RE: Dissident Cuban Communism -- New Website

["Julio" <julfb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

José:
En la pagina web, creo, www.po.com.ar que pertenece al Partido Obrero, un
grupo ultratrotskista argentino, hay algunos testimonios sobre estos temas
vinculados al trotskismo posadista en Cuba. Incluso con algunos relatos
sobre la relación del Che con estos militantes. Uno de ellos, argentino,
Angel Fanjul, declara que el Che le salvo la vida cuando estaban a punto de
fusilarlo. El Partido Obrero es una secta infernal, abstracta y alejada, en
nuestra opinion, de los problemas de la cuestion nacional que hemos
intentado expresar en estas conversaciones. Profesan un internacionalismo
vociferante y se pelean con cuanto trotskista que no pertenece a su capilla
se les cruza por el camino. Estan metidos en no se que ardua pelea por la
reconstruccion de la cuarta internacional y todas esas cosas. Han sido
bastante anticubanos y en general son los hijos ultraizquierdistas del
doctor Juan B. Justo, el positivista y liberal fundador del partido
socialista de la Argentina y primer traductor de Marx al español. Pero creo
que esos articulo te pueden interesar.
Julio
----- Original Message -----
From: Jose G. Perez <jgperez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, October 16, 1999 8:26 PM
Subject: Re: Dissident Cuban Communism -- New Website


>     The "dissident Cuban communism" referred to in the post is a group
that
> identified itself as Trotskyist.
>
>     When I was in the US Socialist Workers Party, I took an interest in
the
> subject, and what I recount is partly based on what Joe Hansen, Ed Shaw
and
> I believe Harry Ring related to me in conversation, partly on
documentation
> that is preserved in the SWP's archives, or rather, was in the SWP's
> archives in the early 1980s.
>
>     In this, it is important to point out that there is a discontinuity in
> Cuban Trotskyism between the 1930s and the 1960s. The Cuban Trotskyist
group
> that existed in the 1930s was mortally wounded (like several other
> revolutionary organizations) by the defeat of the revolution in Cuba in
> 1934-35, and only a small nucleus survived, finally falling apart in the
> 1940s.
>
>     Following the 1959 victory, some of those cadres and others formed a
new
> group. It was a very small grouping that published a newspaper and was
> affiliated with the Posadista current. This current was characterized,
among
> other things, by the most extreme ultra-revolutionary agitational
propanda,
> often couched in quasi-military terms, for the immediate defeat of
> imperialism, the expulsion of imperialist military bases and so on.
>
>     It is this hyper-sectarian, hyper-ultraleft grouplet, even by the
> standards of world Trotskyism, that was active in Cuba in the 1960s. They
> were jailed several times, with their critics accusing them, for example,
of
> acting essentially as provocateurs by agitating for an attack on the
> Guantanamo naval base, and the group's supporters insisting that their
calls
> for the expulsion of the imperialist base in Guantanamo should not have
been
> taken so literally, that when such an attack should be mounted was, of
> course, a tactical question.
>
>     Also, at the time of the Cuban missile crisis, this group adopted the
> public, political position that the USSR should launch a military attack
on
> the United States first, since war was inevitable.
>
>     When U.S. SWP National Secretary Jack Barnes gave his speech on the
XXth
> anniversary of the Cuban revolution, he referred in general terms to this
> group's positions and activities as having been insanely ultraleft. He was
> challenged by some other Trotskyists, among them Adolfo Gilly, a prominent
> Latin American leftist intellectual, who said, if memory serves, that
Barnes
> was adapting to Castroism and Stalinism, and that by saying the Posadistas
> were crazy, Barnes was re-enforcing what Gilly described as Stalinist
> slanders, like that the Posadistas had called on the USSR to launch an
> attack on the U.S. at the height of the missile crisis. Gilly noted he'd
> been in Cuba for several years in the early 60s, working with this group,
> and Barnes was just wrong in claiming they were insanely ultraleft. He
said
> an article he'd written in the 60s, published in Monthly Review, called
> Inside the Cuban Revolution generally reflected the views of these
comrades
> and they had not been crazy.
>
>     I was assigned in the SWP leadership the task of replying to Gilly.
When
> we first discussed the reply, Jack thought it'd have to be based mostly on
> indirect sources, i.e., what the Posadista current in Latin America was
> saying generally at that time. He also wanted me to stress that he had not
> said, and didn't think it was true, that the Cuban Posadistas had called
for
> the Soviets to launch a nuclear war during the missile crisis.
>
>     However, as it turned out, the SWP had preserved in its archives
thanks
> to Joe and Reba Hansen, a collection of the publications of the Cuban
> Posadista group. I do not now recall all that was in it; just being aghast
> at how ultraleft it was and, finally, my total shock to discover the
> Posadista publication from October 1962 with a headline saying something
> like, "Let the Soviet Army strike the first blow." Eventually I wrote all
> this up, and it was published, as best as I remember, in some sort of
> internal bulletin.
>
>     The Posadista group functioned for about five years immediately
> following the revolution. Some of their members were intermittently
arrested
> and some issues of their publications suppressed. At the same time, the
> Cubans maintained contact and collaboration with a range of other groups
> that described themselves as Trotskyists, and publicized the defense case
of
> Preuvian Trotkyist Hugo Blanco, who was imprisoned for leading a peasant
> guerrilla in Peru in the early 1960s. At some point in the mid-60s, the
> Cuban government ordered the Posadistas to cease and desist all organized
> functioning or face long prison terms, and it is my understanding that at
> that point the group disbanded.
>
>     The web site this post referred to has material generated in
connection
> with a doctoral these on Cuban Trotskyism, but does not contain the theses
> itself, which is due to be published in a journal. It should be
interesting
> to see what the author has come up with,
>
> Jose
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Paul Flewers <paul.flewers@xxxxxxxxxx>
> To: marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Date: Saturday, October 16, 1999 6:44 AM
> Subject: Dissident Cuban Communism -- New Website
>
>
> >List members will be interested to know that a website on dissident
> >Cuban communism has been set up by Gary Tennant, who has just completed
> >a PhD study on the subject. It is <http://atlas.cs.york.ac.uk/~gat100>.
> >
> >Gary's PhD will form the basis of the next issue of Revolutionary
> >History, which should be ready by the end of this year.
> >
> >Paul F
> >
> >Paul F
> >
>
>
> ---
>
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