Reformatted: Louis's comments on a John Percy article and Solidarity

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Louis's comments on John's article provide, I think, a fair amount of food 
for thought. And one of the things that strikes me is that the sort of 
party-building approach that Louis outlines and contrasts to what we've 
taken to calling "Zinovievism" are precisely the sorts of considerations 
behind my decision to join Solidarity, which I believe represents an 
attempt to move in that sort of direction.

Which is all the more reason why I've been surprised by Louis's comments on 
the stance taken by some members of Solidarity and the stance taken by 
Solidarity as a whole on the Cuba trials and petitions debate.

A few Solidarity members signed one of the petitions, Soli as a group, by 
unanimous vote of its PC including at least a couple of the people who 
signed the petition criticizing Cuba, endorsed the "Appeal to the 
Conscience of the World" initiated by Mexican intellectuals to counter the 
lynch-mob kind of atmosphere the imperialists were trying to create against 
Cuba.

Louis seems to have had a very hard time understanding this distinction at 
least initially. Why, I am not sure, as he is certainly aware there is at 
least a small wing of Soli that quite brazenly proclaims itself "Fidelista" 
as well as a significantly broader current that is generally positive and 
appreciative of the Cuban leadership, but don't, I don't believe, identify 
with it to the extent that they would go around calling themselves 
"Fidelistas" as I do (and did well before joining Solidarity -- for the 
reasons why see my post on "Why I am not a Trotksyist": 
http://www.mail-archive.com/marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx/msg12964.html).

Be that as it may, I wanted to share with comrades here what I think should 
be the approach of revolutionary organizations in the U.S. (and not just) 
towards Cuba. This is from a post to a mostly Solidarity members list. As 
you will read I believe that groups should restrict themselves to a purely 
*political* position, rather than expansively adopting a whole theory, 
historical analysis and so on.

The first part of that post dealt with, essentially, the class character of 
the Cuban State, concluding that clearly, there had been a socialist 
revolution. The second part of the post, which I had preannounced in an 
intro to the article as a whole, is below. (In reading it, keep in mind 
this is addressed to Soli members, a significant wing of which come from 
the Draper/IS tradition).

* * *

Oh, oh, I said that dirty phrase "socialist revolution." Comrades object? I 
retract it. Take "socialist" out!

I could care less about the labels, they're only useful insofar as they 
help to understand reality. And in this specific case, because of the 
specific background/history of the people who have come together in 
Solidarity, even such a cherished and important label as "socialist" may 
well be more of a hindrance than a help.

Now, if comrades want to have a big debate about what "is" and "is not" 
socialism, go ahead. I'll even kibitz from time to time.

But for my part, it isn't really what I want to talk about. It will not 
solve the political problems Solidarity faces in trying to build a 
revolutionary organization in the United States, and trying to promote a 
broad regroupment of all revolutionary socialists --or as many as can be 
united-- into a single movement.

No matter what label or analysis comrades prefer, in relation to Cuba, 
these political problems include, as I see them:

In the conflict between U.S. imperialism and Cuba, which side are we on? 
This is the main one, the overriding one, the most important one, but not, 
I believe, the only one in an immediate, practical, political way.

In the face of the major socio-economic advances registered by the Cuban 
people thanks to the revolution, what is our stance? Call it state 
capitalism, call it bureaucratic collectivism, call it Stalinism, call it 
grumph. Revolutionary fighters throughout the Americas look to Cuba as an 
example and an inspiration of what can be achieved by getting rid of the 
bosses. Even if many of us think they could have and should have gone much, 
much further, achieved a lot more, what is our attitude towards the ground 
conquered, and defending it?

In the face of Cuba's participation in the world-wide revolutionary 
movement and international politics more generally, how do we relate to it?

It is my contention that a merely negative policy, of opposition to 
imperialist attack, while undoubtedly the most important point, and one in 
which I haven't the slightest doubt we are completely unanimous, along with 
every single revolutionary and socialist worthy of those names in the 
United States, need not and ought not be the sole common political position 
of Solidarity *as an organization.*

In addition to our common rock-hard anti-imperialist position, I would 
argue that after a calm, open, *political* discussion most comrades would 
agree that Solidarity should have a generally positive, supportive stance 
towards the anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist struggle and achievements 
of Cuba's working people.

I think when comrades think it through *politically* it will make sense. 
Forget for a moment about 1959, Che, revolution, socialism and all the rest 
of it, come to it fresh, like you would approach the Zapatistas, or the 
Bolivian cocaleros, or some prolongued ghetto struggle or rebellion, or 
like Native American militants occupying Wounded Knee. Or a big, drawn-out, 
hard-fought strike.

What do I mean by a generally positive, supportive stance? Essentially, a 
recognition of the powerful anti-imperialist, anticapitalist struggle waged 
by Cuba's working people over the past half century, of their resistance, 
of the conquests they achieved and still retain, and of the contributions 
they have made to the world-wide struggle. Whether this be because of their 
leaders, despite their leaders, both, or whatever exact mixture of 
because/despite of comrades may prefer, I think a calm examination of the 
*facts* will drive us towards this conclusion: we should identify with this 
struggle, we should defend the conquests (or concessions extracted, if you 
prefer).

