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Dissident Cuban Communism: The Case of Trotskyism, 1932-1965

Gary Andrew Tennant


Ph.D. thesis. University of Bradford. 1999

CONTENTS

Abstract [ ESP ] [ FRA ] [ DEU ] [ ITA ]


Acknowledgements iv
Glossary of abbreviations and acronyms vii
Glossary of Spanish terms x
Technical note xii

CHAPTER
INTRODUCTION 1
1:
1.1 Statement of Argument 1
1.2 A Critique of Past Work 5
1.3 Methodology and Structure 18

PART I: THE INTERNATIONAL AND NATIONAL CONTEXT 24

CHAPTER TROTSKYISM AND OFFICIAL COMMUNISM IN LATIN


25
2: AMERICA, 1919-1965
2.1 The Theory of Permanent Revolution and the Origins of Trotskyism 26
2.2 The Comintern and Stalinism in Latin America, 1919-65 42
2.3 Trotsky and Revolution in Latin America, 1937-40 51
2.4 Trotskyism and Revolution in Latin America, 1927-65 60
2.5 Conclusion 69

CHAPTER NATIONALISM AND SOCIALISM IN CUBA FROM THE 1800s


72
3: TO 1965
3.1 Independence and the Development of the Cuban Political Economy 73
3.1.1 Background to Independence: The Foundations of the Cuban Political
73
Economy
3.1.2 Independence, U.S. Domination and the Cuban Bourgeoisie 76
3.1.3 The Formative Years of the Cuban Labour Movement 84
3.2 The Revolution of the 1930s 91
3.2.1 The Revolution of the 1930s and Radical Cuban Nationalism 91
3.2.2 10
The Cuban Communist Party and the Revolution of the 1930s
1
3.3 11
Official Communism and Consensual Nationalism in Cuba, 1935-52
3
3.4 12
Dictatorship and Revolution in Cuba, 1952-65
4
3.4.1 The Batista Regime and the Insurrectionary War 12
2

4
3.4.2 12
The Institutionalisation of the Revolutionary Government
7
3.5 13
Conclusion
8
3

14
PART II: TROTSKYISM IN CUBA
1

CHAPTER THE BIRTH OF DISSIDENT CUBAN COMMUNISM AND THE 14


4: OPOSICIN COMUNISTA de CUBA, 1925-1933 2
4.1 14
Julio Antonio Mella and the Roots of Dissension
3
4.2 16
The Formation, Composition and Activity of the OCC
1
4.3 The OCC and Revolutionary Strategy: From a Democratic to 17
Permanent Revolution Perspective 7
4.4 19
Conclusion
2

CHAPTER THE PARTIDO BOLCHEVIQUE LENINISTA AND THE 19


5: REVOLUTION OF THE 1930s 4
5.1 19
The Formation, Organisational Growth and Crisis of the PBL, 1933-35
5
5.2 The PBL and Revolutionary Strategy: The Democratic versus 21
Permanent Revolution Perspectives 5
5.2.1 21
The Founding Programme of the PBL
5
5.2.2 The PBL and Revolutionary Strategy during the Grau San Martn 22
Government, September 1933-January 1934 1
5.2.3 22
The PBLs Revolutionary Perspectives, 1934-35
6
5.3 Relations between the PBL and the Official Communists during the 24
Revolution of the 1930s 1
5.4 25
The PBL and its International Contacts
1
5.5 25
Conclusion
7

CHAPTER TROTSKYISM IN CUBA BETWEEN REVOLUTIONS: THE


26
6: PARTIDO BOLCHEVIQUE LENINISTA AND THE PARTIDO
4
OBRERO REVOLUCIONARIO, 1935-1958
6.1 Trotskyism in Cuba between Revolutions: Organisational Development 26
and Revolutionary Strategy, 1935-58 5
6.1.1 26
The PBL, 1935-39: Regrouping and Revolutionary Strategy
5
6.1.2 The Foundation of the POR and the Organisation and Strategy of 28
Cuban Trotskyists, 1940-46 2
6.1.3 30
The Activity of the POR and Organisational Dissolution, 1946-58
2
6.2 31
Cuban Trotskyism and the Proletarian Military Policy during Wartime
9
6.3 The Cuban Trotskyists and International Questions 32
4

3
6.3.1 32
Cuban Trotskyists and the Spanish Civil War
3
6.3.2 32
Cuban Trotskyism in the Fourth International
8
6.4 Relations between Trotskyists and the Official Cuban Communists, 33
1935-58 8
6.5 34
Conclusion
4

CHAPTER THE REORGANISED PARTIDO OBRERO REVOLUCIONARIO 34


7: (TROTSKISTA) AND THE 1959 REVOLUTION 9
7.1 35
The Organisation and Activity of the POR(T), 1960-65
1
7.1.1 35
The Formation and Composition of the POR(T)
2
7.1.2 35
The Activity and Suppression of the POR(T)
6
7.2 37
The POR(T) and the 1959 Revolution: Theory and Strategy
6
7.3 The View from Abroad: The Cuban POR(T) and the Fourth 38
Internationals 5
7.4 39
Epilogue: Trotskyism in Cuba after 1965
4
7.5 40
Conclusion
1

CHAPTER 40
CONCLUSIN
8: 3
8.1 The Cuban Trotskyists Democratic versus Permanent Revolutionary 40
Strategy 3
8.2 41
Composition and Organisational Characteristics of Cuban Trotskyism
2
8.3 41
The Cuban Trotskyists Contribution to National Political Life
9

APPENDICES
Appendix 42
Splits and Fusions in the International Trotskyist Movement, 1923-65
A 7
Appendix B 42
Map of Cuba
8
Appendix C 42
Trotskyism in Cuba: A Chronology of Events
9
Appendix Table Showing the Strength of Different Ideologies in the Cuban Trade 43
D Union Movement, 1865-1958 5
Appendix E 43
Graph Showing the Number of Trotskyists in Cuba, 1932-65
6
Appendix F List of Known Trotskyists in Cuba 43
5

44
BIBLIOGRAPHY
3
6

COMUNISMO DISIDENTE CUBANO: El Caso del Trotskismo, 1932-1965

RESUMEN: Esta tesis se enfoca en la historia de la variante trotskista de la disidencia


comunista en Cuba. Esta discute el desarrollo terico, tctico y organizativo de la
Oposicin Comunista a inicios de los aos treinta, luego del Partido Bolchevique
Leninista y del Partido Obrero Revolucionario desde los aos treinta hasta los
cincuenta, y, finalmente, del Partido Obrero Revolucionario (Trotskista), el mismo que
fue reconstituido despus de la revolucin cubana de 1959.

Las investigaciones hechas fuera de Cuba generalmente han argumentado que los
trotskistas cubanos estuvieron ms cercanos a Joaqun Maurn, el dirigente del Bloque
Obrero y Campesino de Espaa, que de Trotsky. El nico trabajo sustantivo hecho en
Cuba al respecto ha concluido que los trotskistas de esa isla, a pesar de haberse
conformado como una fuerza revolucionaria a inicios de los aos treinta, sufrieron al
mismo tiempo tanto de sectarismo como de divisionismo.

En contraposicin, mi argumento es que mientras que el trotskismo cubano intent


incorporar la lucha por la liberacin nacional como parte de la lucha por el socialismo,
su rasgo definitorio fue su falla en diferenciar claramente entre las revoluciones de corte
proletario con la de tipo democrtico anti-imperialista. Esto es, que ellos nunca
plantearon sin ambigedades que la revolucin sera proletaria o sera derrotada, una
posicin central en el pensamiento de Trotsky. Afirmo que ese error nos conduce a
caracterizarlos como trotskistas post-Trotsky incluso durante los aos treinta.

El rasgo original de este trabajo se basa en el trabajo de investigacin y ensamblaje de


documentos de archivo que no han sido usados previamente, tanto en Cuba como afuera
de esta isla, junto con el uso de testimonios tanto escrito como orales de varios
participantes.
7

Acknowledgements
This thesis has been kept on track and been seen through to completion with the support
and encouragement of numerous friends, colleagues and institutions. It is therefore a
pleasant task to express my thanks to all those who contributed in many ways to the
success of this study. There were those who supplied useful addresses or who put me on
the trail of a document in my search to exhaust all possible avenues. Others generously
provided access to and/or photocopies of rare primary and secondary source material.
There were also those who responded to drafts of my work which I circulated in various
stages of completion. Their constructive criticisms encouraged me to reconsider some
early dubious propositions and steered me away from engaging in unnecessary
polemics. I hope that they can recognise where and how I have attempted to address
their questions and comments, even though I may have settled on a final formulation
which does not agree with their understanding and interpretation. Among those who
either opened doors or whose considered criticisms contributed to my progress, I would
like to express particular thanks to Al Richardson, Paul Hampton, John Sullivan, Reiner
Tosstorff, Mary Low Machado, Paolo Casciola, Robert Alexander, John Archer, Pierre
Brou, Daniela Spenser, Osvaldo Coggiola, Barry Carr and Rafael Soler Martnez.
Their interest, advice, assistance and questioning were of special importance in
stimulating the arguments which follow.

I, likewise, want to thank Tony Heywood for his support in taking on the supervision of
this thesis under unusual circumstances at a time when such a positive step provided me
with confirmation of the validity of the project and a much needed push to complete. As
one of my joint-supervisors he particularly encouraged me to bring out my argument at
every opportunity and so not limit my horizons. He was a model of professional
behaviour, showing me that there is more to academia than the menacing mediocrity
which I had experienced previously. I am deeply grateful to him. With reference to the
corridors of academia, I would also like to extend my gratitude to the Economic and
Social Research Council who funded this project for three years.

I have also been fortunate in that the many members of staff at the libraries and archives
with whom I have had contact have willingly shared their knowledge and skills. It is not
possible to list all of these people here but I would like to acknowledge the work of the
librarians at the Inter-Library Loans Service and the subject specialist librarian, Grace
Hudson, at the University of Bradford. They were my initial contact with the librarian
profession in the search for all sorts of materials across two continents. In this context, I
am also grateful to Al Richardson, the guardian of the Socialist Platform archive where
I was able to have the space and time to familiarise myself with an extensive pool of
socialist and Trotskyist sources. A special thanks goes to Socialist Platform together
with other libraries and archives who strive to put a minimum of obstacles between the
researcher and source, irrespective of whether or not the enquirer holds a university or
academic identity card.

Leaving the personal until last, a big thanks also goes to Sita Rajasooriya who in love
and companionship had, at times, to live with this thesis as much as me. Reinforcing my
spirits at some crucial junctures, she provided much encouragement throughout the
largest part of this project. Her insistence on its worth and validity whenever I listened
too much to the large doses of subjective idealism emanating from sandalista fellow-
8

travellers was of special value. Un abrazo muy fuerte also goes to Ernesto Armian and
his family whose sincerity in difficult conditions was a constant reminder that true
stories count. I would also like to extend my thanks to my parents for their support past
and present. Perhaps this thesis would not have survived some of the more trying times
during the process of writing up if it had not been for their unquestioning support.

Before concluding this section, I want to state the oft cited caveat that whatever the
defects in this thesis, be they imprecise quotations or translations, or basic
misrepresentations, they are unintentional and my responsibility alone.

Finally, I dedicate this study to those who trust in the certainty of class struggle, to those
who recognise that in the field of history and ideas, as much as in every day life, this
class conflict has not ended, to those who have confronted capitalism as well as the
stifling barbarity of Stalinism with a cutting dignity which has not subordinated the
independence of the working class to the passing fashion of the day, and to those who
have hope for their dreams. May their voices and stories be heard.

De omnibus dubitandum
9

Glossary of Abbreviations and Acronyms

AIE Ala Izquierda Estudiantil (Left-Wing Students)


Asociacin Nacional de Nuevos Emigrados Revolucionarios de Cuba
ANERC
(Association of New Revolutionary Emigrs from Cuba)
Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana (American Popular
APRA
Revolutionary Alliance)
ARG Accin Revolucionaria Guiteras (Guiteras Revolutionary Action)
BOC Bloque Obrero y Campesino (Workers and Peasants Bloc: Spain)
Comintern Communist or Third International
CC Central Committee
Comit de Defensa de la Revolucin (Committee for the Defence of the
CDR
Revolution)
Confederacin Nacional Obrera de Cuba (National Labour Confederation
CNOC
of Cuba)
CPUSA Communist Party of the United States of America
Confederacin Regional Obrera Mexicana (Mexican Regional Labour
CROM
Confederation)
Confederacin de Trabajadores de Cuba (Workers Confederation of
CTC
Cuba)
DOI Defensa Obrera Internacional (International Labour Defence)
FCT Federacin Cubana del Trabajo (Cuban Labour Federation)
FI Fourth International
FOH Federacin Obrera de La Habana (Labour Federation of Havana)
ICL International Communist League (Bolshevik-Leninists)
ILO International Left Opposition
Instituto Nacional de Reforma Agraria (National Institute of Agrarian
INRA
Reform)
KPD Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands (German Communist Party)
LOR Liga Obrera Revolucionaria (Revolutionary Workers League: Argentina)
M26J Movimiento 26 de Julio (26th July Movement)
MAFUENIC Comit de Manos fuera de Nicaragua (Hands Off Nicaragua Committee)
Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario Revolutionary Nationalist
MNR
Movement: Bolivia)
Movimiento Revolucionario 13 de Noviembre (13 November
MR-13
Revolutionary Movement: Guatemala)
Movimiento Socialista Revolucionario (Revolutionary Socialist
MSR
Movement)
OCC Oposicin Comunista de Cuba (Communist Opposition of Cuba)
Organizaciones Revolucionarias Integradas (Integrated Revolutionary
ORI
Organisations)
Profintern Red International of Labour Unions
or RILU
PBL Partido Bolchevique Leninista (Bolshevik Leninist Party)
10

PCC Partido Comunista de Cuba (Communist Party of Cuba)


PCM Partido Comunista de Mxico (Communist Party of Mexico)
POR Partido Obrero Revolucionario (Revolutionary Workers Party)
Partido Obrero Revolucionario (Trotskista) (Revolutionary Workers Party
POR(T)
(Trotskyist))
Partido Obrero de Unificacin Marxista (Workers Party of Marxist
POUM
Unification: Spain)
Partido Revolucionario Cubano (Autntico) (Cuban Revolutionary Party
PRC(A)
(Genuine Revolutionaries))
PSP Partido Socialista Popular (Popular Socialist Party)
Partido Unificado de la Revolucin Socialista (Unified Party of Socialist
PURS
Revolution)
Sindicato General de Empleados del Comercio de Cuba (General
SGECC
Commercial Workers Union of Cuba)
Sindicato Nacional de Obreros de la Industria Azucarera (National Union
SNOIA
of Sugar Industry Workers)
SWP(US) Socialist Workers Party (United States)
UFON Unin Federativa Obrera Nacional (National Federative Labour Union)
Unin Insurreccional Revolucionaria (Revolutionary Insurrectionary
UIR
Union)
URC Unin Revolucionaria Comunista (Communist Revolutionary Union)
USec United Secretariat of the Fourth International
11

Glossary of Spanish Terms

abecedario member of the ABC organisation in Cuba.


antillano inhabitant of the Caribbean islands.
aparato apparatus.
supporter of Victor Haya de la Torres Second Revolution thesis and
Aprista
member of his Latin American APRA movement.
supporter of the Partido Revolucionario Cubano (Autntico) led by
Autntico
Ramn Grau San Martn.
political leader who rules through a combination of armed might and
caudillo
personalised control.
large sugar producing complex which includes not only mills but also
central
cane fields and living areas for workers.
Chibasismo anti-corruption political movement led by Eduardo Chibs.
colono sugar cane planter who sold his cane to large sugar mills.
participant in the 1956-58 insurrection against the regime of Fulgencio
combatiente
Batista in both the urban and rural fields of operation.
continuismo self-perpetuation of the Batista regime in the 1940s.
spirit of co-operation between pro-capitalist political parties in the late
cooperativismo
1920s around President Gerardo Machado.
Fidelista political supporter of Fidel Castro.
foco area in which a small group of armed revolutionaries operates.
guantanameo from/of the city of Guantnamo.
militant anti-imperialist ideology which advocated armed struggle and
Guiterismo the imposition of a popular dictatorship in the 1930s. It underpinned
the activity of the Joven Cuba organisation led by Antonio Guiteras.
Guiterista political supporter of Antonio Guiteras and Joven Cuba.
habanero from/of the city of Havana.
independentismo spirit of winning political independence from Spain.
indigenismo indigenism, pro-Indian political movement.
junta assembly/council.
la patria the independent homeland.
person who benefited from and supported the rural system of
latifundista
production based on large landed estates.
llano urban underground movement supporting the Rebel Army.
supporter of the regime of President Gerardo Machado in the late
Machadista
1920s and early 30s.
mambisa liberator or guerrilla fighter during the Ten Years War of 1868-78.
matancero from/of the city of Matanzas.
supporter of the corrupt state-sponsored trade unionism led by Eusebio
mujalista
Mujal in the 1950s.
oriental from/of the province of Oriente.
ortodoxia the political movement founded by Eduardo Chibs which stood out
against Autntico corruption and for a return to a moderate nationalist
12

programme.
pesepista member of the PSP, the Popular Socialist Party, in Cuba.
pistolero hoodlum/gangster.
santiaguero from/of the city of Santiago de Cuba.
sierra rebel movement in the countryside led by Fidel Castro.
zafra sugar cane harvest.
13

Technical Note
The following abbreviations of libraries and archives are used in the
footnotes:

Archivo Histrico Provincial de Santiago de Cuba, Santiago de Cuba,


AHPSC
Cuba.
ANC Archivo Nacional de Cuba, Havana, Cuba.
BJL Brynmor Jones Library, University of Hull, Great Britain.
BLNL British Library Newspaper Library, London, Great Britain.
BNJM Biblioteca Nacional Jos Mart, Havana, Cuba.
Centre dtudes et de Recherches sur les Mouvements Trotskystes et
CERMTRI
Rvolutionnaires Internationaux, Paris, France.
CSPT Centro Studi Pietro Tresso, Foligno, Italy.
HHL Houghton Library, Harvard University, Massachusetts, USA.
HWL Widener Library, Harvard University, Massachusetts, USA.
HI Hoover Institution, Stanford, California, USA.
IFA Idalberto Ferrera Acostas personal archive, Havana, Cuba.
IHC(a) Instituto de Historia de Cuba (archive), Havana, Cuba.
IHC(b) Instituto de Historia de Cuba (library), Havana, Cuba.
Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis, Amsterdam, The
IISG
Netherlands.
MML Marx Memorial Library, London, Great Britain.
NYPL New York Public Library, New York, USA.
OAH Oficina de Asuntos Histricos, Havana, Cuba.
OCG Olga Cabrera Garcas personal archive, Goias, Brasil.
PB Pierre Brous personal archive, St. Martin DHres, France.
PRL Prometheus Research Library, New York, USA.
Robert J Alexanders personal archive, Rutgers University, New Jersey,
RJA
USA.
RSM Rafael Soler Martnezs personal archive, Santiago de Cuba, Cuba.
Rossiiskii Tsentr Khraneniia i Izucheniia Dokumentov Noveishei Istorii,
RTsKhIDNI
Moscow, Russia.
SP Socialist Platform archive, London, Great Britain.
SWP(US) Socialist Workers Party (United States) archive, New York, USA.
TIL Taniment Institute Library, New York, USA.
USNA United States National Archives, Maryland, USA.

In addition to providing a system of archival and bibliographic references to facilitate


the future study of Trotskyism, this notation also aims to fill some of the gaps in
Wolfgang and Petra Lubitzs Trotskyist Serials Bibliography, Munich, KG Saur,
1993. With the exception of Mexico, their otherwise valuable work catalogues very
little bibliographical data concerning Latin America.
14

Regarding quotations, for the purposes of cohesiveness my policy is to present all cited
passages in English. Where interpolations in square brackets within quoted passages
have been introduced, it is again an attempt on my part to ensure maximum
cohesiveness and/or correct apparent major linguistic errors. I have taken it upon myself
to correct minor linguistic errors, such as absent letters, missing accents, and minor
misspellings without the use of square brackets. I only make such minor corrections
where, in my judgement, they in no way alter the intention of the author of the cited
passage. As is also an accepted custom, all characters which appear inside quotation
marks in upper case, underlined, italics or bold lettering do so as in the original
document or book, unless otherwise stated.

Individuals are identified using the name by which they are most commonly known, be
it their real name or pseudonym. However, on the first occasion I mention a particular
individual, I cite both his/her real name and pseudonym, if both are known. All
pseudonyms are marked with an asterisk. If I refer to an individual only by his/her
pseudonym this is because I have been unable to identify his/her real name with any
degree of certainty. The only exceptions to the rule of noting the use of pseudonyms are
those references I make to various leading figures in the Russian October Revolution
and Bolshevik Party. I refer to all of them by their well known pseudonyms, for
example, Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin, without making use of an asterisk.
15
16

Chapter One

Introduction
1.1 Statement of Argument

This thesis traces the history of those dissident communist groups in Cuba which
defined themselves as Trotskyist in the period 1932 to 1965. It focuses on the
theoretical, tactical and organisational development of the Oposicin Comunista de
Cuba (OCC) in the early 1930s, the Partido Bolchevique Leninista (PBL) and the
Partido Obrero Revolucionario (POR) in the 1930s and 40s, and the Partido Obrero
Revolucionario (Trotskista) (POR(T)),(1) the Trotskyist group which was reconstituted
after the 1959 Cuban Revolution.

Describing the formation of the first dissident communist group in Cuba and discussing
Trotskyisms subsequent development, this thesis analyses the Cuban Trotskyists
attempt to integrate the issue of national liberation within Trotskys theory of
Permanent Revolution. In addressing this problem, my central argument is that
throughout its history Cuban Trotskyism failed to distinguish clearly between the
proletarian and democratic anti-imperialist revolutions. I contend that although the
Cuban Trotskyists attempted to interpret the essence of Trotskys thought in a way
which took into account the peculiarities of the Cuban context, they never consistently
and unambiguously insisted on a central tenet of Trotskys thought, the primacy of the
proletarian nature of the anti-imperialist revolution. I further contend that while the
Cuban Trotskyists theoretical understanding of the nature of the revolutionary process
located them in what Donald Hodges has termed the national liberation tendency in
Latin American Trotskyism in the 1930s and 40s,(2) their failure to make clear
delineations between proletarian and democratic anti-imperialist forces resulted in them
making increasing political concessions to Stalinism in the 1960s.(3) That is, I argue
that along with major tendencies in the international Trotskyist movement, during the
1950s and 60s they returned to advocate a caricature of the Communist Internationals
post-1924 conceptions of the revolutionary process which did not propose a politically
independent course for the working class. Given the Cuban Trotskyists roots in the
national liberation tendency of Latin American Trotskyism, I argue that in the 1960s
the Cuban POR(T) returned to the Cominterns so-called Second Period notion that
forces other than the democratic organisations of the working class could lead the
revolutionary transformation of society.(4)

In developing these propositions this thesis also argues that the Cuban Trotskyists
apparent failure to lead a socialist revolution or even build a stable, influential
revolutionary organisation stemmed from a combination of their own policies and
external socio-economic factors. That is, first, I contend that the Trotskyists own one-
sided approach to revolution which emphasised the slogans and struggle for national
liberation and the formation of undelineated blocs with the forces of petty bourgeois
nationalism conditioned their failure to achieve their stated aims. Such a strategy, I
argue, prevented them from proposing a politically independent course for the working
class and building even a small proletarian movement which would have been
potentially capable of putting itself at the head of the nation. However, I also contend
17

that peculiar external structural obstacles also conditioned the Trotskyists political
fortunes. I argue that these external factors, principally the weak local class formations
and Bonapartist-type regimes, had the effect of debilitating further the potential for
independent working class action and the construction of a powerful class-based
revolutionary movement in Cuba.

Finally, I also address a number of secondary issues. Most importantly, given that so
little is known about the history of Trotskyism in Cuba, one additional objective is to
assess Trotskyisms general contribution to, and significance within, the Cuban labour
and revolutionary movements. That is, in seeking to describe the specific Cuban, as well
as international, influences which conditioned the development of Cuban Trotskyism I
specifically attempt to establish whom and what Trotskyism affected in Cuba.

My assessment of Trotskyism in Cuba is important because it adds to the diverse


discussion which seeks to reassess the experience, programme and capacity of the Left
in Latin America.(5) In particular, it examines one socialist currents attitude to what
Michael Pearlman has described as the ever relevant relationship between the
democratic and socialist revolutions.(6) Moreover, as values and conditions associated
with capitalism increasingly permeate the lives of workers uncertain about the future in
countries from Cuba to China, this thesis assesses a specific communist current which
professed to offer an alternative to both capitalism and Stalinised communism. To those
concerned with developing a sustainable and democratic socialist future, this thesis,
which both records and evaluates one of the few native Left critiques of both pre- and
post-1959 regimes in Cuba, could not be more timely.

For those who seek to challenge Left counsellors who have abandoned a class-based
analysis in presenting themselves as hostages to Stalinism,(7) a further justification for
this research project is that by clarifying the history of a dissident communist current it
will contribute to the re-founding of a revolutionary Marxist movement in Cuba. As
Guillermo Lora has observed, [o]ne of the weaknesses of Latin American Trotskyism
is that it has lost its own tradition, it does not know its history, which often leads it to
repeat old mistakes.(8)

Moreover, this study of Cuban Trotskyism is important not only because it retraces a
tradition which has been lost to socialists and Trotskyists alike, but because it does so
in the context of substantial social and political upheaval, first during the defeated
Revolution of the 1930s and then after the triumph of the 1959 Revolution. During these
periods this dissident currents theory and practice were tested to the full and, as such,
carry more import with regard to Trotskyisms merits and demerits in general. As Eric
Hobsbawm has noted, revolutionary periods are almost the perfect laboratory for the
historian, concentrating and magnifying the ideas and activities of groups which
otherwise are expressed rather less succinctly over longer periods.(9)

1.2 A Critique of Past Work

Published material which analyses international Trotskyism in whole or part can be said
to fall into two categories. There are, first, those tracts which have been described as
written by political activists in order to cancel out the past or justify the present.(10)
In this category are such primary source items as the Trotskyism Versus Revisionism
collection,(11) which is selective in its choice of documents, concentrating almost
18

entirely on British-U.S. reports and correspondence. Secondary sources which are


similarly deficient include Pierre Franks The Fourth International: The Long March of
the Trotskyists(12) and David Norths The Heritage We Defend,(13) While Franks
account tends to be over-concerned with defending the positions of one tendency within
the post-World War Two Trotskyist movement, Norths selective approach to historical
investigation more overtly subordinates historiography to ideology.(14)

The second category consists of the more informative texts on Trotskyism. There are
first of all the fourteen volumes of Trotskys Writings covering the years 1929-1940.
(15) These bring together a wide range of Trotskys key articles and theses during the
period when he first sought to reform the Comintern and then build the Fourth
International. His writings on Latin America have also been brought together in the
recent volume Escritos Latinoamericanos.(16) Likewise, the Documents of the Fourth
International, 1933-1940(17) is an important collection of the principal programmatic
documents of the Trotskyist movement in the 1930s.

The most valuable scholarly contributions to the history of Trotskyism in general


include Cahiers Lon Trotsky, a quarterly journal which has appeared since 1979, and
the journal Revolutionary History which, since 1988, has published many little known
episodes and interpretations from the history of Trotskyism in various countries.(18)
Also of importance is Robert Alexanders attempt at an all-embracing history of
international Trotskyism.(19) This extensive tome begins with a historical outline of
Trotskyism before developing accounts of the groups in the many different countries as
well as the various International tendencies. However, although the task of synthesising
so much documentary and testimonial evidence is of great value in that it provides a
starting point for further investigation, the quality of the sections vary widely. As Al
Richardson has argued, the uneven quality of the sections is largely dependent on the
number of correspondents in the various countries who have read the chapters prior to
the book going to press. Where there were a number of readers, their views have been
able to be checked one against another so adding to the richness of the narrative,
whereas when Alexander has relied on one or two readers there is obvious bias.(20)

Alexander has also produced a book on the more specific subject of the history of
Trotskyism in Latin America.(21) The major deficiency of this work is that it relies too
much on the memories of informants and participants while not seeking to check such
basic documents as newspapers, journals and leaflets, which he claims are of an
ephemeral nature".(22) It also suffers from measuring different parties and groups
against some supposed Trotskyist orthodoxy. This orthodoxy is, furthermore, only
rather shallowly defined. In his work on Bolivia, for example, orthodoxy is defined as
favouring a well indoctrinated revolutionary party,(23) adopting the Bolshevik type of
party structure,(24) and endorsing the concept of Permanent Revolution.(25)

Alexanders work is also hindered by its limited historical contextualisation. That is,
although the introductory chapters attempt to view Trotskyism in general as a political
current emanating from within the Comintern, there is little discussion of the
peculiarities of the specific economies or the nature of the broader mass movements,
both urban and rural, in the different countries under investigation. His analysis is,
therefore, one which does not really consider nor appreciate the Trotskyist movement in
its rich national, as well as international context.
19

With reference to those non-Cuban secondary source texts dealing specifically with
Trotskyism in Cuba, Alexanders research is the most comprehensive.(26) He
tentatively concludes that the Cuban Trotskyists in the 1930s were closer to social
democracy or Joaqun Maurn, the leader of the Bloque Obrero y Campesino (BOC) in
Spain, than they were to Trotsky.(27) This characterisation suggests that the Cuban
Trotskyists were essentially Right Communists who believed in a two-stage
revolutionary process in which the first stage would be a democratic revolution.(28)
This analysis usefully locates the ideas of Cuban Trotskyism in a broad international
context, but it also suffers from excessive and inappropriate pigeon-holing. In the first
place, Maurns principal base was in the most industrialised region of Spain with an
imperialist native bourgeoisie, a social context which was quite different to that facing
the Cuban Trotskyists. There is also some disagreement over what constituted the
essence of Maurns thought. Although Trotsky intransigently labelled Maurn the
incarnation of the petty bourgeois revolutionary(29) and insisted on the confused,
vacillating and essentially Rightist nature of the BOC, Andrew Durgans recent
illuminating research has described the varied roots of Maurns thought and how he
evolved towards the Left away from a clear-cut two-stage strategy in the 1930s. Durgan
convincingly argues that Maurn believed that petty bourgeois nationalism would
eventually disintegrate, forcing its followers to align themselves with either the
proletariat or the counter-revolution.(30) In the light of this understanding which
implicitly accepts Trotskys contention that the petty bourgeoisie could only hold state
power temporarily and that the revolution would ultimately be proletarian or would be
defeated, Durgan concludes that just as some incorrectly label the Spanish Partido
Obrero de Unificacin Marxista (POUM) as Trotskyist, so others call the BOC Right
Communists.(31) While Alexander makes no reference to the complexities of Maurns
political evolution, his section on the history of Trotskyism in Cuba furthermore appears
to reflect, if not rely on, the testimony of individuals who, though participants in events
in Cuba in the 1930s, were by the time of the cited interviews in the 1970s, anti-socialist
exiles in Miami with their own agendas to promote.(32)

Apart from Alexander, the only other researchers outside Cuba who have written about
Trotskyism in Cuba are Pierre Brou(33) and Osvaldo Coggiola.(34) In the paragraphs
which relate to Cuba in the article Le Mouvement Trotskyste en Amrique Latine
jusquen 1940, Brou contends that while the early Cuban Trotskyists stood, in part, in
the revolutionary syndicalist tradition they were also closer to Maurn than to Trotsky.
(35) Brou, accepting Trotskys intransigent analysis of Maurn, develops the central
political argument that the Cuban Trotskyists committed political suicide by placing
themselves at the service of social forces outside the working class.(36) Although
Brous framework of supporting documentary evidence constitutes, in large part, new
sources, and his approach goes beyond the rather more descriptive account of
Alexander, his work is nevertheless distorted by the limited range of sources together
with the absence of any rigorous discussion of the peculiarities of Maurns thought and
the Cuban political economy.

Coggiolas essay makes a valuable contribution to the study of Trotskyism in Latin


America by placing its emergence and development in the context of certain defining
events, the arrival of Trotsky in Mexico, and then the post-World War Two Bolivian
and Cuban revolutions. His work also recognises that the most important Trotskyist
groups in Latin America originated in opposition groups within the various communist
parties which had developed independently of the International Left Opposition (ILO).
20

(37) With reference to Trotskyism in Cuba, Coggiola challenges the views of both
Alexander and Brou. He argues that rather than being essentially Right Communists,
the Cuban Trotskyists in the 1930s advocated the building of an Anti-Imperialist United
Front in a way which reflected the thought of Lenin and Trotsky more closely than any
other Trotskyist group in the semi-colonial world.(38)

Coggiolas contribution is important in that it challenges the views of two prominent


labour movement historians, Alexander and Brou. However, with only a brief mention
of the theoretical and programmatic disputes in Cuban revolutionary movements, and
only an outline of the Cuban Trotskyists organisational development, it is no more than
an introduction to the subject of the history of Trotskyism in Cuba. An additional
criticism of Coggiolas work is that the absence of any supporting references allows
various affirmations to pass as statements of fact. One notable example of this weakness
is the unsourced assertion that Angel Fanjul (*Heredia), a Latin American Trotskyist
active in Cuba in the 1960s, was sentenced to death by the Cuban regime and was only
saved by the personal intervention of Ernesto Che Guevara.(39) Fanjul himself has
refuted this politically loaded interpretation of events and denies having ever made such
an allegation.(40)

While historiography originating in Cuba of the Cuban workers movement in general is


extensive, its scholarly quality is rather questionable. Apart from generally advancing a
very limited framework of footnotes which does little to aid verification and
clarification, this literature is largely characterised by varying degrees of
misrepresentation of communist and non-communist movements alike, idolatry,
teleology, and an emphasis on the linearity of historical development which irons out all
possible contradictions.(41) A further feature of Cuban historiography is that it largely
recognises the existence of Trotskyism at various times only to the extent of attaching
some pejorative label to it. Until recently, the extent of any acknowledgement by
Cubans was to refer to Trotskyists in Cuba, however obliquely, as reformists or
sectarians who sought to break working class unity or who were even anti-proletarian.
(42) Apparently, drawing on evidence from contemporary communist party documents,
they also associate the whole history of Trotskyism with one of Cubas most corrupt
trade union leaders, Eusebio Mujal.(43) Accepting without any apparent scepticism the
version propagated by the communist party at the time, these works insist that
Trotskyism, as personified by Mujal, was a pro-employer and pro-imperialist divisionist
current which impeded national unity during the Second World War.(44) More
commonly, though, its existence has been largely passed over in silence. For example,
the only oblique mention to Trotskyism in the period up to March 1935 in the most
comprehensive Cuban work dealing with the history of the native labour movement is a
reference to Eusebio Mujal and other splitters who attempted to direct their anti-
imperialism against foreign workers.(45)

The sole recent Cuban research which, in part, corrects this is the doctoral thesis by
Rafael Soler Martnez El Trotskismo en la Revolucin del 30.(46) Soler sets himself the
task of considering whether or not the Trotskyists in Cuba played a revolutionary role in
the period 1932-35, and then secondly, if and how they contributed to the division of the
popular revolutionary movement.(47) He rather confusingly concludes that while they
promoted revolutionary anti-imperialist struggle they, at the same time, were
divisionists, sectarians and dogmatists who contributed to the division and defeat of the
revolutionary movement in the period under investigation.(48) Soler repeats this
21

argument in a short, summary article which also implicitly challenges Coggiolas


positive assessment of the Cuban Trotskyists United Front tactic.(49) Soler argues that
like the Partido Comunista de Cuba (PCC), the Trotskyists pursued a policy of
promoting trade union unity only on the basis that their particular leadership was
recognised in advance.(50)

Solers work contains valuable and extensive information on the social and geographic
composition of the PBL, particularly in the province of Oriente.(51) However, the
emphasis he attaches to this descriptive analysis is also the major limitation of his work.
Soler makes little mention of the fundamental political issues at stake in the debates in
the communist milieu, and no central political argument is traced and highlighted
through successive chapters. Solers inventory-like account ultimately lacks the scope
and incisiveness which Brou brings to the subject.

Apart from the methodological limitations, Solers work also unsurprisingly suffers
from reflecting, consciously or unconsciously, the prejudices of its authors milieu.
Most importantly, he falls victim to a common failing of repeating many of the old
Stalinist fictions of Trotskyism.(52) In the first instance, Solers theoretical
understanding of the theory of Permanent Revolution and the essence of Lenins
thought relies more on the vulgar interpretations of a Soviet authority on the subject,
Mikhail Basmanov, than on the basic writings of Lenin, Trotsky and the early
Comintern. He asserts that Trotskys supposedly dogmatic interpretation of Marx never
understood the contributions of Lenin on an alleged need for a democratic, anti-
imperialist stage in the revolution in colonies and semi-colonies(53) and, further, that
Trotsky did not understand the Leninist conception of the United Front and the Anti-
Imperialist United Front tactics.(54) However, in failing to develop a discussion of
these alleged differences and in not addressing the crucial question of the Trotskyists
attitude to the relationship between the democratic and socialist revolution, Soler only
comprehensively succeeds in demonstrating that he himself has not grasped the essence
of Trotskys thought on the revolutionary process in the colonial and semi-colonial
countries.

Soler furthermore advances tenuous evidence to support his conclusion that the
Trotskyists were sectarian. In his summary article, the only evidence he cites for such a
claim is a quotation from the OCC which states that the question of trade union unity
entailed a relentless struggle against the trade union policy of the PCC and reformists
alike. Soler, also confusingly, accuses the Trotskyists of being sectarian on the basis
that they attempted to create a revolutionary vanguard party,(55) a fundamental tenet of
Lenins thought. Indeed, given Solers assertion that the PCC was sectarian during the
period under investigation,(56) together with the general understanding that the
accusations of sectarianism and divisionism in Cuba encompass a variety of political
crimes,(57) Solers work does not leave the reader with a clear impression of what
distinguished the dissident from the official pro-Moscow communists.

Solers work is also deficient in that it perpetuates the idea that the Trotskyist
movement in Cuba was insignificant after 1935, only having a presence in Guantnamo
before totally disappearing at the beginning of the 1950s.(58) The continued existence
of a Trotskyist organisation in the 1960s has been established by Alexander,(59) whose
work is indeed cited by Soler.(60) While, then, Solers research incorporates a degree of
misrepresentation of key aspects of Trotskyisms organisational and theoretical
22

development in Cuba, albeit generally unintentional, it also embodies elements of a


more conscious attempt at falsification. In sum, Soler subordinates scientific statement
to political imperatives. His answers are seemingly decided in advance of his research
project and apparently preclude any questions. His conclusions are plainly not
supported by the evidence and he does not dwell on exploring the political content of
the concepts of either sectarian or Trotskyism, appearing to accept that they are
simple synonyms. Most revealing of the poverty of Solers method is that from the
primary source material he himself cites the allegation of sectarianism is shown to be
largely baseless while he leaves unanswered the seemingly more astute accusation of
opportunism.(61)

While my central argument challenges the analyses of Alexander, Brou and Soler, I
also address some of the deficiencies in the earlier works by, first of all, studying Cuban
Trotskyism in its national and international context. By placing the ideas and activities
of Trotskyists in Cuba in their broad social and political context, this study allows one
to consider Cuban Trotskyism as a current which was attempting to address global
problems with definite Cuban peculiarities. This approach rejects Alexanders crude
method of investigation which vaguely defines an apparently healthy Trotskyist
orthodoxy so that the degree of deviation of the ideas and programmes of a
particular isolated national current could be measured.

This study also uses many new sources which have not previously been considered in
either the academic or more overtly partisan debates. While the opening contextual
chapters largely draw on under-utilised primary source material as well as secondary
sources, the core chapters of this thesis are enriched by the quantity and quality of the
hitherto unutilised primary source materials from both Cuba and further afield. These
new sources include a wide range of party press and unpublished internal materials from
both Trotskyist and pro-Moscow communist parties, the oral and written testimonies of
participants, as well as non-Cuban documents already known on the Left.

Furthermore, I minimise the problem of constructing an argument on the basis of a


limited number of unreliable, if not thoroughly biased and distorted, oral testimonies
and memoirs by making much use of the range of written sources. First, by employing
oral testimonies primarily to corroborate written sources, this thesis avoids relying on
human memories which sometimes fade with the passing of time and/or could be
coloured by events in Cuba since 1959.(62) In those passages where I rely on an
unsupported oral testimony to underpin my argument, this is fundamentally the result of
difficulties in tracing other actors to corroborate the information independently and/or
problems in gaining access to sensitive archival sources in Cuba. This limitation is
particularly evident when I address certain aspects of the history of Cuban Trotskyism
in the post-1959 period. However, in general, my use of internal party documents
alongside oral testimonies also recognises that unpublished material and testimonies of
participants are often more revealing about the complex political issues and practical
responses at the rank and file level than the documents chosen for publication. As
Trotskyist and Soviet-backed communist parties have both demonstrated, political
activists are not immune to selective publishing as they attempt to present their
respective groups as united standard-bearers for a particular revolutionary tradition or
principle.(63)
23

1.3 Methodology and Structure

In approaching the subject of Trotskyism in Cuba, I recognise, as Marifeli Prez-Stable


has noted, that [i]ntellectual discourse on Cuba is rarely just about scholarship [....]
Indeed, the whole subject of Cuba has become a trinchera [battle-line].(64) Accepting
that the Cuban Revolution has heightened historys conversion into a real factor in
living politics, often making hostages out of those who are sympathetic to the
Revolution while revolutionising the counter-Revolutionary exiles in the U.S., it is my
contention that it would be illusory for me to harbour expectations of writing a history
as a neutral, impartial observer. As E. H. Carr has argued, the historian, like any
individual, is both the product and the conscious or unconscious spokesman of the
society to which he belongs(65) and, as such, is very much a political actor. However,
distinguishing the notion of objectivity from ideological neutrality, I argue that the
validity of my account of the history of Trotskyism in Cuba can be found in my
conscientious method of contrasting sources on the same subject one against the other,
so assessing in which direction the arrow of evidence is pointing, before presenting my
final analytical judgements. As Trotsky wrote in the Introduction to Volumes Two and
Three of his The History of the Russian Revolution:

[t]he proof of scientific objectivism is not to be sought in the eyes of the historian or
the tones of his voice, but in the inner logic of the narrative itself. If episodes,
testimonies, figures, quotations, fall in line with the general pointing of the needle of his
social analysis, then the reader has a most weighty guarantee of the scientific solidity of
his conclusions.(66)

I also accept that just as my personality and subjective viewpoint are undoubtedly
reflected in the issue I have selected and questions I pose, so also are the concepts I
employ in their study. In this thesis I use those terms and concepts derived from a
Marxist theoretical tradition. I take this path not only because I am addressing the
history of, an at least nominally, Marxist movement, but also because employed
appropriately, these concepts illuminate and clarify historical realities. In using Marxist
organising terms and concepts, then, I intrinsically accept that the society under analysis
was divided into social classes. While the concept of class has provoked a vast
industry of sociological debate, in establishing my own understanding I refer to G.E.M.
de Ste. Croixs definition which identifies a class as a group of people in a wider
community who share a common relationship to the conditions of production.(67) In the
case of the unevenly developed Cuban political economy during the period under
investigation, while not all individuals belonged exclusively to one class, this being
particularly true for the rural poor, membership of one class, either the peasantry or
working class, can fairly be said to have predominated.

Given that the term Stalinism is also often used casually, mostly as a term of abuse
these days, it is also my concern to establish a clear and consistent definition of this
political concept. For Trotsky, Trotskyism and Stalinism did not constitute two
purely personal factions in a struggle for power, but rather two distinct political
strategies. If the views advocated by Trotsky meant that a revolution in Russia could not
confine itself within the limits of a democratic revolution nor the borders of a single
country, so the Trotskyists argued that the Soviet Communist Party increasingly became
the instrument of the bureaucracy intent on abandoning the international revolutionary
socialist project. As such, Stalinists in the Soviet Union were considered by Trotskyists
24

to be those who reflected the conservative interests of the Soviet bureaucracy and who
supported the subordination of society to the Party-State. As Trotsky himself wrote,
Stalinism is above all else the automatic work of the impersonal apparatus on the
decline of the revolution.(68) Programmatic features of Stalinism include support for
the Soviet social-economic model characterised by a one-party state repressively
presiding over a society without any democratic workers organisations or independent
trade unions, and a commitment to a two-stage model for revolution in colonial and
semi-colonial countries. In studying the followers of Trotsky in Cuba I, too, use
Trotskys definition, extending it so as to incorporate all those who broadly supported a
political strategy which prioritised the national-centred policy demands of their local
official communist party apparatus.(69) While this definition rejects the understanding
that the so-called de-Stalinisation process in the post-1953 Soviet Union constituted a
thorough-going challenge to the ideological and programmatic tenets of Stalinism,(70) I
do accept that just as there was much diversity in the Trotskyist movement, various
Stalinist parties also displayed a number of specific traits. I therefore argue that while
the Soviet, Chinese and, indeed, Cuban variants of Stalinism displayed a number of
peculiar features, particularly in the 1960s, they were all characterised by a commitment
to the suppression of working class democracy and a two-stage revolutionary strategy.

Finally, I introduce definitions of the democratic and proletarian anti-imperialist


revolutions given the importance I attach to these concepts in my thesis. First, the
democratic anti-imperialist revolution has much in common with the classical bourgeois
revolution in terms of objectives. Most importantly, they share two inter-related goals,
the agrarian revolutionthe division and distribution to the peasants of the large estates
of landsand national independencethe struggle to create a relatively autonomous
area within the world market for the development of capitalist relations of production
and the expansion of the national bourgeoisie. The democratic anti-imperialist and
classical bourgeois revolutions can be said to differ only to the extent that the revolution
in the colonial and semi-colonial countries stresses the struggle for national
independence via the overthrow of imperialist domination. It is for this reason that I
append the anti-imperialist epithet.

A proletarian anti-imperialist revolution, on the other hand, is not only carried out
against feudal and imperialist interests, but also against those of the national bourgeoisie
in that it involves the elimination of capitalist relations of production and the building of
working class bodies of power to crush bourgeois political influence. Apart from their
programmes and ultimate objectives, the proletarian and democratic revolutions also
differ in terms of the revolutionary agent. While democratic revolutions tend to draw
into them the mass of workers and peasants alongside or behind the bourgeoisie, the
principal executor of the proletarian revolution must necessarily be the working class.
(71)

In addition to offering a critique of past contributions to the chosen field of study, it is


also my task to outline the limitations of my efforts. Although, therefore, this thesis
claims to be original, it does not, of course, claim to be wholly exhaustive in terms of
the primary sources which I have gathered. While I have aimed to collect as much of the
scattered primary source material as possible, and have indeed assembled a far more
complete framework than anyone else on the subject to date, constraints of time and
money have imposed some limitations. The most notable omissions relate to additional
materials held at the Russian Centre for the Preservation and Study of Contemporary
25

Historical Documents (RTsKhIDNI) in Moscow.(72) As such, although this thesis is an


extensive initial attempt at understanding the organisational and theoretical evolution of
Trotskyism in Cuba, it is also the basis for subsequent work using sources now available
in Moscow. While I have had access to a number of the documents held at the
RTsKhIDNI, their thorough exploration is an intended avenue for future enquiry.(73)

This study has also been conditioned by the intellectual and social climate in Cuba.
While this thesis has been enriched by the inclusion of evidence gained from consulting
archival sources in Cuba, there were difficulties of access to both state and personal
archives in Cuba. Although Soler generously allowed me access to primary source
material he had collected in Oriente, including some of his interview transcripts, the
same cannot be said for some of those whom I interviewed or some of the archives I
contacted. This limitation, outside my control, means that in the future some interesting
revelations may emerge from files currently held in restricted or closed Cuban archives.

This thesis is divided into two inter-related parts. Part One (Chapters Two and Three)
outlines the international and national context to the development of Trotskyism in
Cuba, so allowing general patterns, as well as any event, to be more fully understood
with all its peculiarities illuminated. In this part, importance is attached not only to
developments within the international, especially Latin American, official communist
movement and the Cuban Communist Party, but also to an appreciation of the traditions
and positions of anarcho-syndicalism and the national liberation movement in Cuba.

Part Two (Chapters Four to Seven) covers the evolution of Trotskyism in Cuba in terms
of its ideas, organisation and activities. Beginning by analysing the origins of this
dissident current in the ranks of the Cuban Communist Party, these chapters focus on
the fundamental theoretical positions defended by the Cuban Trotskyists in an
environment dominated by the incompleteness of the democratic revolution. Chapter
Seven examines the Trotskyists programmatic differences with the government of the,
at least nominally, communist Cuban government in the 1960s which led to the
Trotskyist partys subsequent suppression.

FOOTNOTES
1. Although the Trotskyist groups which existed in the 1940s and then in the 1960s
used the names the POR and the POR(T) interchangeably in various published
materials, I use the name POR throughout to denote the group which existed in the
1940s and POR(T) to denote the group which existed in the 1960s. This rigidity
minimises confusion and reflects the name in predominant use during each period.
(Back to text)
2. Hodges draws the useful distinction between two broad tendencies, the proletarian
and the national liberation, within Latin American Trotskyism. He posits that the
national liberation tendency emphasised the semi-colonial status of Latin American
countries, whereas the proletarian tendency stressed the completion of the
bourgeois democratic revolution and the direct struggle for socialism. Hodges, DC,
The Latin American Revolution: Politics and Strategy from Apro-Marxism to
Guevarism, New York, William Morrow and Co., 1974, pp. 81-83. (Back to text)
3. See pp. 19-21 for a discussion of the concept of Stalinism. (Back to text)
4. The Communist or Third International is hereafter referred to as the Comintern. The
Cominterns Second Period (1924-28) orientation included the policy of promoting
26

broad class fronts with perceived progressive non-proletarian parties. See Chapter
Two for further explanation of this periodisation. (Back to text)
5. These assessments range from the renovated reformism presented in Castaeda, JG,
Utopia Unarmed: The Latin American Left after the Cold War, New York,
Vintage Books, 1994; and McCaughan, EJ, Reinventing Revolution: The
Renovation of Left Discourse in Cuba and Mexico, Boulder: CO, Westview Press,
1997, to the attempts by the So Paulo Forum to re-structure a multi-class bloc for
the socialist project. (Back to text)
6. Pearlman, M (ed.), The Heroic and Creative Meaning of Socialism: Selected
Essays of Jos Carlos Maritegui, New Jersey, Humanities Press, 1996, p. xxii.
(Back to text)
7. See, for example, the commentary by Mary-Alice Waters in Ches Proletarian
Legacy and Cubas Rectification Process, New International (New York), No. 8,
1991, pp. 15-29. (Back to text)
8. ["Una de las debilidades del trotskismo latinoamericano consiste en que ha perdido
su propia tradicin, no conoce su historia, lo que lo obliga muchas veces, a repetir
viejos errores."] (My translation, GT.) Cited in Coggiola, O, Historia del
Trotskismo Argentino (1929-1960), Buenos Aires, Centro Editor de Amrica
Latina, 1985, p. 11 from Lora, G, Historia del POR, La Paz, Ediciones Isla, 1978, p.
55. (Back to text)
9. Hobsbawm, E, On History, London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1997, p.
89. (Back to text)
10. Upham, MR, The History of British Trotskyism to 1949, PhD Thesis, University
of Hull, 1980, p. iii. (Back to text)
11. Trotskyism Versus Revisionism: A Documented History, Vols 1-6, London, New
Park Publications, 1974-75. (Back to text)
12. Frank, P, The Fourth International: The Long March of the Trotskyists,
London, Ink Links, 1979. (Back to text)
13. North, D, The Heritage We Defend: A Contribution to the History of the Fourth
International, Detroit: MI, Labor Publications, 1988. (Back to text)
14. Norths account takes refuge in levelling fiery attacks against so-called revisionists
while locating the continuity of Marxism, after successive splits in the Trotskyist
movement, in the ever decreasing circles of activists who were members of the
group to which he belonged. (Back to text)
15. Breitman, G (et al., eds), Writings of Leon Trotsky (1929-1940), New York,
Pathfinder Press, 1972-80. (Back to text)
16. Trotsky, LD, Escritos Latinoamericanos, Buenos Aires, Centro de Estudios,
Investigaciones y Publicaciones Len Trotsky, 1999. (Back to text)
17. Reisner, W (ed.), Documents of the Fourth International: The Formative Years
(1933-1940), New York, Pathfinder Press, 1973. (Back to text)
18. In terms of the study of Trotskyism in the colonial and semi-colonial world,
Revolutionary History has dedicated issues to the history of Trotskyism in Sri Lanka
(Vol. 6, No. 4, 1997.) and Bolivia (Vol. 4, No. 3, Summer 1992.). Other important
Trotskyist movements in colonial and semi-colonial countries, namely those in
Argentina, Vietnam and China, have been charted in Coggiola, O, Historia del
Trotskismo Argentino, Vols 1 (1929-1960) and 2 (1960-1985), Buenos Aires,
Centro Editor de Amrica Latina, 1985-86; and Van, N, Revolutionaries They
Could Not Break: The Fight for the Fourth International in Indochina, 1930-
1945, London, Index Books, 1995; and Benton, G, Chinas Urban
27

Revolutionaries: Explorations in the History of Chinese Trotskyism, 1921-1952,


New Jersey, Humanities Press, 1996. (Back to text)
19. Alexander, RJ, International Trotskyism, 1929-1985: A Documented Analysis of
the Movement, Durham: NC, Duke University Press, 1991. (Back to text)
20. Richardson, A, Hirson, B, and Crawford, T, Review of Alexander, RJ, International
Trotskyism, 1929-1985, Revolutionary History (London), Vol. 4, No. 4, Spring
1993, p. 170. (Back to text)
21. Alexander, RJ, Trotskyism in Latin America, Stanford: CA, Hoover Institution
Press, 1973. (Back to text)
22. Ibid, p. ix. (Back to text)
23. Ibid, p. 113. (Back to text)
24. Ibid, p. 117. (Back to text)
25. Ibid, p. 116. (Back to text)
26. See ibid, pp. 215-235. The short section in Alexander, RJ, (1991), op cit, pp. 228-
231 is no more than a summary of his earlier work from 1973. (Back to text)
27. Alexander, RJ, (1973), op cit, p. 217. (Back to text)
28. Until recently, published literature accepted that Maurn and the BOC were best
known for their advocacy of the triple front in which proletarian, agrarian and
national liberation movements would unite in a struggle for a democratic socialist
revolution. Maurn has also been remembered for, at one point, arguing that it was
necessary not only to win over the existing national liberation movement, but also to
participate in its formation where it did not already exist. See Pags, P, Andreu Nin:
Su Evolucin Poltica (1911-1937), Bilbao, ZERO, 1975, pp. 161-162; and Pags,
P, El Movimiento Trotskista en Espaa (1930-1935), Barcelona, Ediciones
Pennsula, 1977, pp. 238-253. (Back to text)
29. ["la incarnacin del pequeoburgus revolucionario"](My translation, GT.) Cited in
Durgan, AC, B.O.C. 1930-1936: El Bloque Obrero y Campesino, Barcelona,
Laertes, 1996, p. 435. (Back to text)
30. Ibid, p. 334. (Back to text)
31. Ibid, p. 525. (Back to text)
32. Charles Simen Ramrez, for example, had an evident interest in diminishing the
revolutionary communist content of the PBL and his own role in the Cuban
Trotskyist movement. At the time of giving his interview to Alexander he was a
Cuban exile apparently trying to regroup various ex-Autnticos in a social
democratic anti-Castro group in the United States. While Simen largely concurs
with Alexanders Maurinista assessment of the theoretical and organisational
development of the Cuban Trotskyists in the 1930s, he is also rather modest about
his own activities in the Trotskyist milieu. When describing his participation and
role in the movement, he claims that he left the PBL in 1934. (Manuscript of the
interview given by Charles Simen to R.J. Alexander, Guttenberg: NJ, 12 April
1970. (RJA.)) However, primary source evidence demonstrates that he was active in
the Cuban Trotskyist party until the late 1930s and that after the sickness which
overtook Gastn Medina Escobar, the General Secretary of the PBL in 1935-36, it
was Simen himself who took over the General Secretaryship of the party.
Interview given by Idalberto Ferrera Acosta, Mario Medina Escobar and
Francisco Medina Escobar to Gary Tennant, Havana, 30 July 1997; and Boletn
Interior del Partido Obrero Revolucionario, Year 1, No. 1, March 1946, p. 5.
(SWP(US); and HI: SWP Collection, Box 31, Folder 12.); and various letters held at
the Hoover Institution which are either signed by Simen or refer to his continued
28

PBL commitment. (HI: SWP Collection, Box 30, Folders 27 and 28.) (Back to text)
33. Brou, P, Le Mouvement Trotskyste en Amrique Latine jusquen 1940, Cahiers
Lon Trotsky (Paris), No. 11, September 1982, pp. 13-30. (Back to text)
34. Coggiola, O, El Trotskismo en Amrica Latina, Buenos Aires, Ediciones Magenta,
1993, pp. 20-22, 46-49. Another short article largely based on these an other
secondary sources has highlighted the anti-Stalinist nature of the Cuban Trotskyists.
Estefana Aulet, CM, El Trotskismo: Vida y Muerte de una Alternativa Obrera No
Estalinista, Cuba Nuestra (Stockholm), No. 6, October 1996, pp. 6-9. A Spanish
translation of a preliminary draft of my work on Trotskyism in Cuba based on a
limited range of documents and which was intended to serve as evidence that I was
beginning to investigate the subject appeared as Tennant, G, Una Historia del
Trotskismo Cubano (1. Parte), En Defensa del Marxismo (Buenos Aires), Year 5,
No. 14, September 1996, pp. 46-60; and Tennant, G, Una Historia del Trotskismo
Cubano (2. Parte), En Defensa del Marxismo (Buenos Aires), Year 6, No. 15,
December 1996, pp. 65-80. The argument of the present thesis differs from these
preliminary articles in its central propositions, the structure, the length and the range
of sources. (Back to text)
35. Brou, P, op cit, p. 19. (Back to text)
36. Ibid, p. 23. (Back to text)
37. Coggiola, O, (1993), op cit, p. 14. The ILO was the forerunner of the Fourth
International. The ILO adopted the name the International Communist League in
September 1933 and then the Movement for the Fourth International in July 1936
before its constituent sections founded the Fourth International in September 1938.
See Appendix A for a flow diagram tracing the major organisational developments
in the international Trotskyist movement. (Back to text)
38. Coggiola, O, (1993), op cit, p. 21. (Back to text)
39. Ibid, p. 47. (Back to text)
40. Letter from Angel Fanjul to Gary Tennant, Buenos Aires, 8 October 1997, p. 3.
(Back to text)
41. Notable exceptions which do not impose a linear pattern on historical development
with all social forces converging on a supposed inevitable present day reality include
the work of Jorge Ibarra Cuesta, Olga Cabrera Garca and Carlos del Toro Gonzlez.
Their studies lend some credibility to Cuban historiography. (Back to text)
42. See, for example, Soto, L, La Revolucin del 33, Vol. 3, Havana, Editorial Pueblo y
Educacin, 1985, pp. 182-187. Others repeat anecdotal appreciations lifted from the
official communist press without a critical, sceptical eye. See, for example,
Gonzlez Carbajal, L, El Ala Izquierda Estudiantil y Su poca, Havana, Editorial
de Ciencias Sociales, 1974, pp. 79-80. (Back to text)
43. Having passed through the OCC and PBL on his way from the official communist
party to the nationalist-reformist Autntico trade union organisations in the early
1930s, Mujal led the Autntico trade union opposition to the communist party-
controlled trade union centre in the first half of the 1940s. During the Batista
dictatorship in the 1950s he was the leader of the subservient national labour
confederation. Having amassed a personal fortune estimated in the millions of
dollars, Mujal fled the country after the 1959 Revolution. (Back to text)
44. Instituto de Historia del Movimiento Comunista y de la Revolucin Socialista de
Cuba (ed.), Historia del Movimiento Obrero Cubano, 1865-1958, Vol. 2, Havana,
Editora Poltica, 1985, pp. 90, 112, 129-130. (Back to text)
45. ["Eusebio Mujal y otros escicionistas"](My translation, GT.) Instituto de Historia del
29

Movimiento Comunista y de la Revolucin Socialista de Cuba (ed.), Historia del


Movimiento Obrero Cubano, 1865-1958, Vol. 1, Havana, Editora Poltica, 1985, p.
305. (Back to text)
46. All references to this study, hereafter, are to the draft of Soler Martnez, RR, El
Trotskismo en la Revolucin del 30, PhD Thesis, Universidad de Oriente, Santiago
de Cuba, 1997 which Soler kindly allowed me to read before successfully defending
it in Havana on 2 July 1997. (Back to text)
47. Ibid, p. 1. (Back to text)
48. Ibid, pp. 10-11, 138, 141. (Back to text)
49. Soler Martnez, R, Los Orgenes del Trotskismo en Cuba: Los Primeros Trotskistas
Cubanos, En Defensa del Marxismo (Buenos Aires), Year 7, No. 20, May 1998,
pp. 54-70. (Back to text)
50. Ibid, pp. 65-66. (Back to text)
51. Given the subject of this thesis, I refer to the pre-1976 provincial divisions of the
Cuban national territory. See the map of Cuba in Appendix B for a guide to the
provinces and principal cities which I refer to in this thesis. (Back to text)
52. While Soler does set down in writing everything he thinks relevant, his work, as with
any other, reflects to some extent its authors own subjective prejudices as well as
those of his social milieu. In this respect, it should be noted his investigation was
conducted in an environment which prohibits the existence of a Trotskyist group or
the public dissemination of Trotskyist ideas. (Back to text)
53. This assertion, of course, is not limited to those authors living and working in
societies dominated by the restrictions of Stalinism. See, for example, the work of
Harris, RL, Marxism, Socialism and Democracy in Latin America, Boulder: CO,
Westview Press, 1992. Among the points which constitute the framework for his
discussion is the argument that Lenin shared Stalins concept of a two-stage
revolutionary process in which a distinct democratic revolution preceded the
socialist revolution. Unsurprisingly, Richard Harris also attributes the idea that it is
possible to build socialism in one country to Lenin. Ibid, p. 47. (Back to text)
54. Soler Martnez, RR, (1997), op cit, p. 33. (Back to text)
55. Soler Martnez, R, (1998), op cit, pp. 65-66. (Back to text)
56. See, for example, ibid, p. 65. (Back to text)
57. While, as Jorge Castaeda has argued, the accusation of sectarianism in Cuba
encompasses a variety of political crimes (Castaeda, JG, Compaero: The Life
and Death of Che Guevara, London, Bloomsbury, 1997, p. 211.), the label of
divisionism is largely used to describe anyone or any group who opposed the line
of the supposedly well-intentioned official Cuban communist party of the time.
Divisionism, for example, was used to characterise those in the labour movement
who opposed the class collaborationist policy of the Moscow-orientated communists
in the deep cross-class alliance the latter developed with Fulgencio Batista in the
Coalicin Social Democrtica in the early 1940s. See Instituto de Historia....,
Historia del Movimiento Obrero Cubano, 1865-1958 (ed.), Vol. 2, op cit, p. 90.
(Back to text)
58. Soler Martnez, RR, (1997), op cit, p. 134. (Back to text)
59. Alexander, RJ, (1973), op cit, pp. 226-229. (Back to text)
60. See, for example, Soler Martnez, RR, (1997), op cit, p. 90. (Back to text)
61. As Max Shachtman wrote of Stalinists, they have the Catholics attitude toward
their dogmas: they assume what is to be proved; their arbitrary conclusions are
30

presented as their premises; their statement of the problem is at the same time their
answer". Shachtman, M, Lenin and Rosa Luxemburg, What Next? (London), No.
3, 1997, p. 37. Soler repeats this methodological approach in his article Soler
Martnez, R, Las Luchas Internas en el Partido Comunista de la URSS despus de
Lenin. Surgimiento del Trotskismo, Santiago (Santiago de Cuba), Nos 81-82, 1996-
97, pp. 59-88. Revealing his personal hostility towards Trotskyism, Soler manages to
conclude without presenting a shred of evidence that Trotskyism through its
passionate and sometimes violent methods of argument contributed to the collapse of
the Soviet Union by giving the enemies of socialism arguments with which they
could fight the USSR. (Back to text)
62. As described on page 9 note 32, one failing of Alexanders study is its apparent
over-reliance on the oral testimony of Simen. As a political actor in the 1970s when
the interview was given, Simen had an evident interest in minimising the
revolutionary socialist content of the PBL as well as his own role in the development
of Trotskyism in Cuba. (Back to text)
63. As Adolfo Gilly has noted, one universal problem for the historian listening to
movements of the oppressed is that it is usually only the highest level, that is, the
leaders of these movements, that write and speak publicly and so who can be
considered. Gilly, A, La Historia como Crtica o como Discurso del Poder, In:
Pereyra, C (et al.), Historia Para Qu?, Mexico D.F., Siglo Veintiuno Editores,
1981, p. 219. (Back to text)
64. Prez-Stable, M, The Field of Cuban Studies, Latin American Research Review,
Vol. 26, No. 1, 1991, pp. 239-240. As Trotsky wrote in another context, [h]istory
here merges directly with living politics. Trotsky, LD, The Revolution Betrayed:
What is the Soviet Union and Where is it Going?, New York, Pathfinder Press,
1972, p. 3. (Back to text)
65. Carr, EH, What Is History?, Harmondsworth, Penguin Books, 1990, p. 35. (Back to
text)
66. Trotsky, LD, The History of the Russian Revolution, Vol. 2, London, Sphere
Books, 1967, p. 11. (Back to text)
67. De Ste. Croix, GEM, The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World, London,
Gerald Duckworth, 1981, pp. 43-44. (Back to text)
68. Trotsky, LD, My Life: An Attempt at an Autobiography, Harmondsworth,
Penguin Books, 1975, p. 528. While Trotsky referred to the Stalinist Soviet state as
parasitic and indeed also used the term totalitarian in the late 1930s, he essentially
viewed Stalinism as a distinct political ideology forged in the midst of social conflict
as part of the development of the Soviet state. To this extent he was a pioneer,
however atypical, of the social historiographical school of Soviet studies which
from the 1960s increasingly challenged the totalitarian model. The totalitarian
approach argues that Stalinism is an absolutist system formed by communist
ideology which is kept in place by widespread terror. Stalin himself is central to this
interpretation. In contrast, although the broad social historiographical school
generally tends to diminish the underlying ideological and political characteristics of
Stalinism, it does contend that Stalinism is a social phenomenon which emanates
from below as well as from above. The Terror is regarded not as an irrational,
defining feature but as an expression of social antagonisms in Soviet society. See
Tucker, RC (ed.), Stalinism: Essays in Historical Interpretation, New York,
W.W. Norton, 1977 for a variety of social historiographical interpretations which
challenge the totalitarian model. (Back to text)
31

69. Throughout this thesis I employ the term official to distinguish the Stalinist parties
from the dissident Trotskyist ones. As such, the epithet official denotes those
communist parties which were affiliated to the Comintern up until 1943 and argued
against the opposition around Trotsky. In the post-Comintern period, I use the term
official to refer to those parties which sought to harmonise their policy with that of
the leaders of the Soviet Union. (Back to text)
70. Authors who argue that Stalinism is not an appropriate term to describe the Soviet
Union in the post-1953 period generally do so on the basis that Stalinisms principal
defining feature, Stalin himself, had passed away. See, for example, Gill, G,
Stalinism, Basingstoke, Macmillan Press, 1998. In rejecting this argument, I argue
that Stalinism is not primarily defined by particular aspects of Stalins personal
heritage or the quantity of terror imposed on the working class. As stated, it is
instead a political strategy defined by underlying ideological and programmatic
features. See Service, R, A History of Twentieth-Century Russia, London,
Penguin Books, 1997, pp. 331-355 for a description of how the process of de-
Stalinisation was essentially a reform programme which sought to preserve and
compound the Soviet order. See also Wood, A, Stalin and Stalinism, London,
Routledge, 1990, pp. 62-64. (Back to text)
71. The differences between the bourgeois and proletarian revolutions and their
significance for the anti-imperialist struggle are discussed in Slaughter, C, Marx
and Marxism: An Introduction, London, Longman, 1985, pp. 46-50. Karl Marx
also clearly distinguished between the proletarian and democratic revolution in
Marx, K, On the Polish Question, Karl Marx and Frederick Engels Collected
Works, Vol. 6, London, Lawrence and Wishart, 1976, pp. 545-549. (Back to text)
72. Of particular interest are the following fond and opis numbers: f.495, op.79 and
f.495, op.101 which cover the Latin American Commission of the Executive
Committee of the Comintern (1926-35); f.503, op.1 which deals with South America
(1925-35); f.500, op.1 which deals with the Caribbean Office (1931-35); f.495,
op.108 which deals with the Mexican Communist Party (1919-40); and f.495, op.105
which deals with the Cuban Communist Party (1919-38). (Back to text)
73. For an introductory account of the invaluable materials held in the RTsKhIDNI for
researchers in the field of communism in Latin America see Ching, E, A Central
Americanist in Russias Comintern Archive, Latin American Labor News, No. 14,
1996, pp. 7, 10; and Spenser-Grollov, D, Los Archivos de la Internacional
Comunista en Mosc, Memoria (Mexico D.F.), No. 74, 1995, pp. 80-83. (Back to
text)
32

PART I
The International And National Context

Chapter Two

Trotskyism and Official Communism in Latin


America, 1919-1965
This chapter outlines the origins and theoretical development of Trotskyism up until
1965, with particular reference to Trotskys and Trotskyists understanding of the
strategy revolutionaries should adopt in the struggle for power in the colonial and semi-
colonial countries. I argue that although Trotsky took the Comintern to task from the
mid-1920s over the issue of the necessary proletarian nature of the anti-imperialist
revolution and the need for the working class to maintain its political independence in
the countries with a belated bourgeois development, the Latin American Trotskyist
groups generally diluted this formula and made a series of concessions to the strategy of
official communism. While in the 1930s and 40s these concessions led to the
development of what can be termed distinct national liberation and proletarian
tendencies within Latin American Trotskyism, I argue that by the 1950s and 60s the
concessions had developed to the extent that international Trotskyism was generally
advocating a strategy which more explicitly incorporated the basic features of the so-
called Second and Third Period policies of the Comintern. Developing this argument
provides the international context in terms of the principal theoretical issues and
chronological markers for the subsequent discussion of the development of Trotskyism
in Cuba.

This chapter begins with an elaboration of Trotskys theory of Permanent Revolution


and an analysis of how this shaped his approach to the struggle for socialism. After
contrasting Trotskys strategy for revolution with that of the changing policy of the
Comintern from the mid-1920s, I review Trotskys specific views on the problem of
revolution in Latin America. A final section traces the organisational development of
Trotskyism in Latin America and outlines the strategies which the Latin American
Trotskyists broadly advocated up to 1965.

2.1 The Theory of Permanent Revolution and the Origins of


Trotskyism

This section sets out the defining tenets of Trotskys thought as embodied in the theory
of Permanent Revolution and charts the principal theoretical disputes between official
communism and the dissident Trotskyist movement in the 1920s and 30s. I also outline
the development of a distinct international Trotskyist organisation culminating in the
founding of the Fourth International in 1938 as a response to the official communists
abandonment of the theory and strategy which underpinned the Russian October
Revolution.
33

Trotskys understanding of the nature of the revolution in colonial and semi-colonial


countries and, consequently, his conception of the correct strategy and tactics to be
applied is derived from his theory of Permanent Revolution. This theory, elaborated by
Trotsky in 1905, rests on three inter-connected propositions.(1) First, that despite the
relative historical backwardness of Russia at the time, a proletarian revolution may take
place sooner there than in any advanced country. Second, that this proletarian revolution
does not follow on after the completion of a bourgeois democratic revolution. Trotsky
instead argued that democracy and national emancipation can only be attained in a
country with a belated bourgeois development via a struggle in which the working class,
in alliance with the peasantry and urban petty bourgeoisie, makes deep inroads into the
rights of bourgeois property.(2) For Trotsky, no separate or complete bourgeois
democratic stage was considered possible. As John Lister described, the democratic and
socialist revolutions needed to be interlinked and combined if either was to
succeed.(3) The revolution, therefore, could only be realised through an irreconcilable
struggle against the influence of the national bourgeoisie and would either be
proletarian in character or would be defeated. It can be said to be permanent in the
sense that it makes no compromise with any single form of class rule, which does not
stop at the democratic stage, which goes over to socialist measures and to war against
reaction from without; that is, a revolution whose every successive stage is rooted in the
preceding one and which can end only in the complete liquidation of class society.(4)
The third essential aspect of the theory of Permanent Revolution is the necessary
international character of the revolution and the insistence that socialism can only be
constructed on an international scale.

Underlying these three propositions was Trotskys argument that however uneven the
development across and within countries, all supposedly national units were
subordinated to the world economy in the epoch of imperialism.(5) He argued that
historically backward countries combined modern and archaic features in all spheres of
life, and that compelled to adopt some of the latest methods of organisation and
technique, backward countries leapt over intermediate stages of development rather than
repeat the stages which the first capitalist countries had passed through.(6) This
produced what Trotsky described as the law of combined development, the drawing
together of the different stages of the journey, a combining of separate steps, an
amalgam of archaic with more contemporary forms".(7) Isaac Deutscher presented an
illuminating synthesis of Trotskys theory of Permanent Revolution and the universality
of the laws which underpinned it when he wrote:

Trotskys theory is in truth a profound and comprehensive conception in which all


overturns that the world has been undergoing (in this late capitalist era) are represented
as interconnected and interdependent parts of a single revolutionary process. To put it in
its broadest terms, the social upheaval of our century is seen by Trotsky as global in
scope and character, even though it proceeds on various levels of civilization and in the
most diverse social structures, and even though its various phases are separated from
one another in time and space.(8)

The theory of Permanent Revolution had deep roots in Marxist thought prior to
Trotskys elaboration. Karl Marxs analysis of the relationship between bourgeois
democratic revolutions and the working class movement during the 1848 revolutionary
wave in Europe embodied the three fundamental themes of Permanent Revolution.(9)
That is, he stressed 1) the uninterrupted development of the working class-led
34

revolution, 2) the struggle for openly socialist measures, and 3) the revolutions
necessary international character.(10) Lenin also highlighted the basic ideas of the
theory of Permanent Revolution in the Russian context with the publication of his The
April Theses. In re-appraising the road to power, Lenin insisted on the necessity of the
struggle for the dictatorship of the proletariat as opposed to the democratic dictatorship
of the proletariat and peasantry.(11)

The course which the Russian Revolution subsequently followed demonstrated the
practical relevance of the theory of Permanent Revolution. That is, the immediate
bourgeois democratic tasks were only achieved through an anti-capitalist struggle led by
the working class. Similarly, the Bolsheviks resolutely defended the political
independence of the working class while seeking to form a practical alliance with the
poor peasantry on the basis of a struggle against the landlords and capitalists.(12)
However, the theory as a complete entity was not immediately taken up within the
Comintern to explicitly underpin a strategy for revolution on an international scale.
While its basic themes registered in the thought of various Bolshevik leaders,(13) the
theory as a well-defined guide to revolutionary action became rather obscured in the
immediate debate over securing breathing space for the new Soviet Republic and the
struggle for revolution in Europe.(14)

The Cominterns first attempt to interpret the situation in the colonial world at its
Second Congress in 1920 produced a conflict over the tactics communist parties,
committed to both national liberation and socialism, should adopt with regard to the
bourgeois democratic national movement whose commitment to any social demands
was rather more limited. While the Cominterns discussions resulted in the explicit
rejection of any possible merger of communist forces with those of bourgeois
democratic movements in the colonial and semi-colonial countries,(15) the final agreed
resolution was sufficiently ambiguous in its reference to supporting what it termed a
temporary alliance with bourgeois democracy(16) that the actual form and content of
any proposed alliance was left open to a significant degree of interpretation.

In 1922 the Fourth Congress of the Comintern returned to the issue of colonial
liberation, clarifying communist policy, at least in theory, by ruling out a specific
bourgeois democratic stage in the revolution in the colonial and semi-colonial countries.
Among other things, the resolution on the issue stated that [o]nly the Soviet form of
government is able to ensure the consistent execution of the peasant agrarian revolution.
[....] The objective tasks of the colonial revolution go beyond the limits of bourgeois
democracy if only because a decisive victory for this revolution is incompatible with the
rule of world imperialism.(17) The Fourth Congresss resolution which addressed the
specific tasks of the communist parties in the colonial and semi-colonial countries also
underlined the need for proletarian political independence. The key passages stated that
communists fight for the most radical possible solution of the tasks of a bourgeois-
democratic revolution, which aims at the conquest of political independence; and they
organize the working and peasant masses for the struggle for their special class
interests, and in doing so exploit all the contradictions in the nationalist bourgeois-
democratic camp.(18)

The discussions, though, also encompassed the issue of the character of any class
alliances in the colonial and semi-colonial countries, making reference to the concept of
the Anti-Imperialist United Front for the first time. While the resolution insisted on
35

the political independence of the workers movement before any temporary agreement
with the national bourgeoisie could be considered,(19) the implied goals of the Anti-
Imperialist United Front again left room for a degree of interpretation. Envisaging the
prospect of a protracted struggle with world imperialism, the Anti-Imperialist United
Front was explicitly compared with the proletarian United Front in the advanced
capitalist countries.(20) While the Anti-Imperialist United Front extended the United
Front concept so as to include disparate, non-proletarian forces, both tactics thereby
constituted parallel policies of joint action to expose the vacillations of those leaders
and parties which would ultimately betray the most radical revolutionary solution.

The issue of the objective of Anti-Imperialist United Front tactic later contributed to
defining the so-called national liberation and proletarian tendencies within Latin
American Trotskyism. In drawing an analogy between the Anti-Imperialist and
proletarian United Fronts in the semi-colonial and imperialist countries respectively, the
possibility that communist parties would ultimately be prepared to form anti-imperialist
governments with the forces of bourgeois nationalism was implicitly endorsed.
Although the Comintern viewed such a formation as a temporary phase in the process of
exposure in the wider the proletarian anti-imperialist revolution, as I argue in Section
2.4, the analogy was subsequently interpreted by the national liberation tendency in
Latin America as the theoretical justification for emphasising the slogans of and
struggle for national liberation. This one-sided emphasis meant that the national
liberation current within Latin American Trotskyism tended to view the goal of an
intermediate anti-imperialist government as a distinct stage in a de facto two-stage
revolutionary process.

While, then, the issue of the Anti-Imperialist United Front later became a cause for
disagreement among Trotskyists themselves, the Cominterns hesitations and
equivocations over the character of the Anti-Imperialist United Front in the 1920s was
one of the issues which defined Trotskys differences with the controlling centre around
Stalin. This conflict was brought to a head by events in China and the Cominterns
conception of the revolutionary process expressed through its directives to the Chinese
Communist Party from 1922. Under the influence of the Stalin-Zinoviev-Kamenev
troika in the post-1922 period, the need for an alliance with the national bourgeoisie in
the colonial and semi-colonial world was stressed without concern for the condition of
working class political independence. The terms of the alliance required the Chinese
Communist Partys strict political subordination to the Nationalist leaders and the
submersion of important sections of its membership into the Guomindang,(21) the
main Chinese bourgeois nationalist party.

This reorientation jettisoned the general Permanent Revolution perspectives of critical


tactical alliances with the national bourgeoisie and a struggle for the dictatorship of the
proletariat in alliance with the peasantry. In its stead, the Comintern resurrected the two-
stage theory of development, previously defended by the Russian Mensheviks in 1917,
which supported a perceived progressive anti-imperialist bloc in a limited initial
struggle for national independence. This abrupt turn was justified in theoretical terms by
characterising the Guomindang as a bloc of four classes (workers, peasants, urban petty
bourgeoisie and national bourgeoisie) and by arguing that at its present stage the
Chinese Revolution was bourgeois democratic in nature. As Michael Lwy has noted,
[a]lthough both the Second (1920) and the Fourth (1922) Congresses of the Comintern
had envisaged temporary alliances with bourgeois forces, the idea of a separate
36

bourgeois-democratic stage was a new departure".(22) The catastrophic results of that


strategy, the massacre of revolutionary workers and peasants at the hands of the
Guomindang itself, are well documented.(23)

While there is substantial evidence that there had been opposition from the Chinese
communists to the Cominterns directives on constructing a United Front in this manner
from the outset,(24) only in 1926-27 did Trotskys criticism develop into a coherent
challenge to the Cominterns conception of the nature of the Chinese Revolution and the
strategy that communists should adopt in all colonial and semi-colonial countries.(25)
By September 1927, Trotsky had explicitly adopted a Permanent Revolution
perspective, arguing for the dictatorship of the proletariat supported by the rural poor
which posed for itself the objective of resolving the tasks of the bourgeois democratic
revolution via a struggle to make socialist inroads into property relations. Contrasting
his Permanent Revolution perspective with that of the Cominterns two-stage approach,
Trotsky wrote, the genuine solution of the task of the bourgeois revolution in China is
possible only through the dictatorship of the proletariat, resting on the alliance of the
workers and peasants [....] But this revolution cannot come to a halt at the bourgeois
stage. It becomes converted into the permanent revolution, that is, it becomes a link of
the international socialist revolution and shares the destiny of the latter.(26) At the root
of his strategy was the understanding that [t]he Chinese bourgeois-democratic
revolution will go forward and be victorious either in the Soviet form or not at all.(27)

The political and theoretical disagreements which had erupted in Russia in late 1923
over the plight of the economy and the increasing internal bureaucratic structure of the
Russian party and state apparatuses, took on an international character as Trotsky
launched into a combined struggle against Stalins recently elaborated doctrine of
Socialism in One Country and the Cominterns policy outside the Soviet Union. For
Trotsky, the theory that a complete socialist society could be built in the Soviet Union
irrespective of events elsewhere proceeded from the fiction of isolated or independent
development. He argued that it stood at the centre of the process of subordinating the
world revolution to the needs of the Soviet bureaucracy and the Cominterns policy of
collaborating with the bourgeoisie outside the USSR in order to avert direct
intervention.(28)

Trotsky also developed a critique of the Cominterns so-called Second Period tactical
line. While schemas of strict periodisation undoubtedly neglect a degree of overlapping
between periods, the Second Period can broadly be said to have lasted from the Fifth
Congress of the Comintern in 1924 until 1928 during a period of perceived capitalist
stabilisation after the revolutionary upsurge of the post-World War One era had
subsided. Extending the policy applied in China, the Second Period tactics emphasised
developing United Fronts in both the colonial and advanced capitalist countries in
which the political independence of the communist parties became obscured in blocs
with other forces.

The essence of Trotskys general criticism of this Second Period line as applied in
countries with a belated bourgeois development was that it placed all stakes [....] upon
the general evaluation of the colonial bourgeoisie".(29) Trotsky criticised the Comintern
for advocating long term political blocs and not agreements for specific occasions
concluded for practical reasons and rigidly confined to practical aims.(30)
Emphasising that the struggle against capitalism should not be suspended even during a
37

brief period in which any agreement was in place, Trotsky underlined the need for
political and organisational independence for the communist parties and the importance
of not believing for an instant in the capacity or readiness of the bourgeoisie either to
lead a genuine struggle against imperialism or not to obstruct the workers and
peasants.(31)

Trotskyism as a political current increasingly took on organisational form as the


immediate prospects for revolution in Asia and Europe subsided in 1926-27. With the
supporters of Stalin accusing Trotsky of undermining the unity of the party and the
country(32) in 1927, Trotsky was first expelled from the party for factional activity
and then from the Soviet Union in early 1929. However, in the lead up to the Sixth
Congress of the Comintern in July-September 1928, the Stalin-Bukharin axis which had
been pivotal in denouncing Trotskyism began to collapse as the Comintern prepared
the ground for the Left turn of the so-called Third Period. As Bukharin distanced
himself from the view, increasingly winning favour, that social democracy was a form
of fascism, he was denounced as a Rightist, before being formally expelled from the
Executive Committee of the Comintern in July 1929.(33)

The defining slogan of the new Third Period tactical line of the Comintern was class
against class and was characterised by opposition to the United Front, the formation of
sectarian red or dual trade unions, and ultra-left hostility towards social democracy in
the advanced capitalist countries and national-liberation and reformist movements in the
colonial and semi-colonial world. In no space of time at all social democracy and
nationalist-reformist movements had passed from being the principal ally of the
communists to their principal enemy.(34) In Latin America, the ultra-radical Third
Period policy meant that the local communist parties viewed all governments, whether
of a bourgeois-reformist or limited anti-imperialist hue, as fascist, and all non-
communist workers organisations as the moderate wing of fascism. They were
accordingly denounced as social fascist.(35) Furthermore, with the onset of this turn in
late 1928 and 1929 tight ideological homogeneity was declared paramount(36) with
the result that those who could not adapt and accept the new line faced expulsion.

As the Comintern stood on the point of embarking on a new phase in its history in the
late 1920s, the international communist movement could be divided into three more or
less distinct currents around which different national groupings coalesced. There was
the centre which gathered around Stalin and constituted the majority. There was the
heterogeneous Right Opposition which found expression in Russia in Bukharins
critique of the Left turn in the Comintern. Thirdly, there was the Left Opposition
comprising those groups who were supportive of Trotsky.

The first international meeting of Trotskyist groups took place in Paris on 6 April 1930
when representatives of eight European opposition groups plus one from the U.S. met to
establish the International Left Opposition (ILO) to co-ordinate their work and
activities.(37) From the reports which the Trotskyists exchanged, 1929 was
characterised as a year in which there began a clarification and refinement of the
foundations of principle and with a demarcation from elements foreign to the Leninist
Opposition who had become associated with it by chance.(38) As Frank has
contended, during the 1924-29 period numerous heterogeneous opposition groups
sprang out from the newly formed communist parties, which themselves were
amalgams of diverse groups and origins, and during the period 1929-33 the principal
38

delimitation and formation of the majority of the sections of the Trotskyist movement
took place.(39)

Despite the expulsion of Trotskys supporters from their respective communist parties,
until 1933 the Trotskyists maintained the perspective of seeking to reform the
Comintern and regenerate its national sections.(40) This perspective held until Hitler
consolidated his power in Germany and the once-powerful German Communist Party,
according to Trotskys analysis, submitted without promoting any resistance. Trotsky
concluded that the German working class had not suffered a temporary loss or setback,
but a strategic historic defeat and that Stalinism had had its 4th August on a par with
that of the Second Internationals collapse into social chauvinism at the beginning of the
First World War.(41) By July 1933, Trotsky was arguing that the Comintern could no
longer defend the gains of the October Revolution and was dead for the purposes of
revolution. Dropping the reformist strategy of labouring to redirect the Comintern
from within, he proposed a new perspective of building a new revolutionary
international distinct from the official communist movement. As a first formal step
along this path, in September 1933, the ILO changed its name to become the
International Communist League (Bolshevik-Leninists) (ICL).(42)

By the end of 1934, after the defeat in Germany, a drastic reorientation was set in
motion in the Comintern. In 1934-35 the tactics of the Third Period were discarded and
replaced by the communist parties support for not only the formation of United Fronts
with social democratic parties, but Popular Fronts including those parties and
organisations of the liberal bourgeoisie.(43) This Popular Front Period involved the
communist parties in building cross-class alliances and coalition governments on the
narrow nationalist basis of opposition to fascism. To this extent, fascism for the official
communists played the role which the First World War had done for the reformist social
democratic parties in the Second International. While the communist parties moved
away from the ultra-radicalism of the red United Front policy at varying speeds, at the
Seventh and last Congress of the Comintern in 1935, the new Popular Front policy was
declared universally applicable regardless of local conditions".(44)

This Popular Front policy was most clearly demonstrated in Spain in the mid-1930s
where the Comintern subordinated the socialist revolution to the policy of pursuing a
broad, cross class anti-fascist alliance. While Trotsky insisted on the validity of the
Permanent Revolution strategy, arguing that that the war against fascism was
inseparable from the struggle for socialism,(45) the Stalinists drowned the voices of
independent working class organisations in a slanderous campaign, accusing them of
being saboteurs and fascist agents, and blood. Moreover, the Popular Front policy in
Spain became inexorably linked with the Moscow Trials and the mass exterminations in
the Soviet Union. Just as the Stalinists increasingly turned to repression and the murder
of those who argued that the Popular Front was choking the revolution in Spain, so the
Moscow Trials and the brutal repression in the Soviet Union liquidated most of the
remaining Old Bolshevik leaders, with the principal exception of Stalin. The Soviet
bureaucracy no longer required revolutionaries and their elimination acted as a prelude
to the dissolution of the Cominterns executive apparatus in mid-1943 as the Kremlin
sought to deepen the Soviet-U.S.-British alliance.(46)

It was against the background in the late 1930s of the consolidation of fascist regimes
and Stalinist repression, on the one hand, and mounting preparations for international
39

military conflict, on the other, that Trotsky and the Trotskyists insisted on the validity of
launching the Fourth International, a world vanguard party which they considered
would be capable of leading the working class to power. However, unlike the
Comintern in 1919, this new revolutionary International was not launched in an
atmosphere marked by a successful revolution and a widespread spirit of proletarian
internationalism. Furthermore, at its founding the Fourth International was composed of
generally small national sections which had a weak implantation and influence in the
working class movement.

The Second World War added to the difficulties facing the small, relatively isolated
nuclei of the Trotskyists.(47) Having lived through a period of defeat and repression in
the 1930s, the war led to a breakdown in communication between sections and the
international leadership in New York.(48) Furthermore, the persecutions continued
during the war with the murder by Stalinists and fascists alike of many of the
Trotskyists more talented cadres. This culminated in August 1940 with the
assassination of Trotsky himself.

Events during and after the Second World War also highlighted the Trotskyists
difficulties in point of theory. Maintaining Trotskys pre-war view, the Fourth
International over-optimistically insisted on the validity of the perspective of imminent
capitalist collapse and cycles of war-revolution long after the end of the Second World
War. Characterised by its continued isolation form the mass workers movement and
clinging to perspectives which failed to address the post-war economic boom and
appreciate the role of social democracy, the Fourth International can be justifiably
characterised as a group of generals without an army.(49)

In sum, while the post-1924 Comintern substituted a narrow nationalist policy of


Socialism in One Country in the Soviet Union and a stagist conception of the
revolutionary process abroad similar to that held by the Russian Mensheviks in 1917,
Trotsky insisted on the primacy of the proletarian nature of the revolution. Put simply,
for Trotsky, the revolution would be proletarian or it would be defeated. However,
while Trotskys views on revolution in the 1920s and 30s can be said to represent an
October 1917 Bolshevik critique of post-1924 official communism, Trotskyism as an
organised current took shape in an environment of defeat and fear, very different from
that in which the Comintern had been founded in 1919. Having largely abandoned the
project of building independent proletarian parties, the working class, particularly in
Europe, was rallying closer to the reformist and Stalinist organisations which had
crossed class lines in 1914 and 1933 respectively and which would be encouraging the
working class to take up arms in defence of their respective national bourgeoisies during
the Second World War.

2.2 The Comintern and Stalinism in Latin America, 1919-65

In this section I consider the Cominterns development of theory with particular


reference to Latin America. Emphasising the link between the perceived process of
historical development and the proposed strategy for revolution, I outline the four
periods which can be distinguished in the history of the Cominterns and official
communisms strategy for revolution in the period 1919-65 in Latin America.(50) I also
assess the principal non-Trotskyist opposition groups which emanated from the
Comintern in Latin America, highlighting the essence of the issues in dispute. This will
40

provide the widest international context to my subsequent analysis of Trotskyism in


Latin America and Cuba.

Although the Comintern paid scant attention to Latin America in the period up to 1927,
(51) its early texts which made reference to Latin America simultaneously attribute[d]
agrarian, anti-imperialist, and anti-capitalist tasks to the revolutionary struggle in [the]
America[s]".(52) Rejecting the notion of a distinct national democratic stage in Latin
America, the Comintern insisted that only the proletarian revolution can liberate the
peasantry by breaking the power of capital, and only the agrarian revolution can save
the proletarian revolution from the danger of being crushed by the counterrevolution".
(53) It also linked the revolution in Latin America with the revolutionary intervention
of the U.S. proletariat,(54) describing the unity between the two as a matter of life
and death".(55)

During this first period in the 1920s in Latin America, the Comintern initially acted as a
pole of attraction for a range of radical groups, and many communist parties were
formed locally before the instructions to do so came from Moscow.(56) The
coalescence of the disparate anarchist, anarcho-syndicalist and socialist forces around
the Cominterns banner resulted in what Victor Alba has termed a principally
indigenous product inspired certainly by Moscows propaganda [....], but without the
submissive organic links with either the Kremlin or, in large part, the Comintern".(57)

During the Second Period in the mid- to late 1920s, these locally inspired communist
parties were able to accommodate most of these radical forces and consolidate their
influence. With the emphasis being placed on promoting the struggle to build a broad
anti-imperialist movement and supporting alliances with the liberal national
bourgeoisies, the issue of the actual form and content of these Anti-Imperialist United
Fronts was not an early concern among the initial disparate elements which made up the
Latin American communist parties. One practical consequence of this policy was the
setting up of the Pan-American Anti-Imperialist League, a communist front organisation
which sought to co-ordinate the national liberation movements across Latin America
and included bourgeois nationalists in its ranks alongside communists.(58)

The first formal international meeting of Latin American communists was held in
Moscow in late 1927 when a body of Latin American delegates attended the official
celebrations to mark the tenth anniversary of the Russian Revolution. It was agreed to
form a permanent Latin American Secretariat of the Red International of Labour Unions
(Profintern), the communist international trade union centre, and the first steps were
made towards holding a conference of Latin American trade unions in Montevideo. It
was with respect to these discussions in Moscow, that Lozovsky, the General Secretary
of the Profintern, said that the international communist movement discovered Latin
America.(59)

As I have noted in Section 2.1, reflecting the influence and foreign policy concerns of
the Soviet Union, the Cominterns Sixth Congress in 1928 marked a perceptible shift
from the Second Period to the ultra-leftist Third Period tactical line. As the communist
parties shifted towards a more direct struggle for power through worker-peasant blocs,
they began to take an increasingly sectarian approach to their former nationalist allies.
However, despite dismissing all progressive content in the national liberation
movements, under the slogan of an anti-imperialist and anti-feudal revolution in the
41

colonial and semi-colonial countries, the communists strategy envisaged a dictatorship


of the proletariat and peasantry which would lead society to socialism only after a
distinct period of autonomous development.(60)

As this second distinct period of official communism in Latin American was about to
get underway in an atmosphere in which ideological homogeneity was of prime
importance, the first splits occurred. The first major break from the ranks of the
Comintern in Latin America was that precipitated in 1927-28 by the Peruvian Victor
Ral Haya de la Torre, the founder and leader of the Alianza Popular Revolucionaria
Americana (APRA). At the root of his critique of historical development was his
understanding that imperialism was the first stage of capitalism in Latin America, not
the last, and that capitalism survived by tending to bolster and coexist with a semi-
feudal sector in the countryside.(61) Haya argued that the nascent working class in
Latin America was too weak and the peasantry too primitive to implement socialism,
and that as a result the urban middle-class was required to take on the role of the
dominant social class. Its objective, he argued, was to be that of stimulating a new stage
of autonomous capitalist development capable of challenging foreign interests and
carrying through an anti-feudal revolution conforming to the long-term needs of the
working class. This Second Revolution thesis led Haya to construct his APRA
organisation as a broad multi-class anti-imperialist front on a continental basis.
Organised, like the Anti-Imperialist Leagues, without distinction of class, the APRA
came into conflict with the Comintern not only because it challenged the latters
monopoly on revolutionary organisations,(62) but because in the wake of the debacle in
China alliances with the national bourgeoisie were losing favour. Prompted by the
intervention of a Peruvian delegate to the Fourth Congress of the Profintern in March-
April 1928, the APRA was labelled a type of Latin American Guomindang on the basis
that the former preferred contacts with an allegedly anti-imperialist bourgeoisie before
forging alliances with the native Indian peasants.(63)

The second notable Latin American voice of opposition within the Comintern in the late
1920s was that of another Peruvian, Jos Carlos Maritegui. He broke with the APRA
in 1928 to found the Socialist Party of Peru over Hayas claims that some kind of
autonomous capitalist development was possible in Latin America, and specifically
Peru. Mariteguis internationalist perspective insisted that the primitive communal, the
feudal and the capitalist aspects of Peruvian society were in the final analysis all
subordinate to international capital. This led Maritegui to reject an evolutionary view
of development in favour of a struggle for socialism. Apart from leading him into a
political fight against the APRA, the Latin American Guomindang as he also termed it,
(64) he found himself in disagreement with the Cominterns new Third Period tactics of
dismissing non-communist anti-imperialist forces as counter-revolutionary. In his
seminal report, The Anti-Imperialist Perspective, Maritegui, while rejecting the idea
that the bourgeoisie or the petty bourgeoisie could pursue anti-imperialist policies once
they were in power, argued that we must not fail to make use of any elements of anti-
imperialist agitation, or of any means of mobilizing those social sectors that may
eventually participate in the struggle, our mission is to explain and show the masses
how only the socialist revolution can present a real and effective barrier to the advance
of imperialism.(65)

However, although this understanding was similar to that embodied in the theses of the
first four congresses of the Comintern, it is extremely difficult to attach any one label to
42

Mariteguis thought. While he stood opposed to the APRA, characterising it as an anti-


imperialist cross-class political party, he nevertheless reserved a special, almost
mystical, role for the peasantry in Peru on the basis of the indigenous Indians traditions
of communal property.(66) In so doing, apart from never fully breaking with the Second
Period tactical line of a party based on a broad bloc of the oppressed classesin the
Peruvian case this involved the Socialist Party being the party of the worker and peasant
masseshe also defended a romantic voluntarist dimension in Latin American
revolutionary struggle. Apparently influenced by Georges Sorel, Maritegui emphasised
the ethical aspects of solidarity and revolutionary action.(67)

The third distinct stage in the evolution of official communism in Latin America, dating
from the mid-1930s until 1960, can be described as the Stalinist-reformist period
characterised by the Latin American communist parties promoting broad national
democratic struggles via Popular Front coalitions with the democratic national
bourgeoisie. At a conference of Latin American communist parties in October 1934, the
official communists agreed that they had under-estimated the revolutionary role of petty
bourgeois nationalist parties while at the same time over-estimating these parties
counter-revolutionary character. The communist parties similarly agreed that they had
been wrong to maintain a neutral, passive position when bourgeois nationalist
reformism led workers into political and economic struggles which challenged
imperialism.(68) In practice, alliances with bourgeois democratic and nationalist forces
in which communist parties played a subordinate role, were no longer precluded. This
reversal of the ultra-left Third Period line and the dilution of anti-imperialist rhetoric in
Latin America was also conditioned by the Soviet bureaucracys professed desire to
secure a U.S.-Soviet non-aggression pact in the Pacific region to contain the threat of
Japan shortly after Hitler rose to power in Germany. Between May and November 1933
a rapprochement developed between the USSR and the United States which led to
formal mutual recognition.(69)

This Popular Front turn was accompanied by a refinement of the Cominterns


interpretation of the strategic objective of the anti-imperialist agrarian revolution. As
Henryk Szlajfer has argued, this period can be distinguished from the previous one by
the fact that a bourgeois democratic revolution with the participation of the national
bourgeois as part of the bloc of perceived progressive forces was now the immediate
objective. In the former 1929-34 period, the democratic revolution was to take place
without the involvement of the respective progressive national bourgeoisies.(70) In
practice, this Popular Front policy was given a radical faade after the outbreak of the
Spanish Civil War as the Latin American communist parties gave uncritical support to
the Popular Front Republican government. In the Caribbean region,(71) the Cuban
Communist Party under the leadership of *Blas Roca (Francisco Caldero) was a prime
mover in forging what Lwy has referred to as the pan-American alliance against the
fascist threat".(72) This alliance brought together the communist party and the
government of Fulgencio Batista in Cuba, as well as the administration of President
Franklin D. Roosevelt in the U.S. and the Mexican trade union centre led by Lombardo
Toledano.

Official communisms orientation and tactics during the course of the Second World
War were largely defined by, first of all, the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in
August 1939 and then by the German invasion of the Soviet Union launched in June
1941. Drawing no distinction between the German and Allied powers between August
43

1939 and June 1941, the Comintern initially characterised the war as plainly imperialist
on all sides. During this period the communist parties opposed the war efforts of all the
belligerents. After the German invasion of the USSR, though, national communist
parties gave unqualified support to the Allied powers in broad national coalitions. The
Latin American communist parties adoption of an unequivocal pro-Allied stance
coincided with that of most of the governments in the region and this sudden change of
position confirmed the communists growing influence in both trade union and national
political circles across Latin America, a trend which had begun in the mid- to late
1930s.

By 1944, under the influence of Browderism,(73) the Cominterns policy of class


collaboration and the willing dissolution of official communist organisations, had
reached its high water mark. In the mid-1940s, official communist influence in Latin
America was also at its zenith. The combined membership of the Latin America
communist parties had multiplied five-fold from approximately 90,000 in 1939 to
almost 500,000 around 1947.(74) The Cold War, however, put a brake on that
development and a number of Latin American communist parties rapidly lost their
quota of power. While this Cold War period was also characterised by a rejection of
the liquidationist perspective as advocated by Earl Browder, the national unity
orientation of the Latin American communist parties persisted. They continued to seek
to unite democratic and anti-imperialist forces in a patriotic front against the so-called
feudal-imperialist alliance of the bourgeois landowners at home and U.S. imperialism
abroad in order to achieve the bourgeois democratic revolution, the first historic stage of
the revolution.(75)

The fourth distinct period in Latin American official communist strategy was that
stimulated by the Cuban Revolution after 1960. Contradicting the weakened Latin
American communist parties evolutionist and legal, reformist methods, the Cuban
experience ignited the radical insurrectional traditions of Latin America and forced a
number of organisational splits and realignments in the Latin American communist
movement.(76) Various groups which had come under the umbrella of official
communism up to that point reviewed their strategy and tactics so as to emphasise the
socialist nature of the revolution. They increasingly based the struggle for socialism on
the armed foco and the broad base of the peasantry and popular revolutionary classes.

However, this turn in methods did not constitute a thorough-going challenge to Soviet
Stalinism. While Fidel Castro proclaimed that the anti-imperialist and socialist
revolution could only be one revolution,(77) ushering in a period of rural guerrilla
warfare in which militarism brushed aside a stagist perspective, the Castro-inspired
current continued to argue that the agent for revolutionary change was a multi-class
alliance. Rather like the Comintern during its Second Period, the APRA in Latin
America, and Maoism in the light of the Sino-Soviet dispute,(78) Castro, in the Second
Declaration of Havana issued on 4 February 1962, identified a broad anti-imperialist
bloc incorporating whole sections of the national bourgeoisie as the agent of
revolutionary change. Any attempt to draw class lines in the struggle was labelled as
divisionism and sectarianism.(79) The Cuban leaderships difference with official
Soviet communism lay in the fact that it conditioned its activities to the needs of a
rurally-based guerrilla group, the foco, and not the Central Committee of the local
communist party leadership or Moscow. This foco, which was elevated to the role of
vanguard, rejected class politics and proletarian democracy. The role of democratic
44

tasks was under-estimated and socialism was ultimately to be won from above via the
combination of paternalistic populism and supervised institutions.

2.3 Trotsky and Revolution in Latin America, 1937-40

While Trotskys writings on Latin America are rather few in comparison with those on
the Soviet Union, China and Europe, his residence in Mexico from January 1937 until
his murder in August 1940 allowed him the opportunity to develop his analysis of the
Latin American political situation. This section outlines the central issues for Trotsky
with regard to the nature of the revolution and the specific tasks of working class
revolutionaries in Latin America. It also demonstrates that these views largely
expounded in the late 1930s were consistent with his earlier writings on other semi-
colonial countries.

