Havana, Thursday August 21, 2008. Year 12 / Number 233

Capitalism’s worldwide tyranny in crisis

By Raúl Valdés Vivó

A CubaNews translation. Edited by Walter Lippmann.

In light of Che Guevara’s legacy, and amid a battle of ideas fought throughout the nation and beyond, it is worth recalling that Fidel could successfully enter the home straight of the sole Revolution Cuba has ever fought –which started in 1868– only after he ingeniously took in the prime principles and theses of Marxism-Leninism.

Although Cuba was not experiencing as serious an economic crisis as the one which led our workers to take strike action en masse against Machado’s tyranny in 1933 under Rubén’s leadership, while Guiteras was still fighting, there was a political crisis as a result of Batista’s reactionary and pro-imperialist coup d’état.

To quote the Commander’s words, the little ant decided to rise up against the elephant until she overcame on January the First, 1959. And to make victory irreversible, once power was in the people’s hands the revolutionaries forged the Party. Our Party has since been, and forever will be, a Party of unity based on revolutionary values and concepts, immune to any ideological pressures coming from our enemy.

Long before Lenin, Martí said that popular unity was impossible without a one-party revolutionary system. When he told Gómez about its foundation, he assured the only alternative would be the party of annexation to the U.S. organized by masters who became afraid of the people after Spain’s defeat.

Now we can’t overlook what is really going on in the world. Entire populations are starving and shedding their blood because of a global crisis caused by the intrinsic quagmire of a capitalist system that still prevails on the planet, even if it’s doomed to disappear. This is a fact that only those captivated by the so-called “think tanks” in the U.S. or Europe fail to realize. The eagerness to speed up capitalism’s destruction stems from the danger it poses to the very existence of the human race. When she warned about Nazism, then in the making, Rosa Luxemburg talked of “socialism or barbarism”, but it’s rather a question of “socialism or nobody”. Capitalism’s worldwide tyranny has just taken its first steps towards a crisis.

Thanks to its socialist regime –born from President Mao’s Long March, which translated Marxism into Chinese, as they say in this particular case– a brand-new engine started to roll on the world economy’s tracks: a China ruled by the workers’ Party, which has already overrun Europe’s No. 1 (Germany’s) and is now getting closer to the fastest in Asia (Japan’s). In about 15 years it will catch up with the U.S., as yet the leading nation on Earth. Socialist China can withstand both the ravages of a recession that is now hammering at some of its trading partners, including the U.S., Japan and Western Europe, and the effects of an earthquake like the one in Sichuan, where we sent the same medical contingent we offered to the American people following the Katrina disaster. Much to its enemies’ chagrin, China is not only the venue but also the virtual winner of the Olympic Games, where our athletes, who received the Cuban flag from Raúl’s hands, are going “at a victor’s pace!”, as Fidel wrote.

Nor should blame for the global crisis be put on the Vietnamese, from whose resistance to Yankee terrorism we drew inspiration to wage the invincible Whole People’s War; the same Vietnamese whom president Ho Chi Minh taught that patriotism is the main flower in Marxism-Leninism’s garden.

It is with great joy that we see the peoples of Our America regrouping through the integration inspired by Bolívar and Martí to stand up to a crisis caused by a capitalist exploitation spurred by transnational monopolies, for which they are not responsible. Only by coming together can the victims avoid further swipes by imperialism and some local oligarchies who deal in treason, as they are the sole culprits of many ills afflicting our world. Fidel accurately calls capitalism the mother of all financial, economic, ministerial, moral, ecological and, above all else, ideological crises, which reveals their historical helplessness as much as their preemptive wars in Iraq and Palestine and their threats against Iran and at least 60 other dark corners of the globe. Capitalism resorts to fascist violence, prevented as it is by the laws and trends of its economy from calling the shots as they used to.

