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Celia
Hart Reports from Caracas on the World Congress of Intellectuals: Socialism
– The Only “Better World”
We publish below an article from December 2004 by Cuban
journalist Celia Hart. This
English-language version is based on the translation by W.T. Whitney Jr.
published in Labor Standard (www.laborstandard.org/
) We have revised and reworked it to some extent. Another version can be found
on the following site: www.walterlippmann.com/ch-12-12-2004.html.
We have retained some of Labor
Standard’s explanatory notes and added other notes; all are in brackets.
Caracas is once again the queen of the world’s left. The Congress of Intellectuals in Defense
of Humanity [in December 2004] brought hundreds of the world’s foremost
progressives together to greet December.
The representatives of a thousand and one tendencies were on hand
trying to come to some agreement on a decent future for the world. We needed
them to see if we have pointed the compass in the right direction. I was
there, full of expectations, mixed up with my chronic skepticism.
So much rhetoric in summits, congresses, and world assemblies has
chilled my faith in the usefulness of their methods. Maybe this time we
will not be confined to the go-round of denouncing the world’s calamities, the
violations of human and divine laws, and the contrariness of our enemies. What we need to do now is look for ways
to wage our struggle and to determine what means we have to for offering a
sharp answer to imperialism.
If we don’t succeed in finding specific answers, if we do not once
and for all come out of the shelter of academia, then our descendants will
judge this
generation of thinkers to be no more than a useless conglomeration
of observers.
At the Third International Seminar of Pedagogy recently held in Peru,
James Petras [activist and author of numerous books on Latin American
social and
political developments] remarked: "Social forums used to be
positive, good for getting together, discussing, forming networks, and approving
a declaration or two. But now
they’ve become almost rituals, like a social gathering, where people rub
elbows, invite some important personages, and carry out a march. And then everybody
goes on home. I believe now they’ve lost the sharp edge of rebellion, of
real criticism. A retrospective look suggests that they’ve not had much effect."
I agree. And among many other things, there is a flag that appears
to be missing at world conferences of the left. It is not much talked about
because of fear, and is confined to narrow political parties. I mean socialism.
Many sincere comrades are proclaiming the end of the "isms."
It is pathetic, especially because fascism, militarism, and imperialism
fill up our lives from
dawn to dusk. These tendencies—they are like a "leftist
Fukuyama-ism"—quite openly refer to the tragedy of the current left.
They oppose political
parties and anyone with "isms." We will have to confine
ourselves to prayers, descriptions, and proclamations.
I confess that for me the slogan, "A better world is possible,"
seems like resignation. A better world is of course possible, but a worse
one is too! This
slogan limits our possibilities. I dream about some extraterrestrial
on the way to construct it, or even worse—as if there were any chance that
those tender
words might move our enemies on a summer morning, while they sip
their orange juice.
[Venezuelan President] Chavez said it: "It is possible to have
a better world … if we ourselves make it possible!" In fact, it seems
ironical that up against
a Dantesque scenario of wars, lies, and poverty, we could even talk
about a better world.
The Berlin Wall fell over a decade ago, and we haven’t been able to
get over the psychological trauma caused by "actually existing
socialism." We will have to bring in all the world’s psychoanalysts to
see if we can free ourselves from this curse. I hope we do not waste
another 70 years doing it. While we were going to the analyst, the enemy
would be building wall after twisted wall, all the while smothering us with
apocalyptic phrases like "preemptive war," "axis of
evil," and other idiocies. And as if that weren’t enough, that
same enemy wins the U.S. elections.
I ask myself, what flag could ever mean more than that of socialism?
Now that globalization has descended upon us all over the world, what could
be better than to take up socialist ideas again, squeeze them, fiddle with
them, mix them up, and then present the enemy with true international
solidarity as an alternative to capitalist globalization.
"With all and for the good of all," or as [Cuban poet and
leader in the late 19th-century independence struggle against Spain] Jose
Marti would say, together
with all those who can add fuel to the fire—who sincerely aspire to a
world that is not only better but qualitatively different.