As early as 1934 Trotsky drew on his theory of Permanent Revolution in order to


advance the argument that in Latin America the national and social problems were
inextricably linked, and that as in the case of China in the 1920s it was only the
proletariat which could lead the revolution.(80) In the late 1930s he developed this basic
understanding of the revolutionary process in Latin America and the leadership role of
revolutionaries. In an article signed by Octavio Fernndez in the Mexican Trotskyist
journal Clave,(81) one element of Trotskys argument was that just as in Russia in
1917, the key to the situation in Latin America lay in the historical backwardness of the
continent and an understanding that the native bourgeoisies were incapable of resolving
the tasks of the bourgeois democratic revolution. The article argued that in Latin
America: the native bourgeoisies [....], despite their nationalist yearnings, [are] simple
appendages of imperialism. [....] Born belatedly amidst imperialist penetration and the
backwardness of the country, they cannot successfully resolve the tasks which their
counterparts in the advanced countries carried out a long time ago. In the future, only
the proletariat at the head of the peasants and the poor will be capable of carrying
through to the full the tasks of the bourgeois democratic revolution".(82)

Elsewhere, Trotsky developed his political analysis of the semi-colonial regimes in


Latin America, defining them as a special type of Bonapartism.(83) The government of
a semi-colony dominated by imperialism, he argued: veers between foreign and
domestic capital, between the weak national bourgeoisie and the relatively powerful
proletariat. This gives the government a Bonapartist character of a distinctive character.
It raises itself, so to speak, above classes. Actually, it can govern either by making itself
the instrument of foreign capitalism and holding the proletariat in the chains of a police
dictatorship, or by maneuvering with the proletariat and even going so far as to make
concessions to it, thus gaining the possibility of a certain freedom toward the foreign
capitalists.(84)

Underlining the notion of these two basic tendencies of any Latin American semi-
colonial regime, Trotsky claimed, on the one hand, that if the regimes completely give
up the struggle against foreign capitalists, considering it either inevitable or simply
more advantageous to do so, then a more or less totalitarian regime bent on destroying
the workers organisations will result.(85) Such a scenario was a real possibility in Latin
America, Trotsky contended, because foreign capital by developing industry in Latin
America and creating a potentially powerful proletariat had implanted fear in the
relatively weak and static native bourgeoisie.(86)
45

Regarding the second broad type of regime, Trotsky argued that if the Latin American
national bourgeoisies search for a degree of independence from foreign imperialism,
then a strong man of a particular country will be orientated to the Left and will be
obliged to flirt with the workers, with the peasants".(87) However, Trotsky argued that
irrespective of which tendency was in the ascendancy, the weakness of the national
bourgeoisie, the absence of traditions of basic forms of local government, the pressure
of foreign capitalism and the relative rapid growth of the proletariat will all combine to
undermine the basis for a stable democratic regime.(88)

With respect to Latin America, Trotsky repeated the argument set out in his earlier
general theory of Permanent Revolution that although the peasantry could not play an
independent role leading the revolution, it was of primary importance. He contended
that whichever of the two classes capable of governing, that is, the national bourgeoisie
or the proletariat, had the support of the peasantry, then that class would rule. He argued
that [i]f the peasants remain in support of the bourgeois class [....] then it will be such a
semi-democratic, semi-Bonapartistic state as now [November 1938] exists in every
country of Latin America, with inclinations toward the masses".(89)

Based on this analysis of the nature of the historical development in Latin America and
the three fundamental classes in that process, Trotsky mapped out the tasks of
revolutionaries in the struggle for liberation. For Trotsky, although the immediate
struggle in Latin America was that of resolving the democratic tasks, the distinguishing
feature of his argument was that due to the native bourgeoisies weakness and links to
imperialism, it was the proletariat alone which could realise these tasks. He further
contended that for the working class to take such a lead in the revolutionary process it
had to take an independent stance in competition with the national bourgeoisie at every
moment. As he said, [w]e are in permanent competition with the national bourgeoisie
as the only one leadership which is capable of assuring the victory of the masses in the
fight against the foreign imperialists.(90)

On the question of the form of any possible Anti-Imperialist United Front and any class
alliances, Trotsky argued that critical support could be given to any action of the
national bourgeoisie against imperialist interests while full organisational independence
should be maintained with respect to even the most radical forces of the national
bourgeoisie. He argued that the leaderships of the Peoples or Popular Front parties in
Latin America, such as the APRA, were essentially in the hands of the bourgeoisie and,
as such, even when strong enough to gain power via revolution, ultimately refused to
grasp the opportunity through fear of mobilising the peasantry and the working class.
They opt instead, he contended, for military manoeuvres or direct interventions on the
part of the United States.(91) Repeating the arguments which he had set out with regard
to the Guomindang in 1926-27, Trotsky ruled out entry into such Peoples Front parties
in Latin America. He did, though, append the caveat that we can create a nucleus in it
in order to win the workers and separate them from the bourgeoisie(92) and,
elsewhere, argued for agreements with the APRA for definite practical tasks on
condition that full organisational independence was maintained.(93)

Developing his characterisation of the Peoples or Popular Front, Trotsky drew a


distinction between its manifestation in the colonial and semi-colonial countries, on the
one hand, and its counterparts in the advanced countries, on the other. He argued that
just as the nationalism of the peasantry in a colonial dominion directed against the
46

foreign oppressor was progressive,(94) so the Peoples Front in Latin America does
not have so reactionary a character as in France or Spain. It is two-sided. It can have a
reactionary attitude insofar as it is directed against the workers; it can have an
aggressive attitude insofar as it is directed against imperialism.(95) However, for
Trotsky, this difference in the appreciation of the Popular Front was only permissible on
condition that the organisations of the Fourth International did not participate in the
Guomindang, the APRA or any other party of Latin American nationalism, and that
absolute freedom of action and criticism was preserved.(96)

With reference to the parties of bourgeois nationalism in power, Trotsky argued for
combining opposition to, and non-confidence in, the parties of bourgeois nationalism
with independent practical support for their progressive measures, including their
military defence against imperialist or pro-imperialist forces. However, he again
stressed the importance of class independence, particularly in those struggles involving
the agrarian question. For Trotsky, the paramount need was for the proletariat to oppose
the programme of the national bourgeoisie with its own programme. Speaking in the
late 1930s with respect to the situation in Mexico where a bourgeois nationalist
government had taken measures to distribute land to the peasantry, he argued that:

during the struggle for democratic tasks we oppose the proletariat to the bourgeoisie.
The independence of the proletariat even in the beginning of this movement is
absolutely necessary, and we especially oppose the proletariat to the bourgeoisie in the
agrarian question [....]
In the agrarian question we support the expropriations. That does not signify we
support the national bourgeoisie. In every case where it is a direct fight against the
foreign imperialists or their reactionary fascist agents, we give revolutionary support,
preserving the full political independence of our organization, of our program, of our
party, and the full freedom of criticism.(97)

On the overall strategic orientation of the sections of the Fourth International in Latin
America, Trotsky warned of the dangers of schematicism of the formula of permanent
revolution(98) and the relegation of the importance of the democratic tasks for the
working class. For Trotsky, to pose an abstract socialist dictatorship to the real
[immediate] needs and desires of the masses was a mistake. Instead, he advocated
starting from these daily struggles to oppose the national bourgeoisie on the basis of
the workers needs, thereby winning the leadership of the working class and ultimately
the nation.(99) It was over this very issue of rejecting the immediate relevance of
democratic demands by the group led by Luciano Galicia in the Mexican Trotskyist
group the Liga Comunista Internacionalista in 1937-38 which led Trotsky to propose
Galicias expulsion from the Fourth International.(100)

Trotsky argued that the central arena for this struggle was in the organisations of the
working class, primarily the trade unions, and that the most important task was the
struggle for control by the workers of their own bureaucracy and to fight for the
independence of the trade unions from the state".(101) While he recognised that it was
no longer possible to establish full trade union democracy, just as it was no longer
possible to win democracy in the existing Latin American states, the fight for free
discussion in the unions and their independence from the state were transitional
demands which would deepen the roots of the struggle and lead to the more advanced
demands of a workers state.(102) In this way, with the masses consciously and
47

consistently fighting for, and passing beyond immediate democratic and anti-imperialist
goals to socialist ones, they would be creating in this struggle their own self-clarified,
independent bodies of proletarian democracy.

In summary, Trotskys analysis of colonial and semi-colonial countries developed in the


1920s and 30s emphasised the necessary permanent nature of the proletariats
competition with the national bourgeoisie for the support of the peasantry and the
importance of always presenting an independent working class position in any struggle
against imperialism. Although he allowed for practical agreements, including military
blocs, such short-term action was envisaged solely as a tactic around a specific issue,
the aim being to heighten the contradictions between the progressive nature of the anti-
imperialist movement and the forces which were then leading that movement. Trotsky
did not confer the title of an Anti-Imperialist United Front upon such actions, and he
categorically rejected the thoroughly opportunist interpretation which the post-1924
Comintern gave to it as a long-term strategic objective.

Trotsky furthermore stressed that while agreeing to common actions with the radical
forces of bourgeois nationalism in an attempt to win the workers and poor peasantry
from the influence of the bourgeoisie, the working class had to develop its own
consciousness and level of independent struggle. To further this aspect of the struggle,
he advocated transitional slogans such as trade union independence from the state,
workers democracy, freedom of expression, and an agrarian programme in order to win
the majority of the working class and the large mass of peasants. This, Trotsky argued,
was the first step towards the conquest of power by the workers party in any Latin
American country.

Trotsky also considered that the question of building socialism after the conquest of
power was largely dependent on events elsewhere, most notably in the United States.
Basing his analysis on an appreciation of the indissolubility of the world economy and
the necessary international character of socialism, Trotsky drew a distinction between
the conquest of power by the working class in any one country and the actual
construction of socialism. While he did not exclude the possibility that Latin American
workers might come to power before those in the United States, this did not mean for
him that they could build their own socialism independently of the most advanced
countries which hitherto had dominated their political economy.(103) For Trotsky, the
link the Comintern established in the early 1920s between the revolutions in North and
Latin America was indissoluble.

2.4 Trotskyism and Revolution in Latin America, 1927-65

The organisational origins of Trotskyism in Latin America can be traced to the period
around the Sixth Congress of the Comintern in 1928, when Trotskys criticisms of
Stalins direction were first in circulation on an international plane. Initially, only a
handful of communists in Latin America publicly identified themselves with Trotskys
arguments. However, as the ultra-left Third Period atmosphere swept through the
communist parties in the late 1920s and early 1930s, elements of those parties which
had questioned the apparent about-turn approached the International Left Opposition.
Cuba apart, those who initially openly adhered to the Trotskyist international
organisation in Latin America constituted small, generally isolated groups. They were
largely limited to the capital cities of various Latin American countries and were
48

generally founded by militants who had had experience in the European labour
movement. It was only in Chile, Brazil and then later in Bolivia, that the Trotskyist-
orientated groups were able to build organisations which had any significant influence
among the masses. However, in these cases the Trotskyists appeared to take little heed
of Trotskys insistence on steering a politically independent course of action.

In Chile, amidst a period of political instability, a so-called Socialist Republic came


into being on 4 June 1932 via a military coup led by Colonel Marmaduke Grove
Vallejo. While the Chilean Communist Party opposed the Left-nationalist movement
around Grove, considering it to be a new variant of fascist reaction, and set out to
launch ill-founded Soviets,(104) the Trotskyist group led by Manuel Hidalgo gave
qualified support to the Grove government.(105) Although the Trotskyists rejected
Groves offer to enter his government, deciding to maintain their political
independence, following the downfall of the Socialist Republic, the Trotskyists largely
dissolved themselves inside the newly-formed Popular Frontist Socialist Party, the
political organisation which absorbed the Left-wing nationalist supporters of Grove.
(106)

In Bolivia in the mid-1930s, the Trotskyists drew a similar ambiguous line of


demarcation between themselves and nationalist forces. In this particular case, it
involved the Bolivian Trotskyists forming so-called socialist blocks with military
Left-wing nationalists. The Trotskyist group led by Jos Aguirre Gainsborg actually
entered the party established by Colonel David Toro, the leader of a successful
nationalist military coup.(107) Still owing more to the Cominterns Second Period
tactical line than to Trotskys distinct analysis, the Trotskyist-orientated group led by
Gustavo Navarro (*Tristn Marof) also became closely associated with the reformist
military junta formed by Toro in 1936.(108)

While this tendency to make concessions to bourgeois nationalism in Latin America


reflected the heterogeneous origins of the Trotskyists and the depth of the traditions of
nationalist struggle in the continent, it also served as a prelude to the arguments which
would lie behind organisational splits in the 1940s. On the one hand, there were those
groups which encompassed strategies which had more in common with the Second
Period notion of broad anti-imperialist blocs. On the other, there were those which
insisted on the proletarian nature of the struggle. That is, these early arguments led to
the formation of the distinct national liberation and proletarian tendencies in the
1940s.

The first major organisational split in the ranks of Latin American Trotskyism was that
stimulated by the group around the Brazilian Mario Pedrosa (*Lebrn), which took up
the mantle of the U.S. Socialist Workers Party (SWP(US)) Minority against the
position of defence of the Soviet Union.(109) However, by the early 1940s a distinct
national liberation tendency was also seeking to establish a separate international
organisation. This Latin American-based faction formed by the Argentinian Liga
Obrera Revolucionaria (LOR) led by Liborio Justo (*Quebracho) challenged the main
body of the Fourth International, temporarily located in New York, on the issue of the
emphasis which should be given to the struggle and demands for national liberation in
the fight for socialism. Justos principal contention was that the Trotskyist movement,
particularly the SWP(US), was comparing Argentina with imperialist centres, thereby
ignoring the democratic anti-imperialist questions. He argued that the struggle for
49

national liberation was an integral part of the democratic revolution and as such should
be an integral part of the proletarian partys programme. However, in using the slogans
for national liberation which until then had been the terminology of the nationalist and
reformist groups, Justo himself went to the extreme of advocating a de facto two-stage
strategy in which the primary struggle was for an agrarian anti-imperialist revolution to
realise the tasks of the bourgeois democratic revolution as a first step towards the
socialist revolution.(110) While the Comintern at its Fourth Congress, by drawing
parallels between the Anti-Imperialist and proletarian United Fronts in the semi-colonial
and imperialist countries respectively, had opened the door to the possibility that
communist parties would ultimately be prepared to form anti-imperialist governments
with the forces of bourgeois nationalism, Justos national liberation tendency, in
relegating the struggle for the proletarian revolution to the unspecified future in pursuit
of one-sided alliances with the radical forces of bourgeois nationalism, demonstrated
that one tendency in the international Trotskyist movement had more in common with
the Cominterns Second Period line than with Trotsky.

Justos departure from the Fourth International to set up an alternative Latin American-
based Trotskyist tendency left the debate over the problem of national liberation
incomplete. The unresolved issue returned again to Latin America with the rise to
power of Colonel Juan Pern in Argentina in the mid-1940s, where Justos original
national liberation ideas in fact anticipated those adopted by a number of Trotskyists
who had initially been his fierce opponents. The Trotskyist group led by *Nahuel
Moreno (Hugo Bressano), went so far as to dissolve itself inside the Peronist movement,
in effect becoming its Left-wing,(111) while, as Lora has described, the group led by
Jorge Abelardo Ramos (*Sevignac) took up Liborio Justos ideas, [....] in order to
justify not his alliance with the national bourgeoisie, but his humble servility to it.(112)

At the international level, at the 1946 conference of the Trotskyist organisations, the
participants reaffirmed their adherence to the pre-war perspectives of a growing
capitalist crisis and a rising revolutionary tide. At the subsequent Second World
Congress in 1948 they declared that all possibilities for attaining equilibrium were
destroyed and that a Third World War in which the united capitalist powers would
launch an attack on the Soviet Union was imminent. By the early 1950s, however,
optimism within the Fourth International was receding and internal tensions were
mounting as the Trotskyists made little progress either in terms of recruitment or
influence within the labour movement. As pressures rose, and the fact that the world
economy had entered its longest period of expansion in history still went largely
unnoticed, the question of alliances with other political forces began to undergo a
thorough reappraisal. These alterations in strategic orientations were to precipitate a
round of splits and splinters in the international Trotskyist movement. They also
magnified those characteristics which had hitherto broadly defined the national
liberation and proletarian tendencies.

The cause of the initial post-war split was what has become known in Trotskyist
parlance as Pabloism, that is, the views espoused by *Michel Pablo (Michel Raptis) in
the period 1951-54. His theses were based on the conviction that individual communist
parties were not necessarily compliant pawns in Soviet foreign policy manoeuvres, but
were instead being forced by objective conditions to take a lead in carrying forward the
revolutionary tide which was sweeping the post-war world. Stalinism and war were
thereby seen as agencies for revolution and the new tactic of long-term entry, or
50

dissolution, into what were seen as the blunt instruments for revolution, namely the
communist and socialist parties, was urged upon the Fourth Internationals affiliates.

In Latin America, the revision of strategy took effect in the early 1950s. Although the
Third World Congress of the Fourth International in 1951 reiterated Trotskys analysis
that so-called anti-imperialist resistance from petty bourgeois nationalist movements,
such as the APRA in Peru and the Autnticos in Cuba, were incapable of completing the
tasks of the bourgeois democratic revolution across the continent,(113) Pabloism
eventually led to the development of the long-term entryist perspective across the
continent. While the 1951 Congress insisted that temporary alliances between working
class organisations and anti-imperialist movements of the petty bourgeoisie could only
be concluded for concrete and limited ends of action on the basis that the independent
class character of the working class organisations and programme was safeguarded,
(114) a degree of organisational dissolution was increasingly supported in an attempt to
push the Left-wing of the petty bourgeois anti-imperialist movements into socialist
revolution. In Latin America, the most prominent manifestation of this concession by
Trotskyism to Left-wing nationalism was that of the Partido Obrero Revolucionario led
by Lora in Bolivia during the national revolution of 1952-53. This party, the largest and
most important Trotskyist group in Latin America, gave what Lora termed critical
support to the Bolivian Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario (MNR) government.
However, in practice this amounted to viewing the MNR as a vehicle for workers
power rather than as an obstacle to it.(115) As Lora himself has written, this amounted
to the Bolivian Partido Obrero Revolucionario effectively placing itself at the service
of the MNRs Left-wing in an attempt to push the government in the direction of
socialism by gentle criticism".(116)

The imposition of the strategy of long-term entry, with its national liberation
manifestation in Latin America, is often cited as the principal cause behind the
organisational split which took place in the Fourth International in the early 1950s. The
International Committee of the Fourth International, formed in November 1953 and
comprising a number of groups in the advanced capitalist countriesmost notably the
Organisation Communiste Internationaliste in France, the Socialist Labour League in
Great Britain, and the SWP(US)advocated a strong stance against the line of Pablos
leadership in the International Secretariat of the Fourth International. However, while
the International Committees self-professed defining feature was its anti-Pabloism
and adherence to the proletarian theses, it has been coherently argued that opposition
to, and criticism of, the Fourth Internationals national liberation orientation in Bolivia
only surfaced after the organisational split in the Fourth International had been
consummated.(117) What is more, the process of slow political and organisational
diffusion which had begun on the outbreak of the Second World War, and which was
continued by the debate over Pabloism, only confirmed that Trotskyism could no
longer be identified as a unified, coherent body of theory and practice.

The next major round of theoretical and organisational realignments in the international
Trotskyist movement took place in the wake of the Cuban Revolution. The prime mover
behind the realignment was the SWP(US) who, through its participation in the Fair Play
for Cuba Committee, reversed its declining trend of recruitment and national influence.
In point of theory there emerged a convergence between the International Secretariat of
the Fourth International and the SWP(US). Both essentially argued that given the
absence of a revolutionary working class party in Cuba capable of leading a struggle in
51

which the democratic organs of working class power could be built, the Movimiento 26
de Julio (M26J) led by Fidel Castro had in effect served as the blunt instrument to
create a workers state.(118)

The process of rapprochement between the SWP(US) and the International Secretariat
of the Fourth International culminated in 1963 when a new international Trotskyist
centre under the title of the United Secretariat of the Fourth International (USec) was
constituted. However, what has become known as the 1963 Reunification Congress
actually confirmed the existence of four distinct international centres. These can be
summarised as follows: 1) the USec, 2) the International Committee of the Fourth
International, 3) Pablos International Executive Committee, and 4) the Posadist Fourth
International. Each international claimed in its way to be the heir to the programme and
relatively united organisational movement of the Trotskyists during the 1930s.(119)

With respect to the Posadist international tendency, it was formed in 1962 from those
groups inside the International Secretariats Latin American Bureau and was the only
Trotskyist tendency which could lay claim to a Cuban section in the 1960s. From its
founding in 1962, the Posadist International could be distinguished amidst the general
spiral of accommodation to the forces of Stalinism and nationalism by its extreme
voluntarist interpretation of the theory of Permanent Revolution which foresaw
revolution everywhere in the immediate future. As Pablo noted, *J. Posadas (Homero
Cristalli), the leader of the Posadist International, even gave this imminent capitalist
collapse and socialist revolution perspective an interplanetary dimension".(120) The
Posadists argued that imperialism was continually weakening while at the same time the
masses across the world were becoming increasingly militant and ripe for revolution.
For the Posadists, imperialism could only survive by initiating an atomic war in an
attempt to check this perceived inexorable advance of the exploited. While the
opponents of the Posadists have highlighted the latters call for the existing so-called
workers states to launch a pre-emptive nuclear war, out of which would come the
inevitable victory of socialism, the Posadists distinguishing feature was the importance
they attached to what they perceived to be the objective revolutionary will of the
masses. In Latin America they argued that revolutionaries should enter revolutionary
nationalist movements to advance the widest possible participation of the masses in
these armed organisations. Given that this strategy approached that of the Chinese
Communist Partys professed orientation to the masses in armed struggle against
imperialism, the Posadists invited the Chinese leadership to join a world-wide anti-
imperialist front which would also include the Guevara-inspired guerrilla groups in
Latin America. The Posadists combined Pablos insistence that the crisis of leadership
was no longer an obstacle for socialist revolution and confidence in the potential of
various multi-class anti-imperialist movements to serve as the blunt instruments for
revolution, with the view that the active participation of the Chinese Communist Party
and Guevarist foco groups in anti-imperialist wars would lead to the constant raising of
socialist forms of struggles and the development of a conscious revolutionary leadership
among the masses.(121) In sum, of all the international Trotskyist tendencies, the
Posadists developed the most extreme caricature of Trotskys theory of Permanent
Revolution and his tenets of working class independence in a struggle linking the
democratic tasks and the socialist revolution in Latin America.
52

2.5 Conclusion

The strategy embodied in Trotskys theory of Permanent Revolution dictates that the
working class must win the leadership of the oppressed nation, a precondition of which
is that it must first establish its own political independence. Trotsky argued that
socialists must explain that if the struggle is limited to the goals of a democratic anti-
imperialist revolution, the bourgeois nationalists will ultimately turn against the
working class, the class which helped them win power. However, Trotsky also insisted
that it was not sufficient to dismiss the national reformist and liberation movements. He
argued that while revolutionary communists had, at all times, to remember that they
were in political competition with bourgeois nationalism and, as such, had to maintain
their political and organisational independence, critical support could be given to the
national bourgeoisie in any concrete action it took against imperialist interests up to and
including its military defence.

Trotsky rejected the Cominterns opportunist interpretation of alliances with petty


bourgeois parties and organisations as a long-term strategic objective during the Second
and Popular Front Periods, as well as the ultra-radical dismissal of all non-communist
forces of the Third Period. By the early 1960s, however, the dynamic content of
Trotskys theory of Permanent Revolution and his understanding of the relationship
between the struggle for national liberation and the struggle for socialism had been lost
to the Trotskyist movement. While the official communist parties in Latin American
remained largely consistent in their adherence to the reformist formula of a two-stage
process of historical development in which their task was to promote an autonomous,
more progressive round of native capitalism, the Trotskyists in the post-World War Two
era adapted to the pillars of Stalinism. On the one hand, a national liberation tendency
evolved to the extent that certain Trotskyist groups actively promoted broad alliances
with the forces of petty bourgeois nationalism in Latin America on the understanding
that they served as short cuts to revolution. With respect to the much smaller
proletarian tendency, although it largely insisted on proletarian political independence,
it generally drew no distinction between imperialist oppressor nations and the oppressed
ones of Latin America. As such, it tended to view the revolution as a pure socialist one
and did not seek to address or play a part in radical petty bourgeois nationalist
movements. With reference to the case of Trotskyism in Cuba in the 1960s, while, as
Coggiola has noted, many self-titled Trotskyist organisations have thought it sufficient
to cite some of the more extreme tenets of Posadism in order to dismiss it,(122) the
Posadists political roots lay in the self-same concessions to broad anti-imperialist
movements which had been systematised by Justo in the early 1940s and then
characterised a large part of the post-World War Two Fourth International movement.

FOOTNOTES
1. These three fundamental propositions are outlined in Trotsky, LD, The Permanent
Revolution. Results and Prospects (1906), London, New Park Publications, 1962,
pp. 8-9, 152-157. (Back to text)
2. Ibid, pp. 152-153. Trotsky placed great emphasis on the importance of the
peasantry in the revolutionary process and the working classs alliance with it. He
argued that while the proletariat must play the leading role, the working class-
peasant alliance was indispensable if the tasks of the democratic revolution were to
be posed and solved. See Trotsky, LD, The Third International After Lenin,
London, New Park Publications, 1974, pp. 171-173. (Back to text)
53

3. Lister, J, Cuba: Radical Face of Stalinism, London, Left View Books, 1985, p.
126. (Back to text)
4. Trotsky, LD, (1962), op cit, pp. 6-7. Cliff Slaughter has usefully interpreted
permanent to mean uninterruptedthat is, a continuous transition from
bourgeois revolution, under proletarian leadership, growing over into socialist
revolution. Slaughter, C, op cit, p. 83. (Back to text)
5. Trotsky, LD, (1974), op cit, p. 31. (Back to text)
6. Trotsky, LD, History of the Russian Revolution, London, Victor Gollancz Ltd,
1965, p. 26; and Trotsky, LD, Uneven and Combined Development and the Role
of American Imperialism, pp. 116-117, In: Breitman, G, and Lovell, S (eds),
Writings of Leon Trotsky (1932-33), New York, Pathfinder Press, 1972, pp. 116-
120. (Back to text)
7. Trotsky, LD, (1965), op cit, p. 27. (Back to text)
8. Deutscher, I (ed.), The Age of Permanent Revolution: A Trotsky Anthology,
New York, Dell Publishing Co., 1964, p. 19. (Back to text)
9. See Marx, K, and Engels, F, Address of the Central Authority to the League, Karl
Marx and Frederick Engels Collected Works, Vol. 10, London, Lawrence and
Wishart, 1978, pp. 277-287. Marx also employed the term the permanence of the
revolution to describe how the proletariat in successive stages of struggle
increasingly rallies around a programme of revolutionary socialism which can end
only in the class dictatorship of the proletariat. Marx, K, The Class Struggles in
France (1848-50), London, Martin Lawrence, nd, p. 126. (Back to text)
10. Although Michael Lwy also notes these three basic themes (See Lwy, M, The
Politics of Combined and Uneven Development: The Theory of Permanent
Revolution, London, Verso, 1981, pp. 1-29.), when he comes to apply them (See
Part Two of his 1981 book cited above.) he argues that Trotsky under-estimated the
importance of the peasantry given that it rather than the working class has provided
the social base of supposedly proletarian revolutions in the post-1940 world. From
arguing that revolutions can be proletarian in nature with only a negligible
contribution from the working class and in the absence of a proletarian party,
Lwy, more recently, has advocated a fusion of the labour movement, ecology and
feminist groups, as well as progressive governments as the Marxist response to the
organisations of international capital in the 1990s. See Lwy, M, Why
Nationalism?, Miliband, R, and Panitch, L (eds), The Socialist Register, 1993,
London, The Merlin Press, 1993, pp. 125-138. (Back to text)
11. See Lenin, VI, The April Theses, Moscow, Progress Publishers, 1951, particularly
pp. 13-25; and Service, R, Lenin: A Political Life, (Vol. 2, Worlds in Collision),
Basingstoke, Macmillan Press, 1991, pp. 155-160 for a discussion of Lenins
conversion to the position that workers soviets were the sole possible form of
revolutionary government. (Back to text)
12. Even Nicolas Krass who attempted to refute the theory of Permanent Revolution
recognised that it was a brilliant prefiguration of the main class characteristics of
the October Revolution in 1917. Krass, N, Trotskys Marxism, New Left
Review, No. 44, July-August 1967, p. 67. In defending Stalins theory of Socialism
in One Country, Krass, however, gives life to the oft cited misconception that
Permanent Revolution implied a continuous conflagration at all times and all
places". Ibid, p. 68. (Back to text)
13. See, for example, the essays of Karl Radek in Richardson, A (ed.), In Defence of
the Revolution: A Selection of Bolshevik Writings, 1917-1923, London,
54

Porcupine Press, 1995, pp. 22-75 where Radek expresses, amongst other things, the
need for the working class to be the executor of the revolution (Ibid, p. 35.) and
for the revolution to be necessarily international in character. (Ibid, pp. 70-73.)
(Back to text)
14. See Casciola, P, Trotsky and the Struggles of the Colonial Peoples, Foligno,
Centro Studi Pietro Tresso, 1990, pp. 8-9. (Back to text)
15. Theses, Resolutions and Manifestos of the First Four Congresses of the Third
International, London, Pluto Press, 1983, p. 80. (Back to text)
16. Ibid, p. 80. (Back to text)
17. Degras, J (ed.), The Communist International 1919-1943: Documents, Vol. 1,
London, Oxford University Press, 1956, p. 388. (Back to text)
18. Ibid, p. 389. (Back to text)
19. Ibid, p. 390. (Back to text)
20. The Comintern conceived the United Front policy as a tactic which facilitated the
greatest possible working class unity in action against the capitalist front.
Communist parties were permitted to enter into United Front agreements on
condition that they maintained their complete political independence. This meant
that at all times communists had to retain the unconditional right to express their
own opinions and the possibility of criticising all working-class organisations
without exception". Ibid, p. 313. The United Fronts principal goal was to expose
the ultimate pro-bourgeois nature of non-communist parties. As such, the
possibility that communist parties would be prepared to form a workers
governments with social democratic parties was not ruled out. See ibid, pp. 311,
341, 425-426. (Back to text)
21. Benton, G, op cit, p. 7. Despite the evident scope and quality of Bentons work, he,
like Lwy, implicitly rejects my proletarian interpretation of Trotskys theory of
Permanent Revolution. Throughout his book Benton criticises the Chinese
Trotskyists for not appreciating the revolutionary potential of Maos multi-class
approach and the value of organising among the peasantry when the working class
movement was apparently crushed. (Back to text)
22. Lwy, M, (1981), op cit, p. 76. (Back to text)
23. See, for example, Benton, G, op cit, p. 8; and Peng Shu-tse, Introduction, In:
Evans, L, and Block, R (eds), Leon Trotsky on China, New York, Monad Press,
1976, pp. 55-78. (Back to text)
24. Benton, G, op cit, pp. 11-15. (Back to text)
25. See ibid, p. 10. (Back to text)
26. Trotsky, LD, Defense of the Soviet Republic and the Opposition, In: Breitman,
G, and Lovell, S (eds), Writings of Leon Trotsky (1929), New York, Pathfinder
Press, 1975, p. 276. (Back to text)
27. Trotsky, LD, Problems of the Chinese Revolution, Ann Arbor: MI, University of
Michigan Press, 1967, pp. 97-98. (Back to text)
28. Trotsky, LD, (1974), op cit, p. 47. (Back to text)
29. Ibid, p. 129. (Back to text)
30. Ibid, p. 129. (Back to text)
31. Ibid, p. 128. (Back to text)
32. McDermott, K, and Agnew, J, The Comintern: A History of International
Communism from Lenin to Stalin, Basingstoke, Macmillan Press, 1996, p. 71.
(Back to text)
55

33. Ibid, pp. 76-77. (Back to text)


34. Rees, T, and Thorpe, A, Introduction, In: Rees, T, and Thorpe, A (eds),
International Communism and the Communist International 1919-43,
Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1998, p. 4. (Back to text)
35. Coggiola, O, (1993), op cit, p. 15. (Back to text)
36. McDermott, K, and Agnew, J, op cit, p. 83. (Back to text)
37. Alexander, RJ, (1991), op cit, p. 253. (Back to text)
38. Breitman, G, and Lovell, S (eds), Writings of Leon Trotsky (1930), New York,
Pathfinder Press, 1975, p. 187. (Back to text)
39. Frank, P, op cit, pp. 37-38. (Back to text)
40. See Trotsky, LD, The International Left Opposition, its Tasks and Methods, In:
Breitman, G, and Lovell, S (eds), Writings of Leon Trotsky (1932-33), op cit, p.
54. (Back to text)
41. See Trotskys article The Tragedy of the German Proletariat: The German
Workers Will Rise AgainStalinism Never!, In: Breitman, G, and Maisel, M
(eds), The Struggle against Fascism in Germany, New York, Pathfinder Press,
1971, pp. 375-384. (Back to text)
42. Alexander, RJ, (1991), op cit, p. 260; and the Joint Declaration for New
International in The Militant (New York), Vol. 6, No. 44 (Whole No. 191), 23
September 1933, pp. 1-2. (BLNL: M.misc.35.) (Back to text)
43. In contrast to those who argue that the Comintern was a docile instrument of Soviet
foreign policy from the late 1920s (See, for example, Claudin, F, The Communist
Movement: From Comintern to Cominform, Harmondsworth, Penguin Books,
1975, pp. 174-176.), others have contended that the Comintern was not altogether a
monolithic, centralised entity and that the tactical zigzags were not always
directives passed down from the centre nor executed without a degree of hesitation.
Kevin McDermott and Jeremy Agnew, for example, have argued that a crucial
factor in determining the turn to the Popular Front tactic was pressure from rank
and file communists, particularly in France, who were spontaneously joining united
working class-based anti-fascist organisations. According to this convincing
argument, the Comintern only became a more thoroughly subservient tool of Soviet
foreign policy from 1935. See McDermott, K, and Agnew, J, op cit, pp. 123-130.
(Back to text)
44. Ibid, p. 136. (Back to text)
45. Durgan, A, Trotsky, the POUM and the Spanish Revolution, Journal of Trotsky
Studies (Glasgow), No. 2, 1994, p. 43. (Back to text)
46. As McDermott and Agnew have argued, though, Moscows control mechanisms
over the international movement remained largely intact after 1943. McDermott, K,
and Agnew, J, op cit, pp. 210-211. (Back to text)
47. See Prager, R, The Fourth International during the Second World War,
Revolutionary History (London), Vol. 1, No. 3, Autumn 1988, pp. 19-36 for an
outline of the organisation and activities of the Fourth International during the
Second World War. (Back to text)
48. The angled arrows in the flow diagram in Appendix A during the 1940-44 period,
represent this breakdown in communication between the different Trotskyist
groups. (Back to text)
49. This is the view expressed in Davies, N, Trotskyist Regroupment: The
Ununiteable in Pursuit of the Undesirable, What Next? (London), No. 8, 1998, p.
56

24. (Back to text)


50. This contrasts with the views of Jorge Turner and Lwy. In their schemas of
periods in the history of communism in Latin America they draw no distinction
between my first and second periods. Turner, J, Las Etapas del Marxismo en
Amrica Latina, Memoria (Mexico D.F.), No. 27, July-August 1989, pp. 357-361;
and Lwy, M (ed.), Marxism in Latin America from 1909 to the Present, New
Jersey, Humanities Press, 1992, p. xiii. (Back to text)
51. Only eight articles on Latin America appeared in the Cominterns journal, The
Communist International, between 1919 and 1927. Jeifets, L, "Para Contar la
Verdad sobre la URSS (Las Primeras Delegaciones de Organizaciones
Revolucionarias, Obreras, Campesinas y Antimperialistas de Amrica Latina en la
URSS, Amrica Latina (Moscow), No. 12, 1982, p. 115 n6. (Back to text)
52. Lwy, M (ed.), (1992), op cit, p. xvii. (Back to text)
53. Cited from an extract from LInternationale Communiste, No. 15, January 1921 in
ibid, p. 12. Paolo Casciola has contrasted the Cominterns early ambiguous
understanding of the nature of the revolution in Asia with its view on the revolution
in Latin America. He notes that in Latin America a broadly Permanent Revolution
perspective was evident from the outset. Casciola, P, op cit, p. 17. (Back to text)
54. Cited from an extract from LInternationale Communiste, No. 15, January 1921 in
Lwy, M (ed.), (1992), op cit, p. 13. (Back to text)
55. Ibid, p. 13. (Back to text)
56. Caballero, M, Latin America and the Comintern, 1919-1943, Cambridge,
Cambridge University Press, 1986, p. 151; and Alexander, RJ, Communism in
Latin America, New Brunswick: NJ, Rutgers University Press, 1957, pp. 19-20.
(Back to text)
57. Cited in Caballero, M, op cit, p. 49 from Alba, V, Esquema Histrico del
Comunismo en Latinoamrica, Mexico, Ed. Occidentales, 1960, p. 20. (Back to
text)
58. Boersner, D, The Bolsheviks and the National and Colonial Question (1917-
1928), Geneva, Librairie E. Droz and Paris, Librairie Minard, 1957, p. 204. (Back
to text)
59. Jeifets, L, op cit, pp. 111-112. (Back to text)
60. Hodges, DC, op cit, p. 46. (Back to text)
61. Ibid, pp. 27-28. (Back to text)
62. Ibid, pp. 27-31. (Back to text)
63. Carr, EH, Foundations of a Planned Economy: 1926-29, Vol. 3, London,
Macmillan Press, 1978, pp. 972-973. (Back to text)
64. Maritegui, JC, The Anti-Imperialist Perspective, New Left Review, No. 70,
November-December 1971, p. 69. (Back to text)
65. Ibid, pp. 69-70. (Back to text)
66. Maritegui argued that the indigenous Indians communal property, which had
survived the penetration of capitalism, supported a collectivist, co-operative
tradition in the countryside. For Maritegui, this was an important force for a
radical transformation along socialist lines. Taking this on board, it can be said that
Mariteguis independent ideas synthesised a degree of Second Period Stalinism
with a spiritual indigenismo in an internationalist framework. See Pearlmans
Introduction in Pearlman, M (ed.), op cit, pp. vx-xxvii; Angell, A, The Left in
Latin America since c. 1920, In: Bethell, L (ed.), The Cambridge History of
57

Latin America, Vol. 6, Part 2, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1994, pp.
174-176; and the unsigned essay Presentation of Jos Carlos Maritegui, New
Left Review, No. 70, November-December 1971, pp. 65-66 for political sketches
of Maritegui. (Back to text)
67. See Lwy, M, Marxism and Romanticism in the Work of Jos Carlos Maritegui,
Latin American Perspectives, Vol. 25, No. 4 (Issue 101), July 1998, pp. 80-82.
While it is difficult to establish a single, consistent Sorelian political strategy, Sorel
is perhaps best known for glorifying the concepts of the general strike and political
violence as means to rejuvenate revolutionary spirits. See Jennings, JR, Georges
Sorel: The Character and Development of His Thought, Basingstoke,
Macmillan Press, 1985, in particular, pp. 135-136. (Back to text)
68. See the article The Struggles of the Communist Parties of South and Caribbean
America, The Communist International, No. 10, 20 May 1935, pp. 564-576 as
cited in Unsigned, Materiales sobre la Actividad de las Secciones de la Komintern,
Amrica del Sur y Amrica Central, Socialismo y Participacin (Lima), No. 11,
1980, pp. 127. (Back to text)
69. See Phillips, HD, Between the Revolution and the West: A Political Biography
of Maxim M. Litvinov, Boulder: CO, Westview Press, 1992, pp. 130-133; and
Gaddis, JL, Russia, The Soviet Union and the United States: An Interpretative
History, New York, McGraw-Hill, 1990, pp. 117-122 for details of this U.S.-
Soviet rapprochement. (Back to text)
70. Szlajfer, H, Latin America and the Comintern: An Interesting Book with Many
Mistakes, El Boletn de Estudios Latinoamericanos y del Caribe (Amsterdam),
No. 46, June 1989, pp. 114-115. Although the Popular Front tactic, which sought to
include the forces of the democratic national bourgeoisie in any alliance, had been
pursued in China and elsewhere during the Second Period, the principal difference
between the policy in the Second Period and Popular Front Period was that in the
latter, active participation in bourgeois governments was more openly advocated.
(Back to text)
71. Throughout this period the influence of the Comintern in the Caribbean region was
exercised through its Caribbean Bureau. The Cuban Communist Party as one of
the best organized and financed Communist Parties in the continent had the most
decisive input in that regional organisation. See Cerdas-Cruz, R, The Communist
International in Central America, 1920-36, Basingstoke, Macmillan Press/St.
Anthonys College Oxford, 1993, p. 160. (Back to text)
72. Lwy, M (ed.), (1992), op cit, p. 72. (Back to text)
73. Although the line of class collaboration had been pursued since the mid- to late
1930s, Browderism can be distinguished as a distinct policy during the 1944-45
period in the sense that Earl Browder, the General Secretary of the Communist
Party of the United States, argued that class divisions were no longer of any
significance. At the time this reflected the relationship between the USSR and the
United States, and Browder went so far as to propose the voluntary dissolution of
communist parties along with the Comintern. A discussion of the Browder
controversy including the PCCs hearty approval of Browders theory of an end to
class war and the imperialist epoch can be found in Blasier, SC, The Cuban and
Chilean Communist Parties, Instruments of Soviet Policy, 1935-48, PhD Thesis,
Columbia University, 1956, pp. 95-96; and Jaffe, PJ, The Rise and Fall of Earl
Browder, Survey, Spring 1972, pp. 14-65. (Back to text)
74. Claudin, F, op cit, p. 309. (Back to text)
58

75. See Lwy, M (ed.), (1992), op cit, pp. 113-122, in particular p. 117. (Back to text)
76. See Aguilar, LE, Currents in Latin America: Fragmentation of the Marxist Left,
Problems of Communism, Vol. 19, No. 4, 1970, pp. 1-12. (Back to text)
77. Cited in Lwy, M (ed.), (1992), op cit, p. xlii. (Back to text)
78. The Sino-Soviet dispute resulted from the Chinese Communist Partys rejection of
the Soviets emphasis on peace and disarmament and rapprochement with the U.S.
in the late 1950s. The Chinese continued to stress that the anti-imperialist struggle
must be conducted at all levels and with all available methods, though should be
particularly directed at the weakest link in the imperialist chain, namely, the
regimes in the under-developed countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America.
Furthermore, as Robert Service has recounted, [i]n 1960 Mao fulminated against
those [i.e., the Soviet-backed communist parties] who based their policies on the
priority to avoid nuclear war. Such a war, according to Mao, would in fact be
winnable. Once the mushroom clouds of the H-bombs had lifted, a beautiful
system would be created in place of capitalist imperialism. Service, R, (1997), op
cit, p. 354. (Back to text)
79. See The Second Declaration of Havana, New York, Pathfinder Press, 1994, pp.
32-33. (Back to text)
80. Trotsky, LD, War and the Fourth International, In: Breitman, G, and Scott, B,
(eds), Writings of Leon Trotsky (1933-34), New York, Pathfinder Press, 1975, p.
306. (Back to text)
81. According to Fernndez, this article was the result of discussions with Trotsky in
which the latter outlined his ideas, taking as a starting point the theory of
Permanent Revolution. Gall, O, Trotsky en Mxico y la Vida Poltica en el
Perido de Crdenas, 1937-1940, Mexico D.F., Ediciones Era, 1991, p. 224.
(Back to text)
82. ["las burguesas nativas [....], a pesar de sus ansias nacionalistas, [son] simples
apndices del imperialismo. [....] Nacidas tardamente, en presencia de una
penetracin imperialista y del atraso del pas, no pueden resolver con xito las
tareas que sus semejantes de los pases avanzados cumplieron ha mucho tiempo. En
el futuro slo el proletariado, a la cabeza de los campesinos y del pueblo pobre,
ser capaz de realizar hasta sus ltimas consecuencias las tareas de la revolucin
democrtico-burguesa".](My translation, GT.) Fernndez O, Qu Ha Sido y a
Dnde Lleva la Revolucin Mexicana?, Clave (Mexico D.F.), Year 2, Nos 3 and
4, November-December 1939, p. 49. (IISG: ZDO 28028.) (Back to text)
83. A Bonapartist state is one which is relatively independent of the contending classes,
though not neutral in the class struggle. Marx used the term Bonapartism to
describe the French bourgeoisies acceptance of Bonaparte in revolutionary France
in 1852. Marx argued that the weakened French bourgeoisie through fear of losing
their conquests recognised that capitalist interests depended on Bonaparte, and
allowed him to do as he liked with the bourgeoisies parliamentary representatives
for the sake of social peace. Marx, K, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis
Bonaparte, Moscow, Progress Publishers, 1977, pp. 66-67. While Trotsky
recognised that classical Bonapartism would not be repeated, he argued that a
number of its traits would find expression in the future. The most important feature
of Bonapartist regimes which he highlighted was the raising of a military-police
apparatus over the two struggling camps in the class struggle in order to defend
bourgeois property. See Trotsky, LD German Bonapartism In: Breitman, G and
Maisel, M (eds), op cit, pp. 330-331. (Back to text)
59

84. Trotsky, LD, Nationalized Industry and Workers Management, In: Allen, N, and
Breitman, G (eds), Writings of Leon Trotsky (1938-39), New York, Pathfinder
Press, 1974, p. 326. (Back to text)
85. See Gall, O, op cit, p. 226; and Trotsky, LD, Latin American Problems: A
Transcript, In: Breitman, G (ed.), Writings of Leon Trotsky: Supplement (1934-
40), New York, Pathfinder Press, 1979, p. 785. (Back to text)
86. See ibid, p. 785. (Back to text)
87. Ibid, p. 784. (Back to text)
88. Gall, O, op cit, p. 226. (Back to text)
89. Trotsky, LD, Latin American Problems: A Transcript, op cit, p. 784. (Back to
text)
90. Ibid, p. 785. (Back to text)
91. Ibid, p. 784. (Back to text)
92. Ibid, p. 784. (Back to text)
93. Trotsky, LD, Anti-Imperialist Struggle is Key to Liberation: An Interview with
Mateo Fossa, In: Allen, N, and Breitman, G (eds), Writings of Leon Trotsky
(1938-39), op cit, p. 35. (Back to text)
94. See Trotsky, LD, On the Declaration by the Indochinese Oppositionists, In:
Breitman, G, and Lovell, S (eds), Writings of Leon Trotsky (1930-31), New
York, Pathfinder Press, 1973, pp. 30-31. Trotsky argued that [t]he proletariat does
not have the right to turn its back on this kind of nationalism. On the contrary, it
must demonstrate in practice that it is the most consistent and devoted fighter for
national liberation. (Back to text)
95. Trotsky, LD, Latin American Problems: A Transcript, op cit, p. 785. (Back to
text)
96. Ibid, p. 785. (Back to text)
97. Ibid, pp. 784-785. To underline the consistency of Trotskys argument, he voiced
these themes of permanent competition with the national bourgeoisie and
proletarian independence in the struggle against imperialism in his writings on
other parts of the colonial and semi-colonial world. For example, not excluding the
possibility that the Indian bourgeoisie would take limited steps against arbitrary
British rule, Trotsky argued that the proletariat should support every oppositional
and revolutionary action directed against imperialism. However, he also
emphasised that the proletariats support had to be given via its own methods, that
is, strikes, mass demonstrations, etc., and inspired by a firm distrust of the national
bourgeoisie and their petty bourgeois agencies. See Trotsky, LD, Letter on India,
In: Allen, N, and Breitman, G (eds), Writings of Leon Trotsky (1939-40), New
York, Pathfinder Press, 1973, p. 109. Writing on the possibility of a Japanese
invasion of China in the late 1930s, while drawing a distinction between the
patriotism of workers in imperialist and semi-colonial countries, Trotsky again
stressed the need to focus on working within and building class-based organisations
before working with any national liberation front in the oppressed country. For
Trotsky, when national liberation movements sprang into being the fundamental
issue was to prepare for any conflict with imperialism by creating trade union
committees and the like, and maintain a clear class position. See Trotsky, LD, A
Discussion On China, In: Evans, L, and Block, R (eds), op cit, pp. 549-566. (Back
to text)
98. Trotsky, LD, Latin American Problems: A Transcript, op cit, p. 783. (Back to
text)
60

99. Ibid, p. 784. (Back to text)


100. See Gall, O, op cit, pp. 191-204. (Back to text)
101. Trotsky, LD, Latin American Problems: A Transcript, op cit, p. 791. (Back to
text)
102. Ibid, pp. 790-792; and Trotsky, LD, To the Pillory!, In: Allen, N, and Breitman,
G (eds), Writings of Leon Trotsky (1938-39), op cit, pp. 171-173. The transitional
method was systematised by Trotsky in the Fourth Internationals founding
programmatic document The Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the
Fourth International. Trotsky called the list of slogans and demands in the
programme transitional demands because he thought that although they were
essentially unrealisable under capitalism, a consistent struggle to attain them would
lead to the overthrow of capitalism. See Trotsky, LD, The Transitional Program
for Socialist Revolution, New York, Pathfinder Press, 1977, p. 159. (Back to text)
103. Trotsky, LD, Latin American Problems: A Transcript, op cit, pp. 785-786. (Back
to text)
104. Blasier, SC, op cit, p. 24; and Halperin, E, Nationalism and Communism in
Chile, Cambridge: MA, The M.I.T. Press, 1965, pp. 42-43; and Sinani, The June
Events in Chile, The Communist International (London), Vol. 9, No. 13, 15 July
1932, p. 437. (MML.) (Back to text)
105. See Alexander, RJ, (1973), op cit, pp. 93-98; and Drake, PW, Socialism and
Populism in Chile, 1932-52, Chicago: IL, University of Illinois Press, 1978, p. 80.
(Back to text)
106. Stevenson, JR, The Chilean Popular Front, Westport: CT, Greenwood Press,
1970, p. 55; and Coggiola, O (1993), op cit, pp. 18-19. (Back to text)
107. Alexander, RJ, (1973), op cit, p. 112. (Back to text)
108. Alexander, RJ, (1957), op cit, p. 215. (Back to text)
109. While histories written by partisan Trotskyist activists tend to present the debate
sparked by the SWP(US) Burnham-Shachtman Minority as one which from the
beginning focused on the character of the Soviet Union, the initial conflict in fact
occurred over the issue of defence of the Soviet Union and how revolutionaries in
Poland and Finland could fight for the military victory of the invading Red Army in
1939-40. A recent study demonstrates that only in late 1940 did Shachtman
decisively change his view on the issue of the class character of the Soviet Union,
classifying it as a bureaucratic collectivist society, governed by a new social class
distinct from both capitalism and socialism. See Matgamna, S (ed.), The Fate of
the Russian Revolution: Lost Texts of Critical Marxism, Vol. 1, London,
Phoenix Press, 1998. In Latin America, Pedrosa won the support of various
sections in numerous parties for the Minoritys position. See Coggiola, O, (1993),
op cit, pp. 34-35. (Back to text)
110. Quebracho, Estrategia Revolucionaria: Lucha por la Unidad y por la
Liberacin Nacional y Social de la Amrica Latina, Buenos Aires, Fragua, 1957,
pp. 94-97; and Sullivan, JL, Liborio Justo and Argentinian Trotskyism,
Revolutionary History (London), Vol. 2, No. 2, Summer 1989, pp. 30-32. (Back
to text)
111. See Hodges, DC, op cit, p. 85. (Back to text)
112. ["retom las ideas de Liborio Justo [....] a fin de poder justificar no su alianza con la
burguesa nacional, sino su obsecuente sevilismo hacia ella."](My translation, GT.)
Lora, G, Contribucin a la Historia Poltica de Bolivia, Vol. 1, La Paz, Ediciones
Isla, 1978, p. 303. (Back to text)
61

113. Resolutions of the Third World Congress, Latin America: Problems and Tasks,
Fourth International (New York), November-December 1951, p. 209.
(SWP(US).) (Back to text)
114. Ibid, p. 209. (Back to text)
115. See Lora, G, The Bolivian Revolution and the Activity of the POR,
Revolutionary History (London), Vol. 4, No. 3, Summer 1992, p. 21. Brou has
also described how the POR limped behind the MNRs Left-wing. Brou, P,
Bolivia, 9 April 1952: A Forgotten February Revolution?, Revolutionary
History (London), Vol. 4, No. 3, Summer 1992, pp. 29-30. (Back to text)
116. Lora, G, (1992), op cit, p. 21. (Back to text)
117. While Hodges contends that both the national liberation and proletarian
tendencies were strongly represented during the Bolivian events in 1952, this view
has been challenged by Jos Villa who argues that only later did the anti-Pabloists
discover the Bolivian PORs 1952 betrayal [....] in their search to find
arguments for their factional battles". See Villa, J, A Revolution Betrayed,
Revolutionary History (London), Vol. 4, No. 3, Summer 1992, pp. 84-85. The
Vern-Ryan documents published in the SWP(US)s Internal Bulletin in 1952-53
also suggest that the Bolivian Partido Obrero Revolucionario was encouraged by
the SWP(US) and international leadership to adopt a conciliatory attitude towards
the MNR government. See, for example, Ryan, S, BoliviaClass Collaboration
Makes a Recruit, Internal Bulletin (New York), Vol. 15, No. 17, August 1953,
pp. 40-51. (SP.) Another critique which highlighted the point that the Bolivian
Partido Obrero Revolucionario was pursuing a strategy similar to that of the
Comintern in China in 1925-27 was published in the Shachtmanite press. See the
list of articles written by Juan Robles/Juan Rey in the newspaper Labor Action
during 1952. Robles Reports on Bolivian Revolution. URL:
http://www.compulink.co.uk/~jplant/revhist/supplem/bolivia/roblemen.htm/ (4
January 1999.) [These Reports from Bolivia by Juan Robles have since moved to
www.revolutionary-history.co.uk/supplem/bolivia/roblemen.htm] (Back to text)
118. Coggiola has argued that the SWP(US) supported reunification because the
International Secretariat groups viewed Cuba as a workers state whereas the
International Committee, to whom it was loosely affiliated, did not. Coggiola, O,
Historia del Trotskismo Argentino, Vol. 2, Part 1, (1986), op cit, p. 39. (Back to
text)
119. See the flow diagram in Appendix A for an overview of the organisational
realignments which took place in the international Trotskyist movement in the
wake of the Cuban Revolution. (Back to text)
120. Cited in Alexander, RJ, (1991), op cit, p. 665 from Sous le Drapeau de Socialisme
(Paris), June-August 1981, p. 45. (Back to text)
121. See Coggiola, O, (1986), op cit, pp. 31-34; and Alexander, RJ, (1991), op cit, pp.
659-665; and Hodges, DC, op cit, pp. 118-120; and Posadism: A Report on an
Autopsy, Inprecor, nd, pp. 12-20. (From internal evidence, published by the
International Marxist Group in Great Britain in the late 1960s.) (SP.) (Back to text)
122. Coggiola, O, (1986), op cit, p. 33. (Back to text)
62

CHAPTER THREE

Nationalism and Socialism in Cuba from the 1800s to


1965
This chapter develops the contextual framework within which I can explore the origins,
evolution and importance of Trotskyism in Cuba by moving from an analysis of the
theoretical and organisational development of official communism and Trotskyism at an
international level to an analysis of the specific national context. As such, I outline the
development of the principal features of the Cuban political economy and the form in
which nationalist and socialist aspirations were expressed. Although there is no
extended discussion of the colonial period, its legacies in terms of class structure and
revolutionary traditions dating from the independence struggles of the nineteenth
century provide the starting point for this discussion. I then consider in more depth the
period encompassing the subsequent accelerated process of integration with, and
subordination to, the U.S. economy up to the 1959 Revolution, before discussing the
institutionalisation of the post-1959 revolutionary order. The main foci of attention are
the development of the official Cuban Communist Party from its foundation in 1925,
and the forces of radical nationalism in Cuba, particularly the Autnticos led by Ramn
Grau San Martn and Joven Cuba led by Antonio Guiteras in the 1930s.

In each section emphasis is placed on highlighting the general patterns of economic and
political developments in Cuba. In particular, I argue that alongside Cubas continued
semi-colonial status, the major defining feature of the post-independence Cuban
political economy was the weakness of class-based institutions. This peculiar
characteristic, I contend, not only sowed the seeds for the formation of Bonapartist-type
regimes, both pre- and post-1959, but promoted the growth of a powerful official
communist party which was willing to conclude opportunist agreements with various
authoritarian political leaders in order to advance its own narrow interests against those
of both the national bourgeoisie and the working class. This analysis of the Cuban
national context not only provides static markers for later reference but also allows
judgements reached in the subsequent examination of Trotskyism in Cuba to be made
on the basis of the specific national backdrop as well as the debates and developments at
the international level.(1)

3.1 Independence and the Development of the Cuban Political


Economy

3.1.1 Background to Independence: The Foundations of the Cuban


Political Economy

The development of the international political economy at the end of the eighteenth and
early nineteenth century confirmed Cubas position as part of an expanding global
capitalist system and conditioned the pattern of Cubas future structural development as
a largely sugar producing, export economy within that capitalist system. The collapse of
sugar production in Haiti in the 1790s fuelled a wave of investment in the sugar sector
in Cuba.(2) This economic leap forward, in turn, stimulated a substantial growth in the
size and importance of a Creole land-owning class which would later grow to challenge
63

Spanish commercial and political interests. Initially, though, the spectre of Haiti ensured
that the Napoleonic Wars, which had acted as the mid-wife of independence struggles
elsewhere in Latin America, did not ignite Cuba.(3) Indeed, up until the 1860s the
Cubans who did advocate separation from Spain largely desired U.S. annexation in
defence of slavery.(4)

The first outburst of revolutionary nationalism in Cuba found expression in the form of
the Liberation Army which prosecuted the fight for independence during the Ten Years
War of 1868-1878. Annexationism had lost its appeal as slavery was in the process of
being abolished in the U.S. after 1863, and the old threat to the Creole land-owning
class that Cuba would be either Spanish or African had lost credibility as the number
of whites surpassed that of Blacks.(5) The impact of the international economic crisis of
1866-67, compounded by Spains imposition of general tax increases, eventually
provoked a section of the Creole land-owning planters to back the project of rebellion.
(6)

While the protracted first war for independence brought military defeat for the
independence movement, it had long lasting economic and political consequences for
Cuba. Apart from forging a spirit of independentismo in arms, the young class of Cuban
land-owners faced ruin.(7) Many of those land-owners who did not have their land and
mills confiscated after the end of the 1868-78 War, and who survived the post-war
economic crisis of the 1880s, only did so to lose their old ownership of both cane land
and mills in the 1890s and early twentieth century. Economic imperatives which
necessitated a modernisation of sugar production meant that those already indebted
land-owners who could not afford to keep pace were transformed into colonos, that is,
into planters who cultivated cane but who, unable to grind it, merely sold it on to the
large mills.(8) In greater numbers, property titles were exchanged as Cuban planters
increasingly functioned as the local agents of North American capital penetration.(9)

After the Spanish victory in the Ten Years War, the surviving Creole landowners
largely sought reform with stability inside the existing political framework.(10)
However, as economic conditions tightened in the 1880s and 90s, the divisions between
the political centre under the control of the Spanish, and the hard-pressed native
productive classes again became apparent. Increasingly, Cubans chose opposition to
Spanish domination via revolutionary politics. Apart from the dispossessed and
impoverished native planters who had been pressed into the urban petty bourgeoisie and
whose advancement was blocked by favour for Spaniards, those sympathetic to the
cause of revolution also included the poor peasants and the more militant expatriate
workers in Florida. In the winter of 1891-92, the Partido Revolucionario Cubano was
organised by Jos Mart and Carlos Balio to overcome the petty jealousies of the
insurgent caudillos and give the revolutionary independence movement a united
military command against the Spanish forces.(11)

3.1.2 Independence, U.S. Domination and the Cuban Bourgeoisie

The second major war of independence from Spain, 1895-1898, known as the Spanish-
American War, was three years in preparation under the auspices of the Partido
Revolucionario Cubano. As most authors, both Cuban and non-Cuban, highlight this
independence campaign united much broader layers of the Cuban population against
Spanish tutelage than any rebellion before had done.(12) Even the Cuban anarcho-
64

syndicalist movement was not hostile to the sentiment of national liberation after the
1892 Workers Congress had agreed on a formula which allowed workers to join the
separatist movement on an individual basis.(13)

With the advance of the insurgent armies from the eastern third of the island into the
rich central and western zones of Cuba in early 1896, the attitude of the Spanish
authorities hardened and they responded with a strategy of meeting war with war.(14)
By 1898, however, the physically and financially exhausted Spanish forces had
abandoned all offensives and controlled little territory outside heavily garrisoned coastal
cities. In such a climate, the Cuban planters faced extinction as a political force by
Spanish loyalists while also being threatened with extinction as a solvent, viable social
class by the action of the Cuban Liberation Army. As it became evident that all efforts
on the part of the Crown forces to either conquer or conciliate the separatist movement
had failed, it was to the U.S. government that the property owners in Cuba, irrespective
of nationality, turned.(15)

While the insurgents rejected all conciliation with Spain, their attitude towards the U.S.
was more accommodating. Most of those separatist leaders who had not lobbied for
U.S. intervention from the outset of the war positively co-operated with the U.S. forces
when they landed in Cuba in June 1898. The U.S. government, in contrast, was less
generous to the Cubans. After attempts to purchase Cuba from Spain in the mid-
nineteenth century had come to nothing, the U.S. had supported the principle of no
transfer to another European power and reluctantly defended Spanish rule in Cuba as a
substitute for annexation.(16) However, in 1898 as it became clear to all that Spanish
sovereignty had slipped beyond recovery, the U.S. was faced with the stark choice of
Cuban independence or direct military intervention. After the Liberation Army had
rejected a U.S.-sponsored call for a cease-fire in April 1898, it was evident that the
spectre of an independent Cuba raised the possibility of further political, social and
racial disorder as well as intervention by the European powers. With the presumption of
U.S. succession under threat, the U.S. administration opted for intervention in order to
neutralise the competing Spanish and Cuban claims to sovereignty and impose a third
by force of arms.(17)

In 1898, then, the U.S. landed troops in Cuba and, albeit on the basis of neutrality to
stop the war, entered the final stages of the fighting against the remaining Spanish
forces. The intervention changed everything. The United States minimised the
participation of the Cuban insurgents in the final operations against the Spanish forces,
and the Cubans were excluded altogether from the peace negotiations which followed.
(18) While the Cuban Liberal Autonomous government established in January 1898
became superfluous,(19) the U.S. took effective control of the Liberation Army by
offering the insurgents the quite substantial sum of US$75 in exchange for each rifle.
(20)

The military occupation of Cuba lasted four years and was not brought to a close before
the U.S. had put in place the political means for ensuring U.S. hegemony and stability in
Cuba, the Platt Amendment. In its essential features, the Platt Amendment addressed the
central concerns of the United States and, in large part, served as a substitute for
annexation. In particular, the restrictions imposed on any Cuban government on the
conduct of foreign relations, specifically the denial of treaty authority and restrictions
on contracting debt, as well as the right conceded to the U.S. to intervene in order to
65

protect life and property, sought to ensure that stability in Cuba was not jeopardised by
her ability to pay debts or to protect the lives of foreigners.

Cuba entered nationhood with the remaining native stake in sugar left vulnerable to
capital from outside.(21) During the United States military occupation and the early
years of the republic, U.S. companies took advantage of the exposed state of affairs and
bought up a large proportion of the Cuban sugar industry thereby stunting the growth of
a native bourgeoisie. It has been estimated that by 1906, 60 per cent of all rural property
in Cuba was owned by foreign companies, with another 15 per cent controlled by
resident Spaniards. Cubans held only 25 per cent of the land.(22) In a capital-starved
and indebted economy, foreign control, principally that of the U.S., expanded over all
key sectors of the economy, including mining, banking, utilities, and transportation. The
U.S. total capital stake in Cuba, which had been US$50 million at the start of the
Spanish-American War,(23) had quadrupled in absolute terms by 1911 and
overwhelmed local interests in most sectors.(24) U.S. domination of Cuba was also
facilitated by the signing of a commercial Reciprocity Treaty in 1903, securing in
economic terms what the Platt Amendment had achieved politically. Undermining the
growth of a native Cuban manufacturing industry and reinforcing the mono-product,
mono-export pattern of structural development, this reciprocity agreement gave Cuban
sugar a tariff advantage over its competitors for the import of sugar into the United
States while, in return, the U.S. was granted preferential tariffs for manufactured U.S.
goods entering Cuba.(25)

Robin Blackburn has described how the nineteenth century independence wars in Cuba
were qualitatively distinct from the other earlier Latin American revolts because of the
shattered social order which resulted in Cuba. He wrote, [t]he landowning aristocracy
was decimated and demoralized. It had missed its chance [....] it had been ground
between its fear of its African slaves and the vengeance of its Spanish overlords.(26)
Rather than a native class of employers accumulating capital via the production and net
export of manufactured goods, the classical European model of capitalist development,
U.S. finance capital took advantage of the Cuban economys indebtedness. The Cuban
national bourgeoisie, already doomed by 1898, was left inert as U.S. interests
capitalised and promoted the development of sugar, an agricultural product.

The comparative advantage which Cuba held in the production of sugar attracted further
investments to Cuba on the outbreak of war in Europe in 1914.(27) Even though prices
were controlled from 1917, the date of U.S. entry into the war, until 1919, the ceiling
price of 5.5 c/lb was sufficient to further stimulate an increase in sugar production.(28)
When, in 1919, the U.S. Food Administration lifted price controls on sugar, speculative
investments in Cuba turned into a frenzy. The so-called Dance of the Millions took
off.(29) In May 1920, sugar was selling at 20 c/lb in New York. According to Louis
Prez Jr., [e]very banking house owned portfolios thick with notes of mortgaged sugar
property, notes standing on future crops of sugar made at a valuation of 20 c/lb.(30)

However, as sugar beet production in Europe resumed, the price of sugar from an all-
time high of 20 c/lb in 1920, dropped before that same year was out to 3.6 c/lb, with a
further fall to 1.8 c/lb in 1921.(31) The crisis which this provoked led the U.S. to take a
further stake in the economic and political management of the country. As Julio Le
Riverend has argued,(32) because foreign banks invested their deposits over a range of
operations, not necessarily inside Cuba, they did not leave their Cuban branches open to
66

the extraordinary levels of risk which smaller, relatively unprotected Cuban banks
faced. Such gearing provided the opportunity for U.S. banks to eliminate their smaller
Cuban competitors and further dominate the economy. United States finance capital
extended its presence even further in the period 1921-24. Apart from enlarging its
participation in the sugar harvest,(33) it also increased U.S.-control of other strategic
sectors including mining, public utilities, banks and the external debt in the Cuban
economy during these years.(34)

This virtual confiscation of the productive forces in Cuba by U.S. interests curtailed the
dynamism of the remaining pockets of Cuban capital. As Blackburn has argued, while
the U.S. capital stake in Cuba had reached dimensions where it no longer supported
and secured the local landowning class, as it did everywhere else in Latin America: it
had largely replaced this class,(35) small-scale Cuban capital came to be invested not
in competition with its U.S. counterpart, but in co-operation, merely as a
complementary if not parasitic factor.(36) Any possibility that an independently-minded
manufacturing or industrial bourgeoisie would crystallise in Cuba was finally lost.

The increased foreign-based ownership of the means of production also shaped the
structure and function of the Cuban state. The two nationally organised political parties
which arose during the first U.S. military occupation competed for the favour of the
U.S. and displayed little concern for developing a native industrial base even by
advocating mild protectionist measures against those countries to which Cubas
principal export, sugar, was sent. From the initial withdrawal of U.S. troops, until the
1920s, Cuba was ruled by a succession of weak presidents who were notable chiefly for
their attachment to the spoils of office and corruption. Party loyalty was not strong and
politicians often switched parties to the likely victor at election time in their competition
for positions and access to the resources of the new state.(37) The political outs were
simply keen to get in in order to be able to administer funds and favour. As Luis
Aguilar has argued, one result of being deprived the ownership of the major productive
levers was a burgeoning bureaucracy which grew out of all proportion to the economy.
(38) Prez Jr. similarly observed that [p]ublic office, patronage appointments, and civil
service became ends; politics and electoral competition were the means.(39)
Opposition politics for the first twenty years of the republic largely revolved around
threatening political insurrections as a path to requesting U.S. intervention under the
terms of the Platt Amendment.(40)

This stagnant cycle of presidencies was only challenged in the aftermath of the Dance of
the Millions. The collapse in the price of sugar ushered in economic depression and
while U.S. finance capital once again threatened the social position of the small Cuban
land-owning class, the existence of small proprietors also came under threat as money
became tight. Albeit moderate at first, Cuban bourgeois nationalism once more had an
identifiable social base at a time when the Mexican Revolution was fuelling a
rejuvenated nationalist sentiment among a recently organised university reform
movement intent on securing university autonomy from the church and state. The
election of General Gerardo Machado as president of the Cuban Republic in 1925 under
the slogan of regeneration was the manifestation of this moderate nationalism. Early
on, he extolled the virtues of national industrial development and the need for
economic diversification(41) and in 1927 introduced Cubas first tariff legislation to
favour the import of raw materials while making the import of manufactured goods less
attractive.(42) While this brand of moderate economic nationalism favouring a Cuban
67

manufacturing bourgeoisie and so-called regeneration initially led to a spirit of


cooperativismo permeating the major political parties, Machado increasingly turned to
contain a newly organised and increasingly militant working class. As Jorge Domnguez
has argued, Machados moderate nationalist programme was limited and came too late
to counteract the impact of the sugar depression.(43)

Machados efforts to combat declining world prices for sugar not only led to repression
against the labour movement, but opened up a divide between sections of the ruling
Cuban oligarchy. Colonos were left with greater quantities of unsold cane because of
the quota system and this sparked a crack in the spirit of cooperativismo. The ruptures
in the written non-aggression pact also coincided with Machados turn to dictatorship as
he openly sought to extend his term in office by altering the constitution. During the late
1920s and early 1930s, the bourgeois opposition to Machado around ex-vice president
Colonel Carlos Mendieta and ex-president General Mario Menocal would seek U.S.
military preventative intervention at certain times, while at others would threaten
popular rebellion in alliance with the more radical opposition.(44)

3.1.3 The Formative Years of the Cuban Labour Movement

The working class in Cuba emerged as a result of capitalist development and production
for export in the two main industries, tobacco and sugar. In the tobacco industry cigar
workers first formed mutual benefit and education associations during the 1850s.(45)
Under the leadership of Saturnino Martnez, the influence of co-operativism and
reformism on the Cuban labour movement went unchallenged until the 1880s when
younger leaders began advocating the new ideology of anarcho-syndicalism.

As Jean Stubbs has noted, the 1880s in Cuba are frequently depicted as a political
battleground between reformists and anarchists.(46) While the increasing dominance
of anarcho-syndicalism in the Cuban labour movement is often largely attributed to the
fact that the tobacco industry tended to stimulate the immigration of workers from
Spain, who brought with them their anarcho-syndicalist ideology,(47) Joan Casanovas
recent illuminating study has argued that the principal new ideas and leaders were
home-grown. He convincingly contends that after the Ten Years War there were
political and social changes in both Spain and Cuba which promoted the reorganisation
of the labour movement under the leadership of anarcho-syndicalists. Most
significantly, in the conditions of peace in the 1880s the influx of labour, both new
Spanish immigrants and returning separatist Creoles, diluted the old privileges of the
old Spanish labour aristocracy. As division by origin began to become less pronounced
so also did division by race as slavery was progressively abolished during the course of
the 1880s. Increasingly workers of all origins and races found common interest in
defending wages and conditions in a tight labour market. In this social context anarcho-
syndicalism with its militant tactics and ideas of working class solidarity and equality
overtook the conciliatory ideas of class collaboration.(48) Anarcho-syndicalism was to
dominate Cuban working class politics for the next forty years.(49)

Although, as described, the anarcho-syndicalist labour movement was not hostile to the
cause of national liberation, the manifestation of anarcho-syndicalism in Cuba did retain
a peculiar nationalistic hue. While the end of the four years of U.S. military
occupation(50) left the Cuban working class with no organisational framework, as
Charles Page has argued, a sense of chauvinistic anarchism also overtook the remaining
68

pre-war internationalist anarcho-syndicalist spirit.(51) The main cause of this was the
conflict between Spanish and Cuban workers over the issue of reserving the better-paid
jobs in certain trades for Spanish workers. Spanish workers dominated the commercial
sector and the skilled jobs in the tobacco industry. With an influx of foreign labour,
mostly from Spain, in the first two decades of the republic,(52) labour militancy and
strikes often took on a nationalistic character against Spanish control of the labour
market rather than constituting any direct protest against capitalist interests.

Apart from the traditional refusal of anarchist apoliticism to accept the direction of any
party or centralised structure,(53) the reluctance of anarchists to challenge the privileges
which Spaniards enjoyed in labour market ensured that any attempt at working class
organisation at a national level quickly broke down.(54) While anarchists were the more
militant promoters of the strike weapon, particularly over demands for the payment of
wages in U.S. dollars as opposed to the devalued French or Spanish currencies,(55) and
were consistent in their calls for direct action against capital and the Cuban state, which
it viewed as a tool of the bourgeoisie,(56) the attempts to found nation-wide socialist
parties in the first two decades of independence were dominated by reformist leaders.
These organisational attempts by reformists to build an opposition to the influence of
anarchism in the working class were generally short-lived initiatives concentrated in the
periods leading up to elections. They also took advantage of the fact that after a series of
strikes the anarcho-syndicalist leaders of Spanish origin were often deported.

The attempts to build a nation-wide labour centre along reformist lines in the early years
of the republic culminated with the August 1914 Workers Congress. A majority of
delegates supported the labour initiatives of the government in return for mobilising the
vote of the working class in the newly organised Partido Democrtico Social.(57)
Again, though, this project of class conciliation was overtaken by the spirit of anarcho-
syndicalist direct action promoted by the growing economic disequilibrium during the
First World War period. While sugar production expanded, as a result of Cubas
dependence on imported goods to satisfy domestic consumer demand, a wage-price
inflationary spiral was also sparked off.(58) The anarcho-syndicalist leadership, while
opposing the war, encouraged labour militancy and, despite the governments attempts
at repression, the working class was increasingly organised as a force independent of
the state.(59)

The First World War years also brought the Russian October Revolution. While its
repercussions for twentieth century development were profound, as much in Cuba as
elsewhere, initially, its impact on the Cuban political scene was minimal. The disparate
political currents within the labour movement interpreted the events in Russia according
to their own ideology with various anarchist leaders proclaiming themselves the Cuban
section of the Comintern, without any concrete knowledge or understanding of the
course of developments in Russia.(60) As Olga Cabrera has argued, the impact of the
Russian October Revolution was more emotional than anything of real political
significance.(61) Bearing witness to the weakness of an independent class-based
socialist tradition at the time, the Bolshevik Revolution did not result in any split within
the Cuban labour movement, nor in the immediate formation of a communist party. The
Russian Revolutions impact was instead limited to implanting revolutionary Marxism
as a potentially successful guide to action in the consciousness of the anarcho-
syndicalist milieu.
69

Working class organisation in all major sectors across the island gathered pace through
the early 1920s. A First National Labour Congress was convened in Havana, which, in
1920-21, under the leadership of the anarcho-syndicalist Alfredo Lpez, moved to
organise the Federacin Obrera de La Habana (FOH).(62) Although this trade union
centre only united and co-ordinated the activity of the trade unions in the capital, in
practice, its influence stretched beyond the province of Havana. In the wake of the
Dance of the Millions, sugar workers suffered cuts in their wages and periods of
employment. The discontent which this stimulated engendered a new wave of labour
militancy. Between 1921 and 1924 this resulted in the working class movement gaining
a greater degree of unity with trade union bodies in the urban areas establishing links
with rural centres of work.(63) Furthermore, the radicalised student sector, under the
leadership of Julio Antonio Mella, having initiated a campaign for university reform as
a first step towards national regeneration, began to establish links with the organisations
of the working class.

In 1923-24, strikes initiated by the sugar workers spread across the country, producing
solidarity action in other urban sectors.(64) While this series of strikes brought together
wider layers of workers than any previous movement, and immediately gave the
struggle an anti-imperialist content in that the mills were largely U.S.-owned, it also had
a narrower nationalist aspect. One central demand of the sugar workers, the call to end
the annual import of Jamaican and Haitian field workers, ensured that nationalism
continued to exert its influence.(65) However, the widespread support for the 1923-24
strikes inspired the formation of the Confederacin Nacional Obrera de Cuba (CNOC),
a permanent national trade union body, at a congress in August 1925.(66) At this
historic congress, delegates representing an estimated 200,000 workers expressed a
diverse range of reformist, anarcho-syndicalist and communist views. However, the
anarcho-syndicalists were still dominant and the Congress reaffirmed their tenet that
authority and the state are terms antagonistic to liberty.(67) Within weeks of the
founding of the CNOC various small communist groups met to constitute the Partido
Comunista de Cuba (PCC).

The opposition to the Machados government offensive at first centred around the
students organised in the Directorio Estudiantil Universitario. However, as the acts of
apparently arbitrary repression and assassination against labour organisations and their
leaders mounted, the working class became increasingly embroiled. Labour militancy
continued to rise as the Machado regime responded to a fall in world sugar prices by
cutting production via the establishment of a quota system for each province and mill.
(68) The already under-employed sugar workers had to suffer an even shorter harvest
season. It was during this period of deepening social conflict in the late 1920s that the
PCCs influence in the working class substantially increased. In part, the PCCs rise was
facilitated by the work of Rubn Martnez Villena, a leading member of the party, in his
capacity as a lawyer for the CNOC. His position allowed the PCC access to and
influence in the offices of a variety of trade unions.(69)

In the late 1920s, official communist influence was also aided by the destruction of the
labour movements experienced anarcho-syndicalist leadership who, already well
known to the regime, bore the brunt of the severe repression meted out by the Machado
governments security forces.(70) However, apart from simply filling the vacuum left
by the wave of repression directed at the old leadership of the labour movement, the
communist take over of the leadership of the working class was also facilitated by the
70

emotional enthusiasm some small socialist groups had had for the Russian October
Revolution.(71) Communist literature in Spanish, which had started to come to Cuba
via seamen and immigrants, also had an impact on these groups as well as some old
anarcho-syndicalists. Sandalio Junco, for example, a Black bakery worker and anarchist
when he participated in the founding of the FOH, became the International Secretary of
the CNOC shortly after its founding, and joined the PCC after visiting the Soviet Union
in 1927.(72) Also of significance was the fact that communist ideology had an
increasingly wider base in which it could agitate and recruit. The anarcho-syndicalists
who had originally gained their support in the tobacco industry and other small-scale
workshops, could not compete with the communists as the sugar industry, a centre of
large-scale capitalist production in an otherwise largely unindustrialised economy, was
increasingly penetrated by modernising finance capital in the 1920s.(73)

3.2 The Revolution of the 1930s

3.2.1 The Revolution of the 1930s and Radical Cuban Nationalism

In the wake of the Stock Exchange Crash of 1929, and the subsequent world-wide
economic depression, Cubas narrowly based export economy was hit hard. The
problems were compounded by the protectionist Hawly-Smoot Tariff Act of June 1930
in the U.S., which increased the duty on sugar entering the U.S. home market,(74) so
that the Cuban share of that U.S. market dropped from 49.4 per cent to 25.3 per cent
between 1930 and 1933.(75) Similarly, the value of tobacco, Cubas second largest
export, declined from US$43 million in 1929 to US$13 million in 1933.(76) In 1932,
the price of sugar fell to as low as 0.57 c/lb.(77) Production was cut back, businesses
closed and wage reductions were enforced at the same time as unemployment soared.
As business failures reached record proportions, and as government subsidies and
expenditure were cut to help service the foreign debt, a hard-pressed section of the small
national bourgeoisie, as well as government officials and professionals who had been
laid off, transferred their political hopes to the constitutional opposition. Machado,
though, met this challenge to his regime with increased repression and the murder of his
political rivals of all shades.

With the removal of the more moderate nationalist elements, whose threat was more
based on provoking the support of the U.S. than stimulating any mass popular
movement inside Cuba,(78) more militant groups emerged. In 1931 the PCC formed an
aggressively anti-imperialist organisation, the Ala Izquierda Estudiantil (Left-Wing
Students), to challenge what it considered was the limited democratic nationalism of the
Directorio Estudiantil Universitario in the student milieu.(79) In conditions
characterised by the proscription of the Cuban Communist Party, the formation of the
Ala Izquierda Estudiantil was one more front organisation through which the PCC
conducted much of its activity. Other front organisations which had been formed during
the Cominterns Second Period of building broad anti-imperialist blocs included Cuban
sections of the Defensa Obrera Internacional, affiliated to International Red Aid, the
Liga Anti-Imperialista de las Amricas, the Liga Anti-Clerical, and a youth
organisation, the Liga Juvenil Comunista.

After the failure of an armed insurrection in August 1931 which was planned and
initiated by the socially conservative Partido Unin Nacionalista headed by Mendieta
and General Miguel Mariano Gmez,(80) the urban middle class also perpetuated the
71

tradition of turning to arms by forming the ABC. Primarily a terrorist body from mid-
1932, it organised among the ranks of urban professionals on a secretive cellular basis
with the immediate aim of punishing those in the Machado regime who were
responsible for the arbitrary acts of violence against the opposition.(81) While the
ABCs programme identified the negative role of U.S. imperialism in displacing Cubans
from control over the national economy,(82) politically it was a heterogeneous
organisation. Its links to the working class, however, were minimal which, apart from
reinforcing its tendency towards individual terrorism, instilled in it a fear of revolution
with social consequences. This eventually led it to side with the counter-revolution.(83)

During 1932 and early 1933, opposition to Machados rule came from all social classes.
The student and middle class opposition movement was increasingly supplemented by
the intervention of the working class who were also demanding widespread economic
and political reforms. As labour militancy again rose in June and July 1933 at the end of
the zafra, so in July the U.S. Ambassador to Cuba, Benjamin Sumner Welles, began
mediation talks between the Machado administration and the non-communist opposition
groups. However, while these were underway a general strike called for 5 August
paralysed Havana and quickly spread across the island.(84) According to a report by a
New Deal advocate in the U.S.,(85) under the leadership of the FOH and the CNOC the
strike had been transformed from a limited economic movement into a political
crusade openly anti-governmental in character. Machado undertook one final
manoeuvre to prevent his political demise by denouncing the U.S. mediation and
offering limited concessions in negotiations with labour leaders. As the same pro-New
Dealer, Charles Thomson, has described,(86) [t]hroughout the strike the government
had maintained contact with labor leaders, and on 8 August the Communist-led National
Confederation of Labor [i.e., the CNOC], in return for a promise from Machado to
recognize the legality of that organization, release all imprisoned workers and grant
other demands, ordered the workers back to their jobs. The command, however, was
opposed by the Havana Federation of Labor [i.e., the FOH] and was not heeded by the
strikers.

Amidst the mounting chaos and after losing U.S.-backing, Machado eventually fled the
country on 12 August 1933. As news of his regimes collapse came, the U.S.,
underestimating the extent of the popular clamour for profound reform, ushered in a
government led by Carlos Miguel de Cspedes.(87) While the general strike initially
folded, the working class, unlike in 1898, was organised and playing an active part in
events. With the collapse of Machados authority in the countryside, and with the
workers sensing the exhaustion of the old Cuban oligarchy tied to the Platt Amendment,
a further series of strikes in the sugar industry broke out in the interior in mid- to late
August 1933. As Barry Carr has described,(88) mill occupations accelerated and
workers militancy increased after Machados flight as the collapse of the Machadista
local councils and temporary paralysis of local military units created a power vacuum.
With the army reportedly in a state of indiscipline and rebelliousness,(89) a spontaneous
insurrectionary tide led by the older local trade union leaders, and catching the PCC
somewhat by surprise, temporarily took control of production centres. Armed groups of
workers pressed home their demands as they secured and extended workers control
over a large number of centrales across Cuba.(90) According to Carr,(91) [i]n a few
exceptional cases [....] the occupations were transformed into Soviets.
72

However, although no effective political power was able to call on a centralised armed
body of men, the strikers themselves had no long-term perspective. Just as this turn of
events demonstrated that in the initial stage of a spontaneous mass movement, workers
reinforce the traditional organisations and methods of strugglein this case, those of
apolitical syndicalismso this manifestation of working class militancy served to
demonstrate the ultimate failing of anarcho-syndicalism. Unwilling to pose the political
question of which class will hold state power, after Batista had consolidated control of
the army in early October 1933, promising renewed army intervention in the centrales,
the strike committees increasingly sought compromise agreements as the control of the
mills was ceded to the owners. The demands of the strikers did not impinge on the
political questions of power, but were rather limited to economism.(92)

With state power temporarily paralysed and the political situation still undecided, the
end of the Cspedes government came in the form of the Sergeants Revolt of 4
September 1933 led by Sergeant Fulgencio Batista.(93) In the short term, the
intervention of the influential Directorio Estudiantil Universitario advocating radical
reform turned an act of insubordination into a military coup. Under the political
leadership of the students a five-man directorate formed a new government which in
turn gave way to Grau San Martn, the choice of the radical students for the presidency.

The new regimes nationalist support and orientation was initially bolstered by the
refusal of the U.S. government to confer upon it official recognition and the placement
of a cordon of thirty U.S. warships around the island.(94) According to one observer,
the regime of Grau San Martn was dominated by a programme based on a spirit of
frank nationalism.(95) Cuba for the Cubans became its motto(96) as it set about the
implementation of a nationalist, reformist programme.

Seeking to chart a course between demands for radical social reform emanating from
the labour and student movement, whose left-wing claimed to be anti-imperialist, and
the more cautious social conservatism of the old institutions, the Grau San Martn
government combined a policy of paternalistic intervention in labour-capital relations
with frank chauvinistic appeals to popular nationalist sentiments. While the Platt
Amendment was unilaterally abrogated and social reforms in terms of minimum wage
legislation, a statutory eight-hour working day and the drastic reduction of electricity
prices were introduced,(97) the Grau San Martn government attempted to challenge the
dominant influence of communism in the labour movement by seeking to Cubanise
the labour force and the labour leadership. In the first place, Grau San Martn continued
Machados policy of deporting unemployed foreigners.(98) Another decree, which
popularly became known as the 50 per cent Law, required all companies to ensure that
at least 50 per cent of employees on their payrolls be native Cubans and that all new
vacancies be filled by Cubans.(99) A further decree on labour organisation attempted to
Cubanise the trade union movement and restrict communist influence by making it
illegal for foreign-born trade unionists to hold office in a labour organisation. This
decree also included the setting up of a government register of all labour organisations
and the establishment of a compulsory conciliation and arbitration board to settle all
industrial disputes. As the pro-New Deal Commission on Cuban Affairs in the U.S.
observed, a wedge was driven between native and foreign labor(100) as nationalism
was mobilised within the ranks of labour in a struggle to weaken communism.(101)
73

While much of the legislation of the Grau San Martn government was motivated by the
Directorio Estudiantil Universitarios programme, the primary conduit for forcing
apace much of the social reform legislation and pressing home the concerns of the
radical nationalist forces was Guiteras, the young Minister of War and the Interior.
However, also within the government, Batistas authority was increasing as he rallied
the army in resisting a counter-coup by the deposed officer caste and in repressing the
mounting wave of strikes and social unrest.(102) Apart from violently confronting
striking workers in the centrales, the army crushed a demonstration organised by the
PCC in Havana to honour the return of the ashes of the murdered communist Mella on
29 September 1933.(103) In also ransacking the offices of the CNOC, Batista began to
win the confidence of the moderate nationalist sectors who were hostile to the more
radical anti-imperialist content of the Grau San Martn-Guiteras social reform
programme.(104)

Caught between a radical insurrectional tide, which had not subsided, and pressure from
the small national bourgeoisie for social peace, the fall of the so-called 100-day
government of Grau San Martn came in mid-January 1934, the day after the U.S.-
owned Cuban Electric Company had refused to comply with a government order to
reduce its prices and the government had ordered a seizure of its plants.(105) At the
beginning of the 1934 zafra, sugar interests in Cuba and the U.S. required an immediate
political solution which would guarantee social stability during the harvest. Batista
transferred army support from Grau San Martn to, first of all, Carlos Hevia, the
moderate Secretary of Agriculture, and then three days later to Mendieta. Within five
days the U.S. had recognised the new government.(106) While political power had been
torn from the old oligarchy, the anti-imperialist content of the struggle had received a
severe blow. The right of capital over labour once again rested on the unequivocal
support of the army committed to halting the mobilisation of labour. While Batista had a
narrow base of popular support, his immediate task was one of naked repression,
something which the small and weak national bourgeoisie had proven incapable of
carrying out alone. As Batista increasingly took on the features of a repressive
Bonapartist figure above the local class formations, during the course of 1934 the
Batista-Mendieta regime also attempted to legitimise and strengthen many of the labour
reforms which the Grau San Martn government had introduced.(107)

In January and February 1934, following the fall of the Grau San Martn government,
strikes almost overtook the government while a myriad of political groups also sprang
into being to challenge Batistas authority. Grau San Martn fled to Mexico and founded
the Partido Revolucionario Cubano (Autntico) (PRC(A)) in February 1934, a party
modelled on an Aprista peaceful, nationalist opposition to the new government.(108)
The most uncompromising political action group, though, was Joven Cuba founded by
Guiteras. In essence a politico-military apparatus for the overthrow of Batista and
imposition of socialism from above, Joven Cuba embodied an amalgam of political
ideas. In the first place, Guiteras strategy incorporated the ideas of revolutionary
violence and a socialist dictatorship characterised by a concentration of coercion as had
been advocated in the early twentieth century in Europe by Sorel.(109) Guiteras also
embodied the voluntarist traditions of Cuban revolutionary struggle which highlighted
the subjective factor in the revolutionary process. More pertinent to my thesis, though,
is that in many respects Guiteras approach to revolutionary struggle ran Trotskys
theory of Permanent Revolution backwards. That is, whereas Trotsky saw the revolution
as the culmination of a process of consistent United Front work to win and pass beyond
74

democratic demands, Guiteras schema in effect drew no distinction between


imperialism and the national bourgeoisie, ignored the democratic political tasks of the
revolutionary struggle, and sought to impose emancipation on the oppressed classes.

Reducing the revolution to a largely technical, military operation, Joven Cuba


commenced a campaign of bombings and individualistic terrorist actions. As a largely
uneven and spontaneous strike movement through 1934 contributed to the widespread
disorder, President Mendieta suspended constitutional guarantees, so placing Batista
and the army in formal as well as effective control of the island.(110) The available
Cuban military resources were deployed to crush a further round of labour unrest.(111)
Labour leaders across the political spectrum were shot or imprisoned, trade unions were
dissolved, and the leaders of the Autnticos and Joven Cuba were hunted down.

The confrontation between Batista and the forces of radical nationalism and socialism
culminated in February-March 1935 when another general strike was organised for the
introduction of minimum democratic rights. Initiated by the University Strike
Committee, preparatory work was hastily carried out among student and workers
organisations with the aim of building a United Front Committee. However, political
divisions among the organisations of the proletariat persisted and unity in action was not
obtained. Without centralised control, the strike began spontaneously at different times
in different places.(112) However, the strike was eventually as complete as the August
1933 general strike and again witnessed the seizure and occupation of sugar mills and
land.(113) This, in turn, provoked the imposition of a state of martial law and the use
against the strikers of the most extreme measures in the history of the republic.(114)
Unable to withstand the onslaught of the state forces, the strike collapsed within a week
and the repression against its leaders intensified. The forces of Batista destroyed union
headquarters, declared all union funds to be state property and outlawed all political
parties. Guiteras was hunted down and shot, thereby signalling the decline of the
organisation and the drift of its members in 1935-36 into the PRC(A). The strikes
failure and the repression which followed brought to a close the Revolution of the
1930s, although the repercussions of these years were to extend into the next decades.

3.2.2 The Cuban Communist Party and the Revolution of the 1930s

The PCC, founded by figures including Balio and Mella who had emerged from the
popular national revolutionary movement, had, as Manuel Caballero has contended,
the extraordinary opportunity [....] of being perceived not as an international
movement but rather as an off-spring of the revolutionary traditions of Cuba, and of
inserting itself into the real social and political processes of the country.(115)
Furthermore, unlike its counterparts in other Latin American countries, the Cuban
Communist Party, from 1928, controlled the national trade union centre. Yet despite
these peculiar national advantages, the PCC managed to isolate itself from the national
revolutionary sector during the Revolution of the 1930s and win the continuing distrust
of all other Left groups in Cuba for the next three decades. This outcome was largely
determined by the overriding influence of the Comintern and the PCCs uncritical
adoption of its tactical zigzags, particularly from the early 1930s.

Constituted relatively late, in 1925, the PCC was initially a small party made up of
students, intellectuals and experienced worker-militants, many of whom were foreign-
born.(116) In terms of its initial importance within the Comintern, it was, as Barry Carr
75

has termed it, a backwater organisation.(117) Furthermore, though shaped by the


Cominterns organisational principles and political perspectives, the PCC, given its
relative remoteness, was not initially a simple appendage to the Kremlin loyally
implementing directives emanating from Moscow. Its subordination to the conformity
of Comintern directives was only broadly confirmed when, after the intervention of the
Caribbean Bureau of the Comintern and the Communist Party of the United States
(CPUSA) in November 1930,(118) it began belatedly to employ the Third Period
tactical line.

In terms of strategy, the PCC initially adopted an opportunist position with regard to
revolutionary bourgeois nationalism during the 1920s, up to and including exploring the
possibilities for insurrection alongside the Partido Unin Nacionalista. This
perspective, though developed locally, placed the PCC within the broad scope of the
Cominterns Second Period tactical line of seeking unity with other progressive
sectors of the population.(119) The PCC, however, abruptly labelled its Second Period
policy as an error from late 1930, and replaced it with the Cominterns Third Period line
of ultra-left hostility towards the non-communist nationalist-reformist sector.(120) The
PCC considered that the opposition movement to Machado was the struggle of one
faction of the bourgeois-latifundist alliance, with essentially the same programme and
as dependent on imperialism as Machado, against the pro-Machado section.(121)

The PCC also adopted the Cominterns assessment of the process of historical
development in Latin America. During the Third Period, underpinning the PCCs
activity was the understanding that in Cuba a feudal landlord class was in alliance with
imperialism. The perceived coming revolution was thereby considered to be anti-feudal
and anti-imperialist in nature,(122) and they resurrected the slogan of a dictatorship of
the proletariat and peasantry which Lenin had abandoned in April 1917.

When the August 1931 Revolt initiated by the Partido Unin Nacionalista broke out,
the official communists formally maintained a position of neutral passivity.(123) The
PCC argued that its involvement in joint preparatory work for an armed expedition from
Mexico with the Partido Unin Nacionalista in the late 1920s, and its support for an
attempted coup detat led by bourgeois nationalists in October 1930, had made it appear
to serve as a simple shock brigade of the Partido Unin Nacionalista.(124) The PCC
instead advocated a struggle against what it termed the petty bourgeois ideological
pressure of putschism and conspiratorial romanticism by directing its activity towards
developing and deepening the daily struggles of the working masses.(125) While this
turn included supporting PCC participation in elections organised by Machado on the
basis of strengthening the struggle for immediate demands,(126) it also led the official
communists to insist on the validity of the dual or red trade union tactic. The PCC
rejected the perspective of working in the existing non-communist-affiliated trade
unions in order to win the workers away from their reformist and anarcho-syndicalist
leaders. The PCC instead sought to confront and eliminate trade unions with a non-
communist political affiliation by creating red trade unions among the working
masses. While the most notable example of this in Cuba was the drive to cut across
local associations by unionising the workers in the sugar industry, Cubas most
proletarianised sector, in one national union, the Sindicato Nacional de Obreros de la
Industria Azucarera (SNOIA),(127) the PCC insisted on the united front only from
below with rank and file non-communist workers.(128) While up until 1930-31, there
was still a variety of political positions represented within the CNOC, with the National
76

Labour Confederations adoption of the Cominterns Third Period tactics, an opposition


within the CNOC to the PCCs line began to take shape as Jos Pilar Herrera, the
CNOCs General Secretary, resigned at the end of 1930.(129)

In the political field, the PCC, likewise, did not attempt to form an Anti-Imperialist
United Front. The official communists, thereby, did not delineate between the national
revolutionary sphere around the student movement and the Grau San Martn-Guiteras
axis, on the one hand, and the socially conservative camp organised around Menocal
and Mendieta on the other. For the PCC, all these groups and their supporters
constituted the forces, of counter-revolution, supported by [North] American finance
capital.(130) One final contentious slogan which the PCC took from the international
communist movement was that of calling for Black Belts. From late 1930 the PCC
argued that in those regions where Blacks were a majority, they constituted an
oppressed nation. On this basis, the PCC agitated for Black self-determination up to and
including the setting up of an independent state.(131)

As I have already noted, at the time of the August 1933 general strike, the PCC-
controlled CNOC conducted negotiations with Machado which resulted in the PCC
leaders issuing a call to end the strike.(132) In the spirit of the Third Period, the official
communists initially attempted to justify their decision by suggesting that whether or
not the strike continued was not a vital question since even if victorious, the objective
conditions would not allow for the immediate coming to power of a workers and
peasants government. According to the PCC, the probable outcome would simply have
been the coming to power of another bourgeois government. The back-to-work call,
however, was ignored by the workers and Machado was forced to flee the country
shortly thereafter. The PCC quickly reviewed its call for a cessation of the strike, which
had exposed it to charges of substituting its priorities over those of the popular
movement, eventually considering it to be an act of political myopia and a gross error.

While the official communist movement at the time explained the error in terms of the
Right opportunism of the PCCs Central Committee,(133) at the root of the PCCs
accommodation with Machado was ultra-left hostility to a strike movement which it did
not control. As Fabio Grobart stated in his explanation of the error of August, the
Party leaders concluded that, since it was impossible to replace Machado immediately
by a revolutionary workers government, the struggle of the working class would only
have the objective effect of aiding the bourgeois opposition to power.(134) This lesser
evil thesis, which embodied the understanding that a weakened Machado was
preferable to another stronger bourgeois substitute or direct U.S. intervention, was the
basis for the decision to call on the workers to stop the strike.(135) It also hastened
some internal argument within the PCC. Reflecting the degree of autonomy which the
Cuban party still retained with respect to the Comintern, the international envoys in
Cuba seem to have been against the decision to order a return to work but were over-
ruled by the Central Committee of the PCC who stood behind the position of Martnez
Villena.(136) The disagreement led to the removal from office of Jorge Viv, the PCCs
General Secretary,(137) who had supported the foreign envoys, as well as hastening the
dismissal of the Profinterns envoy in Cuba, the Polish communist Mendel Michrowski
(*Lowski).(138)

As a result of this error of August, the PCC also suffered an immediate loss of prestige
and a dislocation of its trade union and party activity. According to an internal report of
77

the PCCs regional conference in Oriente held in late November and early December
1933, *Juan, the long-standing international envoy who had arrived from Mexico in
1930, noted that the error of August had put a brake on the development of the party.
(139) This revealing report recounted that in Oriente, a state of virtual anarchy reigned
in the ranks of the PCC.(140) There was a breakdown of branch activity and a state of
almost rebellion against the Central Committee.(141) The underlying reason was the
rank and files unwillingness to accept those aspects of PCC policy which so flagrantly
violated the deep-rooted traditions of revolutionary syndicalism and national liberation
struggle in the easternmost province. Apart from taking a stand against the decision of
the PCC leadership to call for a return to work during the August 1933 strike, the PCC
delegates at the Oriente conference also questioned other directives passed down from
above such as self-determination for Blacks in Oriente(142) and the call not to put the
anti-imperialist struggle in the front line of the struggle. While the rapprochement in
Soviet-U.S. relations in late 1933 arguably coincided with Martnez Villenas lesser
evil dilution of the struggle in Cuba, the principal complaint raised by the delegates to
the Oriente conference of the PCC was that such a watering down of the tactical line
would strip all struggles of their content since most of the land and property in Cuba
was owned by an imperialist power.(143)

During the first half of 1934, even after the collapse of the Grau San Martn
government, the PCC maintained the strategy and tactics of the Cominterns Third
Period. At the CNOCs Fourth Congress in January 1934 and the sessions of its
affiliates,(144) the official communists reiterated their commitment to struggle for the
self-determination of the Black population in Cuba, up to and including separation.(145)
The Second Congress of the PCC held in April 1934 restated that the immediate task
was the struggle against the fascist decrees of the Batista-Mendieta government and the
installation of a workers and peasants government through Soviet power.(146)
According to a further report, a resolution adopted by the Second Congress also
reiterated that, [o]f all the groups and parties in Cuba, the most dangerous for the
revolution are the parties of the Left, chiefly the Cuban Revolutionary Party of
Grau.(147) The PCC repeated that the Autnticos and Joven Cuba, even after their
partial defeat, remained the principal danger. In the opinion of the PCC, they were
among the reactionary parties who were divert[ing] the masses from the road of
revolution in order to safeguard the bourgeois-landlord-imperialist domination.(148) In
an article published as late as December 1934, continuing to view Grau San Martn,
Guiteras, the ABC and Batista as one homogenous block, Joaqun Ordoqui maintained
that,(149) the PCC has exposed the policy of Grau San Martn and Guiteras (his
Left), a policy of retreat, that is to say, of support for the policy of the ruling
classes. In accusing the Autnticos and Joven Cuba of being in the camp of counter-
revolution, the PCC, reflecting the broad Third Period line, also labelled them as fascist.
(150)

However, from October 1934 after the Fourth Plenum of the PCCs Central Committee,
the official communists began to undertake a revision of their acutely insensitive ultra-
left line as the Comintern prepared its turn towards codifying the tactic of the Popular
Front.(151) From depicting nationalist-reformist and anti-imperialist groups during the
Grau San Martn government as the biggest enemy, the PCC in late 1934 and 1935,
when these nationalist groups were much weaker, decided to support the formation of a
broad progressive alliance with them. This reversal of policy would eventually lead
78

the PCC to seek convenient, opportunist alliances with not only those Left-nationalist
forces which it had previously denounced, but with Batista himself.

As various authors on the subject have pointed out,(152) and as Blas Roca, the newly
appointed General Secretary of the PCC, detailed at the Seventh World Congress of the
Comintern in mid-1935, the Cuban communists turn towards the practice of forging
broad alliances, had been started in Cuba before the March 1935 strike but was far from
complete.(153) In fact, by early 1935 the PCC had still not completely shed its ultra-left
approach, nor fully assimilated the Cominterns new thinking. During the
February/March 1935 events, the PCC continued to concern itself primarily with
political unity around an immediate maximum programme for revolution rather than
with unity in action with anti-imperialist groups over concrete issues. As Blas Roca
stated, [i]n our proposals in February of this year to Guiteras, [....] we laid down
conditions which hindered the formation of the united front [....] Such slogans as the
self determination of the Negro and the confiscation of the lands of the large estates".
(154) This self-critique was reiterated by a Cuban delegate in his address to the
Cominterns Seventh World Congress,(155) while elsewhere the PCC recognised that it
had maintained a wrong position with respect to the revolutionary government of Grau
San Martn which if had been otherwise could have contributed to the triumph of the
revolution.(156)

In theory, the PCC recognised that the slogan of soviet power was an obstacle to
national unity and did not take into account the national revolutionary stage.(157) In
unreservedly adhering to the two-stage theory in the new Popular Front era, the PCC
explained that:

[t]he Cuban revolution is currently passing through the national stage, and in this stage
the role which other layers of the population, aside from the proletariat and peasantry,
play cannot be ignored. The Cuban petty bourgeoisie, particularly the students, plays an
important role because of the semi-colonial character of Cuba. And even the Cuban
national bourgeoisie, with the contradictions between itself and the imperialism which
suffocates it, stores up revolutionary energies which must not be wasted. Because of
this, united in the common interest of liberating our country, all layers of the population,
from the proletariat to the national bourgeoisie, can and must enter into a broad popular
front against the foreign oppressor.(158)

While the PCCs initial attempts to form some kind of United Front came to nothing,
the defeat of the March 1935 general strike acted as a catalyst in the PCCs thinking.
Blas Roca made an abrupt turn in emphasising that the need for the united front is most
urgent,(159) and admitted that the PCC had previously drawn:

"such false conclusions on the position of the Cuban Revolutionary Party [i.e., the
PRC(A)] and Young Cuba [i.e., Joven Cuba] as to say that they had passed over to the
camp of the counter-revolution, betraying the struggle, which, to say the least, hindered
and impeded the future development of the united front. The Party has committed such
serious errors in its analysis as to estimate the Cuban Revolutionary Party and Young
Cuba to be on the road of fascization.(160)

At the Cominterns Seventh World Congress a Cuban delegate similarly confessed the
errors of the Third Period. He acknowledged that the basic error of the Party consisted
79

in mechanically setting off the class interests of the proletariat against the interests of
the national-liberation struggle and that [b]ecause the Party did not understand these
tasks it failed to draw a demarcation line between the national-revolutionary camp on
the one hand, and the feudal-imperialist counter-revolutionary camp, on the other.(161)
He further recognised that the:

"neutral position taken by the party with regard to the struggle between the Grau
government and the reactionary A.B.C. party [....] and the Commander-in-Chief of the
Army Batista, [....] objectively facilitated the coming to power of the present reactionary
government. The same attitude explains the fact that the Party incorrectly characterised
the so-called Cuban Revolutionary Partya national reformist organisation headed by
Grauas a fascist party and classified as such even the national revolutionary
organisation Young Cuba, headed by Guiteras.(162)

Instead of labelling them as the principal danger, the PCC now sought to establish close
and fraternal collaboration with the PRC(A) and the Guiteristas.(163) Instead of crudely
counter-posing the struggle for a workers and peasants insurrection against a
supposedly counter-revolutionary national liberation struggle, the PCC now entered the
path of limiting the working class movement to precisely the tasks of the bourgeois
democratic revolution.

In attempting to employ the new line, Blas Roca described how in April 1935 the PCC
went to Miami to propose a United Front to the leader of the PRC(A), Grau San Martn
himself. Blas Roca stated that even though he [i.e., Grau San Martn] refused to
receive us we (without calling him a fascist!) addressed the masses and the Central
Committee of his party for a united front protest against the assassination of Guiteras
and Carlos Aponte.(164) The PCC made overtures to all anti-imperialist parties with
the proposal of adopting a joint tactic with respect to the elections which Mendieta
called in December 1935. The PCC, in appealing to the Autnticos, Joven Cuba and all
popular anti-imperialist parties and organisations,(165) proposed Grau San Martn as
their presidential candidate if such a United Front agreed not to sabotage or boycott any
elections.(166)

The PCCs subservience to the Cominterns sectarian Third Period tactical line during
the period encompassing the Revolution of the 1930s led to it suffering some isolation
within the anti-imperialist revolutionary camp. Unable to influence the revolutionary
groups which took up arms, and with its prestige damaged, the PCCs initial attempts at
forging a United Front in action as the international climate changed, were rebutted.
However, the violent suppression of the March 1935 general strike accelerated and
deepened the process of reversing the Third Period tactical line. Loyally interpreting the
directives of the Comintern, the PCC was embarking on the construction of a popular
alliance against Batista and the perceived threat of fascism.

