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Cuba: 40 years on, defend the gains of the revolution!
by Jorge Martin January 1999
Forty
years ago, on January 1st 1959 a general strike paralysed Cuba and
forced dictator Batista to flee the country. In a few days the July 26
Movement guerrillas, led by Fidel Castro and Ernesto Che Guevara entered
the capital Havana and were received as heroes by the masses. The Cuban
revolution had succeeded. What was the programme of that movement? What
was the social basis of that revolution? In order to understand these
and other questions we must look back a few years.
In
1898, Spain lost Cuba, one of the few remnants of her former colonial
power. But that did not mean independence for Cuba. The island was just
transferred from one colonial master to another: the United States of
America. For three years after 1898, Cuba was militarily occupied and
ruled by the US and the Cuban Republic was only declared on 1902, after
Washington passed the Platt amendment declaring the right of the US to
militarily intervene in the island at any time. Cuban politics for the
next 60 years were to be determined by the US who did actually send
troops to the island on several occasions (1906, 1912, 1917, 1920 and
1933).
The
Cuban economy was also largely dominated by the US. The island's main
source of income was sugar cane which was sold at preferential prices to
the powerful northern neighbour. Most of the country's sugar mills were
in the hands of American companies and so were most of the other key
sectors of the economy (oil, electricity, telephone etc). The crushing
domination of the US relied on a system of land property which remained
basically the same as under Spanish domination: a few landowners had
most of the land, while the majority of peasants were landless labourers.
Fewer than 0.1% of the farms represented 20% of the land while at the
other end of the scale 39% of the farms represented only 3.3% of the
land.
The
only other group to benefit from this situation was the small and very
weak Cuban bourgeoisie, confined to manufacturing the very few things
not made by US subsidiaries.
Meanwhile the living conditions of the Cuban masses were appalling. In
good years 25% of the workforce was unemployed and the percentage went
up to 50% in bad years. Illiteracy was very high and the average per
capita income was only US$312 (compared to US$2,279 in Delaware).
For
years the Cuban workers played a key role in the struggle against
imperialism and to advance their own interests. A high point was the
huge wave of strikes and demonstrations, including armed uprisings and
the establishment of revolutionary councils in the sugar mills, in the
1930s. This led to the overthrow of General Machado's US puppet
government, which was soon replaced by an army coup led by Fulgencio
Batista.
Stalinist theory
Unfortunately, the Cuban Communist Party, instead of relying on the
revolutionary might of the Cuban workers adopted the Stalinist theory of
the "two-stages". According to this, they were supposed to look for an
alliance with the so-called "progressive national bourgeoisie" in order
to complete the "anti-imperialist and democratic revolution" and only
after that would the struggle for socialism be on the agenda. This
theory was utterly divorced from Cuban conditions, and indeed from the
real class relationships in any of the colonial countries. The Cuban
landowners and the tiny bourgeoisie were completely linked to and
dominated by the US. They had no intention whatsoever of carrying
through the tasks of the bourgeois revolution (distribution of the land,
fight for national independence) because that would have meant dealing a
mortal blow to themselves.
The
Cuban Communist Party in its search for a non-existent 'progressive
national bourgeoisie' discovered Batista to be the representative of
this class and decided to support him. In exchange, the CP was legalised
during the Batista dictatorship and even got two cabinet ministers in
1942.
Batista was replaced by the corrupt civilian government of Grau San
Martín which in its turn was overthrown by Batista in a second military
coup in 1952. The succession of corrupt governments and military coups
with the real power in the island remaining firmly in the hand of the US
and their local crooks created widespread discontent amongst the
population, including the petty-bourgeois layers. Thousands of small
businessmen made bankrupt by the big monopolies, students who resented
the domination of their country by a foreign power, and small landowners
paralysed by the US-backed big landlords entered into opposition. In
1953, a group of students and intellectuals decided to do something to
put an end to this state of affairs and with a handful of followers
launched an assault on the Montcada barracks on July 26th. Amongst them
were Fidel Castro and his brother Raul. They were defeated and jailed
but as soon as they were released they went to Mexico where they set
themselves the task of organising a guerrilla group, the July 26th
Movement, which landed in Cuba in 1956.
The
programme of this movement was that of the revolutionary
petty-bourgeoisie: distribution of land plots of more than 1,100 acres
with compensation for the owners, a profit-sharing scheme for the
workers aimed at expanding the domestic market, and the end of the quota
system under which the US controlled sugar cane production. The 1956
Programme Manifesto of the 26-J Movement defined itself as "guided by
the ideals of democracy, nationalism and social justice ... of
Jeffersonian democracy". The same document also stated the aim to reach
a "state of solidarity and harmony between capital and workers in order
to raise the country's productivity".
They
launched a heroic 3 year long guerrilla struggle which won the
overwhelming support of the Cuban people, with only the exception of the
tiny handful of people directly linked to the landlords and US
imperialism. The main base of the movement during the fighting itself
were the landless peasants and small producers in the countryside, for
whom the only way of solving their problems was the expropriation of the
landlords. Batista's army, made up itself mainly of peasants rapidly
began to disintegrate during the fighting.
On
January 1959 a general strike was declared which forced Batista to flee
the country. Fidel Castro's guerrillas entered Santiago de Cuba and in a
few days Havana and proclaimed a new government. Just after seizing
power Castro went to the US in a goodwill tour declaring in New York "I
have clearly and definitely stated that we are not Communists... The
gates are open for private investment that contributes to the
development of Cuba".