There is only one alternative to barbarism. Frederick Engels said
it: socialism, that very socialism that in Rosa Luxemburg’s words "is
not just a problem of
knives and forks, but is a cultural movement, and an all-encompassing,
powerful world view."
Any flag is welcome, as long as it is a real one: Bolivar’s,
Hidalgo’s, those of San Martin and Jose Marti, and all of the rest,
anywhere, flags that fill places of honor in our history. We have to
follow, if only out of respect for them.
[Cuban Communist Party founder] Julio Antonio Mella [1903-1929] gave
new life to Marti by boldly embracing him on the basis of the new
scientific findings of Karl Marx. And in a way he made Marti into the
founder of Cuba’s first Communist Party. Mella said that "in order to
make a revolution in this century, something new is needed, socialist
ideas, ideas that one way or another are taking root in every corner of the
world." Fidel Castro and his
comrades again rescued Jose Marti from the enemy, by making him into the
intellectual
inspiration of a socialist revolution.
Enough romantic stories! That is why Marti still lives, because had
he talked with Karl Marx, they would not only have seen eye to eye from the
first cup
of coffee but Marti would have offered Marx some pointers about America,
since Marti understood the events in Chicago much better. Marti certainly
could have alerted Marx to the emergence of imperialism, having lived as he
did in the belly of the beast.
[Peruvian revolutionary leader] Jose Carlos Mariategui [1894-1930]
sought a vision of socialism and class struggle that was adapted creatively
and boldly to the present situation. Such a vision will enable us to see to
it that Bolivar and so many of our predecessors did not plow the ocean [did
not work in vain].
Our responsibility is enormous. No longer will we be able to blame
Stalin and "actually existing socialism" for our failures and
prejudices. It is time to take
out the sword and pen, conquer and win people’s hearts, raising the
only flags that can lead the march for a better world for us and for our
children. The enemy is certainly in
crisis. But if we if we do not take the measure of it quickly, we risk
becoming caught up in it ourselves.
Measuring stick for socialism
What is the state of socialism? I am bold enough to propose a quite
simplified "measuring" stick. The revolution is a process. Natural
processes are
measured in terms of variations in magnitude over time. Let’s try to
measure a social process like that. Let’s do it like this: we will call SOC
a magnitude
that measures how socialist the revolution is at any given point in
time. Let’s take three examples. First,
Cuba’s socialist revolution has proven itself to be permanent despite
harassment from imperialism. It
demonstrated its staying power in the 1990s by surviving the fall of
European socialism, while
simultaneously having to confront a tightened U.S. blockade. This is
a clear fact that attests to the health of our socialist revolution. The
SOC factor
moves significantly upward.
Without a doubt, legalization of the dollar for trade and commerce
and a rapid growth of tourism and joint ventures—functioning under
capitalist rules—have
become bitter pills for the revolution to swallow, more so even than
the special period. Some Cubans are adopting a capitalist mentality.
Without presuming to compare the Cuban policy to the New Economic Policy that
Lenin had to impose on the young Soviet state, the reasons for it seem to
be similar. But based on this measure, our variable takes a dip, just as
was the case in the USSR.
Next we look at the so-called battle of ideas that began with the
campaign to return Elian Gonzalez to his homeland. This was the point at
which Fidel began
to build an impressive revolution inside the other. The education of social workers, young
teachers, and paramedical personnel moved forward together with a little-known
educational revolution by which the student-teacher ratio fell to 20:1 in a
two-year period.
Not only did the quality of education improve but, more importantly,
the revolutionary process brought in tens of thousands of students. Most of
them had been idle until then, thinking mainly about dollars—legalized for
a while—or about emigrating. I understand that this is a tumultuous
process, and not
everyone will be with the revolution. The ideological battle is part
of the process too.
There are now two educational channels that are quite different from
the usual channels. Cultural rather than commercial criteria determine the
programming,
which includes daily roundtables, weekly open forums, and university
teaching, open to anybody, on subjects such as the history of philosophy,
ballet, or the
sciences.
