*From The Archives Of “Workers Vanguard”-Defend the Cuban Revolution!

In Honor of Anniversary Of The July 26^th Movement

 

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman (2015)

 

Every leftist, hell, everybody who stands on the democratic principle that each nation has the right to self-determination should cautiously rejoice at the “defrosting” of the long-time diplomatic relations between the American imperial behemoth and the island of Cuba (and the freedom of the remaining Cuban Five in the bargain). Every leftist militant should understand that each non-capitalist like Cuba going back to the establishment of the now defunct Soviet Union has had the right (maybe until we win our socialist future the duty) to make whatever advantageous agreements they can with the capitalist world. That despite whatever disagreements we have with the political regimes ruling those non-capitalist states. That is a question for us to work out not the imperialists.

For those who have defended the Cuban Revolution since its victory in 1959 under whatever political rationale (pro-socialist, right to self-determination, or some other hands off policy) watching on black and white television the rebels entering Havana this day which commemorates the heroic if unsuccessful efforts at Moncada we should affirm our continued defense of the Cuban revolution. Oh yes, and tell the American government to give back Guantanamo while we are at it.    

Markin comment:

As almost always these historical articles and polemics are purposefully helpful to clarify the issues in the struggle against world imperialism, particularly the “monster” here in America.


Workers Vanguard No. 929
30 January 2009

Defend the Cuban Revolution!

(Quote of the Week)

Fifty years ago, as Fidel Castro’s Rebel Army marched into Havana in January 1959, the bourgeois army and the rest of the capitalist state apparatus that had propped up the U.S.-backed dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista shattered. In the face of the hostile encirclement of U.S. imperialism, the Castro regime in 1960-61 expropriated the Cuban bourgeoisie as a class, creating a bureaucratically deformed workers state. Ever since, the U.S. ruling class has worked relentlessly to overthrow the gains of the Cuban Revolution and re-establish the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.

From the time of its inception as the Revolutionary Tendency in the Socialist Workers Party, which was undergoing political degeneration toward reformism, the Spartacist League has fought for unconditional military defense of the Cuban deformed workers state. At the same time, we fight for proletarian political revolution to oust the ruling Stalinist bureaucracy and to establish a regime based on workers democracy and revolutionary internationalism. The following excerpts are from a document submitted by the Revolutionary Tendency to the 1963 Convention of the Socialist Workers Party, which had given open political support to the Castro bureaucracy.

13. The Cuban Revolution has exposed the vast inroads of revisionism upon our movement. On the pretext of defense of the Cuban Revolution, in itself an obligation for our movement, full unconditional and uncritical support has been given to the Castro government and leadership, despite its petit-bourgeois nature and bureaucratic behavior. Yet the record of the regime’s opposition to the democratic rights of the Cuban workers and peasants is clear: bureaucratic ouster of the democratically-elected leaders of the labor movement and their replacement by Stalinist hacks; suppression of the Trotskyist press; proclamation of the single-party system; and much else. This record stands side by side with enormous initial social and economic accomplishments of the Cuban Revolution. Thus Trotskyists are at once the most militant and unconditional defenders against imperialism of both the Cuban Revolution and of the deformed workers’ state which has issued therefrom. But Trotskyists cannot give confidence and political support, however critical, to a governing regime hostile to the most elementary principles and practices of workers’ democracy, even if our tactical approach is not as toward a hardened bureaucratic caste....

15. Experience since the Second World War has demonstrated that peasant-based guerrilla warfare under petit-bourgeois leadership can in itself lead to nothing more than an anti-working-class bureaucratic regime. The creation of such regimes has come about under the conditions of decay of imperialism, the demoralization and disorientation caused by Stalinist betrayals, and the absence of revolutionary Marxist leadership of the working class. Colonial revolution can have an unequivocally progressive significance only under such leadership of the revolutionary proletariat. For Trotskyists to incorporate into their strategy revisionism on the proletarian leadership in the revolution is a profound negation of Marxism-Leninism no matter what pious wish may be concurrently expressed for “building revolutionary Marxist parties in colonial countries.” Marxists must resolutely oppose any adventurist acceptance of the peasant-guerilla road to socialism—historically akin to the Social Revolutionary program on tactics that Lenin fought. This alternative would be a suicidal course for the socialist goals of the movement, and perhaps physically for the adventurers.

—Revolutionary Tendency, “Toward Rebirth of the Fourth International”
(June 1963), Marxist Bulletin No. 9

*Defend The Cuban Revolution- End The U.S. Trade Embargo

In Honor of Anniversary Of The July 26^th Movement

 

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman (2015)

 

Every leftist, hell, everybody who stands on the democratic principle that each nation has the right to self-determination should cautiously rejoice at the “defrosting” of the long-time diplomatic relations between the American imperial behemoth and the island of Cuba (and the freedom of the remaining Cuban Five in the bargain). Every leftist militant should understand that each non-capitalist like Cuba going back to the establishment of the now defunct Soviet Union has had the right (maybe until we win our socialist future the duty) to make whatever advantageous agreements they can with the capitalist world. That despite whatever disagreements we have with the political regimes ruling those non-capitalist states. That is a question for us to work out not the imperialists.

For those who have defended the Cuban Revolution since its victory in 1959 under whatever political rationale (pro-socialist, right to self-determination, or some other hands off policy) watching on black and white television the rebels entering Havana this day which commemorates the heroic if unsuccessful efforts at Moncada we should affirm our continued defense of the Cuban revolution. Oh yes, and tell the American government to give back Guantanamo while we are at it.    

Click On Title To Link To Fidel Castro History Archive.

DVD REVIEW

Fidel: The Untold Story, Directed by Estela Bravo, 2002
strong

This year marks the 56th anniversary of the Cuban July 26th movement, the 50th anniversary of the victory of the Cuban Revolution and the 42nd anniversary of the execution of Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara by the Bolivian Army after the defeat of his guerrilla forces and his capture in godforsaken rural Bolivia. I have reviewed the life of Che elsewhere in this space (see July archives, dated July 5, 2006). The Cuban Revolution stood for my generation, the Generation of '68, and, hopefully, will for later generations as a symbol of revolutionary intransigence against American imperialism.

Thus, it is fitting to review a cinematic biographic sketch of Che’s comrade and central leader of that revolution, Fidel Castro. Obviously, it is harder to evaluate the place in history of the disabled, but still living, Fidel than the iconic Che whose place is secured in the revolutionary pantheon. The choice of this documentary reflected my desire to review a recent post- Soviet biographic sketch (originally released in 2002). Usually one must accept by now that most Western biographic sketches have various degrees of hostility to the Castro regime and the Cuban Revolution. The director here, Ms. Bravo, is apparently an exception. After viewing this sketch I find that it gives a reasonable account of the highlights of Fidel’s life thus far and for those not familiar with the Fidel saga a good place to start. To get a more detailed analysis one, as always, then goes to the books to get a better sense of the subject.

Let us be clear about two things. First, this writer has defended the Cuban Revolution since its inception; initially under a liberal- democratic premise of the right of nations, especially applicable to small nations pressed up against the imperialist powers, to self-determination; later under the above-mentioned premise and also that it should be defended on socialist grounds, not my idea of socialism- the Bolshevik, 1917 kind- but as an anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist revolution nevertheless. That prospective continues to be this writer’s position today. Secondly, my conception of revolutionary strategy and thus of world politics has for a long time been far removed from Fidel Castro’s (and Che’s) strategy, which emphasized military victory by guerrilla forces in the countryside, rather than my position of mass action by the urban proletariat leading the rural masses. That said, despite those strategic political differences this reviewer can honor the Cuban Revolution as a symbol of a fight all anti-imperialist militants should defend.

Ms. Bravo's rather more positive prospective obviously differs from mine. Nevertheless she has presented interesting footage focusing on the highlights of Fidel’s career; the early student days struggling for political recognition; the initial fights against Batista; the famous but unsuccessful Moncada attack; the subsequent trial, imprisonment and then exile in Mexico; the return to Cuba and renewed fight under a central strategy of guerrilla warfare rather than urban insurrection; the triumph over Batista in 1959; the struggle against American imperialist intervention and the nationalizations of much of Cuba’s economy; the American-sponsored Bay of Pigs in 1961; the rocky alliance with the Soviet Union and the Cuban Missile Crisis; the various ups and downs in the Cuban economy stemming from reliance on the monoculture of sugar; the various periods of Cuban international revolutionary support activity, including Angola and Nicaragua; the demise of the Soviet Union and the necessity of Cuba to go it alone along with its devastating hardships; and, various other events up through the 1990’s.

All of this is complete with the inevitable ‘talking heads’ experts interspersed throughout the documentary giving their take on the meaning of various incidents. Of interest here is the take of the former CIA interest section head Smith, former American radical Angela Davis and the novelist and long time Castro friend Gabriel Garcia Marquez. There is plenty of material to start with and much to analyze. As mentioned before Che’s place is secure and will be a legitimate symbol of rebellion for youth for a long time. Fidel, as a leader of state and a much more mainline Stalinist (although compared with various stodgy Soviet leaderships that he dealt with over the years he must have seemed like their worst Trotsky nightmare) has a much less assured place. Alas, the old truism holds here - revolutionaries should not die in their beds. As always though- Defend The Cuban Revolution- End The U.S. Blockade!.

