The Prophet's Children; Travels on the American Left
by Tim Wohlforth, Humanities Press (1994) pp.286-294

TIM WOHLFORTH: I VISIT CUBA

In the summer of 1983 Isabel arranged for us to travel together to Cuba as part of a university tour group. By this time I was living by myself in the Bay Area, though the two of us remained quite close. I flew to Mexico City, where Isabel and I boarded a plane for Havana. I had written about this island for twenty years, revolutionary Cuba, and now I finally had an opportunity to make a visit. Isabel had insisted upon the trip.

"You write documents, theses, and articles and yet you don't go there. Why not take a look? It might not be as bad as you say it is or it may be worse. But at least you will have been there. Anyway the beaches are lovely and I can get a cheap trip through the university."

Her last argument was the most convincing. I was not a strong believer in gaining 'objective knowledge of a country on the basis of a week's vacation. Yet I had to admit I was curious to take a look at Cuba. It was actually a short flight and in a little over two hours we were making our descent. As we made a wide circle over Havana, Isabel and I began to see the beautiful island laid out before us. Green and lush, Cuba was covered with palm trees and was such a contrast from the smoggy browns and grays of Mexico City.

Havana Airport was quite disappointing. It was like an airport in a small American city such as Springfield, Massachusetts, or Fresno, California. It had not changed since Batista's day, and it had not been Batista's great triumph. After a delay of an hour or so we were processed through customs and we assembled beside a waiting bus that had been assigned to our tour group. Isabel and I were part of a tour of Mexican teachers and students, most of very modest means, interested in an inexpensive vacation. Fidel was not to earn much foreign exchange from the likes of us.

Our bus arrived in Havana just at dusk. We passed through a suburban area with luxurious homes. They all appeared to be occupied; cars were parked in the driveways. Some people in socialist Cuba, I thought, were prospering. Soon we were in the center of Havana with its still majestic Spanish architecture, wide boulevards and, here and there, modern high-rises. It was a hot evening, damp, with barely a breath of air. It was so peaceful and romantic. Everywhere I looked there were couples: holding hands and walking, holding each other tightly, leaning against the walls of the ancient edifices, kissing, whispering in each other's ears. Three pretty teenage girls walked down a street in brightly colored clothes, and two teenage boys in designer jeans drove slowly next to them on a motor scooter, trying to pick them up. No one paid attention to the large billboard sporting a painting of a red flag, a Cuban flag, the initials "PCC" and a slogan urging greater production under the leadership of the party.

We arrived in front of the Hotel National. It had a red-tiled roof and stately palms lining the entranceway. It was an impressive hotel in the old Spanish style, Cuba's best until the Havana Hilton was built in the late lilies. Our room was clean, though it could have used some paint, and here was no seat on the toilet. The air-conditioning did not work, but we were given a fan. The Cubans are doing their best to repair an infrastructure that is decaying due to our trade embargo, my political mind told me. We gazed out over the Caribbean and we could see the lighthouse and the ',Ionia' fortress at the entrance to Old Havana Harbor with a string of lights coming from the decaying tenements along the crescent beach front. We became just one more couple in love.

Isabel had Leon Ortiz's address in her wallet, stuffed between her Banamex and Bancomer credit cards. She did not want immigration officials to see it. Isabel explained that Leon and his father were old-time Trotskyists and that they were part of the group that Castro had imprisoned. His address was given her by Adolfo Gilly, the Argentine journalist then living in exile in Mexico City. Gilly had spent some time in Cuba in its early revolutionary days.' The next morning Isabel tried to reach Leon on the phone. There was no answer. We had to assume he was at work. We decided we would try to find Leon on our own that evening.

It was dusk when Isabel and I forced our way onto a crowded bus and headed toward Old Havana near the harbor. Once we had gotten to the district where Leon lived, we got off the bus and started to walk. The streets were narrow in this part of the city and the buildings were very old and in disrepair. Few had windows; instead they had large shutter doors that went almost from the ceiling to the floor. The second- and third-story apartments had little balconies with wrought iron railings. It was a hot night, so most of these shutters were wide open, allowing us to see the human activity inside: the glow of black-and-white TVs, the smell of cooking, children at play, the incessant hum of Spanish conversations. I knew so few words that for me it was a kind of background drone wherever I went, making me feel more distant, separated from my surroundings.

The streets were packed with people, as sidewalks were nonexistent and there were few cars or taxis. As we passed down one particularly narrow street, we had to force ourselves around a large 1959 Buick in the process of being repaired by its proud owner. Somehow parts would be found and the pre-Castro vehicle kept on the road to take the family to the country on weekends. On the right side was the famous restaurant La Bogeguita del Medio, where Ernest Hemingway used to hang out sipping mojitos (made with fresh mint, lime, and rum).

