Socialism:
The only "better world"
By Celia Hart (December 12, 2004)
Translated by Maria Montelibre from: Rebelion web site in Spain
http://www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=8669
Caracas is
once again the queen of the world's left. At the Congress of Intellectuals in
Defense of Humanity, hundreds of the world's best representatives of progressive
ideas welcomed December together. Representatives of countless tendencies were
there, trying to agree on the ethical future of the world. We need them to
figure out if, once and for all, we can point the compass in the right
direction. I am full of expectations, combined with chronic skepticism. There is
so much rhetoric in world summits, conferences and meetings that it has ended my
trust in these methods. Perhaps this time it will not remain as mere words
denouncing the world's calamities, human and divine laws, and the cruelty of the
enemy. Now is the time to figure out how to implement our struggle, to know
which methods offer a categorical end to the intentions of imperialism. If we
cannot find specific answers, leaving once and for all the academic ivory tower,
our descendants will consider this generation of thinkers a bunch of useless
contemplators.
James Petras said, in the Third International Seminar of Teaching recently held
in Peru, "Initially, social forums were positive events for meeting, discussing,
forming networks, passing resolutions, but they have become almost a kind of
ritual, a kind of social affair, where people meet, invite some important
figures, have a march, and then everyone goes home. I think they have lost that
edge of rebellion and criticism. Looking back, they have not had any results."
I agree. And among other things, there is a banner that was absent from the
world's leftist conferences, which was not talked about out of fear and is
limited to closed discussions within political parties. I mean Socialism. Many
comrades are honestly claiming the end of the "isms." Pathetic. Fascism,
militarism, imperialism, are in our lives from dawn to dusk. These tendencies,
which are like a "leftist Fukuyama-ism, are openly claiming the tragedy of the
current left. The enemy is the owner of the "isms," and political parties. We
will have to limit ourselves to prayers, descriptions and proclamations. I
confess that the motto "A better world is possible" sounds to me like
resignation. Of course a better world is possible! But so is a worse world.
Mottos limit our possibilities. It sounds as if an extraterrestrial had coined
the phrase, or worse yet, as if there exists the slight possibility that these
tender words might move the enemies in a summer morning, while they are drinking
their orange juice. Chavez said it, "It is possible to have a better world....
if we make it possible." In fact, it seemed ironic that facing this horrific
scene of wars, lies and poverty, we could be talking about a better world.
Over a decade ago the Berlin Wall fell, and we have not been able to heal from
the psychological trauma caused by "Real Socialism." We will have to convene all
the psychoanalysts of the world to try to free ourselves from this curse. I hope
we do not spend another seventy years doing that. While we are going to therapy,
the enemy builds many more perverse walls, and covers us with apocalyptic words
such as "preventive war", "axis of evil" and other idiocies. And if that were
not enough, that same enemy gets the majority vote in the United States of
America.
And I wonder, what banner would be more relevant than the banner of socialism?
Now that globalization forces us to treat the world as a single entity, what
would be better than going back to Socialist principles, squeezing them,
combining them, groping them, offering the enemy in exchange for capitalism, a
true "International"?
"With all and for the good of all," but really as Jose Marti stated, with
everybody who can add firewood to the fire and who sincerely aspires not only
for a better world, but a qualitatively different world.
There is only one alternative to barbarism. Frederick Engels said it: socialism.
Yes, the very socialism that, in the words of Rosa Luxemburg "is not precisely a
knife and fork problem, but a cultural movement, a powerful and great conception
of the world."
Any banner is welcomed, if it is real. Bolivar, Hidalgo, San Martin, Jose Marti
and the rest are the proud part of human history in the different continents. We
must be consistent, if only for them, in homage to them.
Julio Antonio Mella brought Marti back to life because he adopted him
courageously, based on the new scientific experiments of Karl Marx. And somehow,
he made Marti into the founder of the first Communist Party in Cuba. Mella said
that "in order to make a revolution in this century a new factor will have to be
considered, Socialist ideas, that in one form or another, take root in all the
corners of the world."