Blessed by McCain & Co., the Fourth Fleet stands as a mixture of provocation and the said helplessness, not unlike the insane plans to separate the State from the nation that capitalism so favored from its very origins, as evidenced by what they did in Kosovo and their dirty tactics in Bolivia, Tibet and Taiwan, Guayaquil, Zulia, Russia and a number of African countries, and before they had in the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia.

It’s not by accident or mistakes that these crises happen: they are not caused by peoples, but by the system that manipulates them as a consumable good. Crises become global because no country can escape their terrible effects. It horrifies to see them in the price of foods, medicines and oil, so essential to industry, transportation, mining, agriculture, biotechnology, computer science, tourism and service.

Just as Marx foresaw, science changes everything in production, turning many arms forever needless by increasing capital’s organic composition. Yet, it also swells the ranks of exploitation’s gravediggers. Whole nations suffering from extreme poverty see the birth of social movements within the working class, and there are always honest scientists among the well-to-do who frown mainly at environmental damage and the fondness for war, racism and all sorts of discrimination.

Crises mirror capitalism’s inherent chaos and economic anarchy, worsened by the neoliberal doctrine of slavery, Hugo Chávez remarked. Such an objective condition fuels the weakening of the dollar, a tool imposed by the U.S. to boost its absolute hegemony by dishonest means. By issuing dollars in amounts beyond the limits of its economy –undermined by a budget deficit brought by astronomical war expenses and a trade deficit resulting from overbuying– the value of each dollar decreases while everything priced in that currency goes more expensive.

Given the crisis facing the bourgeois elements who have tampered with their development, all the revolutionary and reformist brothers and sisters in Our America come together as one to keep their singular historical processes in motion as they protect their freedom with shields like ALBA and  MERCOSUR –increasingly aware of the need for social change– the Banco del Sur, the oil from Venezuela –no less a Liberator than Bolívar– the gas from a Bolivia where Túpac Catari is being vindicated, the contribution of Eloy Alfaro and Manuelita Sáenz’s Ecuador, a Nicaragua that once again turns to Sandino, and the support from countries coming out of the darkness of fascism, such as the giants Brazil, Argentina and Chile and small nations with a huge history, like Uruguay, Paraguay and the Caribbean nations.

Our revolutionary theory, to be confirmed by the VI Congress of the Party, was not only pivotal for the little ant to defeat the elephant by smashing its military tyranny’s tusks in Cuba. Based on our age-old optimism, which is our epic Cuban Five’s sustenance, we Cubans won at the Bay of Pigs, the Missile Crisis, the fight against bandits and internationalism.

Central to our theory –since it developed on a par with the productive forces, as befits the only class with nothing to lose except its chains– internationalism becomes plain in brave missions, like those fulfilled in the past by lionhearted soldiers who smashed South Africa’s apartheid forces in Cuito Cuanavale, ensured Angola’s and Namibia’s independence, repelled the invasion of Ethiopia by oligarchies acting in complicity with the Empire, or remained side by side with the Algerian and Syrian peoples in times of danger. Our troops have always stood by the no less heroic fighters of those countries, with whom we share ties of blood.

Today, rather than volunteer soldiers, Cuba deploys Operation Miracle by sending doctors, teachers and sports trainers, further expressions of a socialist people now also devoted to the task of constructing a more rational, just, scientific, ethical and therefore more humane society in Cuba while they tackle corruption and squandering, using good management as the titanic force capable of moving history, like we learned from Marx, Engels and Lenin.

Our cannons are at the ready, and we will respond Raúl’s call to work harder and better by fighting for our daily bread. In Provincial Assemblies assisted by well-aimed guidance provided by Machado Ventura, Lazo and other leaders, our Party and people attack our problems at their roots with complete freedom, something that only Socialism can make possible, and change what must be changed to leave behind, little by little, the terrible special period.

Our action revolves around present-day priorities: replace imports, rid our fields of the thorny bushes of marabú, produce milk and other foods and fight social indiscipline to the death. Putting into practice a socialist system of retribution based on the amount and quality of the work done is the main focus of attention, and those who fear that a stratification of income is bound to trigger class struggle had better take a second glance at the ABC of socialism.

