provided a striking vindication of the tactics of urban guerrilla warfare. The coming elections could well produce a situation similar to that which prevails in Chile at the moment. Meanwhile in regime. This and other experience are reported on elsewhere in these pages.
by reforms handed down to the masses from above, If anything such reforms for imperialist hegemony of the continent. Not the least of these probloms is the new significance which the tradition of guerrilla warfure acquires where it by increasingly intense popular struggle from Rosario to Punta Arenas, from Potosi to Montevideo.
R B the carriage to Europe of the produce of Argentina's frontier; the meat, wool and grain of an expanding capitalist agriculture unIn this instance the comrades have not hesitated hampered by the presence of a large subjugated Indian peusant population atter the resistant cribes of the plains had been wiped out in the nineteenth century wars. But by the and of the Sccond World War the strength of British capital had diminished dramatically, class struggle had sharpened, the landowners had been kicked out and Peron had come into power. His policies for domestic, industrial capitalist expansion foundered on the rock of Argentina's weaknoss in the world capitalist system. The terms of trade were turning heavily against her, she was still reliant on agriculturul exports for the foreign exchange needed for imports of capital goods and the consumption needs of her bourgeoisio From 1955 the representatives of the landowners were again in power, but with the persisting colonial role in world trade which British imperialism had orginally created for the country. Argeatina continued to run into balance of payment crises, suffering from a very high rate of inflation which further sharpened class struggle on the wages front.
Fund imposed a vicious "stabilisation" programme which hit at the working class and also at domestic capital accumulation and industry. In these years foreign capital increased enormousy its dontinance over industry, as the protective machinery built participation of the masses in the Popular Unity Government and its implemertation of the programme, is no greater, and in some ways even less, than it was in the French Popular Front of the Thirties. The Popular Unity coalition has so far completely failed to give the Popular Unity Committees a mass character. It has used its victory in the recent muncipal elections only as an occasion for self-congratulation and not as the signal for a far-reaching mobilisation of the searching questions to the President in his Conversations with Allende reveal socialist rehetorie and a staggering blindness to the realities of class power leading to a complete failure to prepare the masses for the conquest of power. In this class struggle, notably the MIR in Chile, are very great. So far the MIR has encouraged peasants to seize land and not to wait for permission from the Ministry of Agriculture, it has supported the agitation of Mass Fronts which relate to the immediate material problems facing the masses (Housing, unemployment etc) anc it has recently denounced the PU Government's use of the bourgeois state machir to repress revolt from below. (A MIR basic orientation document is appended to example of the guerrilla movements thus has a new and vital relevance in the In Uruguay the bold fashion in which the Tupamaros have isolated the Pacheec Argentina guerrilla actions such as the brilliantly successful kidnapping of the British consul lend a new cutting edge to the popular opposition to the military Founded on massive exploitation and oppression, imperialism cannot be saved stimulate the appetite of the masses and create uncontrollable political problems occura in the context of a crisis affecting the whole social order and accompanied up under Peronism was dismantled while the toreign indebtedness of governments also grew rapidly. Politically the power of foreig capital was escablished by the 1966 military. by Ongania and the governments which have followed him in the past year.
So the formation of the Argentinian expos sector at the hands of British imperialism determined the conditions under which, in the late "50s and 60s, American capital came to dominate the country, through its control of industry and government finance. And Britain's role has not completely disappeared; cuttle products still foun the bulk of Argentinian exports, and the greal part of trade remains with Britain and Western Europe a new agreement has just been sigried for the importation of Argentinia meat into Britain.
With the final collapse in the past fifteen yours of all hope in a nutive capitalist solutio to Argentina's colonial position-and it is one of the wealthiest and most confident of Latin American bourgeoisies which has tailed with the increasing resort to force by governments against any upsurge of the masses.
Opposition to imperialism in Argentina has From 1959 to 1963 the International Monetary clearly taken the revolutionary road, the road of armed struggle. British socialists must express their solidarity with the ERP and all the groups which form the vanguard of the Argentinian struggle today.
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