From The Archives Of "Women And Revolution"- "The Confession Of A Ex-Left Fink"- A Cautionary Tale

Click on the headline to link to a "Wikipedia" entry for The Weathermen.

Markin comment:

The following is an article from the Spring 1982 issue of "Women and Revolution" that has some historical interest- for old "new leftists", perhaps. On a day when I am posting an entry on the Symbonise Liberation Army this entry acts as a cautionary tale. Also, in contradistiction to fink Ms. Alpert- Honor and Remember Susan Saxe and Sam Melville. I will be posting more such articles from the back issues of "Women and Revolution" during this Women's History Month.

*****

Jane Alpert's Growing Up Underground:
Confessions of an FBI Fink

Poor Jane Alpert, just a Trilby to the Svengalis of the New Left. But she sang for the FBI too, which is what most leftists remember. Her autobiography, Crowing Up Underground (William Morrow, 1981), which appeared just in time to reap the publicity around the Nyack Brinks job in which several Weathermen, including Kathy Boudin, were picked up, is a lengthy exercise in blame-shifting and vindictiveness against her former comrades. Yes, it's true, she admits, she did bomb the Federal Building in New York City on 18 September 1969, traveling downtown via bus "wearing a white A-line dress, kid gloves... and a touch of makeup… I felt as I imagined I would on my wedding day." And yes, she did write "I will mourn the death of 42 male supremacists no longer" following Rockefeller's bloody 1971 Attica prison massacre which left her former lover Sam Melville among the dead. And, yes, she did talk to the FBI, Alpert admits, in 1974 when she turned herself in after four years under¬ground on bombing charges, in hopes of getting a lighter sentence.

But nothing, you see, is ever really Jane Alpert's fault. She says now Melville bombed buildings only out of sexual frustration and she went along because she was his love-slave. Alpert says now it was feminist Robin Morgan's evil influence that led her into man-hating excess and even—this delicately insinuated—perhaps into finking to the FBI as well. "Robin and I stayed up all night discussing the best way to handle the crisis" (of FBI pressure), Alpert recalls. Morgan thought up the scenario Alpert followed, she says, of talking to the FBI but "making up" some parts to hide certain details. "This was perhaps the most deluded strategy on which Robin and I had ever collaborated," she writes, but—as usual—she did it, "naively confident in her wisdom." And after her first fink session, Alpert in panic realized she had probably given enough details to trap fellow-radical Pat Swinton, also sought on bombing charges. So she called Swinton and told her to disappear again. "She told me she would never leave Brattleboro," Alpert self-righteously recalls—so we're supposed to think it was just Swinton's own fault she got picked up seven weeks later.

Alpert's book is really kind of embarrassing, not because the details of 1960s Lower East Side sex life are particularly painful (at least, no more than anybody else's), or because "underground" life is revealed as the pathetically aimless scrounging it no doubt was for many. It is this nasty, blatant evasion of responsibility which evokes disgust. Hegel's aphorism, "To his valet no man is a world hero, not because he is not a world hero, but because his valet is a valet," is appropriate to Alpert's love-slave outlook.

What is most irritating—and most dangerous—about this book is Alpert's vicious trivializing of the radical wing of the New Left as simply a bunch of psychotic sexually hung-up creeps. A most useful myth for Alpert, no doubt, but that doesn't make it true. It's easy enough today, in the era of Reagan reaction, to shrug it all off as youthful mistakes, "Oh, we must have been crazy then—to think we could stop American imperialism." But the New Left wasn't crazy. The best of the 1960s radicals—and militants like the Black Panther Party, relentlessly gunned down—hated this society and its bitter oppression with a deep and fundamentally just hatred. Their means of fighting back, their strategy and analysis, were flawed—we Marxists argued at the time against the commonly held New Left belief that a few guerrilla fighters "picking up the gun" could alone inspire a revolution. We fought instead to win young radicals to the socialist perspective of working-class revolution leading all the oppressed.

As we predicted, the "Days of Rage" was a disaster. But we defended these young radicals against the ensuing vindictive state repression. Bitter enough was the brutal smashing of the Panthers, the rounding up of the Weather Underground, the punishing court sentences, the fact that the capitalist state is more powerful than the heroic individuals of the black radical movement and New Left thought. Better it were not.

Unfortunately a facile writer, Alpert is now making hay out of a movement she obviously didn't understand at the time and today is interested only in slandering to her own greater glory. It is true that among the thousands of idealistic young people, inspired by the civil rights struggles in the South, disgusted by the brutal resistance of the state to elementary justice, then impelled toward radicalism by the ever-escalating dirty Vietnam War, there were a few adventurers. The impatient spirit of petty-bourgeois radicalism often burned out, particularly given the dead weight upon the antiwar movement of the "respectable" liberal peace crawls, the cringing appeals to the president and Democratic Party. But the best of the New Leftists found their way to Marxism, found a way to deepen and continue their resistance to a hateful system of exploitation and oppression. Many cadres of the Spartacist League came from the New Left, from SDS, from the early women's and civil rights movements. And a lot of New Leftists, whether they found their way to proletarian socialism or not, at least had the decency not to fink on their former comrades-in-arms when things got tough. We salute heroic individuals like Susan Saxe and Wendy Yoshimura.

As for Alpert, today she's busy fighting the demon porn, right in tune with the times—the Moral Majority Reagan reaction times, that is. We wonder though, if this petty-bourgeois feminist fad mercifully dies out, will Alpert say Susan Brownmiller made her do it?

From The Archives Of The International Communist League- Theses on Guerrilla Warfare (1968)

In Honor of Anniversary Of The July 26^th Movement

 

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman (2015)

 

Every leftist, hell, everybody who stands on the democratic principle that each nation has the right to self-determination should cautiously rejoice at the “defrosting” of the long-time diplomatic relations between the American imperial behemoth and the island of Cuba (and the freedom of the remaining Cuban Five in the bargain). Every leftist militant should understand that each non-capitalist like Cuba going back to the establishment of the now defunct Soviet Union has had the right (maybe until we win our socialist future the duty) to make whatever advantageous agreements they can with the capitalist world. That despite whatever disagreements we have with the political regimes ruling those non-capitalist states. That is a question for us to work out not the imperialists.

For those who have defended the Cuban Revolution since its victory in 1959 under whatever political rationale (pro-socialist, right to self-determination, or some other hands off policy) watching on black and white television the rebels entering Havana this day which commemorates the heroic if unsuccessful efforts at Moncada we should affirm our continued defense of the Cuban revolution. Oh yes, and tell the American government to give back Guantanamo while we are at it.    

Markin comment:

In October 2010 I started what I anticipate will be an on-going series, From The Archives Of The Socialist Workers Party (America), starting date October 2, 2010, where I will place documents from, and make comments on, various aspects of the early days of the James P. Cannon-led Socialist Worker Party in America. As I noted in the introduction to that series Marxism, no less than other political traditions, and perhaps more than most, places great emphasis on roots, the building blocks of current society and its political organizations. Nowhere is the notion of roots more prevalent in the Marxist movement than in the tracing of organizational and political links back to the founders, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, the Communist Manifesto, and the Communist League.

After mentioning the thread of international linkage through various organizations from the First to the Fourth International I also noted that on the national terrain in the Trotskyist movement, and here I was speaking of America where the Marxist roots are much more attenuated than elsewhere, we look to Daniel DeLeon’s Socialist Labor League, Eugene V. Debs' Socialist Party( mainly its left-wing, not its socialism for dentists wing), the Wobblies (IWW, Industrial Workers Of The World), the early Bolshevik-influenced Communist Party and the various formations that led up to the Socialist Workers Party, the section that Leon Trotsky’s relied on most while he was alive. Further, I noted that beyond the SWP that there were several directions to go in but that those earlier lines were the bedrock of revolutionary Marxist continuity, at least through the 1960s.

I am continuing today  what I also anticipate will be an on-going series about one of those strands past the 1960s when the SWP lost it revolutionary appetite, what was then the Revolutionary Tendency (RT) and what is now the Spartacist League (SL/U.S.), the U.S. section of the International Communist League (ICL). I intend to post materials from other strands but there are several reasons for starting with the SL/U.S. A main one, as the document below will make clear, is that the origin core of that organization fought, unsuccessfully in the end, to struggle from the inside (an important point) to turn the SWP back on a revolutionary course, as they saw it. Moreover, a number of the other organizations that I will cover later trace their origins to the SL, including the very helpful source for posting this material, the International Bolshevik Tendency.

However as I noted in posting a document from Spartacist, the theoretical journal of ICL posted via the International Bolshevik Tendency website that is not the main reason I am starting with the SL/U.S. Although I am not a political supporter of either organization in the accepted Leninist sense of that term, more often than not, and at times and on certain questions very much more often than not, my own political views and those of the International Communist League coincide. I am also, and I make no bones about it, a fervent supporter of the Partisan Defense Committee, a social and legal defense organization linked to the ICL and committed, in the traditions of the IWW, the early International Labor Defense-legal defense arm of the Communist International, and the early defense work of the American Socialist Workers Party, to the struggles for freedom of all class-war prisoners and defense of other related social struggles.
***********
Markin comment on this article:

Much was written in the 1960s, the heyday of guerrilla warfare theory (especially the "third world" peasant variety), in the wake of the success of the Cuba revolution and other armed liberation struggles. And number one, el primo, exemplar of that theory was one Ernesto "Che" Guevara. I will let some comments from a DVD review serve here to make my points on this article.

