TRANSLATION IN PROCESS
What Clarín doesn't say
by Celia Hart

A CubaNews translation by Fred Fuentes.
Edited by Walter Lippmann.

(Regarding declarations made by the newspaper Clarín on August 26, 2008 “Cuban communist leaders ask for political change on the island”)

I. The Cuban communist leaders who have called for changes within the revolution, in the lead up to the next Congress of the PCC (Cuban Communist Party) are Fidel Castro and Raul Castro…. first and second secretary, respectively, of the communist organisation. For his part, Fidel has been the key protagonist in the most important revolutionary changes in Cuba, starting (of course) with that January 1, 1959 and ending with his last reflection on the Olympics. Raul has called for a debate….. a debate which no precedent in any part of the world, has called for….simply because these changes are possible solely within a revolution.

Therefore, my friends, what we are dealing with is a case of dancing en casa del trompo.

BAILAR EN CASA DEL TROMPO (literally, "dancing in the house of the (spinning) top": That's what we use to describe someone who dares do something in front of a master at that particular "something". It's as if I show up in Gregory Hines's place to give a lecture about tap dance. In this case, I assume Celia refers to the foreigners who are bold enough to come teach us how to do things democratically, to put it that way. I find the phrase a little ambiguous in that particular paragraph, if you ask me.

II. More than one and a half million opinions have been generated as a result of the speech by comrade Raul on February 24 of this year. One of those opinions pertains to Pedro Campos [Santos] and the signatories to the declaration: Cuba needs a participatory and democratic socialism. Programmatic proposals dated August 17, 2008; one out of one and a half million, amongst which are mine, those of my neighbours, those of my children….and even those of my dog, who also has an opinion in Cuba. It would be ludicrous to produce one and a half million declarations, given that we would not have enough time or patience.

III. Nevertheless, it is worth clarifying, something that I hope Pedro Campos has done, given I know his intellectual ethics, that he is not a communist leader in Cuba. Just as many of us who have expressed our opinion are not. We are simply citizens and revolutionaries, concerned about the socialist revolution.

I say this because when I read the article that they sent me from Argentina, without holding back, I tried to urgently find my local militia battalion in order to load up my rifle, given that it seemed that a civil war was on the verge of breaking out in my country.

IV. It goes without saying that his opinions are valid and should be recognised as such, just as those of many other people. If there is any country where people are free to express their opinions, it is this one…..precisely because we are not poor and we have perspectives, so many people feel encouraged to talk. First challenge: that any country, no matter how poor they are, collect more than one million critical and surprisingly well-argued opinions, systematize them and make sure that they are all registered in the archives. Because they are barely able to get 20% of the people to go to the voting booth, with all the circus of current bourgeois parliamentarianism, which would have scared Montesquieu to death.

V. The media distorts things. Above all because human society is distorted by so much injustice and indolence; I myself have been victim of these distortions. It would be well worth it that the signatories of the declaration issue an opportune correction specifying that Pedro Campos and the signatories are not “communist leaders” as is cited. (Unless another communist party exists in Cuba apart from the PCC that I haven't heard about)

VI. I will not go into detail about the declaration published by Pedro.... for now!....I have had the possibility of having bilateral discussions with him and Pedro knows very well my points of view in this regard, which is why it is not worth  emborronar cuartillas....

EMBORRONAR CUARTILLAS: Just her choice of words; it's not a particular Spanish idiom or anything. Literally, "emborronar" is "to blot", as when you smear a sheet of paper (cuartilla) with ink and spoiled it (the paper) as a result. Clearly, she means she has nothing useful to add about a given subject everybody knows about.

What I do insist on is that there are terms used that make reference to Marxist literature such as self-management, workers control, [and] cooperativism that should be compiled, explaining the sense in which they are used. Workers control in the Hotel Bauen in Argentina is not the same as the workers administering SIDOR in Venezuela, nor is isolated workers control in a society (bureaucratised or otherwise), the same as having ALL the economy nationalised like in Cuba.

Democratic planning of society is one of the inalienable principals of the construction of a socialist revolution....  And on this question there is a type of unanimity amongst all of them, the great ones, starting with Lenin, Rosa, Trotsky, Gramsci, Mariátegui and Che.... above all the last one. Even so, it is worth reading the economist Ernest Mandel in his book on this issue: Treatise on Marxist Economy or failing that, Workers Control, Workers Councils and Self-Management, whose first editions in Spanish were published in 1962 and 1970 respectively. Its not that I agree with everything that Mandel writes, but in politics it is dangerous to “try to roast the lard” or to “invent warm water”.

VII. To once again affirm that Cuba is building socialism in one single country....is to once again get bogged down in the most incorrect of the Stalinist theses, that is why my alarm bells immediately begin to sound. Within these things we can fight for justice until death, but we need the international proletariat to triumph this time.