Fidel Castro and his comrades again saved Jose Marti from the enemy, because
they made him the de facto intellectual author of a Socialist revolution. Enough
of romantic songs! That's why Marti still lives, because if he could have talked
with Karl Marx, not only would they have agreed from the beginning, but also
because Marti would have taught Marx a few things about America. Marti would
have had a better understanding of the events in Chicago, and he certainly would
have warned Marx about the emergence of imperialism, because he had lived in the
belly of the beast. Only with a vision of socialism and class struggle,
creatively and heroically adapted for these times and places, as Jose Carlos
Mariategui would say, will we be able to assure that Bolivar and so many
predecessors have not labored in vain. We have an enormous responsibility. We
will not be able to blame Stalin and "real socialism" anymore, for our failures
and our prejudices. It is time to draw the sword and the pen, to conquer and win
the hearts of the people with the only banner, which will make our world and our
children's world a better place.
It is true that the enemy is in crisis. But if we do not become quickly aware,
we will be irreversibly swept away with them.
And how is socialism's health? I dare to propose a very simplified "measuring"
stick.
The revolution is a process. Nature's processes are measured with variable
temporary magnitudes (with the increase or the decrease of some concrete measure
in time). In mathematics they call it partial derivatives in respect to time.
Let's try to measure a social process like that.
Let's do it like this: Let's call SOC a magnitude, measuring the socialism of a
revolution in a determinate time. Let's take three examples.
First, Cuba's socialist revolution has shown its permanence in spite of
imperialism's harassment. It proved its strength in the 90s, persisting after
the fall of European socialism, and when it had to face the hardening of the
U.S. blockade. This concrete fact attests to the health of our socialist
revolution. SOC increases considerably.
There is no doubt that the legalization of the dollar, the establishment of
trade in that currency, the rapid increase of tourism and joint ventures, which
function with capitalist parameters, have been a very bitter step for the
revolution. Much more than the so-called special period. Some Cubans started to
think with a capitalist mentality. Even though I am not trying to compare it to
the NEP that Lenin had to impose in the young Soviet state, his motivations
could have been very similar. But this measure decreases our variable. As it
happened in the USSR, the magnitude of the SOC variable here decreases.
Then, let's study the so-called battle of ideas, which started with the campaign
to bring Elian Gonzalez back to our homeland. At that time, Fidel started
developing an impressive revolution within the first one, the establishment of
social workers, emerging teachers, paramedic personnel, the unpublished
revolution of education, where in a couple of years the number of students per
teacher were reduced to twenty. Not only the quality of education improved but
also more important, tens of thousands of students became involved in the
revolutionary process, students which had been idle until then. Even many who
had been thinking only about dollars, or about emigrating, as a direct result of
the legalization of that currency?
I understand that it is a convulsive process and of course not everyone would be
with the revolution. The ideological battle has become a revolution as well.
Daily roundtables, weekly open forums, university education for all, where even
coincidentally you can hear about the history of philosophy, ballet or sciences,
the formation of two education channels, which contrast and compete with the
traditional channels, and where programming is selected according to cultural,
instead of commercial criteria. Fidel's constant appearances on television,
speaking to the people, etc., have contributed to the political level, the
culture of debate, and the level of public discourse has been raised, even
though we may sometimes fall into unnecessary repetitions or the abuse of
slogans, But anyway, this is indeed a decisive increase in the magnitude of SOC.
Fidel and the Cuban revolutionaries cannot build socialism. This is simply
because socialism in only one country is impossible. What they can do is to
increase the magnitude of SOC within the socialist revolution. That is, to
guarantee the necessary forces to counteract possible tendencies toward
restoring capitalism, a sickness we knowingly contracted to survive the 1994
legalization of the dollar.
These are two opposing forces within the same revolution.... Fidel gives most of
his time and all his efforts to this battle. This new revolution developed from
specific projects, where the most revolutionary social strata becomes involved.