Monday, July 26, 2010

*On The Anniversary Of The July 26th Movement-The Legend Of Ernesto “Che” Guevara- The Heroic Guerrilla Face

DVD Review

This year is the 57th Anniversary of the July 26th Movement, the 51st Anniversary of the Cuban revolution and the 43rd anniversary of the death of Ernesto, “Che”, Guevara. Defend The Cuban Revolution

Che, starring Eduardo Noriega, 2006

On more than one occasion I have mentioned that “Che” Guevara, as icon and legend, despite his left Stalinist politics (at best) and the political gulf that separated him from those who fought, and fight, under the banner of Leon Trotsky and the Fourth International, was, and is, a justifiably appealing revolutionary militant for the world’s youth to consider. A number of films have come out over the years that portray one or another aspect of the “Che” personality. Here the central thrust of the film is the creation of “Che” as a revolutionary cadre in the guerrilla warfare movement that dominated much of the radical political action of the 1960s, in the wake of the success and survival of the Cuban revolution in the face of American Yankee imperialism.

This little film, really a docu-drama since there is an abundance of black and white newsreel film footage to set the story line throughout most of the 1950s, goes, up close and personal, into the transformation of the Argentine free spirit and free- booter. In short, from the pre-“Che” of the “Motorcycle Chronicles” period into a commandant of the Second Front in the Fidel and Raul Castro-led rural insurgence against the hated dictator (except in Miami) Batista.

In that sense it almost does not work. Eduardo Noriega is “Che” in his mannerisms, his good and manly looks, and in his earnestness (no pun intended) to free the Americas of the Yankee beast. However, the film is saved when “Che” gets to show more aspects of his personality when he is being interviewed by an American women reporter in the post-victory period. And also by his determination to end up where he started, as a guerrilla fighter extraordinaire fighting against the world’s injustices. And an enemy's bullet.

That, my friends, today is refreshingly appealing. That said though, as I have repeatedly pointed out on other occasions, Che deserved a better fate that to be caught out in the bush in Bolivia. And here is where the irony (and the political differences) between us comes in. What the hell was he doing in the Bolivian bush, of all places in Bolivia when they was a working class (mainly miners) who had a history of extreme militancy and readiness to do class battles against the state (and have done so since then). “Che”, mainly deserves his status as icon, as a personal exemplar, but a whole generation of militants in Latin America and elsewhere got torn up based on that wrong strategic assumption. That is the real lesson of the film, any worthwhile film on Che.
********
Theses on Guerrilla Warfare
Spartacist No. 11, March-April 1968

The strategy of guerrilla warfare has been raised to the level of a "principle" by the Castroites. With last January’s publication of Régis Debray’s Revolution in the Revolution? the Cuban bureaucracy formulated the Guevarist strategy for militarily confronting imperialism into a doctrinaire recipe to be applied to all Latin American countries (except, oh yes, except to Uruguay and Mexico, countries not quite so hostile to Cuba). The recent Organization of Latin American Solidarity (OLAS) Conference in Havana put Debray’s formulations into resolutions, approving the general line of "armed struggle"; amidst colossal billboards depicting Bolivar, Guevara and Castro, the Conference also heard glowing, if highly inaccurate, reports of guerrillaism’s successes and future.

The Castroite road, and the brazenly elitist ideas expressed by this Cuban variant of the Maoist road, are such crude and explicit repudiations of Marxism that even official Maoist organs, such as the U.S. Progressive Labor (Nov.-Dec. 1967) and World Revolution (Winter 1967), have been forced to put on a facade of "orthodoxy," bitterly attacking Castroism in general and the Castroite ideologues such as Debray. However, the Castro bureaucracy is simply following the old Maoist recipe for rural warfare, although, as Debray’s book makes clear, with Castroite "innovations." For the Maoists, to fight in the countryside and develop a "people’s war" was a principle in itself, the "mass line" in action. For the Castroites, elitist "rural war" is supposedly not a principle, but simply a result of the repressive political situation in Latin America. But it quickly becomes a principle also.1 Anybody who is not for the Castroite version of "armed struggle" is labeled a "bourgeois," a "provocateur," an agent of the CIA, etc. That goes for the Venezuelan CP, the Latin American Maoist leadership, a thoroughly urban breed, the "Trotskyites," and all those who work in the cities, regardless of the political programs of those organizations. They must all obey the "principle" of rural safety; that is, they must all search for the jungle’s protective womb. Here the Castroites draw their "blood line."

Unfortunately, the argument elaborated by Debray and others about the "safety" of the countryside is nothing but a marvelous commonplace. The liquidation of Guevara’s Bolivian guerrilla group and the resulting murder of Guevara himself by the Bolivian military and U.S. CIA apparatus reveal once again that guerrillaism is not the way for the Latin American socialist revolution. The jungle is no less dangerous for revolutionaries than is the city. This, however, is not the point. Marxists begin their struggles basing themselves not on impressions, opinions and suspicions about the repressive apparatus of the ruling class, but on the objective developments in its organic contradictions which periodically rock the entire bourgeois society. And those contradictions, violently visible in the class struggle, manifest themselves predominantly in the cities, where the proletariat works in the factories, the heart of bourgeois society.2 This is why Marxists should strive to remain in the cities, with the proletariat. Their struggle can recognize tactical retreats, exiles, etc. But Marxists should never—as the Maoists and Castroites do—capitulate to the unfavorable situations in the cities by cooking up "innovations" about the "socialist" countryside.

(Though we fundamentally disagree with this escapism to the countryside, we recognize that deaths such as Guevara’s show that many guerrillaists, who are dedicated and courageous fighters trapped by a reactionary conception of revolution, are nevertheless prepared to struggle and die if necessary for their convictions. One can sharply contrast this devotion to the smug caution of the Pabloites, notably in North America and in Europe, and the wild, but empty, bombast of coffee shop guerrillaists such as Professor John Gerassi. Rather than preparing for the coming proletarian revolution here, these gentlemen prefer to safely "cheer" for the Guevaras from the sidelines.)

The following thesis was first published in Espartaco, Bulletin 2, April 1967, as Tesis sobre las Guerrillas. Excerpts from it appeared in Der Klassenkampf, No. 2, July 1967. The present version has been expanded into a more historical and general study. The original Tesis put forward numbered observations about various types of guerrilla warfare and peasant movements. In the present work we trace the historical development of a guerrilla struggle confronted with the most favorable conjunction of circumstances. (Because the Castroite bureaucracy has set up the Cuban experience as the model to be followed by all Latin American revolutionists, we have abstracted the Cuban experience in order to appraise its development. The Cuban experience contains most of what is essential to the other guerrilla take-overs.) Then we analyze the class content of guerrillaism, i.e., its social basis, leadership and program. From these two corresponding appraisals we show that the guerrilla warfare strategy—regardless of its intentions—is impotent to terminate, from any historical standpoint, the root of world-wide oppression—the imperialist capitalist system.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Stalinist Past

Guerrillaism today is a petty-bourgeois reaction to the absence and delay of proletarian revolution. In those countries underdeveloped by imperialist exploitation, the proletariat, lacking Leninist parties, has suffered innumerable defeats at the hands of nationalist swindlers and their Stalinist partners. Before, during and after the Second Imperialist War, Stalinism internationally betrayed the socialist movements by harnessing them to the native bourgeoisies and to the "democratic" imperialisms.3 This "popular front" strategy dismantled many revolutionary opportunities not only in the advanced capitalist countries, but in the colonial and semi-colonial countries as well. The betrayals of the popular front were not, of course, the first Stalinist crimes. They had been anticipated by the mass catastrophes of the "third period" (1928-1934) when the Comintern called for ultra-left adventures for "power." Just as in Germany where third period adventurism facilitated Hitler’s coming to power, so in Latin America it served to erode and confuse entire Communist parties.4 These zig-zags of Comintern policy, designed for the narrow purpose of protecting the interests of the Kremlin clique, served to physically annihilate or totally disorient thousands upon thousands of proletarian cadres. Thus, the Comintern policies not only forestalled successful proletarian revolution at the time, they also conditioned to a great extent the circumstances for future defeats.

Today’s Adventurism

The colonial and semi-colonial petty-bourgeoisie, much of it also oppressed by imperialist exploitation, has been thrown into a frenzy caused by the growing limitations on its cultural and economic possibilities. As a result, the most disgusted sections of the urban petty-bourgeoisie and its intelligentsia struggle to lead the peasantry—itself a huge petty-bourgeois mass—against the imperialist domination of their country. But, lacking historically a decisive relationship to the means of production, the petty-bourgeoisie is impotent to close forever what Marx and Engels called the "pre-history" of humanity. A residue of the past, of waning feudalism and diverse pre-capitalist social strata, the petty-bourgeoisie cannot decisively carry out Marx’s call to "expropriate the expropriators." A petty-bourgeois leadership may oppose the imperialist expropriators and may even "expropriate" them domestically. But, having expropriated them, the petty-bourgeois leadership cannot consistently safeguard the new property relations deformed within the limitations of a national economy.