3.3 Official Communism and Consensual Nationalism in Cuba, 1935-


52

During the years from 1935 to 1958, U.S. hegemony in Cuba together with the
weakness of the national bourgeoisie continued to impose the parameters within which
the Cuban state functioned. In the first place, while the post-World War Two
international trade agreements did not annul the U.S. quota system for Cuban sugar,
80

they also left intact the preferential treatment granted to U.S. products to the detriment
of industrial goods from other countries. This confirmed the continued lack of
development of a manufacturing base by a native bourgeoisie and was accompanied by
a stagnation in the development and growth of the economy.(167)

Samuel Farber has convincingly argued that the Cuban regime, in the aftermath of the
Revolution of the 1930s, continued to display the Bonapartist characteristics which the
emergence of Batista as an authoritarian national figure had first demonstrated. Farber
characterised the post-1935 era as a period of conservative Bonapartism in which
Batista, while not representing the Cuban bourgeoisie, dictated policies which the
latter accepted because of its historic weakness, its fear of revolution if Batista were to
be opposed, and because in general terms the reforms and policy initiatives were
compatible with its general interests.(168)

While Batistas narrow base of support had not hindered his rule during the
revolutionary crisis of 1934-35, when the need for naked repression was no longer the
immediate concern in the post-1935 period, Batista had to look to broaden his base of
popular support. It was this consideration which meant that the Cuban state increasingly
took on the peculiar feature of consisting of a governing entente which was not
homogeneous in terms of its class composition. As Farber concluded, accommodations
and political soundings [....] took place in order to reestablish a social equilibrium which
had been lost in 1933-35.(169)

The 1935-58 period taken as a whole witnessed a deepening of the process, initiated by
Grau San Martn, of attracting the leaders of a sizeable sector of organised labour into a
consensual, national political order. As Lourdes Casal has succinctly described, the two
historically dynamic classes displayed profound internal divisions and fractures, so
hindering the development of any cohesive class consciousness. As a consequence, the
Cuban State [....] was, to a large extent, independent and above the local classes and
interest groups. In a sense, it could be seen as an instrument of domination by an extra-
national class, the U.S. capitalists. While the incumbents respected the rules of the
game, in so far as the hegemonic relationship with the U.S. was concerned, they could
exercise considerable autonomy with respect to the local classes, dispensing favors
among the various components of the ruling entente, which comprised fragments of
various classes.(170)

In the period 1935-39, after the defeat and exhaustion of the radical nationalist and
labour movement in the March 1935 general strike, the construction of a post-Platt
Amendment political order was determined by the weakness of the old Cuban political
oligarchy and the PCCs uncritical application of the policy of the Comintern. During
1935 and 1936, all opposition groups which had supported the March 1935 general
strike maintained a position of outright hostility towards the Batista regime, though
outbursts of individual acts of revolutionary violence against the ruling order did not
occur to any significant extent. By 1937-38, however, the Autnticos adopted a more
conciliatory tone as Batista advanced a social reform programme which to some extent
strengthened the labour reforms initiated by the Grau San Martn government. Steps
were also taken to regroup various non-communist, opposition organisations, including
the remnants of Joven Cuba, within the PRC(A).(171) Promoted by a climate of
Popular-Frontist anti-fascism among the reformist Left, this regrouping was
accompanied by a moderation in the Autnticos opposition to Batista. Farber has argued
81

that by 1939 the distinguishing characteristic of the Autnticos was not so much that
they were the broad party of the left as that they had become the party which
advocated a civilian democratic version of reform rather than a militaristic and
authoritarian one.(172)

While the parties and groups of Left-nationalism moved towards a moderate programme
of national reform, the official communists policy underwent a metamorphosis. During
1935 and 1936, the PCC maintained a position of outright opposition towards the
government. The International Press Correspondence of 18 July 1936 referred to it as
[t]he terrorist dictatorship of Batista".(173) In an article published as late as April 1937
a spokesperson for the Comintern claimed that [t]he aim of Batista [....] is to imitate
the example of Hitler and Mussolini and eliminate all opposition by creating a single
fascist party completely under his control.(174) During the early period of the Batista-
led regime the PCC, in line with Comintern policy, proposed the realisation of an anti-
imperialist Peoples Front and electoral alliance of all the democratic organisations in
Cuba against the regime.(175)

However, by mid- to late 1937, a reorientation in the PCCs policy was initiated as
Batista looked to build a broad popular base of support. Batista, of mixed race origin
who had relatively recently emerged from the lower strata of society, and who was
viewed with some distrust by the old political oligarchy, turned to the official
communists for popular support among their natural constituency, the working class.
(176) The rapprochement which took place, though facilitated by the Cominterns
policy which not only promoted broad anti-fascist alliances but did not preclude the
entry of communist parties into bourgeois governments, did not constitute the formation
of a genuine Popular Front. It was, rather, a unique alliance between the official
communists and Batista which excluded the popular parties of democratic nationalism.
This dramatic shift in Cuban communist policy laid the foundations for the formation of
a pan-American anti-fascist alliance comprising Batista and the official communists in
Cuba and the Mexican trade union centre and U.S. administration. These alliances in
turn paved the way for the PCCs later adherence to a Browderist line which was
employed with a degree of independence from Moscow.

The cementing of the PCC-Batista joint front was not completed until early 1939. The
process has been succinctly summarised by Boris Goldenberg. He wrote that, [t]he first
step, taken in late 1937, was the recognition as a legal party of a sort of Communist-
front organization called the Partido Unin Revolucionaria [....] This was followed
shortly afterwards by the proclamation of a general political amnesty. Then, starting
May 1, 1938, the Communistseven though the party had not yet been officially
legalizedwere permitted to launch a daily paper called Noticias de Hoy (usually
referred to simply as Hoy) under the editorship of one of the top Communist leaders,
Anbal Escalante. In June of the same year, the party Central Committee was able to
hold, openly and without interference, its Tenth Plenum, which adopted its first, rather
restrained pro-Batista resolutions. Finally, on September 23, 1938, the party was fully
legalized, subsequently merging with the Partido Unin Revolucionaria to form the
Unin Revolucionaria Comunista [....], which held its first congress in January
1939.(177) Thus, in March 1939 a spokesperson for the Comintern commenting on the
Cuban communists was able to write that [t]owards Batista the Communist Party
maintains a general attitude of support.(178) Batista, rather than the focal point of
82

reaction, had become the principal defender of democracy, and the official communists
became his most vociferous apologist.(179)

In late January 1939, the communist party also embarked on dissolving the CNOC and
founding the Confederacin de Trabajadores de Cuba (CTC).(180) With the support of
the Ministry of Labour, government paternalism towards labour deepened. As Hugh
Thomas has described,(181) the CTC, with Batistas encouragement, immediately
became the favourite son of the Ministry of Labour. The CTC became in effect the
state trade union. From the beginning, the new leaders, instead of bargaining with
employers, went direct to the ministry". Improvements in wages and conditions were
gained through the working classs dependence on the paternalistic interventions of the
state which, in turn, was more able to finance co-option given that the conditions of war
had re-floated the price of sugar and thereby boosted the whole economy. The
consensual approach also resulted in the formulation of the 1940 Constitution, which in
recognising a whole host of democratic and social rights alongside respect for private
property served as the compromise that settled the revolutionary struggles of the
1930s.(182) While this modus vivendi compromised the political independence of the
working class and blunted its ability to engage in political struggle, so the national
bourgeoisie was not given the opportunity to forge a mentality nor the institutions to
prosecute an uncompromising struggle.

The reform alliance between Batista and the official communists in the newly organised
Unin Revolucionaria Comunista (URC) was for the time being mutually beneficial as
both remained isolated from middle class and Autntico support.(183) For Batista, the
apparently socially conscious military leader, the rich reward came in 1940 when he
presented himself as a candidate in the May presidential elections. The URC was the
first of six pro-Batista parties to group together in the Coalicin Socialista Democrtica
to support his candidacy.(184) During his subsequent term in office, Batista was able to
use the official communists to offset opposition, particularly from the Autnticos, in
government and labour relations. For the official communists, although the moves
towards Batista and U.S. imperialism appear to have provoked the resignation of at least
one leading member,(185) they were able to take advantage of the conditions of weak
bourgeois democracy and the favour of Batista to quickly take control of the most
important sectors of the trade union movement and become an influential mass
organisation almost overnight.(186) However, having attained this position through
closed-door discussions with Batista rather than through participation in the class
struggle, the renamed PCC could not legitimately claim to lead or express the interests
of an active, independent labour movement. Indeed, as a number of anti-Stalinist
socialist scholars have argued, the primary political role of the Cuban Communist Party
was to remove itself and the working class from active intervention in the class struggle
in exchange for certain economic incentives.(187)

While the official communists initially viewed the Second World War as imperialist on
all sides, after the entry of the USSR into the War the URC and URC-led CTC revised
their line so as to insist that all efforts had to be focused on promoting the Allies war
efforts. Confirming that the official communists had squarely relegated the development
of a revolutionary strategy to a place behind the requirements of the Kremlins foreign
policy, the URC supported the concept of national unity and, declaring its patriotic duty
to avoid strike action and create a war spirit to increase war production,(188)
transformed the trade union apparatus into an auxiliary police force of the government.
83

The U.S. also underwent a transformation from being an imperialist centre of


oppression to being a trusted ally, and two communists, Juan Marinello and Carlos
Rafael Rodrguez served as ministers-without-portfolio in Batistas cabinet. In 1941, the
URC also became a firm supporter of compulsory military service and the dispatch of
Cuban troops to Europe. The official communists energy, dedication, discipline and the
astuteness of their leaders political opportunism was such that the U.S. intelligence
services referred to them as the best organised party in Cuba, standing out above the
other more loosely-organised political groups.(189)

During the war, moderate opposition to the Batista-communist alliance was centred in
the PRC(A) led by Grau San Martn. In the labour movement, opposition to the official
communists control of the CTC was challenged by the Comisin Obrera Nacional
(National Labour Commission).(190) The leader of this Autntico National Labour
Commission was the former member of the PCC and then Oposicin Comunista, Mujal,
who in the mid-1930s had joined the PRC(A) of Grau San Martn.(191)

In accord with the pronouncements of possible coexistence between the USSR and the
bourgeois-democratic capitalist world following the Tehran Conference, which led
directly to the dissolution of the Comintern, the URC became, in January 1944, the
Partido Socialista Popular (PSP). Publicly embracing the ideas of Browderism and
proclaiming the end of the imperialist epoch,(192) the PSP gave its support to Batistas
candidate in the forthcoming presidential elections, Carlos Saladrigas, one of the
founders of the ABC in the early 1930s.(193) In the 27 February 1944 edition of Hoy,
the PSP published its programme for the regeneration of the national economy.
Reporting on these proposals prior to the elections, the U.S. security services classified
them as moderate measures which had already been taken by other non-socialist
countries to defend and develop national interests. Furthermore, the U.S. officials again
privately commended the Cuban communists for their alertness in giving form to unco-
ordinated nationalist aspirations, this in sharp contrast to other political parties.(194)

Given the impending military defeat of the Axis powers and the general international
repudiation of military dictatorships, the largely honest elections in 1944 resulted in
defeat for the Batista-PSP-sponsored project of continuismo and a victory for Grau San
Martn and the Autnticos. Although the Autnticos were decidedly anti-PSP at core,
PSP control of the CTC and influence with the government was not immediately
broken. As Harold Sims has noted,(195) despite the Autnticos victory in the
presidential elections, they lacked a majority in congress and did not control the armed
forces. Continued communist co-operation in government was further conditioned by
the PSPs interpretation of the peaceful co-existence line laid down by the Soviet
Union.(196)

However, as the era of the Cold War arrived in 1947, and the U.S. initiated a drive
against communism throughout the world, so the PSP was rather humiliatingly forced to
renounce Browderism to echo the less conciliatory line within the international
communist movement and return to the Moscow fold.(197) The increasingly bi-polar
international political alignment, combined with the Autnticos winning control of
parliament in the 1946 Congressional elections, undermined the basis for continuity in
the PSP-Grau San Martn alliance.
84

In a stronger position politically, the Autnticos were better able to move against the
dominant influence of the PSP in the labour movement. The contest ensued through
1947, culminating after some violence and much bureaucratic manoeuvring with official
government recognition of the Autntico-dominated CTC(A) over the breakaway
communist CTC(C).(198) The communists were forcibly evicted from CTC premises in
July 1947. Despite their undeniable dedication and personal integrity in rejecting the
temptations of personal enrichment which political office had offered them,(199)
without official government favour, the official communists broad base of support
melted away. As Farber has argued,(200) the working-class did not have the desire,
training or endurance to insist in following their former leaders. [....] Most workers were
either cynical about this whole new operation at the top where once again one set of
leaders was being replaced by another set of leaders more favorable to the current
administration in office or else shared the new wave of Cold War anti-communism".

Beginning in this period, the Grau San Martn administration increasingly succumbed to
the old pattern of widespread corruption in public office. This was accompanied by the
toleration of open gangsterism in the streets of the major cities. Numerous terrorist
groups, of which the Movimiento Socialista Revolucionario (MSR), Unin
Insurrecional Revolucionaria (UIR) and Accin Revolucionaria Guiteras (ARG) were
the most important, targeted anyone for reasons of money, personal rivalry or political
leverage.(201) While armed actions in the mid- to late 1930s had been carried out on a
political basis to further the cause of revolution against the perceived usurpers of the
genuine Revolution of the 1930s, the violence and gang warfare of the 1940s was less
ideologically inspired. Although the gangs maintained a political faade through their
names and vaguely subscribed to some ideology, they quickly came to be used in the
struggle for control over patronage and sources of extortion and enrichment. In a
political atmosphere which tolerated them, not least because through violence they
helped to remove official communists from positions of leadership in the labour
movement, Grau San Martn himself appointed Emilio Tr, the head of the UIR, as a
chief of police.(202)

Disillusionment among the more radical and idealist elements in the Autntico coalition
led to the centre of opposition to the government shifting to the fiery popular orator and
founder of the Ortodoxo party, Eduardo Chibs, who originally broke away from the
Autnticos over the issue of corruption. Rather than representing, as some authors have
argued, a return to the tradition of radical nationalism within the context of
constitutional democracy,(203) Chibs and ortodoxia stood out on the single issue of
anti-corruption in government circles. The slogan of honour against money was
largely the extent of their programme.(204) At the end of a decade in which the official
communist party had led organised labour into a consensual national political order and
stripped the working class of an independent class voice, a radical social programme
emanating from either working class organisations or Left-wing nationalist groups
which embodied an element of anti-imperialism had all but vanished.

3.4 Dictatorship and Revolution in Cuba, 1952-65

3.4.1 The Batista Regime and the Insurrectionary War

When Batista, with the support of young army officers, seized state power in the coup
dtat of 10 March 1952, the Autntico and Ortodoxo opposition to it was wholly
85

ineffectual.(205) Furthermore, despite the traditions of syndicalism and the size of the
working class,(206) the now largely de-politicised working class movement likewise
offered no resistance.(207) With the quiet passing of the discredited Autntico
government, the U.S. rapidly granted the Batista regime official recognition. Within
three days, the CTC led by Mujal had also pledged support to the new regime, and it
was agreed that in the sphere of labour the anti-PSP perspective would continue.(208)
During the years 1952-58, the Batista regime sought to recreate the social entente of the
early-1940s in an attempt to win popular approval. In practice, however, the CTCs
accommodation with the government, which had been based on a programme of
reforms in the 1940s, was replaced by an accommodationism which merely allowed the
mujalista labour bureaucracy to line its pockets in return for its continued support and
efforts to curb labour unrest.(209)

An atmosphere of political stagnation predominated as a working class with no


independent outlook or explicit long-term political goals faced a weak national
bourgeoisie which had long since relinquished belief in its own dynamic destiny. Filling
a void, the army, whose commitment to and ties with the typical Latin American
oligarchy had been broken in the 1930s, was restored to pre-eminence in national
political life. However, with little stake in ownership of productive forces itself, and
offering no historical perspective for any class of Cubans, the army largely functioned
to perpetuate its own enrichment by resuming its former role as the arbitrator and
parasitic profiteer in social struggles. As James OConnor has argued, Cuba was:

"governed by men who had no class interests in governing efficiently or honestly. In the
1950s the collection of opportunists willing to support the dictator were by and large
neither for nor against capital or labor or the farmers or the United States economic
interests either on principle or from the standpoint of their own class interests. Instead,
they were very much out for themselves.(210)

Political agitation was once again taken up by the young, articulate urban petty
bourgeoisie. While outbursts of protests emanated from the student milieu until the
collapse of the Batista regime, it was the attack on the Moncada Barracks in Santiago de
Cuba on 26 July 1953 by a group led by Fidel Castro which re-ignited the tradition of
armed political struggle. Although the initial assault was a military failure, this armed
group, which became known as the Movimiento 26 de Julio (M26J), continued to
support the concept of an armed rebellion. From exile in Mexico, Castro and the M26J
leaders planned the guerrilla war which was to begin with the landing of the Granma
along the Oriente coastline on 2 December 1956.

The defining feature of the insurrection was the widespread passive support which the
actions of the Rebel Army received in an atmosphere remarkably devoid of either pro-
capitalist or anti-imperialist rhetoric. As Jorge Ibarra has argued, reflecting the
heterogeneous make-up of the M26J the revolutionary leadership was not defined by
any class-based project.(211) While the M26J embodied a distinct liberal political
component committed to a popular national revolution, in essence, the vagueness of the
M26Js social programme was no more than an extension of that of the Ortodoxo party
of Chibs, a party to which Fidel Castro had belonged. Writing on What is
Castroism?, Theodore Draper has argued that Castro attempted to remain faithful to the
purest principles of Chibs and, as such, did not claim to represent a political tendency
86

outside of Chibasismo but rather a more effective aparato to overthrow the Batista
dictatorship.(212)

While the M26J had a wing which operated in the cities, the llano, the decisive
revolutionary body was the Rebel Army in the sierra. Its struggle involving no more
than 2,000 relatively poorly equipped fighters was sufficient to awaken the political
consciousness of significant sectors of all classes against Batista. As Blackburn has
argued, a process of societal stagnation first of all permitted Batista to come to power
and then enveloped the country. In the absence of the typical, well-defined ideological
and institutional structures of class rule in Cuba, where the army had no roots in local
class formations and political parties had displayed little continuity either in terms of
their alliances or life-span,(213) the Batista regime became more isolated and
increasingly had only itself to lean on.

As the Rebel Army successfully opened up a Second Front in Oriente in the spring of
1958 and made steady advances thereafter, the largely demoralised and ill-trained armed
forces under Batistas command collapsed.(214) The end of the two-year long civil war
came rapidly on 1 January 1959 as Batista fled the country having concluded that he
had lost the support of the U.S. government.(215) While the working class had largely
remained a passive observer during the guerrilla campaign, a pre-emptive general strike,
which ensured that Batista was not immediately replaced in a threatened transfer of
power through a military coup, sealed the bond between the Rebel Army leadership and
the awakened anti-Batista sentiment of the popular masses. The Rebel Army units
triumphantly progressed across the island towards Havana, taking control of strategic
military camps from an army which had ceased to resist.

3.4.2 The Institutionalisation of the Revolutionary Government

The forces which secured the political revolution against the Batista regime and the
process which subsequently led to the rapid overturn of property relations are a matter
of controversy. Cuban explanations of the revolutionary process concentrate on a
worker-peasant alliance sustaining the socialist transformation of society as part of a
century of struggle.(216) Non-Cuban interpretations, on the other hand, dispute whether
Fidel Castro had for some time been a closet communist and was merely biding his time
before revealing his true clothes,(217) or if he and the Revolutionary Government were,
instead, pushed into communism by the combined pressures of the United States policy
and the mass mobilisation of the working class.(218)

A further category of interpretations which highlights Cubas exceptionally weak social


formations and absence of strong institutions of government, argues that Fidel Castro
himself filled the structural vacuum. In essence, this convincing line of argument
contends that without the restraining influence of conservative, pro-capitalist
institutions with a well-founded history and coherent perspective for the present and
future,(219) Castro as the commander of the only cohesive military force in Cuba
became the only effective political institution. Taking advantage of the international
climate, the Castro leadership was able to direct the Revolutions development in an
unprecedented manner by a combination of managing popular support and ensuring that
the popular movement did not organise itself into representative political institutions.
(220)
87

This Bonapartist thesis argues that Fidel Castro, at some point in 1959, opted for an
official communist solution to the social questions which were beginning to arise. In
employing his own personal talents and prestige to ensure that no alternative leaderships
emerged from the overhaul or potential creation of representative institutions, the
Revolution was not, therefore, in any sense made by the working class itself. To this
extent, to confer the term socialist transformation on the resultant changes ushered in
by a Bonapartist national-bureaucratic revolution would be rather inappropriate. In
forwarding the term Bonapartist Communism to describe the emerging post-1959
regime in Cuba, Farber concluded that:

[t]here is little question that Cuban politics after the overthrow of Batista would sooner
or later have been confronted with various momentous social questions [....]. This would
have been the case quite independently of the particular nature and content of Castros
leadership, but it is also quite clear that Castro had the unusual freedom of action to
define and deal with those problems in his particular way, and in fact to conduct his
own kind of Permanent Revolution quite different from that foreseen by Leon Trotsky
where the working class was seen as achieving hegemony and carrying out its own
emancipation and that of the masses through the increasing radicalisation of their own
socialist revolution.(221)

While the self-titled humanist or olive-green revolution initially sought to chart a


third course between socialism and capitalism, as land reform challenged the right of
U.S. property in mid-1959 Fidel Castro opted for an official communist solution to the
social questions which were beginning to arise. This became evident in October 1959,
the date which marked the arrest and public denunciation of Huber Matos, the fiercely
anti-PSP military commander of the province of Camagey.(222) Castros decision was
also manifest in his intervention at the November 1959 CTC Congress. While the CTC
had been the only institution to undergo a democratic restructuring in the weeks and
months after January 1959, when debate took on political content between the anti-PSP
M26J trade unionists who controlled the CTC and the pesepistas, Fidel Castro made a
personal intervention to call for the adoption of neutral unity slates for the sake of
stability, rather than promote any overtly pro- or anti-communist candidates.

Castros de facto intervention against the anti-PSP constituency at the CTC Congress
confirmed the emergence of the PSP as a central pillar in his preferred path and marked
the first step in the process which ultimately led to the purging of a potentially
autonomous leadership within the trade unions and its replacement by experienced PSP
cadres.(223) For Castro, the PSP not only had an organisational and ideological
framework which had survived all other political parties in Cuba, but it had an
experienced and committed membership who had the necessary experience and skills to
effect a determined political line. So long as the pesepistas were committed to creating a
unity milieu which did not seek to challenge Castro for ultimate control and
leadership, the PSP also had the advantage of possessing channels of communication to
the USSR, which in the late 1950s and early 1960s had some prestige internationally.

In the continued absence of a national political party, between 1959 and 1961, the
charismatic authority of Fidel Castro together with the popular mobilisation of the vast
majority of the populace within the activity of the National Institute of Agrarian Reform
(INRA), the Committees for the Defence of the Revolution (CDRs) and the militias
consolidated the Revolution politically before economic difficulties surfaced. Within
88

the logic of the Revolution, activism and empiricism directed from above substituted for
a political struggle of representative bodies of the working class in the formation of a
revolutionary policy and consciousness. As the state annexed the representative
workers organisations, dissent was increasingly suppressed.(224) Even the short-lived
Technical Advisory Councils, established in 1960 to promote links between
management in nationalised enterprises and workers, ruled out any notion of collective
decision making. Administrators always had the last word.(225) Voting at CTC
congresses became unanimous, and plebiscitarian politics combined with repression
ensured that no legitimate opposition to Fidel Castros interpretation of la patria and
socialism could emerge. Furthermore, while the working class had as little control over
the Cuban political economy as it had had in the deciding the outcome of the 1956-58
guerrilla campaign, Castro opportunistically manipulated the weakness of independent
class-based organisations to strengthen his own position as the unchallengeable
Maximum Leader. That is, from the 1959 CTC Congress he effectively emphasised or
minimised disputes and resentments between the old pesepista and Fidelista M26J
constituencies according to his own need to quash the development of organisations and
factions independent from his authority, this while maintaining the flow of Soviet
military and economic aid.(226)

While debates emerged, particularly over the economic model to adopt to usher in the
socialist transformation from above, these did so within the context of maintaining
public unity around the Maximum Leader, Fidel Castro. Overwhelming popular
support was mobilised, particularly around the battle against the Cuban exile invasion
force at Playa Girn in April 1961 and the Missile Crisis of October 1962. However, at
the same time the development of autonomous political thought and organisations were
effectively stifled after the formation of the Organizaciones Revolucionarias Integradas
(ORI) in mid-1961. Under the aegis of Anbal Escalante of the old PSP, the ORI
incorporated members of the M26J, the Revolutionary Student Directorate and the PSP.
This, in turn, gave way to the Partido Unificado de la Revolucin Socialista (PURS) in
1963, though not before Fidel Castro had intervened when Anbal Escalante exhibited
organisational intentions beyond the limits prescribed by Castro. The so-called
Escalante affair is illustrative of the relationship between the Bonapartist Castro and
the old pro-Moscow PSP members. Escalante, as the Organisational Secretary of the
ORI, used his position to favour old PSP members in the building of a new party
organisation. As Pierre Kalfon has argued, this effectively amounted to a pro-Moscow
attempt not only to displace M26J supporters, but also Fidel Castro himself from the
leadership of the Revolution.(227) Castro, however, was able to mobilise popular
sentiment against Escalante and the autonomous organisational intentions of the old
pesepistas, before having Escalante removed from his post. Thus, although Castro
needed the official communists, he succeeded in circumscribing their power and only
conceded the formation of a new communist party to the pro-Moscow milieu in October
1965.

The debate over the economic model to be adopted in order to usher in the socialist
transformation, that is, the dispute between self-finance planning versus the budgetary
system of centralised planning, was the one great issue which had profound political
implications in the sense that it opened up more visible divisions in the leadership.
Addressing the central problem of how a semi-colonial country so heavily dependent on
a single agricultural product and one major market could move towards socialism, the
so-called Great Debate centred on the structure of planning and the role of incentives.
89

On the one hand, the self-finance planning model allowed for capitalist forms of
competition between state-owned companies in determining production, investment and
distribution. The budgetary finance system, on the other hand, denied any notion of a
market existing among companies. Monetary transactions between enterprises were to
be banned and all revenues transferred to the account of a central ministry for allocation
according to the conscious priorities of the Revolutions decision makers. While Carlos
Rafael Rodrguez and Soviet technicians in Cuba defended the former system which
allowed for material incentives among workers to stimulate production, Guevara was a
staunch advocate of the budgetary system of centralised planning. With respect to the
case of Trotskyism, it is significant that in these debates Guevara rather provocatively
held meetings with Ernest Mandel, an internationally recognised leader of the
International Secretariat and then the United Secretariat of the Fourth International
(USec). The key element in Guevaras argument, which Mandel essentially supported,
(228) was that the latter system allowed an industrial sector to develop by correcting the
comparative advantage market relations conferred on agriculture. Rather than resting on
material incentives to promote efficiency, Guevara advocated moral incentives as a step
in the creation of the New Man, the subjective, voluntarist lever which would overcome
the uneven economic development.(229)

However, just as Castro in 1963 renewed Cubas commitment to the project of


agricultural production, an option favoured by the Soviets, against Guevaras proposals
for developing an industrial sector, so in 1964 the debate on planning and material
versus moral incentives had come to end. Guevaras theses fell, and he himself
increasingly became marginalised from economic decision making. With Guevara
disappearing from public view in March 1965, the defeat of his strategy was confirmed
when in mid- to late 1965 none of his protgs were included in the 100-person Central
Committee of the new Cuban Communist Party.(230)

The course which the debate took during 1962-65, apart from describing Cubas
relations with the USSR, also shaped Guevaras evolving political perspectives. While
his links with and commitment to official, broadly pro-Soviet communism had
solidified from late 1958 after the PSP dropped its hostility to guerrilla warfare,(231)
following the Missile Crisis of October 1962, Guevaras disillusionment with the
actually existing socialism in the Soviet Union became increasingly apparent. Having
angrily denounced the Kremlins withdrawal of the missile bases in Cuba as a sell-out,
(232) Guevara was increasingly forced to take a position against various aspects of the
Revolution. In the period 1964-66, there was a shift in Cuban policy towards the Soviet
Union in the Sino-Soviet dispute, culminating in Fidel Castros public denunciation of
the Chinese regime at the Tri-Continental Conference in January 1966.(233) However,
while Castro moved towards public recognition of Soviet policy options, Guevara
vociferously rejected the notion of Socialism in One Country and insisted on the
validity of his perspective of guerrilla warfare to spread the socialist revolution in Latin
America. As Jon Lee Anderson has argued:

[t]o Che, the term peaceful coexistence was anathema, mere appeasement of the
imperialist system dressed up in diplomatic language. [....] there was no longer any
doubt that his and Fidels path had begun to diverge. Fidels goal was to consolidate
Cubas economic well-being and his own political survival, and for that he was willing
to compromise. Ches mission was to spread the socialist revolution.(234)
90

Thus, by upholding the vanguard role of the guerrilla organisation and the ability of the
rural insurrectionary foco to create the conditions for revolution, Guevara challenged
the hall-mark of post-1935 official communism, the strategy of peaceful coexistence.
In the light of the Sino-Soviet split, while Guevara himself was the only leading Cuban
communist who was not anti-Chinese, Guevarism as an identifiable ideology also came
to represent Maoism in the Latin American context. That is, both perspectives centred
on the idea of a multi-class socialist guerrilla force prepared to take up arms to install
a government based on the expropriation of capitalist property. They also shared an
acceptance of the broad anti-imperialist bloc tactics of the Cominterns Second Period
in the sense that they essentially argued that socialist revolution could be secured not
via the conscious struggle of revolutionary communists but by the blunt instruments of
the petty bourgeoisie. These views, furthermore, were not too dissimilar from those
advocated by major sections of the international Trotskyist movement at the time. That
is, like Pablo and the USec, Guevara did not insist on the need for a revolutionary
Marxist party to lead a proletarian anti-imperialist revolution. To the extent that
Guevara advocated the rapid expropriation of imperialist property by the revolutionary
leadership, he as much as the Trotskyist groups affiliated to the USec, also reduced the
theory of Permanent Revolution to an objective process guiding a revolution led by
Stalinist and petty bourgeois nationalist leaderships, rather than a conscious proletarian
strategy.(235)

Unambiguously breaking with the Soviet Union in a speech in February 1965 in


Algiers, in which he labelled the Kremlin an accomplice with imperialism,(236)
Guevara disappeared from public view on 22 March 1965. While his whereabouts were
the subject of a wave of rumours, he had resolved to leave Cuba to attempt to ignite
another anti-imperialist revolution, first in Africa and then fatefully in Bolivia. As a
parting salvo Guevara left his thoughts on his now defeated economic policy,
particularly the moral versus material incentives debate, in his essay Socialism and
Man. However, avoiding any criticism of the revolutionary process in Cuba as a whole,
Guevara failed to draw any link between the strategy and method of struggle during the
insurrection and the Bonapartism of Fidel Castro and lack of proletarian democracy in
post-1959 Cuba. While Guevaras guerrilla strategy broke with Moscows outlook, his
commitment to the Stalinist model of a one-party state and the repression of working
class democracy and control, as distinct from participation controlled from above,
(237) thereby remained largely intact. As Jorge Castaeda has summarised, Guevara
was in the predicament of in effect denouncing the errors while celebrating their
causes.(238)

Despite being accused of Maoism and even Trotskyism by some,(239) and indeed
although he appears to have read and studied a number of Trotskys central works,(240)
Guevara in his subsequent guerrilla campaigns in Africa and Bolivia continued to reject
the strategy of the working class itself consciously fighting for and passing beyond
democratic anti-imperialist objectives to socialist tasks, and creating in this struggle the
organs of a new form of democracy. Instead, he essentially remained a voluntarist who
wished to see a tempering of differences on theoretical issues among Left-wing activists
in favour of the immediate creation of a broad bloc socialist guerrilla force and a
military campaign based in the countryside. As he wrote in 1967, [t]o want to change
things by words alone is an illusion; history will wipe them out or give them their true
meaning.(241) With Guevara unable to play the role of a Trotsky as a marginalised
revolutionary leader,(242) the organisation of the Cuban political economy, while
91

displaying a degree of cultural and stylistic distinctiveness, was left to assimilate


progressively to the Soviet model.(243)

3.5 Conclusion

In summary, the Cuban Republic was born as a virtual appendage to the U.S. economy.
Its native bourgeoisie, weakened by Spains rule-or-ruin policy at the end of the 1895-
98 War, was left open to be bought out by U.S. finance. While U.S. investments
capitalised Cubas economy and produced a working class on a large scale,
development was uneven. No national bourgeoisie crystallised and it was not able to
establish durable institutions to promote its own class rule. Instead, excluded in large
part from the productive sources of wealth, the governance of the Cuban Republic
initially passed between competing factions of a ruling Cuban oligarchy which had no
distinct programme to promote the growth of a strong national bourgeoisie. While one
faction enjoyed the benefits of office, the other in an attempt to win a share of the power
and graft combined their calls for honest elections and government with promoting a
degree of rebellion to provoke the intervention of the U.S. military.

The first crack in this pattern of development came in the mid-1920s after the Dance of
the Millions and the still deeper penetration of the economy across all sectors by U.S.
finance capital. President Machado, representing the small native capitalist class, came
to power advocating a mild nationalist programme to regenerate Cuba without
threatening the interests of the United States. However, the world-wide depression
following the Stock Exchange Crash of 1929 had severe effects on the course of
developments. Cubas economy, so heavily geared to the export of sugar to a single
buyer, was very vulnerable to the imposition of protectionist measures by the United
States. While Machado faithfully serviced the foreign debt, drastic cuts in wages, jobs
and government expenditure threw urban professionals and workers alike into the ranks
of a myriad of nationalist-reformist and revolutionary groups.

In the ensuing Revolution of the 1930s, the popular mobilisation raised the reformist-
nationalist government of Grau San Martn to power. However, caught trying to balance
all sides, the Grau San Martn government collapsed after the decisive intervention of
the army chief Batista who had the support of the U.S. government. The principle
reasons behind the success of Batista were that, 1), despite the PCCs resources and
degree of organisational discipline, it pursued a steadfast sectarian attitude to the
national revolutionary sector, and 2), the national revolutionary sector most notably
Joven Cuba, had few organisational links with the working class movement.

Batistas task was to restore social stability and unambiguously protect the right of
property over labour. Promoted by the Cominterns policy of anti-fascist Popular
Frontism, social collaboration and compromise followed as the official communist party
and through it, organised labour, was brought into a pro-capitalist, Bonapartist-type
government. While imperialism had weakened an already ineffectual national
bourgeoisie, and the Revolution of the 1930s had accelerated the decline of the old
ruling Cuban oligarchy, the turn to state interference in labour-capital relations also
debilitated the potential for independent working class action. As the economy
stagnated after World War Two, the political activity of the two dynamic classes was
already compromised. It was in this vacuum that the Rebel Army brought Fidel Castro
to power on 1 January 1959, and contributed to the construction of a Bonapartist
92

communist state which increasingly aligned itself with the policy decisions of the
Kremlin. The Revolution was essentially the replacement of one form of Bonapartism
with another in conditions characterised by relatively weak and unstable class
formations.

Thus, given the enduring aspirations for national liberation, which even permeated the
anarcho-syndicalist-dominated labour movement until the 1930s, my analysis of the
theoretical and tactical development of Trotskyism in Cuba pays particular attention to
the Cuban Trotskyists orientation towards the strong national-reformist and national-
revolutionary sectors. While, as elsewhere, the issue of the Trotskyists critique of the
official communists Second and Third Period tactical lines is of fundamental
importance, in the Cuban semi-colonial setting where the national bourgeoisie was
exceptionally weak, so also is their critique of the national liberation movement,
particularly during the Revolution of the 1930s. In Part Two of this thesis I argue that it
was as much the Cuban Trotskyists analysis of the national liberation organisations as
their critique of the official communists strategy and programme which led them to
make increasing concessions to Stalinism in terms of failing to propose a politically
independent course for the working class.

FOOTNOTES
1. For a concise chronology of events which provides an overview of the snapshot
events and when they took place in relation to one another see Appendix C. (Back
to text)
2. See Ritter, ARM, The Economic Development of Revolutionary Cuba, New
York, Praeger Publishers, 1974, pp. 12-13. (Back to text)
3. Thomas, H, Cuba, c. 1750c. 1860, In: Bethell, L (ed.), Cuba: A Short
History, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1993, pp. 9-10. (Back to text)
4. Casanovas Codina, J, The Cuban Labor Movement of the 1860s and Spains
Search for a New Colonial Policy, Cuban Studies/Estudios Cubanos, No. 25,
1995, p. 93. (Back to text)
5. Ibid, p. 84. (Back to text)
6. Aguilar, LE, Cuba 1933: Prologue to Revolution, Ithaca: NY, Cornell University
Press, 1972, p. 7. (Back to text)
7. Ibid, pp. 8-9. (Back to text)
8. Prez Jr., LA, Cuba under the Platt Amendment, Pittsburgh: PA, University of
Pittsburgh Press, 1986, p. 12. (Back to text)
9. Prez Jr., LA, Cuba Between Empires: 1878-1902, Pittsburgh: PA, University of
Pittsburgh Press, 1983, pp. 27-28. (Back to text)
10. Aguilar, LE, (1972), op cit, p. 10. (Back to text)
11. Farber, S, Cuba: One-Party State Continues, New Politics, Vol. 5, No. 3, Spring
1995, pp. 117. While Marts (1853-1895) ideas for change undoubtedly included a
series of socio-economic concerns, his political ideology rested more on the
traditions of nineteenth century Freemasonry and moral concerns, than the ideas of
Marx or other European socialists. As such, Mart can best be characterised as a
progressive liberal and nationalist. John Kirks study into the significance of Mart
is useful in that it delineates between pre- and post-1959 Revolution interpretations.
Kirk notes that prior to 1959, Mart was viewed as the selfless Cuban, a noble
patriot, (Kirk, JM, Jos Mart. Mentor of the Cuban Nation, Tampa: FL,
University of Florida Press, 1983, p. 9.) while post-1960 interpretations originating
93

from Cuba focus on his evolution from liberal to anti-imperialist. (Ibid, p. 15.) In
contrast to Mart, Balio (1848-1926) was a long-time labour leader who adhered
to the two-stage strategy of fighting for national independence and development of
the national economy within the parameters of capitalism before initiating a
struggle for socialism. See Cabrera, O, Los que Viven por Sus Manos, Havana,
Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 1985, pp. 17-19. (Back to text)
12. See, for example, Prez Jr., LA, (1986), op cit, p. 23-25; and Prez-Stable, M, The
Cuban Revolution: Origins, Course, and Legacy, Oxford, Oxford University
Press, 1993, p. 4. (Back to text)
13. Casanovas, J, Bread, or Bullets! Urban Labor and Spanish Colonialism, 1850-
1898, Pittsburgh: PA, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1998, pp. 230-231. Joan
Casanovas does append the caveat, though, that there were frictions in the labour
movement. As Carlos Estefana Aulet has also argued, many anarchists,
particularly those in Havana of Spanish origin, did not support the insurrection
when it broke out. While the Cuban tobacco workers in Florida were sympathetic to
the separatist cause, these habanero workers took a more neutral position on the
basis that patriotism and the liberal nationalist ideology of the separatists did not
address the fundamental problems of the working class. Estefana Aulet, CM, Los
Anarquistas Cubanos a Fines del Siglo XIX: Los Libertarios y la Guerra del 95,
Cuba Nuestra (Stockholm), No. 9, 1997, pp. 6-8. (Back to text)
14. Prez Jr., LA, (1983), op cit, pp. 54-56. (Back to text)
15. Prez Jr., LA, (1986), op cit, p. 28. (Back to text)
16. Prez Jr., LA, The War of 1898: The United States and Cuba in History and
Historiography, Chapel Hill: NC, University of North Carolina Press, 1998, pp. 4-
6. (Back to text)
17. See ibid, pp. 17-19; and Prez, Jr., LA, Between Meanings and Memories of
1898, Orbis, Vol. 42, No. 4, Fall 1998, pp. 501-516. Louis Prez Jr. has argued
that although the U.S. seized numerous Spanish territories in the 1898 Spanish-
American War, the principal covert purpose of U.S. policy was to ensure that the
geographically strategic Cuban archipelago did not achieve genuine national
independence. (Back to text)
18. Prez Jr., LA, (1986), op cit, p. 31. (Back to text)
19. Rafael Tarrag has introduced the argument that the principal aim of U.S.
intervention was to disrupt and impede Cuban national independence and a natural
evolution towards autonomy and reconciliation with Spain. He has noted that while
many separatists favoured U.S. intervention, the largely forgotten Partido Liberal
Autonomista, the Cuban home-rule party which in January 1898 had formed a
government with Spanish acquiescence, opposed U.S. intervention. Tarrag, RE,
The Thwarting of Cuban Autonomy, Orbis, Vol. 42, No. 4, Fall 1998, pp. 517-
531. (Back to text)
20. Le Riverend, J, Economic History of Cuba, Havana, Book Institute, 1967, p. 207.
(Back to text)
21. Sugar planters who survived the destruction and curtailment of production during
the 1895-98 War generally did so by taking on substantial debt, borrowing at
inflated rates of interest. Prez Jr., LA, (1986), op cit, pp. 63-64. (Back to text)
22. Prez Jr., LA, (1986), op cit, pp. 71-72. (Back to text)
23. De Kadt, E (ed.), Patterns of Foreign Influence in the Caribbean, London,
Oxford University Press, 1972, p. 123. (Back to text)
24. Prez Jr., LA, (1986), op cit, pp. 72-74. (Back to text)
94

25. This 1903 Reciprocity Treaty was an extension of a similar Spanish-U.S. treaty
signed in 1891. This earlier treaty had likewise promoted the development of the
Cuban sugar industry at the expense of a nascent national industrial sector. The
U.S. opened its market to raw Cuban sugar in return for privileged tax concessions
on the importation of manufactured products into Cuba. U.S. manufactured goods
were thereby more easily able to drive Cuban manufacturers out of their home
market. Tarrag, RE, op cit, p. 528. (Back to text)
26. Blackburn, R, Prologue to the Cuban Revolution, New Left Review, No. 21,
October 1963, p. 57. (Back to text)
27. Pino-Santos, O, El Asalto a Cuba por la Oligarqua Financiera Yanqui, Havana,
Casa de las Amricas, 1973, p. 78. (Back to text)
28. Ritter, ARM, op cit, p. 17. (Back to text)
29. Pino-Santos, O, op cit, pp. 83-84. (Back to text)
30. Prez Jr., (1986), op cit, p. 187. (Back to text)
31. Zeitlin, M, Working Class Politics in Cuba: A Study in Political Sociology, PhD
Thesis, University of California, Berkeley, 1964, p. 30. (Back to text)
32. Le Riverend, J, op cit, p. 230. (Back to text)
33. Pino-Santos, O, op cit, p. 94. (Back to text)
34. Ibid, p. 127; and Commission on Cuban Affairs, Problems of the New Cuba, New
York, Foreign Policy Association, 1935, p. 2. (Back to text)
35. Blackburn, R, op cit, p. 58. (Back to text)
36. Ibid, pp. 60-61. (Back to text)
37. Domnguez, JI, Cuba: Order and Revolution, Cambridge: MA, Belknap Press,
1978, p. 12. (Back to text)
38. Aguilar, LE, (1972), op cit, p. 33. (Back to text)
39. Prez Jr, LA, (1986), op cit, p. 90. (Back to text)
40. Domnguez, JI, op cit, p. 11. (Back to text)
41. Prez Jr., LA, (1986), op cit, p. 261. (Back to text)
42. Domnguez, JI, op cit, p. 35. (Back to text)
43. Ibid, p. 35. (Back to text)
44. See Thomas, H, Cuba: The Pursuit of Freedom, New York, Harper and Row,
1971, pp. 587-598. (Back to text)
45. Stubbs, J, Tobacco on the Periphery, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press,
1985, p. 97. (Back to text)
46. Ibid, p. 99. (Back to text)
47. See, for example, Thomas, H, (1971), op cit, p. 291. (Back to text)
48. Casanovas, J, (1998), op cit, pp. 138-177. (Back to text)
49. See Appendix D for a table showing the rise and decline of anarcho-syndicalism in
the trade union movement relative to other ideologies. (Back to text)
50. This withdrawal, of course, was not complete. By provision of the Platt
Amendment, it did not include the base at Guantnamo. (Back to text)
51. Page, CA, The Development of Organized Labor in Cuba, PhD Thesis,
University of California, Berkeley, 1952, p. 40. (Back to text)
52. Between 1902 and 1909, some 700,000 immigrants arrived in Cuba, the vast
majority from Spain. Prez Jr., LA, (1986), op cit, p. 78. (Back to text)
53. See Cabrera, O, El Movimiento Obrero Cubano en 1920, Havana, Instituto del
Libro, 1970, pp. 46-47. (Back to text)
95

54. Cabrera, O, (1985), op cit, p. 32. (Back to text)


55. Cabrera, O, (1970), op cit, pp. 50-51. (Back to text)
56. Cabrera, O, (1985), op cit, p. 74. (Back to text)
57. See Del Toro, C, El Movimiento Obrero Cubano en 1914, Havana, Instituto del
Libro, 1969, pp. 97-98, 124-125; and Cabrera, O, (1970), op cit, p. 48. (Back to
text)
58. Cuba was prone to suffer from inflation during times of economic upturn because
the predominance of sugar meant that there was a shortage of home-produced
consumer goods. (Back to text)
59. Zeitlin, M, op cit, p. 29. (Back to text)
60. Estefana Aulet, CM, El Anarquismo en Cuba desde el Nacimiento de la Repblica
a la Cada del Dictador Gerardo Machado: El Fin de la Hegemona Libertaria sobre
el Movimiento Obrero, Cuba Nuestra (Stockholm), No. 10, 1997, p. 8. (Back to
text)
61. Cabrera, O, (1985), op cit, p. 200. (Back to text)
62. Page, CA, op cit, p. 56. (Back to text)
63. Cabrera, O, (1985), op cit, p. 249. (Back to text)
64. Carr, B, Mill Occupations and Soviets: The Mobilisation of Sugar Workers in
Cuba, 1917-1933, Journal of Latin American Studies, Vol. 28, Part 1, February
1996, p. 135. (Back to text)
65. Marconi Braga, M, To Relieve the Misery: Sugar Mill Workers and the 1933
Cuban Revolution, In: Brown, JC (ed.), Workers Control in Latin America,
Chapel Hill: NC, University of North Carolina Press, 1997, p. 25. (Back to text)
66. Page, CA, op cit, pp. 60-61. (Back to text)
67. Cited in Zeitlin, M, op cit, p. 32. (Back to text)
68. Prez Jr., LA, (1986), op cit, p. 265. (Back to text)
69. Roa, R, El Fuego de la Semilla en el Surco, Havana, Editorial Letras Cubanas,
1982, p. 308; and Goldenberg, B, The Rise and Fall of a Party: The Cuban CP
(1925-59), Problems of Communism, Vol. 19, No. 4, July-August 1970, pp. 64-
65. (Back to text)
70. Zeitlin, M, op cit, p. 34; and Crdova, E, Clase Trabajadora y Movimiento
Sindical en Cuba, (1819-1959), Vol. 1, Miami: FL, Ediciones Universal, 1995, pp.
150-152. Efrn Crdova has also noted that the anarcho-syndicalists were not as
well organised and disciplined as the more cellular and centralised PCC. Ibid, p.
152. (Back to text)
71. Thomas, H, (1971), op cit, p. 575. (Back to text)
72. See Partido Comunista de Cuba, Draft Resolucin sobre la Oposicin en el
Partido, 1 November 1932, p. 14. (RTsKhIDNI: f.495, op.105, d.52, ll.18-35a.)
(Back to text)
73. While a reformist trade union centre, the Federacin Cubana del Trabajo (FCT)
led by Juan Arvalo, was constituted in 1927, in these turbulent times with a
working class imbued with a spirit of syndicalist struggle, it only survived through
state-sponsorship. Crdova, E, op cit, p. 155. In the early 1930s, two reformist
trade union centres, the Unin Federativa Obrera Nacional (UFON) created by
Arvalo and the FCT then led by Luis E. Fabregat, served as strike-breakers. Ibid,
p. 170. For the time being reformism offered little in terms of a viable strategy.
(Back to text)
74. See Pino-Santos, op cit, p. 182; and Smith, RF, The United States and Cuba:
96

Business and Diplomacy, 1917-1960, New York, Bookman Associates, 1962, p.


68. (Back to text)
75. Ibid, p. 70. (Back to text)
76. Prez Jr., LA, (1986), op cit, p. 280. (Back to text)
77. DeWilde, JC, Sugar: An International Problem, Foreign Policy Reports (New
York), Vol. 9, No. 15, 27 September 1933, p. 162. (Back to text)
78. Prez Jr., LA, (1986), op cit, pp. 281-282. (Back to text)
79. Snchez Arango, A, Qu Es el Ala Izquierda Estudiantil?, Lnea (Havana), Year
1, No. 1, 14 May 1931, pp. 1-2. (IHC(b); and ANC: Fondo Especial, Caja No. 39.)
(Back to text)
80. See Soto, L, La Revolucin Precursora de 1933, Havana, Editorial SI-MAR,
1995, pp. 294-301 for details of the August 1931 insurrection and its failure. Prez
Jr. has argued that this armed uprising in deliberately setting out to provoke the
military intervention of the U.S. by destroying foreign property and threatening the
lives of foreigners, once again demonstrated that the Platt Amendment contributed
to the very conditions it was designed to prevent. Prez Jr, LA, (1986), op cit, p.
295. (Back to text)
81. See Thomas, H, (1971), op cit, pp. 594-596 for an account of its early terrorist
campaign. (Back to text)
82. See Buell, RL, The Caribbean Situation: Cuba and Haiti, Foreign Policy
Reports, Vol. 9, No. 8, 21 June 1933, p. 87 for an outline of the ABCs far-
reaching programme of proposed reforms. (Back to text)
83. Samuel Farber has argued that the ABC pursued a zigzagging policy between that
of stimulating social dislocation to that of accepting U.S. diplomatic intervention.
However, its essentially pro-capitalist, authoritarian leadership eventually prepared
an alliance with the pro-U.S. forces in order to stem revolution only to find that the
government had no use for it as state repression proved sufficient to quell social
unrest in 1934-35. See Farber, S, Revolution and Social Structure in Cuba, 1933-
1959, PhD Thesis, University of California, Berkeley, 1969, pp. 85-96; and Farber,
S, Revolution and Reaction in Cuba, 1933-1960: A Political Sociology from
Machado to Castro, Middletown: CT, Wesleyan University Press, 1976, pp. 52-
59. (Back to text)
84. Zeitlin, M, op cit, p. 36. (Back to text)
85. Thomson, CA, The Cuban Revolution: Fall of Machado, Foreign Policy Reports
(New York), Vol. 11, No. 21, 18 December 1935, p. 254. (Back to text)
86. Ibid, p. 256. (Back to text)
87. Thomas, H, (1971), op cit, p. 625. (Back to text)
88. Carr, B, op cit, p. 139. (Back to text)
89. Thomson, CA, op cit, p. 260. (Back to text)
90. Commission on Cuban Affairs, op cit, p. 183. (Back to text)
91. Carr, B, op cit, p. 140. Carrs analysis of the mill occupations and the creation of
what have become known as soviets challenges any suggestion that they were
organs of dual power. In essence, Carr argues that the mill occupations were often
pre-emptive actions in the dead season aimed at forestalling the cancellation of the
1934 harvest. However militant, they did not seek to challenge the longer-term
relations of production. Ibid, p. 130. (Back to text)
92. For an account of the process of conciliation see Marconi Braga, M, op cit, pp. 34-
36. (Back to text)
97

93. The Sergeants Revolt involved the rank and file of the army, led by a group of
sergeants, ousting the entire layer of commissioned officers after the troops
suddenly found themselves in control of the Havana army camp. The Directorio
Estudiantil Universitario immediately rallied around the insubordinate troops,
persuading the soldiers under the leadership of Batista to accept the students
programme for a provisional government. Thomson, CA, The Cuban Revolution:
Reform and Reaction, Foreign Policy Reports (New York), Vol. 11, No. 22, 1
January 1936, p. 262; and Prez Jr., LA, (1986), op cit, pp. 320-321. (Back to text)
94. Domnguez, JI, op cit, p. 58; and Thomson, CA, (1936), op cit, p. 265. (Back to
text)
95. Ibid, p. 266. (Back to text)
96. Ibid, p. 266. (Back to text)
97. Ibid, pp. 266-267. (Back to text)
98. Carr, B, Identity, Class, and Nation: Black Immigrant Workers, Cuban
Communism, and the Sugar Insurgency, 1925-1934, Hispanic American
Historical Review, Vol. 78, No. 1, February 1998, pp. 106-107. (Back to text)
99. Commission on Cuban Affairs, op cit, p. 212. (Back to text)
100. Ibid, p. 213. (Back to text)
101. According to Carr, the Nationalisation of Labour Laws created havoc in the PCCs
work even among native-born Blacks who had little sympathy with other Black
antillanos. Carr, B, (1998), op cit, pp. 107-108. (Back to text)
102. As Aguilar reported, [w]hile the people parade in front of the Presidential Palace,
while the Left wins on the high levels, the army is arresting labor leaders. Cited in
Aguilar, LE, (1972), op cit, p. 182. (Back to text)
103. Commission on Cuban Affairs, op cit, p. 184. According to a detailed report on
communist activity in Cuba by the U.S. security services, this demonstration also
marked the fist appearance of the PCCs uniformed and armed shock troops.
Hoover, JE, to Berle Jr., AA, Survey of Communist Activities in Cuba, 14 June
1943, p. 4. (USNA: RG59/837.00B/405.) (Back to text)
104. Batista did not win the confidence and support of the U.S. until he had clearly
committed himself to the suppression of communism. Bowers, RE, Hull, Russian
Subversion in Cuba, and Recognition of the U.S.S.R., Journal of American
History, Vol. 53, 1966, p. 548. (Back to text)
105. Thomson traces how Grau San Martns middle class constituency fragmented as
one side criticised the governments inability to establish peace and order while the
other withdrew its support over the apparent predominance of military influence in
government. Thomson, CA, (1936), op cit, p. 238. (Back to text)
106. Thomson, CA, (1936), op cit, p. 269. (Back to text)
107. Domnguez, JI, op cit, pp. 78-79; and Marconi Braga, M, op cit, pp. 37-38. (Back
to text)
108. Suchlicki, J, University Students and Revolution in Cuba, 1920-1968, Florida,
University of Miami Press, 1969, pp. 41-42. The PRC(A) became known popularly
as the Autnticos, a term which was intended to denote the genuine
revolutionaries". Ibid, p. 145 n1. (Back to text)
109. See page 48 note 67 for an outline description of the thought of Sorel. (Back to
text)
110. Thomas, H, (1971), op cit, p. 691. (Back to text)
111. Zeitlin, M, op cit, p. 43. (Back to text)
98

112. Snchez Arango, A, The Recent General Strike in Cuba, Three Americas
(Mexico D.F.), Vol. 1, No. 4, June 1935, pp. 10-15. (Back to text)
113. Thomas, H, (1971), op cit, pp. 698-699; and Thomson, CA, (1936), op cit, pp. 273-
274. (Back to text)
114. Zeitlin, M, op cit, p. 44. (Back to text)
115. Caballero, M, op cit, p. 49. (Back to text)
116. Carr, B, From Caribbean Backwater to Revolutionary Opportunity: Cubas
Evolving Relationship with the Comintern, 1925-34, In: Rees, T, and Thorpe, A
(eds), International Communism and the Communist International 1919-43,
Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1998, pp. 236-237. (Back to text)
117. Ibid, p. 236. (Back to text)
118. See PCC, Draft Resolucin sobre la Oposicin en el Partido, op cit, pp. 5, 8-9;
and Comit Central del Partido Comunista de Cuba, El Partido Comunista y los
Problemas de la Revolucin en Cuba, nd, p. 7. (From internal evidence, dated
shortly before the fall of the Machado government in August 1933.) (IHC(b):
972.91/Doc/C/t.1.) Carr has argued that the arrival of *Juan, a Profintern envoy
from Mexico, in 1930 aided the process of establishing stronger international links.
Carr, B, From Caribbean Backwater to Revolutionary Opportunity: Cubas
Evolving Relationship with the Comintern, 1925-34, op cit, p. 238. (Back to text)
119. See Cabrera, O, La Tercera Internacional y Su Influencia en Cuba (1919-1935),
Sociedad/Estado (Mexico, Universidad de Guadalajara), No. 2, 1989, p. 53 for an
outline of the PCCs initial tactical orientation in the mid- to late 1920s. (Back to
text)
120. For an account of the PCCs programme and tactics which attempted to isolate
what it termed bourgeois-landlord groups and their reformist, anarchist, and
Trotskyite agents (Resolution of the Second Congress of the Communist Party of
Cuba as printed in The Present Situation, Perspectives and Tasks in Cuba, Part II,
The Communist (New York), Vol. 13, No. 11, November 1934, p. 1159. (MML.))
up to the fall of the Grau San Martn government, see Blasier, SC, The Cuban and
Chilean Communist Parties, Instruments of Soviet Policy, 1935-48, PhD Thesis,
Columbia University, 1956, pp. 20-22. (Back to text)
121. PCC, Draft Resolucin sobre la Oposicin en el Partido, op cit, p. 7. (Back to
text)
122. This characterisation was, for example, set out in Sinani, G, The New Phase in the
Revolutionary Events in Cuba, The Communist (New York), Vol. 12, No. 12,
December 1933, p. 1228. (MML.); and PCC, Draft Resolucin sobre la Oposicin
en el Partido, op cit, p. 5. (Back to text)
123. Ibid, p. 8. (Back to text)
124. Ibid, p. 8. (Back to text)
125. Ibid, p. 8. (Back to text)
126. Ibid, p. 14. (Back to text)
127. The policy decision that communists should turn to create trade unions across
industries in Latin America in order to challenge anarcho-syndicalism and its
tradition of limiting union organisation to individual units of production was part of
the Third Period strategy developed in late 1928 and early 1929. See Losovsky, A,
El Movimiento Sindical Latino Americano (Sus Virtudes y sus Defectos),
Montevideo, Ediciones del Comit Pro Confederacin Sindical Latino Americano,
March 1929, pp. 18-19. That the implementation of this policy in Cuba was also
99

delayed is further evidence of the relative autonomy the PCC enjoyed with respect
to the Comintern and the weak links the international centre had with some of its
smaller sections. (Back to text)
128. CC of the PCC, El Partido Comunista y los Problemas de la Revolucin en Cuba,
op cit, pp. 8-9, 37; and Crdova, E, op cit, p. 201. (Back to text)
129. Kochanski, A, El Sindicalismo Latinoamericano: Materiales del Archivo
Moscovita de la Internacional Sindical Roja, Estudios Latinoamericanos
(Warsaw), No. 11, 1988, p. 284. (Back to text)
130. Resolution of the Second Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba as printed in
The Present Situation, Perspectives and Tasks in Cuba, The Communist (New
York), Vol. 13, No. 9, September 1934, p. 878. (MML.) (Back to text)
131. Carr, B, Identity, Class, and Nation: Black Immigrant Workers, Cuban
Communism, and the Sugar Insurgency, 1925-1934, op cit, pp. 98-99. (Back to
text)
132. This was partially facilitated by the presence in the PCCs of Jos A. Guerra, the
son of Ramiro Guerra, the distinguished Cuban historian and private secretary to
Machado. Carr, B, From Caribbean Backwater to Revolutionary Opportunity:
Cubas Evolving Relationship with the Comintern, 1925-1934, op cit, p. 249.
(Back to text)
133. See, for example, Sinani, G, The New Phase in the Revolutionary Events in Cuba,
op cit, p. 1218. (Back to text)
134. Grobart, F, The Cuban Working Class Movement from 1925 to 1933, Science
and Society, Vol. 39, Spring 1975, p. 99. The actual role of Fabio Grobart (born
Yunger Semjovich) in Cuban communism is a matter of some controversy. He
arrived in Cuba from Poland at the age of nineteen just before the PCC was
founded. Anti-communists have insisted that he was Moscows man in Havana
thereafter. While it is doubtful that Grobart was actually sent to Cuba by the
Comintern, certainly by the early 1930s, he was in Moscow working in the
Cominterns Latin American Secretariat before returning to Cuba. (Back to text)
135. See Bychovsky, On the Weaknesses of the Communist Party Press in Cuba,
International Press Correspondence, Vol. 14, No. 27, 4 May 1934, p. 707.
(MML.) (Back to text)
136. Entrevista a Blas Castillo, Pensamiento Crtico (Havana), No. 39, April 1970,
pp. 197-199; and Carr, B, From Caribbean Backwater to Revolutionary
Opportunity: Cubas Evolving Relationship with the Comintern, 1925-1934, op
cit, p. 13. (Back to text)
137. Entrevista a Blas Castillo, Pensamiento Crtico, op cit, p. 199. Viv was
eventually replaced in 1934 by Francisco Caldero, who under the name Blas Roca,
remained the General Secretary of the official communist party until its agreed
dissolution after the 1959 Revolution. (Back to text)
138. Kochanski, A, op cit, p. 284. (Back to text)
139. Letter from Juan to the Caribbean Bureau of the Comintern (Report on the
Conference of the PCC in Oriente), Havana, 2 December 1933, p. 8. (RTsKhIDNI:
f.495, op.105, d.68.) (Back to text)
140. Ibid, p. 2. (Back to text)
141. Ibid, p. 9. (Back to text)
142. Ibid, p. 6. (Back to text)
143. Ibid, p. 4. (Back to text)
100

144. As Crdova explains, the so-called Fourth Congress was, in fact, the first since
the two held in 1925 and the one in 1920 which expressed solidarity with the
Russian October Revolution. Crdova, E, op cit, p. 197. (Back to text)
145. Ibid, p. 198. (Back to text)
146. Unsigned, A Pesar de la Persecucin el Partido Comunista Celebr Su II
Congreso, Bandera Roja (Havana), Year 2, No. 14, 1 May 1934, p. 1. (IHC(b).);
and Valencia, M, In the International: The Second Party Congress of the C.P. of
Cuba, International Press Correspondence, Vol. 14, No. 34, 15 June 1934, pp.
909-910. (MML.) (Back to text)
147. See Resolution of the Second Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba as printed
in The Present Situation, Perspectives and Tasks in Cuba, Part II, The
Communist, op cit, p. 1157. (Back to text)
148. Ibid, p. 1157. (Back to text)
149. Ordoqui, J, The Rise of the Revolutionary Movement in Cuba, The Communist
(New York), Vol. 13, No. 12, December 1934, pp. 1258-1259. (MML.) (Back to
text)
150. See Roca, B, Forward to the Cuban Anti-Imperialist Peoples Front!, The
Communist (New York), Vol. 14, No. 10, October 1935, p. 958 (MML.); and
Unsigned Comrade Marin (Cuba), International Press Correspondence
(Vienna), Vol. 15, No. 52, 10 October 1935, pp. 1301-1302. (MML.); and
Unsigned, Por el Frente nico Nacional en Cuba, La Internacional Comunista
(Paris), Year 1, No. 1, June 1935, p. 61. (IHC(b).) (Back to text)
151. Unsigned, La Razn de Ser del Viraje del Partido Comunista, Bandera Roja
(Havana), Year 3, No. 65, 4 December 1936, p. 2. (IHC(b).) (Back to text)
152. See, for example, Thomas, H, (1971), op cit, pp. 699-700; and Goldenberg, B, op
cit, p. 70. Stewart Cole Blasier also provides a useful outline of the course of events
in the PCCs repudiation of its ultra-leftist Third Period line. Blasier, SC, op cit,
pp. 28-41. (Back to text)
153. Blas Roca stated that the Cuban Party began to apply widely this new tactic only
after the Conference of the Communist Parties of South and Caribbean America
held in summer 1934 but they did so with certain timidity". Roca, B, Forward to
the Cuban Anti-Imperialist Peoples Front!, op cit, p. 957; and Unsigned, Por el
Frente nico Nacional en Cuba, op cit, p. 49. (Back to text)
154. Roca, B, Forward to the Cuban Anti-Imperialist Peoples Front!, op cit, p. 957.
(Back to text)
155. Unsigned, Comrade Bueno (Cuba), International Press Correspondence, Vol.
15, No. 62, 21 November 1935, p. 1540. (MML.) (Back to text)
156. ["posicin equivocada frente al gobierno revolucionario de Grau San Martn".](My
translation, GT.) Unsigned, La Razn de Ser del Viraje del Partido Comunista,
Bandera Roja, op cit. (Back to text)
157. Ibid. (Back to text)
158. ["[l]a revolucin cubana atraviesa actualmente la etapa nacional, y en esta etapa no
puede desconocerse el rol revolucionario que juegan otras capas de la poblacin
que no son el proletariado ni el campesinado. La pequea burguesa cubana por el
carcter semicolonial de Cuba juega un papel importante, particularmente el
estudiantado. Y aun la propia burguesa nacional, que tiene contradicciones con el
imperialismo que la ahoga, almacena energias revolucionarias que no deben
desaprovecharse. Por sto, hermanada en el comn inters de liberar a nuestro pas,
todas las capas de la poblacin, desde el proletariado a la burguesa nacional,
101

pueden y deben entrar en un amplio frente popular contra el opresor extranjero."]


(My translation, GT.) Ibid. (Back to text)
159. Roca, B, Forward to the Cuban Anti-Imperialist Peoples Front!, op cit, p. 958.
(Back to text)
160. Ibid, p. 958. (Back to text)
161. Unsigned, Comrade Marin (Cuba), op cit, p. 1302. (Back to text)
162. Ibid, p. 1302. (Back to text)
163. Unsigned, Por el Frente nico Nacional en Cuba, op cit, p. 61. See also Apuntes
Breves sobre la Reunin Celebrada el 16 de Noviembre de 1935 entre
Delegados del Partido Comunista y la Joven Cuba, Guantnamo, 16 November
1935. (IHC(a): Fondo Primer Partido Marxista Leninista, Sig. 1/2:1/326/1.) (Back
to text)
164. Roca, B, Forward to the Cuban Anti-Imperialist Peoples Front!, op cit, p. 959.
Carlos Aponte was a Venezuelan exile who was killed alongside Guiteras by the
Cuban army as they both waited to depart for Mexico. Thomas, H, (1971), op cit,
p. 700. (Back to text)
165. In a report of the Sixth Plenum of the PCCs Central Committee, Blas Roca argued
that the Popular Front should not limit itself to the anti-imperialist organisations
and parties, but should include other groups such as the Asociacin de Colonos, and
religious and professional groups in one Nacional Liberation Alliance. Bandera
Roja (Havana), Year 3, 15 August 1935, p. 3. (IHC(b).) (Back to text)
166. Roca, B, Forward to the Cuban Anti-Imperialist Peoples Front!, op cit, p. 960.
(Back to text)
167. See, for example, Ibarra, J, Prologue to Revolution: Cuba, 1998-1958, Boulder:
CO, Lynne Reinner, 1998, p. 176. The alternative view that the 1940s and 50s
constituted a period of economic growth is generally advanced by those scholars
who oppose the Castro regime. See, for example, Domnguez, JI, op cit, p. 72; and
Goldenberg, B, The Cuban Revolution and Latin America, London, George
Allen and Unwin, 1965, p. 143. (Back to text)
168. See Farber, S, (1969), op cit, pp. 138-157; and Farber, S, (1976), op cit, pp. 78-84.
(Back to text)
169. Farber, S, (1969), op cit, p. 146. (Back to text)
170. Casal, L, The Role of the Urban Working Class in the Cuban Revolution
Insurrectional Stage, Washington D.C., Woodrow Wilson International Center for
Scholars, February 1979, p. 7. (Back to text)
171. Reporter, J, La Asamblea Autntica, Bohemia (Havana), Year 29, No. 33, 15
August 1937, pp. 36, 49, 52. (BNJM.) (Back to text)
172. Farber, S, (1969), op cit, p. 161. (Back to text)
173. Rivas, J, Signs of Bankruptcy of the Cuban Military, International Press
Correspondence (Vienna), Vol. 16, No. 33, 18 July 1936, p. 883. (MML.) (Back
to text)
174. Favio, P, The Military Dictatorship in Cuba, The Communist (New York), Vol.
16, No. 4, April 1937, p. 360. (MML.) (Back to text)
175. Rivas, J, op cit, p. 883; and Escobedo, A, The Present Coup dEtat in Cuba,
International Press Correspondence, Vol. 17, No. 1, 2 January 1937, p. 18.
(MML.) (Back to text)
176. Goldenberg, B, (1970), op cit, p. 72; and Sims, HD, Cuban Labor and the
Communist Party, 1937-1958: An Interpretation, Cuban Studies/Estudios
102

Cubanos, Vol. 15, No. 1, Winter 1985, p. 44. (Back to text)


177. Goldenberg, B, (1970), op cit, p. 72. (Back to text)
178. Foster, WZ, The Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba, The Communist
(New York), Vol. 18, No. 3, March 1939, p. 229. (MML.) (Back to text)
179. See, for example, Unin Revolucionaria Comunista, Por la Salvacin de Cuba:
Resoluciones de la Reunin Nacional de Agosto, Havana, 1940, p. 38. (IHC(b):
972.91/Doc/C/t.4.) (Back to text)
180. Zeitlin, M, op cit, pp. 52-53. (Back to text)
181. Thomas, H, (1971), op cit, p. 713. (Back to text)
182. Prez-Stable, M, (1993), op cit, p. 36. (Back to text)
183. Sims, HD, op cit, p. 45; and Prez-Stable, M, (1993), op cit, pp. 44-46. (Back to
text)
184. Goldenberg, B, (1970), op cit, p. 73. (Back to text)
185. See, for example, Jos A. Guerras letter of resignation reproduced in Boletn de
Informacin (New York), No. 7, November 1939, pp. 5-17. (Bulletin of the Pan-
American Bureau of the Fourth International) (HI: SWP Collection, Box No. 4,
Folder 9.) (Back to text)
186. Zeitlin has reported that in the URCs first three months of legal existence, 18,000
new members joined to boost the total membership to 23,000. Zeitlin, M, op cit,
pp. 54-55. (Back to text)
187. Binns, P, Callinicos, A, and Gonzalez, M, Cuba, Socialism and the Third World: A
Rejoinder to Robin Blackburn, International Socialism, Series 2, No. 10, Winter
1980-81, p. 96. (Back to text)
188. 1942, III Congreso Nacional de la C.T.C., Resoluciones sobre Problemas
Sociales, Conciliacin y Arbitraje, pp. 223-225. (IHC(a): Fondo Primer Partido
Marxista Leninista, Sig. 1/8:13/3.1/1-246.) (Back to text)
189. Letter from Nuffer, AF, to U.S. Secretary of State, Havana, 9 December 1942, p.
2. (USNA: RG59/837.00B/371.) (Back to text)
190. Page, CA, op cit, pp. 113-114. (Back to text)
191. Sims, HD, op cit, p. 48. (Back to text)
192. See Thomas, H, (1971), op cit, p. 734; and Roca, B, Estados Unidos, Teheran y la
Amrica Latina: Una Carta a Earl Browder, In: Quintanilla Obregn, L (ed.),
Lombardismo y Sindicatos en Amrica Latina, Mexico D.F., Ediciones Nueva
Sociologa, 1982, pp. 271-302. (Back to text)
193. Marinello, J, Carlos Saladrigas, Hoy (Havana), Year 7, No. 115, 13 May 1944,
pp. 1, 7. (IHC(b).) (Back to text)
194. Letter from Braden, S, to U.S. Secretary of State, Havana, 16 March 1944, p. 3.
(USNA: RG59/837.00B/461.) (Back to text)
195. Sims, HD, op cit, p. 48. (Back to text)
196. See Blasier, SC, op cit, pp. 109-117. (Back to text)
197. While the Cuban communist party was singled out for criticism in the famous April
1945 Duclos letter which signalled the beginning of the end for the dissolutionist
Browderist tendency, the leaders of the PSP at first responded by expelling the
most vociferous members of the opposition group within its own ranks who
supported the criticisms of the leading French Stalinist Jacques Duclos. It was only
after additional pressure from Moscow that the PSP began to recognise the errors
of its ways in early 1946. See Carr, B, Marxism and Communism in Twentieth-
Century Mexico, Lincoln: NE, University of Nebraska, 1992, pp. 134-135. See
103

also Blasier, SC, op cit, pp. 96-99. (Back to text)


198. The two groups which came into existence during the power struggle in 1947 are
referred to as the CTC(A), that is, the Autntico-dominated body, and the CTC(C),
the rival official communist labour organisation. The CTC split into two
organisations at its 1947 Congress amidst bureaucratic wranglings, particularly
over credentials. See Prez-Stable, M, (1993), op cit, pp. 48-49. (Back to text)
199. Domnguez, JI, op cit, pp. 102-103. (Back to text)
200. Farber, S, (1969), op cit, p. 256. (Back to text)
201. See Bonachea, RL, and San Martn, M, The Cuban Insurrection 1952-1959, New
Brunswick: NJ, Transaction Books, 1974, pp. 10-12. (Back to text)
202. Domnguez, JI, op cit, pp. 111-112. (Back to text)
203. See Prez-Stable, M, (1993), op cit, p. 50; and Domnguez, JI, op cit, p. 103. (Back
to text)
204. Ibid, pp. 112-113. (Back to text)
205. Prez-Stable, M, (1993), op cit, pp. 52-53. (Back to text)
206. Jorge Ibarra has indicated that Cuba not only had the third highest rate of
urbanisation in Latin America in the 1950s, but also the second highest rate of
proletarianisation. Ibarra, J, op cit, pp. 177-178. (Back to text)
207. Farber has argued that the almost complete organizational vacuum in the anti-
Batista opposition after the March 1952 coup was the result of the virtual absence
of ideological and political leadership and training in both the Cuban middle and
working classes. Farber, S, (1969), op cit, p. 261. See also Binns, P, Callinicos, A,
and Gonzalez, M, op cit, p. 96. (Back to text)
208. Zeitlin, M, op cit, pp. 78-79. (Back to text)
209. See Prez-Stable, M, (1993), op cit, pp. 54-55. (Back to text)
210. OConnor, J, The Origins of Socialism in Cuba, Ithaca: NY, Cornell University
Press, 1970, p. 32. (Back to text)
211. Ibarra, J, op cit, pp. 189, 200. (Back to text)
212. Draper, T, Castroism: Theory and Practice, London, Pall Mall, 1965, p. 10.
(Back to text)
213. Blackburn, R, op cit, pp. 64-74. (Back to text)
214. While some authors claim that the Cuban state was smashed by two years of
revolutionary warfare (See, for example, Lwy, M, (1981), op cit, p. 143.), more
compelling studies suggest that the state instead collapsed. Prez Jr., LA, (1976),
op cit, pp. 153-165. (Back to text)
215. While the U.S. imposed an arms embargo on the Batista regime in March 1958,
contacts between U.S. businessmen and diplomats in December 1958 signalled the
end of U.S. support for the Cuban dictator. See Smith, WS, The Closest of
Enemies, New York, W.W. Norton, 1987, pp. 34-36. (Back to text)
216. See, for example, Rodrguez, CR, Cuba en el Trnsito al Socialismo, Havana,
Ediciones Poltica, 1979. (Back to text)
217. The most coherent description of this revolution betrayed thesis in which Castro
supposedly imposed his hidden communism on an unsuspecting liberal, middle-
class rebellion is contained in Draper, T, Castros Revolution: Myths and
Realities, New York, Frederick A. Praeger, 1962. (Back to text)
218. These more sympathetic interpretations include Wright Mills, C, Listen Yankee!,
New York, Ballantine Books, 1960; and Huberman, L and Sweezy, P, Cuba:
Anatomy of a Revolution, New York, Monthly Review Press, 1961. (Back to text)
104

219. Alfred Padula Jr. has argued that the fractured Cuban bourgeoisie proved unable to
mount a determined co-ordinated response to the challenges posed by Castro,
deciding instead to leave and wait for the U.S. to deal with the problem of the
Revolution as they had done in the past. Padula Jr., AL, The Fall of the
Bourgeoisie: Cuba, 1959-1961, PhD Thesis, University of New Mexico, 1974.
(Back to text)
220. This interpretation which introduces the notion of Castro having Bonapartist
characteristics is most succinctly outlined in Farber, S, (1969), op cit. See also
Wohlforth, T, Teoras del Socialismo en el Siglo XX, Coyoacn, Ediciones Nueva
Sociologa, 1983, pp. 201-242. (Back to text)
221. Farber, S, (1969), op cit, p. 535. (Back to text)
222. According to Wayne Smith, while the arrest of Matos was cited as proof of the
communist nature of Fidel Castros leadership by conservatives in the U.S., it was
only in early 1960 that the U.S. governments suspicions of Castro turned to
outright hostility. U.S.-Cuban relations were relatively good in the first half of 1959
with the U.S. displaying a degree of openness to political changes. However, in
March 1960 President Dwight Eisenhower formally approved the first plan of
covert action to overthrow Castro. See Smith, WS, op cit, pp. 43-57. (Back to text)
223. See Woodward Jr., RL, Urban Labor and Communism: Cuba, Caribbean
Studies, Vol. 3, No. 3, October 1963, pp. 34-38 for an account of how PSP
members replaced the existing CTC leadership and gained positions in the Ministry
of Labour. See Crdova, E, Clase Trabajadora y Movimiento Sindical en Cuba,
(1959-1996), Vol. 2, Miami: FL, Ediciones Universal, 1996, pp. 65-97 and
Spalding Jr., HA, The Workers Struggle: 1850-1961, Cuba Review (New York),
Vol. 4, No. 1, July 1974, pp. 8-9 for summaries of events in the labour movement
in this period from the different hostile and sympathetic political perspectives
respectively. (Back to text)
224. For an outline of the plight of Cuban anarchists under the post-1959 Cuban regime
and their attempts to convince the rest of the anarchist world that Fidel Castro
headed a Stalinist dictatorship see Fernndez, F, Cuba: The Anarchists and
Liberty, Sydney, Monty Miller Press, 1987, pp. 16-19. For an illuminating
anarchist account of the revolutionary process and the imposition of a repressive
totalitarian dictatorship see Iglesias, A, Revolucin y Dictadura en Cuba, Buenos
Aires, Editorial Reconstruir, 1963. (Back to text)
225. Prez-Stable, M, (1993), op cit, p. 102. (Back to text)
226. Tad Szulc describes this Bonapartist feature in Szulc, T, Fidel: A Critical
Portrait, Sevenoaks, Hodder and Stoughton, 1989, p. 666. (Back to text)
227. See Kalfon, P, Che. Ernesto Guevara, una Leyenda de Nuestro Siglo,
Barcelona, Plaza y Jans Editores, S.A., 1997, p. 375. (Back to text)
228. See ibid, p. 406. (Back to text)
229. See Prez-Stable, M, (1993), op cit, pp. 95-96 for an account of the principal
arguments in the Great Debate over the transition to socialism and the elimination
of market relations. (Back to text)
230. Castaeda, JG, (1997), op cit, p. 304. (Back to text)
231. Ibid, p. 127. (Back to text)
232. Guevara, in fact, regarded the withdrawal of the bases as a betrayal by the Soviets
and went so far as to argue that the nuclear missiles should have been used in an
implacable fight against imperialism. See ibid, pp. 231-232. (Back to text)
233. The principal point of contention in the Sino-Soviet dispute was the Soviets
105

emphasis on peace and disarmament as against the Chinese Communist Partys


continued emphasis on the struggle against imperialism. The Chinese argued the
anti-imperialist struggle must be conducted at all levels and with all available
methods, though should be particularly directed at the weakest link in the
imperialist chain, namely, the regimes in the under-developed countries of Asia,
Africa and Latin America. See Unsigned, The Split in the Socialist World,
Monthly Review, Vol. 15, No. 1, May 1963, pp. 1-20. While Fidel Castro had
initially attempted to play a mediating role in the Sino-Soviet conflict, from 1964
Cuba progressively aligned itself publicly with the Soviet Union. This culminated
at the Tri-Continental Conference. See Castaeda, JG, (1997), op cit, pp. 285-286;
and Domnguez, JI, To Make a World Safe for Revolution: Cubas Foreign
Policy, Cambridge: MA, Harvard University Press, 1989, pp. 68-69. (Back to text)
234. Anderson, JL, Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life, London, Bantam Press, 1997,
p. 587. (Back to text)
235. The coincidence of views between Guevara and various Trotskyists over
revolutionary strategy and the revolutionary agent explains how leading
intellectuals of the USec are able to suggest that Guevara in his criticisms of pro-
Moscow official communism was in some way an unconscious or creeping
Trotskyist. See, for example, Lwy, M, The Marxism of Che Guevara, New
York, Monthly Review Press, 1973, particularly pp. 80-83; and Moscato, A,
Guevara Era Trotskista?, Bandiera Rossa (Milan), No. 80, June-July 1998, pp.
30-31. In short, those who suggest that Guevaras critique of the revolutionary
process loosely paralleled that of Trotskys only demonstrate the concessions which
they themselves have made to various aspects of the Cominterns post-1924
revolutionary strategy. In Chapter Seven I develop the argument that the Posadist
Fourth International, the only Trotskyist tendency to claim a Cuban section in the
post-1959 period, similarly represented a return to a strategy which identified a
multi-class bloc as the vehicle for revolution. (Back to text)
236. See Anderson, JL, op cit, pp. 623-625 for a summary of Guevaras attack on the
Moscow leadership. Guevara had taken a more public stance against the Soviets
policy of peaceful coexistence after his November 1964 trip to the USSR. See, for
example, the extract and commentary on his December 1964 speech to the General
Assembly of the United Nations in Sinclair, A, Che Guevara, Stroud, Sutton
Publishing, 1998, pp. 90-91. (Back to text)
237. Farber, S, The Resurrection of Che Guevara, New Politics, Vol. 7, No. 1 (Whole
No. 25), Summer 1998, pp. 108-116. (Back to text)
238. Castaeda, JG, (1997), op cit, p. 305. (Back to text)
239. See Castaedas account of the stormy meetings which awaited Guevara in Havana
on his return from Africa after delivering his Algiers speech. Ibid, pp. 295-296.
Paco Ignacio Taibo II in his more non-party Latin American Left biography of
Guevara has also argued that Ches sympathies lay with the Chinese in the Sino-
Soviet dispute. See, for example, Taibo II, PA, Guevara, Also Known As Che,
New York, St. Martins Press, 1997, pp. 388, 402. (Back to text)
240. See Taibo II, PA, op cit, p. 474; and James, D (ed.), The Complete Bolivian
Diaries of Ch Guevara and Other Captured Documents, New York, Stein and
Day, 1968, p. 189. (Back to text)
241. Cited from Message to the Peoples of the World from Commander Ernesto
Guevara via the Tri-Continental Conference in Taibo II, PA, op cit, p. 509. (Back
to text)
106

242. This point has been made by Castaeda. See Castaeda, JG, (1997), op cit, p. 295.
(Back to text)
243. See, Farber, S, (1995), op cit, p. 118; and Junco, S, and Howard, N, Yanqui No!
Castro No! Cuba Si!, International Socialism, Series 1, No. 7, Winter 1961-62,
pp. 23-27. (Back to text)
107

Chapter Four

The Birth of Dissident Cuban Communism and the


Oposicin Comunista de Cuba, 1925-1933
This chapter traces the roots of dissension within the Partido Comunista de Cuba (PCC)
and describes the development of the Oposicin Comunista de Cuba (OCC) in 1932-33.
Though not a declared Trotskyist group at its foundation, the OCC was the first
organised group in Cuba to establish links with the international Trotskyist movement.
In addressing my central research questions I chart the theoretical and organisational
development of the OCC, arguing that while its principal dispute with PCC leadership
was over the nature of the Cuban revolution and the strategy to employ, the
Oppositionists initially advocated a return to the PCCs pre-November 1930 Second
Period policy. That is, I develop the argument that the OCC at its founding largely
favoured pursuing a strategy for a broad democratic anti-imperialist revolution, in effect
rejecting Trotskys insistence that only a proletarian anti-imperialist revolution which
led directly to an unambiguous dictatorship of the working class could achieve genuine
national liberation. A turn towards a more identifiable Permanent Revolution strategy
which aimed to place the proletarian vanguard in competition with petty bourgeois
nationalism for the leadership of the urban and rural masses only developed, I argue, in
mid-1933 under the influence of a group of members at the centre of the OCC who were
intent on orientating the Cuban Communist Opposition towards the international
Trotskyist movement.

This chapter is divided into three sections. I first discuss the question posed by other
authors of whether or not Julio Antonio Mella in the late 1920s was a Trotskyist. After
next considering the actual formation and composition of the OCC, I then analyse its
defining characteristics in terms of its understanding of the nature of the revolution in
Cuba and the strategy revolutionaries should adopt.

4.1 Julio Antonio Mella and the Roots of Dissension

The issue of whether or not Mella had become a Trotskyist, at least in his thinking, in
the months or years before his assassination in Mexico City in January 1929, has been
posed by Alexander and Alejandro Glvez Cancino.(1) Alexanders account concludes
that although Mella had developed some sympathy for the positions of Trotsky, which
may explain his assassination, it is probably too much to posit that Mella was actually
recruited to the cause of Trotskyism.(2) Glvez Cancino, however, confers importance
on Mella as one of the most significant figures in the formation of a Trotskyist current
in Mexico, his base in exile from 1926. He argues that Mella was considered by the
Mexican Trotskyists as the pioneer of the current within the Partido Comunista de
Mxico (PCM) which went on to form the Mexican Left Opposition in late 1929 and
early 1930.(3) While recognising that Mella was not a member of the any Left
Opposition group, Glvez Cancino details various episodes which suggest that at a
personal level Mella had sympathy with the outcast Trotsky. According to Glvez
Cancinos research, among the references Mella made to Trotsky was the dedication he
wrote in the copy of The Platform of the Opposition(4) which he gave to a future
108

member of the Mexican Oposicin Comunista de Izquierda. It read: For Alberto


Martnez with the aim of rearming communism, Julio Antonio Mella.(5)

Other historical studies have similarly stressed Mellas latent Trotskyism. Olivia Gall,
for example, has developed the argument that Mella was at the centre of the circle
which after his death gave birth to the Mexican Left Opposition.(6) Bernardo Claraval,
an activist in the Mexican communist milieu, has also opined that Mellas involvement
with those who were to go on to form the Mexican Left Opposition was of significance
for the future development of Trotskyism in Mexico. With reference to Mellas
dissension in the Mexican Communist Party, Claraval, in the 1940s, wrote, [t]he first
shoot of opposition in Mexico was Mella [....] The second, Blackwell.(7) Cuban
Trotskyists themselves have also claimed that Mella upheld the essence of Trotskyism,
namely opposition to class collaboration, in his disputes with official communism in
Cuba and further afield in Latin America,(8) and that after his visit to Moscow in 1927
he left Russia identifying with the International Left Opposition (ILO).(9)

Although post-1959 Cuban accounts have rejected any notion that the discrepancies
between Mella and the PCCs leadership were anything other than issues of style,(10)
and did not constitute a challenge to the latters theory and practice, Mellas political
rivals in the international communist movement certainly attached the label of
Trotskyism to Mella at various points. This section examines these contending
hypotheses regarding the essence of Mellas dissent. I argue that any accusation of
Trotskyism levelled at Mella in fact masked the real content of his opposition and was
more a device used to attack and discredit him at a time when the rigid Third Period
turn was in preparation and ideological homogeneity was of increasing importance. I
specifically contend that Mella, rather than espousing a strategy of Permanent
Revolution was wedded to a perspective which had more in common with the Cuban
syndicalist and national liberation traditions, political traditions which the Comintern
during its Second Period had been able to accommodate. That is, while he stressed the
importance of independent working class organisation in the economic field, he did not
insist on the political independence of the working class. Mella instead promoted the
struggle for a democratic anti-imperialist revolution within multi-class anti-imperialist
movements which tended to reduce the problem of the revolution to that of a technical,
military matter.

Mella, initially an audacious and leftward moving student at the University of Havana
in the early 1920s, was the Secretary of the Federacin Estudiantil Universitaria,(11)
which in 1923 condemned all forms of imperialism, especially the intervention of
Yankee imperialism in Cuban affairs(12) and proclaimed its opposition to the private
ownership of the means of production. Along with other university students and
lecturers Mella also established a workers school, the Universidad Popular Jos
Mart(13) and, under the influence of Marxist ideas, was in large part responsible for
the rapprochement which took place between the students and the workers movement.
Having joined a small communist circle, the Agrupacin Comunista de La Habana in
1924,(14) Mella increasingly considered that the university reform movement
transcended the academic walls, calling it another battle of the class struggle.(15)

In July 1925, at the time when he was organising the communist multi-class auxiliary
organisations, the Liga Anticlerical and the Liga Anti-Imperialista de las Amricas,(16)
Mella outlined his thoughts on the nature of the revolutionary struggle and the socialist
109

nature of the revolution. Distinguishing between democratic and socialist ideals and
going beyond the democratic framework of Mart, Mella stated:

[t]he revolutionaries of the Americas who aspire to defeat the tyrannies of their
respective countries [....] cannot live with the principles of 1789. Despite the mental
backwardness of some, humanity has progressed and in making the revolutions in this
century one should count on a new factor: the ideas of socialism in general, which in
one shade or another takes root in every corner of the globe.(17)

Mellas inquisitive and independent thinking was evident at the founding congress of
the PCC. According to Pedro Serviat,(18) Mella questioned Enrique Flors Magn of
the Mexican Communist Party(19) on the nature of the party cell and democratic
centralism. Influenced by the anarcho-syndicalist traditions of the Cuban labour and
revolutionary movements, he also expressed his resolute opposition to any participation
in elections in Cuba. It was apparently only with the greatest effort that Magn managed
to gain acceptance of the Cominterns views over some of Mellas conceptions.

Mellas passionate convictions led him to embark on some quite extraordinary


individual acts of heroism and resistance. One such act, which proved to be a watershed,
was the hunger strike which he undertook after having been arrested and imprisoned on
27 November 1925 on the charge of planting a bomb in the Payret Theatre in Havana.
The hunger strike, begun on 6 December, provoked the formation of the Comit Pro-
Libertad de Mella which organised demonstrations across Cuba and in exile centres
from New York to Paris. In the face of mounting pressure, on 23 December, the charges
against him were dropped and his release ordered.(20) The PCC, however, had opposed
his hunger strike, and Mella faced the censure of the party. While post-1959 Cuban
written sources only go so far as to indicate that the Party did not view the hunger
strike in a favourable light and urged Mella to give it up,(21) historians who have had
access to the Cominterns archives in Moscow accept that Mella was separated from
the PCC as a result of this action in early to mid-January 1926. The PCC tribunal which
dealt with the case accused Mella of indiscipline and tactical opportunism, and the party
leadership apparently went to some lengths to convince the Mexican Communist Party
and the Executive Committee of the Comintern that Mella had indeed abandoned the
basic principles of the Cuban party. However, after the intervention of the Comintern
and the leadership of the Mexican party, who both strongly opposed the PCCs decision,
Mella was eventually re-incorporated into the Cuban Communist Party in May 1927.
(22) According to Lazar and Victor Kheifets, the Comintern considered Mellas de
facto expulsion to be an act of stupidity which served to isolate the PCC from the petty
bourgeois masses who followed the Anti-Imperialist League.(23)

In a situation in which Mella effectively found himself expelled from the PCC, he opted
to go into exile when once again ordered to stand before a judge on 18 January 1926.
Travelling to Central America, Mella was expelled from both Honduras and Guatemala
before ending up in Mexico where he immediately joined the PCM, also becoming a
member of the Executive Committee of the Mexican section of the broad bloc Liga
Anti-Imperialista de las Amricas.(24) The date of Mellas arrival in Mexico, early
1926, coincided with a period of internal crisis in the PCM. Left-Right struggles were
first emerging over the issue of the nature of the Mexican government and the support
which the communist party should give to the presidential pretenders.(25) It was against
this background that Mellas dissension with both the PCM and PCC developed.
110

In Mexico, Mellas criticism of communist policy centred on the trade union question.
As Glvez Cancino has described,(26) the reformist trade union centre in Mexico, the
Confederacin Regional Obrera Mexicana (CROM), was facing collapse in the light of
calls from supporters of the presidential candidate, Alvaro Obregn, to form
autonomous trade unions.(27) Mella argued that the PCM should take advantage of the
crisis to form a trade union centre uniting all autonomous unions, free from the
influence of the national bourgeoisie and caudillos. For Mella, the independence of the
working class in the trade union field was of paramount importance. The majority on
the PCM Central Committee, however, condemned all activity which would hasten the
destruction of the CROM, arguing that the communists task was to unite the existing
trade union centre and win it from reformism.(28)

Mellas position led him to be considered as a spokesman for Andrs Nin and
Losovsky, the political Left and Centre respectively at the Fourth Congress of the
Profintern held in Moscow in March-April 1928.(29) The root of this accusation
apparently lay in Mellas meetings with Nin, who was on the Executive Committee of
the Profintern when Mella attended meetings of Latin American communists in
Moscow in early to mid-1927 following the Brussels World Congress against Colonial
Oppression and Imperialism. This was a Cubans first contact with Trotskyism and,
according to Glvez Cancino,(30) Nin and Mella went over the programme of the
Russian Left Opposition and the struggle of what was becoming labelled Trotskyism
against the Right-Centrist leadership of the Bukharin-Stalin axis.

At these meetings in Moscow, Mella also displayed how his independent thought
conflicted with the demands of the increasingly rigid international leadership of the
communist movement over the issue of the internal struggle within the Russian
Communist Party. Victorio Codovilla(31) circulated a document demanding the
expulsion of Nin from the Profintern and the Russian Party on the grounds that he was a
member of the Left Opposition, and asked the delegates to sign the document.
According to Glvez Cancino,(32) Mella and two Peruvians linked to the Peruvian
Socialist Party headed by Maritegui avoided and/or refused to sign. Codovilla
subsequently refused to countenance the proposal that Mella be the Latin American
delegate who would remain in Moscow to work at the centre of the Profintern on Latin
American trade union issues. According to Eudocio Ravines,(33) Codovilla attacked
Mellas candidacy and quarrelled with the comrades who defended it. Amidst much
underhand bureaucratic manoeuvring Codovilla ensured that Mellas candidacy was
defeated.(34) Mella returned to Mexico after an unauthorised stay in New York where,
according to one account, he complained of the excessive meddling of Moscow in the
internal affairs of individual parties.(35)

While Mella had demonstrated how his independent will clashed with the increasingly
rigid demands for subordination to officially sanctioned methods of organisation
imposed by the process of Bolshevisation, his writings and activity on his return to
Mexico were rather contradictory. That is, although his most well-known pamphlet
written in the months after his departure from Moscow embodied a Permanent
Revolution strategy, his subsequent activity revealed how he had an essentially Second
Period conception of the struggle for socialism. Mellas pamphlet Qu Es el ARPA?, in
circulation in April 1928, was perhaps his major written contribution to the struggle for
socialism. As a critique of the professed anti-imperialism of Haya de la Torre and the
APRA movement, and broadly coinciding with Trotskys analysis, he asserted for the
111

first time that although the proletariat could work with the organisations of
representatives of the bourgeoisie in the national struggle against imperialism, the
working class alone was ultimately the sole guarantor of genuine national revolution.

In Qu Es el ARPA?, Mella contended that the Aprista interpretation of the Anti-


Imperialist United Front was ambiguous and made political concessions to the petty-
bourgeoisie.(36) At no point, Mella argued, did the APRA recognise that the
fundamental principle in the social struggle was the hegemony of the working class.(37)
On the role of the contending classes, he wrote:

[t]he betrayals of the national bourgeoisie and petty-bourgeoisie have a single cause
that all the workers now understand. That is, they do not struggle against foreign
imperialism in order to abolish private property, but instead to defend their property in
the face of the robbery that the imperialists attempt to carry out.
In their struggle against imperialismthe foreign thiefthe bourgeoisiesthe
national thievesare united against the proletariat, the good old cannon fodder. But
they end up understanding that it is better to form an alliance with imperialism, which at
the end of the day pursues similar interests. So-called progressives are converted into
reactionaries. The concessions that they made to the proletariat in order to have it by its
side at the outset are betrayed when, in its advance, the proletariat becomes a threat as
much for the foreign thief as the national one. From here the cry would be against
communism.(38)

Echoing both Trotskys and Mariteguis characterisation of the APRA as a Latin


American Guomindang, Mella, in analysing Chiang Kai-shek in China, argued that the
petty bourgeoisie and bourgeoisie of colonial countries will ultimately betray the
working class during the course of an ostensibly anti-imperialist struggle, no matter how
revolutionary the non-proletarian sectors appear to be. He wrote, [t]he petty
bourgeoisies [of the Americas] are not more loyal to the cause of definitive national
emancipation than their class comrades in China or any other colonial country. They
abandon the proletariat and pass over to imperialism before the final battle.(39) With
reference to the national liberation struggle he was unequivocal in his conclusion: In
short, only the proletariat can win absolute national liberation and it will be by way of
the working class revolution.(40)

While, then, Mella, unambiguously asserted that socialism and a proletarian revolution
were the sole guarantors of national liberation, his Qu Es el ARPA? pamphlet was
published at a time when the turn away from the Second Period policy was being
prepared. Haya de la Torres Aprista strategy of creating multi-class progressive anti-
imperialist blocs had already come into conflict with the Cominterns shifting priorities,
and after the debacle in China the Comintern was about to take steps towards
implementing the Third Period tactical line which stressed the absolute independence of
the working class from bourgeois nationalist forces.

More importantly, although there was much to suggest that Mella had taken on the
essence of the Left Oppositions theory after his visit to Moscow, his activity on his
return to Mexico still largely fell within the traditions of the revolutionary national
liberation and syndicalism of his native Cuba. That is, while Mella upheld independent
working class organisation in the trade unions, evident in his contribution to the
resurfacing trade union question, he also promoted a multi-class front in the Cuban exile
112

revolutionary milieu in Mexico in 1928 without calling for the political independence of
the communist fraction.

Within the Cuban exile community in Mexico in 1928, Mella founded and became the
General Secretary of the Asociacin Nacional de Nuevos Emigrados Revolucionarios
de Cuba (ANERC). Outside the control of the PCC and PCM apparatuses, the ANERC
aimed to unite the anti-Machado forces which were then in exile. One immediate aim
was the organisation of an expedition of Cuban revolutionaries to depart for Cuba in
1928-29 to initiate an insurrection against the Machado regime.(41) Mellas declared
intention was largely one of igniting a democratic anti-imperialist revolution, and he
subordinated the political and organisational independence of the communist fraction
inside the ANERC to this project. According to an early edition of Cuba Libre!, the
ANERCs newspaper, the task which the ANERC had set itself was to draw up a
united programme of the Cuban people for immediate action to restore democracy".(42)
In the article Hacia Dnde Va Cuba?, Mella himself spoke of a necessary democratic,
liberal, and nationalist revolution and argued that only the socialist and the
revolutionary nationalist movements, that is, those who were prepared to meet violence
with violence can give hope to the Nation.(43) For Mella, while the proletariat in
Cuba was of special significance, this was only to the extent that its relative size and
concentration in Cuba favoured the development of a more effective revolutionary
movement than had developed in other, less developed Latin American countries.(44)
Rather than adopting the Permanent Revolution strategy of insisting on the political
independence of the working class from an early stage in a struggle for an unambiguous
anti-imperialist proletarian revolution, Mella argued that the proletariat had to take part
in the insurrectionary movements only remaining aware that they could give rise to a
Chiang Kai-shek, the leader of the Guomindang in China. For Mella, the pressure which
the popular masses could exert would lead to a genuine democratic revolution, and he
cited the case of the Mexican Revolution, rather than the Russian October Revolution,
as the example of what was possible.(45) Indeed, as Cabrera has argued, while Mella
referred to socialism elsewhere, inside the ANERC he did not allude to Lenin or
communism. He instead emphasised the necessity of armed insurrection, unity with the
revolutionary nationalist movement, the democratic programme of the ANERC and the
stages in the revolution.(46)

In line with Mellas broad democratic bloc approach, also participating in the ANERC
alongside a nucleus of communists was the proscribed Partido Unin Nacionalista, a
party of the bourgeois opposition to Machado. Their joint work was such that in 1929 a
close colleague of Mella in Mexico recognised that it proved difficult to distinguish the
activity of the PCC from that of the Partido Unin Nacionalista in the ANERC and
preparation of the armed expedition.(47) This work and overall perspective, the same
report noted, was relentlessly criticised by some comrades.(48) As Russell Blackwell,
another comrade of Mellas in Mexico, wrote, [n]umerous differences arose between
the comrades of the Communist fraction of the ANERC in Mexico and the C.E.C.
[Central Executive Committee] of the C.P. of Mexico, and the relations between Mella
and the party leadership became exceedingly tense towards the end of 1928.(49)
Again, this was at the time when the Comintern was preparing the ground for its turn
towards the Third Period tactic of outright hostility towards all non-communist forces
including the revolutionary nationalist sector.
113

Mellas confrontation with the leadership of the PCM was also heightened by his
renewed involvement in the polemic over the trade union question. This debate
resurfaced while he was acting as the Interim National Secretary of the PCM in mid- to
late 1928 due to the absence of two PCM delegates who were in Moscow for the
Cominterns Sixth Congress.(50) Mella again took the lead in arguing that continuing to
promote a United Front with the CROM was unsustainable in a situation in which the
working class was on the point of leaving the Confederation. He contended that the
PCM should immediately form a new trade union centre.(51) As Blackwell has
recounted:

[i]n September 1928, an emergency conference of the party was called to discuss the
change in the political situation. At this conference, Martn demanded the expulsion of
Mella for the crime of working against the party line in the direction of dual unionism.
The Right wing proposed a united front with the reformists against the Obregonists (and
Left wing CROM members) who were splitting the unions. But instead of Mella being
expelled from the party at that time, he was successful, together with the Mexico city
delegation, in rallying the whole conference, with one exception, to a struggle against
the opportunist tail-endism of the Central Committee.(52)

However, while awaiting the return of the delegates from Moscow, the Central
Committee of the PCM took to sabotaging these decisions. According to Glvez
Cancino,(53) from September 1928 the leadership of the PCC and PCM blocked and
confronted Mella on the trade union question and criticised his political activities in the
ANERC. According to Blackwells account:

on the return of the delegation from Moscow after the Sixth World Congress of the
Comintern, comrade Julio Antonio Mella was not only removed from his provisional
post [as National Secretary] but was also summarily removed from the Central
Committee upon the insistence of the right wing C.E.C. led by Martn (Stirner) and
[Rafael] Carrillo. [...] Towards the end of 1928 relations between Mella and the Party
leadership became exceedingly tense.(54)

It was, then, against the background of criticism on the combined front of his activity
within the ANERC and his position on the trade union question that Mella, expelled
once already from the PCC, again faced a further round of accusations including that of
being a Trotskyist. First, at a meeting of communists in Montevideo in April 1928,
Codovilla and Ricardo Martnez argued that Mella held Trotskyist positions and that he
did not respond to the discipline required by the PCM.(55) The leadership of the PCM
examined the accusations, but found no evidence to prove that Mella was working with
the Left Opposition. However, in the light of a rising international campaign against the
so-called dangers of Trotskyism, the PCM called on Mella to openly declare himself
against Trotskyism. He did so, presenting a formal renunciation of the point of view of
the Left Opposition.(56)

Attempts by the leaderships of the PCC and PCM to discredit Mella continued. In a
letter from Rafael Carrillo, the General Secretary of the PCM, to Bertram and Ella
Wolfe, in which Carrillo argued that the pest of Trotskyism needed to be dealt with,
he wrote:
114

[i]t is very much a danger which our enemies can exploit. Last week we had something
similar here: Sormenti [Vittorio Vidali] and Ramrez [Manuel Daz] on their return
[from the Sixth Congress of the Comintern] passed through Cuba where, for a week
they were with the CC of the PCC. The Cuban CC delivered a resolution to them in
which they requested that the Cuban group in Mexico subordinate themselves to the CC
of the PCM and that they do not write or work on their own account and at their own
risk, compromising in a truly criminal fashion our comrades who work in Cuba. We let
Mella and his supporters know of this resolution and he let loose with fury against the
CC of the PCC. We are ready to publish a resolution about his case and circulate it right
across Latin America and the U.S., but just yesterday I received a letter of regret from
him in which he withdraws the resignation and promises to continue working in the
Party. This very week we will sort out this issue. [....] Mella has always had Trotskyist
deviltries/weaknesses.(57)

Amidst the round of false accusations and confrontation with the PCM leadership,
Mella was expelled from the party after he sent a rash letter to the leadership in which
he declared his inability to work with them.(58) While he promptly requested a
reconsideration of this statement, recognising the error on his part, and was reinstated in
the party, this decision was taken with the stipulation that he was to hold no posts of
responsibility for a period of three years.(59) However, on the night of 10 January
1929 Mella was shot in the streets of Mexico City. He died at dawn the following day.
At the time, the Comintern and the PCM laid the blame at the door of Machado, the
Cuban President.(60) Since then, though, a number of authors have questioned this
version and suggested that agents of the Comintern, most notably Vittorio Vidali, were
deeply involved in the assassination.(61) The motive, they have argued, was Mellas
deviations and his presumed sympathy for the views of the Left Opposition. While
these accusations concerning the authors of the assassination have never been either
completely dispelled nor confirmed,(62) the circumstantial evidence supporting the
hypothesis that there was Cuban government involvement in Mellas murder is
convincing. While the letter from Mellas close friend and comrade, Leonardo
Fernndez Snchez, warning Mella that Cubans had departed for Mexico with drastic
intentions towards you personally,(63) indicates that there was Cuban government
intent to murder him, the evidence cited by Daniela Spenser is even more suggestive.
She argues that from April 1926 after Mella and other Cuban communists had found
refuge in Mexico and openly began to plan an armed expedition to Cuba, Machado
made repeated requests to the Mexican authorities to curb the Cuban exiles public
activities. However, given the Cominterns Second Period tactical line during the period
1926-28, the PCM maintained good relations with the Mexican government, even
supporting it at various junctures. Spenser argues that the Mexican government, not
wanting to complicate these relations, refused to take steps against Mella, even refusing
to do so after the Cuban government had presented its Mexican counterpart with
materials, which were almost certainly forged, suggesting that the PCM was involved in
a secret plot to further destabilise the country in the wake of the assassination of
Obregn, the president-elect, in mid-1928. Spensers convincing hypothesis is that in
the light of the Mexicans unwillingness to act, the Cuban government took it upon
itself to organise Mellas assassination.(64)

Mellas struggle in Mexico had principally been against the Rightists within the PCM
who adhered to the trade union line advocated at the international level by Bukharin.
However, in an article published in El Machete two days after his assassination, Mella
115

made it clear that he similarly did not share the ultra-leftist conception of building a
relatively small red communist trade union centre with which the new trade union
centre was eventually founded.(65) He wrote:

[w]e pose the question of trade union unity and not the unity of the Party. A party
unites a certain number of people who profess to hold the same opinion. The trade
unions bring together the working class in day-to-day struggles no matter the political
points of view that exist within it. We are supporters of freedom of criticism and of the
struggle of various political tendencies within the trade union organisations.(66)

This insistence on independent trade union organisation, however, was as much an


expression of the tradition of revolutionary syndicalism as it was of Trotskyism. Mella
simply reasoned that under attack from central government, the reformist centre, the
CROM, was on the point of disintegration and the proletariat as a whole needed a new
class-based organisation to defend its economic interests.

While, then, Mella had concerns about what he perceived as certain dangerous
developments within the communist movement, and had also been at the centre of a
group of young PCM members who subsequently went on to found the Mexican Left
Opposition, a group which claimed him as one of their pioneers, their overtly Trotskyist
dissidence only took shape after Mellas assassination. Although, as the Trotskyists in
the first bulletin of the Mexican Oposicin Comunista de Izquierda wrote, [c]omrade
Julio Mella and some others saw with certain alarm what was happening but, perhaps
not understanding that the Mexican party was also directly threatened with suffering the
consequences of the incorrect and opportunist line of the Comintern, they did not try to
bring these problems to the attention of our comrades,(67) Mellas expressed concerns
did not have an explicitly Trotskyist hue. As in the case of Maritegui, Mellas
opposition within the official communist movement was contradictory and he died
before being forced to question the roots of his dissidence and take sides in the more
clearly defined disputes between the Left, Right and Centre. Indeed, the Mexican
Oppositionists subsequent position would have also directly challenged Mellas work
in the ANERC.