From the campaign against the mosquito carrier of yellow fever, for example, a
new political campaign was built, where high school students had the main role.
Even with the low value of our national currency, there are no layoffs. Sugar
workers who were left without work are paid the same salary for studying. Our
economic "poverty" has not prevented Cuba from having health, education and
sports rates of a developed nation.
We should recall the expression on the face of Fidel Castro the day he won a
small battle against the forces restoring capitalism, when the dollar stopped
circulating and the peso started again. Although it was only one paper instead
of another, the symbolism of the green currency not "touching" young Cuban hands
gave him an indelible smile, even with everything going on, including his
accident.
And internationalism? Tens of thousands of compatriots are doctors, teachers of
technicians in the countries of Latin America. When tragedy hit poor Haiti,
international organizations were surprised, because for every doctor of a
developed country, there were a hundred Cuban doctors. Those youngsters take
(besides their conscience) an exported piece of the Cuban Revolution. Do not
think that it is free, either. The amount of personnel helping Venezuela comes
from those taking care of the Cuban population. Internationalism "costs," as it
should. We are not giving away what we do not need; we are giving what we love
the most.
In the same vein, the Conference of Intellectuals and Artists in Caracas was
held in Havana during the VIII Congress of the Union of Communist Youth (UJC).
The UJC has been a leader in the battle of ideas, together with Fidel.
The last day of the Conference, Fidel comes out... walking in his traditional
green uniform. We could breath in his words, the word Revolution, made with
action. The battle of ideas cost the country less than 2% of its income in five
years. It gave, however, hundreds of thousands of new comrades. An unprecedented
revolutionary efficiency.
In his concluding words, Fidel continues inviting us to the struggle. I invite
those who criticize the Cuban regime as bureaucratic, to just once hear a
President of any country talking about the electricity expense of televisions,
about a million of them in Cuban homes, or about school lunches, or about
mothers of disabled people, who will have a salary for taking care of their
children. No, no one else talks like this, trying to change everything. Of
course, with the blessed exception of companero Hugo Chavez.
That is another proof that we are in revolution. Which we will not renounce
regardless of how damaged the world becomes. We have prisoners of war. Our five
comrades imprisoned in the United States are internationalist fighters, jailed
for defending the revolution against imperialism and its scourges in Miami. That
is another example of the permanency of our socialist revolution; we have
political prisoners precisely in U.S. prisons. Fidel concludes repeating,
"Socialism forever!" And at the rhythm of "Arise, ye wretched of the earth!" ...
of the International, sung in Cuba, thousands of youngsters raised their hands,
attesting to that eternal continuity.
The second example is legendary China, where according to my SOC criteria,
exactly the opposite is taking place. The Communist Party of China says it is
building Socialism. Socialism in one country? No, and no again! Chinese private
property continues increasing, instead of decreasing. As I have read, China is
currently the favorite destination of big capitalists: the country has become a
tremendous exporting machine. China's total exports grew eight fold - to over
380 billion dollars between 1990 and 2003. Five hundred of the biggest
multinational corporations of the planet have businesses and investments in that
country. Besides, in order to mitigate the tension created recently by the
massive layoffs by state corporations, 45 million workers in the last five
years, Beijing has allowed foreigners to add 450 billion dollars to its economy.
Is the socialist market economy a temporary NEP? I dont think so. If the
economic power is so strong, how come 58,000 workers launched a strike and they
are illegal? Why is it estimated that unemployment affects 23% of the Chinese
workforce, about 170 million people affected by privatization, adjustments by
State corporations because of their low productivity and population growth? Why
is it that the World Health Organization states that seven out of ten of the
most polluted cities in the planet are in the People's Republic of China? Could
it be that the means became the end? Do Chinese social indices correspond to its
economic power?
And if the 1989 protests in Tiananmen Square happen again, whom should we
support? China's Communist Party, just because it is called Communist?