If initially a guerrilla movement, led inevitably by the petty-bourgeoisie, partially destroys the imperialist grip on its country, the succeeding political convulsions at best may force the new government to consolidate a bureaucratically deformed workers state5 like Yugoslavia, China, Cuba, politically and economically related to the USSR; the more likely outcome is that the country will remain under imperialist control (as happened in Algeria with regard to French imperialism).

The Cuban Example

The example of the Cuban Revolution, a revolution which resulted in the unique development of a deformed workers state in Latin America, shows that victorious guerrilla movements can do no more than hasten the creation of a temporary vacuum in the bourgeois state. When such a vacuum appears, the movement usually first attempts to prop up a coalition with the "patriotic" bourgeoisie. After the government oligarchy and the political and military lackeys of imperialism leave the country, whole sectors of the old bourgeois apparatus favored by the guerrilla leadership (now in the cities), are absorbed wholesale into the "new" state bureaucracy. However, imperialism may be temporarily confused and the native bourgeoisie too weak as a whole to accept a coalition with the guerrilla movement. Thus the guerrilla movement under the impetus of its victory in a civil war may be forced to establish itself in Bonapartist fashion as the sole ruler of the country.

Clearly, great masses of peasants and considerable segments of the proletariat will support a guerrilla leadership that has been forced to dissolve the old army and police apparatus and to clash openly with imperialism in the country, with latifundistas, absentee landlords, etc., and with other economically backward elements of the native bourgeoisie. In order to keep this support, the newly established bureaucracy must oppose further imperialist aggression with more confiscations, nationalizations, formation of militias, etc., attempting at the beginning to answer blow with blow.

If the actions of the guerrilla movement completely force imperialism to release its economic hold on the country, the old basic property relations collapse. The economy of the country must then be reordered. If it is to be competitive in the world market, centralized planning based on state ownership of the means of production becomes an absolute necessity; however, it can only be inefficiently superimposed on an economy based principally on the export of one or two raw materials or agricultural products. The dependence on the world market for the import of manufactured goods does not end, regardless of all the bureaucratic planning. In order to avoid the restoration of imperialist domination, the newly consolidated state bureaucracy must tie itself to the bigger and more powerful bureaucracies of Russia, the East European bloc and/or China.

None of these actions flow from a Marxist understanding of class forces but from the bureaucratic and opportunist reactions of a petty-bourgeois leadership, struggling for survival, maneuvering to keep the support of the masses. Under these tremendously contradictory conditions the groundwork for a deformed workers state is established.

Consolidation of Power

In order to solidify its own power, the bureaucracy cannot allow the proletariat any independent voice or independent organs of power. At the same time, in order to maintain "popularity" it is forced to resort to demagogic semblances of mass support. Thus we see the masses being called to gigantic meetings during which they magically "participate" in the "collective decision-making process." Usually such democratic "decision-making" parades have long since been preceded by a silent and thorough disarming of the masses. The trade unions have also been "disarmed": "unreliable" trade union leaders and militants are purged and replaced by the stooges of the bureaucracy and then the whole trade union apparatus is thoroughly absorbed into the state apparatus. At the same time, the former guerrilla leadership, a Bonapartist formation from its military inception, hardens its own rule by solidifying its independent army and entrenching more and more "privileged" strata into the state apparatus.

Results and Prospects

The Bonapartist clique controlling the state apparatus becomes the worst internal enemy of the bureaucratically-planned and state-owned economy—no longer capitalist—of such a deformed workers state. The non-capitalist mode of production—placing on the order of the day workers’ control of production—is basically incompatible with the political rule of the bureaucracy. The new social system, though deformed and unstable because of its origins and national limitations, objectively poses the necessity to advance toward a new revolutionary society with proletarian internationalist content. Though revolutionaries should unconditionally support all progressive measures taken against imperialism by a victorious guerrilla movement, they should never forget that the guerrilla leadership, bureaucratically and uneasily ruling over the state, threatens to return the conquests of the revolution to imperialism. Therefore, revolutionaries should incessantly strive to make the proletariat, whether of a state remaining within the bounds of imperialism or of a deformed workers state, aware of its independent political tasks. The struggle for the accomplishment of these tasks, which requires the indispensable formation and steeling of a Leninist party, finds one of its greatest obstacles in the reactionary stratum balancing over society.

The bureaucracy defends in its own way the state’s non-capitalist economy from the dangers of capitalist restoration. But the measures and mechanisms it bureaucratically employs to defend the economy in the present become in the long run accumulated liabilities against the very social gains of the revolution. From this deadly grip of social impotence created partly by itself, the bureaucracy cannot and will not escape. Its reactions against imperialism will always be limited, half revolutionary, fluctuating from the most brazen cowardice and opportunism to the most cynical and callous ultra-leftism. It will measure its actions only from the standpoint of the "fatherland’s" defense (which is, at bottom, the defense of its own privileged positions). For these isolated and deformed workers states, the proletarian overthrow of the bureaucracy combined with successful proletarian revolutions in the advanced capitalist countries is the only permanent guarantee of defense and extension of the gains of the revolution. If these social and political revolutions are not effected, the bureaucracy will objectively aid—as it does every minute of its existence—the influence of imperialism and will help the imperialists drag its society to capitalist restoration if not directly to barbarism. In the present long drawn out period of imperialist decay, the two outcomes will become increasingly less distinguishable.

Limits on Guerrillaism

Even the most favorable circumstances which a guerrilla movement might confront (i.e., those which allow it to consolidate a deformed workers state) can, short of an internal proletarian revolution, lead to nothing more than the ultimate restoration of capitalism and imperialist domination. And as those "favorable circumstances" become less likely, the more probable outcome at this juncture of a successful guerrilla struggle will be like that of Algeria, Laos or many of the African states in which the struggle for "national liberation" has not impeded the continuance of imperialist domination or the existence of a native comprador bourgeoisie.

It should be clear that the Russian, Eastern European and Chinese bureaucracies will tend to enter into deeper political crises; internal contradictions within these bureaucratically dominated states will be partly hastened by the growing political and economic decay of the world imperialist system. As long as imperialism survives in the world, the restoration of capitalism in those countries remains a possibility, threatening in various degrees. Because it is precisely upon these bureaucracies that the newly created deformed workers states would have to depend, both militarily and economically, in order to survive, these crises will have their effects on developments in the "Third World." The following contradiction will become intensified in the colonial and semi-colonial countries where guerrillaism looms: although opportunities for guerrilla takeovers will be greatly facilitated by the protracted imperialist decay, this flies in the face of the sharply lessened likelihood that new deformed workers states can be consolidated from any origins such as a guerrilla victory.

Guerrillaism’s Social Base

How this can happen, how the heroic and voluntarist guerrilla struggles can lead only back to capitalism is a mystery only to those who have never bothered to critically analyze from the Marxist standpoint the historical development and class basis of guerrillaism. Guerillaism, like all manifestations of political life, represents class interests. Anybody who does not understand this is condemned to cross class lines regardless of all his phrase mongering about guerrilla "socialism."

The "national liberation" armed-struggle programs of the guerrilla movements are not at all socialist. Certainly, they start out as "anti-imperialist" and even "anti-capitalist." However, as a guerrilla movement grows, the petty-bourgeois need to attract "influential" allies and to compromise with the "progressive" bourgeoisie against the military apparatus defending imperialist property will tone down the guerrillas’ "anti-capitalism."

The nationalist reformism of the guerrilla movement will be more blatantly portrayed in its actions and program when it has gathered enough strength to pose as the sole protector of the "fatherland." Such a program at best promises—barring the destruction of the guerrilla movement—a reordering of the national economy through the state infrastructure, and by no means the socialist reconstruction of society. (Whether this "reordering" will be effected under the auspices of a deformed workers state or a statized bourgeois regime depends on future local and international events.)

One of the reasons that a guerrilla movement is forced to represent the interests of segments of the "patriotic" bourgeoisie is its own concomitant property-hungry peasant base. It is true that at the beginning the Castroite foco, or guerrilla band, stresses absolute "freedom" from the rural population. But if the foco is going to grow and if more focos are going to be formed, it is inevitable that the ever-growing guerrilla movement must rely on the peasantry. Thus, the "rural war" becomes a peasant war, i.e., it becomes what it potentially was from the very beginning.

When a strategic "rural war" is seen for what it is, a peasant war, certain opportunists immediately jump onto a different bandwagon: the discovery of a somewhat "socialist" peasantry. This magnificent discovery has been passionately defended by various "Third World" ideologues such as Frantz Fanon. In their impotence to explain social facts, these ideologues prefer to invent them, or, rather, to hide them. Certainly there are many different social variations of what is generally called "peasantry." But Marxists should vigorously reject the pseudo-anthropological "discovery" of a "socialist" peasantry in all these different peasant strata. It is the material relations of the peasantry, its inter-relationships with small property, penetration of capitalism or its presence in the countryside, and the peasantry’s aspirations to be a propertied class which determine how the peasantry will act—and not basically its wretched condition.

