Progressive Labor’s attitude toward the Cuban revolution has gone through essentially two stages –pro-Cuban revolution and anti-Cuban revolution. Or one might label them “early PL” and “later PL.” The policies followed during the two periods, the differences between them, and the reasons for the shift are important, as they offer an instructive example of PL’s basic political approach. Fundamentally, neither position was based on an understanding of the needs of the Cuban revolution, or of the role it has played in the international class struggle in the last decade. Their position has been based primarily on the sectarian needs of Progressive Labor and the policies of the Chinese Communist Party.
During the early period, which lasted roughly from the time PL began in early 1962 until the Tricontinental Congress in January 1966, PL attempted to identify itself closely with the Cuban revolution. Then, as now, defense of the Cuban revolution was a dividing line between revolutionary and nonrevolutionary, and PL was interested in the thousands of students across the country who had not been taken in by the volumes of slander printed about the Cuban revolution.
In a manner not unlike the pattern seen in Hazard and Monroe, PL set out to utilize this sentiment –not to build the most effective united-front defense of the Cuban revolution, as the Fair Play for Cuba Committee had done earlier – but to make quick gains for PL. In late 1962 PL announced its first Cuba trip. Close to 70 people signed up to go during the Christmas vacation, understanding they had been invited by the Cuban Federation of University Students, that the ACLU had volunteered to defend any of them who might be victimized for violating the State Department travel ban, and that all the details had been worked out with the Cuban government.
In reality, the travel details had not been arranged, the ACLU had made no such promise, and it is highly dubious that the Cuban government even knew of the proposed trip until it was reported in the U. S. press. Not surprisingly, the trip never materialized, as, among other things, the Canadian government refused to grant a landing permit to the plane that was to have taken the students to Cuba.
Two successful trips to Cuba were organized in the summers of 1963 and 1964. Between the two trips almost 150 young people were able to see Cuba for themselves and return to help spread the truth about the Cuban revolution. Despite the State Department ban, hundreds of students were willing to take the risk of losing their passports, fighting long court cases, and facing up to $5,000 in fines and five years in jail. This was the sentiment PL based itself on.
However, instead of trying to involve and unite all the forces which supported the Cuban revolution, thereby contributing to a broad united-front defense effort for the revolution – and for those who might be victimized for traveling to Cuba – PL’s policy was to screen out any applicants for the Cuba trips who were known members of other radical organizations. This was true not only of YSAers and SWPers, but DuBois Club members, CPers, and anyone else who politically disagreed with Progressive Labor. Thus, in the name of fighting the travel ban, PL established its own political ban.
When the first group of students returned from Cuba in September 1963, their passports were immediately invalidated, HUAC scheduled a two-day hearing and subpoenaed the organizers, and a federal grand jury rapidly indicted four PLers, three for violation of the McCarran Immigration Act and the State Department ban, and all four for conspiracy to violate both. Many students recognized the importance of breaking the ban and wanted to support those indicted and deprived of their passports, but defense committees never got off the ground. PL was intent on excluding other political tendencies from participating in them, and did not agree that the purpose of the defense committees should be solely to mobilize defense support – and not be mere appendages of PL. The Committee to Uphold the Right to Travel (CURT), for example, held one or two successful rallies and public meetings in the Bay Area, and then folded. After several years of litigation, and a number of court rulings in favor of freedom to travel, the charges against the four PLers were finally dropped.
Throughout this “early” period, Progressive Labor printed frequent articles correctly describing the important basic social advances made by the Cuban revolution. Typical was an editorial published in the March 1963 issue reproducing the text of a broadcast made by Milt Rosen, PL editor.
Rosen enumerated facts–such as the elimination of racism in Cuba, the expansion of education, and health facilities, the elimination of hunger, the destruction of the profit system, and many others. He pointed out that “Socialism is forging ahead in Cuba, and that people all over Latin America and elsewhere see clearly Cuban progress, despite being forced to build Socialism while holding a gun in one hand.” He commented that much of the rising tide of revolutionary activity in Latin America was “spurred on by the success of Socialism in Cuba.”