I can understand that these are manifestations of the current economic
situation. I have already explained that Cuba is doing it, to some degree. But
where is China's antidote? How many Chinese are teaching schools or taking care
of the sick on the Asian continent? Where is their anti-imperialist position?
That is how my country is different. In Cuba, these two tendencies are
struggling against each other, with socialism clearly in the front. In China,
the Communist Party invites business executives to become members of the Party.
China must be recognized, though, for being the most efficient capitalist power
in the world. I do not feel like applauding that achievement, though. In China
you do not live in a socialist revolution. This is beside the point that it
maintains fair relations with developing countries (Or underdeveloped, as they
should be called.) But they still are trade relations. I trust that history will
not repeat itself in China. Karl Marx would say that events would happen first
as tragedy, (we learned that ourselves), and later, as farce.
My third example is Venezuela. Has a socialist revolution triumphed in
Venezuela? We will know more in a few years, when the revolutionary process has
consolidated. But we must ask the following. Have the positions of the
government of Venezuela have become radicalized with time? Yes. Does the
government struggle with the scourges of bourgeois society, looking for other
types of solutions? Yes. Does the Bolivarian revolution get stronger in its
conflicts with Imperialism? Yes. Then, is the Venezuelan revolution a socialist
one? We cannot know that, yet. There has not been enough time, and it has yet to
overcome many obstacles. All of us will have our yearnings, our hopes, and our
doubts, when it comes to this question. What is important is that up to now,
every moment is more radical and less capitalist than the one preceding.
In Cuba it was an avalanche, an abrupt change that had been taking form for a
long time. We lived in different decades. A lot of things have happened since
the miraculous decade of the 60s. Chavez and his process must endure the bad
taste of the disappearance of real socialism.
Of course, they have compensations. As a paradigm, only the Cuban socialist
revolution emerges, instead of the Stalinist USSR. Also, Bolivar's precedent is
very timely. Bolivar had a hard time because he had the emerging national
bourgeoisie working against him. Today, they are the open allies of the Empire.
As soon as Hugo Chavez tries to work with the tools the Liberator left him, the
process automatically becomes more radical.
The same thing happened in Cuba with Jose Marti. To keep on being Bolivarian to
the end, Chavez will not be able to skip Lenin, Trotsky, Che and Fidel's
teachings. He will not be able to make a bridge from the 19th to the 21st
centuries without finding their ideas.
If this man truly intends to carry out a Christian task, he will not have any
choice, but to increase daily what we call SOC in the Bolivarian Revolution. In
this way, some day, as Che said once, "without realizing it," we will be seeing
an authentic socialist international revolution.
On the other hand, the revolution, was designed through many missions,
(Robinson, Barrio Adentro, and many more), which gives it a special similarity
to the revolution in my country.
The open struggle against landowners shown in the October 31st electoral
campaign, added to the open war against bureaucracy, gives SOC, as we previously
defined it, a highly technical value.
So then, there is good news. We have two revolutions taking root in Latin
America and opening new hopes. We need many more. Two proven revolutionaries
head two of them. It is time to call things as they are. We are afraid of a
radical vocabulary. Those referring to isms and ists do not say whether
socialism or socialist revolution or communist parties are included in their
censorship.
Chavez stated in his speech in the Caracas meeting, "You perceive the resurgence
of a growing force, every day, everywhere. A human, moral and political
resurgence. In Argentina, Brazil, Spain, Libya, Moscow, Iran, things are
happening.... They speak Russian, Persian, Spanish, Portuguese, but it has the
same luster, the same force...."
What force is Commander Chavez referring to? What is the only force in the world
that could be introduced as the common denominator of the poor? The ghost of the
Communist Manifesto, that ghost which went throughout Europe in the 19th and
beginning of the 20th centuries, taking flight in this century as the only
alternative to the misfortunes humanity is undergoing. President Chavez stated
that, with this reality, "it is the duty of all the revolutionaries in the world
to form a movement of international offensive, and to create a network of social
and political organizations."