In sum, most revealing in the debate around Mellas supposed Trotskyism was his
commitment to the activities of the ANERC. While he had belatedly joined Trotsky in
warning of the dangers of subordinating the proletariat to the parties of bourgeois
nationalism, such as the Guomindang, his commitment to preparing an insurrectionary
movement alongside the forces of the liberal nationalist Partido Unin Nacionalista
demonstrated that in no sense can his dissidence be regarded as the first manifestation
of Trotskyism in the Cuban communist milieu. Unlike Trotsky and the early Comintern,
at no point did Mella insist on the independence of the communist fraction within the
ANERC, nor did he apply Trotskys perspective that only a proletarian anti-imperialist
revolution could achieve genuine national liberation. Although, therefore, Mella was the
first Cuban to come into contact with the ideas of Trotsky and, indeed, was the first
Cuban to be accused of Trotskyism, this, I argue, was a false accusation which obscured
his one-sided emphasis on the national liberation struggle and his commitment to
developing an uncritical alliance with the socially conservative Partido Unin
Nacionalista.
116

4.2 The Formation, Composition and Activity of the OCC

This section traces the development of dissent within the PCC in the early 1930s after
the assassination of Mella and charts the formation, social and geographic composition,
and activity of the OCC in 1932-33, the first dissident communist group in Cuba to
establish formal relations with the international Trotskyist movement. The central
argument which I develop is that the OCC was originally made up of a heterogeneous
group of anti-Machado and anti-imperialist militants who having coalesced under the
umbrella of the PCC and its auxiliary organisations during the Second Period, began to
rebel against the new ultra-leftist Third Period tactical line sponsored by the PCC
leadership from late 1930 which isolated the party from other groups on the Left. I
further argue that it was only due to the decisive lead given by a core of central figures
within the OCC, that the Cuban Oppositionists adopted a centralised structure and
orientated themselves towards the International Left Opposition.

After Mellas assassination in January 1929, relations between the PCM and the Cuban
communists working in the ANERC continued to be tense. In June 1929, during the first
Latin American Trade Union Conference in Buenos Aires, an exchange between David
Alfaro Siqueiros (*Surez), a Mexican delegate,(68) and Sandalio Junco (*Jurez), one
of the Cuban delegates and a future leader of the OCC,(69) led the latter to accuse the
PCM of doing all it could to sabotage the work of the Cuban communists in exile.(70)
At this conference, Junco also brought to the attention of the delegates what he referred
to as the issue which was of extraordinary importance in Cuba, namely that of a
possible alliance with the Left-wing of the Cuban bourgeois nationalist movement in the
struggle against Machado. While differences over this issue would later largely define
the Opposition within the PCC, for the time being Junco noted that despite the very
different ultimate goals of the nationalists and PCC, the imminent possibility that the
former would initiate a revolution could not be ignored. Junco informed the conference
that while the Partido Unin Nacionalista had turned to seek U.S. support to defeat
Machado, and so made co-operation with it impossible, another nationalist wing could
still mount a revolt. While ruling out co-operation inside such movements, Junco,
without defining the form and content of any joint work or alliance, noted that the PCC
continued to seek to address the crucial question of how to gain advantage from the
Left-wing nationalist movement.(71)

Within the Cuban communist milieu, the issue of the role of the Left-nationalist
movement in the revolution was the centre of further debate after October-November
1930, when the PCC adopted the Third Period tactical line. In terms of theory and
practice in Cuba, the PCC abandoned its conspiratorial orientation alongside non-
proletarian forces, considering the bourgeois nationalist opposition to be counter-
revolutionary. The reformist and anarcho-syndicalist trade unions were similarly
labelled social-fascist. All possibility of any type alliance with the revolutionary sector
of the Cuban nationalist movement in the struggle against Machado was therefore ruled
out and, as such, the views expressed by Junco on behalf of the party at the 1929 Latin
American Trade Union Conference were formally rejected. Mella himself was also
subsequently criticised by the Caribbean Bureau of the Comintern for intending to place
the working class movement at the tail of the bourgeoisie.(72)

The PCCs adoption of the Cominterns Third Period tactical line initially provoked
dissension within the PCCs trade union and student milieu. The first co-ordinated
117

internal opposition, organised in July 1931 under the leadership of Pedro Varela
(*Magon), was an expression of the rejection of the PCCs trade union line of the
United Front only from below with rank and file workers.(73) The following month the
PCC faced further internal dissent from the communist fraction of the Ala Izquierda
Estudiantil (AIE) over the official communists insistence on passive neutrality during
the August 1931 Revolt initiated by the Partido Unin Nacionalista.(74)

It was at this point that, in small part, the ideas of Trotskyism probably became known
to a limited number of the dissident communist activists in these organisations. The
conduit for these ideas was Juan Ramn Bre, a Cuban in exile in Spain, who after
making contact with Nin and other Spanish Trotskyists had himself adhered to the
views of Trotsky.(75) He sent Trotskyist literature in Spanish to a number of militants
in Cuba. According to Charles Simen Ramrez,(76) the leader of the Partido
Bolchevique Leninista (PBL) in the late 1930s, these newspapers and journals from the
Spanish Trotskyist group, particularly the magazine Comunismo,(77) did much to
stimulate Trotskyist influence within the relatively isolated Opposition group in Cuba.

As the repression directed against the revolutionary movement mounted in early 1932,
increasing numbers of activists in the communist and student movement were
imprisoned. It was, then, in the debates which took place among the jailed communists
that the Oppositionists began to act as a group and the content of the dissension began
to shape.(78) While Carlos Gonzlez Palacios, Marcos Garca Villareal, Gastn Medina
Escobar and Juan Prez de la Riva were some of the principal movers in these events,
Bres contribution to these debates, this time from within a Cuban prison, gave them a
distinct Trotskyist content.(79) However, it seems that it was Junco who, after his return
from the Soviet Union, acted as the catalyst in giving some structure to the original
disagreements within the PCC.(80) Already well-known nationally,(81) Junco was the
leader of the Sindicato de Obreros Panaderos, the Bakery Workers Union, and held a
leading position in the PCC. While unsupported accounts argue that he had been won
over to the Left Opposition during [his] stay in Moscow by Andrs Nin himself, then
the secretary of the Red International of Labour Unions [and that ....] no sooner had he
been convinced than he used the occasion of an official reception to violently question
Stalin regarding the persecution of Trotsky and his comrades,(82) what is documented
is that on his return from the Soviet Union in early 1932, Junco immediately took steps
towards regrouping the various Oppositionist groups within the PCC.(83) Having been
assigned various tasks in the Negro Department of the PCC, among the unemployed and
for the newspaper of the National Labour Confederation (CNOC),(84) Junco
disconnected himself completely from the Party from the end of March 1932.(85)
Arrested by the police in Havana, after his release on 15 July 1932 Junco was only
located by the PCC at the end of September. In a meeting with the PCCs Central
Committee, Junco informed them that the issue was not about the work he had been
assigned as such, but disagreements with the line of the PCC which went back to 1930,
the date when the party had adopted the Third Period tactical line.

It was, then, in August 1932 that the leading Oppositionists within the PCC moved to
found the Cuban Communist Opposition as a distinct organisation within the ranks of
the PCC.(86) According to Carlos M. Padrn Ferrer, who was soon to become one of its
leaders, the OCC was actually organised at a meeting of four members of the Ala
Izquierda Estudiantil, Marcos Garca Villareal, Luis Busquet, Roberto Fontanilla and
118

Charles Simen and a number of members of the Federacin Obrera de La Habana,


(87) this doubtless including Junco and Gastn Medina.

The formation of the OCC also coincided with moves by the PCC leadership to expel
the leading Oppositionists from the partys ranks. It is, though, unclear whether the
PCCs Central Committee was actually aware that the OCC had been more formally
constituted. Either way, when the leadership of the PCC met to expel the first
Oppositionist from the party, Garca Villareal, on 24 August 1932, the resolution
certainly made no mention of the founding of the OCC.(88) When the communist
fraction in the Ala Izquierda Estudiantil refused to accept the decision to expel Garca
Villareal, requesting instead that the question of the political and trade union line of the
PCC be the subject of a national party conference or congress,(89) the Central
Committee of the PCC also took further steps to exert more control over its auxiliary
organisations. In an attempt to curb the autonomy of the Liga Juvenil Comunista
(Young Communist League), its leaders, *Mir and *Reyes, were removed from their
positions.(90)

Leaving my analysis of the Oppositionists theoretical and tactical development until


the following section (4.3), I first trace the organisational development of the OCC. At
this early stage, it was not easy for the PCC leadership to isolate the early
Oppositionists. Crucially, this was because the party, after attracting a variety of
activists to the Labour Federation of Havana (FOH), the Left-Wing Student movement
and the PCC itself during the official communists broad Second Period, abruptly began
to dismiss the national liberation movement exactly at a time when the demands for
national liberation were being posed with increased vigour in the rising revolutionary
situation. Thus, when the revolutionary tide was beginning to swell the ranks of
oppositional groups across the political spectrum, the OCC initially acted as a pole of
attraction for a variety of activists who had affiliated to the PCC and its front
organisations prior to October-November 1930, and who now rejected the sectarian
Third Period tactical line of the PCC believing that it kept the party on the margin of
events.

Although the Oppositionists had supporters in all the auxiliary organisations of the
PCC, they were initially strongest in the Ala Izquierda Estudiantil.(91) Under the
leadership of Marcos Garca Villareal (*A. Gmez Villar), the editor of its journal
Lnea,(92) the Oppositionists managed to influence, if not control, the Left-Wing
Students organisation in all its principal centres across Cuba. Ultimately, though, the
Ala Izquierda Estudiantil did not break en masse from the PCC. Indeed, what the
Trotskyists later termed the capitulatory tendency, incorporating those who remained
with the PCC leadership, was strongest in the Ala Izquierda Estudiantil. According to
Gastn Medina, [w]ith the exception of the Matanzas section, a part of the Santiago de
Cuba section, and of a very small minority in the institute of Havana, the major part of
the organisation including the University Section passed into Stalinist influence.(93)

The Opposition also drew its initial support from the Defensa Obrera Internacional
(International Labour DefenceDOI). Having undergone a period of significant
growth, especially in Havana, due to the influx of former Apristas,(94) the DOI was a
heterogeneous organisation with origins very much in the multi-class anti-imperialist
front politics of the Cominterns Second Period. As the PBL conceded in hindsight,
those who had swelled the ranks of the DOI largely constituted a spontaneous current
119

born of the popular struggle against the ferocious dictatorship".(95) Again, those who
were in favour of breaking with the line of the PCC leadership followed two paths. In
this case, one sector led by the old Apristas moved towards the petty bourgeoisie while
the second joined the OCC and towards supporting the trade union struggles of the
FOH.(96) The DOIs principal leaders, however, including Gastn Medina, its National
Secretary in 1931,(97) Busquet, Fontanilla, Juan Prez de la Riva, Jos Antonio Daz
Ortega, and Andrs Vargas Gmez, the grandson of Mximo Gmez, the General-in-
Chief of the Liberation Army during the 1895-98 War, all sided with and then joined
the Opposition.(98) In so doing, they carried their arguments to the DOIs National
Executive Committee meeting in mid- to late 1932.(99)

The OCC also won majority support within the Federacin Obrera de La Habana, the
trade union centre in Havana which in 1932 had become a rallying point for all the
syndicalist currents running counter to the line of the C.P.".(100) Most significantly,
the largest union under the FOHs umbrella, the Sindicato General de Empleados del
Comercio de Cuba (General Commercial Workers Union of Cuba), fell under the
Oppositions control.(101) This trade union, founded in 1931, organised hotel,
restaurant, bar, shop and print workers, and in January 1934 claimed to have 7,000
members in Havana,(102) a large percentage of whom were Spaniards. According to the
PBL, while most of the trade unions in Havana were under its control by mid-1933,
(103) the majority of PBL members in the city were employed in the commercial sector
and as such belonged to the General Commercial Workers Union of Cuba.(104)

The grassroots heterogeneity of the OCC at its founding was also reflected in the
Oppositions early leadership which was made up from a variety of activists drawn from
both the student and trade union movements. While a number of members had
international experience, including Junco in Moscow, Bre in Spain and Padrn in the
French Communist Party,(105) a PBL report revealed the mix in terms of the OCC
leaderships centres of activity, ages and experiences. Apart from Junco, an experienced
trade union activist in his late 30s, and Garca Villareal, a student in his early 20s, the
OCCs initial leadership was made up by *Mario Gonzlez, a college student in his late
teens or early 20s who had no real political experience prior to the formation of the
OCC; *Maurin, an old trade union activist who had joined the PCC with the decline of
anarcho-syndicalism but was then expelled for opposing the partys trade union line;
*R. Gomez, also originating from the pre-PCC syndicalist current, who had been
expelled from the PCC long before the OCC was organised; and *Marcial, a lawyer
who had previously been active in Santiago de Cuba and the provinces outside Havana.
(106)

This rather heterogeneous make-up of the OCCs initial membership and leadership
reflected the Oppositions weak Trotskyist credentials at its founding. Unlike other
Communist Opposition groups which surfaced in Latin America in the early 1930s, the
Cuban Communist Opposition was a broad current which had been formed almost
entirely on the basis of local arguments.(107) However, over time, the OCC, on the
initiative of small group of leading members orientated itself towards Trotskyism and
the International Left Opposition. While the principal conduit for explicit Trotskyist
ideas had initially been Bre, the most prominent pro-Left Opposition Cuban during the
course of 1932-33 was Garca Villareal.(108) The OCCs organisational alignment with
the ILO, as opposed to the more heterogeneous Right Opposition, was also facilitated
by Juncos hostile memories of the relations with representatives of the Right-wing in
120

the PCM and Profintern.(109) Mellas arguments in Moscow and his struggle within the
PCM over the issue of the armed expedition to Cuba had also principally been against
the Rightists.

Under the influence of the core group of members who had some sympathy with the
positions defended by Trotsky in the international communist movement, the OCC
made its first collective contact with the Left Opposition in Europe via a letter sent to
Nin in Spain in March 1933.(110) Signalling that an Opposition existed within the PCC,
the letter requested material of the Spanish Communist Opposition, and noted that the
Cuban Communist Opposition, though not agreeing on an international line, is not nor
can be exclusively national.(111) In the subsequent exchange of letters between the
French and Spanish sections of the International Left Opposition and the OCC, the
Cuban Oppositionists reiterated that they were isolated from the theoretical struggles
which were going on at the international level, requested urgent consideration of their
proposal for establishing links, and repeated their request for material.(112)

In terms of the Oppositions geographical spread, the OCC initially formed District
Committees in Havana, Matanzas and Santiago de Cuba in Oriente,(113) the places in
which the Ala Izquierda Estudiantil had decided, in part or full, to break with the PCC.
In Matanzas, a majority of the youth in the Ala Izquierda Estudiantil joined the OCC. It
also won the Spaniard Miguel Busto Garca, the leader of the Bakery Workers Union,
from the PCC and established the Federacin Obrera de Matanzas with direct links to
the FOH in Havana.(114) In Santiago de Cuba the original members of the OCC were
also drawn from the ranks of the Ala Izquierda Estudiantil, the Left-wing of the citys
strong student movement, as well as the Young Communist League, International
Labour Defence and the PCC itself. Among its principal leaders were the lawyer Carlos
Martnez Snchez who had been a member of the PCCs Executive Committee in
Oriente,(115) another lawyer, Carlos Gonzlez Palacios, and Padrn, Rubn Mart and
Augustina Arce.(116) It was one of Augustina Arces daughters, Amrica Lavad Arce
who, having joined the OCC through the International Labour Defence, became the
Trotskyists first martyr, shot by police forces during a demonstration in Santiago de
Cuba on 1 August 1933.(117)

The Oppositionists in Santiago de Cuba in turn initiated the formation of sections in


other towns and cities in Oriente among those students and trade unionists who were
discontented with the PCCs tactical line. The principal centres in which these Sectional
Committees were formed included Holguin, Puerto Padre, Victoria de las Tunas and
Guantnamo. Smaller branches were also established in various rural centres of sugar
production in Oriente such as Gibara, Bayamo and Palma Soriano.(118) In Victoria de
las Tunas, the OCC attracted the Las Tunas district of the Ala Izquierda Estudiantil in
its entirety, as well as a number of other members of the official party. The General
Secretary of the Las Tunas Sectional Committee of the OCC, Roberto Prez
Santiesteban (*Lassalle), for example, came directly from the PCC.(119)

The Oppositionists most notable success in terms of numerical strength and influence
within the revolutionary movement was that of its Guantnamo Sectional Committee.
Eusebio Mujal (*Chapovolov), who had been recruited to the PCC from the student
movement in October 1932,(120) initially sowed the seeds of dissent against the PCC
line in Guantnamo when a number of the sectional leaders of the party were in prison
in 1932. When one of these imprisoned leaders, Manuel Tur Lambert, was released at
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the end of 1932 a meeting was called of the pro-OCC and pro-Central Committee
factions of the party. Anbal Escalante (*Cid) represented the PCCs central leadership
and Junco and Bre attended on behalf of the OCCs national and regional leadership.
According to Turs account, after almost two days of debate, 38 members voted for the
OCC line while 8 remained with the PCC.(121) Among the PCC cadres who the
Oppositionists initially attracted were various founding members of the branch. These
included Rafael Sebastin who had been the PCC sections first secretary for peasant
affairs, Pedro Torres, Gustavo Fraga Jacomino, Ramn Cesar and Gilberto Goliat.(122)

Through 1933, the Oppositionists came to dominate the labour and revolutionary
movement in the Guantnamo region. While the PCCs policy of concluding a pact with
Machado and its call for return to work during the August 1933 general strike, served as
a useful recruiting sergeant for the OCC nationally, in Guantnamo the events
surrounding the strike simply confirmed the leading role of the Oppositionists. The PCC
was not represented on the local strike committee,(123) and according to Cuza, a
member of the PCC who had joined the OCC, the official communist party has lost
prestige here in Cuba because of the poor tactics adopted by its leaders. The Opposition
controls everything [and] is the only strong body!(124) According to this same
account, of the 48 members of the PCC section in Guantnamo, 42 had joined the OCC.
(125) By this point, the OCCs ranks included Isidro Lpez Surez, the first General
Secretary of the PCC section in Guantnamo.(126)

As the OCC consolidated itself during 1933 as a distinct faction in the Cuban
communist milieu and developed links with the international Trotskyist opposition, so
its Statutes, published in June 1933, formally established the organisational principles
and discipline codes which faithfully reflected those of the 1917 Leninist party model.
Clearly stating that the OCC considered itself to be a faction of the PCC, the Statutes
underlined the fact that the OCC had the intention of regenerating the official party so
as to prevent the destruction of the communist movement in Cuba.(127) The Estatutos
also outlined the OCCs intention to form fractions in all the organisations of the
working class and peasantry, from the trade unions and student associations to the front
organisations of the PCC.(128) However, in practice, given that relations between the
OCC and PCC were largely limited to displays of mutual hostility, each accusing the
other of inciting the police to attack their centres of organisation and break up their
meetings,(129) where the Communist Oppositionists did not control the Ala Izquierda
Estudiantil or International Labour Defence organisations they established parallel
bodies.(130)

The OCCs independent, rather than factional, character was further reinforced by the
Statutes sketch of the Communist Oppositions internal organisational principles. The
basic units of the organisation were the local cells which, in turn, were welded together
locally in Sectional Committees. These Sectional Committees were grouped together in
the next tier of party organisation, the District Committee. While the highest authority
in the Opposition was a National Congress, attended by delegates from the basic cells of
the party, the Central Committee elected by such a congress was the supreme body
between congresses. The Statutes also provided for the holding of a National
Conference in the event that a National Congress could not be held. The conference,
rather than being made up of delegates from the cells, was to be attended by delegates
of the Sectional Committees. A Political Bureau elected by the Central Committee was
placed in charge of the Oppositions activities between meetings of the Central
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Committee. While the Statutes made no mention of the formation of factions to co-
ordinate arguments for any particular internal political debate, in principle, the OCC
also adhered to the principles of democratic centralism. That is, they insisted on the
widest possible internal democracy while, at the same time, acting as a unit on the
decision of the majority in any public work. This, the OCC argued, would guarantee the
unity of the group.

Originally, then, the Cuban Communist Opposition was a heterogeneous group of anti-
Machado and anti-imperialist militants who opposed the imposition of the Third Period
sectarian directives of the Comintern within the PCC and its auxiliary organisations. On
the initiative, though, of its principal leaders who were sympathetic to the struggle of
the international Trotskyist movement, it orientated itself towards the International Left
Opposition. While the OCC established branches across Cuba and had the intention of
regenerating the PCC as a vanguard party capable of leading the socialist revolution, in
practice it increasingly took on the character of a party outside the PCC. Indeed, just as
the OCC organised opposition groups to parallel those of the PCCs auxiliary
organisations, so it had formally adopted a centralised party structure on the Bolshevik
model by June 1933.

4.3 The OCC and Revolutionary Strategy: From a Democratic to


Permanent Revolution Perspective

This section analyses the OCCs theoretical development with particular reference to
the Cuban Oppositionists assessment of the nature of the revolution and the strategy
which revolutionaries should adopt. I develop the argument that although the OCC
adopted Bolshevik principles of organisation and set itself the task of regenerating the
official communist party, this intended regeneration initially took place along the lines
of a return to the PCCs pre-November 1930 Second Period policy. That is, despite the
PCCs accusation that the Oppositions programme was similar to the counter-
revolutionary platform of the Permanent Revolution of Trotskyism,(131) the
Oppositionists did not initially insist on the proletarian character of the anti-imperialist
revolution. They instead largely adhered to the perspective of a multi-class democratic
anti-imperialist revolution, which amounted to a de facto rejection of Trotskys
contention that only a proletarian anti-imperialist revolution leading directly to working
class power and socialism could achieve genuine national liberation. I further contend
that the OCC only rejected its initial democratic anti-imperialist revolution perspective
and committed itself to a Permanent Revolution strategy as late as early to mid-1933,
eight months after its formal founding. This qualitative change of tack, I argue, was the
result of the influence of a core of members in the OCCs leadership who had developed
an international perspective.

Discontent within the PCC and its auxiliary organisations over the Third Period line
adopted after October 1930 centred on four inter-related issues. These four points of
discord fell into the following categories: 1) the role of the working class in the
revolution in Cuba, 2) the role of the bourgeois opposition in the revolutionary process,
3) the trade union line of the PCC, and 4) the question of participating in elections.
Before I discuss how the OCCs dissension developed in 1933 into a recognisable
proletarian anti-imperialist revolution thesis, I outline how the OCC initially espoused
an essentially Second Period critique of the PCCs Third Period tactical line on the basis
of disagreements over these four issues.
123

First of all, on the issue of the role of the working class in the revolution and the actual
character of that revolution, the Oppositionists objected to the PCCs characterisation of
the Cuban revolution as anti-imperialist and anti-feudal whose primary motor was the
working class. In essence, they resisted the PCCs turn to the proletarianisation of the
struggle and, insisting on the revolutionary potential of the petty bourgeoisie in Cuba,
openly agitated in favour of a democratic anti-imperialist revolution. For the early
Oppositionists, the PCC had uncritically adopted an orientation which corresponded to a
medium developed capitalist country where a solid, well-formed industrial proletariat
existed. As a result, they argued, the Central Committee of the PCC over-estimated the
role of the proletariat and under-estimated that of the peasantry and revolutionary petty
bourgeoisie in the cities.(132) Both Junco, in El Obrero Panadero, the journal of the
Bakery Workers Union, and Garca Villareal expressed the view that, in Cuba, there
was only a very small industrial proletariat with a poorly developed class consciousness
which was incapable by itself of developing a serious, independent movement. At the
same time, they argued that there was a massive petty bourgeoisie both rural and urban
which was willing to resort to violent, revolutionary methods of struggle.(133) Garca
Villareal was quoted as writing in his letter to the Ala Izquierda Estudiantil after his
expulsion from the PCC that because:

the industrial proletariat is at a very low level and possesses very little political class
consciousness one cannot speak of a revolutionary proletarian movement as an
immediate and applicable thing. Instead we must speak of a movement of the industrial
and agricultural workers, of the poor and medium peasants, of the rural and urban petty
bourgeoisie, that is, of all the exploited and oppressed sectors of the nation under the
hegemony of the industrial proletariat.(134)

Thus, while, like Trotsky, the initial voices of opposition within the PCC rejected the
official communists ultra-radical dismissal of all non-communist forces of the Third
Period, the Cuban Oppositionists were rather ambiguous on the actual nature of the
revolution. They tended to discount the immediate potential of the working class and,
like Mella, insisted on the validity of the Second Period multi-class revolutionary
project. Paying scant regard to Trotskys theory of Permanent Revolution, nowhere in
their analysis did the Oppositionists explicitly embrace the need for the working class to
be placed in competition with the bourgeois opposition in order to become the leader of
the nation by way of developing a distinct proletarian anti-imperialist action
programme. Instead, they equivocated, favouring a broader multi-class, democratic
revolution.

On the question of the bourgeois opposition to Machado, the PCC leadership in the
early 1930s began to argue that the attempts at armed insurrection against Machado
were simply part of a struggle for power among two sectors of the bourgeoisie who
were equally dependent on U.S. imperialism. The bourgeois nationalist struggle was
therefore considered to be against the interests of the working masses and the PCC
advocated abstaining from participating in any insurrection against Machado.(135) The
Oppositionists within the PCC, however, initially labelled such a policy infantile
leftism,(136) arguing that tarring all non-PCC opposition to Machado with the same
brush was a mistake. The early Oppositionists contended that the bourgeois opposition
movement was not one homogeneous entity which, along with Machado, served the
interests of imperialism equally. Differentiating between a wing of the embryonic
Cuban national bourgeoisie which was associated with North American finance capital
124

and another which was more tied to the national market, the Oppositionists highlighted
the different roots and trajectories of such groups as the ABC, on the one hand, and the
Partido Unin Nacionalista, on the other.(137) As the Oppositionists within the PCC
were quoted as writing, [t]he Central Committee [of the PCC] considers that the ABC
movement is the same as that of the bourgeois caudillos, disguised under this name in
order to trick the masses. [.... However, we] say that the ABC is the radical wing of the
bourgeois opposition factions, its base is made up of discontented elements who aspire
to fight effectively against the Machado dictatorship".(138) Recognising the
contradictory nature of the ABCs early programme, the Oppositionists argued that the
abecedarios attempted to take the struggle beyond a return to the constitutional legality
of 1901:

they speak of the conditions of slavery in which the colony finds itself, they speak of
the monopoly which some imperialist companies have, all of which shows the
possibilities for development which this organisation has".(139)

On the basis of this analysis which differentiated between various currents within the
bourgeois opposition movement, the Oppositionists argued that it was necessary to
participate in any armed insurrection which the bourgeois nationalists initiated.
However, very much a continuation of the line advocated by Mella with regard to the
ANERC and the proposed expedition from Mexico, while rejecting the PCCs ultra-
leftist dismissal of all bourgeois nationalist plans for revolution, they took no heed of
Trotskys insistence that the political independence of the working class be maintained
in any work within an anti-imperialist front. This uncritical position with regard to an
insurrection initiated by the bourgeois opposition to Machado was the line which the
Oppositionists advocated during the August 1931 Revolt led by the Partido Unin
Nacionalista. During this particular insurrection the PCC maintained a typically ultra-
leftist position of passive neutrality and accused the Oppositionists of opportunist
putschism,(140) of being in tow behind the bourgeoisie,(141) of converting themselves
into another shock brigade of the bourgeois-latifundist opposition, a Left subsidiary
of the ABCs Left-wing.(142) The Oppositionists, as represented by the communist
fraction of the Ala Izquierda Estudiantil, in an article entitled Tiene la Palabra el
Camarada Mauser (Comrade Mauser Has the Floor), called on the masses to swell the
ranks of the revolution in support of the revolt.(143) The Oppositionists thereby
counterposed the PCCs ultra-leftist attitude towards petty bourgeois nationalism with
an uncritical, opportunist one, similar to that which Trotsky had criticised during the
Chinese Revolution in the mid-1920s.

The early Oppositionists also rejected the PCCs trade union line which had been in
place since November 1930. They viewed the policy of replacing the tactic of the
United Front from above with that of the United Front from below as a sectarian turn.
(144) They stood against the move to set up strictly communist red unions and argued
that the first congress of the national sugar workers union, the SNOIA, should include
those unions which were already constituted.(145) The Oppositionists also contended
that strikes and attend and run (pisa y corre) street demonstrations which had been
called by the PCC leadership since 1930 had left many unions destroyed and
increasingly led the masses to reject the communists. The PCC, they argued, had
consequently suffered a loss of prestige and influence.(146) According to the
Oppositionists, the control which the communists did actually have in the trade union
movement was very much at the surface, at a level where a communist policy did not
125

permeate down through the rank and file. As the communist fraction in the Ala
Izquierda Estudiantil wrote, the so-called red trade unions, that is, those in which the
Party has control because they follow our leadership, are in large part shattered unions,
without members. In those unions in which there are masses of workers, the control
obtained by the Party is not real and serious, won by systematic and conscientious work
within the masses. It is rather a control at the top, of the leadership".(147)

The fourth issue over which the Oppositionists within the PCC initially disagreed with
the Partys leadership was the PCCs participation in elections called by Machado. The
essence of the Oppositionists argument was that the proposed elections only served to
reinforce and consolidate the Machado government and that, as such, revolutionaries
should not participate in them. They justified such a stance with reference to Russia in
1905 and Lenins position of not participating in elections in a situation in which
revolution was an immediate possibility.(148) The Central Committee of the PCC,
however, maintained that the Oppositionists confused the struggles in Russia in 1905, in
which they saw the working class as the principal actor, with the situation in Cuba in the
early 1930s where any immediate insurrection would be that of the bourgeois-latifundist
opposition. According to the PCCs leadership, abstentionism from elections was
considered to be the ballast of some of the Opposition leaders anarchist roots and
revealed how the latter did not address the issue of how to promote an independent class
strategy and advance the struggle for the immediate demands of the working class and
peasantry.(149)

These four points of disagreement which distinguished the Oppositionists from the
leadership of the PCC in 1932 were brought together in the OCCs first published
document, the programmatic manifesto signed by the Bur de Oposicin Comunista in
Santiago de Cuba in January 1933.(150) On the one hand, this document of the now
constituted Cuban Communist Opposition in Oriente refined and sharpened the
Oppositionists critique of the PCCs historical and political analysis. However, in line
with Mellas revolutionary strategy it also emphasised the OCCs commitment to
addressing the revolutionary potential of the radical nationalist movement from a
standpoint which did not insist on the proletariats political independence in competition
with the national bourgeoisie. That is, the document demonstrated the Cuban
Oppositionists commitment to a struggle for what they now termed an Agrarian
Popular Anti-Imperialist Revolution, rather than to a perspective of an unequivocal
proletarian anti-imperialist revolution as advocated by Trotsky.

With respect to elaborating their critique of the PCCs historical analysis, the
Oppositionists in Santiago de Cuba perceptively argued that there was no alliance
between a traditional landlord oligarchy and imperialism, as the PCC posited, since the
native land owning class had been destroyed in the Ten Years War of independence
from 1868 to 1878.(151) The subsequent 1895-98 war, the OCC argued, took on a
radical democratic bourgeois character with the impoverishment of native conservative
elements and the rise of a new working class. However, the parallel rise of U.S.
imperialism conquered the democratic ideology of the insurrection and the Cuban
bourgeois democratic revolution had in effect been aborted.(152) With much insight the
OCC contended that the penetration of U.S. finance capital had ensured that no strong,
native class of capitalists emerged to take full control of the new state. They wrote:
126

the large-scale penetration of U.S. capital and consequent political interference, in


other words, Yankee imperialism, cut off all autonomous development and the
consolidation of the native bourgeois as the leading class. This has meant that in Cuba
the leading class has not sufficiently developed its economic base in order to gain an
absolute control of the state. The absence of control over the state by the native
bourgeoisie explains the political and economic conduct of our governments. They are
always obliged to act in the interests of the U.S. bankers even if this prejudices the
interests of the native bourgeoisie.(153)

Arguing that a historically weak national bourgeoisie would always favour imperialism,
the Cuban Oppositionists, like Trotsky, stressed that the national bourgeoisie in the
imperialist epoch was incapable of leading a bourgeois democratic revolution. They
contended that the bourgeois opposition to Machado would ultimately betray the
working masses with pseudo-democratic phrases about freedom and rights while not
attacking the fundamental problem of imperialism.(154) As the early Oppositionists had
done, the OCC, however, made a distinction between two sectors which expressed
nationalist sentiments. While describing the historically compromised sector of the
national bourgeoisie, represented by Mendieta and Menocal and the government
bureaucrats who lived on the state budget and who in the economic depression at that
time found themselves displaced,(155) the santiaguero Oppositionists also highlighted a
more radical manifestation of national indignation. This sector was represented by the
nationalist-orientated ABC, which, according to the OCC, demonstrated the impotence
of the petty bourgeoisie in the sense that unable to carry out any type of revolution it
had resorted to individual terrorism.(156) The OCC, however, did not dismiss the
potential of this revolutionary nationalist sector and criticised the PCC for not making
any attempt to group any of the ABCs rank and file members under a definitively anti-
imperialist programme.(157)

Basing their analysis of the current situation in Cuba on this understanding of the role of
bourgeois and petty bourgeois nationalist opposition to Machado, the Cuban
Oppositionists in their first rounded programme focused their attention on what they
termed the Agrarian Popular Anti-Imperialist Revolution(158) as the only real and
immediate solution for the oppressed masses. The conditions which favoured the
denominated Agrarian Popular Anti-Imperialist Revolution, according to the OCC, were
the spontaneous struggles carried out by the colonos and petty bourgeoisie in the
countryside against the imperialist expropriations, the struggles of the small traders and
population in general against the imperialist electricity and telephone companies and
their charges, as well as the struggles of the agricultural and industrial workers in
defence of their salaries.(159) Criticising the PCC for ignoring these popular struggles,
the OCC addressed the way in which these struggles could be taken forward given the
three possible options that they considered were open to the bourgeois opposition.
Insisting that the national bourgeoisie would ultimately betray the masses before the
interests of imperialism, the Oppositionists argued that, firstly, if the bourgeois
nationalist sector went so far as to initiate an armed revolt, the masses must take up
arms in order to transform it into the Agrarian Popular Anti-Imperialist Revolution. If,
however, secondly, the bourgeoisie were to reach an accord with Machado, then the
agricultural and industrial workers, the small peasants, the massive army of
unemployed, the students and those workers who face hunger must make a united front
with which they can carry out the Agrarian Popular Anti-Imperialist Revolution.(160)
If, in the third case, U.S. military intervention were precipitated, the insurrection, the
127

OCC argued, could not be abandoned. In such an event, once again the Sierra Maestra
and comrade Mauser would take the floor.(161)

Thus, although the OCCs first programmatic statement clearly recognised that the
national bourgeoisie was incapable of successfully leading any type of anti-imperialist
revolution to realise the minimum tasks of bourgeois democracy, like the early
Oppositionists pronouncements, it in effect identified a popular alliance to prosecute
such a revolution. Trotskys contention that the revolution would be proletarian in
character, albeit prosecuted in alliance with the poor peasantry, or be defeated, did not
enter into their schema. They instead tended to limit the immediate goal to that of a
democratic anti-imperialist revolution of the masses and, in so doing, linked the destiny
of the workers movement to the fate of the petty bourgeoisie.

However, as the Oppositionists sought to establish formal contact with the International
Left Opposition during the course of early to mid-1933, so it became evident that the
OCC had refined its analysis and perspectives to broadly incorporate the essence of
Trotskys theory of Permanent Revolution. That is, although the Oppositionists
continued to advance the slogan of an Agrarian Popular Anti-Imperialist Revolution,
they insisted that the revolution could only go forward on a proletarian basis and
stressed that the central, immediate issue was for the proletariat to establish its political
independence and win the leadership of the peasantry and revolutionary petty
bourgeoisie in the cities.

The fact that the OCC had adopted a Permanent Revolution perspective in point of
theory was evident in the pamphlet En el Camino de la Revolucin published by the
Oppositions Central Committee in May 1933.(162) Published without recourse to a
national congress or conference, and just at the time when the OCCs leadership was
attempting to make contact with the international Trotskyist movement, the
Oppositionists formally revised the immediate insurrection perspective outlined in the
programmatic manifesto signed by the Bur de Oposicin Comunista in Santiago de
Cuba in January 1933. The OCC based its new understanding on the perception that
various factions of the national bourgeoisie had capitulated in the face of imperialisms
desire to replace peacefully the government of Machado with a neutral provisional
Government".(163) In terms of strategy and tactics in the light of this new situation, the
OCC continued to reject the PCCs line of advancing in an ultra-radical manner the
slogan of a Workers and Peasants Government should such a neutral provisional
government come to power.(164) However, in a formulation which approximated to
that advocated by Lenin and Trotsky in 1917, the Oppositionists also argued that their
task would be to expose the anti-democratic and anti-neutral character of what would be
a Provisional Government. The objective was to transcend the temporary bourgeois
democratic stage rapidly. According to the OCC, this particular struggle aimed at
winning the leadership of the peasantry and other oppressed and discontented sectors of
the country would constitute a preliminary phase to the coming to power of a distinct
workers government.(165)

Indeed, in May 1933 the Cuban Oppositionists were unequivocal in terms of insisting
on the need for the proletariat to lead the revolutionary movement. They argued that the
immediate task was for the proletarian vanguard to unite behind it not only the
heterogeneous sectors of the working class, but also the rural masses and other
remaining social layers. For the OCC, the immediate issue was not a struggle for the
128

seizure of power but rather this struggle to win the masses in which political
compromises could not be permitted.(166) As they wrote, [t]he firm and resolute
central slogan must be the intransigence of the proletarian vanguard, its independent
political struggle, its well-defined and audacious action in the face of unfolding
events.(167)

With the Oppositionists considering that the coming to power of a neutral provisional
government was probable in the near future, their struggle for the leadership of the
masses did not include denominating all opposition groups as social-fascists and lackeys
of imperialism. For the OCC, this PCC strategy only served to isolate the working class
from all other sectors which felt oppressed.(168) The OCC instead contended that in
order to confront the influence of the bourgeois opposition to Machado, which was
essentially organised around the slogan Down with Machado!, it was necessary to
advance what amounted to a programme of transitional demands which carried the
masses behind the proletariat in a struggle to realise and pass beyond democratic tasks
to those which were openly socialist.(169) Revising their previous objection to
participating in elections to a Constituent Assembly organised by Machado, the
Oppositionists called for universal suffrage for men and women over the age of
eighteen. However, recognising that any assembly would be designed to conciliate and
pacify, the OCCs declared aim was to avoid isolating the proletarian vanguard from the
masses who harboured illusions in such a democratic assembly. According to the
OCCs new perspective, they would achieve this by advancing a programme of their
own wider demands designed to break the working class and rural poor from the
influence of bourgeois liberalism while at the same time attracting women and the youth
to the cause of the proletariat.(170)

In their action programme, which addressed Trotskys concern to place the proletariat in
permanent competition with bourgeois nationalism for the leadership of the masses, the
Oppositionists developed a series of demands directed at both the working class and
rural poor. They proposed mounting a struggle against all the remnants of feudal
contracts and against restrictions on the zafra in the countryside. The points which
addressed the working class itself included demands for unemployment benefits, a
seven-hour working day, the right to strike and, most importantly, the unity in action of
the working class movement. The OCC also raised demands directed more overtly
against imperialism such as calls for an end to the Platt Amendment and non-payment
of the foreign debt. Beyond these minimum democratic demands, the Cuban
Oppositionists also elaborated a series of more militant transitional demands designed to
lead the struggle from the immediate democratic and anti-imperialist tasks to those of
socialism and a proletarian government. These included confiscation without
compensation of the agricultural land owned by large monopolies, the nationalisation of
the railways and the public utilities, workers control of industry and the state regulation
of the economy.(171)

Within this perspective the only remnant of the OCCs original two-stage strategy
which viewed the democratic anti-imperialist revolution as a distinct phase in the
revolutionary process was reference to the Agrarian Anti-Imperialist Revolution".(172)
However, despite this denomination, the OCCs formulation of revolutionary strategy in
mid-1933 was remarkably similar to that which Trotsky defended. Unlike the January
1933 programmatic manifesto issued in Oriente, the OCC no longer tied the fate of the
workers movement to that of the petty bourgeoisie by limiting its immediate goal to
129

that of a democratic anti-imperialist revolution. Any democratic anti-imperialist


revolution was instead considered to be merely a phase in the deeper proletarian
revolution. Indeed, it was with respect to their programmatic document En el Camino
de la Revolucin, published in May 1933, that the International Secretariat of the
International Left Opposition stated that the Cuban Opposition had given themselves a
platform at a national level in accordance with the general principles of the Left
Opposition.(173)

While the evidence is only circumstantial, the reason behind this qualitative change in
the Cuban Oppositionists strategy appears to lie in the OCC leaderships political
evolution in the light of a deepening revolutionary situation. That is, although the
OCCs adoption of a discernible Permanent Revolution strategy was a decision which
the Cuban Oppositionists themselves took without intervention or advice from an
international body, it was very much a decision which came from the top of the
organisation. That is, it was not one which originated in pressure for a change from the
OCCs rank and file, or indeed from the groups various District or Sectional
Committees. As I outline in Chapter Five, in the post-May 1933 period there were a
series of inconsistencies in the Cuban Trotskyists practical application of their
perspectives set out in the En el Camino de la Revolucin pamphlet which suggests that
the rank and file Oppositionists had not wholly abandoned the OCCs original Second
Period-like critique of the PCC and the revolutionary process.

4.4 Conclusion

In sum, the Oppositionists, initially composed of an assortment of radical rebels who


were imbued with a spirit of revolutionary activism from the late 1920s, did not shirk
from the prospect of rebelling against the discipline of the Comintern when the
Caribbean Bureau directed the PCC away from working in the already constituted
unions, away from non-participation in elections, and away from supporting an armed
insurrection initiated by the parties and groups of petty bourgeois nationalism. These
policies, very much a continuation of the line advocated by Mella, were features of
anarcho-syndicalism and revolutionary nationalism, which the PCCs previous Second
Period policy had been able to incorporate. In general terms, then, although Mella,
Junco and Bre had come into contact with Trotskyists and Trotskyist ideas before the
formation of the OCC in August 1932, the OCC in rejecting the sectarian turn of the
PCC in the early 1930s originally developed as a Second Period critique of Third Period
Stalinism. Crucially, the Oppositionists had not developed a critique of the PCCs pre-
October 1930 position of forming anti-imperialist blocs with bourgeois nationalist
parties such as the Guomindang in China.

Although I argue that this birth mark of tending to compromise with petty bourgeois
nationalism shaped the development of Trotskyism in Cuba in the 1930s and 40s, in
mid-1933 under the influence of a number of leaders at the core of the Opposition who
were committed to establishing links with the International Left Opposition, the OCCs
Central Committee adopted a strategy which largely coincided with Trotskys
Permanent Revolution thesis. That is, while the OCC in Santiago de Cuba had displayed
a tendency to pursue a policy of forming broad democratic anti-imperialist blocs with
the forces of revolutionary nationalism in order to realise a democratic anti-imperialist
revolution, the Central Committee located in Havana later demonstrated that, at least in
point of theory, the OCC shared Trotskys insistence on the proletarian character of
130

anti-imperialist revolution. As a result, the Cuban Oppositionists developed a


programme which aimed to place the OCC, the proletarian vanguard, in competition
with petty bourgeois nationalism for the leadership of the urban and rural masses.
Although their principal programmatic document continued to make reference to an
Agrarian Anti-Imperialist Revolution and developed no critique of the Soviet Union or
international questions, they insisted on proletarian political independence in the Cuban
revolution. In consequently not tying the destiny of the revolution to the fate of the
radical petty bourgeoisie, in June 1933 the OCC received the general endorsement of
the International Trotskyist movements leadership.

FOOTNOTES
1. Alexander, RJ, (1973), op cit, pp. 217-218; and Glvez Cancino, A, Julio Antonio
Mella: Un Marxista Revolucionario. (Debate en Torno a su Vida y Muerte),
Crticas de la Economa Poltica (Mexico D.F., Ediciones El Caballito), No. 30,
1986, pp. 144-147. (Back to text)
2. Alexander, RJ, (1973), op cit, p. 218. (Back to text)
3. Glvez Cancino, A, op cit, p. 147. (Back to text)
4. The Platform of the Opposition was the principal document of the United
Opposition around Trotsky and Zinoviev in the years 1926-27. As with earlier
programmatic statements made by Trotsky, it highlighted a link between the
economic situation in the Soviet Union, the crushing of inner party democracy and
the Cominterns strategy for revolution. See The Platform of the Opposition: The
Party Crisis and How to Overcome It, In: Allen, N, and Saunders, G (eds), The
Challenge of the Left Opposition, (1926-27), New York, Pathfinder Press, 1980,
pp. 301-394. (Back to text)
5. ["Para Alberto Martnez con el objecto de reamar al comunismo. Julio Antonio
Mella."](My translation, GT.) Glvez Cancino, A, op cit, p. 145. Mella also
showed a certain sympathy with Trotsky in various references he made to Trotsky
in his articles. See, for example, a quote from Trotsky which he left on his
typewriter for Tina Modotti to photograph. Poniatowska, E, Tinisima, London,
Faber and Faber, 1996, pp. 13-14. (Back to text)
6. Gall, O, op cit, pp. 46-50; and Felix Ibarra Tmoigne sur les Dbuts du
Mouvement in Gall, O, Histoire Orale, Cahiers Lon Trotsky (Paris), No. 26,
June 1986, pp. 57-58. (Back to text)
7. ["[e]l primer brote de oposicin en Mxico fu Mella [....] El segundo, Blackwell."]
(My translation, GT.) Claraval, B, Cuando Fui Comunista, Mexico D.F.,
Ediciones Polis, 1944, p. 150. Russell Blackwell (*Rosalio Negrete), a member of
the CPUSA, was sent to Mexico in the late 1920s where he worked with Mella in
the PCM. One of the first to be expelled from the PCM as a result of the activities
of the Opposition, he later returned to the U.S. where he became a leading member
of the Trotskyist organisation, the Communist League of America. Unsigned,
Rosalio Negrete (1904-1969), Cahiers Lon Trotsky (Paris), No. 3, July-
September 1979, p. 137. (Back to text)
8. See Unsigned, Mella y el Marxismo Revolucionario en Cuba, Voz Proletaria
(Havana), March 1964, pp. 1-3. (BNJM: Coleccin Reserva.) (Back to text)
9. Editoriales: Julio Antonio Mella, Revolucin Proletaria (Havana), Year 2, No. 1,
31 January 1945, p. 4. (SWP(US).) (Back to text)
10. See, for example, Soto, L, op cit, p. 128. Other, more hagiographic Cuban
biographies do not even mention any disputes Mella had with the PCC or
131

Comintern leaderships. See, for example, Dumpierre, E, J.A. Mella: Biografa,


Havana, Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 1977. (Back to text)
11. Thomas, H, (1971), op cit, p. 565. (Back to text)
12. Cited in Aguilar, LE, (1972), op cit, p. 73-74. (Back to text)
13. Ibid, p. 74. (Back to text)
14. Grobart, F, Prlogo, In: Mella, JA, Escritos Revolucionarios, Mexico D.F., Siglo
Veintiuno, 1978, p. 23. The Agrupacin Comunista de La Habana had been
founded in 1923. (Back to text)
15. Cited in Suchlicki, J, op cit, p. 21. (Back to text)
16. The Pan-American Anti-Imperialist League sought to co-ordinate the national
liberation movements across Latin America under communist hegemony. They
included bourgeois nationalists alongside communists. Trotsky dismissed the Anti-
Imperialist Leagues as a manifestation of the Second Period Guomindang policy on
an international scale. See Trotsky, LD, The Krestintern and Anti-Imperialist
League, In: Breitman, G, and Lovell, S (eds), Writings of Leon Trotsky (1930-31),
op cit, pp. 34-35. (Back to text)
17. ["[l]os revolucionarios de la Amrica que aspiren a derrocar los tiranas de sus
respectivos pases, [....] no se puede vivir con los principios de 1789; a pesar de la
mente retardataria de algunos, la humanidad ha progresado y al hacer las
revoluciones en este siglo hay que contar con un nuevo factor; las ideas socialistas
en general, que con un matiz u otro, se arraigan en todos los rincones del globo."]
(My translation, GT.) See the article Imperialismo, Tirana, Soviet from
Venezuela Libre 1 July 1925 as reprinted in Mella, JA, op cit, pp. 75-77. (Back to
text)
18. Serviat, P, 40 Aniversario de la Fundacin del Partido Comunista, Havana,
Editora Popular, 1963, pp. 112-114. (Back to text)
19. Enrique Flors Magn was the emissary sent to Cuba by the Mexican Communist
Party in 1925 to help weld together the various small communist groups into the
PCC. Goldenberg, B, (1970), op cit, pp. 63-64. (Back to text)
20. Rubiera, CM, La Huelga de Hambre de Julio Antonio Mella, Bohemia (Havana),
Year 45, No. 3, 18 January 1953, pp. 20-24, 84-87. (IHC(b)); and Declaracin del
Comit Pro-Libertad de Mella, 7 January 1926 in El Da, p. 3. (IHC(a): Fondo
Leonardo Fernndez Snchez, Sig. 23/7/1:6.1/1-129, page 26.) (Back to text)
21. ["el Partido no vi bien la huelga de hambre"](My translation, GT.) Castillo, B,
Como Vieron A Mella. Fragmentos De Entrevistas, Pensamiento Crtico
(Havana), No. 39, April 1970, p. 49. See also Soto, L, op cit, pp. 145-146. (Back to
text)
22. Kheifets, LS, Komintern i Kompartiia Kuby: Pervye Gody, Mezhdunarodnoe
Levoe Dvizhenie 1918-1945: Tezisy Dokladov Nauchnoi Istoricheskoi
Konferentsii, 1995, pp. 27-28; and Kheifets, LS, Delo Khulio Antonio Meli i
Komintern, Problemy Otechestvennoi i Zarubezhnoi Istorii: Materialy
Nauchnoi Konferentsii (St. Petersburg), 1997, pp. 21-26; and Jeifets, L, and
Jeifets, V, Quin Diablos Es Andrei?, Memoria (Mexico D.F.), No. 121, March
1999, p. 23; and Interview given by Orlando Cruz Capote to Gary Tennant,
Havana, 22 July 1997. See also a more detailed account in the E-mail message
from Dr. Victor Jeifets posted to the H-Diplo Discussion Network, 22 January
1999. MELLA [Jeifets], http://www.h-net.msu.edu/logs/showlog.c...=h-
diplo&file=h-diplo.log9901d/15&ent=0/. Rubiera, CM, op cit; and Ravines, E, The
Yenan Way, Westport: CT, Greenwood Press, 1972, p. 22 also argue that Mella
132

was expelled from the PCC. (Back to text)


23. Jeifets, L, and Jeifets, V, op cit, p. 23; and E-mail message from Dr. Victor
Jeifets posted to the H-Diplo Discussion Network, 27 January 1999. MELLA and
Trotskyism in Cuba [Jeifets], http://www.h-net.msu.edu/logs/showlog.c...=h-
diplo&file=h-diplo.log9901d/53&ent=0/. (Back to text)
24. See Carta A Barreiro, Prez Escudero, Bernal Y Otros as reprinted in Mella, JA,
op cit, pp. 91-92. (Back to text)
25. The resolutions adopted at the PCMs Fourth Congress in May 1926 modified the
decisions taken at the Third Congress on all fundamental points". ["todos los
asuntos fundamentales"](My translation, GT.) Cited in Glvez Cancino, A, op cit,
p. 124. This turn, which reflected changes at the international level initiated by
Bukharin, viewed the Mexican government of Plutarco Elas Calles as the bastion
of the anti-imperialist struggle, and considered that along with that of Chiang Kai-
shek in China, it was carrying out the national revolution. Ibid, p. 125. See also
Carr, B, (1992), op cit, p. 42. (Back to text)
26. Glvez Cancino, A, Le Mouvement Ouvrier Mexicain, les Communistes et Julio
Antonio Mella, Cahiers Leon Trotsky (Paris), No. 59, August 1997, pp. 41-43.
(Back to text)
27. Alvaro Obregn (1880-1928) was the first president of Mexico after the fighting
phase of the Mexican Revolution ended in 1920. He began a process of limited
agrarian reform and launched an anti-clerical campaign. He won a second term in
office after he pressured his successor, Plutarco Elas Calles, to remove the no re-
election principle from the Constitution. However, before he could assume he was
shot by a Right-wing seminary student. (Back to text)
28. When the PCM adopted the Second Period tactical line, it softened its line towards
the CROM. The PCM sought to work with the CROM in order to build up
communist fractions. Carr, B, (1992), op cit, p. 30. (Back to text)
29. Glvez Cancino, A, (1997), op cit, p. 44. (Back to text)
30. Glvez Cancino, A, (1986), op cit, p. 118. Unfortunately, Glvez Cancino cites no
evidence to support this affirmation. This is something which requires further
investigation especially given the fact that he dates the Nin-Mella contact to the
Profinterns Fourth Congress. This Congress was held in March-April 1928, a time
when Mella was no longer in Russia. (Back to text)
31. Victorio Codovilla, along with his fellow Italian Vittorio Vidali, was the most
notorious and ruthless of the Comintern agents during the Spanish Civil War. This
loyal Stalinist also spent much of his life trying to expand his control over al the
Communist Parties in the Southern Cone of Latin America, although his actual
control was limited to the Argentine Communist Party. Wingeate Pike, D, In The
Service Of Stalin, The Spanish Communists In Exile, 1939-1948, Oxford,
Clarendon Press, 1993, p. 50. (Back to text)
32. Glvez Cancino, A, (1986), op cit, p. 118. (Back to text)
33. Ravines, E, op cit, p. 57. (Back to text)
34. See ibid, p. 58 for an account of these manoeuvres. (Back to text)
35. Garca Montes, J, and Alonso vila, A, Historia del Partido Comunista de Cuba,
Miami: FL, Ediciones Universal, 1970, p. 83. This particular tome written by
Cuban exiles, while virulently anti-communist in its language, contains a great deal
of detailed and well-sourced information and is the only book-length history of the
official Cuban communist party to be published inside or outside Cuba to date.
(Back to text)
133

36. Mella, JA, op cit, p. 9. (Back to text)


37. Ibid, p. 20. (Back to text)
38. ["[l]as traiciones de las burguesas y pequeas burguesas nacionales tienen una
causa que ya todo el proletariado comprende. Ellas no luchan contra el
imperialismo extranjero para abolir la propiedad privada, sino para defender su
propiedad frente el robo que ellas pretenden hacer los imperialistas. En su lucha
contra el imperialismoel ladrn extranjerolas burguesaslos ladrnes
nacionales- se unen al proletariado, buena carne de can. Pero acaban por
comprender que es mejor hacer alianza con el imperialismo, que al fin y al cabo
persiquen un inters semejante. De progresistas se convierten en reaccionarios. Las
concesiones que hacan al proletariado para tenerlo a su lado, las traicionan cuando
ste, en su avance, se convierte en un peligro tanto para el ladrn extranjero como
para el nacional. De aqu la gritera contra el comunismo."](My translation, GT.)
Ibid, p. 24. (Back to text)
39. ["[l]as pequeas burguesas [.... n]o son ms fieles a la causa de la emancipacin
nacional definitiva que sus compaeros de clase en China u otro pas colonial. Ellas
abandonan al proletariado y se pasan al imperialismo antes de la batalla final."](My
translation, GT.) Ibid, p. 38. (Back to text)
40. ["[p]ara hablar concretamente: liberacin nacional absoluta, slo la obtendr el
proletariado, y ser por medio de la revolucin obrera."](My translation, GT.) Ibid,
p. 25. (Back to text)
41. See Roa, R, op cit, pp. 290-297, 322-324, 350-351 for details of Mellas activity in
the ANERC and his preparations for an armed uprising in Cuba. (Back to text)
42. ["un programa de unificacin del pueblo cubano para una accin inmediata por la
restauracin de la democracia".](My translation, GT.) Cited in ibid, pp. 292-293
from Cuba Libre!, No. 2. (Back to text)
43. ["una necesaria revolucin, democrtica, liberal y nacionalista pueden surgir
esperanzas para la Nacin."](My translation, GT.) Mella, JA, Hacia Dnde Va
Cuba?, In: Instituto de Historia del Movimiento Comunista y de la Revolucin
Socialista de Cuba (ed.), J.A. Mella: Documentos y Artculos, Havana, Editorial
de Ciencias Sociales, 1975, pp. 410 and 407. (Back to text)
44. Ibid, p. 408. (Back to text)
45. See ibid, p. 409. (Back to text)
46. Cabrera, O, (1989), op cit, p. 57. (Back to text)
47. El Movimiento Revolucionario Latinoamericano: Versiones de la Primera
Conferencia Comunista Latino Americana, Junio de 1929, Buenos Aires, La
Correspondencia Sudamericana, nd, pp. 126-127. (Back to text)
48. Brou has also argued that some leaders of the PCC viewed the ANERCs armed
project as a provocation". Brou, P, Histoire de lInternationale Communiste,
1919-1943, Paris, Fayard, 1997, p. 501. (Back to text)
49. Blackwell, R, Julio A. Mella, The Militant (New York), Vol. 4, No. 2 (Whole
No. 61), 15 January 1931, p. 3. (BLNL: M.misc.35.) (Back to text)
50. Martnez Verdugo, A, Historia del Comunismo en Mxico, Mexico D.F.,
Editorial Grijalbo, 1985, p. 105. (Back to text)
51. Glvez Cancino, A, (1997), op cit, p. 46; and Glvez Cancino, A, (1986), op cit, p.
134. (Back to text)
52. Blackwell, R, op cit, p. 3. Martn, also known as *Alfredo Stirner (Edgar Woog),
was one of the Cominterns representatives in the PCM. (Back to text)
134

53. Glvez Cancino, A, (1997), op cit, pp. 46-47. (Back to text)


54. Blackwell, R, op cit, p. 3. (Back to text)
55. Glvez Cancino, A, (1986), op cit, p. 130; and Martnez Verdugo, A, op cit, p. 108.
(Back to text)
56. Blackwell, R, op cit, p. 3. (Back to text)
57. ["bicho [e]s una un cuanto peligrosa, que pueden explotar nuestros enemigos.
Nosotros la semana pasada tuvimos una cosa parecida aqu: el regreso de Sormenti
[Vittorio Vidali] y Ramrez [Manuel Daz] pasaron por Cuba [desde el sexto
congreso de la IC]. Este les entreg una resolucin por medio de la cual se peda
que el grupo cubano en Mxico se subordinase al CC. del PCM y no escribiese y
obrase por su cuenta y riesgo, comprometiendo de una manera verdaderamente
criminal a nuestros compaeros que trabajan en Cuba. Nosotros le hicimos saber
esa resolcin a Mella secauces y el se desat con furia contra el CC. del PCC y
contra nosotros envindonos una renuncia insultante. Nosotros estamos listos a
publicar una resolucin sobre su caso y circularla por toda la Amrica Latina y
EE.UU. inclusive, pero ayer mismo me hizo llegar una carta, arrepentida donde
retira la renuncia y promete seguir trabajando en el Partido. Esta misma semana
resolveremos el asunto. [....] Mella ha tenido siempre devilidades trotskistas."]
(My translation, GT.) Letter from Rafael Carrillo to Bertram D. and Ella
Wolfe, Mexico, 4 December 1928, pp. 2-3. (HI: Bertram Wolfe Collection.) My
use of the phrase deviltries/weaknesses in the translation relates to Carrillos use
of the word devilidades. By placing this word inside inverted commas in the
original letter, Carrillo is evidently intending to make a play on words. Bertram
Wolfe (1896-1977) was a leading supporter and theorist of the Rightist Lovestone
group in the United States. (Back to text)
58. Blackwell, R, op cit, p. 3. (Back to text)
59. Ibid, p. 3. (Back to text)
60. See, for example, Martnez, RA, Assassination Of J.A. Mella By Agents Of
Yankee Imperialism, International Press Correspondence, Vol. 9, No. 6, 1
February 1929, p. 96. (MML.); and El Comit Pro CSLA, Ante el Asesinato de
Julio A. Mella, El Trabajador Latino Americano (Montevideo), Year 1, No. 9,
15 January 1929, pp. 3-4. (NYPL.) (Back to text)
61. While the following works; Rienffer, K, Comunistas Espaoles En Amrica,
Madrid, Editora Nacional, 1953, pp. 130-139; and Alba, V, Esquema Histrico
Del Comunismo En Iberoamrica, Mexico D.F., Ediciones Occidentales, 1960, p.
61; and Gorkin, J, Cmo Asesin Stalin A Trotski, Barcelona, Plaza Y Jans,
1961, p. 204, all make this accusation, it is the work of Gall, O, op cit, pp. 46-55,
which presents the fullest and most coherent exposition of this thesis. (Back to text)
62. While the article Glvez Cancino, A, LAuto-Absolution de Vidali et la Mort de
Mella, Cahiers Lon Trotsky (Paris), No. 26, June 1986, pp. 39-53 sets out
evidence for both the prosecution and defence of Vidali and his involvement in
Mellas death, the partisan work of Cabrera constitutes the most complete attempt
by a Cuban scholar to dispel official communist involvement in Mellas
assassination. Cabrera, O, Un Crimen Poltico Que Cobra Actualidad, Nueva
Antropologa (Mexico D.F.), Vol. 7, No. 27, July 1985, pp. 55-65. (Back to text)
63. ["con propsitos drsticos con respecto a ti personalmente"](My translation, GT.)
Letter from Leonardo Fernndez Snchez to Mella, New York, 14 December
1928. (IHC(a): Fondo Leonardo Fernndez Snchez, Sig. 23/1/4:1.1/49-56.)
Leonardo Fernndez Snchez was privy to information from Cuban government
135

circles through family connections. (Back to text)


64. See Spenser, D, El Tringulo Imposible: Mxico, Rusia Sovitica y Estados
Unidos en los Aos Veinte, Mexico D.F., CIESAS, 1998, pp. 214-219. (Back to
text)
65. Contrary to Mellas project, the new Confederacin Sindical Unitaria de Mxico
only grouped those unions which were already dominated by communists. (Back to
text)
66. ["[n]osotros planteamos el problema de la unidad del movimiento sindical y no la
unidad del partido. Un partido rene cierto nmero de personas, las cuales profesan
una misma opinin. Los sindicatos agrupan a la clase obrera en las cotidianas
luchas e indiferentemente de los puntos de vista poltico que existen en su seno.
Nosotros somos partidarios de la libertad de crtica y de la lucha de las varias
tendencias polticas dentro de las organizaciones sindicales."](My translation, GT.)
Mella, JA, Proyecto de Tesis sobre la Unidad Sindical Latinoamericana,
Memoria (Mexico D.F.), Vol. 1, No. 6, February-March 1984, p. 137. (Back to
text)
67. ["El Camarada Julio Mella y algunos otros vean con cierta alarma lo que suceda
pero, quizs no comprendiendo que el partido de Mxico estaba amenazado
tambin con sufrir directamente las consecuencias de la lnea equivoca y
oportunista de la Comintern, ellos no hicuieron por llamar la atencin de nuestros
miembros a estos problemas."](My translation, GT.) Unsigned, Lo Que Propone la
Oposicin Comunista, El Boletn de la Oposicin Comunista (Mexico D.F.), No.
1, 5 January 1930, p. 1. (IISG: ZDK 28030.) (Back to text)
68. Siqueiros extreme anti-Trotskyism led him to play an important role in the last two
attempts on Trotskys life in Mexico in 1940. (Back to text)
69. In April 1928, Junco represented the PCC at the meeting in Montevideo of the
Preparatory Committee of the First Latin American Trade Union Conference. As a
result of the publicity he received there, he was unable to return to Cuba at that
time and went to Mexico to join the other Cuban exiles. During the latter half of
1928 he worked closely with Mella in the ANERC. In June 1929 he once again
represented the PCC-controlled CNOC at the First Latin American Trade Union
Conference held in Buenos Aires. Back in Mexico, Junco was among a group of
foreign communist exiles who were expelled from Mexico in early 1930 in the
drive against the PCM initiated by the government of Emilio Portes Gil. Expelled
to Germany, he made his way to Moscow where he attended the Lenin School and
participated in the international organisations of the communist movement. He
returned to Cuba in early 1932. See PCC, Draft Resolucin sobre la Oposicin en
el Partido, op cit; and Herschel V. Johnson to Secretary of State, 24 January
1930. (USNA: File 800.00B Junco, Sandalio and Others/7.) (Back to text)
70. El Movimiento Revolucionario Latinoamericano: Versiones de la Primera
Conferencia Comunista Latino Americana, op cit, p. 185. (Back to text)
71. Ibid, pp. 126-127. (Back to text)
72. See the letter from Rubn Martnez Villena to his wife, New York, 9 December
1932, In: Martnez Villena, R, Poesa y Prosa, Vol. 2, Havana, Editorial Letras
Cubanas, 1978, pp. 512-514. (Back to text)
73. CC of the PCC, El Partido Comunista y los Problemas de la Revolucin en Cuba,
op cit, p. 8. (Back to text)
74. PCC, Draft Resolucin sobre la Oposicin en el Partido, op cit, p. 7. (Back to
text)
136

75. Roche, G, Prface, In: Low, M, and Bre, J, Carnets de la Guerre dEspagne,
France, Editions Verticales, 1997, pp. 13-14. (Back to text)
76. Manuscript of the interview given by Charles Simen to R.J. Alexander, op cit, p.
2. (Back to text)
77. Comunismo was the theoretical magazine of the Oposicin Comunista Espaola.
See Revista Comunismo (1931-1934): La Herencia Terica del Marxismo
Espaol, Barcelona, Editorial Fontamara, 1978. (Back to text)
78. CC del PCC, El Partido Comunista y los Problemas de la Revolucin en Cuba, op
cit, p. 8. Another PCC document states that Junco, another central figure in the
future OCC, was also imprisoned in mid-1932, and that together with other
imprisoned oppositionists, reiterated their insistence on the importance of the petty
bourgeoisie in the coming revolution in Cuba. (From internal evidence) Central
Committee of the PCC, El Partido Comunista y los Problemas de la Revolucin
en Cuba, nd, p. 3. (IHC(a): Fondo Primer Partido Marxista Leninista, Sig.
1/2:1/1.1/112-114.) Pelai Pags has also noted that various Trotskyists rather than
being imprisoned were deported to Spain before Machado fell from power in
August 1933. Pags, P, (1977), op cit, p. 83. (Back to text)
79. As Roberto Prez Santiesteban, a long-serving, leading Cuban Trotskyist in the
1930s and 40s argued, [w]e can state without danger of exaggeration that it was
Bre who gave a Trotskyist shape and content to the struggle, which began in Cuba
in 1932, against the dreadful politics of Stalinism". ["[s]in pecar de exageraciones
podemos afirmar de que Bre di fisonoma y contenido trotskistas a la lucha
emprendido en Cuba, a partir de 1932, contra la poltica stalinista".](My translation,
GT.) Prez Santiesteban, R, Introduccin, In: Bre, J and Low, M, La Verdad
Contempornea, Havana, 1943, p. 13. (Back to text)
80. Medina Escobar, M, Algunos Apuntes sobre la Vida de Gastn Medina
Escobar, Havana, nd. (Unpublished); and CC del PCC, El Partido Comunista y los
Problemas de la Revolucin en Cuba, op cit, p. 8. Certainly, the PCC considered
Junco to be the leader of the Opposition. PCC, Draft Resolucin sobre la
Oposicin en el Partido, op cit, p. 1. (Back to text)
81. Ibid, p. 1. (Back to text)
82. ["avait t gagn lOpposition de gauche au cours dun sjour Moscou par
Andrs Nin lui-mme, alors secrtaire de lInternationale syndicale rouge [ .... et
qu] peine convaincu, il ait mis profit une rception officielle pour interpeller
violemment Staline au sujet des perscutions contre Trotsky et ses camarades."]
(Translation by David Smith.) Trotsky, LD, Questions du Mouvement, Leon
Trotsky, Oeuvres (March-July 1933), Paris, Publications de lInstitut Leon
Trotsky, 1978, p. 161 n11. See also, for example, Gall, O op cit, pp. 357-358 n5.
Sandalio Junco was formally expelled from the PCC in September 1932. (Back to
text)
83. CC del PCC, El Partido Comunista y los Problemas de la Revolucin en Cuba, op
cit, p. 8. (Back to text)
84. PCC, Draft Resolucin sobre la Oposicin en el Partido, op cit, p. 14. (Back to
text)
85. ["se desconect por completo del Partido".](My translation, GT.) Ibid, p. 14. (Back
to text)
86. While the Statutes of the OCC were not produced until June 1933, a later letter
from the Partido Bolchevique Leninista to the International Secretariat of the
International Communist League (ICL), stated that the Oposicin Comunista was
137

organised in August 1932. See Free translation of the letter from the Partido
Bolchevique Leninista to the International Secretariat of the International
Communist League, (signed by *G. Capablanca (Gastn Medina), the General
Secretary of the PBL), Havana, 20 March 1935, p. 7. (HHL: Trotsky Archive,
Fourth International, Cuba, 14052.) An extract from this letter was reproduced in
Capablanca, G, Cuba: Crise de Direction et Courant Liquidateur 1932-1935,
Cahiers Lon Trotsky (Paris), No. 11, September 1982, pp. 105-110. (Back to
text)
87. Letter from Carlos M. Padrn Ferrer to Rafael Soler Martnez, Miami, 7
November 1996. (Back to text)
88. Central Control Commission of the Partido Comunista de Cuba, Resolucin sobre
el c. Gomez-Villar, Havana, 24 August 1932. (RTsKhIDNI: f.495, op.105, d.52,
ll.2-2ob.) (Back to text)
89. Fraccin Comunista del Ala Izquierda Estudiantil de Cuba, Al Comit Central del
Partido Comunista de Cuba, Havana, 5 October 1932, p. 2. (IHC(a): Fondo
Vilaseca, D2S4 1932 Oct.) This letter was addressed to the Central Committee of
the PCC in response to a letter Garca Villareal had sent to the AIE detailing the
arguments of the Opposition after he had been expelled from the Party. PCC, Draft
Resolucin sobre la Oposicin en el Partido, op cit, pp. 5-6. (Back to text)
90. Political Bureau of the Partido Comunista de Cuba, Resolucin del Bur Poltico
del PCC sobre la Liga Juvenil Comunista, Havana, 9 September 1932.
(RTsKhIDNI: f.495, op.105, d.52, ll.10-10ob.); and Resolucin sobre el Trabajo
de la Liga Juvenil Comunista y Sus Relaciones con el Partido, Partido
Comunista de Cuba, Unsigned, nd. (RTsKhIDNI: f.495, op.105, d.52, ll.13-13ob.)
(Back to text)
91. PCC, Draft Resolucin sobre la Oposicin en el Partido, op cit, p. 13. (Back to
text)
92. The PCC maintained that Garca Villareal and his fellow oppositionists occupied
the leading posts in the Ala Izquierda Estudiantil after its initial leadership had
been imprisoned. CC del PCC, El Partido Comunista y los Problemas de la
Revolucin en Cuba, op cit, pp. 45-46. (Back to text)
93. Letter from the PBL to the International Secretariat of the ICL, 20 March 1935, op
cit, pp. 8-9. In fact, the Ala Izquierda Estudiantil split into three groups. Apart from
those who supported the OCC and those who remained with the PCC, there was a
third group around Ral Roa who joined neither the official or dissident communist
group. See also Gonzlez Carbajal, L, op cit, pp. 81-82 for details of how the PCC
organised a Pro-Reorganisation Committee of the Ala Izquierda Estudiantil in
Havana. (Back to text)
94. According to the PBL, the growth of the DOI reached the point where it caused
serious worry to the C.P. leadership which raised objections to ex-members of the
A.P.R.A. joining the I.L.D. [i.e., DOI] and took steps for the limitation of the I.L.D.
apparatus". See the letter from the PBL to the International Secretariat of the ICL,
20 March 1935, op cit, p. 7. (Back to text)
95. Ibid, p. 7. (Back to text)
96. Ibid, p. 9. (Back to text)
97. Unsigned, Muerte Sentida, Boletn de Informacin (New York), No. 3, October
1938, p. 13. (HI: SWP Collection, Box No. 4, Folder 8.) (Back to text)
98. CC del PCC, El Partido Comunista y los Problemas de la Revolucin en Cuba, op
cit, p. 43. (Back to text)
138

99. PCC, Draft Resolucin sobre la Oposicin en el Partido, op cit, p. 13. (Back to
text)
100. Letter from the PBL to the International Secretariat of the ICL, 20 March 1935, op
cit, p. 9. (Back to text)
101. Just as the FOH was a coming together point for various political currents opposed
to the excesses of the PCC trade union line in the CNOC, so this can also be said of
the General Commercial Workers Union of Cuba. See, for example, the anarchist-
orientated articles its monthly magazine Cultura Proletaria Year 1, No. 3 March
1933 and Year 1, No. 4, April 1933. (IISG: ZDK 28065.) With respect to the
importance of the commercial workers union in the urban labour movement, the
PCC highlighted the powerful role which the General Commercial Workers Union
of Cuba, with 1,200 members, had played in the August 1931 strike movement.
Unsigned, Der Massenstreik in Kuba und die Angestellten, Internationale
Gewerkschafts Pressekorrespondenz, No. 70, 15 September 1931, p. 10. (Back to
text)
102. Central Committee of the SGECC, El Sindicato General de Empleados del
Comercio de Cuba Frente al IV Congreso Obrero Nacional, Havana,
Federacin Obrera de La Habana, 12 January 1934, p. 8. (IISG: Bro 422/3.) (Back
to text)
103. Letter from the International Secretariat of the International Left Opposition
(Bolshevik-Leninist) to the Cuban Communist Left Opposition, 29 June 1933.
(IISG: Lev Trotsky and the ILO/ICL Collection, Cuba, 1208.) (Back to text)
104. Letter from PBL to International Secretariat of the ICL, 20 March 1935, op cit, pp.
5-6. (Back to text)
105. Manuscript of the interview given by Carlos Padrn [son of the OCC founding
member, Carlos M. Padrn Ferrer] to Rafael Soler, Santiago de Cuba, 15 April
1994. (Back to text)
106. Letter from the PBL to the International Secretariat of the ICL, 20 March 1935, op
cit, p. 3. (Back to text)
107. See, for example, the early bulletins of the Mexican Left Opposition which
published articles by Trotsky on various international questions. Boletn de la
Oposicin Comunista (Mexico D.F.), Nos 1-3, January-February 1930. (IISG:
ZDK 28030.) (Back to text)
108. Letter from PBL to the International Secretariat of the ICL, 20 March 1935, op cit,
p. 9. This point is reiterated in ibid, p. 15 (Back to text)
109. Junco expressed this in Junco, S, Fuera Caretas!! Contra la Demagogia, las
Vilezas y a la Incapacidad de los Lderes de la C.N.O.C., Havana, January 1934,
p. 7. (IHC(a): Fondo 1/Personalidad 1/13:Pe/291/1/1-10 RG 5/94; and IFA.) (Back
to text)
110. Letter to Andrs Nin signed by Juan Lopez, Havana, 31 March 1933. (IISG: Lev
Trotsky and the ILO/ICL Collection, Cuba, 1209.) (Back to text)
111. ["no es, no puede ser, exclusivamente nacional."](My translation, GT.) Ibid. (Back
to text)
112. Letter from the General Secretary of the Cuban Communist Opposition to the
French section of the International Left Opposition, signed by A. Gomez Villar,
nd. (From internal evidence, June or July 1933.) (IISG: Lev Trotsky and the
ILO/ICL Collection, Cuba, 1209.) In response to the Cubans request for material
the International Secretariat of the ILO could only promise to ensure that French
material was sent. They stated that the Spanish journal Comunismo came out only
139

infrequently. See Letter from the International Secretariat of the ILO to the Cuban
Communist Left Opposition, 29 June 1933, op cit. This explanation, however,
leaves the International Secretariat open to the charge of acting as a censor,
attempting to stifle the influence of the Spanish Left Opposition group through
bureaucratic, undemocratic means. During the first half of 1933 relations between
Nin and the Spanish Oppositionists inside the Izquierda Comunista de Espaa
(ICE), on the one hand, and the International Secretariat of the ILO, based in Paris,
and Trotsky himself, on the other, were at an all time low. At the Pre-Conference of
the ILO in February 1933, the ICE was condemned for tail-ending the petit
bourgeois nationalist and phrasemonger Maurn". Durgan, A, The Spanish
Trotskyists and the Foundation of the POUM, Revolutionary History (London),
Vol. 4, Nos. 1/2, Winter 1991-92, pp. 22-24. While Trotsky and the ILO
immediately initiated a fierce polemic against the ICE leadership, Trotsky also
recognised that Comunismo and other Spanish material had a real influence among
the Latin American Oppositionists. Although the International Secretariat of the
ILO only cited the supposed irregularity of Comunismo, Trotsky himself suggested
that attention be drawn to the differences they had with the Spanish section and
copies of all correspondence between Nin and himself be sent to the Latin
American groups. Trotsky, LD, Questions du Mouvement, op cit, p. 161. (Back
to text)
113. Letter from Carlos M. Padrn Ferrer to Rafael Soler Martnez, op cit. (Back to text)
114. Manuscript of the interview given by Manuel Garca Surez to Rafael Soler
Martnez, Matanzas, 31 January 1996. A Miguel Busto was the Deputy General
Secretary of the FOH in 1929, becoming its Financial Secretary in 1930. See
Letters from the FOH to the Provincial Governor, Havana, 25 June 1929 and 28
February 1930. (IHC(a): Fondo Registro General (RG), Exp. 35.59/75.) (Back to
text)
115. Interview with Jos Soler Calvo and Roberto Mineto, Cmo Se Constituy el
Partido Comunista en Guantnamo, Sierra Maestra (Santiago de Cuba), Year 17,
No. 191, 13 August 1975, p. 4. (Back to text)
116. Manuscript of the interview given by Luis Miyares to Rafael Soler Martnez,
Santiago de Cuba, 31 March 1995, p. 1. (Back to text)
117. Daz Gonzlez, P, Amrica Lavad Arce 1933-1941, Cuba Obrera (Havana),
Year 2, No. 6, August 1941, p. 6. (SWP(US).); and Roa, R, op cit, p. 481. (Back to
text)
118. Manuscript of the interview given by Luis Miyares to Rafael Soler Martnez, op
cit, p. 2. (Back to text)
119. Manuscript of the interview given by Pedro Verdecie Prez to Rafael Soler
Martnez, Victoria de las Tunas, 3 July 1996. (Back to text)
120. Partido Comunista de Cuba, Seccin Local de Guantnamo, Solicitud de Ingreso
de Eusebio Mujal, 23 October 1932. (IHC(a): Fondo Primer Partido Marxista
Leninista, Sig. 1/2:1/279/1.) (Back to text)
121. This version of events is based on the account Tur Lambert, M, Esbozo Histrico
de la Corriente Poltica Trotskista en Guantnamo, nd, pp. 4-10. (Unpublished)
(Back to text)
122. Ibid, p. 7; and Seccin de Historia del Comit Provincial del Partido en
Guantnamo, Resea Histrica de Guantnamo, Santiago de Cuba, Editorial
Oriente, 1985, p. 94. (Back to text)
123. Informe del Comit Seccional de Guantnamo al Comit Central del Partido
140

Comunista de Cuba, 3 November 1933. (IHC(a): Fondo Primer Partido Marxista


Leninista, Sig. 1/2:1/278/1.) (Back to text)
124. ["ha desprestigiado aqui en Cuba por la mala tactica de sus directores aqui todo lo
controla la oposicion [y] es el unico organismo fuerte!"](My translation, GT.) Cited
in Letter from Jos Soler Calvo to the Caribbean Bureau of the Comintern,
Panama, 12 November 1933. (RTsKhIDNI: f.495, op.105, d.66.) While Cuza was
claiming to write about Cuba as a whole, his personal observations were more than
likely limited to Guantnamo. As such, these cited observations should be taken as
an eyewitness account of the situation in the Guantnamo region. (Back to text)
125. Ibid. According to Cuza, Manuel Tur Lambert and Hugo Cisneros were the only
two members who remained active in the PCC in Guantnamo. (Back to text)
126. Seccin de Historia del DOR del PCC de la Provincia Guantnamo, Guantnamo:
Apuntes para una Cronologia Histrica, Santiago de Cuba, Editorial Oriente,
1985, p. 29; and Seccin de Historia del Comit Provincial del Partido en
Guantnamo, Resea Histrica de Guantnamo, op cit, p. 94; and Tur Lambert, M,
op cit, p. 7; and Manuscript of the interview given by Luciano Garca to Rafael
Soler Martnez, Guantnamo, 25 February 1994. (Back to text)
127. Central Committee of the Oposicin Comunista, Estatutos de la Oposicin
Comunista de Cuba, Havana, 30 June 1933, p. 1. (AHPSC: Fondo Audencia de
Oriente. Tribunal de Defensa Nacional, 9 March 1923 to April 1934, Legajo 3,
Expediente 30.) (Back to text)
128. Ibid, p. 6. (Back to text)
129. See, for example, the violent confrontations described in Manifesto de la
Oposicin Comunista, nd. (AHPSC: Fondo Audencia de Oriente. Tribunal de
Defensa Nacional, 9 March 1923 to April 1934, Legajo 3, Expediente 30.) (Back to
text)
130. In Santiago de Cuba a DOI Oposicin was constituted for the province of Oriente.
In Puerto Padre another parallel Opposition DOI was established under the
leadership of Alberto Gonzlez Palacios. Defensa Obrera (Puerto Padre), Year 1,
No. 4, 27 August 1933. (Organ of the Oposicin de Defensa Obrera Internacional)
(AHPSC: Fondo Audencia de Oriente. Tribunal de Defensa Nacional, 9 March
1923 to April 1934, Legajo 3, Expediente 30.) (Back to text)
131. ["plataforma contrarrevolcionaria de la revolucin permanente del trotzkismo"]
(My translation, GT.) CC del PCC, El Partido Comunista y los Problemas de la
Revolucin en Cuba, op cit, p. 22. (Back to text)
132. Fraccin Comunista del AIE, Al CC del PCC, op cit, p. 1; and PCC, Draft
Resolucin sobre la Oposicin en el Partido, op cit, p. 6; and Manuscript of the
interview given by Charles Simen to R.J. Alexander, op cit, p. 1. (Back to text)
133. PCC, Draft Resolucin sobre la Oposicin en el Partido, op cit, pp. 4-6; and
Manuscript of the interview given by Charles Simen to R.J. Alexander, op cit, p.
1. (Back to text)
134. ["el proletariado industrial es nfimo y posee muy poca conciencia poltica de clase
no puede hablarse de un movimiento revolucionario proletario como una cosa
inmediata y vigente, sino de un movimiento de los obreros industriales y agrcolas,
de los campesinos pobres y medios, de la pequea burguesa rural y urbana, es
decir, de todos los sectores explotados y oprimidos de la nacin bajo la hegemona
del proletariado industrial."](My translation, GT.) Cited in Draft Resolucin sobre
la Oposicin en el Partido, op cit, p. 5. (Back to text)
135. Ibid, pp, 6-7. (Back to text)
141

136. ["izquierdismo infantil"](My translation, GT.) Cited in ibid, p. 6. (Back to text)


137. Fraccin Comunista del AIE, Al CC del PCC, op cit, pp. 1-2; and PCC, Draft
Resolucin sobre la Oposicin en el Partido, op cit, pp, 6. (Back to text)
138. ["[e]l C.C. aprecia el movimiento del ABC como el mismo movimiento de los
caudillos de la burguesa de los caudillos de la burguesa enmascarados bajo este
nombre para engaar una vez ms a las masas. [.... Sin embargo], decimos que] el
ABC es un Ala radical de las freacciones de la oposicin burguesa; descontentos
sus elementos de base, los que aspiran a luchar efectivamente contra la dictadura de
Machado".](My translation, GT.) Cited in CC del PCC, El Partido Comunista y los
Problemas de la Revolucin en Cuba, op cit, p. 29 from El Trabajador, September
1932. (Back to text)
139. ["hablan de las condiciones de esclavitud en que se encuentra el colono, hablan del
monopolio que ejercen ciertas compaias imperialistas, lo que prueba las
posibilidades de desarrollo que tiene esta organizacin".](My translation, GT.)
Cited in ibid, p. 29. (Back to text)
140. PCC, Draft Resolucin sobre la Oposicin en el Partido, op cit, p. 11. (Back to
text)
141. Ibid, p. 12. (Back to text)
142. ["otra brigada de choque de la oposicin burguesa latifundista, una secursal de
izquierda de la izquierda del ABC."](My translation, GT.) Ibid, p. 11. (Back to
text)
143. Ibid, p. 7. This article was actually attributed to Ral Roa, someone who was to
remain outside the OCC as well as official communist party until after the 1959
Revolution. See Roa, R, Tiene la Palabra el Camarada Mauser, Pensamiento
Crtico (Havana), No. 39, April 1970, pp. 143-145. (Back to text)
144. PCC, Draft Resolucin sobre la Oposicin en el Partido, op cit, p. 9. (Back to
text)
145. CC del PCC, El Partido Comunista y los Problemas de la Revolucin en Cuba, op
cit, p. 39. (Back to text)
146. PCC, Draft Resolucin sobre la Oposicin en el Partido, op cit, pp. 9-9a. Luis
Miyares, a member of the OCC and then PBL in Santiago de Cuba, has described
how the Oppositionists thought that the so-called attend and run tactics of the
PCC simply facilitated repression and produced unnecessary victims.
Demonstrations, they argued, had to be mass movements and not just limited to the
PCC milieu. Manuscript of the interview given by Luis Miyares to Rafael Soler
Martnez, op cit, p. 1. Sandalio Junco also made the point that the attend and run
tactics only demonstrated the weakness of their organisations. Junco, S, Fuera
Caretas!! Contra la Demagogia, las Vilezas y a la Incapacidad de los Lderes de la
C.N.O.C., op cit, p. 11. (Back to text)
147. ["denominados sindicatos rojos, es decir, aquellos en los cuales el P. dice tener
control porque siguen nuestras direccciones, son en su gran mayora sindicatos
deshechos, sin miembros. En aquellos sindicatos en los cuales hay masas de
trabajadores, el control obtenido por el P. no es un control efectivo y serio, logrado
por trabajos sistematicos y conscientes en el seno de las masa, sino un control de
cima, de direccin".](My translation, GT.) Fraccin Comunista del AIE, Al CC del
PCC, op cit, p. 2. (Back to text)
148. PCC, Draft Resolucin sobre la Oposicin en el Partido, op cit, pp. 11-12. (Back
to text)
149. Ibid, pp. 11-12. (Back to text)
142

150. Manifesto Programa del Bur de Oposicin Comunista de Santiago de Cuba,


Santiago de Cuba, January 1933. (ANC: Fondo Especial, Caja 1, Expediente 193.)
This is the earliest dated document signed by the OCC which I have located.
Another manifesto issued in January 1933, Bur de Oposicin Comunista, Que
Significa el Congreso de la U.F.O.N.?, Santiago de Cuba, 15 January 1933.
(ANC: Fondo Especial, Legajo 1, Expediente 194.) denounced the activities of
Arvalo and the Unin Federativa Obrera Nacional, accusing them of being
collaborators with the oppressors and demanding their expulsion from the workers
organisations. The same manifesto also called for a United Front to struggle against
the reduction in wages, against sackings, and for the introduction of an eight-hour
working day and social security for the unemployed. (Back to text)
151. Manifesto Programa del Bur de Oposicin Comunista de Santiago de Cuba, op
cit, p. 2. Simen has also argued that the destruction of an old feudal oligarchy was
a fundamental tenet of Juncos critique of the Cominterns analysis of Cuba.
Manuscript of the interview given by Charles Simen to R.J. Alexander, op cit, p.
1. (Back to text)
152. Manifesto Programa del Bur de Oposicin Comunista de Santiago de Cuba, op
cit, p. 2. (Back to text)
153. ["la penetracin de los grandes capitales norteamericanos en Cuba, con la
consiguiente ingerencia poltica, o en otras palabras, el imperialismo yankee, vino a
cortar todo ulterior desarrollo autnomo, y evit la consolidacin de la burguesa
nativa como clase dirigente. Quiere decir esto que en Cuba la clase dirigente no han
disenvuelto suficientemente su base econmica para lograr un control absoluta del
Estado; y la falta de ese control del Estado por la burguesa nativa explica la
conducta poltica y econmica de nuestros Gobiernos, siempre obligados a
beneficiar los intereses de los banqueros del Norte an con perjucio de los propios
intereses de la burguesa nativa."](My translation, GT.) Ibid, p. 3. (Back to text)
154. Ibid, pp. 4-6. (Back to text)
155. Ibid, pp. 4-5. (Back to text)
156. Ibid, p. 5. (Back to text)
157. Ibid, p. 5. (Back to text)
158. ["Revolucin Popular Agraria Anti-imperialista"](My translation, GT.) Ibid, p. 6.
(Back to text)
159. Ibid, p. 7. (Back to text)
160. ["los obreros industriales y agrcolas, los pequeos campesinos y el innumerable
ejrcito de los desocupados, junto con los estudiantes y empleados en hambre
deben hacer un frente nico con que realizar la Revolucin Popular Agraria Anti-
Imperialista."](My translation, GT.) Ibid, pp. 7-8. (Back to text)
161. ["otra vez la Sierra Maestra y el camarada Mauser tendra la palabra."](My
translation, GT.) Ibid, p. 8. (Back to text)
162. Central Committee of the Oposicin Comunista, En el Camino de la Revolucin,
Havana, 10 May 1933. (ANC: Fondo Especial (No. 63), Legajo 14, No. 141.)
(Back to text)
163. ["Gobierno neutral provisional"](My translation, GT.) Ibid, pp. 2-3. (Back to text)
164. Ibid, p. 4. (Back to text)
165. Ibid, p. 4. (Back to text)
166. Ibid, pp. 5, 10. (Back to text)
167. ["[l]a consigna central, invariable y firme debe ser, la intransigencia de la
143

vanguardia proletaria; su lucha poltica independiente, su accin definida y audaz


frente a los acontecimientos que se suceden."](My translation, GT.) Ibid, p. 5.
(Back to text)
168. Ibid, p. 7. (Back to text)
169. Ibid, pp. 12-13. (Back to text)
170. Ibid, pp. 13-14. (Back to text)
171. Ibid, pp. 14-15. (Back to text)
172. ["Revolucin Agraria y Anti-Imperialista"](My translation, GT.) Ibid, p. 6. (Back
to text)
173. ["une plateforme sur le terrain national en conformit avec les principes gneraux
de lOpposition de gauche."](Translation by David Smith.) See the letter from the
International Secretariat of the ILO to the Cuban Communist Left Opposition, 29
June 1933, op cit. (Back to text)
144

Chapter Five
The Partido Bolchevique Leninista and the Revolution
of the 1930s
This chapter traces the organisational and theoretical development of the Cuban
Trotskyists from the constitution of the Partido Bolchevique Leninista (PBL) in
September 1933 to the end of the Revolution of the 1930s. I thereby chart Cuban
Trotskyisms response to the challenges posed by the coming to power of the Left-wing
nationalist government of Grau San Martn through until the crushing of the March
1935 general strike.

In analysing the development of the PBL, I argue that having elaborated a programme
which insisted on the primacy of the proletarian anti-imperialist revolution, while at the
same time not dismissing in an ultra-leftist fashion the revolutionary nationalist
movement, the organisational and theoretical development of Cuban Trotskyism during
the period 1933-35 was largely conditioned by an internal struggle between two broad
political tendencies which had coalesced under the Oposicin Comunista de Cuba
(OCC) banner. On the one hand, one sector, reflecting the OCCs original
heterogeneous political composition, favoured a policy of forming multi-class blocs in
pursuit of a democratic anti-imperialist revolution as a distinct stage towards the
socialist revolution. In expressly linking the destiny of the working class to petty
bourgeois nationalism, this sector of the party broadly adhered to the Cominterns
Second Period strategy which Trotsky had criticised in the 1920s. The second current
within the PBL was that which had initiated the turn, both organisationally and
ideologically, towards the International Left Opposition in early 1933. I contend that
while this latter tendency continued to insist that the working class could not take power
in Cuba without the support of the peasantry, just as the peasantry could not realise the
agrarian revolution without the leadership of the working class, a formulation which
incorporated the essence of Trotskys theory of Permanent Revolution, it also tended to
support the formation of uncritical alliances with the forces of petty bourgeois
nationalism. In the PBLs case, in the period 1933-35 this was primarily with the
Guiteristas and Joven Cuba. In charting the organisational fortunes of the PBL, I argue
that its declining membership and influence on events from 1934 were not only the
result of state repression and the slanderous propaganda of the official communists, but
of the PBLs own increasingly open advocacy of the theory of the independence of the
democratic anti-imperialist revolution and the consequent limited distinction which the
PBL made in practice between the forces of revolutionary socialism and those of radical
nationalism.

In developing these central arguments I divide this chapter into two broad parts. I first
outline the constitution of the PBL and its organisational development during the
Revolution of the 1930s. Here I chart the Cuban Trotskyists rapid growth in late 1933
and early 1934, and their subsequent organisational crisis in 1934-35. I then address the
Cuban Trotskyists analysis of the nature of the revolution in Cuba and their
prescription for revolutionary activity during the convulsive 1933-35 period.
145

5.1 The Formation, Organisational Growth and Crisis of the PBL,


1933-35
The OCC made the transition from an organised oppositional faction within the official
communist party to a declared fully-fledged independent political party, the PBL,
working towards the building of a new International on 14 September 1933 at an
assembly of delegates of the sections and nuclei of the Communist Opposition of
Cuba".(1) A footnote in Leon Trotsky, Oeuvres has placed the membership at this point
at one thousand.(2) While this coincided with moves initiated by Trotsky in July 1933
to move the International Left Opposition towards the perspective of founding a new
revolutionary international, the formation of the new party also corresponded with the
reality of the local circumstances of the Cuban Trotskyists. In the first place, the
Oppositionists had a deep implantation in the trade union and student movement across
the country, controlling the Labour Federation of Havana (FOH). Furthermore, and long
before the Cuban Communist Opposition published its Statutes in June 1933, the OCC
had to all intents and purposes ceased to function as a faction within the Partido
Comunista de Cuba (PCC).

The Cuban Trotskyists themselves justified the transition from Communist Opposition
to a distinct party on two grounds. First, they argued that just as the Comintern was
bankrupt for the purposes of revolution in the light of its German sections submission
without a fight, facilitating Hitlers rise to power, so a political resurgence within the
PCC in which the Stalinist wing had now entrenched itself was impossible. The PBL
also contended that the conjuncture of events in the August-September 1933 period in
Cuba in which the Left-nationalist Grau San Martn government had come to power
also favoured the founding of a new revolutionary workers party.(3)

The Central Committee of the PBL ratified the statutes of the new party on 15
September 1933. Along Leninist lines, they confirmed the workplace cell, consisting of
at least three members, as the basic unit of party organisation.(4) The following extract
from the Statutes sketches how the delegates intended to structure the party from the
base upwards:

The Cell Committee is the highest body answerable to the members of the cell. In
places where there is a high concentration of cells, they will be organised into sections.
The highest body answerable to them will be the Sectional Conference made up of
delegates from the cells. In the interval between the Sectional Conferences the leading
body will be the Sectional Committee. The Sections will be grouped in Districts. Within
the territory of one District the highest body is the District Conference made up of
delegates from the sections. In the interval between District Conferences the leading
body is the District Committee. The supreme body of the PBL is the National Congress,
formed by delegations from the cells of the PBL. The Central Committee, the supreme
body of the PBL between two Congresses, is elected at the Congress. If a National
Congress cannot be held, a National Conference with delegates from all sections of the
PBL will instead hold the election of the Central Committee.(5)

The Statutes also provided for the election of a Political Bureau and Secretaries by the
Central Committee. The Political Bureau held responsibility for overseeing the day-to-
day work of the party while the task of the various Secretaries of departments was to
centralise the work of organisation, financial management, and trade union and agrarian
anti-imperialist work.(6) More specifically, the Trade Union Secretary was to co-
146

ordinate the creation and work of the PBLs fractions in the already existing trade
unions,(7) and the Anti-Imperialist Agrarian departments immediate objective was the
building of an action front of true anti-imperialist movements".(8)

In an attempt to maintain unity from the base to the top of the party structure, the
Statutes furthermore reiterated that the Leninist principle of democratic centralism
would guide the functioning of the PBL, just as it had formally guided the OCC. Among
other considerations, this included the stipulation that after a decision had been taken
the minority had to act on the will of the majority.(9) The Statutes stated that,"[t]he
resolutions taken in Congresses, Conferences or the PBLs Cell Committees must be
executed in full even if some member or group of members of the body who order or
receive them do not approve of these orders.(10) While reference was also made to the
free and open discussion of issues, again, as in the case of the OCC, no provision was
made for the formation of internal factions in which a minority within the party could
pursue a particular issue of contention.

In terms of national influence and numerical strength, the PBL was at its peak around
the period of its founding and shortly thereafter. It had members and contacts in each of
the six provinces and established large District Committees in the provinces of Havana
and Oriente, economically and politically the two most important in the country, as well
as in Matanzas. Attached to these were various Sectional Committees in the major
towns and cities of the respective regions. In the other three provinces, namely, Pinar
del Ro, Las Villas and Camagey, however, it seems that the PBL only attracted a
number of individuals who were not incorporated into the party structure through the
hierarchy of a Sectional or District Committee.(11)

In terms of the Cuban Trotskyists base in the trade union movement, the PBL
continued to dominate the direction of the Federacin Obrera de La Habana under the
General Secretaryship of Gastn Medina, as well as the General Commercial Workers
Union of Cuba, the capitals single most important trade union. In Matanzas, through
the Trotskyist-dominated Federacin Obrera de Matanzas, the PBL controlled the local
branches of the Bakery Workers and General Commercial Workers Unions. The
matancero Trotskyists also won the support of the unions in various centrales, including
Espaa, Tinguaro and Guipzcoa, as well as commercial, transport and bakery workers.
(12)

It was, though, in the province of Oriente where the Cuban Trotskyists implantation in
the labour and revolutionary movements was strongest. Its oriental District Committee
was made up of five large sections; that of Santiago de Cuba, Guantnamo, Puerto
Padre, Victoria de las Tunas and Manat with a number of more isolated cells in some of
the important centrales in the province.(13) These included the Palma, San Germn,
Tacaj, Jobabo, Chaparra and Delicias centrales.(14)

As elsewhere in the country, the PBLs principal strength in Oriente lay in the student
movement and the Sindicato General de Empleados del Comercio de Cuba. Also as
elsewhere, the oriental Trotskyists began work in the trade union movement by
attempting to regroup local trade unions which opposed the trade union line of the PCC-
controlled Federacin Obrera Local. Building on the propaganda opportunity presented
to them as news filtered down to Oriente about the PCCs attempt to organise a return to
work during the August 1933 general strike,(15) the Trotskyists founded the Unin
147

Obrera de Oriente (Labour Union of Oriente), a province-wide workers federation,


under the leadership of Rogelio Benache in September 1933.(16) According to the
official communists themselves, the Trotskyists had penetrated the important work
centres in Oriente,(17) and the Labour Union of Oriente rapidly won support from a
wide variety of trade unions including those representing workers in the commercial,
distillery, cement, print, tobacco, sugar, port and transport sectors.(18)

The PBLs strongest Sectional Committees in Oriente were in Santiago de Cuba and
Guantnamo. In Santiago de Cuba, the PBLs membership, estimated at between 100
and 150 by one leading participant,(19) was concentrated in the student milieu and
General Commercial Workers Union. On the coming to power of Grau San Martn, the
santiaguero Trotskyists in the student movement formally registered themselves with
the new provincial government,(20) and at a meeting on 20 September 1933 attended by
56 activists, agreed on the composition of their provisional Committee. This included
Roberto Acosta Hechavarra,(21) who was to play a central role in the regrouped Cuban
Trotskyist party in the 1960s. The santiaguero branch of the PBL also made increasing
gains in the regional trade union movement. As an internal report of the PCC admitted
in December 1933, the Trotskyists in Santiago de Cuba were winning terrain on a daily
basis, replacing official communists in the unions which the PCC itself had organised,
this to the extent that the Trotskyists were at that time apparently dominating these
unions.(22)

A striking feature of Cuban Trotskyism, however, was the PBLs numerical strength
and influence in Guantnamo, substantially exceeding, as it did, that in either Santiago
de Cuba or Havana. In Guantnamo, the PBL controlled most of the coffee workers
unions(23) and, through the Sindicato de Obreros Azucareros de la Regin de
Guantnamo, seven of the nine centrales. The PCC-dominated sugar workers union,
the SNOIA, controlled only two.(24) The Trotskyists also controlled the Bakery
Workers Union as well as having fractions in the local dock workers union and in
Delegaciones 10 and 11 of the Hermandad Ferroviaria, the two branches of the
Brotherhood of Railway Workers in Guantnamo.(25) The Guantnamo section of the
PBL also set about organising a Federacin Obrera Local, a regional trade union centre
which claimed to unite 14,000 workers in different trade unions from above as well as
below.(26) In November 1933, the small PCC branch in Guantnamo estimated that its
PBL counterpart had some 400 members.(27)

The reasons behind the Trotskyists relative strength in Guantnamo are multi-fold. In
the first place, Guantnamo was a relatively industrialised centre in Cuban terms with
numerous large-scale centrales, port facilities both military and commercial, and a
correspondingly developed railway network. The railways, in particular, provided
relatively stable employment in comparison with that of sugar workers and it was more
difficult for the official communists to make use of their apparatus to simply set up and
dominate new red unions when a new period of employment began as in the sugar
industry. Furthermore, Guantnamo was the only region in which two separate branches
of the Brotherhood of Railway Workers existed, this as a consequence of the two
different railway networks servicing the city and Naval Base, on the one hand, and the
centrales on the other.

Apart from the specific relatively industrialised features of Guantnamo, the Trotskyists
also benefited from the sectarian tactical approach of the PCC in the crucial 1931-33
148

period which violated the deep revolutionary traditions in the region. While the ultra-
radicalism of the PCC in the early 1930s, in dismissing the forces of revolutionary
nationalism and anarcho-syndicalism as counter-revolutionary, had repercussions across
Cuba, such a policy had particularly profound effects in Guantnamo. With all major
insurrections dating back to the Ten Years War having had their heart in Oriente, the
traditions of revolutionary violence and broad, inclusive alliances against perceived
foreign oppressors were strongest in that region. The presence of a U.S. Naval Base on
Cuban territory in Guantnamo since the inauguration of the Republic could only have
further exacerbated the radical nationalist desire for practical joint struggle against that
visible symbol. The PCCs tactical line which ran counter to these sentiments of broad
anti-imperialist United Front work, was further deepened in 1933 with its call to refrain
from attacking U.S. property.

In addition to these external factors, however, the organisational principles which


underpinned the PBLs local structure in Guantnamo also help to explain Trotskyisms
rapid growth in the region. As I discuss in more detail later in this section, the
guantanameo Trotskyists largely favoured the creation of a loose workers, students
and peasants anti-imperialist bloc which was closer to the Cominterns Second Period
conception of the United Front than to any vanguard party in a Trotskyist mould. As the
PCC branch in the region noted, recruitment to the PBL took place on the same basis as
in any bourgeois party, without discipline or any cell structure.(28) According to a
report in the U.S. Trotskyist press, the first issue of Rayo, the PBLs eight-page central
organ published on 4 February 1934, also recognised that sharp theoretical differences
as to the character [....] the party should assume had developed between the leadership
and the Guantnamo section.(29) Insisting on the validity of the founding Statutes, the
Central Committee argued that since the National Conference which had founded the
PBL in September 1933, the Guantnamo section had argued for the creation of a
broad workers, peasants and students association as against a narrow Bolshevik
party and had in practice functioned independently of the Central Committee, ignoring
the latters directives.(30)

While in mid-1934 leading organisers of Latin American Trotskyism reported that the
PBL had approximately 600 members,(31) it is fair to say that the PBL peaked in terms
of numbers and influence in the revolutionary milieu in late 1933, before suffering
decline and dislocation through 1934-35.(32) The causes of this organisational crisis
included external factors, on the one hand, and internal political considerations on the
other. The external factors which conditioned the atrophy in the PBLs membership
included the policies implemented by successive governments from that of Grau San
Martn to the Batista-Mendieta-led regime. In the first place, the so-called 50% and
Nationalisation of Union Laws introduced by the Grau San Martn government to
counter communist influence immediately attacked the employment and residence
status of the PBLs members of Spanish origin employed in the commercial sector in
Havana, a sizeable segment of the PBLs membership in the capital.

The general drive to Cubanise and thereby divide the labour movement was then
overtaken during the early months of the Batista-Mendieta government in 1934 as it
made clear its resolute intention to crush the organisation of the labour movement. As
the U.S. Trotskyist newspaper The Militant reported, state action against trade union
organisation was decisive. The whole of the leadership of the FOH, including Junco,
was arrested after police surprised a meeting of the Plenum of the Federation.(33) An
149

internal document of the PBL, dated April 1934, also described how more than a dozen
PBL members in Havana had been imprisoned, including one member of the Central
Committee.(34) Furthermore, under the more openly hostile Batista-Mendieta
government, PBL members of Spanish origin were deported back to Spain.(35)

The PBLs organisational dislocation was also conditioned by the lack of financial
resources at the disposal of the Cuban Trotskyists. While the PBL did not have access to
the kind of subsidies official communist parties received from Moscow, it also suffered
from a collapse in the collection of subscriptions from its own members. As the General
Secretary of the PBL, Garca Villareal, complained, the various sections proved unable
to collect and transfer money to the centre in return for the press and literature which
had been sent to them.(36) These chronic financial problems explained, at least in part,
the short-lived and intermittent nature of the Cuban Trotskyists publications. The
PBLs sixty-four page programme, and the second number of the PBLs central organ,
Rayo, for example, were delayed due to a lack of funds,(37) while the second number of
Frente, the santiaguero Trotskyists student journal, appears to have been the last.(38)
This, in turn, weakened the PBL members and contacts identification with the party
and promoted the tendency towards a looser organisational association.

