Black Bolshevik; Autobiography
of an Afro-American Communist
by Harry Haywood
(Chicago, Liberator Press, 1978),
pp.545-548

CUBA

In early March 1946, I signed on the motor ship the Coastal Spartan, bound for Havana, as a cook and baker. She was a small freighter of the same class as the Turk's Knot, the ship I had sailed on my last voyage in the Pacific.

This was my first trip to Cuba. When we docked in Havana, a young mulatto police sergeant who was in charge of the dock area came aboard. The chief cook, a Filipino, introduced me to him as Sergeant McClarran. This was not the cook's first trip to Havana, and he whispered to me that McClarran was a good fellow. "He looks after our people ashore," he confided. "And to show our appreciation we always make sure he gets a couple of pounds of butter, which costs a lot here."

The sergeant was a tall strapping fellow who spoke fluent colloquial English. He explained to me that he had spent two years in the United States at the Cuban Pavilion of the 1938 World's Fair. Curious, I asked how he got his name. "Oh, my old father was a Scotsman," he said, laughing.

On hearing that this was my first time in Havana, he offered to show me the city. We walked out of the harbor area and along the Prado, the main street. We sat down at a sidewalk cafe and ordered some food. While we were talking the sergeant rose and hailed a nattily dressed man with a military bearing.

He introduced me as a writer from the U.S. and we exchanged pleasantries. The man passed on and I asked who he was.

"Oh, last month he was chief of police. I don't know what he's doing now. I never liked him; he was a real reactionary, one of the hangovers from Machado's times."

A few minutes later, after we had left the cafe, the sergeant stopped to greet another man. When I asked who that was, he said. "Oh, that's our new chief of police."

The sergeant seemed to be a progressive fellow, and he had undoubtedly sized me up as a man of the left. As we walked, we proceeded to discuss the current political situation. The period just after the war was one of popular upsurge as the Cubans sought to realize the democratic aims they had fought for in World War II. Grau San Martin's people's front government was in power and the Popular Socialist Party (communist) inspired and led many struggles of the period. It was just prior to the reactionary offensive, sparked by the cold war, which swept Latin America

I told the sergeant that I was a veteran of the Spanish Civil War and he insisted on taking me to a bar where some Cuban veterans hung out. As we entered I saw one familiar face, a beautiful Black woman whom I had met in Valencia. I had known her only slightly; she was actually in the company of the General El Campesino. The story was that she had played quite a role fighting in the trenches against the fascists.

Recognizing me at once, she exclaimed, "El Capitán!" We stood at the bar with the sergeant, who seemed to know everybody. and he translated when I needed it. I asked about other Cuban Spanish Civil War veterans. I had met a few, but I had forgotten their names. Most had transferred from the Fifteenth Brigade to Campesino's brigade after Jarama.

Out in the street again, I thanked the sergeant and asked if he could direct me to the Communist Party headquarters. Not only would he direct me, he said, but it would be an honor for him to escort me. We walked up a main boulevard along the bay and stopped to look at the statue of Antonio Maceo on horseback Maceo had been a Black leader in the war of independence against Spain.

A few blocks further on we came to the headquarters of the Popular Socialist Party. It was located in what appeared to be an old mansion. We entered the door which opened into a large foyer. There were large stairways apparently leading up to offices on the second floor. But the stairs were blocked off by a barricade. Behind it were a few husky-looking young security guards. They seemed to know the sergeant who told them, "This is Comrade Haywood from the American Party. He wants to see Blas."

One of them picked up the phone and repeated the message. Finally, he turned and motioned us up the stairs. We went as directed and entered an open door where Blas Roca, the general secretary of the Party, was standing behind a desk. He shook my hand and also the sergeant's, whom he seemed to know. Roca was a light brown mulatto, as I recall, of short and stocky build.

"Sit down. Sit down," he said. He said that he had heard of me, and asked about James Ford, whom he knew. Ford had attended a congress of the Cuban Party as a fraternal delegate several years before. I told him that Ford had stuck too long with Browder and was not in the new leadership.

"Yes, we were also stuck with Browder, but we got unstuck before you comrades did," he said.

He then asked about Foster. I told him what I honestly thought at the time, that Foster seemed to be all right and that under his leadership we were finally pulling out of the revisionist swamp.

We continued talking and he told me about the situation in Cuba, how the Party had come through the revisionist period more or less intact, and that they were now in an uneasy alliance with Grau San Martín. It was getting shaky, however, "We're under no illusions," Roca told me, "With the war ended we're expecting a reactionary offensive."

He also asked about our work among Blacks. I told him that despite the backsliding with Browder, the Party's prestige remained high among Blacks. "There's a debate going on now, and we're looking forward to restoring our position."

After we had talked for about an hour, I felt I had taken enough of his time, and rose to leave. "Be sure to give my greetings to Foster," Roca said in closing.

The sergeant and I walked back to the docks to sightsee along the Prado and take in the night life of Havana. The ship pulled out the next day for Matanzas, the sugar port in Oriente Province where we loaded sugar for the States. The ship docked in Jersey City on April 2, 1946.