The
problem was that even this limited programme of progressive reforms
clashed head on with the interests of the big landlords and the US
multinationals. In other words, to carry through the programme of the
democratic bourgeois revolution in a backward country in the epoch of
imperialism meant to challenge capitalism and imperialism itself. This
had already been proved by the practical experience of the Russian
Revolution in 1917. The Bolsheviks had argued that the national
democratic revolution could only be led in a backward country like
Russia by the working class (which represented no more than 10% of the
population at that time).
Socialist revolution
The
workers, having taken power at the head of the other oppressed classes,
especially the peasantry, would then proceed to carry through the tasks
of the socialist revolution as the only way to ensure the survival of
the revolution. But, as the national democratic revolution also
challenged the interests of imperialism, in order to survive, the
revolution had to spread internationally seeking the help of the mighty
working class in the advanced capitalist countries.
Trotsky was the first one to give a full theoretical explanation of this
theory which is known as the permanent revolution. The revolution in a
backward country therefore, has to be 'permanent' in two regards:
because it starts with the national democratic tasks and continues with
the socialist ones, and because it starts in one country but has to
spread internationally in order to succeed.
The
events which followed Castro's seizure of power in Cuba are a remarkable
confirmation of this theory, which is even more striking because of the
fact that Castro was forced to act in the opposite way to what he
intended.
As
soon as the new government started to seize the land owned by the big
landlords (some of them US companies) they tried to organise resistance
against these measures and were backed by the US. The masses, aroused by
the revolutionary takeover were also putting enormous pressure on the
government with a wave of land seizures and factory occupations and
strikes.
The
conflict came to a head in 1960 when the three oil companies in the
island (all of them US-owned) refused to refine a delivery of Russian
oil to Cuba. The Cuban government then "intervened" placing them under
government supervision. The US retaliated by cutting the quota for Cuban
sugar, but Russia offered to buy it. Then the Cuban government decided
to nationalise the electricity company, the telephone company, the oil
refinery and the sugar mills. Afterwards all Cuban subsidiaries of US
companies were also nationalised and finally the biggest Cuban companies
were taken into public ownership. The US government retaliated by
putting in place a trade embargo (which is still in place) and preparing
military intervention to overthrow the regime. In 1961 all diplomatic
relations between the two countries were broken.
As we
have seen Castro and his comrades had no intention whatsoever of
eliminating capitalism and landlordism in the island. They were pushed
to do so by a combination of the mistakes and blunders of the US and the
pressure of the Cuban masses. But the key factor was that no fundamental
change could ever be implemented in Cuba under capitalism. In the epoch
of imperialism there is no room for a small colonial country to achieve
real independence and advance unless it breaks fundamentally with
capitalism. And this, Castro and his comrades of the 26-J Movement found
out by their own experience.
Overthrow
The
Cuban Communist Party played almost no role in the overthrow of Batista
because its political activity was firmly rooted in the anti-Bolshevik
theory of the two stages. They even denounced Castro as a "gangster"!
Undoubtedly, the support for the new regime was overwhelming. Two
hundred thousand workers and soldiers were organised in a popular
militia and Committees for the Defence of the Revolution organised in
every neighbourhood and every village. Thus when the CIA sponsored an
invasion of the island in April 1961, the Cuban emigre invasion force
was rapidly crushed. For the first time in their lives, workers and
peasants had something to defend, something to fight and even die for.
The
revolution enjoyed mass support since its advantages were there for
everyone to see: an enormous advance of the living standards, the
eradication of illiteracy, one of the best health systems in the world,
etc. But without workers control
and management of the state and the economy there can be no socialism
and the development of bureaucracy and mismanagement is inevitable.
This is on of the most important lessons to be drawn from the collapse
of the Soviet Union.
The
way the new regime had come to power was to shape the organisation of
the new state. The working class is the only class that, because of its
working conditions and the role it plays in production, is able to adopt
a collectivist viewpoint. During the process of the Russian revolution
hundreds of thousands of workers, peasants and soldiers went through the
school of the soviets, revolutionary committees where all decisions were
taken democratically, and gained confidence in their own ability to run
their own lives.
But
the Cuban revolution was led by a handful of intellectuals and in the
process of the fighting itself no more than a few hundred participated.
The masses played mainly a secondary role. And this situation was to
remain afterwards. There was a workers and peasants' militia and
revolutionary committees, but their role was not to rule but only to
approve decisions taken elsewhere.
Hundreds of thousands gathered
to listen to the speeches of the leaders, but they were not allowed to
take decisions.
When
the new regime broke with capitalism the model it based itself on was
not that of Russian soviet democracy of 1917, but that of Russia 1961
when all vestiges of workers control had been eradicated long ago. An
example of this can be seen in the fact that the Communist Party was
created in 1965, its first congress did not take place until 1975, ten
years later!
Scarcity
The
lack of democracy and the
scarcity of basic products (largely due to the criminal embargo decreed
by US imperialism) has meant an increase in scepticism amongst the
younger generation. The older generation remains largely loyal to the
regime because they know how life was under the domination of the
landlords and imperialism and if they look around to the neighbouring
states they see a cruel reminder of what life would be like if
capitalism were restored.
Socialists all over the world have the duty to defend the Cuban
revolution against the attempts of US imperialism to destroy it, but
also against the attempts of European capitalism to restore the rule of
capital bit by bit. At the same
time we have to explain that genuine socialism cannot be established
unless there is real workers democracy and above all that socialism
cannot be built in a single island. The best contribution we can
make to defend the gains of the Cuban revolution is to fight for
socialism in our own countries.
by
Jorge Martin
January 1999
(Note: the author would be very interested in receiving your views
comments and criticisms on this article. Send them to
contact@marxist.com)
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