However, although external structural forces and financial concerns contributed to the
dislocation in the ranks of the PBL, these factors only served to supplement the deep-
seated internal political causes of organisational disintegration. That is, the principal
reasons explaining the crisis in organisation were the heterogeneity of the OCC and then
PBL in 1933, and the leaderships inability to promote a clear line which effectively
separated those currents which were closest to Bolshevism from those which favoured a
syndicalist or declared democratic anti-imperialist strategy. Having been born as an
essentially Second Period critique of official communisms turn towards the Third
Period tactical line, the PBL continued to function as a rallying point for a variety of
anti-imperialists who were principally united in their hostility towards the ultra-leftism
of the PCC. Despite the PBL leaderships formal adherence to Trotskyism, a large
section of the OCC and then PBL essentially remained syndicalists and radical
democratic nationalists who balked at the prospect of any centralised authority and
discipline. As the PBL recognised with the benefit of hindsight, the formal constitution
of the party in September 1933 had only put a temporary check on the process of
disintegration which had already set in among the diverse range of dissident political
currents which made up the contradictory camp of the Opposition.(39) These
contradictions were evident in the various sections approaches to organisational
matters from the beginning.

While, as I have already noted, the Guantnamo section of the PBL had refused to abide
by the principle of democratic centralism, declaring its autonomy from the PBLs
Central Committee at the partys founding conference, so the influence of syndicalism
promoted disaffection and desertion from the idea of a working class vanguard party in
the urban centre of Havana. As Gastn Medina later explained, [t]raditional
syndicalism, for example, weighted down by anarchist and apolitical sectarianism,
having been freed of the pressure of Stalinist Centrism but without really being subject
to the influence of the leading group, was able to develop activities in a manner harmful
for the future of the new party.(40)
150

Reflecting this general lack of commitment to forging a revolutionary communist


vanguard, the Central Committee of the PBL also contended that the organisational
dislocation in the partys ranks was partly the result of a general malaise which had set
in with regard to the whole project of an international proletarian revolution in the light
of the perceived betrayal of the Comintern. The PBLs leadership argued that because
of disillusionment, a section of its membership rejected the possibility that there could
be a resurgence in the world-wide workers movement. Garca Villareal wrote that those
who have contributed to the organisational disorder within the party believe that the
efforts of the Bolshevik Leninists to open up new routes to the proletarian revolution are
futile. These comrades believe that the death of the Comintern is an incontrovertible
fact but that our forces are not capable of building a new International.(41)

According to the same internal document, the ideological defeatism which had resulted
in various sectors promoting a degree of passivity in the activity of the party, as well as
actual desertion from the revolutionary project, was particularly prevalent in the interior
of Cuba.(42) While this contrasted sharply with the activity of the PBL in the trade
union struggle in Havana, the PBL leadership expressed its frustration with what it saw
as the lack of activity in the rural zones of Oriente despite what it termed the complete
discredit of the PCC in the region.(43) The PBL leadership based in Havana criticised
the oriental sections for abandoning tasks half-way through.(44) The most important
example it highlighted was the projected provincial conference of sugar workers which
had been due to be held before the zafra began. The aim had been to consolidate the
workers gains and organisation. However, despite the fact that twenty-six centrales had
responded to the initial invitation, the whole project was eventually limited to the
distribution of a leaflet. The Central Committee understandably surmised that [t]he
brightest opportunity to consolidate our influence in the rural sugar areas of Oriente was
lost due to intolerable negligence.(45)

Passivity with respect to the tasks of building a revolutionary proletarian vanguard party
was most prevalent among the non-delineated, heterogeneous ranks of the PBL in the
Guantnamo branch. Having declared their political independence from the Central
Committee of the PBL in September 1933, the guantanameo Trotskyists set out on a
path of opportunist manoeuvres in constructing anti-imperialist blocs with the Grau San
Martn administration in the region in late 1933. Indeed, in defending the anti-
imperialist measures of the Grau San Martn government against the PCC and socially
conservative sectors alike, the PBL in Guantnamo appears to have given uncritical
support to the local representatives of the Grau San Martn government, seeking to
influence and join the administration through consultative assemblies. Such a
perspective was very far from that of Trotsky who highlighted the need to present an
independent working class position in any struggle against imperialism and insisted on
concluding blocs with forces of other classes only on the basis of clearly defined
concrete issues. An internal document of the PCC reported that members of the PBL
occupied posts in the new local council and customs offices.(46) Another internal PCC
report stated more specifically that three leading members of the Opposition entertained
hopes of obtaining government positions; Mujal as Chief Customs Officer, Gustavo
Fraga Jacomino as a deputy chief of police and Ramn Cesr as another official in the
customs office.(47) There is also evidence that the PBL did not support strikes in the
region during the government of Grau San Martn.(48)
151

While this failure to insist on the necessity for proletarian political independence in
competition with petty bourgeois nationalism diluted the genuine Trotskyist content of
the PBL in the region, this policy had organisational consequences in 1934. From early
1934, the guantanameo PBL largely confirmed its rejection of building a vanguard
party by initiating a process of building a bloc with the Guiteristas on the basis of an
immediate insurrection perspective. While this general orientation, as the PBLs central
leadership noted, delivered the proletariat into the hands of the Left government of
Grau San Martn and petty bourgeoisie,(49) it also led to desertion and the decline of
the PBLs largest branch through 1934-35. This drift was particularly pronounced after
the defeat of the March 1935 general strike, when PBL members in the region
increasingly joined Joven Cuba on an individual basis.(50)

By April 1934 when the General Secretary of the PBL called on the Oriente District
Committee to deal quickly with the problem of the autonomy and perceived passivity of
the Guantnamo section by identifying the true Bolshevik-Leninists and separating
them from what he termed the opportunists who embraced Guiterismo,(51) the steady
dislocation of the party as a disciplined national organisation was at crisis point.
Accepting that opportunism, exhaustion and defeatism could be explained with respect
to its newer recruits drawn from the petty bourgeoisie, the PBLs leadership in Havana
noted that disorder also characterised its more established elements who had initiated
the struggle against Stalinism. The situation was such that a first National Congress of
the party was called in order to discuss the direction of the revolution in Cuba and deal
with the future organisational development of the PBL.(52)

In preparation for the Congress it was intended that all sections of the PBL would
discuss in advance the problems which the party faced and the theses and resolutions
which the Congress would debate. The stated aim was to confront in a forthright way
the errors which had been made and to undertake a series of actions which would lead
to the restructuring and reorganisation of the partys regions and sections.(53) Two
central organisational questions were, first, to organise PBL cells in the industrial
sectors in which the party hitherto had no presence. Without a base in the factories and
unions, the PBL argued, no Bolshevik Party could exist. The second pressing task was
to form District Committees in Pinar del Rio, Las Villas and Camagey where the small
PBL groups were in danger of disappearing if they were not given some structure.(54)

The proposed National Congress, however, was never held. Instead, amidst continued
desertions, organisational dislocation continued unabatedly and an Emergency National
Conference was convened in July 1934. At that point only two members, Garca
Villareal and *R. Gomez, of the OCCs original Central Committee, remained.(55) Of
the others, *Marcial and *Mario Gonzalez had abandoned all of their responsibilities in
the party in mid-1934,(56) while *Maurin requested a leave of absence from all party
activities at the Havana District Conference held a few days before the Emergency
National Conference.(57) Bre, a central figure in the founding of the OCC returned to
Europe in 1934, while Junco, the most prominent trade unionist in the PBL was
expelled when he joined the pro-Grau San Martn-Guiteras Comisin Obrera Nacional
in early 1934.(58) Indeed, just as the Guantnamo branch tied its destiny to the fate of
radical nationalism so Junco was the leading representative of that body of the party
which sought to tie the trade union movement as a whole to the destiny of petty
bourgeois nationalism.(59)
152

At the Emergency National Conference, elections for a new Central Committee and
Political Bureau were held. However, despite this attempt to restructure the partys
leadership, the curve charting the PBLs disintegration continued to rise. As Gastn
Medina described,(60) of the seven members of the new Havana-based Political Bureau,
*R. Gomez withdrew from the party without giving any official explanation at all in
October 1934, and *Pereda left in November. While these two leading members were
not substituted on the Political Bureau, the five remaining members of the Political
Bureau lost contact as a result of state repression, and the leadership of the PBL again
disintegrated. *Bimbal(61) was imprisoned in early December for a period of one year;
*Rufo lost contact with the rest of the leadership due to living outside Havana and
difficulties caused by the need for a clandestine existence, while Gastn Medina himself
was apparently sent to do party work in the interior. This left only Garca Villareal and
the trade union activist *Soto actively carrying out the obligations of their posts in the
PBLs Political Bureau in early December 1934.

In late 1934 the still functioning Havana District Committee of the PBL worked almost
completely independently of the Political Bureau.(62) However, it too suffered attacks
from the state which went to further undermine the PBL organisationally. As Gastn
Medina explained,(63) the unions under PBL control were the subject of violent attacks
towards the end of 1934 after striking workers, members of the General Commercial
Workers Union, apparently still influenced by their anarcho-syndicalist heritage, took
to sabotaging their workplaces. The reaction culminated in special police detachments
assaulting the headquarters of the FOH which, in turn, led to the imprisonment of
*Brimbal of the PBLs Central Committee along with a majority of the PBL party
fraction within the General Commercial Workers Union. The police were also able to
take over the secret offices of that particular union, the most important under PBL
control.

With the existence of the PBL as a cohesive body in real danger, the one remaining
active political leader at the end of December 1934, the General Secretary, Garca
Villareal, neglected his party duties and responsibilities at the time of his marriage.(64)
While the wedding ceremony conducted at a Catholic church caused the PCC to heap
abuse on Garca Villareal in the organ of the PCCs Young Communist League, the
religious aspect of the marriage also provoked calls from the PBLs own rank and file
for disciplinary action to be taken against him.(65) Garca Villareal, the General
Secretary of both the OCC and PBL, and one of the leading proponents of the
Oppositions turn towards the International Left Opposition, was subsequently removed
from the Central Committee after a series of meetings in January and February 1935,
being replaced by Gastn Medina.(66)

Thus, amidst the backdrop of a revolutionary tide subsiding to a final defeat in March
1935, the PBLs leadership largely slumped into despondency with respect to the
project of building a revolutionary party. This, as Gastn Medina put it, made it easier
for the non-Bolshevik currents to subordinate to their interests, those elements which
were closest to Bolshevism.(67) During the course of 1933-34, the influences of
syndicalism and petty bourgeois nationalism, original components of the OCC in 1932,
increasingly reasserted themselves. The old traditions of a strictly limited technical-
military project of organising an ill-defined insurrection alongside Joven Cuba
increasingly attracted those PBL members who did not drop out of active politics
altogether.
153

With hindsight, Gastn Medina described this struggle between the old traditions of
revolutionary struggle and the Trotskyist project as that between the internal and
external road for building a revolutionary party and the Fourth International. While the
anti-party, external road thesis was never formally presented at any conference of the
PBL, he summarised its central thread in the following illuminating terms: rather than
analysing the errors and ineptitude of the PBL and its leadership, the Party in itself was
pointed to as the cause of the mistakes and failures. The conclusion drawn from this
was that the external road of subordinating the party to building a non-party
revolutionary bloc was the only means of creating the Fourth International in
Cuba.(68)

In broad terms, then, the external road to building a revolutionary organisation


corresponded to the democratic anti-imperialist perspective of creating an anti-
imperialist bloc, with the dissolution of the PBL into that broad front. It was essentially
the perspective which the PBLs largest branch in Guantnamo had advocated from the
founding of the party in September 1933.(69) By late 1934, however, a majority of PBL
members nation-wide gave increasing life to this theory after losing any stable direction
from a leadership which itself was disorientated by a period of successive defeats and
desertions. The anti-imperialist bloc implicitly referred to was primarily that of Joven
Cuba, and by early 1935, the majority of the PBLs members, either spontaneously or in
an organised fashion on a local basis, had gravitated towards it. While, then, the PBLs
numerical strength had been on decline for some time, and its formal democratic
centralist party organisation had faced a series of crises, with the defeat of the March
1935 general strike, the PBL found itself in a state of disarray.

5.2 The PBL and Revolutionary Strategy: The Democratic versus


Permanent Revolution Perspectives
This section, by analysing the PBLs programmatic pronouncements and its proposed
courses of action during the 1933-35 period, develops my argument that just as the
Cuban Trotskyists original heterogeneous composition conditioned the inconsistent
approach to party building, so the make-up of the non-delineated PBL determined the
debate over the PBLs revolutionary strategy. I contend that the heterogeneous
composition of the PBL was reflected in the development of two broad tendencies
within Cuban Trotskyism during the 1930s. On the one hand, the sector which openly
favoured a loose, multi-class anti-imperialist association pursued an explicitly two-stage
democratic anti-imperialist perspective. The second sector, I argue, developed a more
ambiguous strategy. While, in point of theory, it broadly applied the essence of
Trotskys theory of Permanent Revolution to Cuban reality, insisting on the ultimate
socialist nature of the anti-imperialist revolution, it also displayed a tendency to
promote practical uncritical alliances with the forces of non-proletarian nationalism.
This second sector, the one which did not desert the PBL in 1934-35, thereby also
tended to link the destiny of the working class to the fate of the petty bourgeoisie.

5.2.1 The Founding Programme of the PBL


The Central Committee of the PBL produced two programmatic documents shortly after
its foundation. At its founding conference a decision was taken to publish a
programmatic document containing an initial statement of clear and definite
principles.(70) A second sixty-four page party programme prepared by the Political
Bureau of the party was then officially adopted at a national plenary meeting held in
Havana on 27 and 28 October 1933.(71) In the first place, these two early PBL
154

documents demonstrated the Cuban Trotskyists anti-Stalinist character and their


alignment with the international Trotskyist movement. In contrast to the OCC which
had made scant reference to the international character of its struggle, the PBL was
categorical in its denunciation of what it considered was the anti-revolutionary direction
of the Soviet Union and Comintern.

In addition to adhering to the international aspect of Trotskys criticisms of official


communism, the Central Committee of the PBL, in its two initial programmatic
documents, also confirmed that the Cuban Trotskyists broadly applied Trotskys
understanding of the revolutionary process in the colonial and semi-colonial countries to
the case of Cuba. Gone was the OCCs initial emphasis on a democratic, anti-imperialist
agrarian revolution and in its stead was the explicit emphasis on the need for an anti-
capitalist revolution led by the working class with the support of the peasantry.

The PBLs first published manifesto set out the partys understanding of the political
situation in the aftermath of the Sergeants Revolt and the coming to power of the Grau
San Martn government. It argued that the petty bourgeoisie in the form of the
Directorio Estudiantil Universitario had broken with the mediation forces of the U.S.,
and had come to power posing before the masses the questions of bourgeois democracy.
Although this analysis appeared to challenge Trotskys assertion that the petty
bourgeoisie, independent of the national bourgeoisie, could not come to power,(72) like
Maurn in the context of Spain, the PBL emphasised that it viewed this situation as only
a temporary phase in the revolutionary process which would be terminated with either
the working class coming to power or U.S. imperialist interests leading a successful
counter-revolution. Confirming its rejection of the old two-stage revolutionary strategy
initially advocated by the OCC, the PBL argued that while the U.S. sought to rally a
counter-revolutionary front, only a truly independent class position could save the
proletariat from defeat. The Cuban Trotskyists wrote:

[u]nder the pressure of imperialism the Grau San Martn government, successively
wavers, gesticulates, threatens, yields; but does not firmly conduct the direct and
fundamental attack against Yankee intervention. Only the working class in alliance with
the poor peasants can liberate Cuba from the iniquities and oppression of
imperialism.(73)

The PBL also attacked the Apristas Second Revolution thesis, an argument which had
found echoes in the OCCs early thought. With reference to the interlocking character
of the world economy, the PBL dismissed the contention that because the proletariat
was not sufficiently developed in Latin America the revolution had to limit itself
initially to the national democratic anti-imperialist stage. The Cuban Trotskyists instead
argued that with the intervention of the proletariat, two steps [could be taken] at a
time and the stage of gradual capitalist development could be jumped.(74) In
advancing a nine-point programme addressing the agrarian and national question, the
PBL reiterated that [t]he national liberation of Cuba [....] can be obtained only through
the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat which applying the Bolshevik formula,
draws the peasantry behind it.(75)

Also emphasising Trotskys argument that the peasant question could not be under-
estimated, the PBL contended that victory or defeat in a semi-colonial depended upon
which class the peasantry follows, the proletariat or bourgeoisie.(76) However, the
155

PBL attacked the ambiguous anti-feudal and anti-imperialist revolution and workers
and peasants government formulae of the PCC. Like Trotsky, the PBL was
unequivocal in advocating what it considered to be the necessary proletarian nature of
the revolution and state power. They advanced the slogan of the agrarian and anti-
imperialist revolution under the leadership of the proletariat in alliance with the
peasantry(77) and made it clear that:

[t]he victory of the agrarian and anti-imperialist revolution can only be guaranteed by
the proletarian dictatorship, and [....] this proletarian dictatorship will not appear after
the revolution, but on the foundation of the revolution itself, as the only force capable of
achieving the agrarian and anti-imperialist objectives.(78)

The Cuban Trotskyists further stressed that all conciliation with the forces of the
bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie with regard to the specific purposes of the revolution
would repeat the betrayals in China and Mexico of the working class and peasantry.
Adhering to Trotskys Permanent Revolution strategy, they argued that because the
native bourgeoisie and rural and urban petty bourgeoisie were incapable of leading even
the agrarian anti-imperialist revolution, then it must be carried out without the support
of the bourgeoisie and against the bourgeoisie".(79) The proletariat, the PBL contended,
had to stand in competition with petty bourgeois nationalism and not hand the masses
over to a petty bourgeois leadership.

Again adhering to a Permanent Revolution perspective, the PBL also deepened its
analysis of the process of historical development in the second more lengthy
programmatic document. Implicitly rejecting the theory, today fashionable in Cuba, that
revolutionary defeat in the colonial and semi-colonial countries is the result of a lack of
national unity,(80) the PBL argued that the failure of the 1895-98 War to achieve
complete national independence was almost inevitable given the circumstances. The
Cuban Trotskyists argued that while an embryonic native bourgeoisie had dragged
along the working class and rural masses to fight for national independence and the
liquidation of feudal shackles,(81) an emerging imperialist power had intervened. In
such circumstances, and in accord with the tenets of the theory of Permanent
Revolution, the PBL contended that the weak national bourgeoisie was incapable of
shaping its exclusive class domination [....] and had to limit itself to serving
fundamentally the interests of imperialism.(82) The Cuban Trotskyists equally argued
that the insurrection of 1895-98 had proved unsuccessful because the working class had
not sufficiently developed so as to allow it to set out its own independent class line.(83)

Extending this analysis in its detailed statement of programme, the PBL reiterated
Trotskys perspective that the task of national liberation could only be achieved via the
dictatorship of the proletariat with the support of the peasant masses. In emphasising
that [o]n this alliance depends the success of the revolution,(84) the PBL advanced an
agrarian programme in order to forge the alliance. The programme of action demanded
the nationalisation without compensation of the lands, buildings, machinery and
livestock of the capitalist owners, and their distribution among the rural poor. The PBL
also advocated support for the co-operative union of peasants in order to scientifically
increase agrarian production, the carrying out of a vast building programme of hygienic
housing for peasant communities, reduction in the length of the working day, free health
care and the creation of rural schools and the implementation of compulsory education.
(85)
156

In presenting these immediate measures to promote the agrarian revolution and forge an
alliance with peasantry, the PBL argued that the proletarian party was the only body
capable of leading these struggles. Just as Trotsky had earlier dismissed the Anti-
Imperialist Leagues as a manifestation of the Second Period Guomindang policy on an
international scale, the PBL dismissed the Anti-Imperialist Leagues as gross
caricatures of the revolutionary united front, incapable of carrying out even the most
basic democratic agrarian tasks.(86) The PBL, furthermore, made no fetish out of the
problem of the insurrection, insisting that it was a technical question.(87) The Cuban
Trotskyists were unequivocal, arguing that only a proletarian vanguard party, retaining
above all else its inflexible class politics(88) could ultimately secure the agrarian and
anti-imperialist objectives.

In sum, the PBLs founding programmatic documents fleshed out the Cuban
Trotskyists Permanent Revolution perspective. Although they referred to the Grau San
Martn government as the petty bourgeoisie in power, like Maurn in Spain they
explicitly saw this as a temporary phase, as opposed to a distinct stage, in the
revolutionary process. As such, they rejected the OCCs initial prescription for a
democratic agrarian anti-imperialist revolution. In point of theory, the PBLs leadership
argued that imperialism could be defeated only via a revolution which led directly to the
establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat. They, furthermore, drew a clear line
of distinction between themselves as the proletarian vanguard, on the one hand, and the
forces of petty bourgeois nationalism, on the other, insisting that the PBLs task was to
win the support of the rural masses by leading the agrarian revolution in competition
with and against the national bourgeoisie.

5.2.2 The PBL and Revolutionary Strategy during the Grau San
Martn Government, September 1933-January 1934

In practice, during the period in which Grau San Martn was in power, although there
were inconsistencies within the PBL across the island, the PBLs tactics as set out by its
national leadership largely reflected the Permanent Revolution perspective outlined in
the PBLs founding programmatic documents. In remaining firm in its belief that the
Grau San Martn government was a petty bourgeoisie formation which attempted to
steer a course between the demands of the working class and imperialism, the
Trotskyists largely recognised that the regime was an inherently contradictory and
temporary one which opened up great possibilities for advancing the struggle for the
proletarian revolution. They argued that although the intervention of the rank and file
soldiers in September 1933 and the strike movement of the proletariat forced the Grau
San Martn regime to take aggressive acts against the bourgeoisie and imperialism in the
name of enraged nationalism(89) so, at the same time, the government carried out
severe acts of repression against the masses out of fear of a working class uprising.(90)
The PBL, while viewing imperialism and the national bourgeoisie as the principal
enemy, also saw the Grau San Martn government not as an ally but as an inevitable
factor in the development of the revolution.(91) Although this understanding again
questioned Trotskys insistence that the petty bourgeoisie could not attain power
independently of either the proletariat or the national bourgeoisie, echoing the essence
of the theory of Permanent Revolution as well as the thought of Maurn in Spain, the
PBL contended that his government was a temporary formation whose fall was only a
question a time.(92)
157

On the basis of this appreciation that the Grau San Martn government could not survive
long, the Cuban Trotskyists understood that they had to do all they could to ensure that
it fell under the blows of the working class and not as the result of action from socially
conservative forces inspired by U.S. imperialism. At the national level, they argued that
the correct revolutionary policy was one of strengthening the workers movement,
driving Grau San Martn forward so as to expose to the masses all his vacillations, while
at the same time deepening the revolutionary situation and preparing the working class
for further advance on the day when the petty bourgeoisie was forced to pass from
words to compromising acts against the masses.(93) In this sense, the PBL advocated
continuing the work of regrouping the proletariat, to exact from the petty bourgeois
Government the fulfilment of its own demagogic program (Revolutionary tribunals, the
distribution of land, the Constituent Assembly, etc.); to fight for the constitution of
Revolutionary Juntas, as a step to the organization of Soviets, and at the same time carry
on intensive work among the masses to prepare the latter defense against the aggression
of the Government".(94)

During the short-lived government of Grau San Martn the Cuban Trotskyists,
particularly in Havana, and in contrast to the branch in Guantnamo, adopted a critical
approach towards the Grau San Martn government. They advocated action which
developed the level of the independent struggle of the working class, while defending
the government against what they perceived to be reaction and the ultra-radical
adventurism of the PCC. Shortly after the Sergeants Revolt and Grau San Martns rise
to power when spontaneous strikes vied with lockouts as widespread social dislocation
remained prevalent, the Trotskyists raised the slogan of workers control of industry.
Displaying much political insight, the Trotskyist-dominated Labour Federation of
Havana considered that the employers lock-out tactic was designed to paralyse national
life and provoke U.S. intervention in accord with the terms of the Platt Amendment.
The FOHs response to this threat was to call on all workers organisations not to
abandon its independent class line and to re-establish production under their own
control. The Havana trade union centre wrote:

[i]n the face of Yankee intervention, the LABOUR FEDERATION OF HAVANA


INVITES ALL WORKERS TO RUN INDUSTRY THEMSELVES. Factories
administered by the working class through its Control Committees will prevent the
interventionist reaction and counter-revolution from imposing greater levels of hunger
and misery on us. THE WATCHWORD IN SUCH CIRCUMSTANCES CAN BE
NOTHING OTHER THAN WORKERS CONTROL OF INDUSTRY.(95)

The PBL also opposed what it termed the fascist 50 per cent and Nationalisation of the
Unions Laws introduced by the Grau San Martn government.(96) Again attempting to
challenge petty bourgeois nationalisms influence over the working class, the
Trotskyists argued that these laws represented the governments attempt to Cubanise
the working class and destroy its organisations by pitting the native Cuban workers
against the foreign ones. Such a policy, they argued, would open the way for employers
unions to emerge at the same time as doing nothing to attack the root cause of Cubas
problems, U.S. ownership of the means of production.(97)

During the 100-day government of Grau San Martn the FOH in Havana called
demonstrations against the labour laws.(98) Furthermore, in the face of the
governments and nationalist groups deployment of forces to impose the laws in
158

workplaces and union offices, the FOH sharpened its calls for the independent
organisation of the working class through the creation of self-defence groups. Etching
this call into the revolutionary wing of the trade union movement, the Trotskyists
advocated the formation of armed self-defence squads in the unions and factories to
defend the unions against what they termed patriotic intervention.(99) Putting class
before nation, the PBL and FOH contended that Spanish workers should be defended
with arms in hand against the anti-working class legislation.(100) They furthermore
argued that armed independent working class action must not only defend the workers
organisations but should also go on to the offensive to attack the divisionist,
chauvinistic groups in their own strongholds before they became an insurmountable
danger. In this sense, and in line with Trotskys conception, the formation of militias
was effectively viewed as a transitional demand, or bridge, to sharpen the struggle and
lead the workers from the immediate needs of the daily struggle to posing the question
of which class held state power and the socialist revolution.

However, as stated, the PBLs independent class position was not applied consistently
across the island, this largely reflecting the still non-delineated nature of the Cuban
Trotskyists original heterogeneous political composition. As described in Section 5.1,
across the island the PBLs various District and Sectional Committees acted with a
degree of autonomy from the central leadership in Havana, this being most evident in
the organisation and activity of the PBLs Guantnamo branch. In describing the
numerical strength of the guantanameo section and its subsequent dislocation, I
highlighted how the guantanameos, in effect, rejected their own partys formal
insistence on presenting an independent working class position in the struggle against
imperialism. The Guantnamo branch did not emphasise the permanent nature of the
proletariats competition with petty bourgeois nationalism which, as Trotsky outlined,
could have included practical agreements over specific issues with the local
representatives of the Grau San Martn administration in order to heighten the
contradictions between its progressive aspect and its leadership. The guantanameos
instead largely gave the 100-day government uncritical support. As I outlined, unlike
the Trotskyists in Havana the PBL members in Guantnamo sought to form a broad
anti-imperialist association, even seeking to join the local administration, in order to
defend what they considered was a distinct democratic anti-imperialist revolution.
However, underlining the PBL leaderships commitment to a Permanent Revolution
perspective during the Grau San Martn government, Garca Villareal, the PBLs
General Secretary, argued that the guantanameos opportunist construction of anti-
imperialist blocs delivered the proletariat into the hands of the Left government of
Grau San Martn and petty bourgeoisie in the region.(101)

5.2.3 The PBLs Revolutionary Perspectives, 1934-35


The nationalist government of Grau San Martn which had sought to chart a course
between demands for radical reform and social conservatism was ousted in mid-January
1934 when Batista transferred army support to Mendieta. The new regime was quickly
recognised by the U.S. administration and Batista embarked on an intensive campaign
of repression directed at the radical nationalist and labour movements. In contrast to the
PCC which did not differentiate between the Grau San Martn government and its
Batista-led successor, considering them to be equally pro-imperialist, the PBL
perceptively insisted that the Grau San Martn regime had had both a reactionary and
progressive aspect. Referring to the vacillating Grau San Martn regime as a petty
bourgeois farce,(102) the Cuban Trotskyists, immediately after its fall, argued that
159

while the 100-day government had served the interests of capitalists by promoting
divisions in the working class through its labour laws and attacks on workers centres,
(103) its displacement by a rightist block constituted a defeat for the proletariat and
put the working class on the defensive.(104)

Upon the basis of this appraisal, the PBL explicitly set itself the task of drawing lessons
from the experience of what it referred to as temporary petty bourgeois rule.(105)
However, during the course of 1934 and early 1935, rather than developing a
programme of action which sought to delineate a revolutionary communist vanguard
and regroup the working class around a clear proletarian anti-imperialist perspective,
the PBL made increasing concessions to the old traditions of anarcho-syndicalism and
petty bourgeois nationalism. Thus, although the PBL continued to insist on the validity
of Trotskys understanding that the working class could not take power in Cuba without
the support of the peasantry, just as the peasantry could not realise the agrarian
revolution without the leadership of the working class, in practice the Cuban Trotskyists
increasingly developed a tactical line which had more in common with the OCCs
original Second Period critique of the PCC than with Trotskys appreciation. That is,
they sought to form uncritical alliances with the forces of petty bourgeois nationalism,
in this case primarily Joven Cuba, thereby ignoring Trotskys strict understanding of the
character of any Anti-Imperialist United Front.

The PBLs analysis of the post-Grau San Martn period was one in which revolutionary
political action was in danger of sliding into the traditional form of conspiratorial circles
using terrorist techniques to heighten the general level of anarchy and disorder.(106)
Opposing these methods which, according to the PBL, only led to the withdrawal of the
frightened masses from the political arena,(107) the Trotskyists advocated the building
of a United Front of the working class in a defensive struggle against the labour laws
introduced by the Grau San Martn government and in defence of gains such as the
eight-hour working day.(108) Warning against the dangers of repeating the errors made
by the divided German proletariat prior to the triumph of Hitler,(109) they argued that
the struggles to force the repeal of the labour laws and to safeguard the working classs
economic gains had the potential to check the disintegration of the workers
ranks(110) and strengthen the workers trade union organisations in preparation for
offensive struggles in the future.(111) The PBL considered that [unity] in the ranks, the
creation of the defensive United Front of the Cuban proletariat will be the impregnable
wall of our class.(112)

The PBL, therefore, first attempted to develop its United Front perspective through
calling for the creation of an Alianza Obrera (Workers Alliance), a tactic which it
doubtlessly adapted from the material received from the Izquierda Comunista de
Espaa led by Nin. The call for a Workers Alliance had first been raised by French
and Spanish Trotskyists in 1933 as a synonym for the United Front after the latter
slogan had, in their opinion, been discredited by the Stalinists ultra-left interpretation
of the United Front only from below during the Cominterns Third Period. The
Alianza Obrera slogan gained particular currency in Spain in 1933-34 when on the
initiative of Maurn and the Bloque Obrero y Campesino in Catalonia a bloc of the
major workers organisations was constituted in the face of Hitlers rise to power in
Germany, the electoral victory of the Right-wing in Spain and the official communist
leaderships continued characterisation of the socialist parties as the communists worst
enemies.(113) In the Cuban context, although such a slogan potentially smacked of
160

syndicalism, prioritising the formation of an Alianza Obrera was not designed as a


simple syndicalist insurrectional front devoid of political content. While the PBL
intended to unite workers at a rank and file level against the attacks of the Batista-led
government, the slogan was also designed to undermine the growth and influence of
autonomous trade unions which were capitalising on the hostile relations between the
FOH and CNOC with calls for unity against both the Federation and Confederation. As
the PBL wrote, its Alianza Obrera perspective sought to put to the test the words of the
autonomous leaders, promote a wider working class participation in the struggles ahead
and allow the PBL to work alongside the mass of workers which were hitherto outside
its sphere of influence.(114)

In early 1934, the Central Committee of the PBL adopted a resolution calling for the
creation of an Alianza Obrera in Havana and then on a national scale through the
offices of the Sindicato General de Empleados del Comercio de Cuba which, under
Trotskyist control, had created a national network through its work to establish branches
in Santiago de Cuba, Matanzas, Santa Clara and Camagey.(115) One initial practical
step designed to forge this United Front in action was the two-day strike called by the
General Commercial Workers Union in Havana on 10 March 1934 to protest against
the decrees banning strikes, boycotts and the dissolution of collective contracts.(116)
The Cuban Trotskyists also proposed to convene a national conference of the General
Commercial Workers Union to carry forward the creation of the Alianza Obrera
project nationally. Their intention was to make use of the unions branches across the
country to call meetings of all unions in the various localities to discuss the creation of
local Alianzas Obreras. Reflecting Trotskys concern for trade union unity around a
distinct class struggle perspective, the ultimate aim was that these local Workers
Alliances would later adhere to a national United Front thereby creating a new national
trade union centre.(117)

However, although the PBL directed all its members to work for the entry of trade
unions, particularly those under the FOH-umbrella and others in Oriente and Matanzas
where Trotskyist influence was considerable, into local Alianzas Obreras, and to
establish contact with the central Alianza in Havana,(118) this project had limited
success. In Havana in April 1934 where the work of creating a Workers Alliance had
begun, the PBL reported that in the face of fierce opposition from the reformists and
apolitical anarchists only three autonomous unions had agreed to the Trotskyist
fractions proposals.(119) The principal reason appears to have been that after a series
of defeats and against the backdrop of government repression, particularly directed at
those unions already known to the regime, workers were beginning to become attracted
to the apolitical syndicalist slogan of Neither Confederation or Federation and were
organising independently of both trade unions centres. Moreover, despite the Cuban
Trotskyists intended attempts to attract the PCC into a United Front in the trade union
sphere through approaches to the CNOC-controlled unions, PBL-PCC relations were at
an all-time low. In an atmosphere which for nearly two years had been characterised by
fierce displays of mutual hostility between the PCC, on the one hand, and the OCC and
PBL, on the other, and which at least in Havana showed no signs of diminishing, the
PBL could not seriously attempt to approach the Stalinist leadership in a fraternal
manner with a view to forming a United Front in either the political or economic field.
As such, trade unionism independent of both the CNOC and FOH again gained support.
161

Additional reasons for the failure of the Alianza Obrera project can be found in the fact
that elsewhere in the country the various Sectional Committees of the PBL were
pursuing the policy of creating United Fronts with varying interpretations of their form
and content. The single most notable example of this heterogeneous interpretation of the
policy was that applied in Victoria de las Tunas where the Sectional Committees of both
the PCC and PBL did actually strike an agreement on 20 February 1934 to form a local
working class United Front. Reflecting a discernible tendency towards rank and file co-
operation between all revolutionary organisations in certain areas of Oriente as well as
more widespread discrepancies which existed between the grassroots and leaderships of
both the PBL and PCC, the agreed joint resolution called for the creation of a United
Front from above of all the local unions controlled by the two groups. The two Las
Tunas groups also agreed to the rapid formation of a Central Bureau operating under the
principle of democratic centralism and the suspension of all campaigns of insults and
attacks directed against one another. The declared aim was to present a common front
against the attacks of reaction.(120)

While such a policy violated the PCCs policy of forming United Fronts only from
below, the PBLs District Committee in Las Tunas was also at variance with the PBLs
national policy in a number of respects. Additional points in the joint resolution
committed both signatories not only to suspend attacks upon each other but also to
refrain from all discussion of political and theoretical issues which were at the root of
their disagreements, this until the Seventh World Congress of the Comintern could be
convened with a sizeable representation from the International Left Opposition.(121)
The PBLs Central Committee welcomed the news that the Las Tunas section of the
PCC had taken a step to rectify the Stalinist bureaucracys Third Period policy of the
United Front only from below. However, at the same time the PBL leadership criticised
its own local section for rejecting a tenet of Trotskyism in agreeing to keep silent on the
political differences which separated the two parties. In the words of the letter which the
Central Committee sent to the Las Tunas section:

[w]e consider that our Bolshevik comrades commit an error in suspending all
theoretical discussion until the next world congress of the Comintern. The central
questions of strategy and tactics cannot be hushed up. That would negate our whole
existence. [....] Our duty is to maintain with implacable tenacity revolutionary theory
and practice, methodically explaining and clarifying the reasons behind our argument.
In co-ordinating the United Front both organisations must undertake to resolve all
discussions or differences in points of view, without insults or violence but on the
contrary through a cordial and open discussion. But to renounce in advance all
theoretical discussion is to renounce our word to the benefit of Stalinism.(122)

In recognising the honest intentions of the PCC comrades in Las Tunas, the PBL
leadership further insisted on how it was necessary to demonstrate to them that the
Comintern had been killed by the theory and practice of Stalinism and that all
possibility of reforming it had vanished. A seventh World Congress, they argued, would
not solve the problem.(123)

Despite these inconsistencies in the PBLs United Front line across the country, in mid-
1934 the FOH in Havana was still adhering to Trotskys formulation that the future
revolution was one which only the working class was capable of leading. In July 1934,
the FOH maintained that:
162

[t]he central task of the working class in Cuba is to direct the national emancipation
movement under its leadership. To demonstrate in experience that only the proletariat
with its progressive policies can free the labouring masses from the yoke of Yankee
imperialism. The urban petty bourgeoisiehaving come to power in the days of the San
Martn governmentshowed all its vacillations and timidities, its final capitulation
before the adversaries of the Revolution.(124)

In the latter half of 1934, though, the PBL leaderships formal Trotskyist perspective as
elaborated in its first two programmatic statements in late 1933 was increasingly
displaced by the re-emergence of elements of the OCCs original project of promoting a
struggle which actually sought to put the petty bourgeoisie back into power. This
amounted to a de facto acceptance of the theory of the independence of the democratic
anti-imperialist revolution as an intermediate stage on the path towards the socialist
revolution. Those PBL members who had not deserted the party for either trade union
struggle in the Comisin Obrera Nacional of the newly founded Autntico party led by
Grau San Martn, or more whole-hearted allegiance with the Left-nationalist Joven
Cuba in its clandestine preparations for an armed insurrection, gave expression to this
implicit two-stage thesis in the document Resolution on the Present Political Situation
and Our Tasks. In its essential features this programmatic statement, drawn up on 16
October 1934 following the Central Committees receipt of reports from various
Sectional Committees,(125) revised the leaderships previous unequivocal insistence on
the primacy of the proletarian anti-imperialist revolution in the struggle to overthrow
the existing order. For the first time since the formation of the PBL in September 1933,
the PBL leadership resurrected the notion that the immediate objective of the struggle
was some kind of anti-imperialist democratic revolution in which the petty bourgeoisie
would assume power. In schematising Trotskys theory of Permanent Revolution, the
PBL argued that only after the petty bourgeoisie was in power could the proletarian
stage of the revolutionary process unfold.

The Cuban Trotskyists analysis at the end of 1934 was based on the assessment that
civil unrest was again intensifying and that an insurrectional crisis supported by the
masses of workers and peasants was once again developing in an attempt to overthrow
the Batista-Mendieta government. They furthermore accurately contrasted the fortunes
of the two wings of radical nationalism within the opposition movement, namely, the
PRC(A) led by Grau San Martn, and Joven Cuba, led by Guiteras. They characterised
the Autnticos as a party restricted by its own cadres ties to a patriotic, electoralist
approach which had gone into retreat and decline as repression and assassinations
mounted in 1934.(126) According to the PBL, the Autnticos exhaustion had
automatically placed both the advantage and the responsibility on the shoulders of its
left-wing (Antonio Guiteras). Politically, the left wing has won, over its adversaries of
the right and center.(127)

Following Trotskys assessment of petty bourgeois nationalism, the PBL characterised


Joven Cuba as a contradictory current with both progressive and reactionary features,
though decidedly to the Left of the Autnticos. The Cuban Trotskyists recognised that
Joven Cuba, having an essentially petty bourgeois nationalist theoretical base had
declared itself to be an enemy of imperialism [....] completely removed from the
servility characteristic of the native bourgeoisie".(128) The PBL also argued, however,
that this masked the social instability of the organisation and accordingly reasoned that
Joven Cuba would eventually have to move towards the camp of the proletariat or else
163

lapse into that of pro-imperialist reaction. In further adhering to Trotskys appraisal of


radical petty bourgeois nationalism, the Cuban Trotskyists identified Joven Cubas
armed strength as the Guiteristas major inherent defect. This deficiency, they argued,
meant that Joven Cuba underestimates the political conditions necessary for the
revolution in order to fall into the fetishism of the technical organisation of the
insurrectionary act itself. Adventurism is its organic weakness.(129)

However, despite recognising Joven Cubas vacillating character within the camp of the
democratic revolution and its tendency to reduce the political problem to that of
mounting a successful insurrection, characterisations which broadly corresponded to
Trotskys analysis of revolutionary petty bourgeois nationalism, the PBL made
increasing concessions in practical work which gave de facto recognition of the
independence of the democratic anti-imperialist revolution. In so doing, the Cuban
Trotskyists re-incorporated elements of the Cominterns Second Period strategy which
ultimately tied the destiny of the working class to the fate of the petty bourgeoisie.

With reports coming in from the PBLs exhilarated(130) members in its various
Sectional Committees outlining the possibilities for insurrection in their respective
localities, and proposals from the Guiteristas to the PBL to form the united front [....]
for the preparation of events,(131) the Cuban Trotskyists developed an increasingly
positive, though, one-sided, attitude towards Joven Cuba. Seemingly overjoyed at the
prospect of breaking out of its own cycle of organisational dislocation and decline after
a year of defeats and desertions, the PBL, while stating its willingness to enter into a
United Front upon the basis of a concrete program of action,(132) set out on a path
which diluted its previous unambiguous insistence on the leading role of the
organisations of the working class in the anti-imperialist revolution.

In essence, the PBLs new declared orientation involved combining its continued work
in constructing the Alianza Obrera at the trade union level,(133) with distinct United
Front work alongside Joven Cuba. The form and content of the latter joint work,
however, contrasted sharply with that in the trade unions. The Joven Cuba-PBL joint
front was not founded on the basis of an immediate struggle for various economic and
political demands which would deepen the struggle and lead to more advanced demands
for a workers state, as was the intention of the Alianza Obrera in the trade union field.
The joint front with Joven Cuba was instead a secretive union created for the purpose of
preparing an insurrection. The only political programme which the Guiteristas offered,
as the PBL itself recognised, was a guarantee of their future honesty for when the
Guiteristas were in power.(134) In not concerning themselves with any programme of
immediate, concrete action, therefore, any joint front with the Guiteristas was limited to
immediately and prematurely sharpening the crisis rather than deepening it. The
practical action was chiefly that of collecting arms for an insurrection.

The PBLs new perspective also incorporated the previously stated demand for a
Constituent [Assembly] out of the control of the government".(135) As Trotsky wrote in
another context,(136) a Constituent Assembly in a country where the problems of
national liberation and the agrarian revolution were posed with immediate urgency was
essentially a bourgeois democratic forum in which a proletarian vanguard could develop
by demonstrating the inability of bourgeois democracy to carry out the tasks of the
democratic agrarian revolution. Adhering to the proletarian anti-imperialist perspective,
Trotsky also insisted that the communist party must agitate elsewhere for distinct
164

soviets, a more democratic assembly facilitating the emergence of the proletarian class
dictatorship. Like Trotsky, the Cuban Trotskyists viewed the Assembly as a transitory
forum which would provoke a determined government reaction to prevent proposals for
the democratic agrarian revolution from being realised.(137) However, reflecting their
drift away from the proletarian anti-imperialist perspective, in raising the slogan for a
Constituent Assembly they did not explicitly oppose petty bourgeois nationalism with
the vision of the proletariat as the historical protagonist. The PBL instead viewed the
Assembly as a tool with which it could prosecute an insurrection with the previously
described distinct democratic anti-imperialist objectives alongside Joven Cuba. In the
Cuban Trotskyists schema of events, at the moment when the Assembly was crushed
by the government opposed to the further development of the democratic agrarian
revolution, the narrow Joven Cuba-PBL United Front would develop into the organ of
the active struggle with the slogan of a united front of struggle against the government
being replaced by that for the formation of revolutionary juntas by the PBL and Joven
Cuba. The PBL envisaged that these revolutionary juntas (councils) functioning in
each village, sugar central, etc. made up of representatives of both parties, (that of
Guiteras, and ourselves) would have charge of the preparation of the whole struggle. It
is thus that we would initiate the insurrection, and it is thus that we would influence and
direct it from within.(138)

The PBL thereby prioritised the project of establishing Joven Cuba-PBL parity
committees above that of a broad United Front based on a struggle for immediate
demands in defence of workers rights, and agrarian and anti-imperialist demands. In so
doing, the Cuban Trotskyists implicitly resurrected the notion that the immediate
objective of the struggle was an anti-imperialist democratic revolution in which the
petty bourgeoisie would assume power. Introducing the idea that this democratic anti-
imperialist insurrection could be a distinct stage, the PBL argued that only after the
petty bourgeoisie was in power would the proletarian stage of the revolutionary process
come into being. The PBL stated that: [i]f, after all of the necessary preparations, the
technical insurrectionary act takes place as the culmination of the political process [....
it] is almost certain that the petty bourgeoisie will reach power. [....] It is then that we
will carry into practice the transformation of the democratic revolution into the socialist
revolution. It is then that through a transformation within the revolutionary juntas, the
genuine workers, peasants and soldiers councils will be born of the masses. It is then
that the slogan All Power to the Juntas will acquire its revolutionary mass
content.(139)

It was on the basis of this understanding that the proletarian stage of the revolution
would inevitably unfold once the petty bourgeoisie was in power, that the PBL justified
its joint preparatory work on the insurrectional front with Joven Cuba. In particular, the
secretive activities which the PBL had initiated in terms of collecting arms, organising
and training its own militia were seen as necessary steps for enhancing party solidity
and to prepare for the future rupture in the United Front when the PBL would lead the
independent course to power.(140)

This formulation of the projected revolutionary process, then, steered the Cuban
Trotskyists towards focusing on agreements with Joven Cuba which were designed to
sharpen rather than deepen the revolutionary situation, and into elaborating a
programme for when the petty bourgeoisie was in power. However, as if to demonstrate
the extent to which the Trotskyists had tied their destiny as a proletarian vanguard to the
165

fate of the petty bourgeoisie, events unfolded largely out of their control and confirmed
the PBLs decline in influence in comparison with that which it had exercised during
earlier strike movements in late 1933 and early 1934. The unstable political situation
characterised by outbursts of largely unco-ordinated strike and terrorist activities during
1934 developed into another general strike movement in early 1935. While the working
class joined the students and state functionaries on strike, as the PBL itself recognised,
the strike movement was largely a spontaneous affair with no effective centralised
leadership. The control which did exist lay in the hands of the student movement via the
so-called Committee of Proletarian Defence.(141) Although the PBL sought to
concentrate its forces in trying to strengthen this Committee,(142) the strike was quickly
defeated. A state of martial law was declared, police fired on workers assemblies, and
the offices of every proletarian organisation were raided and ransacked.(143) Having
smashed the strike movement and forced the dissolution of the trade unions, a further
round of severe punishment for those arrested was meted out by the state security
forces. Members of the PBL itself faced long terms of imprisonment, deportation and,
in a few cases, even death at the hands of the rampant repressive forces of the state.
(144)

The development and ultimate fate of the March 1935 strike movement was as much an
indictment of the PBLs political trajectory through the period 1933-35 as it was a
reflection of the underlying strength of apolitical anarcho-syndicalism in the labour
movement and the balance of class forces. Although the PBL at its founding in
September 1933 had set itself the task of delineating a revolutionary communist
vanguard and regrouping the working class around a clear proletarian anti-imperialist
perspective, during the course of 1934 and early 1935, it made increasing concessions to
the old traditions of anarcho-syndicalism and non-proletarian nationalism. That is, in
practice the Cuban Trotskyists increasingly developed a tactical line which had more in
common with the Mellas insurrectional plans and the OCCs original Second Period
critique of the PCC than with Trotskys assessment of political priorities. The PBL
displayed a tendency to focus on the working class United Front in the trade union field,
largely ignoring it in the political, and sought to form uncritical alliances with the forces
of petty bourgeois nationalism primarily in the form of Joven Cuba. While the
proletarian revolution was still the declared aim, by late 1934 it was viewed as the result
of some objective process which would unfold if primacy were given to the
development of a distinct or independent democratic anti-imperialist revolution. This
theoretical understanding ultimately left the Cuban Trotskyists isolated from the masses
as, instead of attempting to develop a United Front around a concrete programme of
action as Trotsky advised, the PBL increasingly focused on building narrow juntas with
Joven Cuba in preparation for an insurrection which they considered would put the
petty bourgeoisie in power.

5.3 Relations between the PBL and the Official Communists during
the Revolution of the 1930s

In this section I discuss the hostile relations which existed between the dissident and
official Cuban communist groups in the period 1933-35. I first outline each groups
critique of the others theory and practice and develop the argument that the Cuban
Trotskyists attachment to petty bourgeois nationalist groups was in part conditioned by
their assessment of the PCC as an essentially counter-revolutionary force in the working
class. The emergence of this position was largely determined by a combination of the
166

PBLs analysis of the PCCs strategy and tactics in the hot-house atmosphere of the
Revolution of the 1930s and the violence which often characterised face-to-face
meetings between the two groups.

During the 100-day Grau San Martn government, the PCC attributed a variety of acts
of political treachery to the Trotskyists. In general terms, the PBL was accused of
committing murders, of recruiting strike-breakers, of creating parallel unions in those
sectors controlled by the CNOC and, with the support of the government, of attempting
to build a reformist trade union centre to rival that of the official communists.(145)
While these were largely baseless accusations typical of the anti-Trotskyist slanders
which emanated from a communist party zealously implementing the Third Period line,
the specific charge that Junco was attempting to fill the shoes of the reformist trade
union leader Juan Arvalo, whose usefulness, the PCC argued, had been exhausted,
(146) did have some content. That is, while the PBL was not attempting to build a
workers centre in the mould of Arvalos cravenly pro-Machado Unin Federativa
Obrera Nacional, the PBL in certain localities did not support strikes against aspects of
the Grau San Martn administrations anti-working class programme. As described in
Section 5.1, there is evidence that this was so in the Guantnamo region where the
guantanameo PBL in its opportunist desire to form a broad anti-imperialist association
in alliance with supporters of Grau San Martn wholly failed to insist on the necessity of
proletarian independence in competition with petty bourgeois nationalism.

The sole truly analytical critique made by the PCC of the PBLs political orientation
appeared in the PCCs newspaper Bandera Roja in October 1933.(147) The article set
out the PCCs not too inaccurate analysis of the PBLs founding programme. The
official communists argued that the Trotskyists basic premises included the assertions
that in Cuba a struggle had begun between a reactionary wing of the bourgeois
opposition and elements of the petty bourgeoisie; that there was no radicalisation of the
masses; and that the revolution in Cuba must be socialist though with an alliance with
the peasantry. For the PCC, the fundamental error of the Trotskyists lay in what it called
the arbitrary division between those in power and the reactionary opposition of
Menocal, Mendieta and the ABC. In true ultra-left sectarian style, the PCC rather
foolishly claimed that both what the PBL referred to as the petty bourgeois government
and the bourgeois opposition were reactionary representatives of the bourgeoisie and
latifundistas who equally served the interests of U.S. imperialism. The PCC thereby
concluded that the PBL was driven to servility before the government of Grau San
Martn and to play the role of strike-breakers against the working class. Elsewhere, the
official communists took their Third Period critique of what they considered was a
necessarily pro-imperialist petty bourgeoisie, to accuse the so-called Junco-Villareal
group in the FOH of putting a break on the revolutionary struggle against the native
bourgeoisie and imperialism.(148)

An internal document of the official communists, however, contained criticism of the


PCCs public response to the growth of the PBL in late 1933. In a report made to the
Caribbean Bureau of the Comintern, the foreign envoy *Juan recognised that in Oriente
the partys struggle against the Opposition is bad, limited to the well known
operational methods using adjectives traitors, thieves, contemptible people,
etc.(149) The same report also noted that the Oppositionists had made much of the
PCCs call for a return to work during the August 1933 general strike, and that its own
militants found themselves completely disarmed, unable to reply to the criticisms of
167

the PBL.(150) The author of the report, *Juan, who had opposed the PCC Central
Committees decision to call for a return to work during the August 1933 strike, also
revealed the tension which continued to exist between the Comintern and its Cuban
section when he expressed his personal criticism of the PCC for the absolute
abandonment of the ideological struggle against the Opposition.(151) In particular, he
pointed out that although the PBLs programme had been published two months
previously, not one word of criticism of it had appeared from the PCC.(152)

In response to the PCCs criticisms, the Cuban Trotskyists were generally forthright in
displaying their anti-Stalinist credentials. Indeed, in developing a critique of the PCCs
role in the Revolution of the 1930s, the Cuban Trotskyists demonstrated that from an
early stage they considered that the intervention of Stalinism in Cuban affairs had
introduced a new counter-revolutionary factor into the working class movement. In an
article written especially for The Militant and published on 28 April 1934, the PBL
emphasised the enormity of the blame which the Trotskyists placed at the door of the
PCC for the defeat incurred in January 1934 with the fall of the Grau San Martn
government and its replacement by the Batista-Mendieta regime. Garca Villareal wrote:

[n]o workers party has ever had a greater historical responsibility than that which falls
directly on the Stalinist bureaucracy of the Caribbean secretariat, and of the Communist
Party of Cuba. [....] Cuban Stalinism has been converted into the most negative factor
within the process of the revolutionary developments. The whole blame for the
proletarian defeat, falls on the shoulders of Stalinism, without any limitations.(153)

In arguing that the PCC had directly prepared the return to power over the state
apparatus of imperialist reaction, the PBL identified the root of the official communists
treacherous ultra-leftism in the PCCs narrow definition of the petty bourgeois
government of Grau San Martn as a bourgeois-feudal government, lackey of
imperialism".(154) For the PBL, such a characterisation not only failed to explain to the
workers why the bourgeoisie and U.S. imperialist interests were also engaged in a
struggle against Grau San Martn,(155) but, even worse, underpinned the PCCs
strategy of directing all efforts towards the overthrow of the Grau San Martn regime.
Ultimately, the PBL contended, this policy misled the workers into premature battle,
confusing and exhausting them, so that when the proletariat found itself forced to fight,
it was already too late".(156) Indeed, the PBLs severe criticism of Stalinism was such
that by mid-1934 they considered that the first task [....] lies in eliminating Stalinism as
a factor in the workers movement.(157)

Aware of the acute insensitivity of the wholly inappropriate Third Period tactical line
pursued by the PCC in Cuba, the PBL developed a political critique of official
communisms policy with respect to a number of theoretical and tactical issues which
largely reflected the general criticisms Trotsky was making of Comintern policy. Aside
from rejecting the theory of the anti-feudal and anti-imperialist revolution on the basis
that it confusingly introduced a distinct branch, rather than phase, into the revolutionary
process between the bourgeois and proletarian revolution revolutions,(158) the Cuban
Trotskyists lambasted the PCC on issues concerned with trade union tactics and
strategy. While the PBLs aggressive criticism of the PCC was no more evident than
over the issue of the PCCs attempt to organise a return to work during the August 1933
general strike,(159) the Cuban Trotskyists developed their criticisms of the official
communists general sectarian trade union policy. They accused the PCC of attempting
168

to leap stages in the development of the trade union struggle by insisting on red trade
unionism and the United Front only from below with rank and file workers. Consistent
with Trotskys underlying understanding of the working class United Front tactic, for
the PBL the point of unity in action around a concrete programme of struggle agreed by
the trade union leadership was to expose the reformist leaders before the masses when
those leaders at some point equivocated and sought to break the agreements for a
struggle for specific demands.(160) For the Cuban Trotskyists, the slogan of the United
Front only from below prevented joint working class action and allowed the reformist
leaders to escape any responsibility.(161)

In the trade union field, the Cuban Trotskyists also criticised the sectarian preparation
and aims of the Fourth National Labour Congress organised by the PCC-controlled
CNOC in January 1934, the first national trade union congress held since 1925. For the
Trotskyist-dominated General Commercial Workers Union, this congress had great
potential which had been lost even before proceedings opened. The primary reasons
cited were the lack of broad pre-conference discussions, the narrow range of invited
organisations, and the absence of any discussion over the urgent issue of red trade
unionism versus the building of a United Front.(162) In detailing their criticisms of the
PCCs narrow sectarian failure to address the issue of building a working class United
Front from above and below, the Trotskyists wrote:

[i]t was to be hoped that the Fourth National Labour Congress [i.e., that of the CNOC]
would be preceded by a series of actions designed to consolidate the masses orientation
towards it, using it as a waste-pipe for all the old tactics and errors. For this to happen, it
was essential that the question of the Congress would be discussed widely and, then,
that the vast majority of the working class would attend. Far from this, the Congress, in
advance, hides all possible discussion of the strategies and tactics to follow and does not
allow important sections of the working class to attend.(163)

The Cuban Trotskyists also criticised other aspects of official communist policy. First,
the PCCs support for self-determination for the majority Black population in the
province of Oriente up to and including the creation of Black Belts, de facto
independent states, came in for sharp criticism. The PBL contended that racial
discrimination was rooted in the way in which capitalism created and reproduced
labour-power and as such could only be liquidated upon the basis of the class
struggle.(164) The PBL thus argued that the PCCs separatist approach could only
promote divisions in the working class, and even violent attacks on the Black working
class.(165) The Trotskyists recognised that the proletariat had to make the fight against
racism its own cause in the anti-imperialist struggle when they wrote, [s]elf-
determination is certainly not the solution to the race problem. [....] In the regions of
Cuba where the Black population is a majority, this will be expressed revolutionarily
through Soviet power, always as a proletariat and never in the capacity of Black or
white man.(166)

The PCC came in for further criticism from Garca Villareal for its seemingly un-Third
Period-like tactic of directing protest away from centres of imperialist property. For the
General Secretary of the PBL, to recognise U.S. zones of business and exploitation by
declaring against attacks on imperialist property was a shameful capitulation".(167)
However, rather than accepting the PCCs justification that their policy was determined
by technical military considerations, and developing this to reveal the truly anti-
169

internationalist character of the PCCs revolutionary perspective, Garca Villareal


instead over-emphasised the PCCs servility to Moscow and argued that the PCCs
attitude was in fact directly derived from the recently signed Litvinov-Roosevelt
mutual recognition Treaty.(168)

While the Cuban Trotskyists were generally critical of the PCCs ultra-radical
perspective of promoting an immediate insurrection and installation of a workers and
peasants government on the grounds that it was wholly premature because the working
class and rural and urban petty bourgeoisie were not yet under communist leadership,
the PBL specifically applied this criticism to what it referred to as the launching of the
criminal adventure of 29 September 1933 around the burial of Mellas remains.(169)
While it seems that the PCC called the demonstration, at least in part, as a show of
strength to regain some of its lost prestige in the capital after the error of August,(170)
the PBL interpreted the open appearance of the PCCs uniformed shock troops for the
first time as a provocative show designed to signal an attempt to launch a general strike
and promote the PCCs adventurist aspirations of igniting an immediate insurrection.
(171) In the street-fighting which enveloped the demonstration, while the army asserted
its unified force for the first time after the dislocation in its ranks caused by the
Sergeants Revolt, the PBLs own shock brigade created to defend the FOH fought
alongside the supporters of Grau San Martn and Guiteras in attacking the official
communist demonstrators.(172) The PBL justified its decision to form a de facto United
Front with petty bourgeois nationalism against the PCC on the grounds that the PCC
had organised a sectarian adventure at a time when the army, still in a state of chaos,
had begun to fraternise with the workers upon whom they then opened fire.(173)

While the allegiances which the PBL forged with the Guiteristas during the violent
confrontations on 29 September can be said to have laid the foundations for a deeper
project of joint action from late 1934, the violence between the PCCs and FOHs shock
troops also seems to have set a precedent with regard to the nature of relations between
official and dissident communists. During the course of the Revolution of the 1930s,
relations between the two groups were largely characterised by mutual hostility,
expressed not only in their respective publications but also physically. There were
numerous reports of violent confrontations between supporters of the PCC and PBL,
particularly in Havana.(174) According to Jorge Garca Montes and Antonio Alonso
vila, one such confrontation resulted in one death and various other casualties when a
group of armed PCC members left the offices of the CNOC and attacked workers
leaders inside the buildings of the Trotskyist-controlled FOH.(175)

These hostile relations, particularly after the violence of 29 September 1933, developed
to the extent that over the course of 1933-34 the PBLs negative assessment of the
PCCs strategy and tactics became increasingly characterised by an explicit
understanding that official communism represented a counter-revolutionary force in the
workers movement. In the light of the PCCs call for a general strike after the massacre
of 29 September, which the FOH opposed on the grounds of saving the workers
movement from the most complete rout,(176) the PBL developed a United Front line
which had the peculiar feature of effectively excluding the possibility of approaching
the PCCs leadership. That is, the PBL itself opposed the PCCs sectarian trade union
line with one which conveyed in no uncertain terms its appraisal of Stalinism as a
counter-revolutionary force. This distinct line was evident in the PBLs proposed
response to the Labour Laws of Grau San Martn after the chaos on the streets of
170

Havana on 29 September 1933. The FOH argued that in order to deal with the disorder
and disunity in the ranks of the working class, which could only weaken its front against
the 50% Law,(177) the proletariat and its organisations should adopt an independent
class line against both the bourgeoisie and the sectarian line of the CNOC. Without such
a United Front of the working class, the FOH argued, defeats would continue and the
proletariat would lose confidence in its organisations.(178)

The principal virtue of the PBL in the 1930s, then, was its commitment to creating a
counter-current to official communism which broadly insisted on the validity of the
building an independent proletarian party organisation capable of leading the working
class to power while addressing the problem of national liberation. However, relations
between the PCC and PBL were such that the Trotskyists, rather ironically, adopted
what appeared to be an ultra-leftist attitude towards forming a United Front with the
official communists. Although the PBLs criticisms of the PCC strategy and tactics
largely reflected the general criticisms Trotsky was making of Third Period Comintern
policy, through 1934-35 the PBL was more prepared to ally itself uncritically with the
revolutionary forces of petty bourgeois nationalism, particularly with the Guiteristas,
than attempting to involve the PCC in any joint front work around a concrete
programme of action. In this sense, the PBLs attitude implicitly argued that Stalinism
was not a centrist current in the labour movement in the early 1930s, vacillating
between reform and revolution in theory and practice, but was instead an objectively
counter-revolutionary force.

5.4 The PBL and its International Contacts

While the contacts which the OCC established with the international Trotskyist
movement were largely limited to the Spanish Left Opposition group, after the
constitution of the PBL in September 1933, these international contacts included other
Trotskyist groups in the Americas. The first section of the international Trotskyist
movement in the region to make mention and then formally establish contact with the
Cubans appears to have been the U.S. Trotskyist group, the Communist League of
America.(179) This contact, which took place after the constitution of the PBL in
September 1933, seems to have been initiated by James P. Cannon, the Secretary of the
U.S. Trotskyist group, who after seeing a reference to the Cuban group in the minutes of
the International Secretariat requested that the Cuban group be asked to get in touch
with the U.S. Trotskyists.(180)

During the course of late 1933 and 1934 both the Spanish and U.S. Trotskyist press
contained a number of articles attributed to the Cuban Trotskyists as well as numerous
others based on information received from the Cubans. It is also clear that the Cubans
continued to receive Comunismo and The Militant as well as books and other pamphlets
containing Trotskys writings.(181) The U.S. Trotskyist press also relayed numerous
urgent pleas for financial assistance for the Cuban section during the turbulent days of
the Revolution of the 1930s.(182) These contacts, particularly with the Communist
League of America in the U.S., seem to have replaced any direct contact between the
PBL and International Secretariat in Paris.(183)

The struggles and prospects for revolution in Cuba in late 1933 were also addressed by
the international Trotskyist movement. Of particular interest was the issue raised by the
U.S. Trotskyist *John G. Wright (Usick Vanzler) in a discussion article in The Militant
171

about whether or not the time was right to call for the formation of Soviets. Implicitly
prefacing the essence of the Cuban Trotskyists later arguments which led them to
adhere to the national liberation tendency within Latin American Trotskyism, Wright
separated democratic demands from the transitional demand for soviets and was one-
sided in terms of arguing that the slogans and struggle for national liberation should be
stressed before the call for soviets was raised. Although Wright accurately recognised
that talk of the immediate seizure of power would be suicidal in Cuba, he also rejected
raising the slogan for the formation of soviets. He instead proposed the perspective of a
struggle around the slogan of Revolutionary National Defence.(184) He argued that
before soviets could be formed, the struggle had first to be couched in the terms of
national liberation. He wrote, the vanguard must organize the united front against
American imperialism; and in this united front must be included not only all workers
organisations but any and all sections of the petty bourgeoisie that are willing and ready
to struggle against the common enemy.(185)

Wrights position in many ways ran against a previous article in The Militant which
pointed to the transitional nature of the demand for soviets. Soviets were seen as organs
of popular struggle which could demonstrate to the Cuban workers and peasants their
own strength and the demand for their formation could generally be raised alongside
democratic anti-imperialist slogans. The article argued that to call for the formation of
Soviets only at the point of the proletarian insurrection would only lead, as was so
tragically demonstrated by the Stalinist policy in China, to the failure to organize
Soviets in time as the revolutionary center and instrument of workers and peasants, or
else to caricature Soviets after the revolutionary wave had receded.(186)

In a letter dated 21 November 1933, Trotsky himself, in one of his few references to
Cuba, similarly rejected Wrights one-sided declaration against raising the slogan for
the formation of Soviets in Cuba. Re-addressing the balance, Trotsky first reiterated his
central arguments with respect to the task of revolutionaries in the colonial and semi-
colonial countries; namely, that the conquest of power cannot be the immediate task if
the majority of the rural and urban petty bourgeoisie does not follow the revolutionary
proletarian party, and that this can be achieved only by a direct and open struggle
against the national bourgeoisie and the opportunist leaders of the petty
bourgeoisie.(187) However, for Trotsky, soviets in general constituted the basic
fighting organisation of the proletariat and those other layers of society which joined its
struggle, and he argued that to reject calling for the creation of soviets for tactical
reasons as Wright suggested, was an incorrect appreciation of the role they played in the
revolution.(188)

Despite addressing the debate on the immediate tasks of revolutionaries in Cuba and,
indeed alluding to the tendency of some Trotskyists to over-emphasise the democratic
anti-imperialist tasks by relegating the explicit proletarian anti-imperialist aspect to
some distant future point, this discussion involving Trotsky does not appear to have
come to the attention, or at least influenced the direction, of the PBL at the time.
However, by late 1934, the Cuban Trotskyists evident tendency to implicitly accept a
two-stage revolutionary perspective in some of the ambiguous formulations contained
in the document Resolution on the Present Political Situation and Our Tasks,
prompted the U.S. Trotskyists to direct a stern letter to the PBL outlining their concerns.
(189)
172

The letter from the National Committee of the Workers Party in the U.S. to the Central
Committee of the PBL,(190) raised three fundamental problems of strategy and tactics
which the North Americans considered permeated the Cubans appreciation of the
revolutionary process. The first point of concern was what the U.S. Trotskyists saw as
the PBLs tendency to accept, at least in part, the theory of the independence of the
anti-imperialist democratic revolution of the workers and peasants.(191) They urged
the Cubans to reject all vestige of such a theory on the grounds that it would lead to
accepting, at least temporarily, the leadership of the petty bourgeoisie and, thereby, to
share the latters fate as had been demonstrated by events in China when the
Cominterns Second Period policy had led the workers movement to a tremendous
defeat.(192)

As a result of the ambiguity with which this first issue was dealt with by the PBL, the
Workers Party also criticised the PBL for giving too much emphasis to the issue of
agreements with Joven Cuba over the preparation of a future petty bourgeois
insurrection and in elaborating programmes for a coalition government after the
possible insurrection.(193) The North Americans instead proposed that the PBL
endeavour to deepen the revolutionary ferment in ever broader layers of the masses
rather than concern itself with sharpening the political crisis by pushing for an
insurrection in the near future. To this end they suggested that the PBL develop a
programme of immediate action instead of focusing on a post-insurrection programme
of action. Specifically, the U.S. Trotskyists proposed that the PBL take the lead in
agitation, demonstrations and strikes around demands for an end to government terror, a
democratic Constituent assembly, agrarian demands, workers rights, better working
conditions, workers committees in the sugar centrales and other industries, liberation
from U.S. imperialism and nationalisation under workers control.(194)

A third central point of criticism related to the application of a programme of action.


For the North Americans, the action programme which the Workers Party outlined had
to be applied through a broad United Front including the Stalinists and all efforts should
be focused on achieving this goal. Although the feasibility of concluding a United Front
with the official Cuban communists was questionable, the U.S. Trotskyists wrote with
some foresight that if the tendency to replace the genuine and broad United Front
with parity committees of Joven Cuba and the PBL is viewed in terms of creating
embryonic soviets to which the insurrection will transfer power, then this policy will
bring on the isolation of the party from the masses and will not win the masses to the
revolutionary slogans.(195)

Of all the documents and letters exchanged between the PBL and its U.S. counterpart,
this letter seems to have been the most significant in terms of the influence it had on the
political trajectory of the PBL. While it arrived in Cuba too late for the PBL to modify
its perspectives before the March 1935 general strike, in the aftermath of that historic
defeat, and the desertion and isolation which the Workers Party predicted, the PBL in
its Political Thesis, drawn up in October 1935, reflected the substance of these
criticisms in all essential features. As I describe in section 6.1.1, the PBL returned, at
least in point of theory, to Trotskys formulation which insisted that just as the petty
bourgeoisie was unable to lead a successful anti-imperialist revolution, so the
democratic anti-imperialist revolution was only a temporary phase in the deeper
proletarian revolution. In the post-March 1935 period, the PBL furthermore elaborated a
programme of immediate action and demands which broadly incorporated the Workers
173

Party contention that the central task was the conquest of the masses through the
development of a combined struggle to liquidate the remnants of feudalism in the
countryside and to overthrow imperialist domination, this under the leadership of the
proletariat.

5.5 Conclusion

The principal virtue of the PBL during the Revolution of the 1930s was that it attempted
to integrate the struggle for the agrarian revolution and national liberation within the
struggle for socialism. This was something official communism consummately failed to
do given its adherence to the excesses of the wholly one-sided Third Period approach
which dismissed the national liberation movement. However, in offering an alternative
which addressed the issue of building an Anti-Imperialist United Front to expose the
ultimate inability of the petty bourgeoisie to lead the revolution, the Trotskyists
themselves displayed a tendency to accept the independence of the democratic anti-
imperialist revolution. They thereby tied the fate of the working class to the destiny of
the petty bourgeoisie.

From its founding in September 1933, the PBL was characterised by the evolution of
two broad tendencies within its ranks, and its political trajectory was defined by the
relative strength of these contending political currents. On the one hand, there was what
can be loosely termed a Trotskyist tendency around Marcos Garca Villareal, Gastn
Medina and a number of other leaders at the core of the PBL. This tendency initially
maintained that only a proletarian anti-imperialist revolution could secure even the most
basic tasks of the bourgeois democratic revolution, a perspective which broadly
corresponded with that outlined by Trotsky. The second sector within the PBL was what
I have described as a petty bourgeois nationalist tendency. It was more openly intent
on pursuing the Second Period policy of forming broad democratic anti-imperialist
blocs with the forces of reformist and revolutionary nationalism. This tendency was
most evident in the pronouncements and activity of the PBLs largest Sectional
Committee in Guantnamo. The greater part of the guantanameo branch favoured
building a loose multi-class association in pursuit of a strategy which implicitly
accepted the independence of the democratic anti-imperialist revolution, thereby overtly
tying the destiny of the working class to the fate of radical petty bourgeois nationalism.
The conflict between these two distinct prescriptions for revolutionary activity led the
Guantnamo branch to operate independently from the PBL Central Committee,
ignoring the latters directives from the founding of the party in September 1933.

These two conflicting, though initially co-existing, tendencies had fluctuating degrees
of influence over the tactics of the PBL during the Revolution of the 1930s. Initially,
what I term the Trotskyist or proletarian tendency was successful to the extent that
the PBL formally adopted the fundamental postulates of the theory of Permanent
Revolution at its founding conference. Furthermore, the PBLs decisive orientation
towards the International Communist League together with the tasks of revolutionary
defence of the Grau San Martn regime against imperialism and the struggle against the
excesses of Stalinism after the error of August, temporarily held in check the
unravelling of the PBLs contradictory internal political composition and the gradual
disintegration of the Cuban Trotskyist party.
174

However, with the fall of the Grau San Martn government in January 1934, the PBLs
formal Trotskyist perspective was increasingly challenged by the weight of the
traditions of syndicalist and national liberation struggle in the heterogeneous ranks of
the PBL. During the course of 1934, although the Trotskyists attempt to build an
Alianza Obrera was far in advance of the ultra-radical sectarianism of the PCC, it
became evident that their United Front tactics were not directed at deepening the
contradictions between the anti-imperialist movement and its petty bourgeois nationalist
leadership. That is, the slender roots which the tenets of the theory of Permanent
Revolution had established proved too shallow to displace the traditional forms of
struggle and the PBL as a whole failed to propose a politically independent course for
the working class.

During 1934 the natural haven for the petty bourgeois nationalist elements within the
PBL was Joven Cuba or, for those who had a history of trade union work, the National
Labour Commission of the Autnticos. However, those Trotskyist sectors of the party
which had initially rejected actual liquidation inside radical nationalist parties and blocs
were also increasingly attracted to the one-sided promotion of a United Front with
Joven Cuba. This was particularly evident in the PBLs activity towards the end of 1934
and in early 1935. Apart from the fact that the tactical alliance which they formed with
the Guiteristas was narrowly based and sought to sharpen the revolutionary situation
rather than deepen it among broad sections of the urban and rural masses, the broad bloc
United Front perspective also revealed the Trotskyists tendency to stress that the
immediate objective was a democratic anti-imperialist revolution. This tendency,
furthermore, paralleled the trajectory of other formative Trotskyist groups in Latin
America. As I outlined in Section 2.4, the Trotskyist groups in Chile and Bolivia, for
example, similarly sought to form largely uncritical alliances with the national
revolutionary sector as the radical nationalist movements became involved in
conspiratorial insurrectionary projects in their respective countries in the 1930s.

This tendency to put the struggle for social emancipation on the back-burner in favour
of highlighting the slogans which addressed the question of democratic anti-imperialism
had little in common with Trotskys insistence on the necessary proletarian character of
the anti-imperialist struggle. However, one redeeming feature of the Cuban Trotskyists
position lay in the fact that, like Maurn in Spain, they justified their trajectory in terms
which loosely incorporated the essence of the theory of Permanent Revolution. That is,
they insisted that in a country like Cuba petty bourgeois nationalism would eventually
disintegrate, forcing its followers to align themselves with either the proletariat or the
counter-revolution. In late 1934 and early 1935, the PBL argued that it was essential
that the Trotskyists take up arms alongside Joven Cuba to strengthen the proletarian
influence among the revolutionary nationalists and so make it more likely that the petty
bourgeoisie would fall to the side of proletarian revolution rather than that of pro-
imperialist reaction.

In terms of the Cuban Trotskyists organisational characteristics and development, the


PBL was undoubtedly at its peak in terms of number of members around the time of its
constitution in September 1933 and shortly thereafter, before declining sharply during
1934 and the first half of 1935.(196) In the period 1933-34, the PBL was a relatively
large group by Trotskyist standards, plausibly being able to claim 800 members.
Furthermore, unlike other Trotskyist groups in Latin America which were largely
limited to their respective capital cities, the Cuban Trotskyists had centres throughout
175

the country, most notably in the Matanzas and Oriente, as well as Havana, provinces.
(197) Only after the defeat of the Revolution of the 1930s did the Cuban Trotskyist
groups shrink in number to the size more common in other Latin American sections of
the international Trotskyist movement.

While the fate of the Cuban Trotskyists was determined in large part by the objectives
they set themselves and the tactics they employed to realise these goals, aside from the
internal political issues, there were other factors which contributed to the Cuban
Trotskyists lack of success in constructing a mass proletarian party by the end of the
Revolution of the 1930s. First of all, despite benefiting from attracting a number of
well-known and experienced trade unionists at its founding, the PBLs initial leadership
largely reflected that of its membership. Both the PBLs membership and leadership
were a heterogeneous mix of anti-Stalinist anarcho-syndicalists, radical petty bourgeois
nationalists, and proletarian anti-imperialists. A number of the PBLs nationally and/or
locally acknowledged trade union leaders, such as Junco, were hesitant in committing
themselves to the project of building an overtly Trotskyist party. Their slender
commitment to Trotskyism was cut with the decision to join the Autnticos labour
organisations in mid-1934.

The long-term project of constructing a Trotskyist party was also hindered by the
composition of the PBLs most important union, the white collar union, the General
Commercial Workers Union of Cuba. Situated above the general manual labourer in
socio-economic terms, these restaurant, hotel and retail workers represented the sector
of the working class which was closest to the petty bourgeoisie. As such, they provided
the urban base for the rural petty bourgeoisies radical nationalism. Hence, although the
PBL attracted its most dynamic elements, the conception of a less structured and more
fluid organisation was more likely to attract them than the project of building a
disciplined proletarian Bolshevik party.

A more important element, though, explaining the PBLs decline in membership was
the fact that the revolutionary period in which they were formed did not give them time
to cohere as an open party. While the Labour Laws of the Grau San Martn government
hit the PBL particularly hard in the sense that most members of the Trotskyist-
controlled General Commercial Workers Union, who were largely of Spanish origin,
were forced out of their jobs, the repression in the 1934-35 period led to the jailing,
torture and deportation of large numbers of Cuban Trotskyists. As elsewhere in the
world, the Trotskyist party in Cuba attempted to consolidate itself in a period dominated
by defeats for the working class.

In sum, the OCC and PBL in the Revolution of the 1930s was a sizeable group and its
rise, at least for a short time, raised the banner of Trotskyism and challenged the leading
role of the Stalinised Comintern in the ranks of the Cuban working class as in no other
Latin American country. However, it must be borne in mind that all revolutionary
groups in Cuba were relatively large at the time. It is therefore reasonable to conclude
that the conditions under which these dissident communists organised themselves not
only explain their early political trajectory flirting with the theory of the independence
of the democratic anti-imperialist revolution, but also explain, at least in part, their
exceptional numerical strength.
176

FOOTNOTES
1. Central Committee of the Partido Bolchevique Leninista, To the Cuban Workers
and Peasants: Manifesto of the Bolshevik-Leninist Party of Cuba, The Militant
(New York), 18 November 1933, pp. 3-4. (BLNL: M.misc.35.) (Back to text)
2. Trotsky, LD, Sur le Mot dOrdre des Soviets, Leon Trotsky, Oeuvres
(November 1933-April 1934), Paris, Publications de lInstitut Leon Trotsky, 1978,
p. 78 n5. While this figure does not seem to be over-inflated, it should be noted that
the editor of these Works of Trotsky cites no source to support this assertion.
(Back to text)
3. To the Cuban Workers and Peasants: Manifesto of the Bolshevik-Leninist Party of
Cuba, The Militant, 18 November 1933, op cit, pp. 3-4. (Back to text)
4. Central Committee of the Partido Bolchevique Leninista, Estatutos del Partido
Bolchevique Leninista, Havana, 15 September 1933, p. 6. (IISG: Bro 417/15.)
(Back to text)
5. ["La junta de clulas es la instancia superior para los miembros clulas. Las clulas,
se organizarn en secciones, en los lugares de concentracin; su instancia superior
serla Conferencia Seccional compuesta por delegados de las clulas. En el
intervalo de dos Conferencias de Seccin el rgano dirigente ser el Comit de
Seccin. Las secciones agruparn en distritos. En el territorio de un Distrito el
rgano superior es la Conferencia Distrital, integrada por delegados de las
secciones. En el intervalo de dos Conferencias Distritales el rgano dirigente es el
Comit Distrital. El rgano supremo del P.B.L. es el Congreso Nacional, formado
por delegaciones de las clulas del P.B.L. En este Congreso se elige el Comit
Central, que es el rgano supremo del P.B.L. entre Congreso y Congreso. De no
poderse efectuar el Congreso Nacional, se efectuar la Conferencia Nacional, con
delegados de todas las secciones del P.B.L. efectundose en esta conferencia la
eleccin del Comit Central."](My translation, GT.) Ibid, p. 6. (Back to text)
6. Ibid, p. 12. (Back to text)
7. Ibid, pp. 7-8. (Back to text)
8. ["la constitucin de verdaderos movimientos en un frente de accin
Antimperialista"](My translation, GT.) Ibid, p. 8. (Back to text)
9. Ibid, pp. 4-5. (Back to text)
10. ["[l]as resoluciones tomadas en los Congresos, Conferemcias o Juntas de clulas
del P.B.L. deben ser absolutamente ejecutadas, a peras de que algn miembro o
grupo de miembros del organismo que las ordene o las reciba, no apruebe estas
rdenes."](My translation, GT.) Ibid, p. 4. (Back to text)
11. Gmez Villar, A, A Propsito del Primer Congreso del Partido, Untitled PBL
internal document, April 1934, p. 2. (RSM.) (Back to text)
12. CC of the SGECC, El Sindicato General de Empleados del Comercio de Cuba
Frente al IV Congreso Obrero Nacional, op cit, pp. 6-7; and Manuscript of the
interview given by Manuel Garca Surez to Rafael Soler Martnez, op cit. See
Appendix D for a concise overview of how Trotskyisms strength in the trade union
movement relative to that of other ideologies varied across time. (Back to text)
13. Gmez Villar, A, Los Camaradas de Oriente y el Caso de Guantnamo, Untitled
PBL internal document, April 1934, p. 6. (RSM.) (Back to text)
14. Emiliano (PCC), Informe sobre la Situacin del Movimiento Revolucionario en
las Provincias de Oriente, y Camagey, Havana, 18 September 1933, pp. 3-4.
(RTsKhIDNI: f.534, op.4, d.477.); and Acta de la Conferencia Provincial de
177

Obreros de la Industria Azucarera, en Oriente (17-18 September 1933) In: Rojas,


U, Las Luchas Obreras en el Central Tacaj, Havana, Editora Poltica, 1979, pp.
190-193; and CC of the SGECC, El Sindicato General de Empleados del Comercio
de Cuba Frente al IV Congreso Obrero Nacional, op cit, p. 6; and Manuscript of the
interview given by Luis Miyares to Rafael Soler Martnez, op cit, p. 2. (Back to
text)
15. According to an internal PCC report, the PBL in Oriente made constant use of the
PCCs call for a return to work during the strike in its post-August propaganda. The
same report described how PCC members in the region had no reply to accusations
of betrayal and needed the party to explain the decision and rebut the PBLs
attacks. Letter from Juan to the Caribbean Bureau of the Comintern, op cit, pp. 7-8.
(Back to text)
16. Ibid, p. 2; and Miyares, L, Hombre y Ejemplo: Rogelio Benache, Revolucin
Proletaria (Havana), Year 2, No. 1, 1 May 1945, p. 3. (SWP(US).) (Back to text)
17. Letter from Juan to the Caribbean Bureau of the Comintern, op cit, p. 2. (Back to
text)
18. Manuscript of the interview given by Luis Miyares to Rafael Soler Martnez, op
cit, pp. 1-2; and Rojas, U, op cit, p. 191; and CC of the SGECC, El Sindicato
General de Empleados del Comercio de Cuba Frente al IV Congreso Obrero
Nacional, op cit, pp. 6-8. (Back to text)
19. Manuscript of the interview given by Luis Miyares to Rafael Soler Martnez, op
cit, p. 4. (Back to text)
20. Untitled document, nd. (From internal evidence, September 1933.) (AHPSC:
Fondo Gobierno Provincial, Ao 1933, Legajo 3, No. 5.) (Back to text)
21. Ala Izquierda Estudiantil de Cuba, Comit Distrital de Santiago de Cuba, Acta de
la Asamblea de Constitucin, nd. (AHPSC: Fondo Gobierno Provincial, Ao
1933, Legajo 3, No. 5.) (Back to text)
22. ["ganando diariamente terreno"](My translation, GT.) Letter from Juan to the
Caribbean Bureau of the Comintern, op cit, p. 7. (Back to text)
23. Emiliano (PCC), Informe sobre la Situacin del Movimiento Revolucionario en las
Provincias de Oriente, y Camagey, op cit, p. 1. (Back to text)
24. Ibid, p. 1. (Back to text)
25. Informe del Comit Seccional de Guantnamo al CC del PCC, op cit. (Back to text)
26. Ibid; and CC of the SGECC, El Sindicato General de Empleados del Comercio de
Cuba Frente al IV Congreso Obrero Nacional, op cit, p. 8. (Back to text)
27. Informe del Comit Seccional de Guantnamo al CC del PCC, op cit. (Back to text)
28. Ibid. (Back to text)
29. Unsigned, The Cuban Bolshevik-Leninists, The Militant (New York), Vol. 7,
No. 10 (Whole No. 214), 10 March 1934, p. 2. (BLNL: M.misc.36.) (Back to text)
30. Ibid. (Back to text)
31. Letter from A Gonzlez to Octavio Fernndez, New York, 3 June 1934. (HHL:
The satellite collection of Octavio Fernndez (Uncatalogued). Temporarily stored
at MS STOR121 *74M-89.) (Back to text)
32. See Appendix E for a graph depicting this rapid and decline in the PBLs
membership during the Revolution of the 1930s. (Back to text)
33. Unsigned, Arrest Leaders of the Cuban Labor Movement, The Militant (New
York), Vol. 7, No. 14 (Whole No. 218), 7 April 1934, p. 1. (BLNL: M.misc.36.)
(Back to text)
178

34. Gmez Villar, A, Importante, Untitled PBL internal document, April 1934, p.
7. (RSM.) (Back to text)
35. Ibid; and Unsigned, Cuban Arrests, The Militant (New York), Vol. 7, No. 15
(Whole No. 219), 14 April 1934, p. 1. (BLNL: M.misc.36.) (Back to text)
36. Gmez Villar, A, La Reaparicin de RAYO, Untitled PBL internal document,
April 1934, p. 12. (RSM.) (Back to text)
37. Ibid, p. 12; and Central Committee of the PBL, Programa del Partido
Bolchevique Leninista, Havana, 1934, p. 3. (HI: Library, Call No.
HX159/Z7P23A1.) (Back to text)
38. Frente (Santiago de Cuba), Year 1, No. 2, May 1934. (Organ of the Ala Izquierda
Estudiantil) (RSM.) (Back to text)
39. Letter from the PBL to the International Secretariat of the ICL, 20 March 1935, op
cit, p. 10. (Back to text)
40. Ibid, p. 10. (Back to text)
41. ["esteril el esfuerzo de los bolcheviques leninistas para abrir nuevas vias a la
revolucin proletaria. Estos camaradas creen, que la muerte de la Internacional
Comunista es un hecho cierto, pero que nuestras fuerzas no son capaces de crear
una nueva Internacional."](My translation, GT.) Gmez Villar, A, A Propsito del
Primer Congreso del Partido, op cit, p. 1. (Back to text)
42. Ibid, pp. 1-2. (Back to text)
43. Ibid, p. 2. (Back to text)
44. Gmez Villar, A, Los Camaradas de Oriente y el Caso de Guantnamo, op cit, p.
6. (Back to text)
45. ["Se perdi la oportunidad mas brillante para consolidar nuestra influencia en las
zonas azucareras de Oriente por una negligencia intolerable."](My translation, GT.)
Ibid, p. 6. (Back to text)
46. Minutes of the Meeting of the PCCs Guantnamo Sectional Committee, 8
November 1933. (IHC(a): Fondo Primer Partido Marxista Leninista, Sig.
1/2:1/275/1-2.); and Informe del Comit Seccional de Guantnamo al CC del PCC,
op cit. (Back to text)
47. Emiliano (PCC), Informe sobre la Situacin del Movimiento Revolucionario en las
Provincias de Oriente, y Camagey, op cit, p. 1. (Back to text)
48. Manuscript of the interview given by Luis Miyares to Rafael Soler Martnez, op
cit, p. 3; and Informe sobre la Situacin del Movimiento Revolucionario en las
Provincias de Oriente, y Camagey, op cit, p. 1. (Back to text)
49. Gmez Villar, A, Los Camaradas de Oriente y el Caso de Guantnamo, op cit,
pp. 6-7. (Back to text)
50. Manuscript of the interview given by Luis Miyares to Rafael Soler Martnez, op
cit, p. 3. This drift of members in Guantnamo included Mujal whose Trotskyism,
as much as official communism, had been a passing phase in his journey to the
Autnticos and eventual self-serving servility to imperialist interests in the 1950s.
(Back to text)
51. Gmez Villar, A, Los Camaradas de Oriente y el Caso de Guantnamo, op cit, p.
7. (Back to text)
52. Gmez Villar, A Propsito del Primer Congreso del Partido, op cit, p. 1. (Back to
text)
53. Ibid, p. 1. (Back to text)
54. Ibid, p. 2. (Back to text)
179

55. Letter from the PBL to the International Secretariat of the ICL, 20 March 1935, op
cit, p. 2. The 20 March 1935 letter from the PBL to the International Secretariat of
the ICL is ambiguous over the actual identity of these two members. It states that
Garca Villareal and *Maurin were the two remaining members in July 1934 (Ibid,
p. 2.), although goes on to explain that *Maurin requested a leave of absence prior
to the Emergency National Conference (Ibid, p. 3.) and that *R. Gomez only
withdrew in October 1934 (Ibid, p. 4.). Unfortunately, the real names of the
individuals identified here by their pseudonyms are at this moment lost to history.
(Back to text)
56. These two members, the letter stated, retired to private life". Ibid, p. 3. (Back to
text)
57. Ibid, pp. 3-4. (Back to text)
58. Ibid, p. 2; and Letter from Carlos M. Padrn Ferrer to Rafael Soler Martnez, op
cit. See Tabares del Real, JA, Guiteras, Havana, Editorial de Ciencias Sociales,
1973, pp. 437-438 for an account of Juncos supposed attempt to take-over the
leadership of the Comisin Obrera Nacional in 1934 which raises more questions
than it answers. In the 1940s, when the Cuban Trotskyists had an interest in
disassociating themselves politically from Junco, they claimed that he had in fact
never joined the PBL at its founding in September 1933. See Unsigned, En Torno
a los Trotskistas en el P.R.C., Cuba Obrera (Havana), Year 1, No. 4, December
1941, pp. 1-8. (SWP(US).); and Unsigned, Lazaro Pea-Junco, Blas Roca-Mujal,
Hermanos Gemelos Bajo una Misma Bandera Conciliacin de Clases!, Cuba
Obrera (Havana), Year 2, No. 6, August 1941, p. 6. (SWP(US).) (Back to text)
59. This assessment is shared by Simen who has argued that Junco was essentially a
social democrat, not in the strict European mould, but one who had nevertheless
adapted the essence of Menshevism to Cuban circumstances. Manuscript of the
interview given by Charles Simen to R.J. Alexander, op cit, p. 1. (Back to text)
60. Letter from the PBL to the International Secretariat of the ICL, 20 March 1935, op
cit, pp. 4-5. (Back to text)
61. The PBL member Bimbal, later spelt Brimbal, was one of the leaders of the
Sindicato General de Empleados del Comercio de Cuba. Ibid, p. 5. (Back to text)
62. Ibid, p. 5. (Back to text)
63. Ibid, p. 5. (Back to text)
64. Ibid, p. 6. (Back to text)
65. Ibid, p. 6. (Back to text)
66. Ibid, pp. 16-17; and Muerte Sentida, Boletn de Informacin, October 1938, op
cit, p. 13. (Back to text)
67. Letter from the PBL to the International Secretariat of the ICL, 20 March 1935, op
cit, p. 10. (Back to text)
68. Ibid, p. 11. (Back to text)
69. There is no evidence to indicate, as Soler suggests (Soler Martnez, R, (1996-97),
op cit, p. 84.), that the entry of the PBL into the ranks of Joven Cuba constituted
the application of the so-called French Turn tactic in Cuba. The French turn, or
entry of Trotskyist parties into mass social democratic parties, was intended to
increase Trotskyist influence among rank and file workers who were moving to the
Left in the light of the catastrophic events in Germany in 1933. While the Cuban
Trotskyists initiated their turn at the time when Trotskyist groups in advanced
capitalist countries were implementing the new tactic, in Latin America the entry
into petty bourgeois nationalist parties and movements was carried out on the basis
180

of rejecting the notion that the proletariat was the historical protagonist in the
revolution and involved the dissolution of the class-based Fourth International.
(Back to text)
70. Central Committee of the PBL, A Todos los Obreros y Campesinos. Al Pueblo
de Cuba, 25 September 1933. (ANC: Fondo Especial, Caja 1, No. 136.) All
subsequent references to this manifesto in my thesis are to The Militants English
language version. To the Cuban Workers and Peasants: Manifesto of the
Bolshevik-Leninist Party of Cuba, The Militant, 18 November 1933, op cit. (Back
to text)
71. CC of the PBL, Programa del Partido Bolchevique Leninista, op cit, p. 3. (Back to
text)
72. See, for example, Trotsky, LD, The Transitional Program for Socialist
Revolution, New York, Pathfinder Press, 1977, p. 134. (Back to text)
73. To the Cuban Workers and Peasants: Manifesto of the Bolshevik-Leninist Party of
Cuba, The Militant, 18 November 1933, op cit, p. 3. (Back to text)
74. Ibid, p. 3. (Back to text)
75. Ibid, p. 3. (Back to text)
76. Ibid, p. 3. (Back to text)
77. Ibid, p. 3. (Back to text)
78. Ibid, pp. 3-4. (Back to text)
79. Ibid, p. 3. (Back to text)
80. A more recent example of this theory is set out in Duarte Hurtado, M, La
Estrategia Unitaria de la Revolucin Cubana, Havana, Editora Historia, 1997,
pp. 11-14. (Back to text)
81. ["independencia nacional y la liquidacin de las trabas feudales"](My translation,
GT.) CC of the PBL, Programa del Partido Bolchevique Leninista, op cit, p. 24.
(Back to text)
82. ["fu incapaz de plasmar su exclusiva dominacin de clase [....] y tuvo que
limitarse a servir fundamentalmente los intereses imperialistas."](My translation,
GT.) Ibid, p. 27. (Back to text)
83. Ibid, p. 24. (Back to text)
84. [[d]e esta alianza, depende el xito de la revolucin"](My translation, GT.) Ibid, p.
29. (Back to text)
85. Ibid, pp. 33-34. (Back to text)
86. ["groseras caricaturas del frente nico revolucionario"](My translation, GT.) Ibid,
p. 46. (Back to text)
87. Ibid, p. 57. (Back to text)
88. ["retener por encima de todo, su poltica inflexible de clase"](My translation, GT.)
Ibid, p. 57. (Back to text)
89. ["nacionalismo enrag"](My translation, GT.) Text of a letter from an unnamed
Cuban PBL member, La Lucha Revolucionaria en Cuba, Comunismo (Madrid),
No. 35, May-June 1934, p. 236. (IISG: ZO 27016.) (Back to text)
90. Ibid; and Unsigned, The Cuban Situation after Grau, The Militant (New York),
Vol. 7, No. 15 (Whole No. 219), 14 April 1934, p. 3. (BLNL: M.misc.36.) This
latter article is a translation of one which appeared in the first issue of the PBLs
organ Rayo in February 1934. The original Spanish version was reproduced in Los
Acontecimientos de Cuba, Claridad Proletaria (New York), No. 7, April 1934,
pp. 13-15. (SWP(US).) (Back to text)
181

91. La Lucha Revolucionaria en Cuba, Comunismo, May-June 1934, op cit, p. 236.


(Back to text)
92. Garca Villareal, M, Desarrollo y Luchas en la Revolucin Cubana, Comunismo
(Madrid), No. 36, July 1934, p. 282. (IISG: ZO 27016.) (Back to text)
93. The Cuban Situation after Grau, The Militant, 14 April 1934, op cit; and La
Lucha Revolucionaria en Cuba, Comunismo, May-June 1934, op cit, p. 236.
(Back to text)
94. The Cuban Situation after Grau, The Militant, 14 April 1934, op cit. (Back to
text)
95. ["[f]rente al peligro de intervencin imperialista yanki, la FEDERATIN OBRERA
DE LA HABANA, INVITA A TODOS LOS TRABAJADORES, A DIRIGIR LA
INDUSTRIA POR ELLOS MISMOS. La fbrica administrada por la clase obrera,
a travs de sus Comits de Control, evitar que la reaccin y contrarevolucin
intervencionista nos lanzen a la mayor hambre y miseria. LA PALABRA DE
ORDEN EN TALES CIRCUNSTANCIAS, NO PUEDE SER OTRA COSA QUE
LA DE CONTROL OBRERO DE LA INDUSTRIA."](My translation, GT.) Mesa
Ejecutiva de la Federacin Obrera de La Habana, A Todos los Obreros de la
Provincia, Havana, 18 September 1933. (ANC: Fondo Especial, Caja 8,
Expediente 167.) (Back to text)
96. See, for example, Oriente District Committee of the Partido Bolchevique Leninista,
Manifesto del Partido Bolchevique-Leninista, Santiago de Cuba, December
1933. (AHPSC: Fondo Audencia de Oriente. Tribunal de Defensa Nacional, 6
January 1934 to 9 April 1934, Legajo 1, Expediente 1, Folio 9.) (Back to text)
97. Mesa Ejecutiva de la Federacin Obrera de La Habana, A Todas las
Organizaciones Federadas y Afines, Havana, 18 November 1933. (AHPSC:
Fondo Audencia de Oriente, Tribunal de Defensa Nacional, 6 January 1934 to 9
April 1934, Legajo 1, Expediente 1, Folios 24-25.); and Junco, S, Abajo la
Demagogia!, El Obrero Panadero (Havana), Year 2, No. 21, December 1933, p.
8. (Official organ of the Sindicato de Obreros Panaderos de La Habana) (IHC(b).)
(Back to text)
98. Mesa Ejecutiva de la Federacin Obrera de La Habana, Untitled Printed
Manifesto Calling a Demonstration against the 50% and Nationalisation of
Work Laws, 1933. (ANC: Fondo Especial, Caja 7, No. 11.) (Back to text)
99. Partido Bolchevique Leninista, A los Militantes, Clulas, Secciones, Organismos
Locales del Partido Comunista de Cuba, nd. (AHPSC: Fondo Audencia de
Oriente. Tribunal de Defensa Nacional, 6 January 1934 to 9 April 1934, Legajo 1,
Expediente 1, Folios 26-28.) (Back to text)
100. Oriente District Committee of the PBL, Manifesto del Partido Bolchevique-
Leninista, op cit. (Back to text)
101. Gmez Villar, A, Los Camaradas de Oriente y el Caso de Guantnamo, op cit,
pp. 6-7. (Back to text)
102. The Cuban Situation after Grau, The Militant, 14 April 1934, op cit. (Back to
text)
103. See, for example, ibid; and Unsigned, Editorial: Del Momento, Cultura
Proletaria (Havana), Year 2, No. 11, January 1934, p. 1. (Monthly magazine of the
Sindicato General de Empleados del Comercio de Cuba) (IHC(b).) (Back to text)
104. The Cuban Situation after Grau, The Militant, 14 April 1934, op cit. (Back to
text)
105. Ibid. (Back to text)
182

106. La Lucha Revolucionaria en Cuba, Comunismo, May-June 1934, op cit, p. 235.


(Back to text)
107. Ibid. (Back to text)
108. The Cuban Situation after Grau, The Militant, 14 April 1934, op cit. Throughout
1934 the Cuban Trotskyists remained resolutely opposed to the continuing
implementation of the chauvinistic labour laws. See, for example, Federacin
Obrera de La Habana, Cual Es La Salida?, Havana, 2 July 1934, p. 13. (PB.)
(Back to text)
109. Editorial: Del Momento, Cultura Proletaria, January 1934, op cit. (Back to text)
110. Garca Villareal, M, Stalinism Kneels to American Imperialism, The Militant
(New York), Vol. 7, No. 17 (Whole No. 221), 28 April 1934, p. 3. (BLNL:
M.misc.36.) (Back to text)
111. Editorial: Del Momento, Cultura Proletaria, January 1934, op cit; and Garca
Villareal, M, Stalinism Kneels to American Imperialism, The Militant, 28 April
1934, op cit. (Back to text)
112. ["[l]a unidad de las filas, la creacin del Frente Unico defensivo del proletariado de
Cuba, ser la muralla inexpugnable de nuestra clase."](My translation, GT.) Central
Committee of the Sindicato General de Empleados del Comercio, A Todos los
Empleados del Comercio, Organizados y no Organizados. A los Empleados
Ocupados y Desocupados. A Todos los Trabajadores en General, Havana, 1
April 1934. (RSM.) (Back to text)
113. See Solano, W, Vidas Paralelas: Andreu Nin y Joaqun Maurn, In: Alba, V (et
al.), Andreu Nin i el Socialisme, Barcelona, Universitat de Barcelona, 1998, pp.
102-103. While the North American Trotskyists argued that the Workers
Alliance slogan was abused by Maurn in Spain on the grounds that he used it to
create a two class party, a workers and peasants bloc, in opposition to the Marxist
principle of proletarian hegemony in the revolution (See, for example, Letter from
Jos Lpez to the Political Bureau of the Bolshevik-Leninists of Cuba, 21
October 1938, p. 1. (HHL: Trotsky Archive, Jose Lopez, 14973.)), Wilebaldo
Solano has argued that it was the experience of Nin and Maurn as leaders of the
Alianza Obrera in Catalonia which led them to reflect on the United Front and the
necessity of uniting Marxist revolutionaries in a single political party. Solano, W,
op cit, p. 104. (Back to text)
114. Gmez Villar, A, Las Luchas en los Sindicatos y el Porque de la Alianza Obrera,
Untitled PBL internal document, April 1934, pp. 3-4. (RSM.) (Back to text)
115. Ibid, p. 3. (Back to text)
116. CC of the SGECC, A Todos los Empleados del Comercio, Organizados y no
Organizados. A los Empleados Ocupados y Desocupados. A Todos los
Trabajadores en General, op cit. (Back to text)
117. Gmez Villar, A, La Conferencia Nacional de los Empleados del Comercio,
Untitled PBL internal document, April 1934, p. 12. (RSM.) (Back to text)
118. Gmez Villar, A, Las Luchas en los Sindicatos y el Porque de la Alianza Obrera,
op cit, p. 5. (Back to text)
119. Ibid, p. 5. (Back to text)
120. Gmez Villar, A, El Frente nico de los Stalinistas y de los Bolcheviques en
Victoria de las Tunas, Untitled PBL internal document, April 1934, p. 10.
(RSM.) (Back to text)
121. Ibid, p. 10. This position in many respects paralleled that of the Brandlerites within
183

the Comintern. During the Third Period they maintained a position of neutrality
on Russian questions while continuing to hold a general attitude of opposition in
the Comintern. Their refusal to criticise the Russian party was based on the hope
that Stalin would remove the ultra-leftist leadership of the Comintern and install the
Rightists at the head of the communist parties. (Back to text)
122. ["[e]stimamos que nuestros camaradas bolcheviques cometen un error al dejar en
suspenso toda discusin terica hasta el prximo Congreso mundial al la
Internacional Comunista. Las cuestiones de principio, de estrategia y de tctica, no
pueden silenciarse, porque es negar precisamente el porque de nuestra existencia
[....] Nuestro deber e[s] mantener siempre, com implacable tenacidad, la teoria y la
prctica de la revolucin, aclarando, sistematizando, exponiendo el porque de las
cosas. Ustedes al concertar el Frente Unico deben de comprometerse a que toda
discusin o disparidad de criterios sea resuelta por ambas organizaciones, sin
insultos ni violencia, sino por el co[n]trario en una discusin cordial y abierta. Pero
renunciar por adelantado, a toda discusin teorica, es renunciar a nuestra palabra
e[n] beneficio del stalinismo."](My translation, GT.) Ibid, p. 11. (Back to text)
123. Ibid, p. 11. (Back to text)
124. ["[l]as tareas centrales de la clase obrera en Cuba, es conducir el movimiento de
emancipacin nacional bajo su tutela. Demonstrar en la experiencia, que
nicamente el proletariado, con su poltica progresiva, puede liberar a las masas
laboriosas del yugo del imperialismo yanki. La pequea burguesa urbanallegada
al poder en los das del Gobierno de San Martnmostr todas sus vacilaciones y
timideces, su capitulacin final ante los adversarios de la Revolucin."](My
translation, GT.) FOH, Cual Es La Salida?, op cit, p. 17. (Back to text)
125. A. Gmez Villar for the Central Committee of the PBL, Resolution on the Present
Political Situation and Our Tasks, Havana, 16 October 1934, p. 1. (PRL; and HI:
SWP Collection, Box No. 30, Folder 26.) (Back to text)
126. Ibid, pp. 3-4. (Back to text)
127. Ibid, p. 5. (Back to text)
128. Ibid, p. 3. (Back to text)
129. Ibid, p. 3. (Back to text)
130. Ibid, p. 5. (Back to text)
131. Ibid, p. 4. (Back to text)
132. Ibid, p. 5. (Back to text)
133. Ibid, p. 6. (Back to text)
134. Ibid, p. 6. According to the PBL, this programme was characteristic of the petty
bourgeoisie; freedom of proletarian expression; distribution of land; cancellation of
monopolies; struggle against imperialism. Ibid, p. 6. (Back to text)
135. Ibid, p. 5. (Back to text)
136. Trotsky, LD, The Slogan of a National Assembly in China, In: Breitman, G, and
Lovell, S (eds), Writings of Leon Trotsky (1930), op cit, pp. 164-167. (Back to
text)
137. A. Gmez Villar for the CC of the PBL, Resolution on the Present Political
Situation and Our Tasks, op cit, p. 5. (Back to text)
138. Ibid, p. 5. In a separate programme of action dated 16 November 1934, the PBL
outlined the proposed structure of the Revolutionary Juntas. The various local
Juntas were to be under the control of the central leadership in Havana although a
General Staff was to direct the insurrection. It was envisaged that the Juntas would
184

assume state power in every town and province after a successful insurrection and a
National Congress of the Juntas would decide on the appointment of a central
government. See the translated version of Programme of Action appended to the
document Resolution on the Present Situation and Our Tasks, op cit, p. 9. (Back
to text)
139. Ibid, p. 5. (Back to text)
140. Ibid, p. 6. (Back to text)
141. De la Torre, RS, The Situation in Cuba, The New International (New York),
October 1935, p. 204. (BJL; and SWP(US).) (Back to text)
142. Ibid, p. 205. (Back to text)
143. Ibid, p. 205. (Back to text)
144. Ibid, p. 205. (Back to text)
145. Mesa Ejecutiva Confederal de la CNOC, Trabajadores: En Pie de Combate por
el IV Congreso Nacional Obrero de Unidad Sindical Convocado por la
Confederacin Nacional Obrero de Cuba!, nd, p. 4. (From internal evidence,
dated during the government of Grau San Martn.) (ANC: Fondo Especial, Legajo
8, Expediente 10.) See also Unsigned, Cuidado con el Grupo Villareal, Busquet y
Compars, Lnea (Havana), Year 3, No. 2, 24 October 1933, p. 2. (ANC: Caja 39,
No. 2.) for an example of the hostile language which characterised the official
communists attitude towards the renegade and treacherous PBL. (Back to text)
146. Unsigned, La Federacin Obrera y los Nuevos Arevalos, Lnea (Havana), Year 3,
No. 2, 24 October 1933, p. 7. (ANC: Caja 39, No. 2.) (Back to text)
147. Unsigned, El Partido Bolchevique-Leninista Nueva Nombre de un Mismo
Grupo de Traidores: Junco y Compaia Sabotean las Huelgas y Defienden al
Gobierno de la Autntica Revolucin", Bandera Roja (Havana), No. 2, 20
October 1933, p. 2. (IHC(b).) (Back to text)
148. Comit Ejecutivo Nacional de la DOI, Manifesto de la Defensa Obrera
Internacional (Seccin Cubana del S.R.I.), nd. (AHPSC: Fondo Audencia de
Oriente. Tribunal de Defensa Nacional, 9 March 1923 to April 1934, Legajo 3,
Expediente 30.) (Back to text)
149. ["lucha contra la oposicin es mala, se limita a los mtodos bien conocidos de
operacin con adjectivos traidores, ladrones, miserables, etc."](My translation,
GT.) Letter from Juan to the Caribbean Bureau of the Comintern, op cit, p. 7.
(Back to text)
150. ["completamente desarmados"](My translation, GT.) Ibid, p. 8. (Back to text)
151. ["el absoluto abandono de lucha ideolgica contra la oposicin."](My translation,
GT.) Ibid, p. 8. (Back to text)
152. Ibid, p. 8. This criticism, of course, ignored the single article which had appeared
in the 20 October 1933 edition of the PCCs newspaper Bandera Roja. (Back to
text)
153. Stalinism Kneels to American Imperialism, The Militant, 28 April 1934, op cit.
(Back to text)
154. Ibid. (Back to text)
155. Desarrollo y Luchas en la Revolucin Cubana, Comunismo, op cit, July 1934, p.
283. (Back to text)
156. Stalinism Kneels to American Imperialism, The Militant, 28 April 1934, op cit.
(Back to text)
157. Desarrollo y Luchas en la Revolucin Cubana, Comunismo, July 1934, op cit, p.
185

287. (Back to text)


158. CC of the PBL, Programa del Partido Bolchevique Leninista, op cit, p. 45. (Back to
text)
159. PBL literature made reference after reference to the PCCs so-called error of
August for propaganda purposes long after the event. See, for example, Unsigned,
Lo Que el Trabajador Debe Conocer, El Obrero Panadero (Havana), Year 2,
No. 21, December 1933, p. 23. (Organ of the Sindicato de Obreros Panaderos de
La Habana) (IHC(b).); and CC of the SGECC, El Sindicato General de Empleados
del Comercio de Cuba Frente al IV Congreso Obrero Nacional, op cit, p. 12. (Back
to text)
160. Trotsky set out this understanding of the purpose of the working class United Front
in Trotsky, LD, The United Front for Defense: A Letter to a Social Democratic
Worker, In: Breitman, G, and Maisel, M (eds), op cit, pp. 349-369. (Back to text)
161. CC of the SGECC, El Sindicato General de Empleados del Comercio de Cuba
Frente al IV Congreso Obrero Nacional, op cit, pp. 9-10. (Back to text)
162. Ibid, pp. 3-4. (Back to text)
163. ["[e]ra de esperarse, que el Cuarto Congreso Nacional Obrero, fuera precidido de
una serie de acciones tendientes [sic] a consolidar en el seno de las masas, la
orientacin hacia l, como via de desague de todas sus antiguas tacticas y errores.
Para ello era preciso que se discutiese la cuestin del Congreso, y que concurriesen
a l, la gran mayora de la clase obrera. Lejos de todo esto, el Congreso vela con
antelacin toda posible discusin de las estrategias y tcticas a seguir, y no permite
la entrada en l, a nucleos fundamentales del proletariado."](My translation, GT.)
Ibid, p. 4. (Back to text)
164. ["liquidndolo sobre la base de la lucha de clases."](My translation, GT.) CC of the
PBL, Programa del Partido Bolchevique Leninista, op cit, p. 39. (Back to text)
165. Ibid, p. 40. (Back to text)
166. ["[n]o es cierto que la autodeterminacin de los negros, sea la solucin al problema
de las razas. [....] En las regiones de Cuba, donde la poblacin negra es mayoritaria,
esta se exresar revolucionariamente, a travs del poder de los Soviets, siempre
como proletariado, y nunca a ttulo de negro o blanco."](My translation, GT.) Ibid,
p. 40. (Back to text)
167. Stalinism Kneels to American Imperialism, The Militant, 28 April 1934, op cit.
(Back to text)
168. Ibid; and Garca Villareal, M, Cuba, Punto Explosivo en Amrica, Comunismo
(Madrid), No. 38, September 1934, p. 78. (IISG: ZO 27016.) (Back to text)
169. ["aventura criminal"](My translation, GT.) Desarrollo y Luchas en la Revolucin
Cubana, Comunismo, July 1934, op cit, p. 283; and CC of the SGECC, El
Sindicato General de Empleados del Comercio de Cuba Frente al IV Congreso
Obrero Nacional, op cit, p. 12. (Back to text)
170. This was the view expressed more recently by the PBL leader Carlos Padrn. Letter
from Carlos M. Padrn Ferrer to Rafael Soler Martnez, op cit. (Back to text)
171. Stalinism Kneels to American Imperialism, The Militant, 28 April 1934, op cit;
and Mesa Ejecutiva de la Federacin Obrera de La Habana, A Todos los Obreros
de la Provincia. Al Pueblo de Cuba, Havana, 30 September 1933. (ANC: Fondo
Especial, Caja 7, No. 12.) (Back to text)
172. Letter from Carlos M. Padrn Ferrer to Rafael Soler Martnez, op cit. (Back to text)
173. Stalinism Kneels to American Imperialism, The Militant, 28 April 1934, op cit.
186

(Back to text)
174. See, for example, Letter signed by the Bur Nacional del SNOIA, 8 September
1933. (IHC(a): Fondo Primer Partido Marxista Leninista, Sig. 1/8:87/6.1/1-2.)
(Back to text)
175. Garca Montes, J, and Alonso vila, A, op cit, pp. 164-165. This specific case was
also described by the PBL. See Puerto Padre Sectional Committee of the Partido
Bolchevique Leninista, Al Pueblo de Cuba en General y a los Trabajadores en
Particular, nd. (IHC(a): Fondo Primer Partido Marxista Leninista, Sig.
1/12:81/1.1/16.) (Back to text)
176. Stalinism Kneels to American Imperialism, The Militant, 28 April 1934, op cit.
(Back to text)
177. Ibid. (Back to text)
178. Mesa Ejecutiva de la FOH, A Todos los Obreros de la Provincia. Al Pueblo de
Cuba, op cit. (Back to text)
179. It appears that the news the Chilean Trotskyist group had of its Cuban counterpart
was via the U.S. Trotskyist press. While the Chileans published what purported to
be the PBLs founding programmatic statement in their journal (Comit Central del
Partido Bolchevique Leninista, Declaracin del Partido Bolchevique-Leninista de
Cuba Boletn Poltico de la Izquierda Comunista (Santiago de Chile), Year 1,
Nos 8-9, October-November 1933, pp. 11-14. (Archivo Histrico Nacional,
Salamanca, Spain.)), from a comparison of the texts, the Chilean version of this
manifesto is evidently a translation back to Spanish from the English language
translation which appeared in the U.S. in the form: To The Cuban Workers and
Peasants: Manifesto of the Bolshevik-Leninist Party of Cuba, The Militant, 18
November 1933, op cit. (Back to text)
180. Cannon, JP, Writings and Speeches, 1932-34: The Communist League of
America 1932-34, New York, Monad Press, 1985, p. 270. (Back to text)
181. Manuscript of the interview given by Luis Miyares to Rafael Soler Martnez, op
cit; and Unsigned, Revistas y Folletos, Frente (Santiago de Cuba), Year 1, No. 2,
May 1934, p. 18. (Magazine of the Estudiantil Anti-Imperialista) (RSM.) See also
the CC of the PBL, Programa del Partido Bolchevique Leninista, op cit, pp. 60-62
where the PBL reprinted the 1933 Block of Four statement which it had evidently
received. (Back to text)
182. See, for example, Unsigned, Cuban Arrests, The Militant, 14 April 1934, op cit;
and Unsigned, Help Cuban Comrades, The Militant (New York), Vol. 7, No. 26
(Whole No. 230), 23 [sic. Should read 30] June 1934, p. 4. (BLNL: M.misc.36.);
and Latin American Department of the National Committee, An Appeal for Our
Cuban Comrades, The Militant (New York), Vol. 7, No. 29, 21 July 1934, p. 3.
(BLNL: M.misc.36.); and Latin American Department of the Communist League of
America, Once Again on Cuba, The Militant (New York), 11 August 1934, p. 2.
(BLNL: M.misc.36.); and Unsigned, New Strike Wave Rising in Cuba, The
Militant (New York), Vol. 7, No. 34, 25 August 1934, p. 3. (BLNL: M.misc.36.);
and Swabeck, A, Cuban Comrades Need Support, The Militant (New York),
Vol. 7, No. 35, 1 September 1934, p. 1. (BLNL: M.misc.36.) (Back to text)
183. In March 1935, the then General Secretary of the PBL stated that there had been a
long interruption in communications between the International Secretariat and the
Cuban section of the international Trotskyist movement. Letter from the PBL to the
International Secretariat of the ICL, 20 March 1935, op cit, p. 1. (Back to text)
184. See Wright, JG, Problems Of The Cuban Revolution, The Militant (New York),
187

Vol. 6, No. 49 (Whole No. 196), 28 October 1933, p. 3. (BLNL: M.misc.35.) (Back
to text)
185. Ibid. (Back to text)
186. Unsigned, Program and Perspectives for the Cuban Proletariat, The Militant
(New York), Vol. 6, No. 43 (Whole No. 190), 16 September 1933, pp. 1, 4.
(BLNL: M.misc.35.) (Back to text)
187. Trotsky, LD, On Calling for Soviets in Cuba, In: Breitman, G (ed.), Writings of
Leon Trotsky: Supplement (1929-33), New York, Pathfinder Press, 1979, p. 333.
(Back to text)
188. Ibid. (Back to text)
189. Letter from A.J. Muste for the National Committee of the Workers Party of
the U.S. to the Central Committee of the Partido Bolchevique Leninista of
Cuba, New York, 8 January 1935. (HHL: The satellite collection of Octavio
Fernndez (Uncatalogued). Temporarily stored at MS STOR121 *74M-89.) (Back
to text)
190. The Workers Party was the name given to the Trotskyist party in the U.S. after the
Communist League of America fused with the American Workers Party led by
A.J. Muste in late 1934. See Alexander, RJ, (1991), op cit, pp. 775-778. (Back to
text)
191. ["tendencia a aceptar, en parte por lo menos, la teoria de la independencia de la
revolucin democrtica antimperialsta de los obreros y campesinos.](My
translation, GT.) Letter from A.J. Muste for the National Committee of the
Workers Party of the U.S. to the CC of the PBL, op cit, p. 1. (Back to text)
192. Ibid, p. 1. (Back to text)
193. ["demasiado enfasis al asunto de los tratados con la Joven Cuba, sobre la
preparacin de una prxima insurreccin pequea burguesia, y, en elaborar
programas para un gobierno de coalicin para despues de la posible insurreccin."]
(My translation, GT.) Ibid, pp. 1-2. (Back to text)
194. Ibid, p. 2. (Back to text)
195. ["el genuino y amplio Frente Unico [....] trearan el aislamiento del partido de las y
no ganaran de las masas para las consignas revolucionarias."](My translation, GT.)
Ibid, p. 2. (Back to text)
196. See the graph in Appendix E for an overview of this rapid turnover of members
during the Revolution of the 1930s. (Back to text)
197. The list of known Trotskyists in Cuba in Appendix F gives a comprehensive picture
of the breadth of the Cuban Trotskyists geographical spread in the 1930s. (Back to
text)
188

Chapter Six
Trotskyism in Cuba between Revolutions: The Partido
Bolchevique Leninista and the Partido Obrero
Revolucionario, 1935-1958
This chapter charts the organisational and theoretical development of the Cuban
Trotskyist movement following the crushing of the March 1935 general strike, through
the war years when the official communists were in a national unity alliance with
Batista, until the end of the insurrection conducted by the Movimiento 26 de Julio
(M26J) in the period 1956-58. I contend that the Cuban Trotskyists organised in the
Partido Bolchevique Leninista (PBL) and then, from 1940, the Partido Obrero
Revolucionario (POR) were characterised by an increasing tendency to make common
cause with petty bourgeois nationalism and emphasise the slogans and struggle for
national liberation. I argue that this one-sided approach to the revolution which failed to
propose a politically independent course for the working class, not only placed the
Cuban Trotskyists firmly in the national liberation camp of Latin American
Trotskyism which started to crystallise in the late 1930s, but largely determined
Trotskyisms eventual organisational dissolution in Cuba. Indeed, in linking the Cuban
Trotskyists ideological evolution to their organisational fortunes, I develop the
argument that the disappearance of the POR as an organised party in the 1950s reflected
not only the weakness of the working class after more than a decade of trade union and
state collaboration, but also the Trotskyists own tendency to accept the notion of the
independence of the democratic anti-imperialist revolution and their failure to
distinguish themselves clearly from various petty bourgeois nationalist groups.