It is absolute nonsense then to speak of "rural war" as if it were something other than a petty-bourgeois form of struggle. "Rural war"—if not quashed in the bud as it usually has been in Latin America—must increasingly tend to become a territorial peasant war, a war which can be influenced by the bourgeoisie included in the rural popular front. A guerrilla leadership will be forced to fluctuate between the pressures of influential segments of the "patriotic" bourgeoisie and those of the small propertied interests of the peasantry. There will be moments for instance when the guerrilla leadership is forced to expropriate hostile landlords and carry through a land reform for the peasantry either distributing plots among them or legitimizing their spontaneous expropriations. This will however, strengthen the more influential segments of the middle and rich peasantry, who will in turn exert political and social pressure on the guerrilla leadership. Moreover, once a land reform has been carried through, the peasant masses will be quite satisfied with the small plots given by the guerrilla leadership; the peasantry will not care for more "socialism." On different occasions, the guerrilla leadership will have to rely on the financial backing of "patriotic" bourgeois and landlord sectors. These and similar pressures reinforce—before and after the seizure of power—the need for the guerrilla leadership to be a highly militarized, Bonapartist clique answerable to nobody in particular, completely ruthless and determined by all means to stay in power in spite of the possible hostility coming from the classes it balances over.

From the 1500s to the 1900s

When the peasant wars in Middle Europe during the Reformation hastened decisively the downfall of the waning feudal order, they became "critical episodes" benefiting the bourgeoisie’s long struggle for power. The bourgeoisie, each time more economically and even politically powerful, rammed the peasantry (and in the 19th Century, also the proletariat) against the remnants of the old order. Peasant upsurges marked the birth pangs of the then revolutionary bourgeois class.

Four hundred years later, in its death-agony period, the senile bourgeoisie will increasingly benefit from peasant uprisings that, remaining rudderless or propped-up by guerrilla movements, dislocate or postpone the proletarian socialist revolution, thus objectively helping the continuing stabilization of imperialism and the survival of the bourgeoisie in the world arena. In this manner, continuing peasant movements, if unchecked by an alliance with the revolutionary proletariat, rather than being "critical episodes" will qualitatively transform themselves into social manifestations of sharpening cultural decay. The proletariat, unable to develop economic power of its own in the propertied and political manner that the bourgeoisie could before and after the English and French Revolutions, cannot benefit from the results of peasant wars as long as its own crisis of leadership—the fundamental crisis of human culture—remains unresolved.

Tasks for Marxists

Marxist revolutionaries, in the imperialist countries and in the underdeveloped colonies and semi-colonies, must root their struggles in the proletariat. Without the proletariat, Marxists can only be, and become, petty-bourgeois revolutionists; their "Marxism" will then too become an ideology in the shape of false consciousness, not the revolutionary theory of the proletariat. And ideologies become in the last analysis shibboleths (like the Castroite "the fatherland is America"). With no way to be concretely implemented by the proletariat, shibboleths are easily glued to shields defending different class interests than those of the revolutionary class.

Isaac Deutscher, in a rare attempt to transcend his scholarly eclecticism, "insulted" many Stalinist sycophants and "café guerrillaists" in his 1966 address to the second annual Socialist Scholars Conference in New York. This is how the worshippers of the accomplished fact were "insulted": "You cannot run away from politics," Deutscher told them. "Men live not by politics alone, true enough. But unless you have solved for yourselves in your own minds the great political problems posed by Marxism, by the contradictions of capitalist society, by the mutual relationship of the intellectual and the worker in this society, unless you have found a way to the young age groups of the American working class and shaken this sleeping giant of yours, this sleeping giant of the American working class out of his sleep, out of the drugs—out of this sleep into which he has been drugged, unless you have done this you will be lost. Your only salvation is in carrying back the idea of socialism to the working class and coming back with the working class to storm—to storm, yes, to storm—the bastions of capitalism."

These words, which for months caused shrieks and barks from the worshippers of "new" realities, will retain their full validity until those bastions are stormed. Revolutionaries in the advanced capitalist countries and revolutionaries in the colonial and semi-colonial countries can fuse the struggles of the international working class only by preparing Leninist parties and by basing their strategies and tactics on the generalized expression of the totality of the historic experiences of the working class. This successful combination, this fusion of Marxist theory and organizational capacity on the international level, will force all the "new" realities of our impressionists into a frenzied stampede back into the archives of pre-Marxian radicalism from whence they issued.


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Notes
1. Castroites even go so far as to advise the proletariat to strip its own centers: "¼ the best cadre of the proletariat, those more politically developed, will fulfill their revolutionary duty by integrating themselves into the guerrillas¼ " (Informe de la Delegación de Cuba a la Primera Conferencia do Is OLAS, La Habana, 1967 p. 72)

2. The growth of the urban proletariat in Latin America has spurted ahead in recent years. The unionized working class totals between 15 and 22 million, depending on the source. Nearly 45% of the total labor force is industrial proletariat and agricultural labor. Nearly half of this figure is industrial proletariat. (América Latina, Problemas y Perspectivas do la Revolución, Prague, 1966) In 1950 the urban population was 41% of the total; in 1960, 48%; today, 57%; in 1970, a projected 60+%. (United Nations statistics.) This is how "half-feudal" bourgeois Latin America is.

3. For example, the Cuban CP’s Juan Marinello and Carlos Rodríguez served in a Batista cabinet in 1940; the Ecuadorian Stalinists helped create and formed part of a Bonapartist junta in 1944. In 1936, the Chilean Stalinists entered the Popular Front. When the Popular Front’s candidate, Aguirre Cerda, became president in 1938, the Stalinists reaffirmed their "inviolable and exemplary fidelity to the People’s Front."

4. In 1932, the El Salvador CP attempted to "grab" power without any preparation for a head-on confrontation with the Salvadorian bourgeoisie. Such an adventure ended in mass slaughters—around 25,000 killed—of peasants, Communists and workers. The terror was extended to Guatemala and Honduras. In 1935, the Brazilian CP, headed by the Stalinist rogue Prestes, attempted another, though belated, third period action combining it with popular front tactics. Needless to say, this schizophrenic "deed" ended in total debacle.

5. The Spartacist League has previously stated (Spartacist No. 6) that "the petty-bourgeois peasantry under the most favorable historic circumstances conceivable could achieve no third road, neither capitalist, nor working class. Instead all that has come out of China and Cuba was a state of the same order as that issuing out of the political counter-revolution of Stalin in the Soviet Union, the degeneration of the October. That is why we are led to define states such as these as deformed workers states."

6. In an interview the Venezuelan guerrilla leader Douglas Bravo was asked about the program of the FALN. He answered: "In brief, the FALN has the following objectives: to achieve national liberation, liberty and democratic life for the nation; to rescue the patrimony, the integrity and the national riches, to establish a revolutionary government; to safeguard the carrying out of its laws and to support the authorities constituted by the Revolution; to protect the interests of the people, their property and institutions." (Desafío, May 1967)

In its 1964 Manifiesto y Programa Agrario Guerrillero, the Colombian FARC proclaimed: "…we call on all the peasants, on all the workers, on all employees, on all students, on all the artisans, on the small industrialists, on the national bourgeoisie willing to fight imperialism, on the democratic and revolutionary intellectuals, on all the political parties of left and center that desire a change toward progress to [join] the great revolutionary and patriotic struggle for a Colombia for Colombians, for the victory of the revolution, for a democratic government of national liberation." (Colombia en Pie de Lucha, Prague 1966, p. 18)

The complete program of the Guatemalan FAR seems to be hard to come by; second hand reports, however, are abundant. MR, V. 18, N. 9, contains three reports on the FAR by MR contributors. From the first one: "They envisage four major stages in their revolution. First, nationwide organization of the peasants, workers, students, and professional people into disciplined and ideologically informed units. Second, armed revolt, culminating in the taking of power by the people and the repulsion of imperialist intervention. Third, establishment of a national democratic government with the participation of various sectors of the population. Fourth, the transition to the construction of socialism in Guatemala." This mechanical "stages" nonsense is combined with the most spineless opportunism. "…FAR," the third report tells us, "was largely instrumental in the electoral success of Méndez [the present butcher-lackey ruling Guatemala], for it considered that a period of relative tranquility would benefit it, ¼ " The fact is that during the Méndez election swindle the slaughter of FAR-PGT-MR-13 was increased. Today a Méndez-led bloodbath reigns in Guatemala. From now on, the "first stage" of FAR’s Menshevist vision of revolution should probably add: "a nationwide organization including bourgeois presidents and other lackeys of imperialism."

The Vietnamese NLF latest 14-point program does not even mention the word socialism once. It rather promises to: "Build up an independent and sovereign economy, rapidly heal the wounds of war and develop the economy to make our country prosperous." The state will: "Guarantee to workers and employers the right to participate in the management of enterprises." The state will also: "Establish freedom of enterprise profitable to the nation" and look after "the interests of small merchants and small proprietors." For the peasants, the state will: "Place the lands of absentee landlords at the disposal of the peasants so that they may cultivate it and enjoy the fruits of the harvest." But the state will also court landlords: "The question of an appropriate definite solution will be studied later, taking into account the political attitude of each landlord." Further on we are told that the state will also: "Settle differences between employers and workers by negotiations and by the mediating role of the national and democratic administration." (For complete program see National Guardian 21 October 1967.)