Fidel speaks frequently to the people on television, and those
appearances have raised the political level of public discourse and
contributed to a culture of
debate, despite some tendencies toward repetitiveness and
sloganeering. Overall, these changes do represent a decisive step-up in the
SOC factor.
It is not Fidel’s job or that of revolutionary Cubans to build
socialism, simply because socialism in one country is impossible. What is
possible, however, is
to build up the SOC aspect of the socialist revolution. And to that
end, it has to assure that forces are in place to counteract tendencies
toward capitalist restoration. In order to survive, we voluntarily contacted
that disease [of capitalist restoration] in 1994 with legalization of the
dollar. Two forces are at war
inside the revolution itself.
Fidel devotes most of his time and all of his efforts to these
struggles, to the battle of ideas. This new revolution arose out of
specific projects that involve
the most revolutionary social strata. For example, the campaign
against the mosquito that carries the yellow fever virus became a political
campaign, because high school students played a leading role.
Despite the relative worthlessness of our national currency, we have
been avoiding layoffs. Sugar workers left without work receive salaries for
studying.
Despite our economic "poverty," Cuba boasts sports programs
and indicators of health and education outcome more associated with
developed nations.
You have to see the expression on Fidel Castro’s face on days when a
small battle against pro-capitalist forces is won, when, for example, the
dollar was
replaced by the convertible peso. More than just changing from one
piece of paper to another, a symbolism was working that put a smile on
Fidel’s face
that would not fade, even with his accident and all. No longer would the green money
"grate" on the hands of young Cubans.
Cuban internationalism
What about internationalism? Tens of thousands of our compatriots
are working as doctors, teachers, or technicians in Latin American
countries. International organizations, once they became involved in the tragedy
that is Haiti, were astounded to learn that for every doctor there on the
ground from developed countries, there were a hundred Cuban doctors.
Besides their consciousness, these youngsters carry with them a piece of
the Cuban revolution.
And this not cost-free. Those helping out in Venezuela are unavailable
to care for people in Cuba. Internationalism
has a price. We are not giving away
anything extra. We are giving what we most want. In the same vein, while the Conference
of Intellectuals and Artists was going on in Caracas, the Eighth Congress
of the Union of Communist Youth (UJC) took place in Havana. The UJC has had
a leadership role in the battle of ideas, along with Fidel, of course. On
the last day of the conference, Fidel came out, wearing his traditional
green uniform. From his remarks we could breathe in the concept of
revolution put into practice. The battle of ideas has cost less than 2
percent of the national income over five years, but has produced hundreds
of thousands of new comrades—an unprecedented revolutionary cost-effectiveness.
Fidel was finishing up, and as always he invited us into the struggle.
Anyone criticizing the Cuban government as bureaucratic, I ask if they know
any
president anywhere who talks about electricity consumed by the
million or so television sets in Cuban homes, or about school lunches, or
about mothers of
handicapped children receiving a wage just for taking care of their
children. No, nobody speaks about changing everything [as Fidel does]—with
the happy
exception of compañero Hugo Chavez.
This shows even more that we are in a revolution. And we will not
give it up, no matter how much it upsets the world.
They have taken prisoners of war, our five comrades—internationalist
fighters jailed in the United States for defending the revolution against imperialism
and its Miami hirelings. We know that our socialist revolution is
permanent, because those are U.S. prisons that are holding our political
prisoners.
Fidel concludes with "socialism forever!" Again and again,
he calls it out to the rhythm of the Internationale. Thousands of Cuban
youngsters sing out, "Arise, ye wretched of the earth!" They
raise their fists and attest to their faith in this
continuity.
Chinese leadership’s backward policies
The second example is legendary China, where from my point of view
exactly the opposite is taking place. The Chinese Party (is it Communist?)
says it is
building socialism. Socialism in one country? No, again no!
Private property in China is going up, not down. I read that big
capitalists head off to China out of choice. The country has become a giant
export machine.