This chapter is divided into four sections. I first trace the Cuban Trotskyists
organisational and theoretical development in the period from 1935 until the 1950s.
This section in linking the PBLs and PORs declining influence in the labour and
movement to their underlying theoretical prescription for revolutionary activity charts
the evolution of Cuban Trotskyism during three distinct periods in which successive
attempts at reorientation were ended by crises in organisation. While this analysis and
discussion primarily focuses on the debate between the democratic versus Permanent
Revolution perspectives for the revolution in Cuba, the three subsequent sections deal
with the Trotskyists positions on other specific issues which conditioned their approach
to the struggle for socialism. This broad scope allows me to trace the Cuban Trotskyists
political trajectory by taking into account all its inter-related peculiarities.

6.1 Trotskyism in Cuba between Revolutions: Organisational


Development and Revolutionary Strategy, 1935-58

6.1.1 The PBL, 1935-39: Regrouping and Revolutionary Strategy

In this section I trace the PBLs organisation, activity and underlying revolutionary
strategy in the period 1935-39. I argue that the Cuban Trotskyists continued to display a
number of features which had characterised the development of their party during the
Revolution of the 1930s. That is, first, they suffered a further round of desertions and
189

dislocation in party organisation after an attempted regrouping. Second, although they


again drew up a political thesis which broadly applied Trotskys theory of Permanent
Revolution to Cuban conditions they did not intervene in the national liberation and
working class movements on the basis of a programme of action which unequivocally
insisted on the necessary proletarian content of the anti-imperialist struggle. Linking
these organisational and ideological characteristics of the PBL, I also contend that
although state repression and the weakness of the working class movement were
important reasons explaining the Trotskyists inability to extend their influence, a
further debilitating factor was their continued failure to distinguish clearly between the
democratic and proletarian anti-imperialist revolutions.

The failure of the March 1935 general strike signalled an unleashing of terror and
repression against the organisations of the radical national liberation and working class
movements. Under such conditions, disorganisation and disarray characterised the PBL
as much as any other organisation. While several leading members of the PBLs largest
Sectional Committee, that in Guantnamo, were arrested in 1935 for their continued
activity,(1) in the post-March 1935 period, the PBLs principal organic roots in the
working class movement through its members in the Labour Federation of Havana
(FOH) were broken. During the short-lived but decisive strike and its aftermath, the
offices of the PBL-controlled FOH were raided, and those present were arrested. At a
meeting of the FOH and Confederacin Nacional Obrera de Cuba (CNOC) leaderships
called to discuss a proposal of joint work, Gastn Medina, the PBLs and FOHs
General Secretary, was arrested along with Csar Vilar, the leader of the CNOC.(2)
Among the dead at other centres was Cresencio Freyre, a PBL member and head of the
Bakery Workers Union.(3) The Emergency Tribunals later sentenced other Trotskyists
to terms of six to ten years imprisonment. By October 1935, the PBLs Havana section
alone had thirty comrades, for the most part eminent political and trade union leaders, in
prison.(4)

However, a crisis in the partys organisation in the months following the March 1935
general strike was as much the result of on-going internal discord as it was of repression
from outside. As numerous documents of the PBL during the period 1935-36 stated, the
party was passing through an exceptional period.(5) While this undoubtedly referred
to the task of regrouping taking place in conditions of illegality, it also alluded to the
continued internal conflict between advocates of building a broad multi-class anti-
imperialist association and those who adhered to the Leninist project of building a
proletarian vanguard party. This internal division was recognised by Gastn Medina, the
General Secretary of the PBL after the defeat of the March 1935 general strike. As a
firm adherent of the immediate defense of the present organization of the Bolshevik
Leninist Party, he warned that the PBL was still faced with a capitulation, albeit more
spontaneous than organised, to the petty bourgeois chieftains,(6) that is, dissolution of
the PBL inside Joven Cuba and the Partido Revolucionario Cubano (Autntico)
(PRC(A)).

The perspective of continuing to participate uncritically within the ranks of Joven Cuba
in an attempt to push the Guiteristas towards revolutionary socialism was expressed by
R.S. de la Torre in the international Trotskyist journal The New International. This
current within Cuban Trotskyism continued to adhere to the so-called external road
perspective which, in focusing on a vague military bloc, did not insist on presenting an
independent working class position in competition with petty bourgeois nationalism in
190

the anti-imperialist struggle. De la Torre was convinced of the potential of loose


participation in Joven Cuba:

penetration into the ranks of Young Cuba [i.e., Joven Cuba], the sympathy that its
members have for our party, open up good perspectives for our organization. The petty-
bourgeoisie does not want to call a halt to its insurrectionary intentions. It is a question
of life of death for it. Here is offered a brilliant opportunity to the proletarian party to
demonstrate its abilities of leadership.(7)

In opposition to the so-called liquidators who supported the concept of a new


centrist organism on the basis of the dissolution of the party,(8) Gastn Medina, the
principal advocate of organisational independence, suggested the creation of a pre-
party (bridge) organization to reinforce the PBLs independent party structure. His
intention was to reverse the trend of PBL members deserting the party for other
organisations by constituting an external organisation through which the PBLs
peripheral contacts could pass on their way to the proletarian vanguard party. As Gastn
Medina argued, this bridge organisation was intended to consolidate the proletarian
rehabilitation of the party on the basis of the existence of the Fourth International.(9)

However, just as in 1934, the internal political conflict was not expressed in the formal
presentation of contending theses which explicitly linked the two distinct organisational
paths with the two very different underlying strategies for revolution. Instead, events
again overtook the conflict as Joven Cuba itself lapsed into a spontaneous process of
disintegration after the assassination of its figure-head, Guiteras, in mid-1935. Paying
testimony to the ultimate futility of the external road perspective, that sector of the
PBL which had thoroughly convinced itself of the viability of tying the destiny of the
working class party to the fate of petty bourgeois nationalism largely joined the
Guiteristas in either abandoning active politics or joining the PRC(A), the increasingly
moderate nationalist-reformist party led by Grau San Martn.

Thereafter, those who insisted on the validity of the project of building an independent
revolutionary Marxist party began the task of reorganising their much reduced forces. In
1936, a small Sectional Committee consisting of nine members was reconstituted in
Victoria de las Tunas.(10) Prez Santiesteban himself, the original General Secretary of
the Las Tunas Trotskyists, remained active in the party in Havana after escaping the
persecution in the Las Tunas municipality.(11) He subsequently became a national
leader of the PBL, and then POR, until the latters ultimate disappearance in the early
1950s. The guantanameo and santiaguero Sectional Committees were similarly re-
structured among those members who had not either drifted into Joven Cuba on an
individual basis or abandoned all revolutionary activity, disillusioned in the face of the
mounting repression and the apparent victory of the Batista regime.(12) In 1936, Luis
Miyares (*Manuel Lpez) was one of the local leaders in Santiago de Cuba with whom
the national leadership of the PBL in Havana maintained contact.(13)

In taking concrete steps towards reconstituting a centralised party leadership at the


national level, the PBL held a National Plenum in February 1936.(14) The Cuban
Trotskyists also addressed the serious problem of the gap which had existed between the
political level of the PBLs leadership and the underlying broad democratic bloc
prejudices of a majority of the partys rank and file membership. The Central
Committee of the PBL couched its discussion of this issue in terms which identified
191

excessive bureaucratic centralisation in the 1933-35 leadership as the principal past


organisational failing. Although the formation of a centralised leadership was a basic
tenet of the PBL as set out in its founding Statutes, the new Central Committee
effectively recognised that the PBLs leading bodies had tended to impose decisions on
a politically ill-prepared membership. Alluding to the lack of a vibrant party life which
stressed the importance of members political education, an internal document of the
PBL noted that the pre-March 1935 leadership had not given sufficient value to the
partys basic unit, the cells. The report perceptively recognised that it had been as a
consequence of this failing that when the initial leadership wasted away it was
accompanied by a total breakdown in party discipline and the near collapse of the PBL
as an organised political party.(15)

In resolving to correct these past organisational deficiencies, the memberships


identification with the party together with homogeneity in the ranks were declared
paramount concerns in confronting the task of building a vanguard which is flexible
yet with a strong backbone.(16) Of primary concern was an insistence that there must
be a strict delimitation in the cells and sections between members and supporters.
Seemingly with the intention of preventing the re-emergence of branches with a loose
mass character as had been built in Guantnamo in 1932-34, the Central Committee of
the PBL gave life to Gastn Medinas idea of creating a pre-party bridge organisation.
The leadership proposed that while members who were active in the internal and public
life of the PBL and who were subject to party discipline would be considered as full
party members, they had to be distinguished from supporters who should be integrated
into the partys Socorro Obrero (Workers Aid) organisation.(17)

Those militants who insisted on the validity of building an independent Trotskyist party
also attempted to re-establish the production of a journal. However, as in the 1933-35
period, these publications seem to have appeared spasmodically. In September 1936 the
efforts to rebuild the organisation led the PBL to resume publication of a short-lived
party organ, a periodical entitled Noticiero Bolchevique.(18) The production of this
journal also seems to have been timed to coincide with preparations for a proposed
Congress of Marxist Unification. This national meeting of PBL members and
supporters was apparently planned for December 1936, though does not appear to have
taken place.(19) In early 1938 the Havana District Committee, again showing signs of
operating independently from the Oriente branches, produced a newspaper called
Divisa Proletaria.(20) In the period 1938-40 various international Trotskyist
publications regularly reported that the Cuban Trotskyists were also publishing in their
own right the organ Rayo y Divisa.(21)

More important for the stabilisation and reorientation of the PBL, though, was the
elaboration and publication for internal circulation of an extensive Political Thesis in
October 1935.(22) This document, breaking from the ambiguous path developed by the
PBL during the revolutionary upheaval of 1934-35, not only displayed a firm grasp of
the social and economic forces at work in Cuba, incorporating the idea that the
governing regime displayed Bonapartist features, a characterisation which Trotsky
himself later applied in general terms to all Latin American regimes,(23) but proposed a
definite plan for revolutionary activity in Cuba which highlighted the need for the
independence of the proletariats programme and organisation. The Trotskyists referred
to the immediate insurrection perspective as an exhausted technique and explicitly
recognised that the central task was to conquer the masses through the development of
192

an action programme which combined a struggle to liquidate the remnants of feudalism


in the countryside (the agrarian revolution) with a struggle to overthrow imperialist
domination (national independence), this under the leadership of the proletariat. This
marked a decided return to the strategic and tactical approach advocated by both
Trotsky and the PBL in its own manifestos and programmes drawn up in September-
October 1933.

In the first place, during the period in which Batista was consolidating his authority
after the defeat of the March 1935 general strike, the PBL drew on the Bonapartist
concept in order to characterise the Batista regime in terms Marx had used to describe
the French bourgeoisies acceptance of Bonaparte in revolutionary France in 1852. That
is, just as Marx considered that the weakened French bourgeoisie through fear of
losing their conquests recognised that they depended on their rival, Bonaparte,(24) so
the Cuban Trotskyists argued that the Batista regime was equally divorced from any of
the local class formations, but was one which the old parties of the oligarchy similarly
approached in order to take up bureaucratic positions with a complete understanding of
their submission.(25)

In addition to introducing the concept of Bonapartism into an analysis of the structurally


weak Cuban political economy, another strength of the PBLs 1935 Political Thesis
was its attempt to address the causes of the defeat of the Revolution of the 1930s and
the Trotskyists own role in events. The PBL advanced a self-critique which made
reference to the ambiguity inherent in its own understanding of the form and content of
the Anti-Imperialist United Front leading up to the March 1935 general strike. Rejecting
its past belief that abstract discussions with the forces of petty bourgeois nationalism
could lead to a fighting United Front, the PBL returned to Trotskys explicit
understanding that the United Front had to be formed on the basis of an immediate
struggle for concrete demands. The Cuban Trotskyists posited that a United Front must
be formed on the basis of a programme of immediate action.(26) Underlining this
understanding of the importance of such well-defined United Front work, they
furthermore criticised the strategy of the Autnticos, Joven Cuba, and the PCC in the
immediate post-March 1935 period, namely, that of a call for insurrection to install a so-
called revolutionary popular government. For the PBL, this was an elitist strategy
based on an exhausted technique,(27) in the sense that it approached the problem of the
seizure of power independently of the democratic participation of the masses.
Significantly, though, the PBL did not explicitly address the inherent ambiguities in the
actual slogan of a revolutionary popular government in terms of the petty bourgeois
nature of the proposed regime.

The PBLs Trotskyist credentials, however, were also evident in their analysis of the
world-wide revolutionary process. Starting from an understanding that every nations
economic life and development was dependent on the world market and that it was
utopian to believe in the possibility of destroying the features of the world market for
the sake of an independent bourgeois national economy, the PBL posited that the only
way forward was the world-wide proletarian revolution and socialism.(28) The
Trotskyists also insisted that the petty bourgeoisie was incapable of leading a successful
anti-imperialist revolution, and that the democratic anti-imperialist revolution was not a
distinct stage in the revolutionary process, but was rather a temporary phase in the
deeper proletarian revolution leading to the unequivocal installation of a necessarily
193

proletarian revolutionary state. Adhering to a permanentist outlook the PBL in its


Political Thesis declared that:

1. The arrival of imperialismthe last stage of capitalismhas opened the epoch of


the World-wide Proletarian Revolution and Socialism as the only progressive way
forward.
[....]
3. The democratic and anti-imperialist agrarian struggles cannot have an independent or
permanent character. The so-called anti-imperialist, agrarian democratic revolution is
nothing other than the first phase of one single revolution: The Proletarian Revolution.
[....]
6. The petty bourgeoisie (including the peasants) does not possess its own economy.
Despite its revolutionary role in the face of the oppressive bourgeoisie, imperialism and
the landlords, because of its multiple contradictions and lack of homogeneity, it is
incapable of leading the revolution. The petty bourgeoisie is destined to orientate itself
towards capitalism or to be dragged along by the proletariat. No half-way solution is
possible.
7. Only the proletariat, as a progressive class, is capable of exercising revolutionary
hegemony, even from the initial anti-imperialist agrarian democratic phase.
[....]
12. The slogan of a Democratic Dictatorship of the Workers and Peasants advanced by
the Comintern is a slogan without any meaning which can only sow confusion. This
slogan carries with it the idea of the development of an independent economy in the
country based in the community of interests of the workers and peasants. [....]
13. The Bolshevik Leninist Party declares: only the dictatorship of the proletariat is
capable of guaranteeing the success of the permanent development of the Revolution.
Only a state based on the Soviets of Workers, Peasants and Soldiers represents the
guarantee of the dictatorship of the proletariat and of the Revolution. Only the
independent action of the proletariat in the struggle to install its dictatorship will make
possible the revolutionary enrolment of the great masses of the peasantry and the petty
bourgeoisie.(29)

On the basis of this theoretical analysis, and returning to clarify the issue of the
character of any United Front work, the PBL advanced a forty-five point Programme of
Democratic Demands as well as a fourteen point Programme of Action. The series of
democratic demands included a rejection of the electoral manoeuvres proposed by
Batista and the convocation of a Democratic Constituent Assembly, freedom of speech,
press, meeting, organisation and demonstration, abolition of the 50% Law, the right to
strike and an end to compulsory arbitration, the establishment of a minimum wage and
the implementation of the eight-hour working day, nationalisation of the private
railways and public services, measures enabling financial assistance and credit facilities
for co-operatives in the rural areas involved in either production or consumption, the
state supply of quality seed and livestock for the poor peasants, an end to all payment of
the foreign debt, denouncing all foreign territorial claims on Cuba, a breaking of
diplomatic relations with the Vatican and the establishment of diplomatic and
commercial relations with the USSR, as well as the right of asylum for persecuted
foreign political revolutionaries, in particular for Trotsky.(30)

The PBLs Action Programme called for a struggle for the reconstruction of the trade
union movement, the development of revolutionary work within the legal trade unions,
194

the formation of a National Revolutionary Army and special brigades to defend the
class actions of the proletariat and the mass revolutionary movements, the creation of
Peasant Leagues on the basis of a plan of specifically agrarian demands, and the
creation of Workers and Peasants Committees in the workplaces to plan their
struggles.(31)

Taken together, these two inter-related sets of democratic slogans and transitional
demands were an exemplary exposition of the PBLs attempt to link the struggle for the
most elementary features of bourgeois democracy and national independence with the
working class-led struggle against imperialism. The Cuban Trotskyists implicitly argued
that the proletariat had suffered a historic defeat in the March 1935 general strike and
called for the rebuilding of the trade union movement, the basic level of working class
organisation. They also attempted to orientate the continuing calls for armed actions
emanating from the remains of Joven Cuba towards the working class by insisting on
the need to attach such isolated, individual displays of revolutionary violence to the
struggles of the working class. In furthermore concluding the Action Programme with a
call for the creation of a United Front of all the Revolutionary Parties upon the basis of
the Action Programme and the Plan of Democratic Demands at the national and local
level,(32) the Trotskyists reaffirmed the clarity with which they, at least in point of
theory, defined any anti-imperialist work. That is, they posed the issue of forming a
United Front on the basis of a struggle for clearly defined immediate goals.

However, despite formally elaborating an unequivocally proletarian anti-imperialist


perspective as well as a perceptive critique of the PBLs own past activity, the Cuban
Trotskyists efforts to rebuild a stable party structure and reverse their political fortunes
bore little fruit. In the 1935-39 period the PBL did not recover the membership or levels
of influence which it had gradually lost during the course of 1934-35. First, by the end
of the 1930s the PBL had been further reduced to three geographical centres, namely,
Havana, from whose ranks the Central Committee was largely drawn, as well as the
Santiago de Cuba and Guantnamo regions of Oriente. The reconstituted Victoria de las
Tunas branch disappeared in 1937-38.(33) Furthermore, the number of activists in each
branch substantially declined giving the PBL a membership total which mirrored that of
most other Trotskyist groups in Latin America. Although a report at the 1938 Founding
Conference of the Fourth International cautiously credited the Cuban Trotskyists with
100 militants,(34) this figure seems to be a rather optimistic assessment. In the early
1940s it was reported that the Santiago de Cuba Sectional Committee, for example,
albeit the smallest of the three remaining branches, had not recruited anyone since 1937
and had apparently been reduced to five members.(35)

While state repression in the 1935-36 period had initially hindered the rebuilding and
growth of the PBL, the continued inability of the Cuban Trotskyists to build on the
organisation which they at least stabilised in 1936 was the result of a combination of
factors both internal and external. In the first place, although the PBLs formal
understanding of the form and content of United Front work corresponded with
Trotskys insistence on concrete action on the basis of an agreed programme of
demands, it was evident that discrepancies continued to exist between the perspectives
outlined by the leadership in the partys principal programmatic documents and the
practical work of the PBLs rank and file. For example, the Cuban Trotskyists
demonstrated their return to United Front work on the basis of ill-defined goals in their
intervention in the National Committee for Amnesty for Social and Political Prisoners,
195

agitating alongside the PCC and twenty-nine other organisations for an end to torture
and the release of those imprisoned by the Batista regime.(36) In short, the PBL did not
participate on the basis of a clearly elaborated programme of action which furthered the
cause of working class regrouping and political independence. As the PBL itself
recognised, this Amnesty Committees work was largely limited to covering itself in a
cloak of respectability by making appeals to the church and the good bourgeoisie.(37)
Its ineffectiveness was confirmed when twenty-two members out of its twenty-seven-
member Central Committee were arrested and sentenced to terms in prison in early
1936.(38)

On the other hand, the PBL constituted its Socorro Obrero organisation as a type of pre-
party bridge. It was laudably conceived as a parallel organisation to the PCCs
International Labour Defence, bringing together a mixture of anarchists and PBL
members largely on the basis of anti-Stalinism and looking after the welfare of prisoners
who belonged to the FOH trade unions.(39) The PBL also displayed a firm commitment
to furthering the cause of working class independence from both the petty bourgeoisie
and the state when an open trade union movement re-emerged. The Trotskyists first
joined the legal trade unions organised by the Batista regime, and used the unions
magazines to supplement the education and propaganda value of the Trotskyists own
party journals. By mid-1937 Trotskyists were publishing articles in Dialctica, the
organ of the Sindicato de Yesistas de La Habana, the Plasterers Union of Havana, and
El Repartidor, the magazine of the Sindicato de Repartidores de Pan de La Habana, the
Bread Distributors Union of Havana.(40) More importantly, though, the organisation
and political content of the PBLs actual fractional work inside the trade unions was
based on a strict understanding of the dangers of class collaboration. The Trotskyists
argued that just as under Machado, reformist leaders were seeking to organise the
labour movement under the aegis of the Ministry of Labour and submit the demands of
the movement to government arbitration.(41) In order to combat the penetration of this
spirit of reformism into the ranks of the working class the PBL, rejecting the PCCs
1931-34 sectarian strategy of attempting to build isolated revolutionary trade union
fronts, put forward in outline form a strong trade union platform around which
Trotskyist fractions in various trade unions could organise the most radical workers who
had not yet joined the PBL politically. Linking the slogan for the formation of a
Workers Alliance to a programme of action, the PBL made calls to organise the
working class independently of the state on the basis of a number of minimum
democratic demands including the right to strike and freedom of organisation, assembly
and speech and the annulment of the decree laws.(42)

However, despite these attempts to rebuild a revolutionary movement in the trade


unions, the PBL faced a number of obstacles. Importantly, the partys stability and
growth were adversely affected by serious disruptions in the Trotskyists national
leadership. Although not on the scale which the revolutionary events in the 1934-35
period had induced, the leadership continued to display a degree of instability in terms
of personnel. The most significant loss was that of the post-March 1935 General
Secretary, Gastn Medina, who died of tuberculosis in Havana on 17 August 1938, the
result of past torture in Batistas jails.(43) He had been the principal defender of what I
have characterised as the Trotskyist proletarian anti-imperialist tendency within the
PBL in the period 1933-35. He had also been responsible for drawing up the October
1935 Political Thesis which had attempted to reorientate the party after the defeat of
the Revolution of the 1930s.
196

More significantly, though, the PBL had to overcome peculiar socio-politico hurdles.
Although all revolutionary organisations had found themselves in a state of disarray
after the defeat of the Revolution of the 1930s, in the late 1930s an already weak
working class movement faced the further obstacle of a PCC-Batista joint front which
reinforced the containment of class-based organisation and struggle. As described in
Section 3.3, after the effective crushing of the revolutionary movement in 1935, the
Batista regime increasingly took on a paternalistic Bonapartist character as Batista
himself sought to broaden his base of popular support. He achieved this by turning to
the official communists and cementing a joint front with the PCC. Although this was
not completed until early 1939, from 1938 Batista was able to use the official
communists to offset a renewal of working class opposition.

In sum, then, the Cuban Trotskyists attempt to reorganise the PBL in the aftermath of
the defeat of the Revolution of the 1930s, and then in the light of the PCCs rank
opportunism in the face of overtures from Batista, had to a large extent come to nothing
by the end of the 1930s as a real decline in the PBLs numbers and implantation in the
labour movement reflected the balance of class forces. While, internationally, after a
decade of defeats the working class was being led into an international military conflict
by largely compliant social democratic and Stalinist parties, in Cuba the decade of
defeats had been of historic proportions. The crushing of working class organisation in
the aftermath of the March 1935 general strike produced a crisis in every political
organisation, as much among the Autnticos and official communists as among the
Trotskyists. This had cleared the ground for Batista to set about reorganising a national
social equilibrium from above, unchallenged by either a weak national bourgeoisie or
the defeated working class movement. The cementing of the Batista-PCC joint front
only added to the enormity of the task of cultivating an independent working class
movement which the small group of Cuban Trotskyists faced. Thus, although the
elaboration of the Political Thesis in late 1935 marked a return to an insistence on the
independence of working class political organisation and the leading role of the
proletariat in the anti-imperialist revolution, the PBLs dislocation in 1935-36 and its
small size inside the already weak opposition movements hindered its ability to
challenge the general stagnation of autonomous working class organisation. It was,
though, the Trotskyists tendency to dilute the class-based content of any practical
United Front work which ultimately confirmed the steady stagnation in membership and
determined the subsequent development of Cuban Trotskyism in the 1940s.

6.1.2 The Foundation of the POR and the Organisation and Strategy
of Cuban Trotskyists, 1940-1946

In this section I chart the organisational and theoretical development of Trotskyism in


Cuba in the period 1940-46. Describing how the Cuban Trotskyists post-1939
organisational development was characterised by continued relative isolation from the
working class and a further series of internal crises I contend that these were largely
provoked by two inter-related factors. In the first place, I argue that the Trotskyists were
active in an environment which was particularly detrimental to their political fortunes.
That is, in a society characterised by weak class formations and a Bonapartist-type
regime, the co-option of the official communist party into a governing entente enabled
increased state interference in the labour movement to debilitate further the potential for
independent working class action. In addition to these structural obstacles, I also
contend that the Trotskyists own continuing tendency to stress the slogans and struggle
197

for national liberation and emphasis on the formation of undelineated blocs with the
forces of petty bourgeois nationalism was a major factor determining their apparent
inability to take advantage of a sharpening in the general level of dissatisfaction with
the existing social equilibrium.

The apparent isolation and gradual decline in the PBLs membership in the post-1935
period eventually provoked a round of largely unprincipled in-fighting and dissension
among the three remaining branches of the PBL in 1940. The spark which appears to
have triggered the two-year round of internal disputes was the expulsion of Charles
Simen, the PBLs General Secretary, in late 1939 or early 1940. He had first
temporarily occupied the post of General Secretaryship during Gastn Medinas two-
year illness, before taking over on a permanent basis after Medinas death.(44)
Although the specific reasons behind Simens separation remain uncertain,(45) the
PBL was subsequently seen to be in need of an overhaul in terms of discipline and
orientation.(46) The apparent virtual internal paralysis led the Havana-based leadership
to take the initiative by selecting a new Provisional Executive Committee in May 1940,
charging it with the task of convening a National Conference with a view to
normalising the life of the party.(47)

The new Provisional Executive Committee, composed of the remaining members of the
previous members of the National Executive Committee and the most active militants in
Havana,(48) included *Bode, the General Secretary (possibly Prez Santiesteban),(49)
Pablo Daz Gonzlez (*Pedro Durn), *Alonso, *Andrade, *Santiso, *Kamayen and
*Rufo.(50) This Provisional Executive Committee subsequently constituted a new
Central Committee and concentrated its authority in a three-member Political Bureau
which was responsible for the day-to-day work of the party.(51) The reorganisation of
the leading bodies of the Cuban Trotskyist group led to the founding of the Partido
Obrero Revolucionario on 19 September 1940 shortly after Trotskys murder.(52)

However, despite this attempt on the part of the PORs leadership to discipline and
orientate the Party,(53) the Cuban Trotskyists continued to gravitate away from a
perspective which, in accordance with Trotskys prescription for revolutionary activity,
focused on forging a democratic centralist vanguard party which advocated a strict
proletarian anti-imperialist revolution. In the first place, every branch of the old PBL
was not integrated into the new party. The organisational changes initiated by the
Provisional Executive Committee were rejected by the Santiago de Cuba Sectional
Committee which continued to operate under the title of the PBL until at least the end of
1941.(54) The underlying cause of the feuding was general frustration with the
atmosphere of stagnation and decline which had permeated party activity. This was
evidenced by the fact the organisational split did not take place on the basis of any
ideological differences, but as the result of secondary, tactical considerations. On the
initiative of *Bakunin, the santiaguero branch refused to embrace the project of
restructuring and renaming the party solely on the grounds that a simple change of name
could not lead to the consolidation of the revolutionary party in Cuba.(55) In correctly
identifying a possible limitation of the new Provisional Executive Committees
initiatives, the santiaguero Trotskyists, however, did not identify nor propose a
principled debate over the political causes behind the PBLs organisational crisis.
While, at this stage, they were not explicitly challenging the need for a centralised
vanguard party, they did challenge the principle of democratic centralism by repeatedly
rejecting the leaderships invitations to continue the discussions inside the POR. With
198

no explicit ideological issue at stake, and with both the POR and the Santiago de Cuba
Sectional Committee of the PBL continuing to publicly declare their adherence to the
Fourth International, the santiagueros, frustrated at the partys stagnation and apparent
inability to influence the workers movement, had in effect used a disagreement over a
secondary issue as a pretext for forging the de facto split in the ranks of Cuban
Trotskyism.

In January 1941, after the Santiago de Cuba section had reiterated that it would continue
to publish its own propaganda without seeking any central authority, the PORs national
leadership decided to apply the letter of the partys statutes. Concerned that the
conditions created by the Second World War would increasingly narrow the Cuban
Trotskyists opportunities for open work, and that the santiagueros criticisms could
sabotage the other oriental branch in nearby Guantnamo, the Political Bureau argued
that members should be separated from sympathisers, that each militant should be
assigned his or her task and responsibility so that new members would not be infected
with the ballast of irresponsibility and lack of discipline inherited from the past.(56)

Despite the firm statement of intent, however, this further attempt on the part of the
Trotskyists to establish a degree of stability and give an impetus to internal party life did
not lead to any marked growth in membership or influence, or even to a sustained
period of commitment to publishing a party organ. During the period 1940-42, while it
seems that the santiagueros fell in line with the newly established POR party structure,
the only new shoots of growth were a five-member branch constituted in the small town
of Aguacate in the province of Havana,(57) and what appears to have been a short-lived
Sectional Committee formed in Camagey on 17 November 1940.(58) As for the
production of a regular party press and theoretical material, the newly constituted POR
repeated the pattern which the PBL had established after its two attempts to establish
some order in the Trotskyists ranks in September 1933 and late 1935. In the first place,
the POR launched what was intended to be a regular party organ, Cuba Obrera
(Workers Cuba).(59) However, despite the PORs fears about the governments
intention to suppress propaganda of a class character,(60) it appears that, like Rayo
and Noticiero Bolchevique before it, this newspaper ceased publication shortly after its
birth solely as a result of a dwindling internal commitment and the lack of funds.
Production first lapsed after four issues had appeared in successive months at the end of
1940, and although it reappeared in June, July and August 1941, this August issue was
the last to be published.(61)

As the PBL had done at its founding in 1933 and, again, in 1935 when attempting to
establish a degree of stability and direction in the party, the POR on its founding also
drew up and submitted to its rank and file an extensive theoretical document, the
Declaracin de Principios.(62) In outlining the Trotskyists views on the general crisis
of capitalism and the specific problems of the Cuban revolution, this document again
marked a definite return to Trotskys Permanent Revolution perspective, at least in point
of theory.

In the first place, the Declaration of Principles reiterated that the working class in
alliance with the rural and urban petty bourgeoisie had to play the leading role in the
struggle against capitalism and for a necessarily socialist revolution.(63) Like the early
texts of the Comintern and, indeed, Trotsky himself, the POR also drew a distinction
between the conquest of power by the proletariat in Latin America and the actual
199

construction of communism. Basing its analysis on an appreciation of the indissolubility


of the world economy and the necessary international character of socialism, the POR
argued that in the first phase of the Latin American revolution the proletariat would
combine the basic democratic tasks with the possible socialist ones. The ultimate
socialist transformation of Latin America could only totally triumph, they argued, when
the proletarian revolution in the U.S. also erupted.(64)

Although the document stressed that the definitive triumph of the revolution in Cuba
depended on the success of the socialist movement in the U.S., the POR rejected the
idea that the Cuban working class must await the triumph of the North American
proletariat before posing the question of proletarian revolution in Cuba. The Cuban
Trotskyists argued that such an understanding approached that of the Stalinists denial
of the possibility of revolution on the grounds of the lack of maturity in Cuba for
socialism, and the substitution of the theory of the next stages of national and social
liberation under the progressive platform of the Coalicin Socialista Democrtica.(65)
Emphasising that the proletariat in Cuba could not renounce the struggle to forge its
own vanguard or even initiate its own proletarian revolution until the proletariat in the
U.S. had seized power, the POR reiterated the perspectives of the Bolsheviks in
backward Russia in 1917 and railed against geographic fatalists who rejected the
revolutionary project on the grounds of Cubas proximity to the United States. They
declared that:

[t]he perspective of permanent revolution in no case means that backward countries


should await the starting signal from the more developed ones, nor the colonial peoples
should wait patiently for the proletariat of the imperialist centres to free them. He is
helped who helps himself. The workers must struggle in a revolutionary fashion in all
countries, wherever favorable conditions exist, thus giving an example to the workers of
other countries.(66)

However, again, as in the case of 1933 and 1935, the branches took up this renewed
theoretical commitment to the principles of the theory of Permanent Revolution in a
thoroughly ambiguous fashion. This was most evident in the activity of the PORs
principal asset, its branch in the Guantnamo region where the local Trotskyists had
maintained a base in the working class. During the late 1930s and 1940s, having
established an embryonic youth organisation, the Juventud Obrera Revolucionaria, as
well as participating in anti-Stalinist Comits de Oposicin Sindical in various trade
unions, the POR had a pool of support in the two branches, Delegaciones 10 and 11, of
the Hermandad Ferroviaria, the local Commercial Workers Union as well as a number
of centrales.(67) The Trotskyists, furthermore, played a leading role in a small number
of strike movements which challenged the official communists de facto no-strike
policy. At the start of the 1940 zafra, for example, the guantanameo Trotskyists
participated in stoppages in the Cecilia and Romeli centrales, denouncing the official
communists collaboration with the government and employers.(68) Jos Medina
Campos of the POR also led strikes of railway workers in April and November 1941
which interrupted sugar production as well as transport to and from the U.S. Naval
Base.(69) However, the guantanameo Trotskyists activity was not strictly directed at
exposing the limitations of petty bourgeois nationalism and bringing those radical
worker elements in the trade union milieu into political agreement with the POR. That
is, although the Trotskyists called for increased autonomy from the Ministry of Labour
and the Stalinist-controlled trade union bureaucracy alike, a call which found a wide
200

echo among broad layers at the base of the Autntico party, the PORs United Front
platform did not display a clear worked out understanding of the practical importance of
working class political independence. The Trotskyists instead tended to accept a lesser
evil thesis which characterised Stalinism as the main enemy in the workers movement
and failed to distinguish the POR from the local worker Autntico leaders in the non-
Stalinist opposition movements. As such, the guantanameo Trotskyists participated in
a largely uncritical manner in the Autntico worker-dominated Comits Pro Demandas
Obreros y Campesinos, a loose United Front organisation which had been formed for
the purposes of securing the election of non-Stalinists in local elections. The Trotskyists
could, furthermore, claim that their own youth organisation worked in close harmony
with its Autntico counterpart. Indeed, far from ultimately viewing these radical petty
bourgeois groups as obstacles to the proletarian revolution, the POR enthused that these
groups were the fertile sap of the future of our Revolution.(70)

At the national level, on the other hand, the Trotskyists trade union intervention during
the December 1942 Third National Congress of the Confederacin de Trabajadores de
Cuba (CTC), the official communist-controlled national labour confederation, was more
consistent with insisting on the unequivocal proletarian nature of the anti-imperialist
struggle and competing directly with the Autnticos for the leadership of the masses.
Raising the PORs profile on the national stage, the Trotskyist delegates acted as an
organised fraction at the Congress and developed a strategy which not only challenged
the Stalinist domination of the labour movement but did so from a perspective which
sought to rally the Autntico worker opposition around an unambiguously anti-
imperialist and anti-capitalist programme.

As the Fourth Internationals theoretical journal described, the POR fraction contributed
to the preparation and presentation of a detailed and positive program of independent
trade-union action around which the anti-Stalinist opposition could rally.(71) In the
first place, in their interventions at the platform POR members criticised the CTC
leadership for accepting Batistas dictates on wage claims which granted pay increases
at a rate below that of a consumer product-starved inspired price inflation. Pablo Daz
claimed that the CTC Executive had simply served as a government tool, preventing
workers from using its most basic weapon, that of the strike, just at the moment when
there was a ground swell of discontent in various sectors for better wages.(72)

However, the Trotskyists also insisted that organisational unity in the trade union
movement should be maintained and argued against setting up a second national trade
union centre. When the Stalinist-controlled Credentials Commission at the CTC
Congress eventually refused entry to 150 opposition delegates, the Trotskyists, though
joining 303 delegates in walking out in protest, rejected the Autntico leaders sectarian
calls to set up a second, parallel trade union centre, just as the OCC and PBL had earlier
opposed the PCCs sectarian trade union policy.(73) At a meeting of the Frente
Democrtico Sindical, the temporary organisation constituted by the delegates who had
withdrawn, the POR fraction argued for the constitution of a revolutionary opposition
workers front inside the CTC on the basis of a minimum programme for internal
democracy and an end to Stalinist-reformism in collusion with state.(74) In its
declaration to the Frente Democrtico Sindical, the POR fraction insisted that:

[w]e cannot think [....] of the formation of a new trade-union center so long as there
has not been demonstrated in a clear definitive way the impossibility of salvaging the
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CTC from the hands of the Stalinist-reformist gang, through constant and effective work
among the rank and file. We shall oppose any group or tendency which tries to drag the
Cuban proletariat along the road of adventurism.(75)

In presenting a coherent and incisive argument consistent with Trotskys analysis of


trade unions in Latin American that the principal struggle was for workers control of
the existing bureaucratic apparatuses and trade union independence from the state, the
POR fraction thereby helped to avoid, at least temporarily, a disastrous split in the trade
union movement. They furthermore presented an action programme which embodied
the essential features of the Transitional Programme, the founding programmatic
document of the Fourth International. Incorporating the essence of Trotskys
transitional method of attempting to deepen the struggle and lead the masses through a
conscious fight for democratic demands to socialist goals in their own independent
proletarian organisations created in that struggle, the platform of demands included calls
for the implementation of a sliding scale of wages and popular committees for the
control of prices, the maintenance of class-based trade union unity in tandem with the
widest trade union democracy, and a Proletarian Military Policy similar to that of the
Socialist Workers Party in the U.S. (SWP(US)) in which the trade unions took
responsibility for the military training of workers.(76)

However, despite having had a degree of success in this exemplary fraction work in
mass organisations at a national level, and despite the apparent return to the Cuban
Trotskyist fold of the self-styled santiaguero Sectional Committee of the PBL at some
point in 1942-43, the POR as a national party did not break out of its isolation in the
early 1940s. Only at a local level did the guantanameo Trotskyists continue to lead
local strikes alongside Autntico trade unionists against the dictates of the complicitous
official communist party. On 17 May 1943, the railway workers in the Guantnamo
region again went on strike demanding a pay increase of fifty per cent to counteract the
high rate of war-induced price inflation. While the strike was crushed after sixteen days,
leaving six workers, among them two POR members, Juan Medina Campos and
Luciano Garca Pellicier, disciplined by the management and/or dismissed,(77) the
Guantnamo branch of the POR reiterated the basic tenet of revolutionary defeatism,
namely, that there should be no cease-fire in the struggle against capitalism. Raising the
banner of proletarian organisational and political independence, the Trotskyists
denounced one of their old adversaries, Manuel Tur, the local PSP leader, for
intervening in the strike only to the extent of sabotaging and choking off any national
action by railway workers, and Mujal for having disowned the strike movement in an
attempt to ensure that the Autntico leadership took no responsibility for it in the eyes of
the government and imperialism in this militarily strategic region.(78)

In general terms, though, the POR failed in its objective to lead the construction of a
revolutionary communist opposition to Stalinist domination of the labour movement
during the course of the Second World War. As with previous attempts to stabilise the
PBLs organisation and extend Trotskyist influence in the late 1930s, the reasons behind
this evident failure encompassed structural factors largely beyond the PORs control
and political ones which were the responsibility of the Trotskyists alone. In the first
place, the Cuban Trotskyists were active in a country in which class-based institutions
were weak. As outlined in Chapter Three, while imperialism had already rendered the
national bourgeoisie largely ineffectual in the aftermath of the 1895-98 War of
Independence, the historic defeat of the revolutionary movement in the 1930s had
202

accelerated the decline of the old ruling oligarchy and destroyed the independent
working class movement. The consequent exceptional weakness of class formations in
Cuba was further exacerbated in the post-1935 period with the emergence of a
Bonapartist-like regime committed to the project of co-opting elements of various
classes into a governing entente. Most significantly for the fortunes of Trotskyism, after
the formation of the Batista-PCC joint front in the late 1930s, the official communists
used the power which they acquired to blunt attempts to renew class-based opposition to
the Batista capitalist government. The rapid growth of the official communist party and
its seats in Batistas cabinet pay testimony to the fact that class collaboration under
Stalinist leadership was deeper in Cuba than in any other Latin American country.

In addition to the Bonapartist features of the Cuban political economy which tended to
weaken the development of already fragile class-based institutions, the Cuban
Trotskyists were also confronted with the problem of the lack of a Marxist tradition in
Cuba. As described in Section 3.1.3, while the Cuban labour movement was dominated
by anarcho-syndicalism for forty years from 1985 to 1925, it was nationalism rather
than communism which conditioned the peculiar aspects of the Cuban variant of
anarchism. It was primarily because of this lack of a distinct socialist culture in the
Cuban working class that the Russian October Revolution did not provoke any rupture
on ideological grounds in the labour movement. Furthermore, the Cuban Communist
Party itself was only formed in 1925. Thus, in the early to mid-1940s, opposition to the
Stalinists state-sponsored bureaucratic usurpation of working class organisation more
easily found spontaneous expression in the deeply-rooted traditions of petty bourgeois
nationalism before a strict class position won currency.

The Cuban Trotskyists also suffered from the lack of resources at their disposal. This,
for example, prevented them from financing a full-time party worker to co-ordinate
internal party life activity. The great distances between the PORs two principal centres,
Havana and Guantnamo, also made it difficult to hold any regular national meetings to
discuss and plan co-ordinated work. The Cuban Trotskyists in the early 1940s also had
little experience of the tasks which a small group of revolutionaries had to undertake in
order to lay the basis for future growth. Unlike most Trotskyist groups in the world, the
PBL was virtually a mass party at birth with prominent cadres already leading various
trade unions and student organisations. Although not necessarily desirable, it had not
undergone an organic development from a small revolutionary nucleus to a fighting
propaganda group to a genuine revolutionary party with solid roots in the working class.
With the death of Rogelio Benache, arguably the PORs most talented workers leader
in January 1944, like Gastn Medina, the result of the effects of past torture in Batistas
jail,(79) the remaining POR members in the early 1940s had little preparation for the
tasks of slowly and methodically consolidating the POR as a well-defined fighting
propaganda group.

However, despite these obstacles to growth, I contend that had the POR developed a
different strategy and set of tactics from those it actually did employ, then the Cuban
Trotskyists could have overcome to some extent the structural obstacles which they
faced and a different outcome may have resulted. That is, it was the Trotskyists own
political strategy which continued to be a major factor conditioning their apparent
inability to either stabilise their organisation or break out of their isolation and take
advantage of a general level of dissatisfaction with the PCCs collaboration with Batista
in the labour movement. More specifically, just as the PBL in the 1930s ultimately
203

displayed that it had no well-formed understanding of the need for working class
organisations to maintain their political independence from the forces of petty bourgeois
nationalism, so the POR in the early to mid-1940s also emphasised the formation of
undelineated blocs with essentially pro-capitalist forces. It was this political
characteristic of the POR, I argue, which ultimately determined the Trotskyists
continued isolation.

The effect that the Cuban Trotskyists own political failings had on the fortunes and
organisational continuity of their party was demonstrated by the line which they
developed around events in 1944-45. In early 1944 the POR launched a national
newspaper and developed an electoral tactical line in an attempt to take advantage of the
heightened political atmosphere created by the forthcoming May-June 1944 elections
and the hopes Autntico workers held that these could bring an end to the Batista-
official communist control of the labour movement.

The newspaper, launched in May 1944 to coincide with the elections, and under the
influence of Louis Rigaudias (*Rigal), a prominent activist in the pre-war French
Trotskyist movement,(80) was given the name Revolucin Proletaria in order to
unambiguously proclaim the necessary character of any revolution at that point in time
in Latin America.(81) During the period May 1944 to May 1946, nineteen issues of the
newspaper, edited by Pablo Daz, came out ensuring that the party fulfilled its basic
propaganda and education functions among its supporters and contacts. However, the
content of this propaganda advocated an essentially opportunist tactical line.
Specifically, the electoral tactical line which the Trotskyists developed was rather
inconsistent in terms of maintaining the principle of proletarian political independence.
Indeed, the Trotskyists attitude towards the Autnticos as set out in the pages of their
newspaper betrayed the essence of the name which they had given to that same paper.

On the one hand, in Guantnamo the POR attempted to win adherents to communism
and extend and consolidate its influence among the working class by standing
independent candidates in the 1944 local elections. Although the Supreme Court
ultimately prevented the Trotskyists from getting on the ballot paper, they held a write-
in campaign for two posts on the Guantnamo council. Building on the prestige they
had won in their trade union work in the region, the PORs two candidates, Juan Medina
and Luciano Garca, the two militants who had been victimised in the rail strike the year
before, received over 1,000 officially counted votes,(82) a substantial figure in a region
where the rate of illiteracy was high.

In the National Legislative and Presidential elections, on the other hand, where the
Trotskyists did not have the resources to stand their own candidates, the POR, as a
result of its belief that the Autntico base was made up of revolutionary workers,(83)
displayed ambiguous concern for safeguarding the independence of the working class
from the forces of pro-capitalist nationalism. That is, the Trotskyists made a distinction
between the private views of individual Autntico candidates and the relationship of the
party as a whole to the working class by giving critical support to what they termed
Grau San Martn and the working class candidates inside the PRC(A).(84) Thus, in
the National Legislative elections they called for a vote for those Autnticos in
Guantnamo and Santiago de Cuba who had signed up to a minimum programme of
democratic and trade union demands.(85)
204

While this dilution could have been justified in Cuba on the basis of the incomplete and
ill-defined identification of parties with specific social classes, in the 1944 Presidential
elections the POR slipped into loose, ultimately opportunist, phraseology which
evidenced its own illusions in the revolutionary potential of the petty bourgeoisie.
Although the POR was certainly more critical than supportive in its assessment that
Grau San Martn had abandoned the anti-imperialist struggle in favour of democratic
imperialism and that he headed an electoral bloc which included an assortment of old
anti-labour pro-Machado supporters,(86) the electoral tactic of critical support did not
clearly disassociate Trotskyism from these alien class forces. That is, while Grau San
Martn did not propose any anti-capitalist or anti-imperialist measures, the Cuban
Trotskyists developed a United Front tactic which lowered the banner of proletarian
independence in the anti-imperialist struggle. Indeed, despite formally rejecting the
notion that they proposed support for Grau San Martin on the limited basis that he was
the lesser evil, in the same article, and in direct contradiction, they rather loosely
viewed their orientation as a tactic in fighting the immediate enemy of the workers:
that is, the military-police dictatorship of Batista disguised under the civilian trappings
of the Socialist Democratic Coalition.(87) In other articles they similarly gave
definition to the lesser evil tactic arguing that despite the Autnticos reconciliation
with U.S. imperialism, the re-election of Batista would mean the crushing of the Cuban
Revolution for the foreseeable future. They contended that a victory for Grau San
Martn at the polls would represent a step forward and, accordingly, raised the slogan
of: To fight continuismo is to struggle for the Revolution.(88)

Thus, rather than adopting the only consistent proletarian position in an election where
no working class candidates stood, that of active abstention, limiting agitation to that
of propaganda in favour of a future independent working class party in preparation for
the day when the masses, or at least the most advanced section, turned against the
government pretenders of both camps,(89) the POR settled into a softer Left line which,
while not jeopardising its prestige with Autntico workers in the short-term, did little to
break those same workers away to an independent proletarian line in the medium-term.

On Grau San Martns victory at the polls, the collapse of the PORs strictly class-based
political analysis was most evident in the propaganda and activity of the partys
guantanameo Sectional Committee. In a leaflet entitled Lets Make the Victory
Gained on 1st June a Decisive Step Along the Road of the National and Social
Liberation of Cuba!,(90) the Trotskyists not only associated themselves with the
awakened desires of the masses to move against the defeated Batista-official communist
alliance in the field of labour, but ambiguously viewed Grau San Martns election as
somehow theirs, a progressive step towards the revolution. Rather than warning the
workers that the new government would ultimately be incapable of implementing even
a moderate nationalist programme because of the clash this would provoke with
imperialism, the Cuban Trotskyists gave the impression that the nature of the Grau San
Martn government was open to question, to be determined by future its future
performance.(91)

The POR rather belatedly sought to rectify its confused position and re-establish its
concern for proletarian independence only after the most advanced sections of the
working class had already begun to turn away from the Autnticos. In January 1945, as
it became evident that the government of Grau San Martn would not embark on a
process of democratising the CTC to challenge the PSPs dominance, the POR launched
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a trade union fractional organisation, the Defensa Obrera Revolucionaria de la


Confederacin de Trabajadores de Cuba, in an attempt to group the most radical
workers who had not yet identified politically with the POR around a programme of
demands which emphasised the need for increased autonomy from both the Ministry of
Labour and the trade union bureaucracy.

In denouncing the PSP for its acts of armed aggression, its state-sanctioned extortion
and its abandonment of the struggle against the bourgeoisie and the capitalist state,(92)
as well as the Autntico leaders for reaching agreement with the PSP at the post-election
Fourth Congress of the CTC, the Defensa Obrera Revolucionarias eleven-point
programme of struggle reasserted the need for the absolute political independence of
the proletariat. Against all arrangements with the political parties of the
bourgeoisie.(93) In attempting to carry forward the struggle for independent working
class organisation, the clearly elaborated programme also insisted that the right to call a
strike had to reside solely with the workers without any involvement from the Ministry
of Labour and that real wages should be defended through the introduction of a sliding
scale of wages.(94)

However, after more than a decade of debilitating reliance on state interference to attain
economic and political goals, as well as the lack of a Marxist tradition in Cuba which
consistently espoused the principle of proletarian political independence, these attempts
to create a revolutionary opposition to the de facto PSP-Grau San Martn alliance inside
the trade union movement failed. Having limped behind the Autnticos with a rather
weak critical support perspective, the PORs principled trade union fraction initiative
came too late to influence a section of the Autntico workers. The POR, displaying the
Cuban Trotskyists long-term tendency to emphasise the formation of undelineated
blocs with the forces of petty bourgeois nationalism, proved unable to forge a class-
based opposition to the overtly pro-capitalist PSP-Grau San Martn alliance. Instead,
democratic nationalist sentiment again took hold and conditioned the re-emergence of a
myriad of petty bourgeois revolutionary action groups when the general level of
discontent and the outbreak of the Cold War necessitated the removal of the PSP from
its positions of influence in the labour movement. The POR, having been unable to win
any substantial number of fresh recruits to breathe life into the party again faced another
round of organisational disintegration as internal differences virtually paralysed its
activities for a period in 1946.

6.1.3 Activity of the POR and Organisational Dissolution, 1946-58

Although the Autntico government had been discredited through its compromise with
the official communists in the trade union field and the evident peace it had made with
U.S. imperialist interests, in conditions characterised by weak class-based institutions
and a debilitated independent working class movement, the POR proved unable to break
out of its isolation after a period of concerted effort. This stagnation in Trotskyist
influence provoked a further period of internal dissension and paralysis in early 1946. In
this section I trace the Cuban Trotskyists organisational and theoretical development in
the post-World War Two era from 1946 until the 1959 Cuban Revolution. In so doing, I
develop my argument that despite the general weakness of working class-based
organisations, the principal reason for the Trotskyists organisational stagnation was
their own political strategy. That is, the Cuban Trotskyists failure to distinguish clearly
between democratic and proletarian anti-imperialist work and to form undelineated
206

blocs with the forces of petty bourgeois nationalism not only explain their continued
inability to build a distinct revolutionary communist party, but in the early 1950s led to
the actual disappearance of the POR.

Just as a stagnation at the end of the 1930s had provoked a crisis within the Cuban
Trotskyist party, so the Trotskyists inability to recruit substantial numbers of new
members in 1944-46 led to internal dissension and paralysis in early 1946. The dissent
inside the POR was initiated by a section of the small Havana branch which, leaving
aside Pablo Dazs work in the Laundry Workers Union, had virtually no contact with
the working class and had largely been reduced to serving as the PORs administrative
centre. Three members in Havana, describing themselves as representing the majority
on the Central Committee, drew up and circulated an internal report in March 1946
which launched into a sharp criticism of the listless direction of the POR.(95)

Although various reports to be found in the internal documents of the international


Trotskyist movement stated that the Cuban POR counted on seventy-five members in
1944-45,(96) and thirty-five in early 1947,(97) the number of comrades who considered
themselves to be Trotskyists in the immediate post-war period actually numbered
approximately twenty. The March 1946 internal report drawn up by the majority
Central Committee faction in Havana noted that the POR had been reduced to a total of
seven or eight in members in its principal section, Guantnamo, with a further three
individuals in Santiago de Cuba, three or four comrades in the small western town of
Aguacate, a candidate member in Victoria de las Tunas, and three members in the
Havana group who acted as a Central Committee and four others on the periphery.(98)
The report set out in no uncertain terms the view that the party was faced with a
progressive disappearance without the slightest perspective of how to halt the decline
and rejuvenate its revolutionary potential. In describing how the POR had not
capitalised on the opportunities which had opened up to it in the light of Stalinism
delivering itself to Batista and then the revolutionary Autntico opposition
subsequently being discredited in government,(99) the report located the reasons for this
failure in the PORs own organisation and political perspectives. As with the PBL
during the Revolution of the 1930s, the collapse of cell activity and the internal
discussion of issues were again identified as a basic debilitating factor.(100) That is, the
POR was a centralist organisation, but without a vibrant internal life could not be a
democratic centralist one. The report also correctly argued that the partys apparent
paralysis was the result of its own political opportunism in not clearly differentiating
itself from petty bourgeois nationalism in the struggle against Stalinism. The reports
authors wrote:

[d]espite the efforts of our comrades in the trade unions, in practice we did nothing
other than be in the rear of the groups in opposition to Stalinism which arose from time
to time. With slight exceptions we practically remained behind the coat-tails of the
Comisin Nacional Obrera of the PRC(A).(101)

Frustrated with the atmosphere of inertia which characterised the remaining elements of
the POR, the majority Havana faction derided the party for its lack of seriousness and
systematic persistence which corresponds with Bolshevik militants,(102) and advanced
a list of general and immediate questions which needed to be addressed in order to re-
generate the internal life of the POR. These included the elaboration of a general
political thesis, a trade union thesis, a declaration of principles for a projected youth
207

organisation, a study of the documents of the SWP(US) Minority and Majority, the
removal of all resolutions on international matters which had not been fully discussed
by the party membership, and the application of rigorous collective discipline.(103)
Posing a blunt ultimatum, the majority Havana faction stated that if these issues were
not addressed, the newspaper which they were largely responsible for, would cease
publication. In their words; we want order or we do not plan anything.(104)

The atmosphere created by this sort of strongly worded address, on top of the
progressive paralysis in the internal life of the party, and the failure of the partys
fraction work inside the CTC, could have easily announced the imminent collapse of the
POR. However, although the issues put forward were not taken up in any proposed
internal discussion, the party was given another focus and temporary lease of life
through a sudden tactical turn to political work inside a series of the revolutionary
action groups which emerged among the ranks of disaffected pesepistas and Autnticos.
While the leader of the disgruntled majority faction in Havana was expelled shortly
after drafting the report,(105) the crisis, therefore, was principally defused by another
round of ill-thought out empiricism. In a kind of caricature of the PBLs spontaneous
and ill-disciplined entry into Joven Cuba in an attempt to construct the revolutionary
Trotskyist party via the external road in 1934-35, Prez Santiesteban, the one Central
Committee member in Havana who opposed the highly critical internal report of the
majority faction, responded to the crisis empirically by leading a largely unorganised
entry into the recently organised Movimiento Socialista Revolucionario (MSR) of
Rolando Masferrer.

The MSR had been born out of a nucleus of activists from the Legin Revolucionaria
de Cuba, an anti-Machado action group from the 1930s, and a number of members
around Masferrer from the official communists shock brigade who disagreed with the
partys adherence to doctrine of dissolution proposed by Browder in the United States in
the mid-1940s. These pesepista dissidents had received some support from the Soviet
Union as a result of the PSPs unwillingness to disown Browderism when requested by
Moscow. However, after the Duclos letter and the PSPs reluctant acceptance of the
Moscow-line, the dissident officials were expelled from the Cuban party as part of the
eventual agreement which brought the Cuban communists back into the official fold.
(106) On the back of discontent with Grau San Martn, Masferrer and his supporters
were able to attract a variety of Leftists who were prepared to join them in forming a
new revolutionary organisation. From the beginning, Prez Santiesteban played a
leading part in the discussions of the new formation and, indeed, it appears that he more
than anyone was responsible for it adopting the name Revolutionary Socialist
Movement, this, as he described, in an attempt to combat the ambiguities implicit in the
previously proposed Izquierda Revolucionaria.(107)

Although the Cuban Trotskyists recognised that the MSR was essentially another petty
bourgeois organisation which the Cuban political economy characteristically gave birth
to from time to time,(108) and that it admitted anyone and everyone, had no perspective
for building a revolutionary party, and had no political line to guide activity,(109) they
initially viewed their entry into the MSR with a great deal of optimism in terms of the
possibilities for recruiting.(110) Even Pablo Daz, one of the authors of the internal
report which had criticised the party for being on the coat-tails of the petty bourgeois
opposition to Stalinism, was enthusiastic about the fact that the POR was in effective
charge of the MSRs programmatic elaboration.(111)
208

However, the PORs almost spontaneous turn towards political work inside the MSR
had taken place with little analysis or preparation and quickly slumped into chaotic
improvisation and eventual despondency.(112) Rather than seeking to win the best
elements of the new organisation to the POR by attempting to expose the petty
bourgeois character of the MSRs leadership, the Cuban Trotskyists all but dissolved
inside the new organisation. The principle of concluding temporary alliances with the
forces of petty bourgeois nationalism for concrete and carefully delineated ends was
sacrificed as the POR, in effect, viewed the MSR as the blunt vehicle for revolution.
The publication of the PORs only public organ, the newspaper Revolucin Proletaria,
was suspended, never to reappear,(113) and without any independent programme of its
own the POR took responsibility for elaborating the MSRs theoretical documents.

The futility of the ill-thought out fractional work was displayed by the fact that these
documents were wholly ignored by the MSRs leadership and activists alike as they
threw themselves into adventurist actions and opportunism to arrest control of certain
sectors of the labour movement from their rivals, the PSP. Threats and bureaucratic
manoeuvres agreed on the spot by leaders who were not controlled by the base simply
drowned out the PORs vain calls for a discussion of theoretical issues.

Although the POR also worked in a number of smaller petty bourgeois organisations,
for example, the Juventudes Laboristas, the youth wing of Movimiento Laborista led by
a future Ortodoxo leader Carlos Mrquez Sterling,(114) and the Liga Radical Martiana,
another revolutionary action group,(115) which had been given life as a result of
disillusionment with the government of Grau San Martn, the Cuban Trotskyists
continued to concentrate their activity inside the MSR until 1948. The spark which
triggered their effective withdrawal was the MSRs agreement to support Carlos Pro
Socorrs, the Autntico party candidate, in the presidential elections. For Prez
Santiesteban, who was still in the MSRs leadership, the MSRs electoral tactic was the
final straw and he wrote a document for circulation around the loose collection of MSR
branches which outlined the problems of the organisation. He set out in no uncertain
terms, though rather belatedly, that the MSR had fallen into the traditional pattern of
activity which had characterised the revolutionary movement in Cuba and that a
complete break from the past was required. Proposing a rapid root and branch internal
rectification in terms of the MSRs basic organisation and approach to theory, he argued
that the organisation should first draw up statutes in order to establish the rights and
duties of its membership, before then elaborating a programme of transitional demands,
the defence of which should be the principal activity of its activists.(116) In effect,
though, he was only forlornly recognising the limitations of petty bourgeois nationalism
without attempting to develop a similarly profound review of the PORs strategy and
tactics which argued that action groups like the MSR were in fact obstacles to workers
power rather than vehicles for it. The document was circulated around the country, but
only had an impact in terms of helping to win activists to the POR in the Guantnamo
region where the Trotskyists had a relatively strong representation in the MSR and some
prestige among the working class.(117)

In the aftermath of this escapade with the MSR, while the POR broadly viewed its
experience as a failure, it continued to fail to locate its error in the deep-seated strategic
critique that the forces of petty bourgeois nationalism were ultimately an obstacle, not
agencies for the necessary proletarian anti-imperialist revolution. That is, despite the
criticisms Prez Santiesteban made of the MSR and its leadership, the POR did not
209

criticise its own willingness to make common cause with petty bourgeois groups.
Indeed, it was this inability or unwillingness to propose a politically independent course
for the working class, something which characterised the whole history of Trotskyism in
Cuba, that led the Trotskyists to argue that they had had limited success because of the
backwardness of the MSRs leaders and this leaderships inability to work towards the
construction of a revolutionary party in a Bolshevik sense.(118)

In further limiting criticisms of its entry work to the tactical concerns of having not
thoroughly discussed and prepared themselves for fraction work beforehand, the POR
pursued a policy of substituting its work inside the MSR with a more prepared entry
into the Accin Revolucionaria Guiteras (ARG), another action group with terrorist
roots and little political formation.(119) By mid-1949, however, after the POR had
recognised that the socialist sounding phrases of all the recently resurrected action
groups were used to cover simple criminal activity, this attempt at working inside the
ARG ended. With specific reference to the ARG, the POR wrote that between what it
says and what it does lies an ocean, its revolutionary syndicalism has not gone
beyond simple racketeering and gangsterism.(120)

Abandoning its activity in these action groups, the POR, far from leaving with
additional recruits, had taken another step towards organisational and theoretical
collapse. As Pablo Daz described, the principal feature of the Cuban Trotskyists
activity had become participation in movements which strove for national economic
development.(121) In implicitly accepting a one-sided approach to the revolutionary
process, he emphasised the struggle for national liberation and simply sought to push
democratic nationalist groups further and further to Left against imperialism rather than
raising a programme of action which prioritised the necessary proletarian anti-
imperialist character of the struggle. While the Trotskyists, then, did not disintegrate in
a round of splits within the confines of their own organisation, they did wither on the
vine of a nationalist movement which, though identified as a vehicle for revolution,
had little by way of an anti-imperialist action programme.

At the PORs last appearance as a nationally organised party during the Sixth National
Workers Congress in 1949, the partys fraction paid testimony to the PORs inability to
express the fact that a great gulf existed between Trotskyism and the forces of petty
bourgeois nationalism. Through the intervention of a number of delegates from the
Guantnamo region headed by Antonio ico Torres, a representative of Delegacin 11
of the Hermandad Ferroviaria de Cuba,(122) the raising of the banner of Trotskyism at
this Congress did little more than confirm that a deep malaise had set in. The Trotskyist
delegates distributed a manifesto which, far from seeking to orientate a proletarian
vanguard, merely amounted to a well-structured piece of advice for a nationalist
government setting out on the path of national economic regeneration within the
confines of the world market. With its central concerns being economic diversification,
industrialisation and the pipe-dream of breaking out of the dollar orbit by setting up
barter agreements with Western Europe and Latin America,(123) the POR presented a
defeated caricature of the PBLs earlier theoretical attempts to break away from a theory
which defended the independence of a democratic anti-imperialist revolution. The wider
horizons of revolutionary socialism had dwindled, along with its membership, into an
overtly stagist approach to revolutionary activity. Like the Apristas, the POR was
reduced to militating in the Left-nationalist milieu for a round of progressive capitalist
development before the proletarian anti-imperialist programme was raised.
210

During the early 1950s, the PORs Havana branch seems to have collapsed as its most
committed member, Pablo Daz, spent increasingly lengthy spells in New York for the
purposes of employment. The remaining activists in the Guantnamo region who
adhered to the banner of Trotskyism did so as individual trade union militants.(124)
Although Brou has found evidence relating to the expression of Trotskyist ideas in
Cuba during the 1950s in the correspondence of various individuals; namely the
Mexican Octavio Fernndez, and the Cubans Bodernea,(125) Prez Santiesteban and
Pablo Daz,(126) any continuity in reality amounted to taking the ultimate step away
from an insistence on the necessary proletarian character of the anti-imperialist
revolution. Indeed, the only permanent characteristic of the Trotskyists assessment of
revolutionary strategy was their progressive flight from a perspective which sought to
defend an independent class programme of the proletariat against the forces of
democratic petty bourgeois nationalism.

Such a dissolutionist strategy was not without precedent in the Latin American
Trotskyist movement, the most notable example being the Bolivian POR effectively
placing itself at the service of the petty bourgeois nationalist Movimiento Nacionalista
Revolucionario (MNR) government in an attempt to serve as a radicalising influence
and gently push it towards socialism. In Cuba in the 1950s, the old POR members
flight from Trotskyism was complete with their integration into the 26 July Movement
milieu in the insurrectionary war against the regime of Batista. With the POR having
lost all of its earlier independent initiative and drive, those ex-Trotskyists who remained
committed to a revolutionary project effectively identified the M26J as another petty
bourgeois vehicle for revolution and settled into openly struggling for a democratic anti-
imperialist revolution without any concern for attempting to build a Trotskyist vanguard
party, or even fraction, if only to gently push the forces of petty bourgeois nationalism
towards socialism.

During the revolutionary struggle of 1956-59, the participation of ex-Trotskyists in both


the sierra and llano fell into two categories. On the one hand, there were those ex-
members of the POR who openly renounced Trotskyism in order to join the M26J at an
early stage and fully embrace the primacy of the one-sided struggle for national
liberation. On the other hand, there were those individuals who participated in the
armed struggle once it was underway but who never totally rejected the need for a
Trotskyist organisation. This second body of former Trotskyists constituted the core
group which went on to reorganise the Cuban Trotskyist party after the triumph of the
Revolution.

The two most prominent examples of ex-POR members from the late 1940s who
formally renounced Trotskyism in order to join the M26J at an early stage were Pablo
Daz and Antonio ico Torres. Daz, who had based himself permanently in the U.S.
in 1952, led the Comit Obrero Democrtico de Exiliados y Emigrados Cubanos, a
workers organisation in New York. Together with the larger Accin Cvica Cubana and
Comit Ortodoxo de Nueva York organisations, this Democratic Workers Committee of
Cuban Exiles and Emigrants worked in the Club Patritica 26 de Julio to collect funds
for the insurrection, recruit fighters and challenge the propaganda of the Batista regime
in the United States.(127) Receiving instructions to go to Mexico in October 1956,(128)
Pablo Daz also joined the Granma expeditionaries as one of fourteen members of Fidel
Castros General Staff.(129) However, after the chaos surrounding the ships landing,
Daz made his way back to Havana and then to New York to resume his work in the
211

Democratic Workers Committee of Cuban Exiles and Emigrants during the course of
the insurrection.

The extent to which Cuban Trotskyism had collapsed into emphasising the struggle of
petty bourgeois nationalism above that of the independent action of the working class
was evident in the thesis which Daz submitted to the Sierra Maestra Workers Congress
in October 1958. In this document, he posited that although the working class had the
potential to transform the country politically and socially, because of its low level of
consciousness it was up to the M26J to take responsibility and act as the agent for
revolutionary change.(130) Displaying another characteristic feature of Cuban
Trotskyism, he also argued that the working class had a role to play in the overthrow of
the Batista regime via the general strike. Resurrecting the old Workers Alliance
slogan, he contended that the general strike could only be successful if the workers
sections of the various revolutionary parties and organisations formed a United Front
Body which drew up a programme of action to mobilise the working masses in the final
push against the Batista regime. This programme of action which, borrowing from the
Trotskyist vocabulary, he called a Transitional Programme, did not, however, go
beyond a minimum programme of economic and democratic demands. The action
programme he proposed included a call for a six-hour working day in the sugar industry
with no reduction in pay, a maximum working week of forty hours, social security and
maternity pay, and full trade union democracy allowing for the election of officials by
workers themselves.(131)

Of those former Trotskyists who remained in Cuba during the period of the insurrection,
ico Torres was the most prominent. Torres, after satisfying the leadership of the M26J
that he was no longer a Trotskyist, was named second in command of the M26Js
Seccin Obrera in Guantnamo under Octavio Louit Venzant on 25 September 1955.
(132) Given the initial relative success of the M26Js guantanameo Workers Section,
its leaders, including ico Torres, rapidly became national leaders, eventually becoming
principal actors in the Frente Obrero Nacional and the reorganisation of the CTC from
1959.(133) Other Trotskyists or former Trotskyists who were active in the M26J in
Cuba itself included Alejandro Lamo and Gustavo Fraga in the province of Oriente.
While Alejandro Lamo, an ex-Trotskyist from Santiago de Cuba, joined the Rebel
Army,(134) Gustavo Fraga was a leader of the M26J Workers Section of Guantnamo
and Yateras. Along with ico Torres and others, Fraga drew up the first draft of the
organisational thesis of the Workers Sections inside the M26J. He died in an accidental
explosion in an M26J bomb factory on 4 August 1957.(135)

Of those ex-Trotskyists who participated in the armed struggle once it was underway
but who never totally abandoned all notion of building a Trotskyist vanguard party, was
a core of members from the Guantnamo branch including Juan Medina, Luciano
Garca and Idalberto Ferrera Acosta, as well as Roberto Acosta in Havana. In
Guantnamo, the Ferreras house was used as a meeting place and refuge for the various
revolutionary groups and combatientes.(136) Idalberto Ferrera Acosta, as a civilian
employee and trade union organiser in the U.S. Naval Base, and his wife Guarina
Ramrez Acosta, also participated in the clandestine activities of the Resistencia Cvica
and the M26J. Guarina Ramrez served as a messenger for Ivan Rodrguez, a leader of
the movement in Guantnamo, before joining the 18 Antonio Lpez column in the
Second Frank Pas Garca Front as a teacher.(137) Their sons, who became leaders of
the post-1959 Trotskyist party, also took part in the insurrection in various capacities.
212

Idalberto Ferrera Ramrez and Juan Len Ferrera Ramrez were initially active in the
student cells of the M26J before they went up to the Sierra after the Second Front was
opened. Idalberto Ferrera Ramrez was initially deployed as a guerrilla before becoming
a nurse. Juan Len Ferrera, after smuggling radio equipment, arms and munitions from
the U.S. Naval Base to the Sierra, led a group of eight guerrillas in the Second Front and
was made a sergeant in the Rebel Army.(138)

Other former POR members were also active in the Guantnamo region in the trade
union movement, particularly among railway workers.(139) According to Adolfo Gilly,
Juan Medina and Luciano Garca, as leaders of the railway workers union in
Guantnamo, reported that they had supported an M26J-PSP alliance at a trade union
conference in the Sierra during the insurrection.(140) Whether or not this was on the
basis of any agreed programme of action is uncertain. Elsewhere, in Havana, Roberto
Acosta, a leading founding member of the PBL in Santiago de Cuba, was active in the
Resistencia Cvica. Amongst other things, he provided his house to hide his engineering
colleague Manuel Ray, its Accin y Sabotage head. He also collaborated with the M26J
and was involved in the network which prepared messages and correspondence for
Fidel Castro and the Rebel Army leaders in the Sierra Maestra.(141)

By the time the insurrection broke out, then, there was no organised Trotskyist group in
Cuba, although as individuals a number of ex-members of the PBL and POR
participated in the armed struggle wherever and however they could. After more than
two decades of fighting with little success, though, this involvement had in many
respects led them full circle to pursue a political strategy which had much in common
with that advocated by Mella in the ANERC and the early dissidents in the OCC. That
is, in supporting an insurrectionary movement alongside the forces of petty bourgeois
nationalism they, in practice, subordinated proletarian political independence to the
struggle for, at best, a democratic anti-imperialist revolution.

In sum, then, under the conditions of semi-legality after the March 1935 general strike
those sections of the PBL which had opposed the so-called external road to building
the revolutionary party were able to regroup, albeit with a much reduced membership
which mirrored that of most other Latin American Trotskyist groups. From the mid-
1930s to the early 1950s, their numbers declined steadily from a figure approaching
approximately one hundred to no more than twenty. However, even at their weakest
moment before their eventual organisational dissolution in the early 1950s, they enjoyed
some trade union influence among workers in the Guantnamo, the only region in
which they had been a mass party during the Revolution of the 1930s.

Organisationally, just as the PBL during the Revolution of the 1930s was characterised
by periods of internal dislocation followed by attempts at reorganisation, so Cuban
Trotskyism between 1935 and 1959 was characterised by increasingly lengthy intervals
of organisational crisis punctuated by brief periods in which the leadership attempted to
establish some stability in the party. In tracing this pattern of organisational
development, I have argued that its decline and eventual dissolution was as much the
result of the peculiar features of the Cuban groups political thinking as it was of the
characteristics and difficulties posed by the environment in which they operated. That
is, the disappearance of the POR as an organised party in the 1950s reflected not only
the weakness of the working class after more than a decade of trade union and state
collaboration as well as the pressures of operating in a nationalist, anti-Stalinist milieu,
213

but more importantly, the Trotskyists own failure to distinguish clearly between the
democratic and proletarian anti-imperialist revolutions and to steer the working class on
a politically independent course of action.

The Cuban Trotskyists made various attempts to break out of their organisational
isolation not by insisting on the independence of proletarian political organisation, but
by making increasing concessions to non-proletarian nationalist groups. From a loose
and ambiguous critical support perspective with regard to the Autnticos in the early to
mid-1940s, they made several largely unorganised attempts at ill-defined entry inside a
number of self-titled action groups in the late 1940s. However, the final crisis in the
evolution of the POR in the period between revolutions did not simply spring from
poorly prepared fraction work or the MSRs and then ARGs slide into increasingly
open gangsterism. It was instead the result of the PORs mistaken assessment of its
whole method of revolutionary activity. That is, in again tying its destiny, as well as that
of the working class, to the fate of petty bourgeois nationalist groups, the PORs
targeted fraction work unsurprisingly came to an ignominious end when the action
groups themselves were either incorporated into the government machine or suppressed.
The government simply no longer required the pistoleros threats and terror tactics to
remove the PSP from its positions of office in the working class. Pursuing their own
logic of organisational dissolution, many ex-Trotskyists ultimately coalesced in and
around the M26J on an individual basis without any critical component. If they
remained socialists, their entry into the M26J milieu confirmed their explicit acceptance
of the theory of the independence of the democratic anti-imperialist revolution, a
tendency which had characterised the early OCC and PBL.

6.2 Cuban Trotskyism and a Proletarian Military Policy during


Wartime

Despite Trotskyisms small number of adherents in Cuba, one of its principal merits as a
radical Left alternative was that during the course of the Second World War the PBL,
and then POR, broadly maintained the principle that the greatest threat to Latin
American countries was imperialism whatever its mask, be it bourgeois democratic or
fascist. During the course of the war, while the local official communists eventually
served as uncritical recruiting agents for war abroad and strike-breakers on the home
front, the Trotskyists identified U.S. imperialism, the local oppressor, rather than Nazi
Germany as the principal threat, and attempted to apply the SWP(US)s Proletarian
Military Policy to Cuban conditions. However, in their interpretation of the nature of the
war and the strategy they advocated, the Cuban Trotskyists also displayed their
essentially one-sided approach to the revolution in Cuba, giving undue emphasis to the
slogans and struggle for national liberation.

On the outbreak of the war, the Cuban Trotskyists argued that it was not a war of
fascism against democracy but an imperialist war for a new division of the world. For
the PBL there was no basic distinction to be drawn between Britain oppressing millions
of Indians and Africans, and Nazi Germany oppressing its working class. Capitalism
itself was seen to be the cause of the war, and war could only be stopped once and for
all by directing action towards the destruction of the capitalist system.(142) After the
entry of the Soviet Union into the war in 1941, the Cuban Trotskyists denounced the
Stalinists for their initial pacifism and then subsequent pro-war stance which entailed
supporting the despatch of the Cuban working masses as cannon-fodder.(143) Even the
214

independent-minded Santiago de Cuba Sectional Committee of the PBL remained firm


in accusing the official communists of becoming the fervent supporters of the
imperialist war at the service of the White House.(144) In contrast to the Stalinists
volte-face, throughout the course of the war, the Cuban Trotskyists consistently
advanced three central programmatic demands which taken together constituted a
variation of the Proletarian Military Policy. In numerous documents, they raised the
slogan of NOT A SINGLE CUBAN SOLDIER OUTSIDE CUBA,(145) they opposed
government-sponsored compulsory military service from September 1940,(146) and
they argued for military instruction for the masses under the control of workers
organisations.(147)

However, in advancing a Proletarian Military Policy, the Trotskyists underlying bias


towards the slogans and demands for national liberation diluted the primacy of the
proletarian nature of the envisaged revolution. For example, although they rejected
neutral pacifism with the argument that the working class would ultimately solve the
great problems of the day with arms in hand, rather than uncompromisingly insisting on
the class significance of the workers under arms, they invoked the bourgeois democratic
traditions of the nineteenth century Cuban Liberation Army. As they wrote, we want to
reclaim the mambisa tradition of the soldier-citizen: it was the soldiers of the Liberation
Army who, exercising the right of suffrage, elected the Government in Arms.(148)

The Cuban Trotskyists also revealed their tendency to accept the theory of the
independence of the democratic anti-imperialist revolution in the unconditional support
they gave to various national liberation struggles against imperialism during the war.
Aside from raising rather ambiguous slogans, such as Long live the war of the colonial
peoples for their national liberation!,(149) which on their own implied acceptance of a
two-stage revolutionary strategy, the Cuban Trotskyists also directly equated the
struggle of the Soviet Union against imperialist aggression with that of the Chinese
people in their war of national liberation against Japan. They suggested that both
struggles were equally anti-imperialist and therefore both deserved unconditional
support.(150) In accepting Trotskys argument that the Soviet Union would deserve
unconditional support in the war no matter how subservient and how great the material
aid it received from the Allies, the Cuban Trotskyists mistakenly gave unconditional
support to national liberation movements when, in fact, that support should have been
conditioned by the degree of independence the Chinese bourgeois nationalists
maintained with respect to the Allies.(151)

Further privileging the struggle for national liberation, the Cuban Trotskyists also
displayed a tendency to justify their slogan of Not a Single Cuban Soldier Outside
Cuba! on strategic grounds rather than on the basis of political arguments. That is,
rather than insisting that the proletariats main enemy was imperialism and workers
simply had no interest in prosecuting imperialist designs, the POR diluted this message
with the argument that [t]he defence of the national territory [of Cuba] demands the
permanent presence inside that territory of all available forces.(152) The slogan of
National and Social Liberation! was twisted to privilege the struggle for national
defence, leaving on one side the permanent struggle of the proletariat world-wide.
215

6.3 The Cuban Trotskyists and International Questions

6.3.1 Cuban Trotskyists and the Spanish Civil War

The Spanish Civil War broke out in mid-1936 at a time when the reorganised PBL was
still adjusting to the conditions of the March 1935 defeat, and continued until 1939,
when class collaboration in Cuba had been cemented in an alliance between Batista and
the official communist party. From the outset, the Cuban Trotskyists were unequivocal
in rebutting the official communists assertion that it was simply a war between pro-
democratic Leftists and pro-fascist Spanish reactionaries. They instead adhered to the
Permanent Revolution perspective, arguing that only the independent action of the
Spanish proletariat against both the fascists and the vacillating Popular Front
government could save the Spanish Revolution.(153) However, in again setting out its
internationalist proletarian standard in the Cuban labour and revolutionary milieu the
PBL seems to have been ignorant of the content of the political debate which had
erupted between Trotsky and the followers of Nin in the Spanish POUM.

Fulfilling the basic education and propaganda functions of a revolutionary party, the
PBL published Trotskys July 1936 article The Lesson of Spain which polemicised
against the Popular Front alliance of working class leaders with the bourgeoisie.
However, while Trotsky argued for a genuine alliance of workers and peasants [....]
against the bourgeoisie,(154) which was ultimately aimed against the POUM as much
as the Spanish Stalinists, the PBL was rather more ambiguous. On the one hand, the
Cuban Trotskyists attacked the Comintern when arguing against all notion of political
blocs with the Republican bourgeoisie:

[t]he policy of forming a bloc with the republican bourgeoisie, with the so-called
democratic bourgeoisie, as advocated by the revisionist Stalinists since the Seventh
Congress of the Communist International, is in essence a restraining counter-
revolutionary policy, the consequences of which will be paid by the Spanish
proletariat.(155)

On the other hand, though, they did not offer any criticism of the POUM for signing the
Left Electoral Pact, a de facto Popular Front. The Cuban Trotskyists limited their
analysis of the POUM to congratulatory comments on its calls to reorganise the
Workers Alliances as organs of proletarian expression,(156) and seem to have been
unaware of the POUMs subsequent decision to enter the Catalan government, a move
which led to the undermining and dissolution of the anti-fascist committees, the real
embryonic organs of proletarian power.

In Cuba, the PBL followed a broad Trotskyist perspective in its intervention in the
Ateneo Socialista Espaol, a non-partisan Spanish workers organisation,(157) while
appearing to have little knowledge of the conflict which had erupted between Nin and
the POUM, on the one hand, and Trotsky and the Spanish Bolshevik Leninist group on
the other.(158) This schism at the international level certainly did not provoke any
debate within the PBL at the time. In one of the few references which they made to the
POUM, the Cuban Trotskyists praised Maurn for speaking against a policy of
collaboration and subordination to the bourgeoisie, and navely commended the POUM
for calling on the Spanish proletariat day after day to reorganise the Workers Alliance,
the true organs of proletarian expression, and the workers militias, the embryos of the
216

Red Army.(159) Indeed, unlike the fiercely intransigent Trotskyist movement


elsewhere in Europe and the Americas, it was only after the Civil War had ended that
the Cuban Trotskyists addressed the Nin-Trotsky controversy. However, even in their
belated references to the dispute they displayed their split loyalties. While in 1940 they
unequivocally labelled the POUM as a centrist group between Marxism and reformism
which was incapable of leading a successful struggle for socialist revolution,(160) in the
same year in a more considered reflection on the outcome of the fiery debate between
Nin and Trotsky they questioned what they perceived to be Trotskys unnecessarily
hostile language as well as the actual substance of his arguments. They wrote:

[t]he violent characterization made by Comrade Crux calling Nin and Andrade
traitors, closed the road to reintegrating into our ranks a great number of
revolutionaries. Because if it is true that the conduct of Nin and Andrade well merited
the characterization, it is not less certain the characterization was impolitic.(161)

Among those Cuban Trotskyists who went on an individual basis to fight in the Spanish
Civil War, however, the POUM-Trotsky controversy certainly was well-known and had
a number of consequences. The most prominent Cuban Trotskyist who fought in the
Spanish Civil War was Bre, a central figure in stimulating Trotskyist discussion within
the Oposicin Comunista de Cuba in the 1932-33 period. Having returned to Europe
after the fall of the Grau San Martn government in 1934, Bre made his way to Spain
in July 1936 with his companion Mary Low.(162) From late July 1936 to early 1937, as
a militant of the Bolshevik-Leninists, the official Trotskyist group,(163) he fought with
the POUM militia on the Aragn Front, and worked with the International Secretariat of
the POUM(164) and as a journalist for the POUMs newspapers La Batalla and the
P.O.U.M..(165)

In Barcelona, in late 1936, Bre was detained on two separate occasions by the Stalinist
security forces. The POUM refused to give him any protection and together with Low,
he eventually had to leave once more for France.(166) Their experiences in Spain were
vividly recounted in their Red Spanish Notebook,(167) the first account of the Spanish
Civil War from a Trotskyist perspective to be published in English in book form. Unlike
the PBL in Cuba, in this book Bre outlined the ideological confusion of the anarchists
and anarcho-syndicalists who, in his opinion, threw away the power when it fell into
their hands because their principles were against taking it.(168) For Bre, the only way
forward in Spain was to oppose Communism to Fascism,(169) and he argued the need
for what he termed a Common Frontthat is to say an alliance of the proletariat
without an amalgamation of programme.(170)

Bre also reaffirmed the outright counter-revolutionary role of those who adhered to the
Comintern while, at the same time, refusing to lay the whole blame for the failure of the
revolution at their door. In revealing the depth of the Cuban Trotskyists anti-Stalinism,
Bre also criticised the POUM. He wrote:

[i]t would be childish to throw the blame there [i.e., at the Stalinists doorstep] when
we have known so long what a counter-revolutionary part Russia and her acolytes have
been playing in all countries. Forewarned is forearmed. The responsibility must lie with
those revolutionary parties in Spain who know Stalinism for what it is. I mean the
P.O.U.M. and Anarchists, and the Anarcho-Syndicalists.(171)
217

Aside from Bre, other Cuban Trotskyists also fought in the Spanish Civil War, albeit
as individuals isolated from the international Trotskyist movement. Apart from the PBL
members of Spanish origin who had been deported from Cuba to Spain in 1934,(172)
news reached the PBL in late 1936 that Edelmiro Blanco, a leader of the General
Commercial Workers Union, had been killed in action.(173) Wilebaldo Solano has also
recounted that another Cuban Trotskyist, Enrique de la Uz, fought in the International
Brigades and that Juan Andrade, a leader of the POUM, spoke on various occasions of a
group of Cuban Trotskyists which had fought valiantly.(174)

The Cuban Trotskyists activity, then, during the Spanish Civil War was broadly
determined by an acceptance of the necessity for insisting on the proletarian character of
the anti-fascist war, a fundamental tenet of the Permanent Revolution perspective.
However, as a group the PBL seem to have failed to gain an understanding of the deep
chasm which had developed between the POUM and Trotsky. Only Bre in Spain
developed a clear understanding of this dispute, and perhaps it was only as a result of
his return to Cuba in 1940 that the PBL subsequently came out against the POUMs so-
called centrism.

6.3.2 Cuban Trotskyism in the Fourth International

During the period between the end of the March 1935 general strike and the late 1940s
the PBL, and then POR, maintained regular contact with the international Trotskyist
movement mainly through the offices of the U.S. Trotskyists. They received the press of
numerous Trotskyist groups across the Americas and Europe,(175) and sent letters and
reports to the SWP(US) and international leadership in New York.(176) While they
were never able to send a delegate to any international meeting, principally due to
financial constraints, they mandated the New York-based U.S. Trotskyist Fred Browner
to represent them in their stead.(177) They also maintained contact with the
international movement through the occasional visit from U.S. Trotskyists,(178) and
through a small number of European Trotskyists who as refugees spent the duration of
the Second World War in Cuba. Apart from Louis Rigaudias, this included Anton
Grylewicz, a leader of the German Trotskyists.(179)

In the late 1940s, though, these links and contacts with the Fourth International
gradually faded. While this drift away from the international movement was largely the
result of the Cuban Trotskyists own crisis of organisation and ultimate dissolution, this
was not a one-way causal relationship. That is, the POR developed specific positions on
the nature of the Soviet Union as well as on the nature of the revolution in Cuba which
led it to become increasingly distanced from its principal link with the international
movement, the SWP(US). This international isolation, I contend, while not provoking
the Cuban Trotskyist partys dissolution did further compound the stagnation and
disillusion which had set in among the Trotskyists.

In the debate on the nature of the revolution in Latin American and the Trotskyists
orientation towards local non-proletarian nationalist groups, the Cuban Trotskyists,
notwithstanding their small numbers in the 1940s, were one of the principal groups
belonging to the loose national liberation camp. Thus, when Justos Liga Obrera
Revolucionaria (LOR) in Argentina took up the national liberation mantle by
emphasising the struggle and slogans for national liberation in a theoretical struggle
218

against the Trotskyists international centre based in New York, the Cuban Trotskyists
initially expressed sympathy for Justos view.(180)

Political disagreements between the POR and SWP(US) continued to surface on the
issue of the proletarian versus national liberation line until the PORs organisational
dissolution in the early 1950s. The SWP(US) largely pressed the Cubans to establish
unambiguously their proletarian anti-imperialist credentials. The North Americans, for
example, expressed their thorough-going disagreement with the PORs critical
support tactic prior to the 1944 elections,(181) on the grounds that it failed to clearly
dissociate the Cuban Trotskyists from Grau San Martns treacherous banner.(182)
By the early 1950s the polarisation in views was such that the SWP(US) curtly advised
the POR to resume its activity and become a real revolutionary Marxist proletarian
tendency free from its past confusion and deviations by orientating itself towards
workers influenced by the PSP. No mention was made of principled delineated work
among those groups which were influenced by ortodoxia and the struggle for national
liberation.(183)

Despite these criticisms, the POR remained ever firm in its commitment to loosely
based alliances and entry work in petty bourgeois nationalist groups. While this was
evident in its entry into the MSR and then ARG in the late 1940s, on the international
plane the Cubans also supported the tactics of participating in the Peronist movement in
Argentina and the MNR in Bolivia. They justified this on the national liberation basis
that such Bonapartist and petty bourgeois nationalist movements had a mass following
and were essentially progressive as a result of their opposition to imperialism.(184)

Differences between the Cuban Trotskyists and the SWP(US) also opened up over the
issue of the nature of the Soviet Union. Unlike the case of the Trotsky-Nin dispute, from
an early stage the Cuban Trotskyists were broadly aware that a debate on the nature of
Soviet Union had erupted within the international Trotskyist movement. In May 1940,
for example, they condemned the SWP(US) Minority which had taken up an anti-
defencist position as a petty bourgeois opposition which had succumbed to the pressure
of bourgeois public opinion.(185) During the course of the Second World War, the
POR, like Trotsky before his murder and the majority of the International Trotskyist
movement, consistently advocated giving unconditional defence to the Soviet Union on
the basis of various economic features; namely, the existent property relations, state-
sponsored economic planning and the state monopoly of foreign trade.(186) At the same
time, and again like Trotsky, they were also unrelenting in their descriptive
denunciation of the political character of the Soviet regime. Criticising the suppression
of soviet, worker and party democracy which in their view only served the interests of
increasing the control and privileges of the bureaucracy,(187) the Cuban Trotskyists
expressed the opinion that the Soviet bureaucracy in power was a privileged caste
which had broken with the concept of proletarian revolution and which, on the back of
the Soviet masses, had consolidated a Bonapartist State and an anti-proletarian
dictatorship.(188) Giving no political support to the Soviet bureaucracy, the POR
entrusted the gains of the October 1917 Revolution to the working class across the
world. Calling for the defence of these gains by those same methods which had installed
the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, the POR advocated continuing the class struggle
against the local bourgeoisies and representatives of imperialism everywhere, and to
oppose the imperialist war with a struggle to ignite civil war and national and social
liberation.(189)
219

However, during the mid-1940s, the Cuban Trotskyists views on the nature of the
Soviet Union underwent a qualitative change. From advocating the unconditional
defence of the Soviet Union on the basis that the existent property relations conferred
upon it the status of Workers State, however politically degenerated, the POR came
to support the Shachtmanite anti-defencist thesis and eventually posited that the Soviet
Union was some sort of state capitalist formation.(190) While the exact route by which
the Cuban Trotskyists adopted this position is unclear, it is more than likely that their
analysis of the Soviet Union was conditioned not only by the influence which Mario
Pedrosa, a member of the Fourth Internationals International Executive Committee,
had among Latin American Trotskyists, but by their own experience of Moscows
acolytes in Cuba. During the Revolution of the 1930s the PBL had been unequivocal in
denouncing the anti-revolutionary direction of the PCC. As noted in Section 5.3, they
considered that the first task for revolutionaries lay in eliminating Stalinism as a factor
in the workers movement. The POR had been similarly unequivocal in denouncing the
official communists for abandoning all pretence of class struggle in exchange for state
succour during the 1940-44 period when Batista was in power.

Thus, despite the PORs formal defencist position with regard to the Soviet Union
during the Second World War, by July 1945, the newspaper Revolucin Proletaria was
lambasting the Stalinist Dictatorship for its history of crushing working class
organisations in Poland in order to expand its Totalitarian State.(191) From this
analysis it was a short step to abandon the Fourth Internationals position that the
subsequent overturn of property relations in Eastern Europe was somehow progressive.
Arguing for an end to the Soviet occupation of Poland, the POR reminded the readers of
its newspaper that [t]he liberation of the working class will be the work of the workers
themselves.(192) By the late 1940s, the PORs completely revised anti-defencist and
state capitalist conclusions on the Soviet Union were publicly expressed in a letter to the
French Socialisme ou Barbarie group.(193)

While the Cuban Trotskyists do not seem to have explicitly supported the anti-
defencists in any faction fight within the international Trotskyist movement, their
revised political conclusions were shared by Louis Rigaudias who moved to New York
in September 1945 and became a leader of the SWP(US) Minority standing for a state
capitalist explanation of the USSRs development.(194) However, despite this personal
link to the anti-defencist camp on the American continent, the POR does not seem to
have established any formal organisational ties with any of the anti-defencist
tendencies which split from the Fourth International in the 1940s. Given that the major
group of anti-defencists, the Shachtmanites, advised Cuban Trotskyists to integrate as
a fraction into the nationalist movements,(195) a strategy which the POR itself
prioritised despite the advice of the SWP(US), this absence of formal contact is even
more surprising. Ultimately, it may have been the Shachtmanites own internal ruptures
in the late 1940s and their limited interest in forming an international organisation as
they moved to the Right in pursuit of an elusive Labour Party in the United States which
determined this outcome.

