Castro's unique opportunity ing the rule of the Tory and TUC leaders, or discussing the problems of the Nicaraguan revolution withoutexamining the role of US imperialism and the Kremlin leaders.
Nobody would dispute that in comparison with equivalent leaderships of post war revolutionary struggles, the
Castro team was quite extraordinary in its tenacity and its attempts to assert its independence not only from the
USA, hut also (in the carly days) from
Moscow. Where other leaders buckled under and abandoned revolutionary or even radical policies rather than brenk their alliances with sectionz of the capitalist class, Castro was
From the start prepared to split from
E 4 former bourgeois allies who would not stay the pace.
However this is not to say Castro's policies were those of revolutionary marxism: his uncompromising line towards the largely impotent national bourgeoisie was not matched by any coherent development of working class organs of power, Capitalism was overturned from above in Cuba rather than by workers mans action: Lhe Cuhan workers have still never held state power directly in their hands,
It was 18 months from the Rebel Army's sizure of power in January 1959 to the sweeping measures of nationalisation which finally broke Cuba's links, with imperialism, expropriated most remaining Cuhan capital, and established a deformed workers" state. During this time the thinking of the Fidelistas had developed from initially quite limited democratio reforms to embrace a wholesale overtum of the previous ecodomic system as the only way to combat the pressure of US im-
This development was also aswisted by Castro's ability to retain and mobilise the enthusiasm of the Cuban masses, utilising the anti-imperialist sentiments of a nation breaking the yoke of dependence on US capital. Conversely, had Castro utilised his energics and talents to arguing for concessions to imperialism rather than defiance, he could certainly have divided if not totally derailed the revolutionary movement.
However the undoubted subjective strengths of the Castro leadership were not enough in themselves: they were able to develop in a uniquely favourable historic situation which meant that options were on offer to Castro that had not heen open before and have not been open to liberation struggles since.
The first major advantage was the extent to which the old Cuban state machinery under Balista simply and abruptly collapsed in 1958-9. The armed forces and police, riddled with corruption, saw the mass desertion of the senior officers and conceded defcat to a Rebel Army of not more than 1.500 guerrillas (albeit with widespread popular support, as evidenced by the weck-long general strike in Havana which brought Castro to power with hardly a shot fired in the capital).
The nearest comparison to the January 1959 situation was the collapse and mass exodus of the Yugoslavian bourgeoisic which had thrown in its lot with the occupying Nazi forces prior to the victory of Tito's communist-led partisans in 1944. In Cuba, too the collapse of the old state machine was followed by the deser-
January 1989 marks the 30th anniversary of the victory of
Fidel Castro's
Rebel Army over the Cuban dictatorship of
Fulgencio
Batista. Since then many guerrilla and left wing political movements and have attempted to follow the so-called
'Cuban Road".
Here
JOHN LISTER, author of a controversial book 'Cuba:
Radical Face of
Stalinism offers an analysis of
Castro's strengths and weaknesses that helps explain the failure of subsequent revolutions which tried to follow the
Cuban example.
"Gorbachev is if anything, less likely than
Brezhnev to risk promoting conflict in
Washington's
'backyard.""
..the
Cuban revolution stands as an inspiration to many millions of workers and peasants around the world, but not as a finished
'model for today's revolutionary struggles."
lion of the major capitalists.
By 1961 the abject failure of Kennedy's Bay of Pigs invasion attempt showed the extent to which the old reactionaries had simply upped and left Cuba to carry on their nefarious activities in Miami or clac-
The second, quite decisive, factor was the changes taking place in Kremlin policy from 1960 onwards. The Krusche leadership, beset by an economic crisis at home, was also wrestling with the problem of how to counter a new US military build-up aggressively promoted by new sabrerattling president Kennedy, and including new Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) capable of hitting Soviet targets from US soil.
Khruschev was also facing a new political competitor to Moscow's influence within the once monolithic
Man Zedong's Chinese bureaucracy had emerged in open opposition, splitting various national communist parties and seeking a new periphery of contacts for Beijing as levers of diplomatic pressure against imperialism.
For years, the Moscow Line for communist parties in the 'third world' (and especially Latin America) had heen to respect the speheres of influence' agreed with imperialism in the post-war settlement, and seek alliances with "progressive" "anti-imperialist" sections of capitalists. This line in Cuba had led the CP into a long-term accomodation with Batis ta, and vigorous opposition to Castro's guerrilla movement until the writing was clearly on the wall in the final months of the dictatorship. The maoists, on the other hand, while still embracing popular frontist politics, leaned much more towards the type of guerrilla tactics favoured by Castro.