Total exports there grew eightfold, to more than $380 billion
between 1990 and 2003. Five hundred of the planet’s biggest multinational
corporations have
invested and have plants there.
And to ease tensions caused by state corporations laying off 45
million workers in the last five years, Beijing has allowed foreigners to
put $450 billion
into its economy. It looks to me that [in the case of China] the
socialist market economy adds up to a lot more than just a temporary NEP
[New Economic Policy, a partial restoration of market relations in the
economy of the Soviet Union, which the Bolsheviks put into effect in 1922
as a temporary measure to restore production].
If the Chinese economy is so powerful, why do 58,000 workers go out
on strike, only to be designated criminals? Why is it estimated that 23
percent of the Chinese workforce is affected by unemployment, why is privatization
impacting the lives of 170 million people,
and why are low productivity and population growth leading to downsizing of
state-owned corporations? Why does the World Health Organization say that
seven out of 10 of the world’s most polluted cities are found in the
People’s Republic of China? Could
it be that the means will become the end? Do social indices in China
correspond at all to Chinese economic power? And if there is a repeat of
the 1989 protests in Tiananmen Square, do we support the Chinese Communist
Party just because it has a communist label?
I can understand that conjuncturally China is resorting to measures
to increase economic efficiency, and I have already explained how Cuba is
doing just
that, in some sense. But, where is China’s antidote? How many Chinese are teaching or taking
care of the sick in Asia? What is their position on
anti-imperialism?
That is the difference. In my country two tendencies are at war with
each other, and socialism has the advantage. In China, the Communist Party
invites
entrepreneurs to become party members.
We have to grant China that it has become the model of efficiency in
the capitalist world. I have no urge, however, to applaud that achievement.
China is not experiencing socialist revolution.
This is regardless of the fact that China is maintaining correct trade
relations with developing nations (or undeveloped, as I should say). But
they are still just trade relations. I trust that history will not be
repeating itself in China. Karl Marx said that events happen first as
tragedy (as we learned ourselves), and then, later on, as farce.
Will Venezuela move toward socialism?
My third example is Venezuela. Does Venezuela represent a victorious
socialist revolution? We will know in a few years, as the process of
revolution is consolidated.
These are some of the questions: Has the Venezuelan government moved
toward radical positions over time?
Yes. Does the government deal with the evil effects of capitalist
society by seeking out alternative solutions? Yes. Does the Bolivarian
revolution gain stature as it contends with imperialism? Yes.
Do "yes" answers make the Venezuelan revolution a socialist
one? We still don’t know. More time has to go by, and many obstacles have
to be overcome. Every one of us probably has our own yearnings, hopes, and doubts
with respect to this question. What is important is that as time goes by,
Venezuela is becoming more radical and less capitalist.
Cuba was an avalanche. It was an abrupt change that had been shaping
up for many years. We live in a different era today. A lot of water has
gone over the
dam since the miraculous 1960s. Chavez and his project are burdened
with the bad taste left over from the death of "actually existing
socialism."
There are compensating factors, of course. It is the Cuban socialist
revolution that emerges as a model, not the Stalinist USSR. And Bolivar
serves as
precedent. Bolivar plowed the ocean [made little headway] because he
ran up against emerging national bourgeoisies, classes now openly allied
with the
Empire. It is enough for Hugo Chavez to aspire to plow the ground
left by the Liberator for that process to become radicalized.
That is what happened in Cuba in the case of Jose Marti. To be
Bolivarian and faithful to the implications of that cause, Chavez will not
be able to jump over the teachings of Lenin, Trotsky, Che, and Fidel. It is
not possible to leap from the 19th to the 21st century without running into
this line of thought.
If this man is truly embarked upon Christian endeavor, he will have
no alternative but to build up the level of SOC in the Bolivarian
Revolution. In that way, we may some day be seeing an authentic socialist revolution
with pronounced internationalist characteristics, "without realizing
it," as Che might
say.
