How the left responded to Cuba controversy

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Comrades have been advised about the response of various left groups to 
the Cuba controversy, which have not exactly followed a predictable 
pattern. I want to review the current line-up based on the information 
we have already received and some new responses.

1. Solidarity: This is a group in the USA that was formed by ex-members 
of the SWP, Draperites and independent leftists. Some of the high 
profile members, including NLR editor Robert Brenner, lent their name to 
Joanne Landy's petition. This led many, including me, to assume that 
they spoke for the organization. Fortunately I was wrong and Solidarity 
has endorsed a statement sympathetic to Cuba: 
http://solidarity.igc.org/pc_cuba.html

2. In Defense of Marxism: website of Alan Woods and Ted Grant, two 
long-time ortho-Trotskyists in Great Britain. Despite their ideological 
hostility to Cuban "Stalinism", they came up with one of the strongest 
statements:

This is our starting point when we analyse what is going on in Cuba. We 
have to base ourselves on a class position. The interests of the working 
class come first, both inside and outside Cuba. If we do not do this we 
risk being thrown off balance and falling into the trap of discussing 
abstract "democracy" or "justice" and not the real issues involved in 
this case. That is, unfortunately, what all the position of certain 
left-wing intellectuals in relation to this question.

Attacks against the Cuban revolution from Washington and the bourgeois 
media in the USA and Europe are nothing new. On this occasion, however, 
criticism of the regime has come not only from the American and European 
bourgeoisie. The noisy chorus of denunciations has been joined by a lot 
of old so-called "friends" of Cuba, such as the Nobel prize winner for 
literature Jose Saramago or the writer Eduardo Galeano. A heated debate 
on this question has also erupted within many of left-wing parties in 
Europe and Latin America.

These "friends of Cuba" have forgotten the fundamentals. There is no 
such thing as absolute "democracy" or "justice" in the present 
capitalist society. Formal bourgeois democracy is only a fig leaf to 
conceal the dictatorship of a handful of wealthy bankers and corporate 
bandits. Lately they do not even bother to conceal the real state of 
affairs. Just look at the elections in all the capitalist countries, 
especially in the US, where everybody knows that George Bush was elected 
through a rigged vote.

full: http://www.marxist.com/Latinam/cuba_executions.html

3. British SWP: This is a large "state capitalist" formation that has 
what amounts to sections in a number of countries, including the one in 
Australia that appears to be imploding. They have played a very positive 
role in the British antiwar movement, but this statement from party 
leader Mike Gonzalez exhibits all the worst aspects of this current. 
Instead of dealing with the concrete situation facing Cuba, he unleashes 
a series of "socialism from below" platitudes:

"We can and must denounce Bush and Blair's murderous assault on freedom 
in Iraq. We have an equal responsibility to expose it in Cuba. We can 
and must fight imperialism. But if we are to win the wider movement, we 
must be the unconditional, principled, consistent champions of freedom - 
not the cheerleaders for a lesser evil."

full: http://www.socialistreview.org.uk/article.php?articlenumber=8482

4. International Socialist Organization (USA): Formerly linked to the 
British SWP but was expelled for "not understanding Seattle" and 
questioning how funds were used by the British leadership. Even though 
they share the same 'state capitalist' ideology as their former allies, 
they diverge strongly on Cuba. These considerations were utterly lacking 
in Gonzalez's rather pious utterances:

"In recent years, U.S. corporations have been quietly pressuring the 
Clinton and Bush administrations to drop economic sanctions against 
Cuba, because they were being left behind by European and Canadian 
companies taking advantage of Cuban leader Fidel Castro’s opening to 
foreign investment. However, after the September 11 attacks, the Bush 
Doctrine of regime change and pre-emptive war gave the U.S. right wing a 
pretext for a new confrontation with Cuba.

"For many months, the head of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, 
James Cason, has been meeting with dissidents, providing them with 
funding and distributing their writings. Unfortunately, the Campaign for 
Peace and Democracy statement, while abstractly defending the right to 
dissent in Cuba, ignores the way that the U.S. engineered the current 
crisis. With the long history of bloody and greedy U.S. intervention in 
Cuba, it’s hard to imagine that these dissidents didn’t know who they 
were dealing with and what was at stake."

5. American SWP: Despite sharing a name with the British group, they 
have nothing in common politically. This formerly Trotskyist formation 
has shrunk from about 1500 members in the late 1970s to less than 500 in 
the course of evolving toward a curious mixture of Fidelismo and 
workerism. Since they tend to look to Havana's lead, it is not 
surprising that their coverage has been worth reading:

“Cuban immigrants coming illegally by sea are immediately granted the 
papers necessary to become legal immigrants in the U.S.,” said Andrés 
Gómez, one of the speakers. Gómez is a leader of the Antonio Maceo 
Brigade, an organization of Cuban-Americans who support the Cuban 
Revolution.