Progressive Labor also carried frequent reprints of articles by Che Guevara during this period.
Exactly when the shift in PL’s policy toward Cuba and the Cuban leadership occurred is difficult to pin down. Several articles intimate it was as early as 1964, making vague references to a Havana conference of Latin American “revisionist” parties that year.
PL today charges that the Cuban leaders have definitively “put themselves in the revisionist camp” (PL, May 1969, page 63). When did this qualitative change occur, and how and why?
Unfortunately for those who follow PL’s press, the answers to such questions have never been clearly spelled out –though I’m sure many besides ourselves are wondering. PL now says that a formerly “socialist state”–one that followed a policy of deepening and consolidating the revolution at home and a policy of politically and materially aiding revolutionary movements abroad –has placed itself in the camp of the “revisionists,” i.e., is now attempting to halt the progress of the world revolution. No serious Marxists would make such charges without attempting to thoroughly document and explain them. On what do they base these charges, and how do they explain this shift in policy?
The best one can do is to try to reconstruct PL’s version of the history of the Cuban revolution from a series of articles appearing between October 1967 and the present, both in Progressive Labor, and in World Revolution, which is edited by PL members, but contains primarily reprints from articles appearing in the Maoist press around the world.
It seems clear that the decisive turning point for PL came in early 1966, around the time of the Tricontinental Congress, when Fidel Castro charged that the Chinese Communist Party and government were guilty of economic blackmail of Cuba. China had abruptly reneged on trade agreements which were extremely important to the economy of Cuba. As a result, the rice ration in Cuba had to be cut in half for the coming year. On February 6 Castro apologized to the Cuban people “for having believed in the Internationaist spirit of the Chinese government.” When he returned to the subject in a speech on March 13, he reiterated, “It is a real felony, real blackmail, a real betrayal of the international working class to deprive us of almost half of our rice at a time of great difficulty for us.”
Cuba’s very existence depended, and still depends, on massive economic aid from the Soviet Union. This has posed delicate problems for the Cuban leaders numerous times during the last decade, when they have spoken out against the reformist policies of the Kremlin or Kremlin-inspired parties around the world. Their condemnation of Soviet aid and diplomatic relations with Latin American dictatorships, and the condemnation of the antistruggle line of the Venezuelan CP are obvious examples.
Despite the unquestionable pressure to line up with Moscow in the Sino-Soviet dispute, Cuba remained silent, a fact that was generally understood to indicate non-support for the Kremlin’s factional attacks on China. But this was not sufficient for Peking. If Cuba did not line up publicly and unequivocally with the Maoists, despite the consequences, which might even entail the destruction of the revolution, then Cuban had joined the “enemy camp” of the “revisionists” and deserved to be isolated.
Certainly, the Cuban revolution has been compelled to pay a price for its economic dependence on the Soviet Union. Within the revolutionary movement the necessity for one or another particular concession can be discussed. But Peking’s policy toward Cuba has been no more revolutionary than the Kremlin’s.
If the Chinese policy had been one based on the needs of the Cuban revolution, on the needs of the world revolution, and the central importance of supporting and reinforcing the first socialist revolution in the Western hemisphere, Peking would have recognized the difficult position of the Cuban leaders, and rather than attempting blackmail, would have sought to increase its aid to Cuba in order to help free the Cuban revolution from its economic straits. Instead, Peking’s break with Cuba served only to reinforce the Kremlin’s influence on Cuba’s future, and gave Cuba less room to maneuver and carry out revolutionary policies in opposition to the Kremlin.
Such considerations, however, were of no more concern to PL than they were to the Mao regime.
The next article will deal with PL’s “anti-Cuban revolution” period and the charges that the Maoists have leveled against the Cuban revolution and its leadership.