First Published: The Call, Vol. 6, No. 4, January 31, 1977.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
Copyright: This work is in the Public Domain under the Creative Commons Common Deed. You can freely copy, distribute and display this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit the Encyclopedia of Anti-Revisionism On-Line as your source, include the url to this work, and note any of the transcribers, editors & proofreaders above.
When the Soviet social-imperialists wanted to invade Angola, they arranged for thousands of Cuban mercenary troops to do their bloody work for them.
Now as the social-imperialists step up their ideological offensive against the third world, they make regular use of Cuba to say and do the things they themselves dare not do, in order to divide the third world countries.
Insidiously playing on the revolutionary history of the Cuban people, the new tsars in the USSR try to promote Cuba as a “model” for other third world countries, especially in Latin America. But the “model” Cuba really provides is a negative example–a “model” of a country which has thrown off U.S. imperialism only to come under the domination of Soviet social-imperialism.
As a neo-colony of the USSR, Cuba is now forced to send its best youth to die in Angola, which is being robbed and plundered of its rich natural resources, and to parrot the revisionist line of the Soviet chieftains inside the third world movement.
In his speech to the National Assembly of People’s Power at the end of last year, Cuban leader Fidel Castro devoted virtually all his remarks to defending the international role of social-imperialism. He sang the praises of the Soviet Union, while he attacked the efforts of the third world to unite and safeguard its resources against superpower hegemonism.
Taking his cue from the Soviet revisionist formula of dividing the third world into “progressive” and “reactionary” camps, Castro attacked the oil-producing countries as “reactionary.”
He denounced OPEC and other organizations of raw material producers, saying that “the excessive and abusive overvalorization of a raw material in world trade, through the monopolistic and unilateral action of a few,” causes the economic difficulties in the third world.
Going still further, Castro asserted that the oil-producing countries are “grinding the other underdeveloped countries on a millstone,” and that the interests of the oil producers are the same as the interests of “the imperialist monopolies.”
This barrage of invective against the oil-producers sounds very much like the speeches of Ford, Carter and other U.S. imperialist spokesmen. For years, they have tried to cover up imperialism’s responsibility for economic crises by blaming the third world countries and especially OPEC.
The Soviet social-imperialists would also like to obscure the fact that imperialism is to blame for poverty and hunger in the world. They too would like to conceal their own criminal role in the plunder of the third world countries. Most of all, Brezhnev and company would like to weaken and disarm the organized force of third world unity that OPEC has spearheaded.
But to put all this forward openly would be harmful to Soviet attempts to pose as the “natural ally” of the third world movement. So instead, they act through Cuba, itself a third world country, to promote these revisionist views in the hope of undermining third world unity.
To the social-imperialists, the oil-producing countries are not only of great significance economically, but they also form a flank of Europe, which is the focus of Soviet-U.S. rivalry. The Soviet Union has moved great quantities of arms onto Iran’s borders, dispatched huge warships to the Persian Gulf, and often interfered in the affairs of Mideast countries and attempted to subvert them.
Faced with this situation, many Mideast countries have begun to arm themselves against the aggressive designs of both superpowers. In response, the social-imperialists have frantically preached reliance on “detente” and the Soviet Union as the “best course” for the third world.
Castro repeated these revisionist theories in his speech and attacked all efforts by the third world to arm itself as “a waste of tens of thousands of millions of dollars.” He claimed that there is no need for national defense because the Soviet Union is guaranteeing “peace.”
As a further cover-up for the Soviet Union, Castro tried to hide the realities of Angola, where the Soviet Union has become the new colonial master. Boasting about “internationalism,” Castro explained how Angola had offered its vast coffee wealth to Cuba, but Cuba had turned it down, not wanting to “rob” the war-ravaged country.
The fact of the matter is that the Soviet Union has taken over control of the Angolan coffee industry, buying coffee at 33% of the world market price. On the coffee plantations formerly run by the Portuguese colonialists, Cuban technicians are now in charge of carrying out Soviet-dictated policy.
Cuba’s subservience to the Soviet Union’s interests was reflected throughout Castro’s speech, echoing all the revisionists’ standard attacks on China and the international Marxist-Leninist movement. He even indulged in the wishful thinking that the new Chinese Party leadership will alter China’s revolutionary stand and take the capitalist road.
The thrust of the entire speech was to lure the third world from its militant course of opposition to both superpowers. But the third world movement has rejected Cuba’s neo-colonial fate and is fighting to insure its independence from both superpowers. It is uniting closely to safeguard its resources and arm itself for defense against imperialist aggression.