On the FI's statement against Cuba

["Jose G. Perez" <jgperez@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I think it is time to stop mincing words about the Fourth International.

The statement on Cuba by its Executive Bureau is a wretched disgrace.

That some progressive individuals and even revolutionaries may have been
confused and taken in by the initial barrage of  lies and propaganda against
Cuba is lamentable but understandable. Many of those that signed onto or
made critical statements that others of us feared could have been used as
part of Washington's anti-Cuba crusade, however, have since then also
endorsed the appeal to the conscience of the world showing they repudiate
any such manipulation and their own comments come in a framework of real,
active defense of Cuba.

Unfortunately, that is not what we see here.

This is not a statement issued at the end of March, or the beginning of
April. The Cuban authorities have long since made available a detailed
accounting of these cases which show: a) the dissidents were tried,
convicted and sentenced to prison for collaborating with the United States
in its campaign to undermine and overthrow the Cuban Revolution; b) the
hijackers were sentenced to death for hijacking and using terrorist methods
in the framework of a series of such events; a stepped-up U.S. campaign to
push people into hijackings; and stepped-up U.S. threats against Cuba for
not bringing the hijackings under control.

Moreover, this is not a statement made by an individual, but by an
international organization that should approach these sorts of questions in
the most scrupulous way.

Therefore I think it must be said that it is a slander to say now, when the
*facts* have long been available and have been
unchallenged, that what went on was "the execution of three Cuban citizens
and the heavy prison sentences imposed on other citizens who were expressing
their desire to exercise their right of criticism." It is, quite simply, a
lie.

And the people who put out this statement either put it out knowing it to be
false or in reckless disregard of whether or not it was true, despite having
had ample opportunity to acquaint themselves with the facts.

This statement comes in the midst of series of escalating attacks against
Cuba. The travel ban has been re-enforced, academic, cultural, scientific
and commercial exchanges cancelled, and the 1994 immigration accords
abrogated in all but name by the U.S. side.

And the statement was issued the day *after* Washington's latest aggression
against Cuba --the expulsion of 14 diplomats-- made headlines around the
world. And it comes just as the White House is putting finishing touches on
further aggressions against Cuba  to be announced by President Bush on May
20th, which marks the establishment in 1902 of the corrupt "independent"
American protectorate that the Revolution swept away.

There is no mention of any of that. Thus the claims about "our solidarity
with the Cuban people" are left without any real substance. They can only be
read as ritualistic lip service to provide "left cover" for an attack on
Cuba, not a statement that, however critical, comes in the framework of
real, active solidarity. Because there is no attempt to explain the stepped
up aggressions, there is no call for increased vigilance, on the contrary!
They make *excuses* for their lack of solidarity, placing the onus for it on
Cuba: "recourse by the Cuban leadership to extreme repressive methods makes
this kind of solidarity much more difficult."

The principled explanation for the FI Executive Bureau's criticisms of Cuba
are simply the most vulgar, garden variety kind of petty-bourgeois
moralizing and philistinism imaginable, delivered in an insufferably
arrogant manner.

"It is true, as the Cuban CP's letter indicates, that 'the Bush
Administration's hostility towards Cuba has exceeded that of all
previous administrations'*. The ruling classes, the US ruling classes
first and foremost, have always used barbarous methods; but fighting
against these policies cannot justify the use of undemocratic
methods, including the unacceptable death penalty, by a government
that claims to be socialist. Precisely because certain methods are
characteristic of the exploiting classes, revolutionaries must not
resort to them."

Just listen to this! The bourgeoisie, they admit, uses "barbarous" methods;
the Bush's administration hostility to Cuba is unparalleled historically ...
but! The revolution may not use "undemocratic methods" or the "unacceptable
death penalty."