The Kremlin leaders therefore had to jockey between their instincts - of suspicion towards revolutionary movements not under their control and their need to swing back their glohal relationship of forces with US imperialism: they wanted to head off
Chinese challenge to their authority in the emerging movement of liberation struggles - but without triggering a new surge of potentially embarrassing revolutionary action.
Castro and Guevara were able to lake advantage of this unique opening - responding to the escalating US boycott of Cuban sugar and economic blockade by turning to Moscow and Beijing for support. When Moscow: was slow to respond, Guevara would persuade Beijing to show support -and then retur to negotiate more from
Soviet economic aid war followed by what has ever since remained a free
EMEN E M supply of armaments to Cuba: and this in lum was followed by the most remarkable promise of all -Khruschev's pledge to use Soviet armed force, even missiles, to guarantee the defence of the infant revolutionary regime 90 miles from Florida. This stands in sharp contrast to subsequent Soviet policy on the much more distant Nicaragun.
Khruschev plainly hoped that a spin-off from this would be to site Soviet intermediate range missiles in Cuba - a low-budget response to Kennedy's ICBM treat Though in the 1962 'Cuban missiles crisis' thin option was abandoned, the commitment to Cuba has remained a major (and expensive) aspect of Kremlin strategy and foreign policy.
No similar situation has opened up since 1959. The closest companson would be with the huge military sup port given by the Soviet bureaucracy (and Cuba) to the Mengistu regime in Ethiopia since 1977. However this support ran no risk of direct US retalialion, and simply served to protect Mengistu's reactionary regime against US-backed destabilisation and legitimate national liberation struggles of the Eritrean and other oppressed peoples.
In fact it has been not Cuba - with its break from both imperialist and nalional capital, its military and economic reliance upon Soviet sup port and its subsequent political as similation into the Kremlin orbit -that has been the model for subsequent liberation movements, so much as Al-
The Ben Bella leadership of the Algerian anti-imperialist National Liberation Front (FLN) was of a different calibre from Cuba's Fidelistas, but different, too, was the attitude of the USSR, which was not scriously interested in Algeria or repared to offer substantial support. Though the FLN as a mass movement was many times stronger than Castro's ramshackle July 26 Movement, the defeat of French imperialism was followed not by a break from imperialism but a renegotiation of terms and the reconstruction of the bourgeois stnte machinery, which we have just recently seen in action against militant workers and youth.
Very different, too, was the situa tion after the 1979 Sandinista victory over dictator Somoza in Nicaragua •Unlike Cuha, which had been a major base of US investment, the Nicaraguan economy was weak, and dominated by national capitalists, substantial sections of which had thrown in their lot with the anti-Somoza struggle - but then stayed on as a vocal and stubbom obstacle to
•Cuba is an island: but Nicuragua's extensive borders with Honduras and Costa Rica have given Somoza's old National Guard and other CLA-backed mercenaries the chance to regroup und mount continual cross border sabotage and terrorism; •Soviet leaderships since 1979 have shown little or no economic or military commitment to delend Nicaragun, and used their leverage on Havana to limit Cuba's involvement. Gorbachev is if anything less likely than Brezhnev to risk promoling a conflict in Washington's "back-yard" •The Sandinista leaders themscives, for all their courageous defiance of LTS pressure, have always insisted that Their goal is not a workers state or socialismi, but a mixed oconomy. Itis by no means ceitain that even if total exteral support were forthcoming the Sandinistas would opr for the "Cuban Road' Significantly Fidel Castro hirself has been among those advising them not to.
Thirty years on, therefore, the Cuban Revolution stands as an inspiration to many millions of workers. and peasants around the world, but not a finished "model" for today's revolutionary struggles. With the partial exception of Nicaragua, every attempt to export the "lessons" of the Cuban struggle have proved a total disaster, costing the lives of thousands of galLant guerrilla fighters.
In stressing the material gains for Cuban workers and the superiority of the Cuban system to the viciously exploitative capitalist reginies of Latin America and elsewhere, we must not forget the extent to which this is un derwritten by multi-billion dollur subsidies from the USSR
While welcoming the internationalist of the Cuhan military offort that is helping to defend Angola from South African and reactionary terrorist attacks, we should remember that Soviet endorsement of this is also Linked to Cuban military involvement in repressing the Eritican struggle for self-determination.
Fidel Castro may provide pleasant contrast to General Jaruzelski and his ilk. the grey-faced bureaucrats who have led only policestate regimes in castem Europe. But for all his achievements and popularity, Castro's survival is partly because he now represents the 'acceptable', radical face of Stalinism.
The book Cuba; Radical Face of Stalinism by John Lister is still avallable at £4.50 including postage, from Socialist Outlook
Page 24 SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 11 December 1988/January 1989