Just as a calm examination of the facts about having a union leads us to 
unhesitatingly support unions in general, *independently* of their current 
leaderships.

And I say this despite our varied individual characterizations and 
theoretical analysis of Cuba as a socio-economic formation, i.e., I believe 
as an organization we can and should come to agreement on this even while 
maintaining our different analysis, characterizations and 
appreciations/critiques of the "Fidelistas" as a political current and of 
the policies and actions of the Cuban leadership or Cuban authorities.

Recognizing the struggle of the Cuban people doesn't mean we don't also 
recognize and respect the right of comrades to express these specific 
viewpoints about Cuba, the Cuban leadership and other similar considerations.

I believe such a principled agreement is possible, to a substantial degree, 
because Cuba is a semicolonial country, and we all take a Leninist position 
on the struggle against imperialism. I recognize and readily agree that 
*if* we were ONLY facing the question of what traditional Trotskyist 
terminology calls degenerated/deformed workers states as an immediate 
"live" political issue, this *degree* of unity may not be possible, but 
that isn't the case *today.*

For better or for worse --and I believe this is mostly for the worse-- we 
don't have the Soviet Union to kick around anymore. So we don't need to 
agree whether we defend Cuba against imperialism *because* it is a workers 
state or "only" because it is a third world country. We just need to agree 
to defend Cuba, which we do.

But not just that. Perhaps in part because we are dealing with an 
anti-imperialist struggle, I think if we get behind and beyond the labels 
and analysis and theories, and relate to it politically, i.e., relate to 
*social forces in motion*, we will be surprised by the degree of agreement 
we can IN FACT have.

When I say generally supportive and positive stance towards the struggle of 
the Cuban people, I mean no more than what we already do politically when 
we relate to, for example, any number of historical figures. When we talk 
about the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the role he played in his time 
and the role his legacy plays today, or when we talk about César Chávez, do 
we find it absolutely compelling politically to place the central emphasis 
on differentiating ourselves from a strategic approach of turning the other 
cheek?

Do we jump to make it clear that, while non-violence *may* be a useful 
tactic under *some* circumstances, we *denounce* those who would advocate 
that working people deny themselves the right to respond in self-defense to 
the murderous violence of the ruling class?

Do we insist on explaining the *central* importance of working class 
political independence, placing above everything else the idea that 
electoral support to the two-party system is a dead end?

Do we constantly harp on, for example, how those sorts of factors kept Dr. 
King from fighting the imperialist aggression in Vietnam from the git-go, 
so that he only went public with it in mid-1967, almost *three years* after 
the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution?

Not to mention that neither César Chávez or the Rev. Dr. King said word one 
about socialism -- at least not publicly.

I believe that is not the approach comrades take, we view Dr. King or César 
Chávez not primarily from the angle of evaluating finished, compete, 
coherent ideological currents, but rather what they represented then, and 
still do today, as symbols and expressions and leaders of popular 
struggles, of *social forces in motion,* which we as Marxists understand as 
expressions of an underlying class struggle.

Moreover, insofar as we relate to these figures as proponents of specific 
ideological positions, we stress what we believe were the *positive* 
contributions they brought to the struggle, not their one-sided aspects, or 
the way they turned useful tactics into eternal verities. We don't 
underline the things that (from our point of view) they only came to 
understand belatedly, or never did understand. We view them as representing 
an important stage or moment in the development of the struggle of working 
people, as a link in the chain, not as the be all and end all of the class 
struggle, for we understand that the revolutionary struggle of working 
people against capitalism is --as they say in Cuba-- a *process.*

Whatever comrades think of as Cuba's *limitations*, I think it is a useful 
thought experiment to imagine that we are now living towards the end of the 
21st century, imperialism and capitalism were ended decades ago, and you 
are one of the aging survivors of those titanic struggles. And a bunch of 
young comrades from a high school come to interview you, as part of an oral 
history project, and they ask, well what about Cuba, and the role it played 
in the second half of the 20th century and beginnings of this one, what can 
you tell us about that?

Would you talk about the limitations, or about the example it set in 
resisting imperialism. Would you mostly stress Fidel's speech in 1968 about 
Czechoslovakia, or the 300,000 Cuban soldiers who fought in southern Africa 
for a decade and a half, and succeeded, together with the people of Angola, 
Namibia, and South Africa, in kicking Apartheid's ass all the way into the 
dustbin of history?

Would you emphasize the narrow, mistaken character of Che's guerrillaist 
approach to the revolutionary struggle in Latin America or his strategic 
concept of creating "two, three ... many Vietnams"? Especially when 
counterposed to the Moscow/Peking cat fight behind which were parallel 
lines of doling out aid to Vietnam with an eye dropper in order to not 
"provoke" imperialism?

