Forwarded from Nestor (Che-Trotskyism)

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

José Pérez wrote that:

"the cubans maintain good relations with everyone on the left willing to 
maintain good relations with them. They don't give out "franchises" to this 
or that group as "their" group in some other country, although when it has 
been a question of an openly revolutionary struggle against a right-wing 
dictatorship, they have worked very hard to help the leading group(s) in 
the struggle obtain international solidarity, including material 
solidarity, and unify their efforts"

1. I fully endorse the first sentence, but I must take exception against 
the second one. The Cubans, in Argentina at least, have kept giving out 
some informal "franchise" to the local Communist Party and its attendant 
formations. Perhaps this is a hangover from the period that ended with the 
demise of the Soviet Union, but this is a fact. And a sad one. I know 
-personally, I mean- high officials in the Cuban Embassy at B. A. who 
resent the limits that this tradition poses on their activities, because 
they are fully aware of the negative role that the CP has played in 
Argentinean history. What´s more, they are keen readers of the 
revolutionary authors of the national-democratic tradition in Argentina.

2. As to the Trotskyist readings of the Che, yes, he was reading Trotsky 
and in particular the _History of the Russian Revolution_ that had been 
published by the Izquierda Nacional group, a complete edition with eight 
chapters that had been translated from the French by Jorge Enea Spilimbergo 
thus giving the full version that the original translation by Andrés Nin 
had failed to offer.

The Che was always against bureaucratic deformations, something that 
becomes acidly clearin his famous speech in Algiers. In that sense, he 
tried to find support for his struggle by reading, among others, Lev 
Davidovitch. And by destroying the economic positions of Charles Bettelheim 
(a non-Marxist economist that was the light in the eyes of many Cuban -and 
Soviet- Communist Party bureaucrats).

But,as far as I know, the Che had not been in touch with the Trotskyist 
groups in Buenos Aires while he lived here. His serious interest in Trotsky 
appeared _after_ the Revolution confronted bureaucratism.


Louis Proyect
www.marxmail.org


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