From The "NATIONAL COMMITTEE TO FREE THE CUBAN FIVE-Comité Nacional por la Libertad de los Cinco Cubanos "-"Outrage in El Paso:Posada Acquitted!"

NATIONAL COMMITTEE TO FREE THE CUBAN FIVE-Comité Nacional por la Libertad de los Cinco Cubanos

National Committee to Free the Cuban Five-April 11, 2011

Outrage in El Paso:Posada Acquitted!

U.S. Government Terrorist Walks Free

In El Paso today, following a 13-week trial in which the evidence against him was overwhelming, notorious terrorist Luis Posada Carriles was acquitted by a jury after a shockingly short three hours of deliberation.

The U.S. government has been at war against the Cuban people since they carried out a revolution in 1959. As a CIA employee and part of that war, Posada Carriles committed many acts of terrorism against the Cuban people and others.

Today Posada walks free in a mockery of justice, while the Cuban Five
anti-terrorists are still imprisoned for almost 13 years.

If the U.S. had really wanted a conviction of Luis Posada Carriles on his real crimes of terrorism, it would have been easily achieved. But the U.S. government chose to try Posada for the ridiculously minor charges of perjury and immigration fraud.


This is why the National Committee, along with the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition and local activists in El Paso held a "Peoples Tribunal" and protest before the start of the federal trial, to expose Posada's crimes of terrorism to the world.

Today's acquittal, together with the continued incarceration of the Cuban Five heroes who risked their lives to prevent acts of terrorism by Posada's allies, is a clear indication that the U.S. war against the Cuban people and Cuban revolution continues.

The National Committee to Free the Cuban Five is outraged by this travesty of "justice," as are all supporters of Cuba and the Cuban Five.

The verdict of "not guilty" in Luis Posada Carriles's trial in El Paso does not absolve him of his terrorist crimes. And the struggle to bring Posada and his accomplices to justice does not end with today's verdict.

Demand Posada's Extradition!
Act today to demand justice for the 73 plane bombing victims,
for Fabio di Celmo, and for all the victims of U.S.-backed
anti-Cuba terrorism!

We urge everyone to contact the U.S. State Department and demand the immediate extradition of Posada to Venezuela, where he is wanted for the murder of 73 people in the mid-air bombing of Cubana Flight 455.

U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520
202-647-4000

You can help in the campaign for justice!

Organize showings of the documentary, "Posada Carriles: Terrorism Made in the U.S.A" to educate the public;
To gain greater insight into the travesty of the El Paso trial, we recommend that you read the excellent daily reports of the process by José Pertierra, who attended every day of the trial. He is the attorney representing the Venezuelan government in the extradition order.
Watch the excellent speech by Brian Becker, director of A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition, at the El Paso People's Tribunal, and the complete event.
Contact us today to find out how you can get involved in the campaign to free the Cuban Five anti-terrorist heroes.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cuba Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Statement By The Ministry Of Foreign Affairs Of The Republic Of Cuba

In the afternoon of April 8, 2011, the farce that had begun thirteen weeks ago in El Paso, Texas, came to an end when terrorist Luis Posada Carriles was acquitted of all the charges pressed against him during a migration trial.

To all those who have been following the sinister history behind this terrorist and his links with the successive US governments, the FBI and the CIA in his dirty war against Cuba, this is an additional proof of the support and protection that the US authorities have traditionally granted to him.

Since the moment of his landing in Florida after traveling from Isla Mujeres in Mexico on board of the “Santrina” boat, as was timely denounced by Commander in Chief Fidel Castro, Posada Carriles has been, as he always was, under the tutelage and protection of the US government.

His being tried for committing perjury during an immigration process and not for being a terrorist is an outrage against the people of Cuba and the families that were plunged into mourning by the actions committed by Posada.

The shameless verdict at El Paso is in full contradiction with the anti-terrorist policy that the US government is said to profess, which has even led to military interventions against other nations, taking a toll of thousands of human lives.

The US government is absolutely aware of Posada Carriles’ involvement in the blowing-up in mid-air of a Cubana de Aviación airliner off Barbados in 1976, the bombing spree against Cuban tourist facilities in 1997 and his plans to attempt against the life of our Commander in Chief in Panama in 2000, for which he was even convicted in that country.

The US government has all the evidence of the crimes committed by Posada, many of which were presented in court at El Paso.

We are still to see if the US government is capable of either filing a new claim against Posada Carriles on a charge of terrorism or accepting his extradition to Venezuela, as was requested more than five years ago by that country, taking into account its legal obligation derived from the international covenants it is party to and the UN Security Council Resolution 1373 of 2001, which was promoted by the US government itself.

As paradoxical as it may seem, while Posada Carriles is being acquitted, five Cuban anti-terrorists remain unjustly imprisoned in the United States for collecting information about the actions perpetrated by terrorists of Cuban origin who, like Posada Carriles, are walking free and with impunity down the streets of Miami.

Cuba reaffirms that the US government is the chief responsible for this outcome and challenges it to take on its obligations in the struggle against terrorism, without hypocrisy or double standards.

Havana, April 9, 2011.

From The "Minnesota Hands Off Honduras Coalition" Website- Honor The 52nd Anniversary Of The Cuban Revolution- End The Blockade!

Markin comment:

Defend The Cuban Revolution! Free The Cuban Five Ahora!

******

Tuesday, January 4, 2011 52 ANIVERSARIO DE LA REVOLUCION CUBANA

Cincuenta y dos años de vivir construyendo el “Sueño Liberador” de un Pueblo Heroico Cincuenta y dos eneros de derrotar el inhumano Bloqueo Imperialista.

Cincuenta y dos años de educarnos junto al pueblo cubano aprendiendo junto a él, el alto precio a pagar por la libre determinación.
De vivir con la amenaza y derrotarla diariamente.
De producir comunicaciones libres para el pueblo y para el mundo.
De formar a un pueblo que sonríe y lleva la frente en alto.
De ver en los
niños el tesoro más grande de la patria y de la humanidad.
De luchar ferozmente contra todos los sicariatos políticos de la tierra.
De luchar contra el oprobio de las criminales transnacionales explotadoras.
De luchar por liberar a América Latina y a los países dependientes del yugo imperialista.
52 años de plantar semillas de justicia y libertad a lo largo y ancho de la tierra.
52 años de haber bajado de la sierra.
De luchar tesoneramente por todos los hijos e hijas de la patria.
De demostrarle al mundo que hay mejores formas de vivir compartiendo con nuestros hermanas y hermanos.
De exportar médicos, deportistas, trabajadores sociales mientras el imperialismo y los sionistas exportan muerte.


De estar luchando por hacer el sueño de amor martiano una realidad universal 52 años de ser orgullosamente la única verdadera revolución de la tierra.
52 anos de vencer el aventurerismo imperialista
Ah Pequeño David no tienes siquiera que disparar tu onda.


VIVA EL 52 ANIVERSARIO.
PATRIA O MUERTE!

The Cuban 5: Victims of US State Terrorism - by Stephen Lendman

Friday, October 15, 2010

The Cuban Five: Victims of US State Terrorism


The Cuban 5: Victims of US State Terrorism - by Stephen Lendman

Two web sites, among others, provide information on their case, accessed through the following links:

http://www.thecuban5.org/

http://www.freethefive.org/

In September 1998, Miami FBI agents arrested Gerardo Hernandez, Ramon Labanino, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando Gonzales, and Rene Gonzalez on spurious charges, including conspiracy to commit espionage. For days, however, no formal notification was given until a complicit media campaign smeared them falsely and maliciously.

At a June 2, 2010 Washington National Press Club press conference, the National Committee to Free the Cuban Five's coordinator, Gloria La Riva, announced new Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) obtained evidence revealing names of 14 journalists who "were receiving covertly (paid) monies from the US government."

Included was Pablo Alfonso who received $58,600 for 16 articles published in (the south Florida Spanish language) El Nuevo Herald newspaper. La Riva explained that "During the pre-trial period, there were hundreds of articles on the Cuban Five and not one was favorable." Journalists were bribed to write them.

According to the National Lawyers Guild Heidi Boghosian, "This shows that the US Government was an accomplice to manipulating the jury by bribing journalists that violated the principles of impartiality and accuracy."

She also affirmed that the Five's Sixth Amendment right to a fair trial was violated, federal authorities corrupting the process to convict them.

On September 9, 2006, New York Times writer Abby Goodnough headlined, "US Paid 10 Journalists for Anti-Castro Reports," saying:

"The Bush administration's Office of Cuba Broadcasting paid (them) to provide commentary on Radio and TV Marti, which transmit" anti-Castro propaganda to Cuba. Journalists named included Pablo Alfonso getting almost $175,000 since 2001 and Armstrong Williams (a notorious right wing liar) receiving $240,000 to write on various issues, including privatizing public education.

On September 14, 1998, a Florida grand jury accused the Five of infiltrating terrorist groups, charging them with 26 offenses, including conspiracy to commit crimes against the United States and espionage. For lack of evidence, the latter charge became conspiracy to commit it.