While, then, two profound theoretical schisms opened up between the Cuban
Trotskyists and the Fourth Internationals centre in New York, there was also a degree
of discontent on the part of the Cubans for what they perceived to be the excessive
interference of the U.S. Trotskyists in the affairs of Latin American groups and the
international leaderships exclusiveness. In the first place, the Cuban Trotskyists
220

objected to what they perceived to be the centres interference in the internal affairs of
national sections. Under the conditions imposed by the Second World War in which the
functioning of the Fourth International as a genuinely collaborative and democratic
body was compromised, the POR contended that, ultimately, it was the task of the
national sections in Latin America to solve their own issues and take responsibility for
so doing. Recognising their own fallibility while, at the same time, rebuking the
international centre for its belief that the seemingly permanent crises in Latin American
sections should be solved from New York, the POR wrote:

[t]here are metropolitan prejudices and there are colonial prejudices. We have to cure
ourselves of that disease. Messianic prejudice belonging to our own prevailing politics
in our countries weighs down on us quite often. The action is a reflection of the
environment. Likewise, our prejudice is balanced by that of our North American
friends. As a general rule, though with exceptions, they have an encyclopaedic
ignorance of the South American countries though they think they are very well
informed. We are the ones who have to solve our own issues and this behaviour will in
the end turn out to be to our collective advantage going beyond political borders.(196)

During the conditions of war the POR viewed the centre in New York as no more than
a point of moral convergence, which needed to be maintained as an effective
leadership in embryo.(197) It was on this basis that the Cuban Trotskyists distanced
themselves from Justo and the Argentinian LOR for intransigently pursuing a split from
the Fourth International when the conditions of war meant that such a move was only a
formal matter anyway, and the task was to fight out the battle within the existing loose
international framework.(198) The Cubans disagreement with the LOR was principally
a tactical concern over its decision to formally split from the Fourth International and
attempt to build an alternative international centre. In a letter dated 9 June 1942 to the
LOR, *Bode, the General Secretary of the POR, expressed the Cuban Trotskyists deep
regret at the what it termed the LORs precipitate decision to break with New York
since such a step can only lead to the abandonment of a position legitimately held and
the leaving of the best arguments in the hands of the centrist tendency for it to defend its
position.(199)

The POR also criticised the Fourth Internationals leadership for what the Cubans
perceived as its tendency towards exclusiveness. Just as the POR tended to advocate
the building of broad anti-imperialist blocs at home, so at the international level it urged
tolerance and inclusiveness when it came to dealing with groups who fundamentally
challenged the line of the international. Thus, although in 1940 the Cuban Trotskyists
agreed that the SWP(US) Minority should be denied an independent public press,(200)
and condemned its conduct in appropriating the organs of the Majority,(201) they urged
that every effort should be made to keep the oppositionists within the ranks of the party.
Constructive work with the activists influenced by the Minority and not the blind
imposition of discipline, expulsions and personal attacks were what the PBL advised.
(202) As outlined in Section 6.3.1, the Cuban Trotskyists also expressed their tendency
to favour broad inclusion before sharp delineation in their reflections on Trotskys
approach to challenging Nin during the course of the Spanish Civil War. The POR
furthermore criticised the Fourth Internationals leadership for what the Cubans
perceived to be its exclusiveness in not initially inviting so-called centrist and ultra-
leftist organisations, including the POUM, to the Internationals congresses and
conferences in the post-Second World War Period.(203)
221

While, then, the political differences which existed between the Cuban Trotskyists and
the various Trotskyist centres in the Americas in the 1940s only compounded the PORs
isolation, further schisms which arose in the international Trotskyist movement in the
1950s did little to encourage the small number of Trotskyist activists to regroup and
develop a coherent understanding of the revolutionary process. As described in Section
2.4, the emergence of the International Secretariat of the Fourth International in the
early 1950s, was perhaps the most logical home for adherents of the national
liberation tendency within international Trotskyism. However, this distinct Pabloite
tendency was of little assistance since it had become a partisan of actual liquidation
inside centrist Stalinist parties as well as revolutionary national groups. The Cubans
with their experience of a particularly pro-capitalist official communist party at home as
well as a state capitalist interpretation of the Soviet Union would have rejected outright
any suggestion that Stalinism could act as a vehicle for proletarian revolution.

In sum, then, although the Cuban Trotskyists kept in contact with the stabilising
influence of the international centres during the 1930s and early 40s via
correspondence, exchanges of press, foreign refugees and the occasional visits from
North Americans, in the post-World War Two period a number of theoretical
differences developed between the Cubans and the U.S. Trotskyists which contributed
to the formers international isolation. This isolation thereby removed one factor which
could have served as a fixed point in avoiding complete dissolution. The Cuban
Trotskyists support for the state capitalist, anti-defencist thesis on the Soviet Union
cut the POR off from contact with the major Trotskyist parties in the U.S. and Latin
America in the late 1940s. Furthermore, while the majority of the Shachtmanites
discovered that there were only two camps and not three as they evolved towards
conciliation with the trade union bureaucracy and the Democratic Party in the U.S. in
pursuit of an elusive Labour Party, the dispersion of the groups adhering to the Fourth
International in the 1950s and the International Secretariats faith in the revolutionary
potential of pro-Soviet communist parties did not aid the Cubans in establishing any
stable external influences.

6.4 Relations between Trotskyists and the Official Cuban


Communists, 1935-58

In this section I chart the official Cuban communists critique of Trotskyism and the
Cuban Trotskyists response to this propaganda in the period 1935-58. I describe how
the Stalinists commentary on Trotskyism was characterised by a series of inaccurate
and slanderous outbursts which, while depicting Trotskyism as a counter-revolutionary
current in the workers movement that was working hand-in-hand with fascism, over-
emphasised the actual strength of Trotskyism in Cuba. I furthermore argue that as in the
case of post-1959 Cuban historiography,(204) these attacks were directed at discrediting
the activities of Mujal and the Autnticos labour organisations during the 1940s as
much as they were aimed at attacking the manifestation of Trotskyism in Cuba.

During the Moscow Trials in the late 1930s, the official Cuban communists
supplemented the propaganda which a still authoritative Moscow put into circulation by
initiating an anti-Trotskyist campaign of their own in Cuba. The PCCs Bandera Roja
newspaper accused Trotskyists of a litany of crimes from creating terrorist centres, to
sabotaging Soviet industry,(205) to attempting to restore capitalism in the Soviet Union,
and rather ironically to concluding a pact with Nazi Germany.(206) The official
222

communists in Cuba also launched a campaign against Trotskyism shortly after


Trotskys assassination in Mexico in August 1940. Blaming Trotskys murder on a
disaffected group within the Trotskyist movement, the Stalinists portrayed Trotsky as a
spy in the pay of imperialism who from the 1920s had been fighting for the restoration
of capitalism in the Soviet Union.(207) Carlos Rafael Rodrguez, a leading member of
the PSP, labelled Trotsky a Menshevik and slated the bourgeois press for suggesting
that the beloved guide of the workers of the world, comrade Stalin, was involved in
his death.(208) Trotskyism, the official Cuban communists argued, had long since
ceased to be a political tendency and had become a gang of criminals.(209)

During the Second World War, the official communists continued to direct the standard
Stalinist slanders against Trotskyists, accusing them of being counter-revolutionary
agents and fascist spies bent on dividing the working class so as to facilitate the Nazi
invasion of the Soviet Union and a general offensive against the progressive forces of
the day.(210) Their attack on Trotskyism in Cuba peaked in 1942, shortly after the
official communists had revised their understanding of the nature of the Second World
War and had made another zigzag to support the war effort of Batista and the United
States. As outlined in Section 3.3, the official communists new policy included
uncritically supporting proposals for compulsory military service and the suppression of
any strike action. Given that the opposition which the official communists faced within
the labour movement was concentrated in the Autnticos Comisin Obrera Nacional,
whose General Secretary was Junco, one of the principal founders of the OCC in 1932,
the official communists tactic was one of denouncing the Autnticos in terms
previously reserved for the Trotskyists. The official communists principal recurring
accusation was that the Trotskyists had taken shelter in and taken over the Comisin
Obrera Nacional. Despite the protests of various Autntico leaders, the official
communists argued that any denials of Trotskyism were part of a cunning
manoeuvre to betray the working class in an underhand way just as the so-called
Trotskyists were supposedly being exposed.(211) This tendency to over-emphasise the
influence of Trotskyism was no better displayed than in the CTCs report of the State
of Forces Represented at the Third Congress of the CTC in December 1942. Although,
as described in section 6.1.2, the POR only had a small number of delegates who acted
as a cohesive fraction at the Congress, the official communists calculated that of the 972
delegates who attended, 108 (eleven per cent) were Trotskyists.(212)

In particular, the official communists identified Junco and Mujal, the leaders of the
Comisin Obrera Nacional, as Trotskyists committed to the project of dividing the
working class and delivering its organisations to the forces of reaction.(213) Adding to
the official communists extensive track record of falsification and misrepresentation,
they argued that this cunning Trotskyist plan had a long history. They rather
ludicrously contended that:

[i]n 1935, the Cuban Trotskyists expelled like rats from the trade unions and popular
organisations, received orders from their boss, Trotsky, to join Joven Cuba in order to
disguise their activities and avoid the wrath of the masses. When Joven Cuba became
politically fused with the PRC, the Trotskyists took shelter under the Autnticos banner
in order to carry on poisoning the honest workers in that party with its intrigues and
betrayals.(214)
223

By the 1940s, then, the official communists campaign against the perceived threat of
Trotskyism was primarily directed at discrediting the Autnticos rather than the much
reduced group of Trotskyists. The official communists appear to have been motivated
by the challenge which the PBL had once posed during the Revolution of the 1930s as
well as the physical presence of such former Trotskyists as Junco in the leading bodies
of the Autnticos labour organisations and their perceived radicalism, rather than by
any reasoned analysis. The anti-Trotskyist propaganda which Moscow was promoting
in the wake of the Moscow trials and murder of Trotsky simply served to concentrate
the focus of the Cuban communists on the continued threat which Trotskyism allegedly
posed. As described in Section 6.1.2, the PORs only trade union base of substantial
note was in the Guantnamo region, and even there it was a minority fraction of the
Autntico-dominated labour opposition. As such, the Trotskyist threat to their state-
sponsored leadership of the labour movement was very much exaggerated.

That the official communists were principally concerned with eliminating the
Autnticos from positions of influence was demonstrated by their actions in May 1942.
They first initiated a campaign against Junco, a leader of the Autnticos National
Labour Commission, formally expelling him from the Bakery Workers Union of
Havana. In the run-up to a meeting he was due to attend in Sancti Spritus to
commemorate the seventh anniversary of Guiteras murder, Stalinist propaganda then
began to denounce Junco and other Autntico labour leaders like Simen as divisionists,
spies and fifth columnist agents in the workers movement,(215) terms usually reserved
for Trotskyists. In this heightened atmosphere a Stalinist gun-squad went so far as to
murder Junco while he was actually speaking at the commemorative meeting on 8 May
1942.

In contrast to the crude barbarity of the official communists, as much at the level of
theoretical analysis as physical assault, the Cuban Trotskyists attempted to rebut the
false accusations levelled against Trotskyism with the limited resources at their
disposal. In the first place, although a number of leading members of the Autntico
National Labour Commission like Mujal and Junco were indeed ex-Trotskyists,(216)
the PBL and then POR, publicly dissociated themselves from the political strategy and
activity of these former Trotskyists. Thus, when Garca Villareal reappeared as an
associate of a government minister in 1936 after his expulsion from the PBL in the first
months of 1935, the PBL denounced him as a turncoat and traitor who, along with
Junco, was a hardened adventurer who had dreamed of profitable speculation close to
the groups of the petty bourgeoisie.(217) The Trotskyists similarly rejected the official
communists accusations that Mujal, Junco and Simen were Trotskyists during the
1940s.(218) Aside from warning of the danger which Mujal represented for the working
class,(219) they argued that, if anything, it was the official communists who had
something in common with Junco and his colleagues in the Comisin Obrera Nacional
leadership. They succinctly argued that both were united in a pursuing a policy of class
conciliation.(220)

Although, then, there is no evidence to suggest that the accusations put forward by the
official communist party with respect to either the anti-working class nature of
Trotskyism or the more specific charge that the Autnticos somehow represented the
face of Trotskyism in Cuba, the PBLs and PORs rebuttals of the official communists
accusations went largely unheard at the time. While the Trotskyists protestations have
equally been ignored in post-1959 Cuban historiography, this has been motivated by
224

concerns which the Cuban Trotskyists themselves failed to notice. That is, the official
Cuban communists were motivated as much by a desire to pass over a serious class-
based analysis of Mujal, Junco and the Autnticos in the 1940s as it was to discredit the
relatively small Cuban Trotskyist movement.

6.5 Conclusion

In summary, from 1935 to the 1950s in Cuba, Trotskyism had a much reduced influence
on the national political scene and direction of the working class movement compared
with that which it had exercised during the Revolution of the 1930s. After the
regrouping which took place in the ranks of the PBL after the defeat of the March 1935
general strike, Trotskyism experienced no substantial period of growth. Indeed, through
the 1940s the POR suffered a gradual decline in membership before it eventually
disappeared as an organised party in the early 1950s.

In addressing the Trotskyists diminished influence on the national political scene and
their eventual dissolution I have argued that there were various inter-related factors
explaining their apparent failure. That is, both structural realities largely outside the
Cuban Trotskyists immediate control, as well as their own understanding of the
revolutionary process aggravated their organisational fortunes. Thus, as I have outlined,
the Trotskyists failure was in part conditioned by the peculiar balance of political
forces skewed against them. First, the international balance of class forces militated
against them. While the Fourth International itself was born in a period of defeat for the
working class, the Second World War saw potentially powerful working class
movements in the major industrial nations follow their respective bourgeoisies into war.
The broad consensus achieved with the aid of class collaborationist social democratic
and official communist parties was that fascism and not capitalism itself was the
principal enemy.

The most significant structural obstacle which the Cuban Trotskyists faced at home was
the lack of a Marxist tradition and the particularly weak local class-based institutions
which had never developed a belief in their own independent activity and destiny. After
the defeat of the Revolution of the 1930s, these conditions facilitated the rise of a Right-
Bonapartist regime under Batista which granted favour to a compliant official
communist party in exchange for certain economic incentives. The growth of the Cuban
Communist Party from the late 1930s into one of the largest and most powerful official
communist parties in the Americas, not only further depoliticised a working class which
had suffered a recent historic defeat, but enabled a bitter and slanderous campaign to be
waged against Trotskyism. The Trotskyists themselves simply did not have the
resources to respond effectively to such attacks.

However, although the overwhelmingly negative balance of social and political forces
severely hindered the building of a Trotskyist party, to explain the apparent failure of
Trotskyism in Cuba in the 1930s, 40s and 50s, and then the PORs eventual
disappearance, in these terms alone would be to resort to bland determinism. As such,
an additional major reason behind the Trotskyists organisational dislocation was their
own underlying political trajectory. That is, the gradual dissolution of the POR not only
reflected the weakness of the working class and a long period of state and trade union
collaboration, but also the failure of the Cuban Trotskyists to distinguish themselves
clearly from the strategy and organisations of the forces of petty bourgeois nationalism.
225

The underlying implication of this argument is that although a different political


strategy may not have resulted in the Trotskyists leading a proletarian anti-imperialist
revolution in the short or medium term, it would have produced a different outcome in
terms of at least avoiding actual dissolution and keeping alive a tradition of working
class political independence.

As I have described, the historic defeat borne by the revolutionary movement in March
1935 effectively cleansed the PBL of those advocates of the external road thesis who
more or less openly opposed clear delineation between the petty bourgeoisie and a
proletarian Marxist party. However, although what I have referred to as the Trotskyist
tendency within the PBL during the Revolution of the 1930s reassessed its
understanding of the revolutionary process so as to formulate a strategy which
incorporated the essence of Trotskys theory of Permanent Revolution, the Cuban
Trotskyists continued to display a long-term tendency to be one-sided in their approach
to revolutionary activity, in effect, tying the destiny of the working class and anti-
imperialist revolution to the fate of petty bourgeois nationalism.

This tendency was particularly evident during the 1940s, when the POR all but
abandoned Trotskys understanding that any Anti-Imperialist United Front could only
be formed on the basis of a struggle for immediate practical objectives in order to
expose the ultimate inability of the petty bourgeoisie to lead even the most limited anti-
imperialist revolution. The Cuban Trotskyists instead developed an action programme
which prioritised the struggle for an intermediate democratic anti-imperialist
revolution. While they borrowed the language of radical petty bourgeois nationalism,
the name of their newspaper in the early 1940s, Cuba Obrera, being the most public
expression of this, they furthermore blurred the clear lines of demarcation between
proletarian anti-imperialism and petty bourgeois nationalism in calling for an uncritical
vote for the Autnticos in the 1944 elections. This feature of Cuban Trotskyism was
further evidenced in the act of dissolving without any distinct programme inside the
Movimiento Socialista Revolucionaria, an organisation which professed a continuity
from Joven Cuba. While these tactical orientations could be seen as rather desperate
attempts to escape from their isolation, they embodied an opportunist, short-term
perspective which ultimately failed to understand what Lenin had termed as their
special task, that is, the struggle against the bourgeois-democratic movements within
[their own country].(221) The POR simply did not appreciate that while Stalinism had
to be fought in the labour movement, this could not be achieved effectively through
making common cause with the various petty bourgeois gangs.

It was because the Cuban Trotskyists prioritised the broad Second Period policy of
forming democratic anti-imperialist blocs with the forces of reformist and revolutionary
nationalism at the expense of proletarian political independence in strict competition
with petty bourgeois nationalism, that they themselves ultimately disappeared into the
ill-defined nationalist milieu in the 1950s. While the Cuban Trotskyists anti-Stalinism
when mixed with the terrorism of the pistoleros took a small number of them off to the
Right, those who remained loyal to the revolutionary project aligned themselves
uncritically with the M26J.

Although the Cuban Trotskyists were small in number in the period 1935-58, their
significance in and contribution to the history of the revolutionary movement in Cuba
were far from negligible. In the first place, during the 1930s and 40s when the official
226

communists substituted the ultra-radicalism of the Third Period, which dismissed all
concerns of the national liberation movement, for the abandonment of the whole project
of class struggle and revolutionary politics, as evidenced by their participation in the
bourgeois government of Batista and reluctance to jettison the conceptions of
Browderism in the 1940s, the Cuban Trotskyists insisted on the validity of the project of
socialism and the dictatorship of the working class on an international scale.
Furthermore, unlike the official Cuban communists, who, with a notable exception in
the mid-1940s, broadly made tactical turns in the wake of a re-written script passed
down from Moscow, the PBL and then POR defended their own argument developed
during the formative years of the OCC that it was necessary to intervene on the terrain
of national liberation in order to win to the cause of socialism the most radical sector of
petty bourgeois nationalism. However misguided their tactics which failed to propose a
politically independent course of action for the working class, their attempt to integrate
the problem of national liberation and role of the petty bourgeoisie in the semi-colonial
setting of Cuba into the revolutionary project was a sincere attempt to further the cause
of socialism.

FOOTNOTES
1. See, for example, Juzgado de InstruccinGuantnamo, Elas Surez y
Caunedo (AHPSC: Audencia de Oriente Sala de Urgencia, Legajo 1, Expediente 1,
Folio 8.); and Juzgado de InstruccinGuantnamo, Rafael Sebastian y
Cobas. (AHPSC: Audencia de Oriente Sala de Urgencia, Legajo 1, Expediente 1,
Folio 9.) (Back to text)
2. Unsigned, Report Reveals Terror Rule of Wall Street Regime in Cuba, New
Militant (New York), Vol. 1, No. 46, 9 November 1935, pp. 1, 4. (BLNL:
A.misc.171.) This report actually names *Lassalle (Prez Santiesteban) as the
arrested leader of the FOH. However, Medina was the General Secretary of the
FOH at the time and his brothers have confirmed that he was imprisoned in the
post-March 1935 period. Medina Escobar, M, Algunos Apuntes sobre la Vida de
Gastn Medina Escobar, op cit. (Back to text)
3. De la Torre, RS, The Situation in Cuba, The New International, op cit, p. 205;
and Unsigned, Solidarity with Cuban Comrades!, New Militant (New York),
Vol. 2, No. 18 (Whole No. 70), 9 May 1936, p. 1. (BLNL: A.misc.171.) (Back to
text)
4. De la Torre, RS, The Situation in Cuba, The New International, op cit, p. 204.
(Back to text)
5. [perodo de excepcin](My translation, GT.) See, for example, Central
Committee of the Partido Bolchevique Leninista, A Todas las Secciones, Clulas
y Militantes del Partido, Havana, 24 October 1936. (IHC(a): Fondo Primer
Partido Marxista Leninista, Sig. 1/12:81/1.1/8-9.) (Back to text)
6. Letter from the PBL to the International Secretariat of the ICL, 20 March 1935, op
cit, p. 14. (Back to text)
7. De la Torre, RS, The Situation in Cuba, The New International, op cit, p. 205.
(Back to text)
8. Letter from the PBL to the International Secretariat of the ICL, 20 March 1935, op
cit, p. 14. (Back to text)
9. Ibid, pp. 13-14. (Back to text)
10. Minutes of the Sectional Conference of the Victoria de las Tunas Section of the
227

Partido Bolchevique Leninista, 21 September 1936. (IHC(a): Fondo Primer


Partido Marxista Leninista, Sig. 1/12:81/2.1/2.) (Back to text)
11. Manuscript of the interview given by Pedro Verdecie Prez to Rafael Soler
Martnez, op cit. (Back to text)
12. Manuscript of the interview given by Luis Miyares to Rafael Soler Martnez, op
cit, p. 4. (Back to text)
13. Letter from Manuel Lpez to G. Melt, Santiago de Cuba, 11 September 1936.
(IHC(a): Fondo Primer Partido Marxista Leninista, Sig. 1/12:81/1.1/1-2.) (Back to
text)
14. CC of the PBL, A Todas las Secciones, Clulas y Militantes del Partido, 24
October 1936, op cit, p. 1. (Back to text)
15. Ibid. (Back to text)
16. [vanguardia flexible pero bien vertebrada](My translation, GT.) Ibid, p. 2. (Back
to text)
17. Ibid, pp. 1-2. (Back to text)
18. Noticiero Bolchevique (Havana), No. 1, September 1936. (IISG: ZDK 28141.)
This single issue is the only one I have located in the archives I have quarried.
(Back to text)
19. See Letter from Manuel Lpez to G. Melt, 11 September 1936, op cit. While this
intended attempt to promote the rebuilding of a Marxist party appears to have
reflected, at least in name, a certain influence from Spain and the POUM, I have
found no evidence which indicates that such a project actually got off the ground.
(Back to text)
20. Letter from Roberto Prez Santiesteban to Fred Browner, Havana, 13 February
1938. (HI: SWP Collection, Box No. 30, Folder 28.) (Back to text)
21. See, for example, various unsigned features in the Mexican Trotskyist journal
Clave from issue No. 6, 1 March 1939, p. 65 to issue Year 2, Nos. 8-9, April-May
1940, p. 297. (HI: Library, Microfilm No. 262.); and Unsigned, Las Fuerzas de la
Cuarta Internacional, Boletn de Informacin, No. 4, 1938, pp. 27-28. (Organ of
the Latin American Bureau of the Fourth International) (SWP(US).); and Unsigned,
Affiliated Sections of the Fourth International, Socialist Appeal (New York),
Vol. 2, No. 46, 22 October 1938, p. 3. (BLNL: M.A.10.) (Back to text)
22. Central Committee of the Partido Bolchevique Leninista, Tesis Poltica, Havana,
25 October 1935. (HHL: Trotsky Archive, Fourth International, Cuba, 16122.)
(Back to text)
23. See, for example, Trotsky, LD, Nationalized Industry and Workers Management,
In: Allen, N, and Breitman, G (eds), Writings of Leon Trotsky (1938-39), op cit, p.
326; and Trotsky, LD, Latin American Problems: A Transcript, op cit, p. 785.
(Back to text)
24. Marx, K, (1977), op cit, pp. 66-67. (Back to text)
25. [posiciones burocrticas completamente informada de su sumisin](My
translation, GT.) Unsigned, La Situacin Poltica Nacional, Noticiero
Bolchevique (Havana), No. 1, September 1936, p. 2. (IISG: ZDK 28141.) (Back to
text)
26. [en base de un programa de accin inmediata.](My translation, GT.) CC of the
PBL, Tesis Poltica, op cit, p. 19. (Back to text)
27. To their credit, the PBL through the period 1935-39 continued to criticise Guiteras
and Joven Cuba for being enslaved by the idea of the next putsch (Letter from
228

the PBL to the International Secretariat of the ICL, 20 March 1935, op cit, p. 13.)
and approaching the problem of the revolution as a technical matter which could be
solved independently of the masses. (Ibid, p. 13; and Prez Santiesteban, En
Memoria de Antonio Guiteras, Dialctica (Havana), Year 1, No. 11, May 1938, p.
10. (Monthly organ of the Sindicato de Yesistas de La Habana) (SWP(US).))
Accurately depicting Joven Cuba as an insurrectionary army without any
democratic internal life, Prez Santiesteban insisted that the task of national
liberation in Cuba could only be achieved under the banner of revolutionary
socialism as a joint project of the oppressed layers of the Cuban population under
the leadership of the proletariat. [bajo la bandera del socialismo revolucionario
como la accin conjunta de las capas oprimidas de la poblacin cubana dirigidas
por el proletariado.](My translation, GT.) Ibid, p. 10. (Back to text)
28. CC of the PBL, Tesis Poltica, op cit, pp. 9-10. (Back to text)
29. [1. La llegada del imperialismoltima etapa del capitalismoha abierto la
poca de la Revolucin Proletaria Mundial y la del Socialismo como nica salida
progresiva. [....] 3. Las luchas democrticas y agrarias anti-imperialistas no pueden
tener un caracter independiente ni permanente. La llamada revolucin democrtico
agraria anti-imperialista no es otra cosa que la primera fase de una sola revolucin:
La Revolucin Proletaria. 6. La pequea burguesia (incluyendo los campesinos)
no posee economia propia. Pese a su papel revolucionario frente a la burguesia
opresora, frente al imperialismo y a los terratenientes, por sus multiples
contradicciones y por su falta de homogeneidad, es incapaz de dirigir la revolucin.
La pequea burguesia est destinada a orientarse hacia el capitalismo o a ser
arrastrada por el proletariado. No hay termino medio posible. 7. Solo el
proletariado, como clase progresiva, es capaz de ejercer la hegemonia
revolucionaria, aun desde la fase inicial democrtico agrario anti-imperialista. [....]
12. La consigna de Dictadura Democrtica de Obreros y Campesinos lanzada por
la Internacional Comunista, es una consigna vacia de sentido que no puede sino
diseminar la confusin. Esta consigna lleva en s la idea del desarrollo de una
economia independiente en el pais, basada en la comunidad de intereses de los
obreros y campesinos. [....] 13. El Partido Bolchevique-Leninista declara: que solo
la dictadura del proletariado es capaz de garantizar el xito del desarrollo
permanente de la Revolucin. Solo estado basado en los Soviets de Obreros,
Campesinos y Soldados representa la garantia de la dictadura proletaria y de la
Revolucin. Solo la accin independiente del proletariado, en la lucha por instaurar
su dictadura, har posible el enrole revolucionario de las grandes masas del
campesinaje y de la pequea burguesia.](My translation, GT.) Ibid, pp. 10-11.
(Back to text)
30. Ibid, pp. 24-25. (Back to text)
31. Ibid, p. 23. (Back to text)
32. [la creacin del Frente Unico de todos los Partidos Revolucionarios sobre la base
del Programa de Accin y del Plan de Demandas Democraticas en las escalas
nacional y local.](My translation, GT.) Ibid, p. 23. (Back to text)
33. Manuscript of the interview given by Pedro Verdecie Prez to Rafael Soler
Martnez, op cit. (Back to text)
34. Prager, R, (ed.), Les Congrs de la IV Internationale, (Vol. 1: Naissance de la IV
Internationale (1930-1940)), Paris, La Brche, 1979, p. 241. This undoubtedly
over-inflated figure was the one presented by Pierre Naville in his credentials report
to the Founding Conference of the Fourth International in September 1938. The
229

unreliability of these figures is evidenced by the fact that the Cuban section was
also incorrectly referred to as the Partido Obrero Revolucionario. Ibid, p. 215.
(Back to text)
35. Letter from the Political Bureau of the Partido Obrero Revolucionario to the
Latin American Department of the Fourth International, Havana, 26 March
1941. (HI: SWP Collection, Box No. 31, Folder 1.) (Back to text)
36. Morrow, F, Unity in Fighting the Cuban Terror, Socialist Call (New York), Vol.
1, No. 31, 19 October 1935, p. 4. (BLNL. M.A.56.) This non-partisan organisation
was constituted on 29 June 1935 and united thirty-one democratic and socialist
organisations, including various groups affiliated to the Aprista party, the PCC and
the FOHs Socorro Obrero, on the basis of minimal democratic demands against
political imprisonments and widespread torture. Unsigned Report from Havana,
Terror Reigns in F.D.s Cuba, New Militant (New York), Vol. 2, No. 18 (Whole
No. 70), 9 May 1936, pp. 1, 4. (BLNL: A.misc.171.) (Back to text)
37. Ibid. (Back to text)
38. Ibid. (Back to text)
39. Unsigned Report from Havana, Terror Reigns in F.D.s Cuba, New Militant, 9
May 1936, op cit. (Back to text)
40. Prez Santiesteban, Pablo Daz and Gregorio Marrero, all leading Trotskyists in
Havana, were the principal contributors to various editions of these two legal trade
union magazines. (Back to text)
41. See Unsigned, La Cuestin Sindical, Noticiero Bolchevique (Havana), No. 1,
September 1936, p. 10. (IISG: ZDK 28141.) (Back to text)
42. Ibid, pp. 10-11. This slogan for the Workers Alliance was repeated in numerous
documents. See, for example, the editorial column of Dialctica, May 1938, op cit,
pp. 3-4; and Unsigned, La Situacin Poltica Nacional, Noticiero Bolchevique, op
cit, p. 3. (Back to text)
43. Gastn Medina had been forced to swallow aviation fuel in Batistas jail after the
March 1935 general strike. Medina Escobar, M, Algunos Apuntes sobre la Vida de
Gastn Medina Escobar, op cit. An obituary in the international Trotskyist press
appeared in Muerte Sentida, Boletn de Informacin, October 1938, op cit, p. 13.
(Back to text)
44. Interview given by Idalberto Ferrera Acosta, Mario Medina Escobar and Francisco
Medina Escobar to Gary Tennant, 30 July 1997, op cit. (Back to text)
45. Unfortunately, I have been unable to ascertain the reasons behind Simens
separation. However, Simens subsequent public activity in the Autntico milieu
suggests that his support for such a trajectory may have been at the root of the
disagreement. (Back to text)
46. Boletn Interior del Partido Obrero Revolucionario, March 1946, op cit, p. 5. (Back
to text)
47. Letter from Bode to C. Munis, Havana, 2 May 1940. (HI: SWP Collection, Box
No. 30, Folder 29.) (Back to text)
48. On the Movement of the Fourth International in Latin America, In: Reisner, W
(ed.), op cit, p. 382. (Back to text)
49. Although Brou claims that *Bode was the pseudonym of a Cuban called Bodernea
(Brou, P, (1997), op cit, p. 892.), and elsewhere states that he has located letters
from Cuba signed by Bodernea (Brou, P, (1982), op cit, p. 23.), it appears that
both Bode and Bodernea were pseudonyms. I certainly have not come across the
230

name Bodernea in any primary source document and none of the old Cuban
Trotskyists I interviewed had ever heard of Bodernea. (Back to text)
50. Provisional Executive Committee of the PBL, Bolshevik-Leninist Party of Cuba,
International Bulletin (New York), Vol. 1, No. 1, July 1940, p. 6. (SWP(US).)
While, again, I have not been able to ascertain the real identities of these post-
holders, in terms of continuity in the leadership Rufo was the pseudonym of one
of the members of the PBLs Central Committee members in 1934. Whether or not
this was one and the same person is unclear. (Back to text)
51. Letter from the Political Bureau of the POR to the Latin American Department of
the FI, 26 March 1941, op cit. (Back to text)
52. Central Committee of the Partido Obrero Revolucionario, Declaracin de
Principios del Partido Obrero Revolucionario, Havana, October 1940, p. 22.
(SWP(US).) (Back to text)
53. [disciplinar y orientar al Partido](My translation, GT.) Boletn Interior del
Partido Obrero Revolucionario, March 1946, op cit, p. 5. (Back to text)
54. The latest document signed by the Santiago de Cuba Sectional Committee of the
PBL which I have located is the manifesto Al Pueblo de Cuba, November 1941.
(SWP(US); and HI: SWP Collection, Box No. 31, Folder 1.) (Back to text)
55. See Letter from the International Executive Committee and the Latin
American Department of the Fourth International to the Santiago de Cuba
Comrades, 16 August 1941. (HI: SWP Collection, Box No. 31, Folder 1.) (Back to
text)
56. Letter from the Political Bureau of the POR to the Latin American Department of
the FI, 26 March 1941, op cit. (Back to text)
57. Ibid. (Back to text)
58. Unsigned, Salud, Camaradas de Camagey!, Cuba Obrera (Havana), Year 1,
No. 4, December 1940, p. 8. (SWP(US).) (Back to text)
59. [Cuba Obrera](My translation, GT.) (Back to text)
60. Letter from the Political Bureau of the POR to the Latin American Department of
the FI, 26 March 1941, op cit. (Back to text)
61. The latest issue of Cuba Obrera which I have been able to locate is dated August
1941. Furthermore, Louis Rigaudias does not recall a Trotskyist newspaper being
published at the time of his arrival in Cuba in February 1942. Excerpt from
Unpublished Manuscript of the Memoirs of Louis Rigaudias (Translated by
Margaret Gretl Glogau.), nd, p. 4. See page 296 note 80 for a biographical sketch
of Rigaudias. (Back to text)
62. CC of the POR, Declaracin de Principios del Partido Obrero Revolucionario,
October 1940, op cit. (Back to text)
63. Ibid, p. 3. (Back to text)
64. Ibid, p. 11. (Back to text)
65. Ibid, pp. 12-13. (Back to text)
66. Ibid, p. 13. (Translation from Problems of the Cuban Revolution, International
Bulletin (New York), Vol. 1, No. 8, December 1941, p. 3. (SWP(US).)) (Back to
text)
67. See the leaflet Unin de Empleados del Comercio de Guantnamo: Asamblea
General, 23 April 1942, Guantnamo. (SWP(US); and HI: SWP Collection Title,
Box No. 31, Folder 2.); and Unsigned, De la Seccin de Guantnamo, Cuba
Obrera (Havana), Year 1, No. 2, October 1940, p. 7. (SWP(US).); and Unsigned,
231

De la Seccin de Guantnamo, Cuba Obrera (Havana), Year 1, No. 3,


November 1940, pp. 3, 7. (SWP(US).) (Back to text)
68. Trade Union Department of the Guantnamo Section of the Partido Bolchevique
Leninista, A los Obreros de los Centrales y Sus Colonias. A Toda la Clase
Obrera, Guantnamo, 25 January 1940. (RSM.) (Back to text)
69. Letter from J.B. Gaylord of the Ferrocarril de Guantnamo to the Fiscal de la
Audencia de Oriente, Santiago de Cuba, 1 April 1941. (AHPSC: Audencia de
Oriente Sala de Urgencia, Legajo 9, Expediente 92, Folio 2.); and Letter from
James Byron Gaylord (Administrator General del Ferrocarril Guantnamo)
to Sr. Fiscal del Tribunal Supremo, Havana, 21 November 1941. (AHPSC:
Audencia de Oriente Sala de Urgencia, Legajo 9, Expediente 9, Folio 2.) (Back to
text)
70. [armona estrecha [....] savia fecundante del futuro de nuestra Revolucin.](My
translation, GT.) De la Seccin de Guantnamo, Cuba Obrera, October 1940, op
cit, p. 7. (Back to text)
71. Unsigned, Cuba, Fourth International (New York), August 1943, p. 254. (PRL.)
(Back to text)
72. Ibid. (Back to text)
73. La Voz Revolucionaria del Trotskismo en el III Congreso Nacional Obrero,
Havana, Ediciones Cuba Obrera, nd, pp. 6-9 (HI: SWP Collection, Box No. 31,
Folder 15.); and Hoover, JE, to Berle Jr., AA, Survey of Communist Activities in
Cuba, 14 June 1943, op cit, p. 46. (Back to text)
74. La Voz Revolucionaria del Trotskismo en el III Congreso Nacional Obrero, op cit,
pp. 36-38. (Back to text)
75. Ibid, p. 37. (Translation from Cuba, Fourth International, August 1943, op cit, p.
254.) (Back to text)
76. La Voz Revolucionaria del Trotskismo en el III Congreso Nacional Obrero, op cit,
pp. 11-27. The Proletarian Military Policy as elaborated by Trotsky argued that
revolutionaries, though opposed to the capitalist state defining and regulating
conscription and military training, should not campaign against conscription once it
had been made into law. Trotsky argued for no let up in the struggle against
capitalism and to defend the widest democracy by instead calling for compulsory
military training under the control of the trade unions and workers movement. See
Trotskys thoughts on this matter in Allen, N, and Breitman, G (eds), Writings of
Leon Trotsky (1939-40), op cit, pp. 321-322, 344-345, 392. (Back to text)
77. Cuba, Fourth International, August 1943, op cit, p. 255. (Back to text)
78. Guantnamo Sectional Committee of the Partido Obrero Revolucionario
(Trotskista), Obreros de Cuba!, Guantnamo, 2 June 1943. (SWP(US); and HI:
SWP Collection, Box No. 31, Folder 3.) For an account of these war-time labour
disputes on the Guantnamo railway network which misrepresents the official
communists as defenders of labours rights against the treacherous policies of
Mujal see Zanetti, O, and Garca, A, Sugar and Railroads: A Cuban History,
1837-1959, Chapel Hill: NC, University of North Carolina Press, 1998, pp. 362-
364. (Back to text)
79. Miyares, L, Hombre y Ejemplo: Rogelio Benache, Revolucin Proletaria, 1 May
1945, op cit, pp. 1, 3. (Back to text)
80. Louis Rigaudias (1911-1999), also known as *Rigal and *Charles Millner, was
born in Turkey but joined the Trotskyist movement in France in 1933 after having
gone to Paris to study in 1928. During the 1930s he was a leading militant in the
232

French Trotskyist milieu before arriving in Havana on 14 February 1942 after


eighteen months of underground Trotskyist activity after the Nazi occupation of
Paris. See Casciola, P, Louis Rigaudias (A Biography), Foligno, Centro Studi
Pietro Tresso, nd. (Unpublished) (CSPT.) (Back to text)
81. Excerpt from Unpublished Manuscript of the Memoirs of Louis Rigaudias, op cit,
p. 4. (Back to text)
82. See Balanque, F, Centenares de Obreros Votaron por el Trotskismo, Revolucin
Proletaria (Havana), Year 1, No. 3, 15 July 1944, pp. 1, 3. (SWP(US).); and
Stuart, JB, Cubas Elections: Background and Analysis, Fourth International,
July 1944, p. 208. (SP.) JB Stuart was the pseudonym of Sam Gordon (1910-
1982), the U.S. Trotskyist who served as the Fourth Internationals representative
in Great Britain and then in Ceylon. (Back to text)
83. Guerra Ayala, R, La Reaccin y la Voz del Autenticismo Revolucionario,
Revolucin Proletaria (Havana), Year 1, No. 3, 15 July 1944, p. 1. (SWP(US).)
(Back to text)
84. [apoyo crtico [a ....] Grau San Martn y a los candidatos obreros dentro del
P.R.C.](My translation, GT.) Unsigned, Para Combatir el Continuismo Votemos
por Grau San Martn: Apoyemos los Candidatos Proletarios del P.R.C.,
Revolucin Proletaria (Havana), Year 1, No. 1, 1 May 1944, p. 3. (SWP(US).)
(Back to text)
85. See Unsigned, Los Trotskistas Santiagueros Apoyan a R. Mugica Guzmn,
Revolucin Proletaria (Havana), Year 1, No. 2, 1 June 1944, pp. 1, 5.
(SWP(US).); and Unsigned, Martn Castellanos, Candidato Autntico Defiende un
Programa Revolucionario, Revolucin Proletaria (Havana), Year 1, No. 2, 1 June
1944, pp. 1, 4-5. (SWP(US).); and Castellanos Martnez, M, Al Pueblo de
Guantnamo, Revolucin Proletaria (Havana), Year 1, No. 2, 1 June 1944, p. 3.
(SWP(US).) (Back to text)
86. Para Combatir el Continuismo Votemos por Grau San Martn: Apoyemos los
Candidatos Proletarios del P.R.C., Revolucin Proletaria, 1 May 1944, op cit, p. 3.
(Back to text)
87. [mal menor...tctica para combatir el enemigo inmediato de los trabajadores:
la dictadura militar-policiaca de Batista, disfrazada con el taparrabos civilista de la
Coalicin Socialista Democrtica](My translation, GT.) Ibid, p. 3. (Back to text)
88.. [Combatir el continuismo es luchar por la Revolucin](My translation, GT.)
Unsigned, Combatir el Continuismo Es Luchar por la Revolucin, Revolucin
Proletaria (Havana), Year 1, No. 2, 1 June 1944, pp. 1, 3. (SWP(US).); and
Unsigned, Contra la Conciliacin: Vigilancia Revolucionaria, Revolucin
Proletaria (Havana), Year 1, No. 3, 15 July 1944, pp. 1, 3. (SWP(US).) (Back to
text)
89. This was Trotskys prescription for class-based participation in elections in Mexico
in 1940 when no working class candidates were standing. See Gall, O, (1991), op
cit, pp. 241-242. (Back to text)
90. [Hagamos de la Victoria Obtenida el 1 de Junio un Paso Decisivo en el Camino
de la Liberacin Nacional y Social de Cuba!](My translation, GT.) Guantnamo
Sectional Committee of the Partido Obrero Revolucionario, Hagamos de la
Victoria Obtenida el 1 de Junio un Paso Decisivo en el Camino de la
Liberacin Nacional y Social de Cuba!, Guantnamo, 3 June 1944. (SWP(US);
and HI: SWP Collection, Box No. 31, Folder 4.) (Back to text)
91. Editoriales: Perspectivas del Nuevo Gobierno, Revolucin Proletaria (Havana),
233

Year 1, No. 5, 31 October 1944, p. 6. (SWP(US).) (Back to text)


92. Defensa Obrera Revolucionaria de la Confederacin de Trabajadores de Cuba,
Declaracin de Principios, Havana, January 1945. (IHC(a): Fondo Primer Partido
Marxista Leninista, Sig. 1/8:12A7/1.1/1-3.) The leading POR members in the
Defensa Obrera Revolucionaria included Pablo Daz Gonzlez of the Laundry
Union in Havana and Rafael Soler Puig of the Metal Workers Union in Oriente.
(Back to text)
93. [la absoluta independencia poltica y de clase del proletariado. Contra toda clase
de componendas con los partidos polticos de la burguesa.](My translation, GT.)
Ibid, p. 3. (Back to text)
94. Ibid, p. 3. (Back to text)
95. Boletn Interior del Partido Obrero Revolucionario, March 1946, op cit. (Back to
text)
96. Unsigned, Cuban Report, nd, p. 4. (From internal evidence, dated 1944-45) (HI:
SWP Collection, Box No. 31, Folder 4.) (Back to text)
97. Patrice, Report on Latin America, Minutes of the Third International
Executive Committee Plenum of the Fourth International, March 1947.
(CSPT.) The unreliability of this report by Sherry Mangan (*Patrice) to the
International Executive Committee of the Fourth International is evident in the fact
that he also reported that the Cuban Trotskyists published a monthly newspaper and
had no urgent problems. As I describe, their newspaper in fact ceased publication in
mid-1946 and, as the 1946 internal report detailed, the POR was faced with
disintegration as an organised party. (Back to text)
98. Boletn Interior del Partido Obrero Revolucionario, March 1946, op cit, p. 5. (Back
to text)
99. Ibid, p. 5. (Back to text)
100. Ibid, p. 6. (Back to text)
101. [[a] pesar de los esfuerzos por nuestros camaradas en los sindicatos no hicimos
otra cosa en la prctica que estar a la zaga de los grupos de oposicin al stalinismo
surgidos de vez en cuando. Con ligeras excepciones nos mantuvimos practicamente
tras los faldones de la Comisin Obrera Nacional del PRC(A).](My translation,
GT.) Ibid, p. 6. (Back to text)
102. [la seriedad y persistencia sistemticas correspondentes a militantes
bolcheviques.](My translation, GT.) Ibid, p. 5. (Back to text)
103. Ibid, p. 8. (Back to text)
104. [queremos orden o no planificamos nada.](My translation, GT.) Ibid, p. 7. (Back
to text)
105. According to Pablo Daz, himself a signatory to the scathing internal report, the
comrade was expelled on the grounds of putting the organisation in danger after he
had became involved in some very shady stories and was arrested by the secret
police. Letter from Pablo Daz Gonzlez to unnamed U.S.-based Comrade,
Havana, 3 November 1946. (HI: SWP Collection, Box No. 31, Folder 5.) By a
process of elimination, this comrade was probably the signatory N. Bacun.
Although I have been unable to identify the real name of this person, it is not
beyond the bounds of reason that it was the same person who had instigated the
split of the Santiago de Cuba branch of the PBL from the POR in 1940-41. The
principal opponent of the POR initiative in Santiago de Cuba was known by the
name of Bakunin. (Back to text)
234

106. Prez Santiesteban, Por una Rectificacin del Curso Poltico del M.S.R.,
Havana, 18 April 1948, p. 1. (HI: SWP Collection, Box No. 31, Folder 6.); and
Letter from Pablo Daz Gonzlez to Stein, Havana, 22 June 1948. (HI: SWP
Collection, Box No. 31, Folder 6.) (Morris Stein or Morris Lewit (1903-1998)
joined the Communist League of America in 1930 and in the 1940s was the
National Organisational Secretary of the SWP(US).) See the revealing report in the
PORs newspaper describing how the PSPs dispute with Moscow eventually
culminated in agreement between the two Stalinist centres. The official Cuban
communists subsequently confessed their opportunism in arguing that imperialist
powers would be able to co-operate in promoting the well-being of the working
masses. The PSP also struck up an anti-imperialist tune once more, although it did
not go to the extreme of compromising its good relations with the Grau San Martn
government. See Unsigned, La Disputa Blas Roca-Kremlin Culmina en un
Compromiso, Revolucin Proletaria (Havana), Year 2, No. 9, 1 April 1946, pp.
1-3. (RJA.) (Back to text)
107. Prez Santiesteban, Por una Rectificacin del Curso Poltico del M.S.R., 18 April
1948, op cit, p. 1. Thomas also argues that Prez Santiesteban played a great part in
the initial formation of the MSR. Thomas, H, (1971), op cit, pp. 741-742. (Back to
text)
108. Letter from Lasalle to the International Secretariat of the Fourth
International, Havana, 22 December 1946. (HI: SWP Collection, Box No. 31,
Folder 5.) (Back to text)
109. Prez Santiesteban, Por una Rectificacin del Curso Poltico del M.S.R., 18 April
1948, op cit, pp. 1-4. (Back to text)
110. Letter from Lasalle to the International Secretariat of the Fourth International, 22
December 1946 , op cit. (Back to text)
111. Letter from Pablo Daz Gonzlez to unnamed U.S.-based Comrade, 3 November
1946, op cit. (Back to text)
112. The POR were not the only non-PSP socialists to find that they their initial
optimism was misplaced. Boris Goldenberg (1905-1980), a naturalised Cuban
citizen of Russian origin who had been a leader of the German SAP, the Socialist
Workers Party which broke away from the German Communist Party shortly
before Hitler came to power, and signatory of the Declaration of the Bloc of Four
with the International Communist League in 1933, was also a leading member of
the MSR in 1946-47. See Thomas, H, (1971), op cit, p. 754. Goldenberg, in fact,
appears to have worked closely with Prez Santiesteban inside the MSR. Certainly
Prez Santiesteban requested material on the development of the Soviet Union from
the Fourth International in New York which Goldenberg wished to incorporate in a
series of articles he was publishing in the MSRs magazine Tiempo en Cuba. Letter
from Pablo Daz Gonzlez to Stein, Havana, 14 January 1947. (HI: SWP
Collection, Box No. 31, Folder 5.) (Back to text)
113. Ibid. The latest edition of Revolucin Proletaria which I have located is dated May
1946. (Back to text)
114. Letter from Lasalle to the International Secretariat of the Fourth International, 22
December 1946, op cit. (Back to text)
115. The Trotskyist Roberto Tejera published a pamphlet on the life and death of
Trotsky in collaboration with the Liga Radical Martiana. Tejera, R, Leon Trotsky,
Havana, 1948. (HI: SWP Collection, Box No. 32, Folder 5.) (Back to text)
116. Prez Santiesteban, Por una Rectificacin del Curso Poltico del M.S.R., 18 April
235

1948, op cit, pp. 2-7. (Back to text)


117. Letter from Pablo Daz Gonzlez to Morris Stein, Havana, 9 May 1948. (HI:
SWP Collection, Box No. 31, Folder 6.) (Back to text)
118. Ibid. (Back to text)
119. Ibid. (Back to text)
120. [sindicalismo revolucionario no ha pasado de simple matonismo y guapera.]
(My translation, GT.) Trotskyist Fraction, El VI Congreso Nacional Obrero,
Culminacin de Once Aos de Traicin y Entreguismo en el Movimiento
Sindical, Havana, 6 May 1949, p. 2. (SWP(US); and HI: SWP Collection, Box No.
31, Folder 6.) (Back to text)
121. Letter from Pablo Daz Gonzlez to Morris Stein, 9 May 1948, op cit, p. 5. (Back
to text)
122. Trotskyist Fraction, El VI Congreso Nacional Obrero, ...., 6 May 1949, op cit, p.
4. (Back to text)
123. Ibid, pp. 2-4. (Back to text)
124. In the 1950s the former POR members in Guantnamo appear to have continued to
publish various articles translated from The Militant in the trade union journal of
the Railway Workers Brotherhood. Fanjul, A, The Role of the Trotskyists in the
Cuban Revolution, Intercontinental Press (New York), 11 May 1981, p. 493.
(SP.) (Back to text)
125. There is some doubt over the actual identity of Bodernea. See page 284 note 49.
(Back to text)
126. Brou, P, (1982), op cit, p. 23; and Letter from Pierre Brou to Gary Tennant,
St. Martin DHres, 22 December 1997. (Back to text)
127. Daz Gonzlez, P, Emigracin Cubana a los Estados Unidos, nd. (OAH: Fondo
Pablo Daz Gonzlez, Cuaderno 3.); and Interview given by Mario Menca to
Gary Tennant, Havana, 30 July 1997. (Back to text)
128. Daz Gonzlez, P, De New York a Tuxpan: Memorias de un Expedicionario del
Granma, nd, p. 1. (OAH: Fondo Pablo Daz Gonzlez, Cuaderno 3.) (Back to text)
129. Menca, M, Tiempos Recursos, Havana, Editorial Ciencias Sociales, 1986, p. 325.
(Back to text)
130. Daz Gonzlez, P, Tesis para Presentar al Congreso Obrero que se Efectuar
en la Sierra Maestra en Octubre de 1958, New York, 20 October 1958, p. 1.
(OAH: Fondo Pablo Daz Gonzlez, Cuaderno 3: 53.) (Back to text)
131. Ibid, pp. 2-3. (Back to text)
132. Seccin de Historia del Comit Provincial del Partido en Guantnamo, Resea
Histrica de Guantnamo, op cit, pp. 122-123; and Interview given by Octavio
Louit Venzant to Gary Tennant, Havana, 13 August 1997. Octavio Louit, like
ico Torres, was a member of the Delegacin 11 of the Hermandad Ferroviaria de
Cuba. (Back to text)
133. Interview given by Mario Menca to Gary Tennant, op cit; and Interview given by
Octavio Louit Venzant to Gary Tennant, op cit; and Instituto de Historia....,
Historia del Movimiento Obrero Cubano, 1865-1958, Vol. 2, op cit, 342. (Back to
text)
134. Manuscript of the interview given by Luis Miyares to Rafael Soler Martnez,
Santiago de Cuba, 6 April 1996. (Back to text)
135. Comisin Nacional de Historia, Muestra (Movimiento Obrero en la Provincia
Guantnamo), Havana, nd. (IHC(b).); and Betancourt Molina, B, Gustavo Fraga:
236

Un Heroe, Vanguardia Telefnica (Havana), September 1959, No. 5, pp. 56-57.


(BNJM.); and Bosch Ferrer, D, and Victor H, Imagen de un Formador: Gustavo
Fraga Jacomino, Venceremos (Guantnamo), 2 August 1997, p. 3. (Back to text)
136. Interview given by Guarina Ramrez Acosta, Idalberto Ferrera Acosta and
Juan Leon Ferrera Ramrez to Gary Tennant, Havana, 28 July 1997; and
Autobiografa de Guarina de la Caridad Ramrez Acosta, Havana, 12 July
1985, p. 2. (Unpublished) (IFA.) (Back to text)
137. Ibid, p. 2. The Second Frank Pas Garca Front in the Guantnamo region was
opened on 11 March 1958. (Back to text)
138. Interview given by Guarina Ramrez Acosta, Idalberto Ferrera Acosta and Juan
Leon Ferrera Ramrez to Gary Tennant, 28 July 1997, op cit. (Back to text)
139. Unsigned, Background Of POR, The Internationalist, Vol. 4, No. 7, 1 April
1960, pp. 1, 8. (SP.); and Interview given by Guarina Ramrez Acosta, Idalberto
Ferrera Acosta and Juan Leon Ferrera Ramrez to Gary Tennant, 28 July 1997, op
cit. (Back to text)
140. E-mail letter from Adolfo Malvagni Gilly to Gary Tennant, Stanford: CA, 4
April 1997. This version of the Trotskyists attitude to a United Front between the
M26J and the PSP was challenged by Guevara. He argued that the Trotskyists had
refused to co-operate with the PSP in the general strike during the insurrection.
Zeitlin, M, An Interview with Che, Root and Branch (Berkeley: CA), Winter
1962, p. 53. However, elsewhere Guevara rather confusingly portrayed David
Salvadors attitude to the PSP during the insurrection as that of the Trotskyists.
Guevara erroneously suggested that Salvador had much affinity for Trotskyism.
Guevara, EC, Conferencia de Prensa en Montevideo (Uruguay, 9 August 1961),
In: Ernesto Che Guevara: Escritos y Discursos, Vol. 9, Havana, Editorial de
Ciencias Sociales, 1977, p. 107. (Back to text)
141. Acosta de Arribas, R, Ficha Biogrfica de Roberto Acosta Hechavarra, Havana,
nd, p. 2. (Unpublished) Acosta was subsequently awarded the Medal of the
Clandestine Struggle by the Council of State for this activity. Ibid, p. 3. (Back to
text)
142. Central Committee of the Partido Bolchevique Leninista, A las Masas
Trabajadoras de Cuba, Havana, 15 October 1939, p. 1. (AHPSC: Fondo
Audencia Territorial de Oriente Sala de Urgencia, Legajo 2, Expediente 19, Folios
3-4.) (Back to text)
143. Central Committee of the Partido Obrero Revolucionario, Aprestmonos a la
Defensa Armada de Nuestros Derechos Democrticos!, Havana, 14 December
1941. (SWP(US); and HI: SWP Collection, Box No. 31, Folder 1.) (Back to text)
144. [fervientes propagadores de la guerra imperialista al servicio de la Casa Blanca.]
(My translation, GT.) Santiago de Cuba Sectional Committee of the PBL, Al
Pueblo de Cuba, November 1941, op cit, p. 2. (Back to text)
145. [NI UN SOLDADO CUBANO FUERA DE CUBA.](My translation, GT.) See,
for example, CC of the POR, Aprestmonos a la Defensa Armada de Nuestros
Derechos Democrticos!, 14 December 1941, op cit, p. 3. (Back to text)
146. Ibid, p. 2. (Back to text)
147. Ibid, p. 2; and Santiago de Cuba Sectional Committee of the PBL, Al Pueblo de
Cuba, November 1941, op cit, pp. 3-4. (Back to text)
148. [queremos reivindicar la tradicin mambisa del soldado-ciudadano: eran los
soldados del Ejrcito Libertador los que ejerciendo el derecho de sufragio elegan al
Gobierno en Armas.](My translation, GT.) CC of the POR, Aprestmonos a la
237

Defensa Armada de Nuestros Derechos Democrticos!, op cit, p. 3. (Back to text)


149. [Viva la Guerra de los Pueblos Coloniales por su Liberacin Nacional!](My
translation, GT.) Partido Bolchevique Leninista, Obreros! Defendemos la Unin
Sovitica!, June 1941. (SWP(US).) (Back to text)
150. La Voz Revolucionaria del Trotskismo en el III Congreso Nacional Obrero, op cit,
pp. 11-12. (Back to text)
151. In 1942-43 Shachtmans Workers Party argued against support for the
Guomindang, a position which was adopted by a number of Chinese Trotskyists,
most notably Wang Fanxi. This minority proletarian line was opposed by the
SWP(US) and the majority of the Chinese Trotskyists including Peng Shuzhi. They
argued that the war against Japan, from a Chinese point of view, was progressive
and opposed attempting to win it through proletarian revolution. See Benton, G, op
cit, pp. 86-88. (Back to text)
152. [[l]a defensa del territorio nacional demanda la permanencia dentro del mismo de
todas las fuerzas que sea posible organizar.](My translation, GT.) La Voz
Revolucionaria del Trotskismo en el III Congreso Nacional Obrero, op cit, p. 15.
(Back to text)
153. Central Committee of the PBL, Apoyemos la Heroica Accin Revolucionaria del
Proletariado Espaol! Adelante por la Revolucin Proletaria Mundial!, Noticiero
Bolchevique (Havana), No. 1, September 1936, p. 21. (IISG: ZDK 28141.) (Back
to text)
154. Trotsky, LD, La Leccin de Espaa, Noticiero Bolchevique (Havana), No. 1,
September 1936, pp. 7-9. (IISG: ZDK 28141.) (Translation from Allen, N, and
Breitman, G (eds), The Spanish Revolution (1931-39), New York, Pathfinder
Press, 1973, pp. 234-239.) (Back to text)
155. [[l]a poltica de bloque con la burguesa republicana, con la sedicente democracia
burguesa, preconizada por los revisionistas stalinianos a partir del VII Congreso
del la I.C., es en su esenca una opltica de frenaje contra-revolcionario, cuyas
consecuencias est pagando el proletariado espaol.](My translation, GT.)
Unsigned, La Revolucin Espaola, Noticiero Bolchevique (Havana), No. 1,
September 1936, p. 4. (IISG: ZDK 28141.) (Back to text)
156. Ibid, pp. 4-5. (Back to text)
157. Letter from Roberto Prez Santiesteban to Fred Browner, Havana, 17 October
1937, p. 1. (HI: SWP Collection, Box No. 30, Folder 27.) Although a minority in
the Ateneo Socialista Espaol, the Cuban Trotskyists gained a position in its
leadership facilitated by the alliance which they formed with the anarchists. The
anarchists apparently protested against the official communists calls to expel the
Trotskyists on the usual slanderous grounds that they were fascists. Ibid. (Back to
text)
158. See, for example, Letter from Charles Simen to Fred Browner, Havana, 30
September 1937, (HI: SWP Collection, Box No. 30, Folder 27.) which refers to Nin
and Maurn as if they were upholders of Trotskyism. However, this is not to say
that the PBL was not aware of the existence of the Bolshevik Leninist Group in
Spain, the section officially recognised by the International Communist League.
Dialctica, the magazine of the Plasterers Union, for example, published the
document Que Queremos los Trotskistas en Espaa? written by the Spanish
Bolshevik Leninists. This document, though, made no mention of the POUM and
simply argued the need for advancing the struggle for social revolution above that
of promoting the Popular Front government. Seccin B.L. de Espaa, Que
238

Queremos los Trotskistas en Espaa?, 19 July 1937, Dialctica (Havana), Year 1,


No. 5, November 1937, pp. 15-16. (Organ of the Sindicato de Yesistas de La
Habana) (IHC(b).) (Back to text)
159. [llamaba da a da al proletariado espaol a reorganizar las Alianzas Obreras,
verdaderos rganos de expresin proletaria, y las milicias obreras embriones de l
Ejrcito Rojo.](My translation, GT.) Unsigned, La Revolucin Espaola,
Noticiero Bolchevique, op cit, p. 5. (Back to text)
160. CC of the POR, Declaracin de Principios del Partido Obrero Revolucionario,
October 1940, op cit, p. 19. (Back to text)
161. Provisional Executive Commission of the Bolshevik Leninist Party of Cuba,
Resolution on the Problem of the Opposition in the S.W.P., Havana, 11 May
1940. (HHL: Trotsky Archive, Fourth International, Cuba, 1599.) (Back to text)
162. Mary Low, who was Bres companion from 1933 until his death in 1941, worked
for the POUM radio station broadcasting in English as well as writing for their
English language bulletin, The Spanish Revolution. Interview given by Mary Low
Machado to Gary Tennant, Chorleywood, Hertfordshire, England, 18 July 1995.
For details of the life and work of Mary Low see Low Machado, M, Where the
Wolf Sings, Chicago: IL, Black Swan Press, 1994, pp. 53-59; and Alba, V, and
Schwartz, S, Spanish Marxism Versus Soviet Communism, New Brunswick: NJ,
Transaction Books, 1988, pp. 286-289. (Back to text)
163. Guillamn, A, Documentacin Histrica del Trosquismo Espaol (1936-1948),
Madrid, Ediciones de la Torre, 1996, p. 17. In fact, there were two rival Trotskyist
groups in Spain. Apart from the Bolshevik-Leninist Group led by *Munis (Manuel
Fernndez Grandizo) which worked as a fraction in the POUM, there was also the
Le Soviet group led by *Fosco (Nicola di Bartolomeo). (Back to text)
164. Letter from Wilebaldo Solano to Gary Tennant, Paris, 15 July 1997. Wilebaldo
Solano became the Secretary of the POUMs youth organisation, the Juventud
Comunista Ibrica, after the death of Germinal Vidal in street fighting in Barcelona
in July 1936. Later, in exile, Solano was one of only two people to ever hold the
post of General Secretary of the POUM. (Back to text)
165. See, for example, Bre, J, Correo Miliciano del P.O.U.M. Relatos y Notas de
Nuestras Camaradas: Hombres y Cosas del Frente, P.O.U.M., No. 10, 27 October
1936, p. 3. (Organ of the Madrid section of the POUM) Another article by Bre
stressed the contrast between the revolution in Barcelona and Madrid. Orr, CA,
Souvenirs sur lHtel Falcn, Cahiers Lon Trotsky (Paris), No. 51, October
1993, p. 48. (Back to text)
166. Letter from Mary Low Machado to Agustn Guillamn, Miami: FL, December
1997/January 1998. The exact reasons for the POUMs refusal may be multi-fold.
There are various accounts which argue that the POUMs leadership did not take
kindly to Bre on the grounds of his Bohemian lifestyle, but tolerated him only
because they attached great value to the work of Mary Low. (These assertions were
outlined by Wilebaldo Solano during conversations with Agustn Guillamn.
Letter from Agustn Guillamn to Gary Tennant, Barcelona, 16 October 1996.
See also Orr, CA, op cit, p. 48.) However, Mary Low Machado has recounted that
the POUM refused Bre protection stating that his presence complicated their
relations with Stalinism! [presencia les complicaron sus relaciones con el
stalinismo!](My translation, GT.) Letter from Mary Low Machado to Agustn
Guillamn, op cit. Another factor is that the official Trotskyist group in Spain, the
Bolshevik Leninists, would all be expelled in February 1937. (Back to text)
239

167. Red Spanish Notebook with a preface by C. L. R. James was first published in
London in 1937 by Martin Secker and Warburg, who also published George
Orwells Homage To Catalonia. It was reprinted in San Francisco by City Lights in
1979 with a new introduction by Eugencio Fernndez Granell, a founder along with
Nin of the Spanish Communist Opposition. A French edition, Carnets de la
Guerre dEspagne, Editions Verticales, 1997 also contains an extended biography
of Bre and Low written by Grard Roche. Roche, G, op cit, pp. 9-32. (Back to
text)
168. Low, M, and Bre, J, Red Spanish Notebook, San Francisco: CA, City Lights,
1979, p. 247. (Back to text)
169. Ibid, p. 254. (Back to text)
170. Ibid, p. 256. (Back to text)
171. Ibid, p. 254. (Back to text)
172. La Lucha Revolucionaria en Cuba, Comunismo, May-June 1934, op cit, p. 237.
(Back to text)
173. La Revolucin Espaola, Noticiero Bolchevique, op cit, p. 6. (Back to text)
174. Letter from Wilebaldo Solano to Gary Tennant, op cit. (Back to text)
175. See, Unsigned, Publicaciones Recibidas, Noticiero Bolchevique (Havana), No. 1,
September 1936, p. 11. (IISG: ZDK 28141.); and Letter from Roberto Prez
Santiesteban to Fred Browner, Havana, 19 March 1938. (HI: SWP Collection,
Box No. 30, Folder 28.); and Unsigned Letter to Cuban Comrades, New York,
24 March 1938. (HI: SWP Collection, Box No. 30, Folder 28.) (Back to text)
176. See, for example, the numerous letters held in Folders 27 and 28, Box No. 30, in
the SWP Collection at the Hoover Institution in Stanford, California. (Back to text)
177. Letter from Roberto Prez Santiesteban to Fred Browner, Havana, 19 April
1938. (HI: SWP Collection, Box No. 30, Folder 28.); and Minutes of the Pre-
Conference of the All American Pacific Bureau of the Fourth International, 17
May 1938. (HI: SWP Collection, Box No. 4, Folder 7.) From an earlier letter, it
appears that Browner visited the Cuban Trotskyists in Havana in early 1937. Letter
from Fred Browner to unnamed Cuban Trotskyist (From internal evidence,
possibly Roberto Prez Santiesteban), 19 October 1937. (HI: SWP Collection, Box
No. 30, Folder 27.) (Back to text)
178. Apart from meetings with visiting Trotskyists who worked as seamen (See Letter
from the Provisional Executive Commission of the Partido Bolchevique
Leninista to C. Munis, Havana, 2 May 1940. (HHL: Trotsky Archive, Fourth
International, Cuba, 1595.)), POR members also met Max Shachtman in December
1941 when he visited Cuba to investigate the apparently mysterious death of
Arkadij Maslow. Maslow (1891-1941), along with Ruth Fischer, had been a
supporter of Zinoviev in the German Communist Party (KPD). Expelled from the
KPD in 1926 he dropped out of active politics after Zinoviev capitulated to Stalin.
He fled to Paris in 1933, moving to Havana in 1940. Though he died suddenly in a
street in Havana, Shachtmans investigation found that he probably died of natural
causes. See the Letter from Max Shachtman to Ruth Fischer, Havana, 5 December
1941, In: Lbbe, P (ed.), Ruth Fischer / Arkadij Maslow: Abtrnnig wider
Willen, Munich, R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 1990, pp. 148-149. (Back to text)
179. See Letter from Prez Santiesteban, R, to Fernndez, R, Havana, 25 January
1942. (HI: SWP Collection, Box No. 31, Folder 2.); and Letter from Prez
Santiesteban, R, to Marc, Havana, 31 January 1942. (HI: SWP Collection, Box
No. 31, Folder 2.); and Brunner, D, Fritz LammExil in Kuba, In: Grebing, H,
240

and Wickert, C (eds), Das andere Deutschland im Widerstand gegen den


Nationalsozialismus, Essen, Klartext Verlag, 1994, pp. 151, 157. Anton Grylewicz
(1885-1971), a member of the Central Committee of the KPD in the early 1920s, he
was removed from that post in 1925 after steps were taken against the Zinovievists,
Fischer and Maslow. He eventually joined the German Left Opposition in 1930.
After emigrating to Prague in 1933, he moved on to Cuba after the outbreak of war.
It appears, though, that despite having made contact with Leon Katz, another
German Trotskyist in Cuba, and Goldenberg, the Cuban Trotskyists did not make
contact two other prominent dissident German communists, Heinrich Brandler
and August Thalheimer. Having been leading supporters of the Right Opposition in
the 1920s and 30s, they also resided in Cuba for over a decade though were largely
inactive politically. See Becker, J, and Jentsch, H, Heinrich Brandler
Biographische Skizze, 1924-1967, Jahrbuch fr Historische
Kommunismusforschung (Berlin), Vol. 6, 1998, pp. 322-323. (Back to text)
180. Quebracho, op cit, p. 190. (Back to text)
181. Letter from Braverman, SH, to Hernndez, R, 11 August 1944. (HI: SWP
Collection, Box No. 31, Folder 4.) (Back to text)
182. Cited in Stuart, JB, Cubas Elections: Background and Analysis, Fourth
International, July 1944, op cit, p. 208. (Back to text)
183. Resolutions of the Third World Congress, Latin America: Problems and Tasks,
Fourth International November-December 1951, op cit, p. 212. (Back to text)
184. See Letter from Pablo Daz Gonzlez to Stein, Havana, 22 June 1948, op cit. (Back
to text)
185. Provisional Executive Commission of the Bolshevik Leninist Party of Cuba,
Resolution on the Problem of the Opposition in the S.W.P., op cit. Given the
PORs subsequent trajectory over this issue, it must be noted that this Resolution
was passed within ten days of a visit to Havana by a U.S. seaman and may not have
been the result of extensive discussions within the POR. At the time, Mario Pedrosa
(*Lebrn), the leading Latin American supporter of the Minority anti-defencist
position was claiming to speak on behalf of a number of Latin American groups
and it is not beyond the realms of possibility that a primary concern of the visiting
U.S. seaman was to secure the formal support for the Majority of a principal Latin
American section. Certainly, the highly critical 1946 Internal Bulletin called for the
removal of all resolutions on international questions which had not been previously
discussed by the partys dispersed membership. Boletn Interior del Partido Obrero
Revolucionario, March 1946, op cit, p. 8. (Back to text)
186. PBL, Obreros! Defendemos la Unin Sovitica!, June 1941, op cit. (Back to text)
187. CC of the POR, Declaracin de Principios del Partido Obrero Revolucionario,
October 1940, op cit, p. 18. (Back to text)
188. [casta privilegiada [....] Estado Bonapartisa y la dictadura anti-proletaria.](My
translation, GT.) CC of the PBL, A las Masas Trabajadoras de Cuba, 15 October
1939, op cit, p. 2. (Back to text)
189. PBL, Obreros! Defendemos la Unin Sovitica!, June 1941, op cit. (Back to text)
190. See Gilly, A, Open Letter to Jack Barnes on Trotskyism in Cuba,
Intercontinental Press (New York), 11 May 1981, p. 492. (SP.) (Back to text)
191. [Dictadura Staliniana [....] Estado Totalitario.](My translation, GT.) Alvarez, S,
El Caso Polaco Es Ejemplo de la Contrarevolucin Burocrtica, Revolucin
Proletaria (Havana), Year 2, No. 3, 8 July 1945, pp. 1-2, 4. (SWP(US).) (Back to
text)
241

192. [[l]a liberacin de los trabajadores ser obra de los trabajadores mismos.](My
translation, GT.) Ibid, p. 4. (Back to text)
193. In this letter the Cuban Trotskyists argued that Tony Cliffs exposition of the state
capitalist theory on the Soviet Union was the strongest they had come across and
that they were working on a Spanish translation. Letter from the POR to Socialisme
ou Barbarie, Havana, 25 June 1949, published in Socialisme ou Barbarie (Paris),
1949, p. 93. The journal Socialisme ou Barbarie, founded by Cornelius Castoriadis
(1922-1997) in 1949, characterised the Soviet Union under the rule of the Stalinist
bureaucracy as an expansionist capitalist superpower. The journal was also notable
for defending the council communist ideas of workers management from below.
See Ames Curtis, D (ed.), Cornelius Castoriadis: Political and Social Writings,
(Vol. 1, 1946-1955: From the Critique of Bureaucracy to the Positive Content of
Socialism), Minneapolis: MN, University of Minnesota Press, 1987; and
Economou, A, Obituaries: Cornelius Castoriadis, Revolutionary History
(London), Vol. 7, No. 2, pp. 219-221. (Back to text)
194. Letter from Louis Rigaudias to Gary Tennant, Paris, 27 February 1997. (Back
to text)
195. Alvarez, A, Letter to a Cuban Socialist: On the Problems of Latin America, The
New International, Vol. 15, April 1949, pp. 103-106. (BJL.) (Back to text)
196. [Hay prejuicios metropolitanos y hay prejuicios coloniales. Tenemos que curarnos
de esa enfermidad. Sobre nosotros pesa muchas veces el; prejuicio mesinico
propio a la poltica imperante en nuestros pases. En la accin refleja del medio,
contraparte del prejuicio de nuestros amigos norteos que por regla general, y salvo
excepciones, tienen una ignorancia enciclopdica sobre los pases del Sur, pero se
creen muy bin informados. Somos nosotros los que tenemos que resolver nuestros
propios asuntos y esta conducta a la postre revertir en beneficio colectivo mas all
de las fronteras polticas.](My translation, GT.) Bode, Apreciaciones sobre la
Lucha de la L.O.R. contra el Centrismo, Boletn Sudamericano (Buenos Aires),
Year 1, No. 5, June 1943, p. 3. (Back to text)
197. [un punto de convergencia moral .... mantener como embrin de una efectiva
dirigencia](My translation, GT.) Ibid, p. 2. (Back to text)
198. Ibid, p. 2 (Back to text)
199. [decisin de romper con Nueva York, por considerar que un paso de tal naturaleza
no puede conducir mas que al abandono de una posicin legitimamente mantenida,
dejando en manos de la tendencia centrista los mejores argumentos para la defensa
de su posicin.](My translation, GT.) Ibid, pp. 2-3. (Back to text)
200. Ibid. (Back to text)
201. Provisional Executive Committee of the PBL, Bolshevik-Leninist Party of Cuba,
International Bulletin, July 1940, op cit. (Back to text)
202. Provisional Executive of the PBL, Resolution on the Problem of the Opposition in
the S.W.P., op cit. (Back to text)
203. Letter from the Central Committee of the Partido Obrero Revolucionario to
the International Secretariat of the Fourth International, Havana, 19 July 1947.
(TIL: Series I, Part D, Box 5, Folio 11.) (Back to text)
204. I outline these post-1959 attempts to associate Trotskyism with Mujal in Chapter
One. See page 12. (Back to text)
205. Unsigned, De la Teora Trotskista al Fascismo, Bandera Roja (Havana), 9
January 1937, pp. 1, 4. (IHC(b).) (Back to text)
206. Escobedo, A, La Alianza Trotsko-Fascista, Bandera Roja (Havana), 26 March
242

1937, pp. 1-2, 5. (IHC(b).) (Back to text)


207. See, for example, Unsigned, La Reaccin no Podr Ocultar la Negra Historia de
Trotzki, Hoy (Havana), Year 3, No. 202, 23 August 1940, p. 12. (IHC(b).) (Back
to text)
208. [gua querida de los trabajadores de todo el mundo, camarada Stalin](My
translation, GT.) Rodrguez, CR, El Fin de Una Carrera Criminal, El Comunista
(Havana), Year 2, No. 12, October 1940, pp. 772-773. (IHC(b).) (Back to text)
209. [una banda de delincuentes.](My translation, GT.) Cuesta, M, La Banda
Internacional Trotskista, El Comunista (Havana), Year 2, No. 14, December
1940, p. 975. (IHC(b).) (Back to text)
210. See, for example, Luzardo, M, La Lucha contra el Trotskismo, Fundamentos
(Havana), Vol. 1, No. 3, June 1941, p. 214. (IHC(b).); and Tercer Congreso de la
CTC (1942), Intervencin del Compaero Faustino Calcines. Morning Session,
11 December 1942. (IHC(a): Fondo Primer Partido Marxista Leninista, Sig.
1/8:13/3.1/57-69.) (Back to text)
211. [maniobra hbil](My translation, GT.) El Trotskismo Enemigo del Movimiento
Obrero: Intervencin de Faustino Calcines, Secretario de la Federacin de
Trabajadores de las Villas, In: III Congreso Nacional de la C.T.C. La Unidad
es Victoria!, Havana, 1944, pp. 39-40. (IHC(b): 331.88063/Con/I.) (Back to text)
212. Informe sobre el Estado de Fuerzas Representantes en el III Congreso.
(IHC(a): Fondo Primer Partido Marxista Leninista, Sig. 1/8:13/3.1/203.) (Back to
text)
213. See, for example, Unsigned, Elementos Trotskistas Le Prendieron Fuego
Intencionalmente al Local de las Oficinas del Comit de U.R. Comunista en
Vedado, Hoy (Havana), Year 5, No. 116, 17 May 1942, pp. 1, 8. (IHC(b)); and
Luzardo, M, La Lucha contra el Trotskismo, Fundamentos, June 1941, op cit, pp.
214-215. (Back to text)
214. [[e]n el ao 1935, los trotskistas cubanos, expulsados como ratas por los sindicatos
y organizaciones populares, recibieron la orden de su jefe Trotsky, de ingresar en
Joven Cuba, para enmascarar sus actividades y no ser objeto de la denuncia
sistemtica de las masas. Al fusionarse esta organizacin poltic
215. See, for example, the leaflets URC Sancti Spritus Municipal Committee, A la
Crcel los Especuladores, Agiotistas, Troskistas y Quintacolumnistas, nd.
(OCG: Pablo Gmez Arias file.); and URC Sancti Spritus Municipal Executive
Committee, A los Trabajadores, Campesinos y a Todo el Pueblo, April 1942.
(OCG: Pablo Gmez Arias file.); and Sancti Spritus Partido Unin Revolucionaria
Comunista, A los Trabajadores Espirituanos, nd. (From internal evidence, April-
May 1942.) (OCG: Pablo Gmez Arias file.) (Back to text)
216. In addition to the likes of Mujal and Junco, a limited number of ex-Trotskyists
eventually became associated with a variety of overtly anti-working class causes.
Emilio Tr, for example, a member of the OCC during the Revolution of the 1930s
was the leader of the Unin Insurreccional Revolucionaria, the pistolero gang to
which Fidel Castro himself belonged. The starkest example, however, of a former
Trotskyist consciously participating in anti-working movements was that of Rafael
Solr Puig. Having entered the organisations of the petty bourgeois pistolero
groups along with the POR members in the late 1940s, Solr Puig was dragged by
them into gangsterism and counter-revolution on the extreme Right of political
spectrum. A long-time Trotskyist in Santiago de Cuba in the 1930s and 40s, he
became a gangster in the 1950s and among other things was responsible for the
243

assassination of Pipi Hernndez, an exiled leader of the opposition to Trujillo, the


dictator of the Dominican Republic. Solr Puig later returned to Cuba as part of the
U.S.-sponsored Bay of Pigs invasion force. After being captured he was shot by the
Revolutionary Government. Interview given by Mary Low Machado to Gary
Tennant, op cit. (Back to text)
217. [especulacin productiva cerca de los grupos de la pequea burguesa.](My
translation, GT.) Unsigned, Villareal Ha Encontrado su Camino, Noticiero
Bolchevique (Havana), No. 1, September 1936, pp. 13-14. (IISG: ZDK 28141.)
(Back to text)
218. See, for example, Unsigned, En Torno a los Trotskistas en el P.R.C., Cuba
Obrera (Havana), Year 1, No. 4, December 1940, pp. 1, 8. (Back to text)
219. Unsigned, De la Seccin de Guantnamo, Cuba Obrera, October 1940, op cit, p.
7. (Back to text)
220. Unsigned, Lazaro Pea-Junco, Blas Roca-Mujal, Hermanos Gemelos Bajo una
Misma Bandera: Concilicin de Clases! Cuba Obrera, August 1941, op cit, pp. 1,
6. (Back to text)
221. This was stated with clarity by Lenin during the Second Congress of the
Comintern. See Theses, Resolutions and Manifestos of the First Four Congresses of
the Third International, op cit, p. 80. (Back to text)
244

Chapter Seven

The Reorganised Partido Obrero Revolucionario


(Trotskista) and the 1959 Revolution
This chapter addresses the organisational and theoretical development of the Trotskyists
in Cuba under the conditions of the post-1959 revolutionary order. First, I outline the
formation of the Partido Obrero Revolucionario (Trotskista) (POR(T)) in early 1960,
its geographical and social composition, and its forced dissolution in 1965. I argue that
although the POR(T) was only a small group with a narrow base in the working class
movement, the circumstantial evidence suggests that the attacks against the Cuban
Trotskyists served as a barometer reflecting the Stalinisation of the Revolution. That
is, I contend that while the repression was initially the result of the old pesepistas rise
to positions of influence in the institutions of the Revolutionary Government, the
POR(T)s forced dissolution was ultimately sanctioned by the Revolutionary Leadership
as it broadly acquiesced to a number of policy options favoured by the Kremlin, most
significantly siding with the Soviet Union in the Sino-Soviet dispute.

In the second section in this chapter, I discuss the Cuban Trotskyists position with
regard to the political and economic questions of the day. I argue that the POR(T) was
essentially a continuation of the Partido Bolchevique Leninista (PBL) in the 1930s and
the Partido Obrero Revolucionario (POR) in the 1940s and 50s in the sense that it
effectively renounced the need for the proletariat through its own self-clarified
democratic organisations forged in the anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist struggle to
lead the socialist transformation of society.

The third section considers the importance which the activity and repression of the
Cuban POR(T) was accorded within the various Fourth International tendencies and the
extent to which this was significant in confirming the realignment of the forces of
international Trotskyism. Here I argue that the Cuban Trotskyists were largely
abandoned by major tendencies within international Trotskyism due to the fact amidst a
post-World War Two atmosphere of isolation and defeat the mainstream Trotskyist
currents with whom the Cubans had contact had also broadly embraced the essence of
the Cuban Trotskyists Second Period and national liberation arguments. Failing to
propose a politically independent course for the working class, Trotskyists world-wide
not only identified the elitist Fidelista leadership and/or a broad anti-imperialist bloc as
an agent for socialist revolution, but forgot the rights of communist dissidents as they
increasingly sought to swim with the flow in the New Left milieu which was
passionately and largely uncritically enthusiastic about the merits of Castro and the
Cuban Revolution.

An epilogue outlines the activities of those Cubans who have remained politically active
and claimed the mantle of Trotskyism since 1965. The aim of this section is to establish
that while there has been a continued native Trotskyist presence in Cuba after the
POR(T)s formal suppression as an open party, the activity of this post-1965 nucleus
has continued to insist that Stalinist forces and national liberation movements can not
only lead the struggle against the threat of imperialist intervention in Cuba, but also
extend the socialist revolution in Latin America and further afield.
245

7.1 The Organisation and Activity of the POR(T), 1960-65

The principal published discussion which has reflected on the activity and suppression
of the POR(T) during the 1960s was initiated by a speech made by Jack Barnes of the
Socialist Workers Party in the United States (SWP(US)) on 31 December 1978. He
argued that the Cuban Trotskyists speciality had been their ultra-leftist call for a
march on the U.S. Naval Base at Guantnamo to expel imperialist forces.(1) Adolfo
Gilly and Angel Fanjul, two Argentine Trotskyists who as members of the Latin
American Bureau had spent time in Cuba with the POR(T), took issue with Barnes
statement, accusing him of distorting the facts and repeating Stalinist slanders to suit the
SWP(US)s immediate political interests.(2) They argued that the POR(T)s conduct
was far from sectarian, and in fact constituted a principled struggle against Stalinism in
Cuba for the right of revolutionary tendencies to function legally.(3) In response, Jos
G. Prez fleshed out the SWP(US)s initial criticisms of the POR(T)s activity. While
repeating the accusation that the Cuban Trotskyists distinguishing characteristic was
their call for the military take over of the Guantnamo Naval Base, he also argued that
the POR(T)s ultra-leftism resulted in it missing an opportunity to bloc with the
Fidelista leadership.(4)

Leaving aside a strict analysis of the POR(T)s theory and strategy until Section 7.2, I
first trace the activity and suppression of the Cuban Trotskyists and address these quite
different interpretations. Here I argue that accusations of the POR(T) acting in an ultra-
leftist fashion particularly on the issue of the U.S. Naval Base are groundless and, in
fact, only serve as a smoke-screen to disguise the ebb and flow of Stalinist influence on
the course of the Revolution. That is, the available evidence indicates that the campaign
against the Cuban Trotskyists, which began with attacks from the Partido Popular
Socialista (PSP) in 1960 and intensified during the subsequent years as the old
pesepistas successfully linked the institutions of the Revolutionary Government to their
denunciation of Trotskyism, reflected Moscows influence on the Revolutionary
Government and the Fidelista leaderships eventual acquiescence to many of the central
policy options favoured by pro-Moscow Stalinists.

7.1.1 The Formation and Composition of the POR(T)

After the triumph of the Revolution, although no formally constituted Trotskyist


organisation existed in Cuba, a core of former PBL and POR members continued to
agitate within the petty bourgeois nationalist milieu in an apparent attempt to strengthen
the proletarian base in the evolving revolutionary institutions. This perspective of
loosely working within a broad revolutionary constituency was exemplified by the
intervention of Idalberto Ferrera Acosta in the Movimiento de Superacin del Barrio
Sur de Guantnamo, a spontaneous community-based organisation and forerunner to
the state-sponsored Committees for the Defence of the Revolution (CDRs). As one of
its principal leaders Ferrera was involved in initiating a literacy campaign in
Guantnamo, as well as the collection of money for agrarian projects and the
organisation of guards for public buildings.(5)

Having lost contact with the Fourth International in the late 1940s and early 1950s,
relations with the international Trotskyist movement were re-established in 1959 after
the arrival of Olga Scarabino (*Miranda), a Uruguayan representative of the Latin
American Bureau of the International Secretariat of the Fourth International headed by
246

*J. Posadas (Homero Cristalli). As described in Section 2.4, the Trotskyist groups
adhering to the International Secretariat, in contrast to those affiliated to the
International Committee, formally supported the Pabloite theses that various Stalinist
and national liberation movements were agencies for socialist revolution.(6) Given such
a soft line on cross-class forces, it is unsurprising that Scarabinos initial relations and
contact with the militants of the Movimiento 26 de Julio (M26J) in 1959 were
reportedly characterised by their cordiality and fraternal spirit and she was given access
to the radio and television. It was during one such broadcast that she made a public call
to Cuban Trotskyists for a meeting.(7) However, although her presence speeded up the
process of reorganising a Trotskyist party in Cuba, according to various testimonies,(8)
it was on the initiative of the Cuban Trotskyists themselves that a Trotskyist party was
reconstituted in early 1960.

The Cuban POR(T) was founded on 6 February 1960,(9) and was formally proposed for
recognition as the Cuban section of the International Secretariat of the Fourth
International at the January 1961 Sixth World Congress,(10) which Scarabino attended
as the Cuban POR(T)s delegate.(11) Counting on only approximately forty members,
(12) the POR(T) openly re-established branches in the three urban centres where the
former POR had survived into the 1940s, namely, Havana, Santiago de Cuba, and
Guantnamo. It rented a public office in Guantnamo, its principal base.(13)

Despite the POR(T)s small size, though, it did have roots in the history of working
class struggle in Cuba. It was principally because of Trotskyisms past record of
struggle that after the founding of the POR(T), the initial activists immediate
perspective for building the party was to recruit those militants who had been active in
the PBL and POR in the 1930s and 40s.(14) Jos Medina, an old guantanameo
Trotskyist, was the POR(T)s first General Secretary,(15) while Idalberto Ferrera
Acosta, also originally from Guantnamo and the POR(T)s General Secretary from
1961/62, established his apartment at Monte 12 in La Habana Vieja as the partys public
central address. Other former members of the old PBL and POR organisations who
participated in the re-founded partys activities included Elas Surez, Jos Medina and
Luciano Garca in Guantnamo, and Roberto Acosta Hechavarra, Roberto Tejera,
Armando Machado and Mary Low Machado in Havana. Pablo Daz, a leading POR
member in the 1940s and one of Fidel Castros original fourteen-member General Staff
on the Granma, also participated in the POR(T)s meetings and discussion groups in
Havana. However, given his links with the Revolutionary Leadership and the growing
influence of the PSP in that circle, this was always carried out with a degree of
discretion and he did not participate in the POR(T)s public activities.(16)

Other, younger militants who supplemented the regrouping of the old PBL and POR
members included Floridia Fraga, a daughter of Gustavo Fraga, Andrs Alfonso, and
Idalberto, Ricardo and Juan Len Ferrera Ramrez, the three sons of Idalberto Ferrera
Acosta and Guarina Ramrez. The incorporation of these new recruits into the Cuban
Trotskyist party also confirmed the working class social composition of the POR(T).
The majority of the Guantnamo branch were local trade union leaders and activists
known for their commitment to the rights and struggles of workers. In Havana, Ricardo
Ferrera after coming down from the sierra worked in the commercial sector, while
Floridia Fraga and Andrs Alfonso worked in the transport sector, Alfonso as a
mechanic in a bus repair depot.(17) One of the few professionals in the POR(T)s ranks
was Roberto Acosta who, as a leading electrical engineer, helped to organise the
247

nationalised electricity company before going on to work in the Ministry of Industry


under Che Guevara as the Director of Weights, Measures and Time Management.(18)
While these Latin American envoys in no sense foisted the existence of a Trotskyist
party on the Cuban Revolution, their presence was not without importance for the
young POR(T). The envoys did not have fixed, paid employment and were effectively
able to devote much of their attention to the tasks of the party, preparing theoretical
material and helping with the publication of the newspaper. Furthermore, as leading
members of Trotskyist parties elsewhere in Latin America they had recent experience of
party building as well as knowledge of the theoretical debates within the Fourth
International tendencies in the 1950s, something which their Cuban comrades lacked.

The POR(T)s Cuban cadres were also supplemented at various times by a number of
leading Latin American Trotskyists from different sections of the Latin American
Bureau of the International Secretariat of the Fourth International. Apart from
Scarabino, the principal foreign envoys included Alberto Sendic (*A. Ortz), Jos
Lungarzo (*Juan), Adolfo Gilly (*H. Lucero), and Angel Fanjul (*Heredia).(19) J.
Posadas himself, the Secretary of the Latin American Bureau, was only in Cuba for a
period of about three weeks at the time of the Primer Congreso Latinoamericano de
Juventudes in July-August 1960.(20)

7.2.1

7.1.2 The Activity and Suppression of the POR(T), 1960-65

During the early 1960s, the Cuban Trotskyists involvement in the developing
institutions suggested that they had a far from sectarian attitude to the Revolution. They
participated in the work and activity of the newly established revolutionary
organisations. Apart from the Movimiento de Superacin del Barrio Sur de
Guantnamo, POR(T) members undertook voluntary work in the countryside,
participated in the literacy campaign, and joined the Federacin de Mujeres Cubanas,
the CDRs, and the newly organised militias.(21) At the time of the Cuban Missile
Crisis, every member of the POR(T) was in his or her respective military or militia unit
and a communication sent to the Revolutionary Government on 24 October placed the
organisation as a whole at the governments disposal.(22) Indeed, as Gilly has noted,
[t]he comrades of the Cuban section [....] even adopted a resolution saying that no one
could be a member who didnt join the militia and do voluntary work.(23) However,
although such pronouncements were far from sectarian, ultimately they only amounted
to a symbolic statement of the Trotskyists unconditional commitment to the
Revolution. The POR(T)s small membership meant that its activists participation in
the tasks of workplace, neighbourhood and militia organisations did not affect the
course of the Revolution.

The campaign against Trotskyism and, in particular, the POR(T) was initiated by
various elements of the PSP during the First Latin American Youth Congress held in
Havana in mid-1960. With various Trotskyist delegates from all over the Americas
present,(24) the PSP resurrected the old baseless accusations that Trotskyists by using
Left-wing phrases acted as provocateurs inciting U.S. aggression, and were instruments
of the FBI and CIA.(25) While these claims were eventually found to be without
foundation by a special investigating commission at the Congress, it was ultimately the
intervention of Juan Len Ferrera who spoke and distributed a Trotskyist leaflet to the
248

delegates which silenced the Stalinists.(26) He appeared in the military uniform of a


sergeant and with the long hair identifying him as a guerrilla from the Rebel Army.

At this relatively early stage in the Revolution, although PSP cadres were already
occupying intermediate positions in the institutions of the Revolutionary Government
and capitalising on Fidel Castros calls for unity slates in the trade unions, their political
position was still to the Right of the Fidelista Revolutionary Leadership. As such, the
PSPs attempt to discredit a small revolutionary Left-wing voice was in no sense
sanctioned by the Revolutionary Leadership itself.(27) Instead it reflected the official
communists long history of combat with Trotskyism and their long-standing desire to
suppress the development of representative institutions which displayed a degree of
class-based political autonomy. Furthermore, the PSPs accusations that the Trotskyists
were provoking U.S. aggression by calling for a struggle against native capitalist
interests and for an extension of the nationalisations, were rather weak when viewed in
the light of the Revolutionary Leaderships subsequent turn against U.S. property in
Cuba. Shortly after the closure of the Youth Congress Fidel Castro, apparently against
the expectations of the PSP, extended the round of expropriations and nationalisations
so as to include two large-scale public services, the Cuban Telephone Company and
Cuban Electric Company.(28)

However, as the PSP consolidated its influence within the institutions of the
Revolutionary Government in 1961, repression against the Trotskyists gained
momentum. It also took on a more co-ordinated aspect with the heightening of political
tension in Cuba when state power was directly threatened by the United States. In the
first instance, the attempted invasion at Playa Girn in April 1961 served as a catalyst
for the first round of systematic repression against the Trotskyists. In the weeks
following the victory of the Revolutionary Government over the U.S. government-
trained invasion force, the moves against the Trotskyists began with the seizure of issue
number ten of the POR(T)s newspaper Voz Proletaria. As a symbol of their
commitment to the struggle for the right of proletarian democracy within the
Revolution, between April 1960 and April 1961 the Trotskyists had produced eight
editions of the newspaper Voz Proletaria in addition to a number of pamphlets.(29) The
newspapers furthermore appeared with the name of the editors and the POR(T)s public
address, first Jos Medina and Luciano Garca in Guantnamo, and then Idalberto
Ferrera Ramrez at Monte 12 in Havana, openly cited. Voz Proletarias existence was
also made known to the revolutionary leadership through the direct means of posting
copies to the offices of Che Guevara and Fidel Castro.(30) However, on 26 May 1961,
before the May issue could be distributed, a group acting on behalf of an official of the
PSP-controlled Imprenta Nacional, the National Printing Office, confiscated the entire
print-run of the newspaper at the private printing works where it was being prepared.
Later that same day, PSP state functionaries acting on orders from the Ministry of
Labour confiscated the printing plates of an edition of Trotskys book, The Permanent
Revolution.(31)

While the order, apparently signed by the Minister of Labour himself, authorised the
seizure of the POR(T)s publications on the grounds that they constituted counter-
revolutionary propaganda,(32) the reasons for the intervention appear to be connected
with the rise of pro-Moscow influence in the Revolution. As the Trotskyists themselves
suggested, the actions against their publications had the approval of various officials of
the Revolutionary Government precisely because in recent months PSP cadres had
249

consolidated their positions in the state apparatus, particularly in the trade unions and
large sections of the media. This process, the POR(T) correctly observed, had been
facilitated by the Cuban governments increasing need for Soviet aid and trade in the
face of economic dislocation.(33) The clamp-down had also been given the green light
after Guevara sharply criticised the April 1961 edition of Voz Proletaria on national
television. The particular article in question argued that the Technical Advisory
Councils set up in the workplaces ostensibly to give the workers control over the
production process in individual units had a bureaucratic character.(34) While there is
no suggestion that Guevara himself personally sanctioned the seizure of the POR(T)s
press, in these early years of the Revolution he had nevertheless publicly signalled the
Revolutionary Leaderships perception of Trotskyism as a counter-revolutionary force.
(35)

The POR(T) immediately presented a series of protests to the Revolutionary


Government, demanding democratic rights of freedom of press for all revolutionary
anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist tendencies which unconditionally defended the
Cuban Workers State. However, all of these went unanswered at the time.(36) Only
Guevara in response to direct questioning from foreign journalists and academics
attempted to justify the suppression of the POR(T)s press on the grounds that the
Trotskyists did not have paper or permission to use paper and that they hindered the
development of the Revolution. He even went so far as to suggest that the proximity of
the POR(T)s Guantnamo branch to the U.S. Naval Base might not be a casual
coincidence.(37) In a later interview in September 1961, though, Guevara did concede
that it had been error to smash the printing plates of Trotskys The Permanent
Revolution. However, he again reflected the general attitude of the PSP in reiterating
that the POR(T) was acting against the Revolution. He repeated the accusation that the
Trotskyists had effectively acted as provocateurs by agitating for the Cuban people to
march on the U.S. Naval Base in Guantnamo. He also confirmed his affinity with the
PSP by asserting that because the communist party and the revolution marched together
[y]ou cannot be for the revolution and be against the Cuban Communist Party.(38)

The central accusation made by Guevara, which was also later raised by the SWP(US),
that the Cuban Trotskyists were somehow ultra-leftist provocateurs is based on a
campaign which the POR(T) allegedly launched from the pages of Voz Proletaria
demanding the expulsion of U.S. military forces from Cuban territory. The principal
reference to the POR(T)s own publications to support this interpretation was an article
in the first issue of the newspaper which discussed the conflict between the U.S.
authorities and Cuban workers at the Base. This comprehensive article, though stating
that together, the workers of the Naval Base, the people of Guantnamo and Camanera
and the Cuban masses must prepare the struggle for the definitive expulsion of
imperialism(39) was far from a provocative incitement to storm the Naval Base.
Instead it emphasised the defence of the trade union organisations inside the Base. The
main point which the POR(T) made was that the workers of Guantnamo should not
accept the dismissal of a single worker or trade union activist. The anti-trade union
campaign, they claimed, was part of the U.S. authorities attempt to demoralise the
work-force and permit the growth of a pro-Batista trade union beach-head in the region.
In also noting that the workers themselves had formed a guard to protect the base from
U.S.-sponsored acts of auto-sabotage, the isolated phrase calling for the expulsion of
imperialism from the Base can largely be seen, as Gilly has described, as a propaganda
slogan similar to that of calling for the expulsion of imperialism from the Panama
250

Canal.(40) Furthermore, as Gilly has noted, the absence of any other articles in Voz
Proletaria about the Naval Base underlines the fact that even this call for the expulsion
of imperialism was hardly central to the POR(T)s programme.(41)

In addition to this enduring though largely hollow accusation, further allegations against
Trotskyism appeared in a series of articles in the daily Aclaraciones column in the
PSPs newspaper Hoy in June 1962.(42) Continuing to peddle the old myths which had
underpinned the Moscow Trials of the 1930s, the PSP presented Trotskyist forces
outside the Soviet Union as being in the pay of imperialists whose principal task was to
discredit the communist parties.(43) The PSP likewise played their unity card in
repeating their concocted potted history of Trotskyism in Cuba. Ignoring the fact that it
had actually been the Cuban Communist Party which had labelled all non-PCC forces as
social-fascist, if not plainly fascist, during the Revolution of the 1930s, Hoy again
misrepresented Trotskyisms history in Cuba. It informed its readers that following
instructions from the international Trotskyist movement the Cuban Trotskyists had
entered Joven Cuba in order to oppose more effectively the unity of the revolutionary
forces. The PSP also employed the old accusation that the Cuban Trotskyists had then
joined the Partido Revolucionario Cubano (Autntico), stimulating its anti-communism,
and that through the Trotskyist leader Mujal they had worked for the police forces in the
labour movement in the 1940s and 50s. According to the PSP, in this post-World War
Two period the Trotskyists put themselves at the unconditional service of U.S.
imperialism in order to divide the Confederacin de Trabajadores de Cuba and
introduce gangsterism, corruption and bureaucracy into the trade union movement.
Extrapolating these slanderous accusations to the post-1959 period, the PSP portrayed
Trotskyism as a movement still used by U.S. imperialism in Latin America against the
workers movement. With specific reference to Cuba, the PSP posited that the
Trotskyist International had apparently sent some of its agents to Cuba in order to
reorganise the group and its activities with the aim of creating confusion and impeding
the development of the Revolution.(44)

Up until this point in mid-1962, the POR(T) had only suffered the arrest and
victimisation of one member, a railway worker in Guantnamo, in the run up to
celebrations to mark the 26 July in 1961.(45) However, the PSPs focused attacks on
Trotskyism in June 1962 served as a prelude to a more systematic campaign of physical
harassment in mid- to late 1962. With the PSP having further secured leading positions
and influence in the direction of the Revolution after Fidel Castros open declaration of
the socialist nature of the Revolution, leading Trotskyists were subjected to a round of
arrests in the lead up to and in the aftermath of the POR(T)s Second National
Conference held between 24 and 26 August 1962.(46) Significantly, this event also
challenged the one-party Organizaciones Revolucionarias Integradas (ORI) project
which the Trotskyists did not apply to join as a group on the basis that it was not a
political party within which ideas could be disseminated and a discussion of programme
initiated, but was an apparatus of government operating in a Stalinist fashion.(47) On 18
August, Idalberto and Juan Len Ferrera Ramrez were detained after having distributed
a leaflet at a Congress of Sugar Cane Co-operatives,(48) and on 20 August, the
anniversary of Trotskys assassination, the police banned a commemorative meeting in
Guantnamo.(49) Immediately following the POR(T)s National Conference, the
partys leader in Havana, Idalberto Ferrera Acosta together with Jos Lungarzo were
arrested on 30 August. With no concrete charges being levelled against the POR(T) or
its members, all four comrades were released on 1 September.(50)
251

The POR(T)s Second National Conference, as well as the rise in tension in the lead up
to the Missile Crisis, spurred the Cuban Trotskyists on to produce an A4-sized
mimeographed fortnightly bulletin from September 1962 under the name of its old
newspaper Voz Proletaria. The Trotskyists claimed that it had a circulation of 1,000
copies.(51) According to the POR(T) activists, while this newspaper was still not
officially banned, their request that it be printed by state print works was formally
rejected in November on the grounds that there was no paper.(52) Despite the
heightening harassment and the bulletins forced mimeographed format, the Trotskyists
once more rejected the option of publishing their organ in a clandestine manner. While
not able to influence the political make-up of any trade union or revolutionary
organisation outside the centres in which their small group of members operated, the
decision to publish the partys public address, the apartment of Idalberto Ferrera Acosta,
and distribute the bulletin openly, was again important as a symbolic gesture. It was part
of the struggle for the legal existence of all revolutionary tendencies in what they were
then terming the Cuban Workers State.

From the launch of the Voz Proletaria bulletin in September 1962 until the forced
dissolution of the POR(T) as an organised party in April 1965, the Trotskyists activity
was punctuated by even greater repression. At the time of the Missile Crisis in October
1962, the Guantnamo branch suffered the arrest of its leader Jos Medina and the
transfer of a number of its members from their regular places of work.(53) In Havana
the Argentinian envoy Jos Lungarzo was again arrested on 30 October 1962,(54)
eventually being deported to Argentina on 21 December 1962 with no apparent concern
for his life or liberty on arrival there.(55) On 6 March 1963 the State Security services
confiscated the printing equipment for Voz Proletaria and detained Idalberto Ferrera
Ramrez, its editor, for a day. Although such acts of repression had previously been
carried out on the initiative of a PSP-influenced sector of the police and state apparatus,
as the failed ORI project gave way to the Unified Party of Socialist Revolution (PURS)
in 1963, for the first time the Cuban Trotskyists placed responsibility for these latest
repressive measures on the Revolutionary Government itself.(56) Boldly rebutting the
accusations of divisionism levelled against those communists who proposed different
strategies to those of the official communists, the POR(T) also referred to the repressive
measures as blackmail and political terrorism.(57)

The harassment was stepped up in mid-1963. Various Trotskyists were forcibly


transferred to new centres of work where they had no contacts or influence. The late-
May edition of Voz Proletaria reported how the transfer of Roberto Tejera, accused of
being a Trotskyist divisionist was proposed to a meeting of workers.(58) While this
was rejected by the meeting, the attempt to implement transfers carried on elsewhere.
On 8 June, Andrs Alfonso was arrested and threatened by State Security services, and
though again released within a few hours, he had thereby been prevented from attending
a trade union meeting. Amidst apparent calls from his work-mates against such
intimidation he was transferred to another workplace outside Havana. As the POR(T)
claimed, this was a de facto sacking.(59) In Guantnamo, a similar sanction of transfer
was proposed in the case of Jos Medina. According to Voz Proletaria, his transfer from
the railways to a farm was proposed as a punishment for publishing a leaflet calling for
trade union democracy.(60) Medina was later suspended from his work without pay.
(61) The dismissal of the Trotskyists from their workplaces not only removed them
from the local trade union milieu in which they had a proven history of dedication to the
252

labour movement, but also carried on the tradition of victimisation against the
Trotskyists in the Guantnamo region which had started in the era of Batista.