No progress can be made without revolutionary awareness, organization based on democratic centralism, systematic control, discipline and a spirit of self-sacrifice.

As capitalism’s integral crisis has confirmed, now is the exact time when our theory proves right and the Party can extend its influence. In his work What Is To Be Done? Lenin called upon Party members to study more in order to eradicate any handcrafted methods, build a Party of steel and get it engaged in revolutionary tasks as the workers’ General Staff.

It’s impossible to have Party members who are more cultured and better fit to deal with the ideological struggle without knowing the fundamentals of revolutionary theory, on which the endless strengthening of our political and mass organizations depends, if we want them to be on an equal footing with and able to thwart the enemy’s open or covert maneuvers, as Fidel has always done. Now, more than ever, those forces will be crucial to continue building and safeguarding socialism when the generation who made the Revolution is no longer around.

Our theory is at odds with the high-flown revolutionary rhetoric that Lenin tagged as Trotskyism’s main flaw. Ours is born in practice and revolves around it and is completely devoid of recipes intended to grasp reality. Instead, it excels as a dialectical guide that we must dissect, understand and transform. There may be differences on the ideas, but there has to be consensus as to what we do to counteract our enemy, as advocated by Bolívar and Martí and spelled out by the proletarian classics and their modern-day continuators.

A hand needs its every finger, Martí taught us, but it is such because they are united and become, in times of war, the fist that protects the cause of a free Cuba.

---ooOoo---




La Habana, jueves 21 de agosto de 2008. Año 12 / Número 233
Crisis de la tiranía mundial del capitalismo

RAÚL VALDÉS VIVÓ

A la luz de Che Guevara, en medio de la batalla de ideas de carácter nacional y universal, cabe evocar que Fidel pudo concebir el asalto al Moncada, de manera de iniciar la fase victoriosa de la única Revolución cubana, nacida en 1868, por haber asimilado con espíritu creador los principios y las tesis fundamentales del marxismo-leninismo.

Aunque en Cuba no había una crisis económica como la que en 1933 llevó a la clase obrera en masa, con Rubén de líder, mientras Guiteras también luchaba, a la huelga insurreccional contra la tiranía de Machado, existía una crisis política generada por el golpe de Estado reaccionario y proimperialista de Batista.

En símil exacto del Comandante, la hormiguita comenzó a levantarse contra el elefante, hasta vencerlo el Primero de Enero de 1959. Y con el pueblo en el poder, para hacerlo irreversible, los revolucionarios forjaron el Partido. Desde entonces y por siempre el nuestro es el Partido de la unidad basada en los valores y conceptos revolucionarios, sin concesiones ante la presión ideológica del enemigo.

Antes que Lenin, Martí consideró que sin ese Partido único de los revolucionarios, la unión de las masas del pueblo es imposible. Al proponer a Gómez fundarlo, dijo que la alternativa era el partido de la anexión a Estados Unidos, gestado por amos temerosos del pueblo, pues España estaba derrotada.

Ahora no podemos dejar de ver lo que realmente sucede en el mundo. Padecen hambre y derraman su sangre pueblos enteros porque la crisis global tiene en su origen la crisis integral del sistema capitalista, todavía prevaleciente en el planeta, aunque ya su ocaso sea inexorable. Solo los adormecidos por los llamados "tanques pensantes" de Estados Unidos o Europa, no logran apreciarlo. El afán de apresurar la destrucción del capitalismo proviene de su amenaza a la existencia misma del género humano. El dilema no es, como dijo Rosa Luxemburgo en alerta contra el nazismo en gestación, socialismo o barbarie, sino socialismo o nadie. Se ha iniciado la crisis de la tiranía mundial del capitalismo.