The Fourth International *orders* Cuba to play by gentlemen's rules, which,
of course,  the imperialists are not bound by. This has nothing to do with
Marx, Engels, Lenin or Trotsky. A few quotes will suffice to show the
complete divergence of the positions of the Executive Bureau from those of
Revolutionary Marxism:

*  *  *

Engels:
"Have these gentlemen ever seen a revolution? A revolution is certainly the
most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the
population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets
and cannon - authoritarian means, if such there be at all; and if the
victorious party does not want to have fought in vain, it must maintain this
rule by means of the terror which its arms inspire in the reactionists.
Would the Paris Commune have lasted a single day if it had not made use of
this authority of the armed people against the bourgeois? Should we not, on
the contrary, reproach it for not having used it freely enough?" (from "On
Authority").

*  *  *

Lenin:
"Dictatorship is rule based directly upon force and unrestricted by any
laws.
.
"The revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat is rule won and
maintained by the use of violence by the proletariat against the
bourgeoisie, rule that is unrestricted by any laws." (from "The
Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky.")

*  *  *

Trotsky:
"The bourgeoisie itself conquered power by means of revolts, and
consolidated it by the civil war. In the peaceful period, it retains power
by means of a system of repression. As long as class society, founded on the
most deep-rooted antagonisms, continues to exist, repression remains a
necessary means of breaking the will of the opposing side... The degree of
ferocity of the struggle depends on a series of internal and international
circumstances. The more ferocious and dangerous is the resistance of the
class enemy who have been overthrown, the more inevitably does the system of
repression take the form of a system of terror." (from "Terrorism and
Communism")

And AGAIN Trotsky:
"During war all institutions and organs of the State and of public opinion
become, directly or indirectly, weapons of warfare. This is particularly
true of the Press. No government carrying on a serious war will allow
publications to exist on its territory which, openly or indirectly, support
the enemy.... 'A besieged city,' wrote a Communard, Arthur Arnould of Paris,
'cannot permit within its midst that hopes for its fall should openly be
expressed, that the fighters defending it should be incited to treason, that
the movements of its troops should be communicated to the enemy. Such was
the position of Paris under the Commune.' Such is the position of the Soviet
Republic during the two years of its existence." (from  "Terrorism and
Communism".)

*  *  *

And such has been the position of Cuba for more than four decades -- "a
besieged city" -- and never has that been truer than it is today, when a
fascist-minded cabal has seized control of the U.S. government through
electoral fraud and a judicial coup d'etat, has declared a policy of
permanent war against the Third World, has already invaded and occupied
Afghanistan and Iraq; and is now threatening Syria, Iran, North Korea and
Cuba.

In the middle of all this, and just as the Bush regime announces new
aggressions against Cuba and prepares more, comes now the Fourth
International to denounce ... Cuba for the measures that the Cuban
authorities have felt forced to adopt in self defense!

Cuba does not ask revolutionary or progressive forces in other countries to
endorse the measures it has taken, but it does ask for understanding and
respect for the right and duty of Cuba's leaders and institutions to defend
the country against imperialist aggression as best they can. Cuba asks for
respect, just as Cuba has shown respect to those who have disagreed with the
measures within a framework of real, active solidarity with the revolution.

And Cuba has engaged in a fraternal dialogue with those forces, including,
for example, at the May Day rally in Havana, where the Rev. Lucius Walker
explained why many of Cuba's true friends believed application of the death
penalty was a terrible mistake.

And in addition, to asking for understanding and respect, at this hour Cuba
has also asked for solidarity, and if ever there was a people that had a
right, not just to ask, but to *demand* solidarity, it is the people of
Cuba.

And this is how the Fourth International responds, officially, in receipt of
a direct appeal from Cuba, after due deliberation, with a month and a half
to avail itself of the facts, to see the mounting crescendo of Washington's
anti-Cuba campaign, and in light of the latest provocations and those still
being prepared: with an upraised middle finger, arrogant petty-bourgeois
moralistic sermonizing, and, oh yes, a fig-leaf phrase about "solidarity
with the Cuban people."