On the other hand, [Venezuela’s Bolivarian] revolution—as defined by
its multiple misiones [social programs] (the Robinson Mission, Barrio
Adentro
Mission, and many more)—has acquired a special similarity to the revolution
in my own country. The open struggles against landowners added an anti-bureaucracy
element to the Oct. 31 electoral campaign. That boosted the SOC indicators
that we defined earlier.
So there is good news too. We are reckoning with two revolutions
taking root and opening new hopes in Latin America. We need many more. Two
tested revolutionaries are in charge of them.
It is time now to go back to calling things by their right name. We
shy away from radical vocabulary. The ones who call for the end of
"isms" and "istas" leave it open as to whether or not
they are including words like "socialism" or "socialist
revolution" or "communist party" on their proscribed list.
Chavez in his remarks at the Caracas meeting clearly said, "We
feel a resurging force that every day, everywhere is
growing, a human, moral, and political force. Things are happening in
Argentina, Brazil, Spain, Libya, Moscow, and Iran. They speak Russian, Persian,
Spanish, Portuguese, but it’s the same sparkle, the same force."
What is Comandante Chavez referring to? What is the only force in
the world that can be held up as a common denominator among the poor? The
"Communist Manifesto," the specter that haunted Europe in the 19th
and early 20th centuries, is taking off again now as the only real
alternative to humanity’s
misfortunes.
President Chavez has declared that, in the face of these realities,
"It is the duty of all the revolutionaries of the world to create a
network of social and political organizations and weld together an
international movement that moves onto the offensive."
He goes on: "There are no national solutions. They are trying
to inflict upon us that most savage form of globalization, which is
neoliberalism. It is a world
problem, and the solution transcends the borders of one
country."
And calling for an offensive to save humanity, he proposes, "to
organize a network of theorists whose thinking rises to the level of a
creative, transforming, and critical force to light the way toward a new
world view for humanity."
We have then three items: the struggle understood as an end to
national borders, left forces (political parties and social movements)
endowed with
cohesiveness and maturity, and radical thought on the offensive. We move
beyond the enemy’s archaic terminology—terrorism, human rights, and
democracy—to speak of revolution, socialism, and class struggle. To
be honest, the word I am dreaming of is "the International." Facing global imperialism, that strong
word is essential.
Hugo Chavez has just launched a historic undertaking with this
meeting of intellectuals. He is inviting us into the American dream, in
fact the true one. In
contrast to Bush, who envisions the U.S. as a land of owners, Chavez
is calling for the formation of a Latin American homeland, which will be a
homeland for all the workers of the world. A homeland for today, to start
working on today.
These true goals are the ones we aim for, even if we do not achieve
them. The goals are the Patria ("Homeland") conceived by Simon
Bolivar, the America
Nuestra ["Our America"] of Jose Marti. I shiver when I think
of the proverb that says, "The third try is the one that wins."
Chavez said, "Out of this century comes our truth. We will have
a homeland, and the homeland is our America— the Caribbean and Latin
American. Now is the time to think and to do. The battle is today, not
tomorrow. We have to seize the time, not waste it. We have been called upon
to invent the homeland, make it free, and liberate it once and for all, for
the sake of our peoples."
This commitment asks more of us than reading the history of the Americas
and arriving at ways to mobilize our peoples. We need more, a whole army,
for
example, of thinkers and fighters. Right off we have to appeal to
the heritage of socialist thought. And
as Armando Hart [Celia Hart’s father; a Cuban revolutionary leader who
fought in the Sierra Maestra with Fidel in the 1950s] used to repeat almost
endlessly, "We have a storehouse that we can turn to."
They made mistakes [the members of the July 26 Movement in Cuba],
and that was their right, they were not perfect. But the positive legacy of
these men will
inspire our "new president" [Chavez] in the final battle
for the Americas.