We stumbled into a large crowd of young girls dressed in their school uniforms: bright red skirts held up by red straps, white blouses, and red bandannas. They were pouring out of a school building that must have run two shifts, as schools so often do in Mexico. Isabel asked for directions, and soon we were completely surrounded by smiling, chattering children, a sea of red and white. "Mexicana," "Mexicana." I picked up a word or two of their Spanish. The girls spontaneously broke out into a chant: "Viva Mexico!" The crowd was growing. We shouted back "Viva Cuba!" and then we all chanted "Viva Cuba y Mexico!"

It was a wonderful moment; the spirit of the revolution had not totally faded. However, we were creating a minor sensation in the middle of Havana when we wished to make a very private journey. We made our good-byes, Isabel had to hug some dozen different girls, and finally we were able to slip away down the street deeper into the old city.

Soon we were in a strictly residential neighborhood. Here and there were little piles of brick and sand with a red sign announcing that a microbrigade was at work. An effort was being made to patch the decaying city center after decades of giving priority to building the high-rise apartment complexes that ringed Havana. No one was at work on repairs, probably because of a shortage in cement to make the needed mortar. A bright light shone from a wide-open storefront in the middle of the block. It was the headquarters of the local Committee for the Defense of the Revolution. A fat man in a white short-sleeved shirt sat behind a desk and a couple of cronies leaned against the wall, chatting.

Isabel suggested that we check in and ask for directions, for by this time we were completely lost in the labyrinth of narrow alleyways. Isabel asked the man at the desk, giving an address close to Leon's. You can never be too careful. As a small knot of people gathered, offering conflicting directions, the man started grilling Isabel.

"What are you doing in this part of town? How are you related to these people?" Isabel translated for me. "Why do you want to go to this address? How do you know this person you wish to visit?"

Luckily the animated discussion about the best route for us to follow distracted the white-shirted man. He was trying to keep order in his little office/which was unused to crowds, and we were able to ease out of the place and back into the street, heading as fast as we could out of his jurisdiction. Soon we were in a quiet old square just a couple of blocks from the waterfront. There, finally, we found Leon's place in a darkened area under an overhanging balcony. The street name had been misspelled.

We began banging on the metal shutters that served as a door, for the bell did not work (did any in Cuba?). We were creating such a ruckus that I was afraid the police would show up and we would be grilled again. Finally a small boy appeared at the door and asked our business.

"Does Leon Ortiz live here?" Isabel asked in Spanish. "We are friends from Mexico."

"He is my father. I will show you the way."

He opened the shutters wide, revealing a little courtyard with a pile of bricks and sand in one corner and the requisite microbrigade sign hanging over the unfinished project. We carefully walked up a decrepit inner stairway covered with plaster dust, and then along a dingy hallway past ,apartments filled with activity, children playing on the landings, and the smell of black beans cooking. The almost-deserted square was now closed behind us, and we had entered a teaming beehive of life.

The little boy opened the door to a small apartment on the third floor. There was a small bed on the right as we entered and a large black-and white TV on the left. An old lady, a middle-aged, pretty woman, and a thin, bright-eyed girl of about ten were sitting on the bed. The two older women were watching the TV while the little girl was engrossed in her homework, occasionally glancing up at the set. This rather narrow room led right into a kitchen with an old-fashioned gas stove on the right and an old sink next to it. In the corner on the left was a small refrigerator and a little portable washing machine with Russian letters on it. It could not have held more than four pounds of clothes. The kitchen opened to the left onto a dining area, and two rooms used for sleeping could be seen beyond that with shutters opened wide to the street. It was clear that two generation' were sharing the small apartment.

An old man in his seventies sat at the kitchen table talking with .1 heavyset, middle-aged man. They were ignoring the noise coming from ill, TV and from the street. The younger man arose.

"I am Leon Ortiz and this is my father, Fernando. My son tells me you are from Mexico. Are you friends of Gilly?" Isabel translated for me. She handed him a letter of introduction, which Leon passed to his father.

"I want you to meet Tim. He's from the United States. Used to be part of Cannon's group."

Fernando rose and came straight up to me, ignoring Isabel. "Do you think he ever got my letter?"

"Who got what letter?" I asked through Isabel.

"Trotsky, of course. We sent him a full report on the political situation here and our strategy but we never received an answer."

It was clear Fernando was referring to some communication he had sent to the old Russian revolutionary in Mexico, probably in 1938 or 1939, just before he was killed by Stalin. I suggested that it was quite possible such .t letter did exist in the Trotsky Archives at Harvard and that I knew someone who did research there and would check for him. The four of us sat around the chipped enameled kitchen table while Leon told us Ohm story. The TV droned on in the background. The old lady, however, got up to make some Cuban coffee and joined us. She, too, was an old revolutionary. The younger woman, Leon's wife, was not political and remained it glued to the tube while the little boy, I guessed his age as eight, joined his sister on the bed with his homework.