Gracias a su régimen socialista, nacido de aquella Larga Marcha del presidente Mao, que tradujo el marxismo al chino, como se dice para significar el molde de las particularidades, apareció una nueva locomotora en la economía mundial, la China dirigida por el Partido de los trabajadores. Ya dejó atrás a la locomotora alemana, la principal de Europa y se acerca a la locomotora más veloz de Asia, Japón, y en unos 15 años alcanzará a Estados Unidos, hasta ahora dominante a escala planetaria. La China del socialismo es capaz de resistir los embates de la recesión en la que se adentran sus socios comerciales como Estados Unidos, Japón y Europa Occidental, y de hacer frente a terremotos como el de Sichuán, adonde acudió la brigada de médicos que también ofrecimos al pueblo norteamericano cuando el Katrina. China no es solo la sede, sino también la virtual campeona de las Olimpiadas que tanto duelen a sus enemigos, y en ella nuestros atletas, abanderados por Raúl, están, como escribió Fidel, ¡a paso de vencedores!

Tampoco es culpable de la crisis global ese pueblo inspirador del nuestro en su resistencia al terrorismo yanki con la invencible Guerra de Todo el Pueblo, ese Vietnam al que el presidente Ho Chi Minh inculcó que el patriotismo es la flor primera en el jardín del marxismo-leninismo.

Con alegría vemos que reagrupan sus fuerzas, mediante la integración inspirada en Bolívar y Martí, los pueblos de Nuestra América para hacer frente a una crisis surgida de la explotación del modo de producción capitalista, bajo el dominio de los monopolios transnacionales, y que ellos no han provocado. La unión de las víctimas es la única manera de evitar nuevos zarpazos de los imperialistas, culpables únicos, junto a oligarquías locales cuyo negocio es la traición, de los muchos males del mundo. Con precisión Fidel califica al capitalismo como madre de las crisis, financiera, económica, hipotecaria, de gobernabilidad, moral, ecológica, ante todo, ideológica. Ellas revelan su impotencia histórica, lo mismo que las guerras preventivas contra Iraq, el pueblo palestino y las amenazas a Irán y al menos 60 oscuros rincones del globo. Las leyes y tendencias de la economía del capitalismo no le permiten ya dominar como antes y acuden a la violencia del fascismo.

La Cuarta Flota, bendecida por los McCain, es provocación mezclada con esa impotencia. Y también los planes demenciales para el fraccionamiento del Estado-nación que al inicio del capitalismo fue el preferido, como lo ilustran Kosovo, la táctica sucia en Bolivia, el Tibet y Taiwán, Guayaquil, Zulia, o Rusia, o distintos países africanos, como antes la Unión Soviética, Checoslovaquia y Yugoslavia.

No provienen esas crisis de factores fortuitos o errores humanos y no la causan los pueblos, sino el sistema que los manipula como a cosas destinadas a consumir. Son crisis de carácter global porque no puede escapar país alguno de sus efectos terribles. Se aprecia con horror en el precio de los alimentos, los medicamentos y el petróleo indispensable en la industria, el transporte, la minería, la agricultura, la biotecnología, la informática, el turismo, los servicios.

Como Marx previó, la ciencia cambia todo el proceso productivo. Hace que sobren por siempre muchos brazos, al elevar la composición orgánica del capital, pero también amplía las filas de los enterradores de la explotación. La pobreza extrema de naciones enteras crea movimientos sociales que se suman a los trabajadores y no faltan científicos honestos en sectores acomodados. Ante todo rechazan la destrucción de la naturaleza y el apego a las guerras, al racismo, a la discriminación por variados motivos.

Las crisis reflejan el caos y la anarquía económica propios del capitalismo, agudizadas por la doctrina esclavizante neoliberal, subraya Hugo Chávez. Tal condición objetiva impulsa el debilitamiento del dólar, instrumento de estafa impuesto por Estados Unidos para establecer su hegemonía absoluta. Al emitirlo en cantidades que sobrepasan los límites de su economía, minada por el déficit fiscal, debido a los astronómicos gastos de guerra, y el déficit comercial, por comprar más que lo que puede vender, cada dólar vale menos y todo cuanto se cotiza en dólar, eleva su precio.