Gerardo Hernandez was separately accused of voluntary homicide, relating to the February 24, 1996 Brothers to the Rescue plane shot down for illegally entering Cuban air space, though no evidence linked him to the event. Other charges involved using false documents and for not registering as foreign agents.

Throughout their 12 year ordeal, they've been horrifically treated. Pre-trial for 17 months, they were isolated in a Special Housing Unit, for many weeks in separate cells. After a successful legal motion, two each per cell followed; one, however, still alone in isolation.

The five men were in America monitoring Miami-based, US funded, extremist right-wing group terrorist activities against Cuba. Ongoing for decades, declassified US documents showed that from October 1960 - April 1961 alone, CIA operatives smuggled in 75 tons of explosives and 45 tons of weapons. During the period, 110 attacks were carried out, using dynamite and bombs against 150 factories, 800 plantations, and six trains.

From 1959 - 1997, US funded groups and CIA operatives committed around 5,800 terrorist acts, hundreds involving bombings that killed or injured thousands of civilians. In addition, from 1959 - 2003, 61 planes or boats were hijacked. From 1961 - 1996, 58 sea attacks were launched against dozens of economic targets and the civilian population.

Evidence shows CIA recruitment and support for over 4,000 individuals and 300 paramilitary groups, responsible for murdering hundreds of Cubans and injuring thousands, many permanently disabled. Fidel Castro himself was targeted hundreds of times unsuccessfully.

Moreover, chemical and biological warfare was conducted. In 1971, a biological attack contaminated half a million pigs, then killed to prevent swine fever from spreading. In 1981, introduced dengue fever affected over 340,000 people, killing at least 158 including 101 children. On July 6, 1982 alone, around 11,400 cases were registered.

South Florida is a hotbed of anti-Castro extremism, CIA operatives complicit in training and funding planned terrorist attacks, likely still ongoing. On June 16, 1998, Cuban authorities asked FBI officials to provide documents on known US-sponsored extremists to no avail. Three months later, the Cuban 5 were arrested for risking their lives legally for their country, monitoring subversive Americans to warn Havana of impending attacks. They harmed no one, committed no crime, did nothing illegal, had no weapons, nor did 119 volumes of testimonies and over 20,000 court pages of documents contain any evidence against them.

Beginning in November 2000, their politically-charged trial was orchestrated to convict. Little more than a seven month show trial, the South Florida venue alone prevented judicial fairness. Five times, in fact, motions to change it were denied, despite clear evidence a fair trial was impossible. As a result, on June 8, 2001, the men were convicted, then in December sentenced to four life terms and 75 years.

For being loyal Cuban citizens serving their country heroically, they were criminally charged, convicted in a witch hunt proceeding, and imprisoned. Commiting no crime, they legally monitored US-sponsored terrorist groups, including Brothers to the Rescue, Omega 7, Alpha 66, Brigada 2506, Comandos F4, and other anti-Castro elements.

So far, they've been denied justice, though on August 9, 2005, after seven years in prison, a three-judge panel of the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals overturned their convictions, ordering a new trial outside Miami. However, on October 31, the entire Court halted the ruling, ordering an "en banc" (full court) 12 judge hearing. In August 2006, the Court reversed the 2005 decision (10 - 2), affirming the District Court ruling.

An Independent Legal Opinion

In December 2007, UK attorney Steve Cottingham, a partner at OH Parsons & Partners Solicitors, titled an article on the case "Miami Five: Who Are Terrorists," saying:

The trial was "profoundly flawed....their (prison) conditions....inhumane, and they were fall guys in an attempt to cover up the US's support for illegal activity to overthrow the (legitimate) government of the Republic of Cuba."

With the trial venue in Miami, defense laywers knew fair proceedings were impossible. As a result, they commissioned a survey for proof. "The Court-appointed defense expert on psychology, Dr. Gary Moran PhD, testified that 69 per cent of all respondents (in Dade County) and 74 per cent of all Hispanic (ones) were prejudiced against people charged with the types of activities outlined in the indictment." In addition, 49% of all those surveyed said a fair and impartial trial was impossible.

As a result, the defense requested a venue change several times, each application denied. Prior to trial, the local media poisoned public opinion with malicious accusations and more. Moreover, despite careful jury selection, the charged atmosphere imposed overwhelming pressure to convict.

On December 2, 2000, the Nuevo Herald newspaper published an article, saying:

"Fears of a violent reaction by Cuban exiles against the jury that decides to acquit the Five men accused of spying for Cuba has caused many potential jurors to ask the judge to excuse them from their civic duty." One said, "Sure I'm afraid for my safety, if the verdict doesn't suit the Cuban community there." Clearly, the challenge for the defense was too great to overcome, at trial producing the inevitable outcome.

Proceedings included 43 witnesses for the prosecution, 31 for the defense, lasting nearly seven months, as well as hundreds of documents for jurors to review. A key prosecution witness, General James R. Clapper (with 30 years experience in military intelligence) testified that they contained no secret national defense information helpful to Cuba. Key defense witnesses, including retired Rear Admiral Eugene Carroll, said the Cuban military threat to America is "zero."

Nonetheless, on June 8, 2001, "Despite the lack of evidence of espionage or damage to US interests, the jury took a remarkably short time to convict all the Five on all counts...."

Numerous legal violations and improprieties were committed from time of arrests through proceedings, including:

-- defendants had no immediate access to lawyers;

-- they were interrogated for many hours without counsel;

-- they were unjustly isolated for 17 months;

-- thousands of pages of alleged evidence were kept secret;

-- defendants were denied adequate access to counsel to prepare their defense;

-- prosecutors threatened several witnesses with charges as accomplices if they revealed any information to defense counsel;

-- the Miami venue denied defendants a fair trial;

-- the local and national media created a charged atmosphere to convict;

-- reports indicated that jurors were threatened with death if they voted for acquittal; and

-- the entire process, including jurors, assured conviction, proceedings, in fact, a travesty of justice sending innocent men to prison.

Moreover, from arrest to incarceration, numerous domestic and international laws were violated, including the Constitution, Federal Bureau of Prisons regulations, the UN Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, the Vienna Convention on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention on Children's Rights, the UN Minimum Rules on the Treatment of Prisoners, and the American Convention on Human Rights.

The Five were imprisoned in different parts of the country, their families denied visas and visiting rights, and although model prisoners, they were held in isolation.

They remain imprisoned, but not without hope. In February 2009, their attorneys appealed to the Supreme Court for a new trial. The original one, in fact, was the only judicial process in US history condemned by the UN Human Rights Commission. Ten Nobel Prize winners also petitioned the US Attorney General to free the Five. In 2009, however, the Supreme Court declined to hear the case without comment.

Amnesty International (AI) strongly criticized US treatment as human rights violations, saying in early 2006:

It was "following closely the status of the ongoing appeals of the five men (with regard to) numerous issues challenging the fairness of the trial which have not yet been addressed by the appeal courts."

In January 2007, AI called for US authorities to grant family members visas to visit their loved ones, saying America's actions were "unnecessarily punitive" by denying them.

In the UK, 110 MPs petitioned the US Attorney General in support of the Five. In April 2009, the Brazilian human rights group, Torture Never Again, awarded the men its Chico Mendes Medal, alleging their rights were violated, including by having "their mail censored and their visiting rights very restricted."

A Final Comment

On September 15, Bernie Dwyer, an Irish journalist and filmmaker, interviewed Leonard Weinglass, a member of the Five's defense team, saying:

"The five should have been returned to Cuba shortly after their arrest, as is the custom when foreigners are arrested in the United States on missions for their home countries and their activities here caused no harm."

Instead, they were "subjected to cruel conditions of confinement, unjustly prosecuted in (an unfair venue) victimized by (prosecutorial) misconduct....and excessively and illegally punished with life sentences."

After the Supreme Court declined to hear their appeal, "an outpouring of public support (followed), including (from) 10 Nobel Prize winners, the bar associations of many countries, the entire Mexican Senate, two former (European Union) presidents," parliamentarians from other countries, heads of state, trade union leaders, student associations, human rights organizations, and dozens of distinguished figures globally.

On June 14, 2010, "We filed (and) will be filing a Memorandum of Law on October 11. The government will be given 60 days to respond and then presumably at the end of this year or in early 2011, we will have a hearing on Gerado (Herandez's) claims in Miami." If denied, it will be appealed, and if again, "once again (we'll) ask the Supreme Court to review the case."

Asked whether worldwide free the Five campaigns have helped, Weinglass said "Absolutely, (and they) should be continued and if anything increased" as the best way to achieve justice for these unjustly imprisoned men.

On October 13, 2010 AI issued a report and sent a letter to Eric Holder on the Five, expressing concerns about the fairness of their trial, while taking no position on their guilt or innocence, a disturbing part of it as their innocence is beyond question.

Nonetheless, AI asked the Justice Department "to review the case and mitigate any injustice through the clemency process or other appropriate means, should further legal appeals prove ineffective." It also reiterated concerns about the wives of two of the prisoners (Rene Gonzales and Gerardo Hernandez) denied temporary visas to visit their husbands.

On October 19 at the US Embassy in London, a Vigil for the Five will be held. Noted speakers include UK MPs, labor leaders, lawyers, musicians, and many others. Those attending are urged to "Bring candles to this peaceful vigil for the Five and their families to mark the 12th year of their unjust imprisonment."