On the other hand, he reflected, "There are no national solutions. They are
trying to impose upon us the most savage form of globalization, which is
neo-liberalism. It is a world problem, and the solution transcends the borders
of a country."
And he proposed, on that road to the offensive to save humanity, "to organize a
network of thinkers and thoughts forming a critical force, creative,
transforming, who will raise their torches lighting the new type of ideas that
humanity needs."
Three things! End national borders to understanding the struggle; cohesiveness
and maturity of forces on the left (political parties and social movements), and
an offensive of radical thought. Enough of the enemy�s ancient phraseology
(terrorism, human rights, democracy). In our terminology the words of
revolution, socialism... and class struggle must appear with renewed strength. I
sincerely dream with the word International. In facing global imperialism only a
word of this strength can help us.
Hugo Chavez just launched a historical project in the meeting of Intellectuals.
He is inviting us to the American dream, but the real one. In contrast to Bush,
who is proposing that the U.S. become a country of owners, Chavez is calling for
the formation of the Latin American homeland. A Latin American homeland, which
will be the homeland of all the workers of the world. And for today, to start
working today. The true goals are those we intend to accomplish, even if we do
not achieve them. The Patria (homeland) of Simon Bolivar, the America Nuestra
[Our America] of Jose Marti... I tremble when I think of the motto, "the third
time is the charm..."
Chavez said, "In this century the truth is with us, in this century we will have
a fatherland, and the fatherland is Caribbean Latin America, our America. It is
time to think and to do, the battle is today, not tomorrow, let's not waste
time, and let's use the time well. We have been called to invent it, to create
it freely, to finally liberate it for the welfare of our peoples."
For this enterprise it will not be enough to read American history and to find
the ways to mobilize our peoples. We need much more. We need an army of thinkers
and fighters. First, we must call upon the [intellectual] heritage of socialist
thought. And like Armando Hart has said repeatedly, "Learn from our mistake [En
beneficio de Inventario]. Because they also made mistakes, they have the
right to say this. But the positive legacy of these men will shake hands with
our new president" in the final battle of the Americas.
Then, just for today, and quoting a recent article by Carlos Alberto Montaner,
permit me to bring up revolutionaries such as Leon Trotsky in this tribunal of
thinkers.
Trotsky is in the Guinness Book of World Record as the most defamed
revolutionary in history. Many, including Communists, involuntarily state a
close relationship with the enemy. Trotsky has been charged with absolutely
everything: being a fascist, an imperialist, an assassin, with stopping the
revolution, sectarianism..... In the best of cases, Trotsky's ideas are
considered unnecessary, because they are "old." And now we have to endure Carlos
Alberto Montaner, a well-known enemy of the Cuban revolution, accusing him of
nothing less than repenting revolution and socialism, in his final days,
embracing the market and representative democracy. It is terrible! But it is our
fault, for restricting him to the so-called "Trotskyist parties," as if he were
no part of those who made the revolution, as if he was not the Marxist thinker
who did the most to alert us to the end of the USSR. More than any other,
Trotsky analyzed the mechanisms that can end a revolution and a communist party
in power. The fall of real socialism cannot be analyzed and understood without
reading Leon Trotsky. And that analysis is not old-fashioned. It is very
contemporary. He experienced in his own flesh the excesses of the bureaucracy of
a socialist state in power, he designed one of the most vital concepts for
revolutionary thought: the permanent revolution. It is not only unfair to hold
him apart from the best communists, but it also is a lack in our revolutionary
practice.
Internationalism, permanent revolution, and the non-viability of socialism in
one country are key aspects of the revolution... Besides, he can be accused of
many things, but not with being a revisionist of Marxism. If he is guilty of
anything, it is exactly the opposite of being a revisionist. Che and Fidel have
followed his steps, even though they did not know it. The slogan "create two,
three, many Vietnams" is the materialization in Latin America of the Permanent
Revolution and Internationalism.