U.S. officials carry out this policy “not because they love those Cubans 
but because they hate the Cuban Revolution,” said Gómez. “Since the 
revolution started in 1959, the U.S. has maintained a discriminatory 
immigration policy. If those same Cubans that come by boat would go to 
the U.S. embassy and ask for a visa, they would be disqualified. They 
make them come by sea to show to the rest of the world that people are 
willing to die to leave Cuba—‘the communist hell.’”

Gómez was referring to the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act, through which 
Cubans landing on U.S. shores are eligible to become permanent U.S. 
residents within one year, unlike all other immigrants.

Washington has also limited visas to Cubans seeking to immigrate, in 
violation of 1994 and 1995 U.S.-Cuban accords, which stipulated that the 
U.S. government would grant 20,000 visas a year to Cuban applicants. As 
a result, thousands of Cubans—often lured by smugglers—have tried to 
reach the United States on flimsy rafts and boats. Many have drowned in 
the process, joining countless Haitians, Dominicans, Mexicans, and 
others who have died trying to reach the United States.

These immigration policies, together with the refusal by U.S. 
authorities to prosecute hijackers from Cuba, have given a green light 
to individuals to commandeer planes and boats in Cuba and force them to 
chart a course to the United States.

full: http://www.themilitant.com/2003/6720/672060.html

6. Workers World Party: US group that spearheads antiwar and 
anti-imperialist protests under the auspices of the Ramsey Clark led 
ANSWER coalition. Has presented Cuba's case to its readers like the 
American SWP. Unlike the SWP, it seems in a better position to actually 
organize *actions* to defend Cuba.

At the same time that the U.S. was preparing its attack on Iraq, James 
Cason, the top U.S. diplomat in Havana, was inciting 
counter-revolutionary activity inside Cuba, personally handing out 
materials and money to nurture an opposition. The U.S. government was 
also encouraging hijackings by refusing to return to Cuba the criminals 
and property they had stolen. This crisis came to a head just as the 
bombs started falling on Baghdad.

In this dangerous situation, Cuba arrested and tried 75 people on 
charges of collaborating with U.S. officials against the revolution. 
Then three boat hijackers who had endangered the lives of many 
passengers were tried and executed in April.

full: http://www.workers.org/ww/2003/cuba0515.php

7. Communist Party USA: Unlike the French CP, it is in full solidarity 
with Cuba as this passage from an article in the People's Weekly World 
should indicate:

Recently, the Cuban government was forced to arrest and try 24 
“independent journalists,” who were found guilty by the Cuban courts on 
charges of treason. The trials and sentences have raised some questions, 
including among some on the left, about whether the Cuban Revolution is 
silencing the “independent press” of that country. But who are these 
“independent journalists,” what do they report on, and where do they get 
their funding from?

The website of Nueva Prensa Cubana, which features the writings of these 
journalists, is owned by Nancy Pérez-Crespo, and is located in Miami, 
Florida, the center of extreme right wing political and terrorist 
attacks against Cuba.

Pérez-Crespo has a radio show on Radio Martí, a set up owned by the U.S. 
government to broadcast anti-Cuban propaganda to the socialist island 
with the express purpose of overthrowing socialism. She also has a show 
on Radio Mambí, an extreme right local Cuban radio station. Armando 
Pérez Roura, Radio Mambí news director, is the chairman of Cuban Unity, 
a coalition of ultra right-wing groups, including terrorist groups Alpha 
66 and Comando F4. His editorials are rebroadcast to Cuba on Radio Martí.

In the world of the Cuban “independent press” it’s as though the U.S. 
embargo against Cuba does not exist. For them all problems that Cuba 
faces are directly the fault of Fidel Castro or of the socialist system. 
There is not one laudatory word about a social system where everyone is 
guaranteed free healthcare and education, where the literacy rate is 96 
percent (compared to its neighbors Pueto Rico with 89 percent, and the 
Dominican Republic with 82 percent).

In an Associated Press interview, Aleida de las Mercedes Gondínez who 
worked undercover as a secretary for Marta Beatriz Roque, a leader of 
the Assembly for the Promotion of Civil Society, a so-called dissident 
group, said that up to $5,000 came through the U.S. for that 
organization. Gondínez herself reported receiving $700 monthly from the 
Interest Section. Oscar Espinosa Chepe, a so-called independent 
journalist, had $13,600 when he was arrested and evidence gathered by 
Cuban investigators showed that in a one year period he had received at 
least $7,154.

full: http://www.pww.org/article/articleview/3440/1/163/


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