The Five and many hundreds of other US political prisoners bear testimony to America's judicial unfairness, imprisoning innocent men and women for political advantage in violation of constitutional and fundamental international human rights laws, ones US authorities repeatedly flout with impunity.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.

*Defend The Cuban Revolution- Free Ana Belen Montes!

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for Cuban-American class-war prisoner Ana Belen Montes.

Markin comment:

On numerous occasions in this space I have noted that the defense of the Cuban revolution here in the United States, “the heart of the beast” in Che’s exquisite phrase, starts with the defense of the Cuban Five. The Cuban Five case involves attempts by these class-war prisoners to defend the Cuban revolution, as best they could, in concrete actions to thwart those who were (and are) interested in counter-revolution. You can Google or link from this blog to the National Committee To Defend The Cuban Five to get more information on their current status.

Today I wish to mention another case that involves the defense of the Cuban revolution, that of class-war prisoner Ana Belen Montes. I have placed a link to a Wikipedia entry for the details of her case. What I want to emphasize here in the struggle for her freedom is the question of how one, effectively, puts teeth into the question of defense of the Cuban revolution.

I have noted on other occasions that I came of political age contemporaneously with the Cuban revolution and have defended the conquests of that revolution from a liberal through to a “high communist” political prospective as my own political understandings have evolved. During the course of that defense I have, mainly, organized around various Hands Off Cuba slogans when American imperialism has tried to put the bite into that revolution. Thus my defense of the Cuban revolution has been mostly a propagandistic proposition.

Ana Belen Montes, through the fates, had an opportunity to aid the Cuban revolution in a more concrete way, and acted on that opportunity. For those efforts she is now serving much time in a U.S. federal penitentiary. In any rational, reasonable or just world she would be sitting in some place of honor, and rightly so. But for right now her fate and ours is to call for, loudly call for, her freedom. Free Ana Belen Montes Now!

*The Latest From "The National Committee To Free The Cuban Five"

Click on the headline to link to the "National Committee To Free The Cuban Five" Website.

Markin comment:

As always the defense of the Cuban revolution here in the United States, the "heart of the beast", starts with the defense of the Cuban Five.

*The Struggle In Honduras- An Update

Click on title to link to Houduran resistance information.This site is linked becasue it contains valuable information about the struggles in Central America. The politcal perspective of the site is not necessarily my politcal perspective on revolution in Latin America.

*Defend The Cuban Revolution- Hands Off The Myers!

Click on title to link to "Workers Vanguard" article about the Myers, who have been charged with aiding the Cuba revolution (from our perspective, the actual legal charges that the couple are confronted with by the U.S. government, as usual, read differently). I echo the sentiments of the article- Hands Off The Myers!-Defend The Cuban Five!-More on this as the case unfolds.

*As The 56th Anniversary Of Moncada Approaches- End The U.S Cuban Trade Embargo

Click On Title To Link To "Washington Post" Article On Cuba/OAS Relations.

The question of the long, too long, American trade embargo against Cuba is, perhaps, heading for a showdown of sorts with other Latin American countries. The Obama government has made a couple of moves in the direction of improving relations with Cuba without really doing anything to offend the exiles in "Little Havana" (otherwise known as Miami). One should not expect much from this government on its own. However, as always and as it has seemingly been forever now, the call for defenders of the Cuban revolution and other militants(Hell, even liberal democrats.) is- "End The Cuban Trade Embargo!".

*Free The Cuban Five Update-In Defense Of The Cuban Revolution

Click on title to link to National Committee To Free The Cuban Five Committee web site for the latest political and legal updates.

The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the sentences of the Five last week (the week of June 1, 2008). As the legendary comic and social commentator Lenny Bruce, no stranger to the American 'justice' system himself, once said- "In the halls of justice, the only justice in the hall". I might only add here, class justice cannot even be found in the halls in this case. Go to the link listed on the right of this page for more details. Remember the defense of the Cuban Five is the concrete manifestation of the defense of the Cuban Revolution. Venceramos! Free The Cuban Five-Ahora!

***Free The Cuban Five- Ahora!-In Defense Of The Cuban Revolution

Click on title to link to the National Committee To Free The Cuban Five web site for updates on this important international case.

The following is being passed on from the Partisan Defense Committee (2008). Please note the link to the National Committee to Free the Five below to find more information about the Cuban Five. As always here is a case where defense of the Cuban revolution begins concretely with the defense of the Five- Ahora!

The Cuban Five have now been incarcerated for almost ten years. Three Cuban citizens and two U.S. citizens who infiltrated and monitored violent anti-communist exile groups in Florida in order to stop terrorist attacks against Cuba, these men were arrested in 1998 under the Clinton administration on bogus charges of conspiracy to commit espionage and murder, as well as lesser charges like failing to register as agents of a foreign power. After being tried in Miami, a den of counterrevolutionary gusano (worm) activities, Gerardo Hernandez was sentenced to two life terms plus 15 years; Antonio Guerrero and Ram6n Labanino to life plus ten and 18 years, respectively; Fernando Gonzalez to 19 years; and Rene Gonzalez to 15 years. They are held in federal maximum security prisons, separated by hundreds of miles from loved ones, their lawyers and each other. As Marxists, we demand immediate freedom for the Cuban Five, whose heroic actions were in defense of the Cuban Revolution against U.S. imperialism and its counterrevolutionary agents.

From the CIA-backed invasion at the Bay of Pigs in 1961, to the repeated attempts on Fidel Castro's life, to the ongoing starvation embargo, the U.S. imperialists, under both Democratic and Republican administrations, have never ceased in their drive to overthrow the Cuban Revolution. In 2002, Ana Belen Montes, a Defense Intelligence Agency officer, was sentenced to 25 years for passing military information to the Cuban government.

In their drive to restore capitalism in Cuba, the U.S. rulers have trained terrorists like Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles, who engineered the 1976 bombing of a Cubana airliner that killed 73 people. In the 1990s, as the Cuban government began to promote tourism, gusano groups launched a campaign of bombings that targeted hotels and airport buses in an attempt to cripple the economy. Posada has admitted to masterminding bombings of tourist spots in Havana in 1997 that killed an Italian businessman. We say: Send Posada and Bosch back to Cuba to be tried by their victims!

It was in the context of such terrorist activity that gusano activities were being monitored by the Cuban Five, three of whom were veterans of Cuba's military campaign in Angola that in the 1970s and '80s fought the U.S.-sponsored invasion by the South African apartheid regime. In June 1998, the Cuban government shared its intelligence on gusano terrorist activity with the FBI. In September of that year, the FBI arrested the Cubans instead of the CIA's "ex"-employees.

The government built its case on "conspiracy to commit espionage" charges, conspiracy charges being the hallmark of political witchhunts when the government has no evidence that an actual crime has been committed. Months after their arrest, "conspiracy to commit murder" was tacked on to the charges against Gerardo Hernandez in connection with the deaths of four pilots from the Brothers to the Rescue gusano outfit. The latter were shot down by the Cuban air force in 1996 after repeatedly and provocatively flying into Cuban airspace in a brazen challenge to the country's air defenses.

Held in Miami, the trial was engulfed in anti-communist hysteria and intimidation of anyone not toeing the gusano line on Cuba. The judge refused five defense requests for a change of venue. During jury selection, potential jurors asked to be excused, fearing the consequences of rendering an "unsatisfactory" verdict. The impaneled jurors' license plates appeared on nightly news broadcasts. The prosecution claimed that Guerrero, who worked as a janitor at the Boca Chica Naval Air Station in Key West, had endangered secret U.S. military plans by watching aircraft take off and land in training exercises. As Guerrero's lawyer pointed out, the information he gathered "could've been published in the Miami Herald." So inflamed was the atmosphere that the jury even convicted Hernandez of conspiracy murder charges that the prosecution itself had already concluded would be an "insurmountable hurdle" to prove!

In 2005, a three-judge panel of the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta threw out the 2001 convictions and ordered a new trial in a new venue because of the "pervasive community prejudice" in Miami. The Justice Department under Alberto Gonzales appealed for a rehearing by the full court, which reinstated the convictions in August 2006. Last August, another three-judge panel heard oral arguments in the case that this time focused on the bogus murder and espionage charges and the gross prosecutorial misconduct.

The brutality these five men endure in prison is designed to break them and echoes the treatment of other class-war prisoners like Leonard Peltier and Mumia Abu-Jamal. Before their trial even started, the Cuban Five spent 17 months in solitary. Between their convictions in June and their sentencing in December 2001, they spent 48 days in the hole. In 2003 as they worked on their first appeal, they were sent to solitary and denied communication with the outside world, even their lawyers.

Every family visit involves an arduous and arbitrary visa process. Sometimes a relative waits out the precious time they are allotted and never gets to see their loved one. Adriana Perez, wife of Gerardo Hernandez, has been repeatedly denied a visa. Olga Salanueva, wife of Rene Gonzalez, was deported on phony spy charges in 2000.

In combatting the degenerate end-products of a decaying capitalism, the Cuban Five have performed a service not only in defense of Cuba but for working people throughout the hemisphere and around the world. Free the Cuban Five! Defend the Cuban Revolution