The victory of the nationalisation of SIDOR and the cement companies in Venezuela, the result of the separatist issue in Bolivia and the Constituent Assembly in Ecuador, have a lot, and I mean a lot to do with our project. Cuba with aid from Venezuela is one thing, and without it another....the vice versa is true as well.

Clarín treats us as a bubble in the middle of nothingness, without ties, nor connections. Thanks to God we are far removed from that contradiction of the Bolshevik revolution and the revolutionary reflux in Europe, which was the great tragedy of Leon Trotsky and the conduit for Stalin to encourage the unserviceable thesis of socialism in one single country, right in that tragic year of 1924, when so many things disappeared, including the good Lenin.

Each Cuban reflection, each step that we take, should be in tune with the revolutionary awakening in America. In these moments, I do not only miss Fidel, given that his reflections alone are not enough for me, but also Manuel Piñeiro in the America Department of the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party.

VIII. Clarín, as well as the declaration, forget the state of war that we are subjected to....the dirty war, the certainty as much of one candidate as the other in the United States presidential elections of the need to put an end to the Cuban dictatorship....should not make us lose our bearings. A dictatorship, which nevertheless is supported more by the people than all the electoral democracies combined. I once said and I will repeat it that in Cuba a referendum on the socialist character of the revolution was held in 2002 and it was approved with close to 98% of the votes....in the recent elections close to 96% of voters turned out to vote and no Cuban that deserves respect could say “we were obliged to go to the ballot box.” The results of the elections are available for all to see.

IX. I agree that we need to improve…..strengthen the commitment of revolutionaries with the project, win the hearts and minds of the youth with the joy of being in permanent revolution and its not just a case that we should do this…we can do it! But history will not forgive us for marching backwards and disconnecting ourselves for the revolution that the continent is living, remaining trapped in a cóncavo nationalism.

NACIONALISMO CONCAVO: Literally, "cóncavo" means "bent inwards" (as in the surface of a sphere, for instance). What I think she means is a "distorted" nationalism, like the kind of image you get when you look in a concave mirror (or its exact opposite a convex one, for that matter).

X At the same time, they ask us to “allow other forms of property and production under socialism” and “resolve the double currency circulation”. Other forms of property that are not social property? Private property? Reduce the role of the state in the transition to socialism? We have to make it function as a workers state, without a doubt, but never by carving up pieces of property which would only take us backwards.

The double currency is one of our most painful real-life situations. No one doubts this, I once said that even my small child understood this. But its has its origins and without a doubt its denouement. We should not forget that the Cuban revolution lived through the greatest ethical tragedy of the ideas of socialism and survived. No one aspires to astillas clavadas o náufragos errantes

ASTILLAS CLAVADAS O NÁUFRAGOS ERRANTES: Again, no idiom here. "Astilla clavada" is a splinter in one's finger (like under your nail?), and "náufrago errante" is a shipwrecked person or a castaway who has lost his/her way and is wandering aimlessly with nowhere to go. She's talking about some long difficult years we've been through, the worst being the times we lived before, during and after the collapse of socialism, which we nevertheless overcame successfully. Small wonder then (she says) that there are consequences to be dealt with, since it's only natural that we should have problems still unsolved. So in this case the right sentence (if we want to maintain her style and literal meaning) should be something like, "No one should expect us to be free of splinters in our fingers or wandering castaways in our midst". In other words, "No one should expect us to be cured of all suffering and confusion".

XI. The state: of course: when the moment comes that a group of countries begin the path that today only the tiny island of Cuba continues to take, then we can think of throwing the workers state down the drain, paraphrasing Engels. As long as we need it....like condoms, only for protection, we still do not end up making love.

That is the state in the period of transition: a necessary artifact.

XII. Clarín on the other hand, exhibits only one document by Cuban intellectuals, yet I doubt that within its pages there is a single note about the Cuban 5 who are facing the worst of injustices….I challenge them to publish, for free, on September 12, the ten year anniversary of one of the greatest atrocities of our time, a brief summary of the truth about the Cuban 5 kidnapped in the United States. Two of them have not been able to see their wives in a decade, violating all mandates, divine or human.

To tell the truth of how René, Antonio, Gerardo, Fernando y Ramón paid with their lives the right for my revolution to exist, precisely when the world was debating the end of history, the words freedom and democracy become hollow and confused to me.

XIII. Another issue that I would like to hear is the opinions of Clarín and the declaration in relation to the existence of the Naval Base in Guantánamo, where people are tortured everyday, and which constitutes the greatest national shame, only because the Empire imposed another incoherent and insipid word that is called terrorism.

Cuba’s socialist revolution passes through all this… of course Clarín only sees the side of the moon that it wants to see. But the moon is round and it rotates, and exists thanks to the gravity force of the Earth.... and the Earth in relation to the Sun, and the Sun in relation to the galaxies.

And the galaxies and the Universe, out of which arose the magical adventure of the Cuban revolution, are hoping that the consciousness inherited from the revolution will make us look further beyond our own windows.

Revolution or death

Celia Hart Santamaría