"When the revolution triumphed there were not many of us here. NA had lost contact with comrades in other countries. Here in Havana we I1.1.1 my father, my mother, my mother's brother, and myself. Then there around a dozen comrades in Guantánamo. We got out a leaflet or two but were unable to do much. Then Gilly arrived with some other Argentines.

Soon we had a monthly paper out and we began work setting the type for a new edition of Trotsky's book The Permanent Revolution. We were very excited. People began coming around us. It looked like the revolution of our dreams was unfolding before us. Of course, we didn't trust Fidel. He was petty bourgeois. He wasn't linked to the workers. We were afraid he would not go far enough. He would not follow the path of permanent revolution; he would compromise with Wall Street.

"But we were proven wrong on that account. Suddenly Fidel embraced Marxism-Leninism and began to nationalize everything. We supported all this. At the same time, though, Fidel supported the Soviet Union uncritically. Our old enemies, the Stalinists, found cushy jobs in the government. He began to clamp down on the unions. He took no steps to institute workers' democracy. We continued to support Fidel, to support the revolutionary process, but we had our criticisms."

Fernando broke in: "I kept thinking, what would the Old Man think of it all? Where are the soviets, the real workers' councils and control?"

"Suddenly they hit us." Leon took over the narrative. "The government sent the police to the print shop and broke up the type for Trotsky's book. Our little office was seized, the mimeo taken. The Argentines were picked up and expelled from the country. My father was arrested and then they came and picked me up."

"I was so worried." It was Maria, Fernando's wife and comrade. "I came home from work, to this place, and it was a wreck, it was in a shambles. My husband and son were gone. Luckily Leon's children hadn't been born yet. My brother was even picked up for a while. I was picked up when I went to my brother's apartment looking for him. But they let me go. The group was dispersed. We were cut off from the outside. No one cared. I guess we were an embarrassment to the Left abroad. They all loved Fidel so much in those days. Yet we supported him, too. We really did. It's just that we had some questions. We had an obligation to raise them."

Maria was sitting opposite me with her back to the kitchen area. No air was moving in the small stuffy apartment. It must have been after 9 P.M., yet Havana was not cooling off. I could see small beads of sweat trickling down Maria's forehead. My eyes wandered from her head to the stove. A small mouse was scurrying along the gas pipe that went from the stove to somewhere under the sink. It kept going back and forth. Every now and then it would stick its head out from between one of the burners. I forced

i myself now to look back at Leon, who had begun talking again. He was talking theory. About the permanent revolution: Castro, in his opinion, was "objectively" fulfilling Trotsky's revolutionary strategy as outlined in his Permanent Revolution.

"Why, then, did he smash up Trotsky's text?" I intervened and Isabel translated.

"It is a revolution not without its contradictions. But perhaps Fidel is learning. Things are better now."

"What happened after that?" I intervened again. "When did they let you out?"

"It was not so bad the first time. I was in for only six months but they kept my father for a full year. Mother was very worried."

"There was a second imprisonment?" Isabel asked.

"That came in 1970. There was a lot of unrest within the working clan which resented the lack of material gains and the pressure placed upon workers during the Ten Million Tons sugar-harvest drive. A dissident current arose within the Communist Party. So they jailed us once again. This time I got out in a year but they held my father in prison for six years.

"We made good use of the time. We had some very fruitful discussion. with the dissident Communists. Then the prison authorities let us hold classes in Marxism for the gusanos, those that had opposed the revolution We were able to explain the revolution, the class struggle to some of then, to get them to support the revolutionary process."

Now I was fully awake and was totally absorbed in these people: a fraiil old man who had corresponded with Trotsky in the 1930s, whom Castro imprisoned twice, and his son, named after the Russian leader, imprisoned also. Why did Castro fear this family? Why did he need to use the great power of the state against these humble individuals?

The two continued to support the revolution that imprisoned them, to aid it even when in jail. They lived in this poor, run-down tenement while others who had lived comfortably under Batista now enjoyed a pleasant life-style in Havana's suburbs. It was such a lonely heroism! The Left in the West did not know or care about them. I felt they were important, they were part of the story. They should be remembered. I was choked up and felt an almost uncontrollable desire to cry. It was helpful that the discussion was in Spanish. I could let it bathe me in its sounds while I composed myself.

"How are you doing now?" I broke in.

"Things are better. The government has made serious concessions to tin workers in order to sustain their support. I work in the construction industry where I receive a wage of four hundred pesos a month. Some it my supervisors get only three hundred pesos a month! I am secretary of the union branch."

"Do the workers know your politics?" Isabel asked.