Montaner’s charges against Leon Trotsky
Now, just for today, having come across a recent article by Carlos
Alberto Montaner [a writer and syndicated journalist, born in Havana and
now living
in Madrid], I am taking the liberty of reminding this tribunal of
revolutionary thinkers about [Russian revolutionary] Leon Trotsky.
Trotsky takes the prize in the “Guinness Book of Records” as the
most defamed revolutionary in history.
As far as that personage is concerned, many, even communists,
inadvertently go along with the enemy.
Trotsky has been accused of absolutely everything: being a fascist,
an imperialist, an assassin, a sectarian, and putting the brakes on the
revolution.
The charitable ones maintain that Trotsky’s ideas are unnecessary,
because they are obsolete.
And now Carlos Alberto Montaner comes along, a well-known enemy of
the Cuban revolution. He alleges that in Trotsky’s final days he gave up on
socialism and the revolution and embraced the market economy and
representative democracy.
That is the last straw! But we are to blame for allowing what
Trotsky represents to be confined to the so-called "Trotskyist parties,"
as if he were off the roster of revolutionaries, as if he were not the leading
thinker who warned us from a Marxist point of view about the looming end of
the USSR. More than anyone else, Trotsky analyzed the means by which a revolution
and a Communist Party in power can be liquidated.
The fall of "actually existing socialism" can neither be
analyzed nor understood without reading Leon Trotsky. And that analysis is
by no means old hat; it is right up to date. In his own flesh he
experienced the excesses of a bureaucracy in power in a "socialist"
state.
He also developed one of the most essential concepts of
revolutionary thought, the "permanent revolution." Not only is it wrong not to keep him at
our side as
one of the foremost revolutionaries, but the neglect of Trotsky has
led to obvious deficiencies in our revolutionary practice.
Internationalism, permanent revolution, and the impossibility of
socialism in one country: these are key revolutionary considerations. As a
Marxist, Trotsky has been accused of many things, but never of being a
revisionist. If anything, he went the other way. Che and Fidel followed in
his path, although they may not have known it. The slogan "create two,
three, many Vietnams" epitomizes for Latin America the practice of
both permanent revolution and internationalism.
All communists, not just Trotskyists, must give Trotsky his due as a
contributor to revolutionary thought. A reference to communism should, with
the next breath, evoke the name Leon Trotsky. And Trotskyism is more than just one ramification of Marxism.
James Cannon, one of the founding leaders [in 1919] of the Communist
movement in the United States, said in 1942, "Trotskyism is not a new
movement, a new doctrine, but the restoration, the revival, of genuine
Marxism as it was expounded and practiced in the Russian revolution
and in the early days of the Communist International."
[The quotation is from page one of James P. Cannon’s "History
of American Trotskyism" (New York: Pioneer Publishers, 1944.) The text
was originally delivered in the spring of 1942 as a series of lectures in
New York City. It describes the difficult fight of maintaining a genuine
Marxist working-class movement in the world’s richest capitalist country up
through the 1938 founding of the Socialist Workers Party.] According to Montaner, "In his last
days in Mexico, before he was murdered by Ramon Mercader, that son of a
crazy Cuban, Trotsky was beginning to reject the idea of tyranny and discovering
the value of economic and political freedom and the importance of formal democracy."
But in 1932 Trotsky stated: "Only a powerful increase in
productive forces and a sound, planned, that is, socialist, organization of
production and distribution
can assure humanity—all humanity—a decent standard of life and at
the same time give it the precious feeling of freedom with respect to its
own economy.”
[This quotation is from "In Defense of the Russian Revolution,"
a speech Trotsky gave in Copenhagen, Denmark, in November 1932. We have
used the
English-language wording that appeared in “Leon Trotsky Speaks,” edited
by Sarah Lovell (New York: Pathfinder Press, 1972), p. 267. For more on
this
quotation, and the context of Trotsky’s speech, see the note below.]
So Montaner is referring to a freedom Trotsky had extolled many years
before. For the sake of that freedom he had organized the Red Army, worked
at
Lenin’s side, and ultimately gave his best years and his life
itself.