Continuando cada pueblo hermano sus singulares procesos históricos, ante la crisis del sistema burgués que ha impedido su desarrollo, se unen en una sola fuerza los procesos revolucionarios y reformistas de Nuestra América. Y forjan escudos de su independencia como el ALBA, el MERCOSUR, que gradualmente adquiere ideas de transformación social, el Banco del Sur, el empleo del petróleo de Venezuela la Libertadora, al inspirarse en Bolívar El Libertador, el gas de la Bolivia que reivindica a Túpac Catari, el aporte del Ecuador de Eloy Alfaro y Manuelita Sáenz, y la Nicaragua que regresa a Sandino, y el apoyo de países que salen de la noche del fascismo como los gigantes Brasil, Argentina, Chile, y los pequeños de inmensa historia, Uruguay, Paraguay y las naciones del mar Caribe.

La teoría revolucionaria, que reafirmará el VI Congreso del Partido, no solo fue indispensable para que la hormiguita pudiera derrotar al elefante, comenzando por destrozar en Cuba sus colmillos de tiranía militar. Gracias al optimismo histórico que brota de nuestra teoría los cubanos vencimos en Playa Girón, la Crisis de los Misiles, la limpia de los bandidos y las misiones internacionalistas. Es el sostén de nuestros épicos Cinco Héroes.

El internacionalismo consustancial a nuestra teoría, por responder a la única clase sin nada que perder que no sean sus cadenas, y por desarrollarse con las fuerzas productivas, la clase obrera, se muestra en corajudas misiones.

Ayer con bravos soldados como los que en Cuito Cuanavale destrozaron el apartheid en el África de Nelson Mandela, aseguraron la independencia de Angola y conquistaron la de Namibia, o rechazaron en Etiopía una invasión gestada por oligarquías cómplices del imperio, o estuvieron al lado de los pueblos de Argelia y Siria, en sus momentos de peligro. Siempre nuestros soldados han luchado junto a combatientes de esos pueblos, también heroicos, y son de sangre los lazos que nos unen.

Hoy, en vez de tropas voluntarias, Cuba despliega la Operación Milagro y envía médicos, maestros, entrenadores deportivos, otras expresiones de nuestro pueblo socialista, que va surgiendo a la par de la construcción en Cuba de una sociedad más justa, racional, científica, ética, en fin, más humana, que lucha contra todo caso de corrupción y despilfarro del trabajo, viendo en el ahorro la fuerza titánica capaz de mover la historia, como enseñan Marx, Engels y Lenin.

Tenemos listos los cañones y al llamado de Raúl de trabajar duro y mejor, peleamos por los frijoles. El Partido y el pueblo analizan los problemas con entera libertad, rasgo que únicamente posee el socialismo, y cambian lo que debe ser cambiado para acabar de salir paso a paso del terrible periodo especial. Así, las asambleas provinciales se desarrollan, con orientaciones certeras de Machado Ventura, Lazo y otros dirigentes.

Nuestra acción se concentra en las prioridades actuales: sustituir importaciones, derrotar el marabú, producir leche y demás alimentos, combatir hasta erradicar las indisciplinas sociales. En el centro está generalizar la retribución socialista según la cantidad y calidad del trabajo. Y ver en esto una estratificación de los ingresos y elucubrar que desate una lucha de clases, es inconcebible en nadie que sepa el abc del socialismo.

Ningún avance es posible sin conciencia revolucionaria, organización con centralismo democrático, control sistemático, disciplina, espíritu de sacrificio.

La crisis integral del capitalismo confirma que es el momento exacto de nuestra teoría. Lo es también para la construcción partidista. Lenin fijó en su obra ¿Qué hacer? el estudio sistemático de todos los militantes para salir de los métodos artesanales, edificar el Partido de acero y volcarlo a las tareas revolucionarias como Estado Mayor de los trabajadores.