Would you highlight the multiple attempts and --yes-- frustrations in 
Cuba's efforts to create organs of People's Power that cleanly and 
transparently transform the masses of working people into masters of Cuban 
society or the realization that building socialism is something that 
working people *must* take on freely and consciously at every level, and 
trying to design mechanisms to make it so?

Now, of course, today Cuba is more complicated. Unlike César Chávez or Dr. 
King, "Cuba" isn't *just* a historical reference (although it is ALSO that, 
and we MUST bear that in mind).

In addition, "Cuba" isn't just the struggle of the masses, for some it is 
also a line, a political approach, what perhaps in this context I should 
call "Fidelismo."

It is easy enough to separate out "Cuba's struggle" --the mass struggle-- 
from the line of the Cuban leadership, at least conceptually. It is harder, 
we should all recognize it, in practice. But it is the sort of thing we do 
every day in unions, antiwar mobilizations, antiracist protests and many 
other arenas.

"Fidelismo" is a specific current in the world working class movement. A 
current with which the majority, I daresay the *overwhelming* majority of 
comrades in Solidarity don't see eye to eye. And that current lives and 
acts and intervenes politically in world affairs and we have to respond, 
both as an organization and as individuals.

And here we have to think about, I believe, not so much Cuba, or 
"Fidelismo," as about Solidarity, and about what I believe Solidarity 
should be trying to bring about, which is a broad 
regroupment/refoundation/reconfiguration of revolutionary socialism in the 
United States, basically, as a sort of popular first approximation, a 
"second edition" of what Debs and his comrades achieved almost 100 years ago.

Should Solidarity view the "Fidelista" current in the United States, 
whether an organized group or dispersed individuals, as a rival current or 
as part of the broad revolutionary socialist movement whose unity we are 
trying to bring about?

If we were to achieve a regroupment of a big section of all revolutionary 
socialists in the United Sates, would such a group of many thousands of 
comrades from different backgrounds and traditions find it *necessary* to 
go through a grinding debate on the correct revolutionary program *for 
Cuba* (or, for that matter, for China, or Vietnam) in order to, say, launch 
the biggest socialist campaign *ever* for President of the United States 
around, say, a Peter Camejo-Angela Davis ticket?

And if we deeply believe, to the very marrow of our bones, that the Cuban 
people need to cast off this leadership, break through its limitations, 
don't we as Marxists, as materialists, and most of all as revolutionaries 
in the United States, also see that by far and overwhelmingly, the 
*biggest* contribution we can make to THAT is precisely to mount the 
biggest possible struggle against U.S. imperialism on its home turf?

And if we support not just the struggle and gains of the Cuban people, but 
the revolutionary leadership around Fidel, isn't the greatest contribution 
we can make to our Revolution and our Cuban Communist Party precisely to 
mount the biggest possible struggle against U.S. imperialism on its home turf?

And isn't the task exactly the same? Isn't that --and not what we think 
should be done in some other country-- what should drive our political 
alignments?

I believe the only road to mounting that sort of challenge to imperialism 
is to unite all who can be united around the immediate, practical, 
political tasks *in the United States* and in the struggle against "our 
own" ruling class. This would be true even if we lived in Switzerland, but 
I submit it applies with a vengeance in our case. We have the *extreme* 
privilege of waging our battle in the very belly of the beast.

And I'll tell the comrades in and around Solidarity who look to the Cuban 
leadership as an inspiration and an example, this approach, of uniting with 
the "anti-Fidelistas" around building a united revolutionary movement in 
the United States, is the *real* "Fidelista" approach. NOT having huge 
ideological debates around scientific characterizations or theoretical 
frameworks for the movement to adopt. Important as those things are to 
discuss, to analyze and think through,

History will judge us by our achievements in forging the broadest possible 
unity around concrete political positions and struggle here and now, where 
we are. And --frankly-- I don't think it will give a damn about out 
analysis of Cuba, except to the extent that analysis affected how we 
approached that central task.

* * *

Thus far my post to the Solidarity list around Cuba.

That is, in essence, the position that I would advocate any revolutionary 
organization in the United States have, one of opposition to the U.S. war 
against Cuba and of having a generally supportive, positive stance towards 
the Cuban Revolution as a whole, in view of the conquests of the Cuban 
people and their contribution to the world struggle. The fact that 
Solidarity has a layer of comrades who come from the state capitalist or 
bureaucratic collectivist position is not the reason for my urging adopting 
this position; although it will influence, I suspect, the formulations used 
in the second point, which in the case of a group with the traditions Soli 
comes from I'd agree to formulate in terms of a supportive stance towards 
"the anti-imperialist struggle of the Cuban people" or similar.

I don't agree that revolutionary organizations in the United States should 
be about formulating the correct program for Cuba or Argentina or South 
Africa or Ireland or Great Britain. Obviously revolutionaries here will be 
interested in, discuss and have their own opinions about various strategic 
and programmatic questions as they manifest themselves in other countries. 
But as a general rule, these are things I don't think U.S. groups should be 
taking a position on. The problems of the revolution in the United States 
are the proper area of competence of American groups.

José