[Marxism] Remembering Kiva Maidanik

["Walter Lippmann" <walterlx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

(An anti-Stalinist and pro-Cuban Russian revolutionary whose life
and work are celebrated in this Cuban tribute. Soon to be posted
to CubaNews also tributes to this man from the FMLN, FSLN and the
Argentine Marxist Nestor Kohan.)
===================================================================

Remembering Kiva Maidanik

One of those men who should be remembered 
and whose passage along our Latin American 
experience left marks of important friendships. 
Aurelio Alonso
 
A CubaNews translation by Ana Portela. 
Edited by Walter Lippmann. 

http://www.walterlippmann.com/docs1090.html

original
http://www.cubaperiodistas.cu/noticias/enero07/03/07.htm 

[Thanks to Phil Stuart Cournoyer for sending this information.]

I have just learned of his demise on December 24 but I don?t know if
it was in Moscow or how he died. If he died in bed, I?m sure he would
have preferred it to be otherwise. I had a feeling of loss for
someone who was close and far away at the same time, who I would have
liked to see again. I will continue to feel this way forever.I met
him in Prague in April of 1967 at the International Magazine where I
spent about a month with Hugo Azcuy through an invitation of the
leadership of that international publication of the communist parties
of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) to the Central
Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) whose Organizational
Secretary then was Armando Hart.

Kiva had visited Cuba and knew, like few did, the Latin American
political map of the time. He spoke Spanish well and was different
from two other compatriots, courteous and airtight who had been
assigned by the leadership of the magazine to work with us. Russian
by birth; Soviet, not by mere constitutional configuration but
because he firmly believed in the authentic sense of a union of
republics, revolutionary because he knew that it was not enough to
comply with the requirements of belonging to a party but that
militancy should be unconditionally linked to ideals.

His forehead was broad and used a beard and abundant and red hair.
The penetrating clear and vivacious eyes immediately announced a soon
lucid and informed dialogue, sure, audacious and committed at the
same time. His faithfulness to the dominating line of his party and
the Soviet bloc never led him, at least to my memory, to conformist
arguments and there were many discussions that I found comprehension
of our positions on Latin America, not only of sentiments but for the
content of his discourse.

I am well aware that many Latin American communists, like the
Salvadoran Shaffik Handal or the Dominican Narciso Isa Conde knew him
for a long time and had a great affection for him.

After those first but decisive exchanges in our relationship, in
Prague that almost always included Roque Dalton and Azcuy and
sometimes ?Chemanuel? Fortuny and others, I believe I didn?t see him
again for ten years. That time it was in Moscow. I was accompanying
Jorge Serguera in a visit to the Institute of World Economy and
International Relations and found those eyes again in the group of
Latin American investigators and he received us. We embraced and
reestablished contact. We weren?t able to talk for long. But we spoke
of the legacy of Che Guevara and also of the assassination of Roque
that put tears in our eyes.

I told him that I almost didn?t recognize him without the beard and
said that his beard was the result of a bet he had made in live and
had lost. His forehead looked broader and his abundant hair had
turned absolutely white.

He had just written a short essay on Che entitled ?The revolutionary?
for the Latin America magazine published in Spanish by the Institute
of Latin America of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union. It
is a well-documented text charged with admiration and respect. Very
few who have quoted never stopped to think the importance of
publishing that work in Moscow of 1977. I don?t even think there is
much published in Cuba with that academic seriousness on Che during
the seventies.

We were in Prague when we learned that Che was fighting in Bolivia.
For Roque, Hugo and me that was like a decisive turn towards
continental revolution although this may seem naïve now. We received
discreet smiles from our brothers of the east and the majority of
Latin American communists working in the magazine, even from those
who had some hope took care to avoid being identified with that
adventure. Only from Kiva did we receive some encouragement of our
enthusiasm although probably not of our optimism.

After 1977 the Institute of World Economy and International Relations
formalized an exchange with the Center of Eastern European Studies.
Maidanik gave a series of conferences in Havana together with another
specialist of his Institute, the economist Yuri Yudanov and visited
Cuba from the end of the seventies to the eighties.

In one of my many trips later to Moscow I visited his house near
Stankino. It was a small apartment, very pleasant and filled with
mementos that his communist Latin American friends gave him. The day
before he had given a birthday party to the Paraguayan general
secretary of the party, Maidana. At that time I met his mother. A
kind old woman who had the same penetrating eyes of her son and an
extraordinary hand for the kitchen. We had a long conversation that
afternoon. After that I always asked after her and Kiva assured me
that she also remembered me and from time to time would ask him if ha
had heard from me.

I remember that during one of his visits I accompanied to Morro
Castle and when we were leaving he met another Russian who was going
in. It was a man of his same age, with less hair, thinner and a white
shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He was accompanied by a Cuban. Kiva
called him by name, they embraced like old friends that they had not
seen for years and spoke for about ten minutes in Russian. When we
left to get the car he commented, with a certain air of mystery he
liked to adopt. ?He is the Russian friend of Raúl?. I corrected him
saying that surely Raúl certainly had many Russian friends. He agreed
but said that this one was a friend from his youth.

Another time, Carlos Rafael Rodríguez who esteemed him, invited him
to lunch. Carlos Rafael had married his last wife and Kiva kept
repeating that she had lost weight since the last time he saw her.
Later he reproached me for not warning him, laughing and the
inopportune of his insistence.

Kiva was a true friend. We shared positions of principle; he
understood us and loved us. Of course, sharing principles was a bit
official and there were many who understood and loved us. I remember
that there were many who had tears in their eyes with they completed
their mission in Cuba. But in the world of academia and politics,
what the West has called intelligentsia, the degree of harmony I felt
in our conversations and in our discussions with that friend, were
very special.

I only dared deeply criticizing Soviet dogmatism with him, the
stagnation of thought, the deformation of an ideal beyond the merely
theoretical. With him I also understood many things. And when I
wanted to further with the criticism Kiva would say: ?It?s the
Tartars fault?. We would laugh at this but then he would explain why
that was so.

>From the early eighties and nineties we lost sight of each other
since I had spent several years abroad and separated from academia
until his return when he was invited to a congress in 1994 or 1995,
The world had changed very much. He was at my house and we talked for
many hours. He had placed his illusions on the reforms begun by
Gorbachov. In 1987 Maria Harnecker interviewed him and entitled it
?Perestroika: the revolution of hopes|. But when we saw clearly that
his hopes had been lost in a short time.

We never saw each other again. But several times had news about him
through Gerard Pierre-Charles and Suzy Castor and other common
friends who told us that his interest on the destiny of our America
had not wavered.

I think Kiva Maidanik is one of those men who should be remembered
and that his pass over our Latin American experience left marks of
important friendship. Institutionally different in style with a very
personal mark, with an opening up to those willing to listen and
correct his look, without the pretension of giving lessons nor of
silencing a guarded truth.

Havana, December 31, 2006


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