Sin conocimiento de los fundamentos de la teoría revolucionaria es imposible tener militantes cada vez más cultos y preparados para enfrentar la lucha ideológica. De ello depende el fortalecimiento incesante de nuestras organizaciones políticas y de masas para colocarlas a la altura de las maniobras del enemigo, abiertas o encubiertas, y en condiciones de derrotarlas, según siempre ha hecho Fidel. Y ahora más que nunca esas fuerzas serán indispensables para continuar la construcción y salvaguarda del socialismo una vez desaparecida la generación que hizo la Revolución.

Nuestra teoría es ajena a la fraseología revolucionaria, defecto principal que Lenin vio en el trotzkismo, nace de la práctica y vuelve a ella, y no tiene nada de formulario de recetas que pretendan apresar la realidad, sino es guía dialéctica para penetrarla, descubrir sus tendencias y transformarla. Puede haber discrepancias en el pensamiento, pero tiene que haber unanimidad en la acción contra el enemigo, como predican Bolívar y Martí y fundamentan los clásicos del proletariado y sus continuadores contemporáneos.

La mano requiere de cada dedo, enseña Martí, pero lo es por estar ellos unidos, y en tiempo de guerra se vuelve el puño para salvaguardar la causa de Cuba libre.

http://www.granma.cubaweb.cu/2008/08/21/nacional/artic02.html

STATEMENT BY THE MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS

On 3rd September last, at 4:45 P.M., the Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Thomas Shannon, delivered to the Head of the Interest Section of Cuba in Washington, Note Nº 646, which states “its deepest regret for the destruction caused by hurricane Gustav” and affirms that the United States would be prepared to “offer immediate and initial humanitarian assistance of relief supplies to the Cuban people through an appropriate international relief organization”.

An identical Note was later sent to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs by the United States Interests Section in Havana.

In said Note, the U.S. Government also requests the Cuban Government to “allow a United States humanitarian assessment team to visit Cuba to inspect the affected areas to properly assess damage”.

On Saturday 6 September, at 8:55 A.M., the Ministry of Foreign Affairs delivered to the State Department, through the Interests Section of Cuba in Washington, and simultaneously to the United States Interests Section in Havana, its Note Nº 1866 conveying its appreciation for the expressions of regret by the Government of the United States due to the destruction caused in our country by hurricane Gustav.

The Note also states that Cuba does not require the assistance of a humanitarian assessment team to assess the damage and needs, as it has a sufficient number of specialists, which practically have concluded that task.

The Note of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs also expresses that if the Government of the United States is really willing to cooperate with the Cuban people in face of the tragedy of the hurricane, it is requested to allow the sale to Cuba of those materials considered indispensable and to suspend the restrictions that prevent U.S. companies from offering private commercial credits to our country for the purchase of food in the United States.

A widespread public debate has emerged during the last few hours in the United States regarding the position that should be adopted by the U.S. Government due to of the severe damage caused by hurricane Gustav in Cuba.

During the afternoon of 4 September, the Democratic Presidential Candidate, Barack Obama, requested the suspension, for no less than 90 days, of restrictions to travel, remittances and assistance by Cuban residents in the United States to their families in Cuba.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs considers that the restrictions to travel and send remittances by persons of Cuban origin residing in the United States should have never been applied. It is not Cuba but the United States who deprives persons of Cuban origin from the exercise of this right.

If these rights were to be returned to the Cubans as a result of humanitarian reasons, there would be no way to explain that said prohibition, equally unjust and discriminatory, would be retained for U.S. citizens.

Now, when the Eastern part of the country is already in hurricane watch as a result of the threat posed by hurricane Ike, as powerful as Gustav, Cuba reaffirms that, in all truth, the only correct and ethical action, in correspondence with International Law and the practically unanimous will of the U.N. General Assembly, would be to eliminate totally and permanently the ruthless and cruel economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed against our Motherland for almost half a century. It includes the persecution of Cuban commercial and financial operations in third countries and which, according to conservative calculations, causes yearly damages higher than those caused by hurricane Gustav.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Cuba

September 6 2008