"Yes, they know. That's why they elected me. They feel they can trust me to stand up for them. My father works in the same trade, too, but the officials still watch him. He keeps quiet."

It was getting late and I could see that the two children were having trouble keeping awake. Leon's wife had dozed off in front of the TV. Of course! They couldn't go to bed until we left. This was the bedroom for some of them. Isabel and I stood up and got ready to leave. Isabel opened her large purse and brought out a few thin volumes of Trotsky's writings recently published in Mexico, which Fernando held reverently in his wrinkled, calloused hands.

Leon's eyes brightened as he introduced us to his two children on our way out. He was very proud of how well they were doing in school. How much hope he had for their future! He told us their names, but they made no sense to me. They sounded exotic, not Spanish at all. Leon noticed our reaction and smiled.

"The names are acronyms for famous quotes of Trotsky. Her name," Leon patted his daughter's head, "is based on `Marxism without the dialectic is like a clock without a spring,' while his name is based on `Forward to victory under the banner of the Fourth International."'

The children smiled, as proud of their father and grandfather as they were of them. They would somehow survive the awkwardness of their names. They were achievers and the revolution would open the university to them. The politics would probably fade and their intelligence would find sustenance in science, in medicine. But someday, I suspected, they would tell their children the meaning of their names, the tradition of their family. That night I felt privileged to have been touched by a movement that produced human beings of the caliber of this family.

The next day the old lady came to visit us at the hotel. We insisted on a gift for the family. They had no relatives in Miami to bestow presents upon them. This family remained loyal to a regime that did not understand them, that persecuted them. We offered her a fan or a portable radio/ cassette player. She chose the former. At least there would be some breeze in that crowded apartment.

"Don't forget to check on Fernando's letter," she whispered to me as we parted in the hotel lobby. "It's important to him. He doesn't have a copy any more. They seized everything during that first raid."

Soon we were back in Mexico. We drove through the poor neighborhood near the airport. The streets were darkened in midday by pollution, and our minds were still in Cuba. Then we were traveling down a main boulevard in the northeastern part of the city. We passed the railroad station and then on the left loomed a large public-housing complex—it looked much the same as projects in New York City—and Isabel started talking quietly to me.

"That's where it happened in 1968. The students gathered in front of those buildings to start a march through the city. The police, supported by the army, moved in, coming right down this boulevard. Soon there was tear gas everywhere and they started to fire live ammunition. The peoplh in the project threw pots and pans out the windows at the police and troops and took the students who escaped into their homes. Then tin n arrested everybody, everybody on the left. That was how they prepared for the Olympics."

"And you, Isabel?"

"I was there but I had friends in the project who protected me. I was young then and not very involved. They arrested my brother. They also arrested Gilly, even though he was Argentine, and held him for five years. Maybe you understand why we support Cuba, why we can't be as critical a% you. I know you are right. But it is not the same for us."

Soon we had passed through working-class Mexico City and entered the clean, pretty, middle-class world of the northern suburbs. Lovely homes, neatly trimmed little lawns, marble facades, two cars pulled up in front d each house.

The next day we headed for the huge UNAM campus, where friends haul organized a meeting for me. The occasion was the publication of a hook I had written three years earlier during my stay in the country.10 We drove to the meeting with Manuel Aguilar Mora, one of the leaders of the PRT and its representative for many years at the Paris headquarters of the Fourth International, and his large blond Latvian wife, Mara. Manuel was one the panelists. I felt I might as well utilize the occasion to present my impressions of Cuba, since about one quarter of the book was devoted to Cuba. I concluded with the admittedly impressionistic remark that "Cuba is undoubtedly the nicest of the Stalinist states." What I meant by this was that the country had the same structure as the other state socialist countries but retained a greater degree of popularity, particularly because its people united with the government in its efforts to sustain the country despite U.S. imperialist pressure.

Manuel then launched a rather bitter polemic against me, defending Cuba so vigorously that he left out entirely those criticisms that he actually believed in. Such is the way of polemic on the left. While I felt the ¡malt was a bit out of place at a meeting devoted to promoting my book, I too it in good spirits. I knew Manuel did not take such polemics personally and was just getting a bit carried away, grandstanding for his supporters in the audience.

Isabel and I drove Manuel and Mara home in our car. Mara spent the entire trip giving Manuel a piece of her mind. She believed he was completely out of order, factional and ill-tempered. The next I heard of the them was that they had separated. This discussion had been the beginning of the end for the two of them. Manuel was a 100 percent party person, while Mara had developed a hatred of the polemic, of the factional, intolerant, strident side of party life. I understood them both so well. Thirty years of training and living in party circles had made me, in many ways, like Manuel. Yet my emotions that day were with Mara. I had lost a tolerance for the intolerant. I was definitely winding down.