Which brings me to my last point. It is no secret that this Fourth
International  is mostly based in Western Europe. Yet it has not a word to
say --not one!-- against the European imperialists --their *own*
imperialists-- in relation to Cuba.

They could, for example, have mentioned the countless ways in which their
own imperialists cooperate with and re-enforce U.S. economic blockade, even
as they gouge Cuba and profiteer from it. Such an explanation would have
been especially welcome because Cuba itself, for obvious reasons, is hardly
in a position to talk about this except in the most indirect and general
ways, in terms of "added costs of imports" due to the blockade and so on.

Or the FI could have pointed out that it has been the European Imperialists
and their common agricultural policy, which has meant dumping on the world
market sugar produced at 50 cents a pound or more at a price of 10 cents a
pound or less, that played a central role in bankrupting the Cuban sugar
industry and basically driven Cuba --which historically has been the lowest
cost producer in the entire world-- out of the world market. If these past
10 years Cuba had been allowed to *compete* in the European market for sugar
and sweeteners, or for that matter in the U.S. market, the island would be
by far the most prosperous country in Latin America today.

At the very least one would have thought the FI would have wanted to
differentiate itself from the economic and political *reprisals* adopted by
the European imperialists *against Cuba* over these incidents, so that at
least the FI statement could not be seen as shamefaced, back-handed support
to their own imperialism's attacks against the revolution. Not even that.

On the contrary, the statement partakes of the supercilious European
intelligentsia's attitude which looks down, not just on people of color, but
on the American barbarians.

"The ruling classes, the US ruling classes first and foremost, have always
used barbarous methods," they pontificate. It is probably true that when it
comes to barbarism, the American rulers are in no way the inferiors of those
of other countries. But is it really true to say "first and foremost"?

I seem to remember the Spanish ruling class, for example, being fairly
barbarous in defending its rule during the Civil War, downright savage. Of
course *today* Spain in a "modern" and "democratic" country, "civilized," as
one European friend tells me, and that's why they don't have the death
penalty, just death squads to execute Basque patriots in their sleep and
laws to gag the Basque nation as a whole outlawing the parties that fight
for independence.

That's the way "civilized" nations do it: no charges, no trial, no evidence,
no lawyers, just a bullet from paid assassins.

And it's not just Spain. Germany -- Hitler. Britain -- the north of Ireland.
France -- Vietnam, Algiers. There's been plenty of barbarism by the
imperialists of all countries to make it quite unnecessary to single out a
particular one for special honors.

Especially because there is very clearly a problem when you start seeing
other people's imperialism as so much more of an enemy than your own.

And most of all when you start issuing statements that read like colonial
administrators lecturing the darkies. Cuba's actions are "unacceptable from
a revolutionary democratic point of view" Cuba's actions are "unacceptable
for the defense of the revolution" Cuba "cannot justify the use of
undemocratic methods" its use of the death penalty is "unacceptable"
especially from "a government that claims to be socialist." Worse, these
darkies are recidivists: "we have considered it necessary to make
criticisms - particularly of the Cuban government's attitude towards the
leaderships in the Soviet Union and other non-capitalist countries," etc.
etc. etc.

Who is this meant to impress? Who is this meant to convince? The Cuban
Revolutionaries, tested veterans of a thousand battles? They have been
lectured by much weightier forces than those under the command of this
Fourth International. and have calmly continued to defend the revolution and
fight for its extension without losing an hour of sleep worrying about the
tongue lashings.

Does anyone think this arrogant tone, which many --let's be brutally frank--
will take as evidence of a racist and imperialistic attitude, is going to
have the slightest influence on the millions of working people the world
over, especially in the third world and people of color in the imperialist
heartlands, who look to Cuba as an inspiration and as an example, who view
Cuba --and especially Fidel-- as the one voice on the world stage that
speaks for them?

What the Fourth International and all revolutionary and progressive
forces --*most of all* in the imperialist centers!-- need to do it to center
their fire on the *real* enemies of democracy both in Cuba and the World
over: the American imperialists and their European imperialist allies.

José