But we know that Montaner is referring to "freedom" in the
sense of the impunity enjoyed by exploiters. What sort of injustice have we
done to Leon Trotsky when one of socialism’s worst enemies can go on like
this unchallenged? If we allow a thing like this to continue, we are complicit
in striking a deathblow to a revolutionary thinker, one worse than
Mercader’s in
1940. And this kind of attack on Trotsky does irreparable harm to
the ideas of socialism.
Luckily, Hugo Chavez cheered us up by looking at the other side of
the coin. In the closing session of the Caracas conference, he quoted words
from a book by Trotsky he had bought in Madrid: "In ‘The Permanent Revolution,’
the Bolshevik revolutionary states that the problems of individual nations
are not susceptible to national solutions, but involve all the peoples of the
world."
They say that a lie runs on for 100 years, but the truth can catch
up in a day. That is what happens when there is an honest search for the
correct road. In
fact, all those roads lead to socialism. They have set up a permanent
office in Caracas for anti-globalization. This might be the first office of
the permanent revolution.
I have to go back once more to the article by Carlos Alberto
Montaner, because I believe that again he is barking up the wrong tree. The
man also complains because I called him a terrorist. And he may be
right. If imperialists say my
Palestinian brothers are terrorists, as they struggle for their people’s
self-determination, then Montaner is no terrorist. If Iraqi fighters
in Falluja are terrorists, for courageously confronting the strongest and
most cowardly army in the world, then Montaner is no terrorist. Nor is he a
terrorist, if the Cuban
revolutionaries are called terrorists, those who fought against a
criminal, pro-U.S. dictatorship and who in less than seven years achieved
power and
established an authentic socialist revolution.
But this gentleman [Montaner] is an enemy of the Cuban people. He
supposes that after four decades of knowing what dignity is all about, we
will go backwards. We have learned how to behave as free people, and now
for
the Cuban people to go back "peacefully" to a corrupt so-called
republic and to accept imperialism is impossible.
His fantasies about my country going back half a century to the days
when it was the casino of the U.S. are almost infantile. Fidel speculated
that socialism
would triumph in the U.S. before counterrevolution takes over in
Cuba.
As for myself and my "revisionism," I say this: I do not
expect the corrupt, vicious formal democracy proposed by Montaner ever to
be reinstalled in Cuba. But if it
were, if the Cuban Revolution were to fail, if backward forces were to get
an advantage over the revolutionary model in the battle of ideas, then my course
is clear.
The only thing that I will take a new look at is the number of the
bullets in my magazine and the barrel of my rifle. And the only current
that we Cubans and
communists everywhere will join are the currents of winds blowing
anew in the Sierra Maestra. And I can assure Mr. Montaner that marching
with me, besides Fidel, Che, Marx, and Lenin, at the head of our column will
be the First Soldier, Leon Trotsky.
With great pride I take my place in the ranks of Montaner’s
"terrorists."
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Note by Labor Standard on the 1932 quotation from Trotsky
— The full paragraph in which the quoted sentences appear makes the full
meaning of Trotsky’s remarks more clear:
"Capitalism has outlived itself as a world system.
It has ceased to fulfill its essential mission, the increase of human power
and human wealth. Humanity cannot stand still at the level which it has
reached. Only a powerful increase
in productive forces and a sound, planned, that is, socialist, organization
of production and distribution can assure humanity—all humanity—of a decent
standard of life and at the same time give it the precious feeling of
freedom with respect to its own economy.
"Freedom in two senses—first of all, man [that is, human
beings collectively] will no longer be compelled to devote the greater part
of his life to physical
labor. Second, he will no longer be dependent on the laws
of the market, that is, on the blind and dark forces which have grown up
behind his back.
"He will build up his economy freely, that is, according
to a plan, with compass in hand. This time it is a question of subjecting
the anatomy of society to the X-ray through and through, of disclosing all its
secrets and subjecting all its functions to the reason and the will of a
collective humanity. In this sense, socialism must become a new step in the
historical advance of mankind."
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