To consider Trotsky a part of revolutionary thought is a duty of communists, not
only Trotskyists. When communism is mentioned, Trotsky must be included.
Trotskyism is not a particular branch of Marxism. James Cannon, one of the
leaders of the Communist Party in the U.S. said in 1942, "Trotskyism is not a
new movement, a new doctrine, but the restoration, the rebirth of authentic
Marxism, as it was practiced in the Russian Revolution and the first days of the
Communist International."
Montaner states, "In his last days in Mexico, before he was murdered by the son
of a crazy Cuban named Ram�n Mercader, Trotsky was starting to reject the idea
of tyranny and discovering the value of economic and political freedom and the
importance of formal democracy."
And Trotsky had stated in 1932, "Only a powerful growth of the productive forces
and a just, planned organization, that is, socialist, of production and
distribution, can assure men - all men - a dignified lifestyle, giving them at
the same time the indescribable feeling of freedom within their own economy."
Yes! This is the freedom Montaner refers to.... Trotsky considered its relevance
long before. Because of that he organized the Red Army, he worked side by side
with Lenin, and in the last analysis, in the name of that liberty, he gave his
best years and his entire life.
But we know that, no, what he [Montaner] meant, was the freedom and impunity the
exploiters enjoy. How far have we gone in our unfair judgments of Leon Trotsky
that one of the worst enemies of socialism can talk in those terms! If this
continues, we will be giving the true deathblow to this revolutionary thinker, a
worse blow than Mercader's in 1940. And a blow of this type to Trotsky is an
irreversible blow to socialist ideas.
Luckily, Hugo Chavez cheered us with the other side of the coin. In the closing
session of the Caracas conference, he said the following, referring to a book by
Trotsky he bought in Madrid, "The Permanent Revolution," in which the Bolshevik
revolutionary states that the problems in every country do not have national
solutions, but include all the peoples," a thesis he totally supports.
It is said that lies live a hundred years, and truth can catch up in a day. This
shows that when the road is honestly sought... All the roads lead to....
socialism. A permanent anti-globalization office will open in Caracas. Perhaps
this will be the office of the permanent revolution.
Lastly, I must refer to the new article by Carlos Alberto Montaner, because his
article completely misses the point. The man also complains because I called him
a terrorist. And perhaps he is right. If imperialism calls my Palestinian
brothers terrorists as they struggle for their people's self-determination, if
the Iraqi fighters in Fallujah are terrorists, because they courageously face
the strongest and most cowardly army in the world, then, Montaner is not a
terrorist. If Cuban revolutionaries opposed a criminal, pro-US dictatorship, and
in less than seven years achieved power and established an authentic socialist
revolution, and are called terrorists, then, Montaner is not that. But this man
is an enemy of the Cuban people. He expects that after four decades of knowing
what dignity is all about, we'll go backwards. After we learned the ways of
freedom it is impossible for the Cuban people to "peacefully" become a corrupt
country, loyal to imperialism. His expectations for my country to go backwards
half a century to become again the casino of the U.S. are almost infantile.
Fidel has more or less said that a socialist revolution will triumph in the U.S.
before there is a counterrevolution in Cuba.
And about myself and my "revisionism," I'll tell him the following: I hope that
never will that type of formal democracy come to Cuba, as corrupt and vicious as
he proposes. But if that were to happen, if for some reason the Cuban revolution
should fail, if those regressive forces we mentioned above should triumph over
the revolutionary battle of ideas, then all I will have to do is check the
bullets in my magazine and the barrel of my rifle, and the only current that we,
Cuban and world communists will have, will be the current of air blowing again
in Sierra Maestra. And I can assure Mr. Montaner that by my side, besides Fidel,
Che, Marx and Lenin, will be the First Soldier, Leon Trotsky.
I very proudly will enter Montaner's ranks of "terrorists."
==============================================
Edited and web-posted by Walter Lippmann, February 5,
2005.