Adolfo Gilly, after more than nine months of journalistic work and internal POR(T)
activity was arrested and deported from Cuba in October 1963. This took place shortly
after the POR(T)s publication in September of the pamphlet Las Tareas Econmicas y
la Poltica del Estado Obrero which he had written under a pseudonym,(62) and a few
weeks after an International Architecture Congress where the Trotskyists had intervened
as an organised fraction.(63) Measures against the Cuban Trotskyists themselves led
progressively to criminal charges and a trial. On 9 November 1963, when Andrs
Alfonso went to discuss the possibility of his return to his original workplace, he was
arrested for distributing copies of Voz Proletaria to those work-mates who usually took
a copy.(64) After Alfonsos companion Floridia Fraga protested against his detention at
her CDR, she was also arrested on 1 December. This was followed by the detention of
Ricardo Ferrera on 2 December after he went to make enquiries about her.(65)
Although the POR(T) held its Third National Conference in January 1964,(66) this
round of arrests announced the beginning of the end for the POR(T) as an organised
party. According to a report in the U.S. Trotskyist journal Spartacist based on an
interview with Juan Len Ferrera, in the spring of 1964 all three were taken to a trial
which was closed to the public. They were charged with: (1) distributing an illegal
paper, (2) advocating the overthrow of the Cuban government, and (3) being critical of
Fidel Castro. Floridia Fraga and Ricardo Ferrara [sic] were sentenced to two years each
while Andrs Alfonso received a sentence of five years.(67)

The clamp-down continued when Roberto Tejera was arrested after he went to enquire
about his three comrades. Then the POR(T)s General Secretary, Idalberto Ferrera
Acosta, was arrested at his home. With his apartment also serving as the POR(T)s
office, numerous copies of the paper and other documents were confiscated.(68) After
a trial at which both were found guilty on the same charges of alleged counter-
revolutionary activity as the others, Tejera was sentenced to six years in prison and,
indicating the political character of the repression, Ferrera received nine years, the most
severe sentence.(69)

At this point in 1964, the fate of the Cuban Trotskyists imprisoned in this first round of
political trials was conditioned by the intervention of Che Guevara. Guevara had
attempted to justify the suppression of the Cuban Trotskyists in 1961, loyally repeating
the criticisms of the pro-Moscow PSP members. However, his disillusionment with the
Soviet Communist Party and the Sovietisation of the direction of the Cuban
Revolution had become increasingly apparent in the period following the Missile Crisis
of October 1962. Not only had he vented his anger at the USSRs unwillingness to fulfil
their commitment to send and, if necessary, use the nuclear missiles,(70) but he had
partially broken with Stalinism over the issue of peaceful coexistence and spreading
the revolution to other countries. As described in Section 3.4.2, Guevaras criticisms of
the Soviets strategy led the more ardent pro-Moscow communists to characterise him
privately as a Maoist if not Trotskyist.

As it became evident that Fidel Castro was beginning to align Cuba with the Soviet
Union in the Sino-Soviet dispute, at the same time as Guevaras economic strategy was
also losing ground in favour of the policy options desired by the pro-Soviet wing of the
Cuban leadership, so Ches personal position towards the Cuban Trotskyists softened. A
253

number of Latin American Trotskyists had been incorporated into his various guerrilla
projects,(71) and Guevara simply no longer had any need to support the suppression of
the dissident Trotskyist communists in order to defend a wider political position which
he had evidently lost. Ricardo Napuri, a Peruvian who worked with Guevara in Cuba
between 1959-64 in his various guerrilla projects, has gone so far as to argue that
Guevara initially supported the suppression of the Cuban Trotskyists more out of the
need to avoid losing positions in the leadership in the face of pressures from Moscow
and the advance of the pro-Moscow PSP members in the G-2, the State Security
services, and other revolutionary institutions, rather than out of any personal anti-
Trotskyist conviction.(72)

Disillusioned with Moscow and finding himself on the losing slope in the internal
leadership struggles, Guevara increasingly expressed and acted upon his own personal
convictions. No longer having any particular axe to grind against the Trotskyists, who
themselves shared Guevaras sympathies for the Chinese in the Sino-Soviet dispute, he
was instrumental in freeing a number of the POR(T) members imprisoned in La
Cabaa jail in Havana. Roberto Tejera was released on the orders of Guevara the day
after he had been interviewed by Che personally about his supposed crimes.(73)
Similarly, Armando Machado was released from prison in Havana on Guevaras
initiative.(74)

However, in Oriente where Guevara had little influence over which individuals
remained imprisoned, the repression against the POR(T) continued. It culminated in the
arrest of the Guantnamo section of the POR(T) in late 1964 and early 1965, less than a
year before the formal founding of the new Cuban Communist Party. With the
Trotskyists mimeographed bulletin Voz Proletaria having ceased publication and their
small but symbolic intervention in revolutionary institutions having been broken, the
members of the POR(T) found themselves in prison en masse. The political nature of
this clamp-down in 1964-65 was demonstrated by the sensitivity which the authorities
displayed in not arresting Mary Low Machado, a participant in POR(T) meetings, due to
the protection which her foreign passport granted her,(75) or Juan Len Ferrera Ramrez
because he had worked in Guevaras own exemplary voluntary quartet of cane cutters.
(76)

In Santiago de Cuba, Jos Medina Campos, Idalberto Ferrera Ramrez, Luciano Garca,
Elas Surez, Antonio Medina Campos, and Guido Braas Medina were all charged
with alleged crimes against the state. The tribunal which heard their case in March 1965
found them guilty of coming to agreement among themselves and with as yet unknown
third persons to conspire against the Cuban government, and having organised a
counter-revolutionary movement called the Partido Obrero Revolucionario Trotskista
in Guantnamo.(77) In language similar to that employed during the Moscow Show
Trials in the 1930s, the Sentencing Report stated that following the orientations of
Yankee imperialism they formed a study circle in which they discussed the best way to
sow confusionism and divisionism among the Cuban population [....] as well as
publishing a counter-revolutionary bulletin [....] called La Voz Proletaria in which
they published false news and information and circulated a large amount of counter-
revolutionary propaganda [....], defaming the leaders of the Revolution and criticising
the Revolutionary Laws.(78) According to the tribunal, all this activity was apparently
undertaken while the Trotskyists awaited the landing of mercenaries who sought to
overthrow violently the Cuban government. Again demonstrating the political nature of
254

the alleged crimes, Idalberto Ferrera Ramrez was sentenced to eight years
imprisonment, Jos Medina received five years, and Luciano Garca, Elas Surez,
Antonio Medina and Guido Braas each received three year sentences.(79)

In Havana, Roberto Acosta was also arrested in early 1965 after a mimeographed
version of Trotskys The Revolution Betrayed with a new Cuban introduction was
printed in his house.(80) When Guevara returned from Africa he apparently became
aware of Acostas arrest and detention because of the Trotskyists absence from his post
in the Ministry of Industry. Having already lost the strategic arguments over
revolutionary strategy, Guevara convened a meeting with Acosta.(81) According to
Roberto Acosta, although the meeting took place in the presence of officials from G-2,
Guevara expressed the view that Acosta was a revolutionary, that if the Trotskyists
thought they were right then they should continue the struggle to obtain what they were
fighting for, and that at some point in the future Trotskyist publications would be legal.
(82) As Guevara said, Acosta, you cant kill ideas with blows".(83) Assuring Acosta
that he would be freed shortly,(84) Guevara apparently closed the meeting with an
embrace and the words: See you in the next trenches".(85)

A few days later, officials of G-2 returned with the proposal that all the Trotskyists
would be released on condition that they agreed to cease all organised activity and
refrain from publishing any material.(86) While during previous periods of
imprisonment the Trotskyists had carried out political work amongst other prisoners,
drawing up re-educational plans which defended the Revolution at the same time as
defending their own programme and the POR(T)s right to legal existence,(87) other
political considerations appear to have taken precedence. Specifically, with questions
being raised about Guevaras whereabouts as his disappearance from public life became
evident, the Trotskyists knew that they no longer had any protection from the prospect
of lengthy periods of incarceration.(88)

Roberto Acosta and Idalberto Ferrera Ramrez consequently travelled to Santiago de


Cuba where at a meeting of the imprisoned Trotskyists, their relatives and sympathisers
as well as the security services, Ferrera spoke on behalf of the POR(T). Although he
restated the POR(T)s position of unconditional defence of the Cuban Revolution while
criticising the Revolutions bureaucratic aspects, he also spoke of the need for unity.
(89) Having agreed to dissolve the POR(T) and cease publishing the newspaper Voz
Proletaria and all other Trotskyist material, the jailed Trotskyists were released before
the end of April 1965.(90)

The POR(T), then, was only a small group whose limited base in the working class
movement meant that its activity had little effect on the course of the Revolution.
However, its fate in the period 1959-65 was in many respects a barometer for the ebb
and flow of pro-Moscow influence on the course of the Revolution. That is, the
Trotskyists activity and struggle for existence was of significance in terms of
demonstrating the fate of working class democracy in Cuba and the Revolutionary
Leaderships alignment with the USSR on a number of central policy issues. In the first
place, there is no question that the POR(T) was involved in counter-revolutionary
insurgency and sabotage, or in acts to provoke U.S. military intervention in the
Guantnamo region. On the contrary, their activity demonstrated that they generally
sought to participate in the organisations of the new Cuban state and, however
symbolically, in the unconditional defence of the Revolutionary Government against
255

U.S. imperialism. Initially, the Revolutions free-wheeling atmosphere protected the


Trotskyists against the anti-democratic zeal of the PSP. Indeed, although the POR(T)s
activity in 1960 was met with the traditional invective which Stalinist groups reserved
for their dissident Trotskyist rivals, these accusations initially found no support outside
the confines of the PSP. It was only as the Revolutionary Leadership increasingly relied
on Soviet aid that the old PSP cadres attacks on the POR(T) were legitimised. That is,
while the old pesepistas made opportunist use of periods of crisis, most notably the
Playa Girn invasion and the Missile Crisis, to include the Trotskyists in a security
clamp-down, the evidence indicates that the measures taken against the POR(T) were
eventually sanctioned by the Revolutionary Leadership itself at a time when Fidel
Castro was broadly acquiescing to policy options favoured by the Kremlin.

7.2 The POR(T) and the 1959 Revolution: Theory and Strategy

While responsibility for the suppression of the POR(T) demonstrably lies with the
leadership of the Revolution, the Cuban Trotskyists understanding of the revolutionary
process also contributed to the disappearance of Trotskyism as an organised party in
1965. In this section I argue that despite Roberto Acostas suggestion that his comrades
chose personal liberty before political principle in accepting the dissolution of their
party as a condition for their release, the POR(T)s decision to accede formally to the
Revolutionary Governments insistence on the one-party character of the Cuban
political landscape was also determined by the Trotskyists long-term failure to identify
unambiguously the working class as the principal agent for revolutionary change.

The Trotskyists ostensibly adhered to the fundamental postulates of the theory of


Permanent Revolution.(91) However, missing from their analysis was the understanding
that it was the working class through its own self-clarified democratic organisations
which had to be the executor of the revolutionary measures against capitalist property
relations. At the end of 1960, shortly after the large-scale nationalisations of banks and
industry and the effective state monopoly on foreign trade were carried out and
instituted by the Revolutionary Government, the POR(T) contended that these steps in
and by themselves confirmed the validity of the theory of Permanent Revolution. They
argued that the Revolution by qualitatively jumping objective stages of development,
rapidly passing from bourgeois democratic to socialist economic measures, had
demonstrated that there was no room for a democratic capitalist stage in the struggle for
genuine national liberation.(92) Given that this uninterrupted process had been
executed by forces other than those of the democratic organs of the working class, the
theory of Permanent Revolution thereby became an objective process guiding the
Revolution rather than a conscious proletarian strategy.

Despite the fact that the organisations of the masses themselves had not erected the new
state apparatus, the Trotskyists were among the first to confer the status of a Workers
State on the new post-1959 revolutionary order.(93) Furthermore, although they
appended the important caveat that the political aspects of the Revolution lagged behind
the economic ones,(94) they nevertheless felt that the Revolutionary Leadership of Fidel
Castro was ultimately capable of carrying out the political tasks of the socialist
revolution.

Believing that the Revolutionary Government was fulfilling the POR(T)s own
revolutionary socialist programme, albeit in a bureaucratic manner,(95) the Cuban
256

Trotskyists thereby limited their criticisms to what they perceived to be deformations


within the post-1959 revolutionary order. From the POR(T)s founding, they opposed
the incipient paternalism which, in their view, led the Revolutionary Government to
impose measures on the working class in an authoritarian manner. They argued, for
example, that control from above and the exclusion of working class from the direction
of production and the state were the root causes of the problems of absenteeism and low
productivity which the Revolution faced as economic planning was instituted.(96)

Hand in hand with its criticisms against the tendencies towards paternalism and
bureaucratic strangulation of the political aspects of the revolution, the POR(T)
advanced a number of demands. A central thrust of its programme was the defence of
proletarian democracy and calls for acceptance of diverse forms of revolutionary
activity. Specifically, the POR(T) called for democracy in the trade unions, and opposed
the creation of a single political party.

In line with Lenins position over the role of trade unions,(97) the Cuban Trotskyists
called for trade union independence from the state and the establishment of the widest
degree of democracy in the trade union movement. Arguing that these were essential in
order to ensure that working class support for the deepening of the Revolution could be
freely given, they called for the election of trade union leaders without the imposition of
single lists or the intervention of any state institutions in support or otherwise of any
revolutionary tendency.(98) In the political arena, the POR(T) similarly defended the
right of all working class parties and tendencies which defended the Revolution to open
and legal existence. To their credit, during the period 1960-65 the Trotskyists
consistently stood for freedom of expression and action for all revolutionary tendencies
provided that they defended what the POR(T) considered to be the proletarian state.
They argued that such groups should be able to defend their ideas publicly and without
harassment through all the mediums of communication of the Cuban Workers State
and that the masses should have the right to choose their representatives from among
these revolutionary tendencies and positions.(99)

As early as May 1960, an article in Voz Proletaria set out the Trotskyists opposition to
a single party which unified the M26J, the Directorio Revolucionario and the PSP. It
characterised the M26J as an organisation structured more around the requirements of
insurrectionary action than a political programme, and the Directorio Revolucionario
and PSP as apparatuses without mass popular support. The latter, they argued, had been
tied to a programme of tepid reformism in alliance with the so-called progressive
bourgeoisie.(100) Perceptively arguing against the imposition of a single party
monolithic structure a year before the ORI was formally founded, the POR(T) wrote:

[t]he formation of tendencies and their struggle inside the Workers State and in its
political and trade union organisations is nothing more than the expression of the
heterogeneity of the working classes. Within the working class itself, they are the
expression of the different interests and layers which are manifested in the different
solutions advanced in an attempt to resolve the problem of the epoch of the transition to
socialism. To try to smother these tendencies with the dogmatic and sectarian argument
of a supposed imposed unity, of the absolutist monolithicism of an official line
dictated from above, would be to want to wind back history to return to the conditions
which produced the sinister period of Stalinist repression, already condemned and left
behind by the communist workers movement.(101)
257

However, despite this principled defence of their perspective of dictatorship over the
bourgeoisie and democracy for the working class, the Cuban Trotskyists criticisms
were not directed at forging an alternative revolutionary vanguard to lead a political
revolution against Fidel Castro and/or the rising bureaucracy controlling the institutions
of the Cuban state. Rather than seeking to develop democratic working class
organisations which could ultimately challenge both the institutions of the Bonapartist
communist state and pro-capitalist groups for the leadership of the masses, the Cuban
Trotskyists instead became little more than an irksome appendage to the Fidelista
leadership.

The reason for this failure to insist unambiguously that only the working class could be
the executor of revolutionary change had its origins in the Cuban Trotskyists own
history as well as in international Trotskyisms post-war belief that official communist
parties and petty bourgeois nationalist forces could serve as blunt instruments for
revolution. Taking the PBLs, the PORs and ultimately the Fourth Internationals post-
World War Two faith in the potential of broad anti-imperialist blocs to its logical
conclusion, the Cuban Trotskyists perspective of building an independent Trotskyist
party was merely aimed at encouraging the mass organisations into pressurising Fidel
Castro, Guevara and other Left tendencies in the Revolutionary Leadership into taking
steps against bureaucratic deformations and permitting the full participation of the
masses in the questions of power and control.(102)

The POR(T) justified this perspective of pressurising the Castro leadership by


depicting the underlying motor behind political developments in the Revolution as a
permanent battle between the maturity and pressure of the masses on the one hand, and
the arbitrary, bureaucratic imposition from above by Stalinist tendencies on the other.
The Trotskyists argued that the leadership of Fidel Castro struck out at the bureaucratic
tendencies only when the masses displayed their disgust against bureaucratic excesses
and exerted their influence on the Revolutionary Leadership.(103) This erroneous
assessment of the innate revolutionary socialist capacity of the Fidelista Revolutionary
Leadership furthermore led the POR(T) to describe Castros so-called frictional
alliance with the PSP as a defensive move conditioned by the Revolutionary
Leaderships lack of confidence in the masses as well as Castros own ideological
weakness, that is, his empiricism, which did not allow him to fully understand the
immense dangers of Stalinism and the bureaucracy.(104)

Given, then, what the Cuban Trotskyists understood to be the Revolutionary


Leaderships underlying revolutionary will, the POR(T) did not see the need to mount a
struggle which would ultimately overthrow or seize power from Fidel Castro.(105) It
instead pursued a policy of attempting to push Castros leadership forward with
criticisms and persuasion, showing him the way forward and instilling in him the
confidence to open up the organisations within the Revolution to the democratic
participation of the masses. The Trotskyists characterised the Cuban state as a
Workers State sui generis,(106) arguing that over the long-term only reform and not
a political revolution against the Revolutionary Leadership was required to direct the
transformation of socialism. As J. Posadas wrote in a letter published in the Voz
Proletaria bulletin:

[w]e do not want to overthrow Fidel, but to drive his leadership onwards and upwards.
This is the process of the political revolution sui generis which is currently
258

developing in Cuba. The Cuban government has adopted a number of positions which
we must reject, criticise and directly oppose with our own positions now. But this by
way of putting pressure on him, of influencing him, and obliging him to recognise the
pressure of the masses. In the ultimate analysis we are a part of the pressure of the
world revolution, we represent the conscience of the leadership of the colonial
revolution, of the political revolution, of the proletarian revolution.(107)

The Cuban Trotskyists effectively relegated the role of their own party to one of
criticising the imposition of decisions from above and pushing the Revolutionary
Leadership forward. As J. Posadas himself contended, far from attempting to lead the
proletarian anti-imperialist revolution, the fight in which the Cuban Trotskyists had
engaged for the open functioning of the POR(T) was ultimately aimed at testing the
maturity of the Castro leadership. J. Posadas argued that when the Revolutionary
Leadership recognised the POR(T)s activity and demands for the intervention of the
masses, then Castros Leadership could be deemed to have made the qualitative
ideological advance to support their Trotskyist vision of the revolutionary process.(108)

This abandonment of the independent proletarian struggle and the building of a


proletarian Marxist party as prerequisites for socialist revolution was furthermore
reflected in the POR(T)s reinterpretation of the Fourth Internationals old catastrophic
war-revolution cycle perspective. In response to the Missile Crisis, the POR(T)
contended that an inevitable nuclear war would signal the final balancing of accounts
between capitalism and socialism, leading to the inescapable victory of socialism.(109)
Arguing for a Soviet first strike, the Trotskyists in the face of the alleged inactivity of
the industrialised proletariat in advanced capitalist countries called on the Cuban
leadership to form a world-wide anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist United Front
incorporating the socialist, communist and Trotskyist parties and radical national
liberation movements of the Third World.(110) However, the aim of the Posadist bloc
of classes was not even the exposure of the ultimate inability of social democracy,
Stalinism and bourgeois nationalism to lead the revolution. As a caricature of Trotskys
strictly defined conception of the Anti-Imperialist United Front, the Posadists apparent
goal was to demonstrate the revolutionary readiness of the masses and to pressurise the
Moscow leadership into risking a pre-emptive nuclear war. Implicitly accepting Pablos
argument that there was no to time to construct Trotskyist parties and completely failing
to appreciate that it had been the Cominterns Popular Frontism which had disabled the
revolutionary anti-imperialist movement, the POR(T) effectively identified a broad anti-
imperialist bloc as the principal agent for revolutionary change. This constituted a de
facto return full-circle to the early Cuban oppositionists thesis which argued that the
working class was too weak to lead the revolution.

In sum, then, the Cuban Trotskyists viewed their party as an instrument reflecting the
already unconscious or creeping revolutionary readiness of the masses and the Left
tendencies in the Fidelista leadership rather than as a prerequisite for a successful
proletarian revolution. Just as the decline and eventual disappearance of the POR in the
1950s was directly attributable to the Trotskyists own theoretical weakness in
identifying the forces of petty bourgeois nationalism as effective vehicles for
revolutionary change, so the POR(T)s dissolution in 1965 could, in part, similarly be
attributed to this same failing. That is, the Cuban POR(T) represented a continuation of
the politics of the previous Trotskyist groups in Cuba and, in certain respects, other
Latin American Trotskyist groups which had found themselves in the midst of an
259

unfolding revolution. Recognising that the Cuban Government was one which rested on
collective property relations sponsored by the Soviet Union, the Cuban Trotskyists
perspectives were much the same as those of the Bolivian Partido Obrero
Revolucionario in the 1952-53 Bolivian national revolution. That is, both the Cuban and
Bolivian Trotskyist parties effectively renounced the need for a working class
revolutionary party to lead a socialist transformation of society and relegated their
respective roles to pressurising the existing petty bourgeois Revolutionary Leadership.
Significantly, this broad undelineated bloc strategy which also reduced the theory of
Permanent Revolution to an objective process paralleled Guevaras thought in the mid-
1960s as he prepared his departure from Cuba. That is, the Posadists, like Guevara,
rejected the concepts of peaceful coexistence and constructing socialism within the
confines of a small, isolated Latin American country in favour of a broad anti-
imperialist bloc perspective which identified non-proletarian forces as the revolutionary
agent.(111)

7.3 The View from Abroad: The Cuban POR(T) and the Fourth
Internationals

The Cuban Revolution in 1959 acted as catalyst for a round of splits and fusions in the
international Trotskyist movement.(112) In this section I outline how the different
international tendencies responded to the Cuban Revolution and how these different
analyses largely determined the international Trotskyist milieus response to the
suppression of working class democracy and the plight of the Trotskyists suppressed
and locked up in the Cuban governments prisons. The central thread of my argument is
that the Cuban Trotskyists were largely abandoned by a sizeable proportion of the
international Trotskyist movement as some of the latters largest sections became
increasingly infused with opportunist, broad anti-imperialist bloc strategies which had
first been introduced into the Comintern during the Second Period in the late 1920s and
then with more vigour in the post-1935 Period.

The International Secretariat and the International Committee of the Fourth


International, the two major international Trotskyist tendencies in 1959, both greeted
the Revolution with guarded enthusiasm. However, while all groups agreed that it was
necessary to defend the Cuban Revolution and the Castro government against U.S.
aggression, by 1960-61 after the large-scale nationalisations had been effected,
differences began to emerge over the revolutionary capacity of the leadership of Fidel
Castro and the nature of the Cuban state. These differences provided the rationale for
the reunification of different sectors of the Fourth International in 1963.

While the International Secretariat of the Fourth International was largely cautious in its
initial analysis of the possibilities of the 1959 Revolution, by mid-1960 after the
expropriation of major U.S. companies in Cuba, all groups affiliated to the International
Secretariat were moving towards characterising the new state as some form of
Workers State.(113) Having become increasingly uncritical of the Revolutionary
Leadership they soon came to argue that the whole revolutionary process in Cuba
provided confirmation that socialist revolution could be secured not via the conscious
struggle of revolutionary communists but by the blunt instruments of petty bourgeois
nationalism under pressure from the popular masses.
260

In contrast to the general unanimity among the International Secretariat groups, the
Trotskyists affiliated to the International Committee of the Fourth International reacted
in diametrically opposed ways. All groups under the International Committee umbrella
were initially cautious in their analysis of the Revolution, with the SWP(US) arguing
that Fidel Castro was consciously resisting the tendency to continue in a socialist
direction well into 1960.(114) However, in mid-1960 while the Socialist Labour
League, the British group inside the International Committee, set out on a hostile course
broadly categorising Cuba as a capitalist state with a Bonapartist leadership ultimately
committed to holding back the revolution in Latin America,(115) the SWP(US) began
to glorify and exaggerate the nature and possibilities of the Revolution in Cuba. Having
been unable to break out of the confines of a small, isolated propaganda group and
under the increased pressure of the witch-hunt against the Left in general in the U.S. in
the 1950s, the SWP(US) experienced a rapid rise in influence as it took over the
leadership of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, giving this Cuban solidarity
organisation in the U.S. a national structure.(116) From this point the SWP(US) became
increasingly conciliatory in tone towards the Revolutionary Government in Cuba as it
sought to win fresh recruits in the New Left milieu which was passionately and largely
uncritically enthusiastic about the merits of Castro and the Cuban Revolution.(117)
Interpreting the theory of Permanent Revolution as an objective dynamic guiding the
revolutionary process in Cuba, the North American Trotskyists thereafter identified the
Fidelista leadership as unconsciously Trotskyist in the sense that it was acting
empirically in line with the strategy of a proletarian revolutionary vanguard.(118) The
SWP(US) thereby argued for the construction of a revolutionary party through the
M26J, agreeing with Pablo that no independent Trotskyist party needed to be built in
order to secure and extend the socialist revolution.(119) This about turn in point of
theory provoked the formation of the Revolutionary Tendency, a minority faction in the
SWP(US) which insisted on the building of a Trotskyist party independent from the
governmental apparatus and Fidelista leadership.

The rapprochement between the SWP(US) and the bulk of the groups adhering to the
International Secretariat of the Fourth International led to the 1963 Reunification
Congress and founding of the United Secretariat of the Fourth International (USec). In
contrast to the increasing hostility of the remaining affiliates to the International
Committee, the USec groups not only contended that the Cuban Revolution had
delivered a blow against U.S. imperialist interests, but, ignoring Cubas dependency on
the Soviet Union for aid, asserted that it had shown that non-proletarian forces under
pressure from the masses could unconsciously roughly follow the path outlined by
Trotsky in his theory of Permanent Revolution.

Just, then, as the Cuban Revolution and the nature of the post-1959 Cuban state was
characterised in a variety of ways by the various international Trotskyist groups, and
acted as catalyst for their international organisational realignment, so the issue of the
suppression of the Cuban Trotskyists in the 1960s was similarly addressed in different
ways by the various Trotskyist groups. All the international groups publicised and/or
protested against the first seizure of Voz Proletaria and the smashing of the printing
plates of Trotskys The Permanent Revolution in mid-1961, albeit with varying degrees
of commitment to freedom of expression for proletarian tendencies inside the
Revolution. However, after the reunification of the bulk of the International
Secretariat of the Fourth International and the SWP(US) in 1963, it was largely the
Posadist Fourth International and Spartacists, two tendencies which rejected the de
261

facto dissolutionist perspectives of the USec, which publicised the fate of the Cuban
Trotskyists.

The Posadists, first in the Latin American Bureau of the Fourth International and then in
the distinct Posadist Fourth International, essentially shared the International
Secretariats view that the Cuban state was a Workers State and that Fidel Castro
represented the revolutionary socialist wing of the leadership against the bureaucratic
Stalinist tendency. However, their formal adherence to the perspective of constructing a
Trotskyist party independent of the Fidelista apparatus led them to be unrelenting in
their protests against the suppression of the POR(T) in Cuba. Given their organisational
links with the Cuban Trotskyists, they were unsurprisingly the first to bring news of the
detention of the POR(T) members through their press across Latin America and Europe.
(120) Their calls protesting against their comrades subsequent periods of incarceration
continued through 1964-65.(121) The Posadists characterised these measures taken
against their Cuban section as a pitiful violation of Socialist principles. It is a counter-
revolutionary attack on proletarian democracy and the masses which was part of the
fight between those groups in the Cuban leadership which were sensitive to the masses
and those which represented and defended the privileges of the state bureaucracy.(122)
The Posadists called on all working class and anti-imperialist organisations to address
protests to the Cuban government in the name of the unconditional defence of the
Cuban Workers State, proletarian democracy and the widest intervention of the masses
in the development of the Revolution towards socialism.(123)

With a degree of reason, the Posadists contended that the rounds of arrests and
imprisonments largely reflected the influence of pro-Moscow Stalinists in the direction
of the Revolution. However, displaying their illusions concerning the revolutionary
potential of Fidel Castro, they asserted that the repression was not a manifestation of the
Revolutionary Leaderships anti-socialist essence but rather that of Fidel Castros lack
of confidence in the masses and his resultant perceived need to assure himself of the
support of the bureaucratic apparatus.(124) The Cuban Trotskyists eventual release in
April 1965 was similarly viewed with wholly misplaced optimism. Conferring great
significance on the circumscribed freedom of their Cuban comrades, the Posadists
presented it as a defeat for the Soviet bureaucracy and a victory for the revolutionary
forces in Cuba and the inexorable advance of the sui generis political revolution in
Cuba.(125) J. Posadas himself wrote:

[t]he freeing of our comrades is an historic event comparable to the great advances in
the revolutionary struggles of humanity. It is the incessant progress of the world
revolution, our fight and our uncompromising activity (including that of our Cuban
comrades) that has enabled the release of the ignominiously imprisoned
comrades.(126)

The attitude of the U.S. Trotskyists in the SWP(US) towards the Cuban POR(T), on the
other hand, became ever more equivocal over time largely reflecting their increasingly
uncritical approach to the Cuban Revolution. Until the end of May 1961, the SWP(US)
was unambiguous in demonstrating its fraternal support for the POR(T). During the
First Latin American Youth Congress in mid-1960 a fraternal delegate from the
SWP(US) left his seat in the observers area to sit at the side of the International
Secretariat Trotskyists as an expression of solidarity when the old pesepistas launched
an attack on the Cuban Trotskyists.(127) The SWP(US) and POR(T) furthermore
262

exchanged their respective newspapers, The Militant and Voz Proletaria, and the
SWP(US) acted as an international contact enabling the Cubans to develop
communications with Trotskyist groups further afield.(128) Indeed, up until the initial
moves by state institutions to suppress the Cuban POR(T), the SWP(US) viewed the
POR(T)s existence as a positive indication of the direction of the Cuban Revolution.
Rather ironically, as late as 20 May 1961 Joseph Hansen, the editor of The Militant,
stated that the mere fact that Voz Proletaria is printed in Cuba is impressive evidence
to the whole radical movement in the United States of how the capitalist press lies when
it claims that no freedom of press exists in Cuba.(129)

However, with the seizure of the Cuban Trotskyists press less than a week later on 26
May, the SWP(US)s attitude to the plight of the Cuban Trotskyists became increasingly
ambiguous. On receiving the news on 2 June 1961 that the National Printing Office and
Ministry of Labour had taken steps against the POR(T), the SWP(US) delayed
registering a protest or publicising the turn of events on the grounds that they needed
more facts in order to ascertain whether or not the Revolutionary Government was
actually involved.(130) At the same time, they prepared the theoretical ground for
abandoning the Cuban POR(T). In a number of illuminating letters to James Cannon,
Hansen for the first time criticised the Cuban Trotskyists for being sectarian and
adventurers, and inviting attack from Stalinist groups. In stark contrast to the lucid
critique which the U.S. Trotskyists had made of the Cuban Trotskyists in the 1930s for
the PBLs tendency to view a broad anti-imperialist bloc as a vehicle for proletarian
revolution, Hansen outdid the International Secretariat of the Fourth International in
embracing the theses of Pabloism. Hansen accused the POR(T) of not being sharp
enough to fully appreciate the revolutionary potential of the Castro leadership which,
in his view, excluded the possibility of the Stalinisation of the Cuban Revolution. He
argued that the POR(T) had adopted a sectarian position in making a principle of
multiplicity of parties in a workers state".(131) Hansen further criticised the Cuban
Trotskyists for appearing to offer a superior leadership to the working class than that
offered by Fidel Castro,(132) something which I have argued they consummately failed
to do. Apparently not wanting to besmirch the SWP(US)s new image of giving
unconditional and uncritical support to the Cuban Revolution, Hansen suggested that
the party make no protest on the POR(T)s behalf in case this be taken as giving
political support to the Cuban Trotskyists and the SWP(US), as a consequence, finds
itself cut off from the leadership of the Revolution. Hansen wrote:

the course of the Cuban Pabloites [i.e., POR(T)] is quite adventurous it seems to me.
They have proclaimed themselves a party but they do not have an independent base in
any respect except program. Their tactics in both the organizational and tactical field
could scarcely be better designed to invite attack from the Stalinists for which they have
no solid organizational base of defense. [....]
We cannot assume any responsibility for such an adventurous course that is so blind to
the political realities. But we could appear to assume such responsibility if we undertake
a direct protest against the undemocratic action which they appear to have
suffered.(133)

Despite these reservations, however, the SWP(US) did belatedly register its uneasiness
about the moves against the POR(T)s publications. The SWP(US) subsequently
explained the repression in terms of the possible disruptive factionalism ascribable to
officials of the Cuban Communist Party [i.e., PSP] whose attitude toward Trotskyism
263

might still be under the influence of indoctrination under the school of Stalinism.(134)
However, with respect to the continued repression which the POR(T) suffered in the
period 1963-65, the SWP(US) was conspicuously silent on the intermittent acts of
repression directed at the POR(T) and, as in 1961, The Militant only published a
statement on the POR(T)s suppression in 1965 after the facts had become known in the
U.S. radical and revolutionary milieu and the Trotskyists had been conditionally
released.(135)

Furthermore, like the Posadists, with whom they shared much in terms of their analysis
of the Cuban state, the SWP(US) completely misinterpreted the reasons behind the
attack and release of the Cuban Trotskyists in 1965. Rather than positing that the
Cubans arrest and release reflected the effective victory of pro-Moscow tendencies in
the Cuban leadership, the SWP(US) erroneously argued that the release of the Cuban
Trotskyists amounted to a rectification of a miscarriage of justice and, as such, a
reflection of the struggle conducted by the Fidelista leadership against the growth of
bureaucratism in Cuba".(136) This accommodation to the Castro Revolutionary
Leadership ultimately led the SWP(US) to identify the Stalinist and non-proletarian
nationalist leaderships in the small countries of Nicaragua, Grenada and Cuba as the
focal points for a new International rather than addressing the issue of building strong
proletarian sections in the more important countries of Mexico, Brazil and Argentina in
Latin America. As Lister succinctly summarised, [f]rom seeking to infuse Trotskyist
concepts into the Castroite current, the SWP[(US)] has itself been suffused completely
with Castros populist brand of Stalinism.(137)

7.4 Epilogue: Trotskyism in Cuba after 1965

Despite the clamp-down on the POR(T) as an organisation in 1965, a core of the


POR(T)s members resolved to continue their political activity after the release of the
imprisoned Trotskyists in April 1965. In this section I chart the activity of the post-April
1965 nucleus of Trotskyists arguing that while their political outlook did not alter in any
substantial respect, their fortunes in terms of constructing an organisation and falling
victim to state-instigated repression continued to be broadly conditioned by the
influence of hard-line pro-Moscow communists in the direction of the Revolution and
the extent to which Fidel Castro acquiesced to the demands of Moscow for political
homogeneity.

Starting out from a relatively backward level of development and isolated from other
revolutions in the Americas, the collectivist transformation of the Cuban political
economy in the 1960s was increasingly conditioned by demands of the Soviet Union,
Cubas ultimate economic guarantor. While the Soviet leadership had come to the aid of
the Cuban Revolution in the early 1960s, and Fidel Castro had acquiesced in the
formation of a single revolutionary party and then finally a new Communist Party in
1965, he proved unwilling to surrender the actual leadership of the Revolution to the
pro-Moscow PSP leaders. As described in Section 3.4.2, the Escalante affair was
evidence of Castros most striking attempt to circumscribe the autonomy and authority
of the old pesepistas. However, although the Kremlin was bereft of the usual compliant
party apparatus with which it manipulated policy in its satellite states in Eastern Europe,
Cubas dependence on the Soviet Union as an outlet for her sugar and source for her oil
needs served to further tighten Moscows control on the organisation of political and
economic structures in Cuba in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
264

The gradual Sovietisation of the Cuban political economy gained pace in the mid-
1960s with the abandonment of a renovated industrialisation project and the
institutionalisation of the self-finance planning model. As has been noted by numerous
scholars,(138) this process subsequently went through various stages, first on the terrain
of foreign policy with Castros public alignment with the Soviet Union in the Sino-
Soviet dispute in early 1966, and culminated in the early 1970s amidst macro-economic
dislocation after the failure of the Ten Million Ton sugar harvest project with the
adoption of more orthodox, Moscow-inspired internal policies and structures.(139) One
repercussion of this adjustment in the Cuban Leaderships political alignment through
the late 1960s and early 70s was continued intermittent attacks on Trotskyism
sanctioned by the Cuban leadership.

Fidel Castros first public attack on Trotskyism was made in the speech he delivered at
the Tri-Continental Conference in Havana on 15 January 1966.(140) In this speech,
without debating any theoretical or programmatic issues at stake, Castro denounced the
followers of Trotskyism as vulgar instruments of imperialism and reaction,(141) the
old accusation which had provided the basis of the Moscow Trials in the 1930s. This
high-profile attack on Trotskyism, far from merely being an irrational outburst against
an old enemy in attempt to isolate it in Latin American revolutionary circles, was
intimately linked to Castros increasing capitulation to the policy demands of Moscow
and signalled his effective support for the Kremlin in the Sino-Soviet dispute. This was
demonstrated by his denunciation in the same speech of the Guatemalan Movimiento
Revolucionario 13 de Noviembre (MR-13), a guerrilla organisation which had embraced
the Guevarist-Maoist concept of a socialist guerrilla force fighting for the direct
installation of a workers and peasants government.(142) Castros attack on the MR-13
alleged that the Guatemalan guerrilla force had been infiltrated by Trotskyists who were
agents of imperialism. As the MR-13 refused to accept the Moscow formula of a two-
stage struggle for a bourgeois democratic republic, Castro used Trotskyism as a
surrogate for an attack on the Guevarist-Maoist model for revolution in Latin America.
(143)

This denunciation of Trotskyism was followed up by the inevitable article from Blas
Roca, the General Secretary of the old PCC and PSP in Cuba, which expanded on Fidel
Castros accusations.(144) In Central America the Cubans attack led to the isolation
and repression of the Trotskyists, including the imprisonment of the Posadists
leadership in Mexico and their expulsion from the MR-13 in Guatemala.(145) In Cuba
the offensive signalled a renewed move against the Trotskyists who had not completely
renounced the project of political intervention under the name of the POR(T). In March
1966, Idalberto Ferrera Ramrez and Luciano Garca were again imprisoned in Santiago
de Cuba.(146) Under the Legal Clause 133 of 1965, they were sentenced to eight and
three years imprisonment respectively and incorporated into a programme of political
rehabilitation for those convicts considered to be counter-revolutionaries.(147)

This renewed attack, however, did not prevent the Trotskyists from continuing to draw
up political programmes and draft letters to, amongst others, Fidel Castro and Mao
Zedong during the late 1960s and early 70s. In these communications they continued to
express the concessions which they had made throughout their history to the broad anti-
imperialist front perspective of Second Period Stalinism, something which the United
Secretariat of the Fourth International had more recently adopted. Displaying all the
features of isolation from the reality of post-World War Two developments which had
265

led Trotskyists to abandon the principles of working class independence and the link
between the democratic tasks and the socialist revolution, the Cuban Trotskyists
strategy centred on appeals to what they saw as the revolutionary tendency within
Castros leadership. While the Posadists internationally broadly aligned themselves with
what they termed a Guevarist tendency and exaggerated the extent to which Guevara
himself had challenged Stalinism by insisting that he had been liquidated in a Stalinist
coup in Cuba,(148) the Cuban Trotskyists continued to view Castro not as an obstacle
but as a vehicle for proletarian revolution. They urged Castro to continue to lead the
political revolution against Stalinist bureaucratic tendencies at home and elaborate a
programme around which an International incorporating the forces of Trotskyism, the
Chinese Communist Party as well as the base of official communist parties and national
liberation movements could struggle for political and social revolution world-wide.
(149) Completely abandoning any analysis which insisted that only the working class
through its democratic organisations could execute the socialist revolution, the Cuban
Trotskyists viewed the Cultural Revolution in China as the political revolution against
the Chinese bureaucracy,(150) and even characterised Fidel Castros disastrous drive
for the Ten Million Ton harvest as the beginning of the political revolution in Cuba.
(151)

Divorced from the reality of Fidel Castros capitulation to the policy demands of
Moscow in the early 1970s and all but abandoned by the international Trotskyist
movement,(152) the voice of Trotskyism was easy prey for the pro-Moscow Stalinists
leading the reorganisation of political and economic structures in Cuba after the failure
of the 1970 sugar harvest. Unwilling to countenance the dissemination of dissident ideas
within the Revolution, even on the literary plane,(153) the remaining adherents to
Trotskyism in Cuba were again arrested in 1973. Evidence presented at their trial stated
that they had begun to reorganise the Political Bureau of the POR(T) with Idalberto
Ferrera Acosta as the General Secretary, Juan Len Ferrera as Organisational Secretary,
and Jess Andrs Vzquez Mndez as Secretary for Foreign Relations. They were
accused of building Trotskyist cells in Havana and the interior, notably in Santa Clara,
and attempting to recruit communist party members. The state prosecution alleged that
in these party cells the Trotskyists wrote, discussed and reproduced articles and
documents which were defamatory against the Revolution, the Communist Party, and
the Maximum Leader Fidel Castro. Among the allegedly slanderous articles which
they produced were some which argued that Cuba as well as the other socialist countries
led by the Soviet Union, were governed by privileged bureaucratic castes which ruled
according to their interests, exploiting the working class. For the crimes of producing
the supposedly defamatory and diversionist articles, as well as maintaining contact with
foreign Trotskyists and attempting to reorganise the POR(T), the three leading members
were again sentenced to lengthy periods of imprisonment. Reflecting the political nature
of the charges, the leader of the group, Idalberto Ferrera Acosta, received twelve years,
while Juan Len Ferrera and Jess Andrs Vzquez each received nine years.(154)

While Juan Len Ferrera was released after having served only sixteen months of his
sentence, a result of the remission he won due to his exemplary work in the sugar cane
fields, Idalberto Ferrera Acosta served five years of his twelve year sentence. He was
released in an amnesty in the late 1970s at the time of Fidel Castros moves towards the
Carter Administration in the United States.(155) Since the release of the Ferreras in the
1970s, the Castro government has not altered its assessment of Trotskyism,(156) and
the few remaining Trotskyists in Cuba have continued to write and reproduce bulletins
266

and articles with a degree of discretion. They have also retained their links with the
international movement through private meetings with visiting foreign Trotskyists from
various tendencies.(157) In sum, while the Cuban Trotskyists from the early 1930s were
subjected to prison sentences and victimisations under successive capitalist regimes, and
indeed contributed to their own disappearance as an organised party in the 1950s
through their own strategy which essentially viewed non-proletarian nationalist
movements as vehicles for revolution, most recently it has been the usual Stalinist
slanders characteristic of the Moscow Trials of the late 1930s which have conditioned
the organisational isolation of Trotskyism in Cuba in the 1990s.

7.5 Conclusion

In summary, just as the PBL and POR in the 1930s and 40s failed to appreciate that it
had been Stalinist Popular Frontism which had disabled the working class movement
and the proletarian anti-imperialist revolution, so in the late 1950s and 60s the Cuban
Trotskyists failed to offer an alternative proletarian strategy to the broad bloc rural
guerrillarism and Bonapartist Communism of Fidel Castro. The Trotskyists as
individuals first gave uncritical and unconditional support to the cross-class alliance
which led the insurrection against the Batista regime in the late 1950s, and then in the
1960s supported the Revolutionary Leadership of Fidel Castro and Guevara, broadly
acting as a Left counsellor to the regime. The POR(T) effectively denied the validity of
the revolutionary proletarian struggle and instead largely confined themselves to
criticising the increasing influence of the old PSP Stalinists in Cuba and attempting to
push Castro to the Left.

In addition to revealing their roots in the PBL and POR, the Cuban POR(T) also
displayed its origins in the national liberation tendency of Latin American Trotskyism, a
mantle which had been taken up the Pabloite International Secretariat of the Fourth
International in the 1950s and then the USec after the Reunification Congress in 1963.
Like Pablo, the SWP(US) and the USec, the Cuban Trotskyists did not insist on the
need for a revolutionary Marxist party to lead a working class revolution. Furthermore,
despite the hostility of the SWP(US), the Cuban Trotskyists also broadly agreed with
the North Americans transformation of the theory of Permanent Revolution from a
conscious proletarian strategy to an objective process guiding the Cuban Revolution.
They differed from Pablo, the SWP(US) and the USec only to the extent that they
remained loyal to the concept of building an independent Trotskyist party. This
revolutionary party, however, was seen as an instrument merely reflecting the already
unconscious Trotskyism and revolutionary will of the masses rather than as a
prerequisite for a successful proletarian revolution.

While, then, the Trotskyists struggle for democratic rights for all those groups which
defended the Cuban state against imperialism was, in essence, a principled stand, the
caricature of Trotskyism which the Cuban Posadists developed ultimately furnished the
POR(T) with an argument to justify agreeing to the forced dissolution of a Trotskyist
party in 1965. That is, although the repression directed against the Trotskyists in the
early 1960s, the POR(T)s forced dissolution in 1965 and the final round of
imprisonments in the 1970s were ultimately shaped by the Sovietisation of the
Revolution, the Trotskyists themselves had surrendered the reins for socialist revolution
to forces other than those of the democratic organisations of the working class. Giving
life to the external road thesis of the early PBL, the POR(T) along with broad sections
267

of mainstream Trotskyism had abandoned Trotskys prescription that only the conscious
struggle of the organisations of the proletariat linking the tasks of the democratic
revolution to socialist demands could lead and extend the anti-imperialist revolution.

FOOTNOTES
1. See Prez, JG, How Sectarians Misrepresented Trotskyism in Cuba,
Intercontinental Press (New York), 11 May 1981, p. 497. (SP.) (Back to text)
2. The SWP(US) was about to provoke a split in its international organisation, the
USec, after the 1979 World Congress. Confirming the SWP(US)s status as a
hostage to Stalinism, the North Americans characterised the Castro leadership as
revolutionary Marxist and proposed fusion with the Castroite current in Central
America. (Back to text)
3. Gillys and Fanjuls arguments were reproduced in Gilly, A, (1981), op cit, pp.
490-493; and Fanjul, A, (1981), op cit, pp. 493-496. (Back to text)
4. See Prez, JG, op cit, pp. 497-504. This criticism is shared by historians who are
sympathetic to the United Secretariat of the Fourth International (USec). See, for
example, Moreau, F, Combats et Dbats de la IV Internationale, Hull: Quebec,
ditions Vents dOuest Inc., 1993, p. 174. Franois Moreau argues that Castro
finally consented to the suppression of the Cuban Trotskyists in exasperation at
the POR(T)s irresponsible critiques and extravagant positions. (Back to text)
5. Interview given by Idalberto Ferrera Acosta and Juan Len Ferrera Ramrez
to Gary Tennant, Havana, 26 July 1997. (Back to text)
6. The Latin American Bureaus transition to a distinct international tendency only
occurred in 1962 after J. Posadas began to criticise the positions of Pablo and the
European affiliates for their alleged intellectualism and inability to intervene in the
real class struggle. See Coggiola, O, (1986), op cit, p. 32. Amongst many of J.
Posadas more adventurist distinguishing features was a call for the USSR to
launch a nuclear first strike. The then distinct Posadist tendency envisaged that out
of this would come the victory of the world socialist revolution. (Back to text)
7. Letter from Angel L. Fanjul to Gary Tennant, op cit, p. 1; and Gilly, A, (1981), op
cit, p. 492. (Back to text)
8. Unsigned, Cuban P.O.R. Founded, The Internationalist, Vol. 4, No. 6, 15 March
1960, pp. 1, 3. (SP.); and Letter from Alberto Sendic to Gary Tennant, Saint-
Laurent: France, May 1997; and Letter from Angel L. Fanjul to Gary Tennant, op
cit, p. 1. (Back to text)
9. Cuban P.O.R. Founded, The Internationalist, 15 March 1960, op cit; and
Interview given by Idalberto Ferrera Acosta and Juan Len Ferrera Ramrez to
Gary Tennant, 26 July 1997, op cit. (Back to text)
10. Cuban P.O.R. Founded, The Internationalist, 15 March 1960, op cit. (Back to
text)
11. Una Entrevista en Paris sobre el Estado Obrero Cubano, Voz Proletaria
(Havana), Year 2, No. 8, March 1961, p. 5. (HI: SWP Collection, Box No. 31,
Folders 17-18.) (Back to text)
12. The PSP estimated that there were forty to fifty Trotskyists in Cuba in 1962.
Unsigned, Aclaraciones: Argumentos de los Trotskistas contra la Revolucin
Cubana, Hoy (Havana), Year 24, No. 142, 19 June 1962, p. 2. (IHC(b).) An
internal report made by an unnamed U.S. Trotskyist after discussions with the
Cuban Trotskyists in mid-1961 placed the POR(T)s membership at between thirty
and forty. Unsigned, Report on Discussions Held with Comrades from the
268

Cuban Section of the Fourth International (I.S.), August 14 1961. (HI: SWP
Collection, Box No. 31, Folder 8.) (Back to text)
13. Unsigned, Cuba: Background of POR, The Internationalist, Vol. 4, No. 7, 1
April 1960, pp. 1, 8. (SP.); and Report on Discussions Held with Comrades from
the Cuban Section of the Fourth International (I.S.), op cit. (Back to text)
14. Manuscript of the interview given by Roberto Acosta Hechavarra to Tano
Nario, Havana, 13 April 1990, p. 7. (Back to text)
15. Telegrama, Voz Proletaria (Havana), Year 2, No. 9, April 1961, p. 6. (HI: SWP
Collection, Box No. 31, Folders 17-18.) (Back to text)
16. Letter from Angel L. Fanjul to Gary Tennant, op cit, p. 2; and Interview given by
Idalberto Ferrera Acosta and Juan Len Ferrera Ramrez to Gary Tennant,
Havana, 16 August 1997. (Back to text)
17. Editorial from Voz Proletaria (Havana), No. 39, Second Fortnight, November 1963,
Luchar por Libertar los Trotskistas Presos Es Luchar por la Revolucin Contra la
Burocracia, In: Voz Obrera (Mexico), No. 42, First Fortnight, January 1964, pp.
6-7. (IFA.) (Back to text)
18. E-mail letter from Olga Rosa Cabrera Garca to Gary Tennant, Madrid, 24
April 1998; and Acosta de Arribas, R, Ficha Biogrfica de Roberto Acosta
Hechavarra, op cit, pp. 2-3. (Back to text)
19. Letter from Alberto Sendic to Gary Tennant, op cit, p. 1; and Letter from Angel L.
Fanjul to Gary Tennant, op cit, p. 2. (Back to text)
20. E-mail letter from Adolfo Malvagni Gilly to Gary Tennant, North Carolina, 7
October 1996. For an outline of when and for how long these foreign envoys were
in Cuba see Section 3 in Appendix F. (Back to text)
21. See, for example, Gilly, A, (1981), op cit, p. 492; and Ramrez Acosta, G,
Autobiografa de Guarina de la Caridad Ramrez Acosta, Havana, 12 July
1985, pp. 1-2. (Unpublished) (IFA.); and Unsigned, Fracasada la Maniobra de una
Stalinista en el JUCEI Habanero, Voz Proletaria (Havana), No. 27, Second
Fortnight, May 1963, p. 14. (BNJM: Coleccin Reserva; and SWP(US).); and
Luchar por Libertar los Trotskistas Presos Es Luchar por la Revolucin Contra la
Burocracia, Voz Obrera (Mexico), First Fortnight, January 1964, op cit. (Back to
text)
22. Gilly, A, (1981), op cit, p. 492. (Back to text)
23. Ibid. (Back to text)
24. While the Argentinian Partido Obrero Revolucionario attended as an organisation
in its own right (Obra Revolucionaria: El Congreso de las Juventudes (Havana),
Nmero Extraordinario, 25 August 1960, p. 42. (SWP(US).)), other Latin
Americans who attended as delegates included Hernn Pardo of the Chilean section
of the International Secretariat of the Fourth International, Manuel Zegarra of the
Peruvian Partido Obrero Revolucionario and Felipe Galvn of the International
Secretariat of the Fourth Internationals Mexican section. A delegation from the
SWP(US), including Peter Camejo and Peter Buch (*Peter Allan), also attended as
fraternal observers, without speaking or voting rights. Letter from Angel L. Fanjul
to Gary Tennant, op cit, pp. 3-4; and Declaracin de la Fraccin Trotskista:
Respuesta a la Calumnia, Voz Proletaria (Havana), Year 1, No. 3, September
1960, p. 8. (HI: SWP Collection, Box No. 31, Folders 17-18.); and Allan, P,
Young Socialists Attend Congress in Cuba, The Militant (New York), 5 and 12
September 1960, p. 3. (SWP(US).) (Back to text)
25. Cordoba, L, Unidad, Alegra y Decisin en el Congreso de Juventudes: Fervosa
269

Exaltacin de la Reforma Agraria en el Congreso de la Juventud, Hoy (Havana),


Year 22, No. 182, 7 August 1960, pp. 1, 4. (IHC(b).); and Allan, P, Young
Socialists Attend Congress in Cuba, The Militant, op cit. (Back to text)
26. Letter from Angel L. Fanjul to Gary Tennant, op cit, pp. 3-6; and Allan, P, Young
Socialists Attend Congress in Cuba, The Militant, op cit; and Interview given by
Guarina Ramrez Acosta, Idalberto Ferrera Acosta and Juan Len Ferrera Ramrez
to Gary Tennant, 28 July 1997, op cit. (Back to text)
27. In contrast to my interpretation, Alexander cites an article written by Manuel
Pellecer, a former leader of the Guatemalan Communist Party, which links the
PSPs attacks on Trotskyism at the Latin American Youth Congress to Fidel
Castros denunciation of Trotskyism in a 26 July 1960 speech in Santiago de Cuba.
See Alexander, RJ, (1973), op cit, p. 226. (Back to text)
28. See Allan, P, Young Socialists Attend Congress in Cuba, The Militant, op cit;
and Thomas, H, (1971), op cit, p. 1291. (Back to text)
29. These pamphlets included the Programa de Transicin para la Revolucin Cubana
written by Alberto Sendic in May 1960, and another which reproduced Lenins
Suppressed Testament proposing that Stalin be removed from the post of General
Secretary of the Russian Communist Party. This latter pamphlet also included an
explanatory article by Trotsky together with the Fundamental Theses of Permanent
Revolution. V. I. Lenin Testamento Poltico, Leon Trotsky El Testamento de
Lenin, Tesis Fundamentales de la Revolucin Permanente, Havana, Ediciones
Voz Proletaria, nd. (Back to text)
30. E-mail letter from Adolfo Malvagni Gilly to Gary Tennant, 4 April 1997, op cit.
(Back to text)
31. Letter from R. Carvajal to Joseph Hansen, Havana, 27 May 1961. (HI: SWP
Collection, Box No. 31, Folder 8.); and Report on Discussions Held with Comrades
from the Cuban Section of the Fourth International (I.S.), op cit; and Letter from R.
Carvajal to Joseph Hansen, Havana, 8 June 1961. (HI: SWP Collection, Box No.
31, Folder 8.); and Interview given by Idalberto Ferrera Acosta and Juan Len
Ferrera Ramrez to Gary Tennant, 16 August 1997, op cit. (Back to text)
32. ["propaganda contrarrevolucionaria"](My translation, GT.) Cited in Letter from R.
Carvajal to Joseph Hansen, 8 June 1961, op cit. (Back to text)
33. Ibid; and Letter from R. Carvajal to Joseph Hansen, 27 May 1961, op cit. (Back to
text)
34. Ibid. See also Esmeglin, L, Que Deben Ser los Consejos de Asesores Tcnicos,
Voz Proletaria (Havana), Year 2, No. 8, March 1961, p. 2. (HI: SWP Collection,
Box No. 31, Folders 17-18.) (Back to text)
35. PSP members were, of course, directed from inside and outside Cuba. It is
significant that the seizure of the Trotskyists press also coincided with the
presence in Cuba of Vittorio Vidali, the notorious Comintern agent who was
responsible for the murder of numerous dissident communists and anarchists,
particularly during the Spanish Civil War. See Unsigned, Vittorio Vidali (n en
1900), Cahiers Lon Trotsky (Paris), No. 3, July-September 1979, pp. 175-176.
Vidali arrived in Cuba on 27 April 1961 and left Havana for Prague on 6 June
1961. See Vidali, V, Diario di Cuba / Weiss, L, 1973: Ritorno a Cuba, Milan,
Vangelista Editore, 1975. He was apparently in Cuba with Enrique Lister, advising
the Cuban Stalinists who were in control of the G-2, the State Security services.
Lister, another fabricated hero of the Stalinists during the Spanish Civil War, was
responsible implementing the order to forcibly dissolve the anarchist-dominated
270

Defence Council and peasant collectives in Aragn. See Bolloten, B, The Spanish
Revolution: The Left and the Struggle for Power during the Civil War, Chapel
Hill: NC, University of North Carolina Press, 1979, pp. 232-234. (Back to text)
36. Letter from R. Carvajal to Joseph Hansen, 8 June 1961, op cit. (Back to text)
37. Guevara, EC, Conferencia de Prensa en Montevideo (Uruguay, 9 August 1961),
op cit, pp. 107-108. (Back to text)
38. Zeitlin, M, An Interview with Che, op cit, p. 53. (Back to text)
39. ["los obreros de la Base Naval, el pueblo de Guantnamo y Camanera, las masas
cubanas, en su conjunto, deben preparar la lucha por la expulsin definitiva del
imperialismo"](My translation, GT.) Unsigned, El Conflicto de la Base Naval de
Guantnamo, Voz Proletaria (Havana), Year 1, No. 1, April 1960, pp. 4-5. (HI:
SWP Collection, Box No. 31, Folders 17-18.) (Back to text)
40. Gilly, A, (1981), op cit, p. 491. (Back to text)
41. See ibid, p. 491. (Back to text)
42. Unsigned, Aclaraciones: Sobre el Trotskismo, Hoy (Havana), Year 24, No. 140,
16 June 1962, p. 2. (IHC(b).); and Unsigned, Aclaraciones: El Trotskismo en Cuba
Nunca Ha Representado Nada Ni Ha Tenido Influencia, Hoy (Havana), Year 24,
No. 141, 17 June 1962, p. 2. (IHC(b).); and Unsigned, Aclaraciones: Argumentos
de los Trotskistas contra la Revolucin Cubana, Hoy (Havana), Year 24, No. 142,
19 June 1962, p. 2. (IHC(b).); and Unsigned, Aclaraciones: Mentiras Trotskistas
sobre la CTC y los Sindicatos, Hoy (Havana), Year 24, No. 143, 20 June 1962, p.
2. (IHC(b).); and Unsigned, Aclaraciones: Los Trotskistas, Como los Imperialistas,
Estn contra el Partido Unido, Hoy (Havana), Year 24, No. 144, 21 June 1962, p.
2. (IHC(b).); and Unsigned, Aclaraciones: Los Trotskistas Niegan Que Fidel Sea
Marxista, Hoy (Havana), Year 24, No. 145, 22 June 1962, p. 2. (IHC(b).); and
Unsigned, Aclaraciones: La Revolucin Cubana Es Inevitable, Hoy (Havana),
Year 24, No. 146, 23 June 1962, p. 2. (IHC(b).); and Unsigned, Aclaraciones: Los
Trotskistas y La II Declaracin de La Habana, Hoy (Havana), Year 24, No. 147,
24 June 1962, p. 2. (IHC(b).) (Back to text)
43. Aclaraciones: Sobre el Trotskismo, Hoy, 16 June 1962, op cit. When these
articles appeared in pamphlet form in Guantnamo the Trotskyists called on
workers meetings to condemn the work and demand the removal from positions in
the trade unions of those leaders who tried to distribute it. Unsigned, Continuan los
Calumniadores Stalinistas en Guantnamo, Voz Proletaria (Havana), No. 16, First
Fortnight, December 1962, p. 11. (BNJM: Coleccin Reserva, and SWP(US).)
(Back to text)
44. Aclaraciones: El Trotskismo en Cuba Nunca Ha Representado Nada Ni Ha Tenido
Influencia, Hoy, 17 June 1962, op cit. In countering such accusations, the POR(T)
argued amongst other things that it had in fact been the pesepistas who had
collaborated with Batista. See Luchar por Libertar los Trotskistas Presos Es
Luchar por la Revolucin Contra la Burocracia, Voz Obrera (Mexico), First
Fortnight, January 1964, op cit. (Back to text)
45. A few days before the 26 July celebrations in Guantnamo, a PSP-led trade union
and CDR distributed a leaflet which called on workers to attend a local 26 July
meeting and strike a blow against the enemies of the Revolution. The Trotskyists
were cited as one of these enemies. In response, the guantanameo branch of the
POR(T) printed a leaflet which indicated that the Cuban Trotskyists gave
unqualified and unconditional support to the Revolution. It was while distributing
this leaflet that the railway worker-militant of the POR(T) was arrested, then held
271

for two days before being removed from his trade union post. Report on
Discussions Held with Comrades from the Cuban Section of the Fourth
International (I.S.), op cit. (Back to text)
46. Unsigned, Se Realiz la 2 Conferencia del P.O.R.T. Voz Proletaria (Havana),
No. 10, September 1962, pp. 11-12. (BNJM: Coleccin Reserva; and SWP(US).)
(Back to text)
47. Although the POR(T) wanted to maintain an independent identity and discipline,
when one of its members was selected for membership of the ORI on the largely
apolitical basis that he or she was an exemplary worker, the comrade accepted the
invitation. See Internal Information Bulletin of the International Secretariats
National Leaderships, March 1963, pp. 4-5. (Back to text)
48. Ferrera Acosta, I, Carta del POR Trotskista al Gobierno Revolucionario: En
Defensa de la Democracia Obrera, Voz Proletaria (Havana), No. 10, September
1962, pp. 7-9. (BNJM: Coleccin Reserva; and SWP(US).) (Back to text)
49. Political Bureau of the POR(T),Resolucin del B.P. del Partido Obrero
Revolucionario Trotskista: Sobre la Detencin de Compaeros Trotskistas y su
Posterior Liberacin, Voz Proletaria (Havana), No. 10, September 1962, pp. 9-11.
(BNJM: Coleccin Reserva; and SWP(US).) (Back to text)
50. Ibid. (Back to text)
51. Internal Information Bulletin of the ISs National Leaderships, March 1963, op cit,
p. 6. (Back to text)
52. Political Bureau of the POR(T), La Firmeza Inflexible Frente al Imperialismo y el
Avance Permanente de la Revolucin Deben Apoyarse en la Democracia
Proletaria, Voz Proletaria (Havana), No. 15, Second Fortnight, November 1962,
p. 3. (BNJM: Coleccin Reserva; and SWP(US).) See also Gilly, A, (1981), op cit,
p. 492. (Back to text)
53. Political Bureau of the Partido Obrero Revolucionario (Trotskista), Las Medidas
Arbitrarias e Ilegales de los Burocratas Stalinistas contra los Trotskistas y las
Masas, Ayudan a la Contrarrevolucin, Voz Proletaria (Havana), No. 12, Second
Fortnight, October 1962, p. 9. (BNJM: Coleccin Reserva; and SWP(US).) (Back
to text)
54. Ferrera, I, Deben Terminar las Medidas Burocrticas contra las Trotskistas Voz
Proletaria (Havana), No. 14, First Fortnight, November 1962, p. 10. (BNJM:
Coleccin Reserva; and SWP(US).) (Back to text)
55. Lungarzo was not allowed to fly to a third country and only by sheer chance did he
avoid arrest at the hands of the Argentinian security forces who were equally intent
on imprisoning Leftists at that time. E-mail letter from Adolfo Malvagni Gilly to
Gary Tennant, 4 April 1997, op cit. (Back to text)
56. See Political Bureau of the POR(T), Sobre un Nuevo Ataque Reaccionario
Antitrotskista, Voz Proletaria (Havana), No. 23, Second Fortnight, March 1963,
p. 1. (BNJM: Coleccin Reserva.); and Editorial: Ante la Crisis Imperialista,
Redoblar la Ofensiva Mundial de las Masas, Voz Proletaria (Havana), No. 29,
Second Fortnight, June 1963, p. 6. (BNJM: Coleccin Reserva.) (Back to text)
57. ["chantage y terrorismo poltico."](My translation, GT.) Political Bureau of the
POR(T), Sobre un Nuevo Ataque Reaccionario Antitrotskista, Voz Proletaria
(Havana), Second Fortnight, March 1963, op cit, p. 2. (Back to text)
58. Unsigned, Fracasada la Maniobra de una Stalinista en el JUCEI Habanero, Voz
Proletaria (Havana), Second Fortnight, May 1963, op cit, p. 14. (Back to text)
59. Political Bureau of the POR(T), El Peor Enemigo de la Revolucin Es el Burocrata
272

que Aterroriza a los Obreros, Voz Proletaria (Havana), No. 29, Second Fortnight,
June 1963, p. 5-6, 8. (BNJM: Coleccin Reserva; and SWP(US).); and Unsigned,
Hay Que Acabar con la Utilizacin de los Traslados como Represalia Burocrtica,
Voz Proletaria (Havana), No. 31, Second fortnight, July 1963, p. 8. (BNJM:
Coleccin Reserva; and SWP(US).) (Back to text)
60. Unsigned, Hay Que Acabar con el Terrorismo de las Burocratas Sindicales, Voz
Proletaria (Havana), No. 34, First Fortnight, September 1963, p. 10. (BNJM:
Coleccin Reserva.) (Back to text)
61. Unsigned, Atentado Burocrtico en Guantnamo contra Nuestro Camarada Jos
Medina, Voz Proletaria (Havana), No. 34, First Fortnight, February 1964, p. 7.
(BNJM: Coleccin Reserva.) (Back to text)
62. Partido Obrero Revolucionario (Trotskista), Las Tareas Econmicas y la Poltica
del Estado Obrero, Havana, Ediciones Voz Proletaria (Havana), September 1963.
(BNJM: Coleccin Reserva.) (Back to text)
63. Gilly, A, (1981), op cit, p. 492. E-mail letter from Adolfo Malvagni Gilly to Gary
Tennant, 4 April 1997, op cit. (Back to text)
64. Unsigned, Por la Libertad de Los Trotskistas Presos, Voz Proletaria (Havana),
No. 40, Second Fortnight, December 1963, pp. 12-13. (SWP(US).); and Luis,
Ataques Contra el Partido Obrero Revolucionario (T) Seccin Cubana de la IV
Internacional, Voz Obrera (Mexico), Second Fortnight, December 1963. (IFA.)
(Back to text)
65. Por la Libertad de Los Trotskistas Presos, Voz Proletaria (Havana), Second
Fortnight, December 1963, op cit; and Luchar por Libertar los Trotskistas Presos
Es Luchar por la Revolucin Contra la Burocracia, Voz Obrera (Mexico), First
Fortnight, January 1964, op cit; and Political Bureau of the POR(T), Llamamos a
Luchar por la Libertad de los Camaradas Trotskistas Presos en Cuba y por los
Derechos Democrticos Socialistas de las Masas de Cuba, Voz Obrera (Mexico),
No. 42, First Fortnight, January 1964, pp. 1-2. (IFA.) (Back to text)
66. Se Celebr la III Conferencia Nacional del Partido Obrero Revolucionario
Trotskista, Voz Proletaria (Havana), No. 42, Second Fortnight, January 1964, p.
1. (BNJM: Coleccin Reserva.) (Back to text)
67. Freedom For Cuban Trotskyists!, Spartacist, No. 3, January-February 1965, p.
12. (SP.) See also Unsigned, Exiger la Libert des Trotskistes Cubains, Lutte
Communiste (Paris), No. 22, June 1964, p. 7. (CERMTRI.) (Back to text)
68. Freedom For Cuban Trotskyists!, Spartacist, January-February 1965, op cit, pp.
12-13; and Posadas, J, Carta a los Camaradas de la Seccin Cubana, Voz Obrera
(Mexico), Second Fortnight, June 1964, pp. 7-8. (IFA.) (Back to text)
69. Freedom For Cuban Trotskyists!, Spartacist, January-February 1965, op cit, p. 13.
(Back to text)
70. See Castaeda, J, (1997), op cit, p. 231. (Back to text)
71. See, for example, Anderson, JL, op cit, p. 580; and Castaeda, J, (1997), op cit, p.
248. (Back to text)
72. Letter from Ricardo Napuri to Gary Tennant, Buenos Aires, 16 March 1998, p.
2. (Back to text)
73. Interview given by Roberto Tejera to Gary Tennant, Havana, 17 August 1997.
Gilly has also noted that Guevaras intervention secured the release of POR(T)
members. Gilly, A, (1981), op cit, p. 492. (Back to text)
74. Roche, G, op cit, p. 31. (Back to text)
273

75. Ibid, p. 31. (Back to text)


76. Interview given by Idalberto Ferrera Acosta and Juan Len Ferrera Ramrez to
Gary Tennant, 16 August 1997, op cit. According to Antonio Moscato, Juan Len
Ferrera also worked as Guevaras bodyguard and personal masseur. See Moscato,
A, Guevara Era Trotskista, Bandiera Rossa, June-July 1998, op cit. (Back to text)
77. ["organizaron un movimiento contrarevolucionario al que denominaron Partido
Obrero Revolucionario Troquista"](My translation, GT.) Sentencing Report No.
124, Santiago de Cuba, 16 March 1965, p. 1. (IFA.) (Back to text)
78. ["Siguiendo las orientaciones del Imperialismo yanki formaban un circulo de
estudio en el que ventilaban la mayor forma de sembrar el confusionismo ybel [sic]
divisionismo entre la poblacin cubana [....] as como editaron un boletn
contrarrevolucionario al que [....] denominaron La Voz Proletaria en el que
publicaron falsas noticias e informaciones y poniendo en circulacin un gran
cantidad de propaganda contrarrevolucionaria [....] difamando a los lideres de la
Revolucin y criticando a las Leyes de la Revolucin."](My translation, GT.) Ibid,
pp. 1-2. (Back to text)
79. Ibid, p. 2. The Posadists later claimed that up to twenty seven comrades found
themselves in prison at the height of the repression. Posadas, J, Lettre du
Camarade J. Posadas Toutes les Sections de la IV Internationale, 23 October
1967: Hommage au Camarade Elas Surez, Lutte Communiste (Paris), No. 71,
25 December 1967, pp. 1-2. (CERMTRI.) (Back to text)
80. Manuscript of the interview given by Roberto Acosta Hechavarra to Tano Nario,
op cit, p. 8. (Back to text)
81. While Guevaras withdrawal from public view has been dated to 22 March 1965
(See Castaeda, JG, (1997), op cit, p. 303.), it appears that his intervention on
behalf of the Cuban Trotskyists took place in April 1965. See Posadas, J, Las
Calumnias de Fidel Castro al Trotskismo No Paran el Progreso de la Revolucin
Socialista en Guatemala y en el Mundo, Frente Obrero (Montevideo), Year 22,
No. 335, 27 January 1966, p. 7. (IISG: ZF 30366.) (Back to text)
82. This account was also reported by J. Posadas in ibid, p. 7. (Back to text)
83. ["Acosta las ideas no se matan a palos".](My translation, GT.) Manuscript of the
interview given by Roberto Acosta Hechavarra to Tano Nario, op cit, pp. 1-2.
(Back to text)
84. Ibid, p. 9. (Back to text)
85. ["Nos veremos en las prximas trincheras."](My translation, GT.) Ibid, p. 2. In
December 1964 when criticising the Soviet Handbook of Marxism and addressing
the issue of Trotskys thought, Guevara employed similar language. With specific
reference to Trotsky in the same passage, he also argued that although Trotskys
basic ideas were mistaken many things could derived from his thinking. See
Kalfon, P, op cit, p. 406. (Back to text)
86. Manuscript of the interview given by Roberto Acosta Hechavarra to Tano Nario,
op cit, p. 9. (Back to text)
87. Resolucin del B.P. del Partido Obrero Revolucionario Trotskista: Sobre la
Detencin de Compaeros Trotskistas y su Posterior Liberacin, Voz Proletaria
(Havana), September 1962, op cit, p. 9; and Interview given by Idalberto Ferrera
Acosta and Juan Len Ferrera Ramrez to Gary Tennant, 16 August 1997, op cit;
and Gilly, A, (1981), op cit, p. 492. (Back to text)
88. Certainly it was Roberto Acostas contention that that the pro-Moscow Stalinists
used Guevaras absence to obtain a cessation of all Trotskyist activities. Manuscript
274

of the interview given by Roberto Acosta Hechavarra to Tano Nario, op cit, p.


10. (Back to text)
89. Interview given by Idalberto Ferrera Acosta and Juan Len Ferrera Ramrez to
Gary Tennant, 16 August 1997, op cit; and Manuscript of the interview given by
Roberto Acosta Hechavarra to Tano Nario, op cit, p. 9. (Back to text)
90. Posadas, J, Signification Historique de la Libration des Camarades Cubains,
Lutte Communiste (Paris), No. 33, May 1965, p. 8. (CERMTRI.); and Interview
given by Idalberto Ferrera Acosta and Juan Len Ferrera Ramrez to Gary Tennant,
16 August 1997, op cit; and Manuscript of the interview given by Roberto Acosta
Hechavarra to Tano Nario, op cit, p. 9. This version of events is also reported in
outline form in the article Unsigned, Cuban Trotskyists, Spartacist, No. 5,
November-December 1965, p. 4. (SP.) This Spartacist article was written on the
basis of an interview given to its author by Ferrera. (Back to text)
91. See, for example, Editorial: Nuestro Propsito, Voz Proletaria (Havana), Year 1,
No. 1, April 1960, p. 3. (HI: SWP Collection, Box No. 31, Folders 17-18.) (Back to
text)
92. Editorial: La Nueva Etapa de la Revolucin, Voz Proletaria (Havana), Year 1,
Nos. 5 and 6, November and December 1960, pp. 1-2. (HI: SWP Collection, Box
No. 31, Folders 17-18.) (Back to text)
93. Although the POR(T) was the first Cuban group openly to declare Cuba as the first
Latin American Workers State (See Voz Proletaria (Havana), Year 2, No. 8,
March 1961, p. 1. (HI: SWP Collection, Box No. 31, Folders 17-18.)), this was
only after the January 1961 Sixth World Congress of the Fourth International
(International Secretariat) had conferred this label on the Cuban state. (Back to
text)
94. Editorial: Nuestro Propsito, Voz Proletaria (Havana), April 1960, op cit, p. 3.
(Back to text)
95. See, for example, Esmeglin, L, Que Deben Ser los Consejos de Asesores
Tcnicos, Voz Proletaria (Havana), March 1961, op cit, p. 2. (Back to text)
96. Editorial: Para Elevar la Productividad Se Requiere una Perspectiva
Revolucionaria, Voz Proletaria (Havana), No. 31, Second Fortnight, July 1963, p.
9. (BNJM: Coleccin Reserva; and SWP(US).) (Back to text)
97. In contrast to Trotsky, in 1920-21 Lenin advocated trade union independence from
the state. He argued that a system of appointing trade union officials from above
would only train the bureaucrats and not the workers in solidarity and the technical
and administrative aspects of production. See Lenin, VI, Collected Works, Vol.
32, Moscow, Progress Publishers, 1965, pp. 19-107; and Service, R, Lenin: A
Political Life, (Vol. 3, The Iron Ring), Basingstoke, Macmillan, 1995, pp. 162-166.
(Back to text)
98. See, for example, Scarabino, O, La Clase Obrera Vanguardia de la Revolucin,
Voz Proletaria (Havana), Year 1, No. 1, April 1960, pp. 1, 6. (HI: SWP
Collection, Box No. 31, Folders 17-18.); and Unsigned, Democracia Sindical
Revolucionaria, Voz Proletaria (Havana), Year 1, No. 2, June 1960, pp. 1, 7. (HI:
SWP Collection, Box No. 31, Folders 17-18.); and Political Bureau of the Partido
Obrero Revolucionario Trotskista, 1963 Debe Ser el Ao de la Organizacin de
los rganos del Poder Obrero, Voz Proletaria (Havana), No. 20, First Fortnight,
February 1963, p. 4. (BNJM: Coleccin Reserva; and SWP(US).) (Back to text)
99. See, for example, ibid, p. 3. (Back to text)
100. Ortz, A, La Unificacin de las Fuerzas de la Revolucin Voz Proletaria
275

(Havana), Year 1, No. 2, June 1960, p. 4. (HI: SWP Collection, Box No. 31,
Folders 17-18.) (Back to text)
101. ["[l]a formacin de tendencias y su lucha dentro del Estado obrero y en sus
organizaciones polticas y sindicales no son nada ms que la expresin de la
heterogeneidad de las clases trabajadores y dentro de la misma clase obrera, de las
distintos intereses y capas dentro de las mismas que se manifiestan en distintas
soluciones y vas para resolver los problemas de la poca de transicin haca el
socialismo. Tratar de ahogar estas tendencias con el argumento dogmtico y
sectario de una supuesta unidad impuesta, del monolitismo absolutista de una
lnea oficial dictada desde arriba, sera querer dar marcha atrs a la rueda de la
historia para volver a las condiciones que engendraron la etapa tenebrosa de las
represiones stalinistas ya condenada y superada por el movimiento obrero
comunista."](My translation, GT.) Unsigned, La Revolucin Necesita un Partido
Marxista de Masas Basado en los Sindicatos, Voz Proletaria (Havana), No. 11,
First Fortnight, October 1962, p. 6. (BNJM: Coleccin Reserva.) The essence of
this argument first appeared in Unsigned, El Partido nico Desarma a las Masas,
Voz Proletaria (Havana), Year 1, No. 3, September 1960, p. 7. (HI: SWP
Collection, Box No. 31, Folders 17-18.) (Back to text)
102. See, for example, Se Celebr la III Conferencia Nacional del Partido Obrero
Revolucionario Trotskista, Voz Proletaria (Havana), Second Fortnight, January
1964, op cit, p. 4. (Back to text)
103. See Manifiesto de la 2 Conferencia del Partido Obrero Revolucionario
Trotskista, Voz Proletaria (Havana), No. 10, September 1962, pp. 2-3. (BNJM:
Coleccin Reserva; and SWP(US).) This was also a central proposition of Gilly
who, after being deported from Cuba, expressed the Posadists view in the
increasingly pro-Chinese Monthly Review journal. Gilly, A, Monthly Review:
Inside the Cuban Revolution, Vol. 16, No. 6, October 1964. Gillys argument that
pressure from the masses would ultimately force the Revolutionary Leadership to
side with the Chinese in the Sino-Soviet dispute (See ibid, pp. 32-33.) was refuted
by events during the course of 1965-66. (Back to text)
104. Manifiesto de la 2 Conferencia del Partido Obrero Revolucionario Trotskista,
Voz Proletaria (Havana), September 1962, op cit, pp. 2-3; and Luis, En Defensa
de Nuestro Estado Obrero y de la Democracia Proletaria, Voz Proletaria
(Havana), No. 12, Second Fortnight, October 1962, p. 4. (BNJM: Coleccin
Reserva; and HI: SWP Collection, Box No. 31, Folders 17-18.) (Back to text)
105. See the report of the interview with Juan Len Ferrera in Freedom For Cuban
Trotskyists!, Spartacist, January-February 1965, op cit, p. 13. (Back to text)
106. See, for example, Posadas, J, Apoyo y Defensa del Estado Obrero Cubano, Primer
Deber del Movimiento Obrero Argentino y Latino Americano, Voz Proletaria
(Havana), Year 2, No. 9, April 1961, p. 7. (HI: SWP Collection, Box No. 31,
Folders 17-18.) (Back to text)
107. ["[n]o queremos derrocar a Fidel sino impulsar a su direccin para arriba. Ese es el
proceso de la revolucin poltica sui generis que se desenvuelve en Cuba. Hay
posiciones del gobierno cubano que debemos rechazar, criticar, y oponer las
nuestras directamente ahora. Pero en la lnea de presionarlo, influenciarlo y
obligarlo a admitir la presin de las masas. Y nosotros somos en ltima instancia
una parte de la revolucin mundial, representamos la conciencia y la direccin de la
revolucin colonial, de la revolucin poltica, de la revolucin proletaria."](My
translation, GT.) Luis, En Defensa de Nuestro Estado Obrero y de la Democracia
276

Proletaria, Voz Proletaria (Havana), Second Fortnight, October 1962, op cit, p. 4.


(Back to text)
108. Ibid, p. 4. (Back to text)
109. See, for example, Political Bureau of the Partido Obrero Revolucionario Trotskista,
Huelga General e Insurreccin Obrero-Campesino en Todos los Pases
Capitalistas! Que el Ejrcito Sovitico Aseste el Primer Golpe!, Voz Proletaria
Supplement (Havana), 23 October 1962. (SWP(US).) While this aspect of the
Posadists programme is often taken in isolation to ridicule this now much reduced
international tendency, it should be remembered that Mao as well as Guevara also
believed that a nuclear war could be survived and lead to the victory of socialism.
For an outline of Maos fulminations on this issue see Service, R, (1997), op cit, p.
354. (Back to text)
110. Political Bureau of the POR(T), Huelga General e Insurreccin Obrero-
Campesino en Todos los Pases Capitalistas! Que el Ejrcito Sovitico Aseste el
Primer Golpe!, Voz Proletaria Supplement (Havana), 23 October 1962, op cit; and
Se Celebr la III Conferencia Nacional del Partido Obrero Revolucionario
Trotskista, Voz Proletaria (Havana), Second Fortnight, January 1964, op cit, p. 4.
(Back to text)
111. See Section 7.4 for an outline of how the Posadists actually developed a Guevarist-
Maoist socialist guerrilla force perspective in the post-1965 period. (Back to text)
112. See the flow diagram in Appendix A for an outline view of the extent of the
realignment which took place shortly after the 1959 Cuban Revolution. (Back to
text)
113. These Workers State theories are succinctly summarised in a document drawn up
by the French Lambertist group in December 1961. See The Trotskyist Movement
and the Cuban Revolution, December 1961. (Unpublished English language
version translated by John Archer.) (SP.) (Back to text)
114. Cited from The Militant in Gosse, V, Where the Boys Are: Cuba, Cold War and
the Making of a New Left, London, Verso, 1993, p. 127. According to Peter
Camejo, a leader of the SWP(US)s Young Socialist Alliance in the early 1960s, in
1959 Hansen alone held a pro-Castro position in the partys leadership. Ibid, p. 135
n66. (Back to text)
115. See, National Committee of the Socialist Labour League, Trotskyism Betrayed:
The SWP Accepts the Political Method of Pabloite Revisionism, Trotskyism
Versus Revisionism, Vol. 3, London, New Park Publications, 1974, pp. 258-259;
and Resolution for the International Conference of the International Committee,
1966: Rebuilding the Fourth International, Fourth International (London), Vol.
3, No. 3, p. 112. (SP.); and Petit, M, Apuntes para la Historia del Trotskismo,
October 1980, pp. 29-30. (Unpublished) (Back to text)
116. See Gosse, V, op cit, pp. 145-147 for an account of how the SWP(US) transformed
the Fair Play for Cuba Committee through the intervention of Robert Taber, the
CBS journalist who had sent filmed reports of Castro and the Rebel Army in the
sierra back to the United States. The SWP(US)s almost accidental intervention
apparently took place with Fidel Castros personal blessing. (Back to text)
117. Robert McNeal has made this point, though argues that given the rise of the New
Left movement, to have taken a critical view of Castro and the Cuban Revolution
would have been politically suicidal. McNeal, RH, Trotskyist Interpretations of
Stalinism, In: Tucker, RC (ed.), op cit, p. 44. (Back to text)
118. Hansen, J, Dynamics of the Cuban Revolution, New York, Pathfinder Press,
277

1978, p. 291. This argument has been presented by Lister in Lister, J, op cit, pp.
113-114. (Back to text)
119. In an apparent attempt to legitimise the SWP(US)s perspective of entry into the
Communist Party in Cuba, Joseph Hansen misrepresented the political affiliations
of former members of the POR in the 1940s who had joined the M26J in the mid-
1950s. Hansen misleadingly claimed that certain Cuban Trotskyists had been
sympathetic to the International Committee of the Fourth International in the 1950s
before being absorbed into the Fidelista movement and new Cuban Communist
Party in the 1960s. See Hansen, J, Trotskyism in Latin America2,
Intercontinental Press (New York), Vol. 15, No. 32, 5 September 1977, p. 965.
(SP.); and Letter from Joseph Hansen to Robert J. Alexander, New York, 24
December 1970. (RJA.) (Back to text)
120. See, for example, Partido Obrero Revolucionario (Trotskista), Lettre du POR(T)
Cubain au Gouvernement Rvolutionnaire, Lutte Communiste (Paris), No. 2,
September 1962, p. 2. (CERMTRI.); and Luis, Ataques Contra el Partido Obrero
Revolucionario (T) Seccin Cubana de la IV Internacional, Voz Obrera (Mexico),
Second Fortnight, December 1963. (IFA.) (Back to text)
121. See, for example, International Secretariat of the IV International, Libertad
Inmediata de Todos los Trotskistas y Revolucionarios Presos en Cuba, Frente
Obrero (Uruguay), 25 March 1965, pp. 1, 6. (IFA.); and International Secretariat
of the Fourth International, Libert Immediate pour Tous les Trotskistes et
Rvolutionnaires Emprisonnes Cuba, Lutte Communiste (Paris), No. 32, April
1965, p. 3. (CERMTRI.) (Back to text)
122. ["une misrable violation des principes socialistes. Cest une attaque contre-
revolutionnaire la democratie proltaire et aux masses."](Translation by Emma
and Philippe Jalabert.) Unsigned, Libert pour les Trois Camarades Trotskistes
Cubains Arrtes, Lutte Communiste (Paris), No. 17, January 1964, pp. 7, 3.
(CERMTRI.) (Back to text)
123. Unsigned, Exiger la Libert des Trotskistes Cubains (10 May 1964), Lutte
Communiste (Paris), No. 22, June 1964, p. 7. (CERMTRI.) (Back to text)
124. Unsigned, Por la Libertad de los Camaradas Presos en Cuba, Voz Obrera
(Mexico), Second Fortnight, May 1964, p. 7. (IFA.) (Back to text)
125. International Secretariat of the Fourth International, Los Trotskistas Cubanos
Estn en Libertad, Frente Obrero (Uruguay), 7 May 1965, p. 10. (IFA.) (Back to
text)
126. ["[l]a libert de nos camarades est un vnement historique comparable aux
grandes avances des luttes rvolutionnaires de lHumanit. Cest lavance, le
progrs incessant de la rvolution mondiale, notre lutte et notre activit
intransigeante (y compris celle de nos camarades cubains) qui ont permis ces mises
en libert de camarades ignominieusement emprisonns."](Translation by Emma
and Philippe Jalabert.) Posadas, J, Signification Historique de la Libration des
Camarades Cubains, Lutte Communiste, May 1965, op cit, p. 8. (Back to text)
127. Letter from Angel L. Fanjul to Gary Tennant, 8 October 1997, op cit, pp. 3-5.
(Back to text)
128. Letter from Joseph Hansen to Carvajal, 20 May 1961. (HI: SWP Collection,
Box No. 31, Folder 8.) (Back to text)
129. Ibid. (Back to text)
130. Letter from Joseph Hansen to Carvajal, 3 June 1961. (HI: SWP Collection, Box
No. 31, Folder 8.); and Letter from Joseph Hansen to Pierre Frank, 3 June 1961.
278

(HI: SWP Collection, Box No. 31, Folder 8.) (Back to text)
131. (From internal evidence) Letter from Joseph Hansen to James Cannon, 18 June
1961. (HI: SWP Collection, Box No. 31, Folder 8.) (Back to text)
132. (From internal evidence) Letter from Joseph Hansen to James Cannon, 3 June
1961. (HI: SWP Collection, Box No. 31, Folder 8.) (Back to text)
133. Ibid. (Back to text)
134. Hansen, J, Che Guevara and the Cuban Trotskyists, The Militant (New York), 9
April 1962, p. 3. (IFA.) (Back to text)
135. New America, 22 September 1961. (RJA.) The Spartacist similarly argued that the
SWP(US) never protested about the jailings until after the Cuban government
seemed to take the initiative by releasing the prisoners. See Cuban Trotskyists,
Spartacist, November-December 1965, op cit. (Back to text)
136. Hansen, J, Followers of Posadas Released in Cuba, World Outlook (New York),
25 June 1965, p. 29. (SWP(US).) (Back to text)
137. Lister, J, op cit, p. 123. (Back to text)
138. Taylor, FT, Cubas Relations with the Soviet Union since October, 1962A
Retrospect, Boletn de Estudios Latinoamericanos y del Caribe (Amsterdam),
No. 46, June 1989, pp. 91-109; and Gonzalez, E, Castro and Cubas New
Orthodoxy, Problems of Communism, Vol. 25, January-February 1976, pp. 1-19;
and Surez, A, Cuba: Castroism and Communism, 1959-1966, Cambridge: MA,
MIT Press, 1967; and Domnguez, (1978), op cit, pp. 159-165. For a less than
convincing attempt to refute the Sovietisation of Cuba thesis see Fitzgerald, FT,
A Critique of the Sovietization of Cuba Thesis, Science and Society, Vol. 42,
No. 1, 1978, pp. 1-32. (Back to text)
139. This is not to say that it was a linear process of Sovietisation. The arrest and trial
of the pro-Moscow micro-faction in early 1968 was Fidel Castros last attempt to
steer a vaguely independent course before the Soviet Unions manipulation of oil
imports to Cuba and the deepening preoccupations with domestic economic failings
led to Castros effective capitulation in the early 1970s. (Back to text)
140. Discurso de Fidel Castro en la Clausura de la Conferencia, Cuba Socialista
(Havana), Year 6, No. 54, February 1966, pp. 78-100. An English language version
can be found in Castros Closing Speech at Tricontinental Conference, World
Outlook (New York), 11 February 1966, pp. 20-38. (SWP(US).) (Back to text)
141. ["vulgar instrumento del imperialismo y de la reaccin"](My translation, GT.)
Discurso de Fidel Castro en la Clausura de la Conferencia, Cuba Socialista,
February 1966, op cit, p. 94. (Back to text)
142. The MR-13 was a guerrilla movement in Guatemala which emerged from a
nationalist military uprising on 13 November 1960. Initially based on a nationalist,
anti-imperialist ideological orientation which limited the struggle to an anti-feudal
democratic revolution, it formally adopted a socialist programme, declaring itself
for the formation of a workers and peasants state at the end of 1963 when Latin
American Posadists entered its ranks on a large scale. See, Gilly, A, The Guerrilla
Movement in Guatemala, Monthly Review, May 1965, pp. 13-20. (Back to text)
143. While characterising the MR-13s direct-struggle-for-socialism guerrilla strategy
as a struggle of a band of mercenaries in the service of Yankee imperialism, Castro
praised the Moscow-supported Fuerzas Armadas Rebeldes led by Luis Augosto
Turcios Lima which itself had broken away from the MR-13 in February 1965.
Discurso de Fidel Castro en la Clausura de la Conferencia, Cuba Socialista,
February 1966, op cit, pp. 94-95. (Back to text)
279

144. Roca, B, Las Calumnias Trotskistas No Pueden Manchar a la Revolucin Cubana,


Cuba Socialista (Havana), Year 6, No. 56, April 1966, pp. 81-82. An English
language version can be found in Roca, B, The Trotskyist Slanders Cannot Tarnish
the Cuban Revolution, International Socialist Review (New York), Vol. 27, No.
3, Summer 1966, pp. 91-95. (SP.) (Back to text)
145. Gilly, A, Guerrilla, Programa y Partido en Guatemala, Coyoacan, Year 1, No. 3,
April-June 1978, pp. 57-58. (IISG: ZO 44136.) (Back to text)
146. Ferrera Ramrez, I, for the Fourth International, Lettre des Camarades Trotskistes
Cubains Fidel Castro, (Havana, 19 July 1966), Lutte Communiste (Paris), No.
57, 10 September 1966, p. 8. (CERMTRI.) (Back to text)
147. Ferrera Ramrez, I, and Garca Pellicier, L, Les Trotskistes Emprisonns Cuba
Adressent une Lettre Ouverte, Lutte Communiste (Paris), No. 68, 15 September
1967, pp. 1, 7. (CERMTRI.) Luciano Garca was released in early 1968. Juan Len
Ferrera Ramrez for the Political Bureau of the P.O.R. Trotskista, Carta Abierta,
Havana, 27 March 1969. (IFA.) (Back to text)
148. See, for example, Posadas, J, La Liquidation de Guevara: Un Coup a la Rvolution
Cubaine, Lutte Communiste (Paris), No. 43, 10 November 1965, pp. 8, 7.
(CERMTRI.) Even shortly after Guevaras death in Bolivia was reported, the
Posadists maintained that Guevara was not killed in Bolivia. Guevara was killed in
Cuba over two years ago, the result of a political dispute. He was engaged in a
struggle against the Soviet bureaucracy, for effective support in Vietnam, against
the bureaucratic elements in Cuba, against the material incentive advocated by the
Soviet bureaucrats and by those of the former CP machinery in Cuba. (Translation
by Emma and Philippe Jalabert.) Posadas, J, Guevara NEst Pas Mort en Bolivie,
Lutte Communiste (Paris), No. 69, 25 October 1967, pp. 2-3. (CERMTRI.) (Back
to text)
149. See, for example, Juan Len Ferrera Ramrez, Al Camarada Fidel Castro. Al
Comit Central del PCC. A los Obreros, Campesinos y Masas Revolucionarias
de Cuba y del Mundo, nd. (From internal evidence, 1969 or 1970.) (IFA.) (Back
to text)
150. See, for example, Mismelt, Balance, Desarrollo y Perspectiva de la Revolucin
Socialista Cubana. La Fase Sue-Generis de la Revolucin Poltica y el Rol del
Trotskismo en Cuba, nd. (From internal evidence c. 1969.) (Back to text)
151. Ferrera Acosta, I, El XIII Congreso, el Viaje de Fidel, la Conciencia de las
Masas y la Revolucin Poltica, Havana, 13 February 1973, pp. 5-6. (IFA.) (Back
to text)
152. In the late-1960s and early 70s, the Posadist Fourth International no longer sent
comrades or the press of its various sections to its Cuban followers. Interview given
by Idalberto Ferrera Acosta and Juan Len Ferrera Ramrez to Gary Tennant, 16
August 1997, op cit. (Back to text)
153. Apart from the well-known case of the arrest and forced confession to cultural
crimes by the Cuban writer Herberto Padilla, the early 1970s also saw the closure
of Pensamiento Crtico, a heterogeneous Guevarist-type magazine produced by
the University of Havanas Philosophy Department which had sprung up in the
counter-culture of the late 1960s. Some of the supporters of this Pensamiento
Crtico group were initially sent to work-study camps to discuss their differences
with more orthodox Communist Party members, before, in 1971, the magazine was
closed down and a number of its leaders imprisoned. See the illuminating account
of an interview with two leading members of the Pensamiento Crtico group in an
280

internal report drawn up by a leading U.S. Trotskyist. Benjamin, A, Report on a


Visit to Cuba (YSA Trip, Summer 1981), 19 June 1981. (Unpublished)
Interestingly, rather like the Cuban Trotskyists, the Pensamiento Crtico supporters
had faith in the independence, charisma and revolutionary capacity of Fidel Castro
and thought that the Revolution could be reformed from within. (Back to text)
154. Sentencing Report, Causa No. 270-73, Havana, 12 December 1973. (IFA.) (Back
to text)
155. Interview given by Idalberto Ferrera Acosta and Juan Len Ferrera Ramrez to
Gary Tennant, 16 August 1997, op cit. (Back to text)
156. While even in the 1990s various suspected dissidents have been imprisoned or
forced into exile on charges which incorrectly referred to them as Trotskyists (See,
for example, G, Lopez, Report on Visit to Cuba, June 1991. (Unpublished)),
officially sanctioned published attacks on Trotskyism have continued to appear
intermittently. See, for example, the 18 June 1978 edition of the newspaper
Granma. Lister, J, op cit, p. 116. This article appeared shortly before the death of
Ramn Mercader, Trotskys assassin, in October 1978 after a two year period of
residence in Cuba. See, Mercader, L, and Snchez, G, Ramn Mercader Mi
Hermano, Madrid, Ed. Espasa-Calpe, 1990. (Back to text)
157. Interview given by Idalberto Ferrera Acosta and Juan Len Ferrera Ramrez to
Gary Tennant, 16 August 1997, op cit. (Back to text)
281

Chapter Eight

Conclusion
In this chapter I conclude by summarising the principal characteristics of Cuban
Trotskyism during the period 1932-65. I first assess my central proposition that the
Cuban Trotskyists tended to fail to distinguish between the democratic and the
proletarian anti-imperialist revolutions, thereby diluting Trotskys insistence on the
necessary proletarian character of the revolution. In the second section I summarise the
features of the Cuban Trotskyists composition and organisational evolution, describing
that although they were a prominent actor in the 1932-35 revolutionary period,
thereafter they constituted a numerically small body of socialists. I furthermore argue
that the Trotskyists apparent failure to build an influential revolutionary party was the
result of the peculiar socio-politico context in which they operated as well as their own
strategy and tactics. To end, I analyse the Cuban Trotskyists significance within the
revolutionary movement in Cuba and assess the counter-arguments and alternative
interpretations of the history of Trotskyism in Cuba which have been set out by other
writers on the subject.

8.1 The Cuban Trotskyists Democratic versus Permanent


Revolutionary Strategy

The origins of the Oposicin Comunista de Cuba (OCC) and the Cuban Trotskyists
underlying strategy for revolution cannot be explained without an understanding of the
peculiarities of the Cuban political economy and the policy of the official communist
party at the time of the OCCs foundation. The late arrival of the Cuban republic after a
nascent national bourgeoisie had been all but destroyed and the extent to which the local
classes were subordinated to a new foreign power, the U.S., ensured that the democratic
revolution was incomplete. As such, nationalist and anti-imperialist demands remained
at the forefront of the popular struggle for reform and social justice in the early part of
the twentieth century. In the period 1885-1925, even anarcho-syndicalism in Cuba, the
major political influence on the working class movement, while developing a culture of
revolutionary violence and working class organisation, was not a pure anarcho-
syndicalism. That is, unlike its European forebears and counterparts, the Cubanised
version promoted a commitment to participate in the cross-class movements for national
liberation.

The fact that the Cuban Communist Party (PCC) was founded relatively late in 1925
indicates the weakness of Cuban Marxism and the traditions of independent working
class political organisation. Furthermore, although Bolshevism and the permanentist
perspective of Lenin and Trotsky in October 1917 had insisted on the task of first
winning working class political independence in order then to become the head of the
oppressed nation, the PCC was founded at a time when the Second Period of the
Comintern was underway. That is, although the PCC initially transcended the petty
bourgeois nationalism of the Cuban revolutionaries of the 1890s in the sense that it
emphasised its socialist objectives, the notion of the necessary proletarian character of
the anti-imperialist revolution was increasingly subordinated to the concept of a broad
anti-imperialist bloc and a democratic anti-imperialist revolution. The most striking
282

practical manifestation of this policy was the work of the PCC exiles in the Asociacin
Nacional de Nuevos Emigrados Revolucionarios de Cuba (ANERC) in Mexico. In
organising an expeditionary force to Cuba, the communist fraction inside the ANERC
could scarcely be distinguished from the activists of the Partido Unin Nacionalista.
Indeed, as late as mid-1930, the PCC as a whole was still involved in conspiratorial
armed uprisings with non-proletarian forces.

The disposition of the working class, urban petty bourgeoisie and rural poor to
participate in the mounting struggles for anti-imperialist goals and social reforms in the
early 1930s, and the inability and/or unwillingness of the weak bourgeois nationalist
camp to lead an intransigent fight against Machado contributed to the rise and
consolidation of the Communist Opposition. However, the principal reason why the
OCC emerged when it did was the PCCs adoption of the sectarian Third Period tactical
line which denied that the movement for national liberation had any progressive
content.

The Cuban Oppositionists, initially composed of an assortment of radical rebels who


were imbued with a spirit of revolutionary activism from the late 1920s, did not shirk
from the prospect of rebelling against the increasing discipline of the Comintern when,
in late 1930, the Caribbean Bureau directed the PCC away from working in the already
constituted unions, away from non-participation in elections, and away from supporting
an armed insurrection initiated by the parties and groups of petty bourgeois nationalism.
These policies were features of anarcho-syndicalism and revolutionary nationalism
which the previous Second Period policy had been able to incorporate. Crucially, then,
the fact that the Opposition emerged only when the Third Period tactical turn was
implemented meant that at the OCCs inception the Oppositionists had not developed a
critique of the Cominterns former Second Period position of forming anti-imperialist
blocs with bourgeois nationalist parties such as the Guomindang in China. This birth
mark of tending to compromise with petty bourgeois nationalism was to shape the
development of Trotskyism in Cuba in the subsequent years.

The OCC at its founding could not be meaningfully described as an organisation which
defended the ideas of Trotsky. Just as the accusation of Trotskyism levelled against
Julio Antonio Mella had concealed the roots of his thought in the Cuban revolutionary
nationalist tradition of insurrectionary Popular Frontism, the same accusation against
the initial Oppositionists disguised a heterogeneous group of dissidents who, in the
main, simply filled the political void left vacant by the PCC. Rather than
unambiguously insisting on the working class in alliance with the peasantry leading a
proletarian anti-imperialist revolution against the weak national bourgeoisie and
imperialism, the OCC rather uncritically embraced the tenets and traditions of the
indigenous revolutionary struggle and defended the policy of forming broad anti-
imperialist blocs with the forces of revolutionary nationalism in pursuit of an essentially
democratic anti-imperialist revolution.

Although accusations of so-called Trotskyist deviations certainly preceded any actual


Trotskyist conversion, in 1933 a number of leading figures in the OCC challenged the
broad Second Period trajectory of the Oppositionists and orientated the OCC towards
the International Left Opposition and the formal adoption of the fundamental postulates
of the theory of Permanent Revolution. During the course of 1933-35, the development
of the Partido Bolchevique Leninista (PBL) was then characterised by the struggle
283

between what can be termed a Trotskyist tendency and a looser heterogeneous petty
bourgeois tendency. On the one hand, the delegates of the cells and sections of the
party accepted in theory the necessary proletarian character of the anti-imperialist
revolution. However, in practice, the OCCs and PBLs general loose mass character
and the prejudices of the Oppositions initial heterogeneous political composition
ensured the predominance of the petty bourgeois nationalist elements. As such, just as
one of the PBLs largest branches, Guantnamo, ignored the directives of the Central
Committee and operated independently in pursuit of its policy of forming a broad
progressive association from the outset, so the PBL as a whole ultimately failed to
distinguish between the democratic and proletarian anti-imperialist revolutions during
the 1934-35 period.

The conflict between the broad front tendency and that of the more Trotskyist
elements did not find expression in any principled internal debate, but was instead
addressed empirically. The desertions which punctuated the PBLs activity during 1934
were the first manifestation of the unresolved internal ideological disagreements. The
controversy then matured in the debate over the so-called external road. Although
never advanced as a coherent thesis in any internal document or at any conference of the
party, the central thread of the external road theory was that the PBL should dissolve
itself into the anti-imperialist bloc around the Left-nationalist Joven Cuba.

While the natural haven for the broad front nationalist elements was Joven Cuba or,
for those who had a history of trade union work, the National Labour Commission of
the Autnticos, those sectors of the PBL which rejected actual liquidation inside radical
nationalist parties and blocs also promoted an ill-defined United Front with Joven Cuba.
While this tactical alliance was narrowly based and sought to sharpen the revolutionary
situation rather than deepen it, the alliance also marked the PBLs implicit acceptance in
practice of the one-sided approach of forming an alliance for a democratic anti-
imperialist revolution as a distinct stage on the path towards proletarian revolution.

Although the Cuban Trotskyists tended to accept in practice the independence of the
democratic anti-imperialist revolution, they nevertheless attempted to justify such an
orientation with reasoning which broadly incorporated the essence of the theory of
Permanent Revolution. They insisted that the working class could not take power in a
country like Cuba without the support of the poor petty bourgeoisie, while similarly the
peasantry could not realise the agrarian revolution without the leadership of the working
class. This formulation was similar to the permanentist strategy advocated by Lenin
and Trotsky in October 1917. The PBL further accepted that the petty bourgeoisie could
not wield state power for any length of time, arguing that once in power, petty
bourgeois nationalism would disintegrate, forcing its followers to align themselves with
either the proletariat or the counter-revolution.

However, in defending the thesis that the petty bourgeoisie could attain power, albeit
temporarily, the PBLs alliance with Joven Cuba was designed not to challenge petty
bourgeois nationalism for the leadership of the urban and rural masses. Instead it
became a means to pressure and influence Joven Cuba in order, first, to help the
Guiteristas win power and only then make it more likely that the petty bourgeoisie
would fall to the side of proletarian revolution rather than that of pro-imperialist
reaction. In practice, then, the Cuban Trotskyists effectively viewed Joven Cuba as a
vehicle, rather than an obstacle, to the proletarian revolution.
284

In many respects the original heterogeneous origins of the OCC and the traditions of
revolutionary struggle in Cuba reasserted themselves over the Permanent Revolution
perspective of Trotsky. This trajectory also paralleled that of other Trotskyist groups in
Latin America. The Trotskyist groups in Chile and Bolivia similarly sought to dissolve
themselves in the national revolutionary sector in the 1930s. Furthermore, the PBLs
one-sided approach to revolution which not only borrowed the slogans of the national
liberation movement, but saw the revolutionary nationalist sector as a vehicle for the
proletarian revolution, also prefaced the development of certain tendencies within
international Trotskyism in the post-1940 period after Trotskys assassination. In the
first place, the PBLs arguments found expression in the national liberation tendency
within Latin American Trotskyism which can be said to have been initiated by Liborio
Justo of the Argentinian Liga Obrera Revolucionaria. More importantly, though, the
strategy of the Bolivian Partido Obrero Revolucionario led by Guillermo Lora during
the national revolution in the early 1950s had as its precedent the PBL during the
Revolution of the 1930s in Cuba. Both groups effectively identified petty bourgeois
nationalism as a vehiclenot a hindranceto socialist revolution, and they essentially
limped behind the perspective of supporting the petty bourgeoisie in power.

The desertions from the PBL and then the defeat of the Revolution of the 1930s during
the March 1935 general strike left the PBL with a much reduced membership and in a
state of organisational crisis. However, these events also served to stimulate those
elements of the PBL who remained loyal to the concept of an independent working
class revolutionary party to re-elaborate their strategy and tactics. During the late 1930s
and 40s, although the Cuban Trotskyists repeated that the weak native bourgeoisie had
not only failed to win genuine national independence, but was incapable of carrying out
the tasks of the belated democratic revolution, the general weakness of all classed-based
institutions and, in particular, the independent organisation of the proletariat
increasingly exerted its influence on the Cuban variety of Trotskyism. While insisting
that the working class was the only force which could guarantee genuine national
liberation, the PBL and then Partido Obrero Revolucionario (POR) failed to develop a
strategy and tactics which insisted that only the proletarian anti-imperialist revolution
could carry out even the most basic bourgeois democratic tasks required in a semi-
colony. More and more the gap widened between the Cuban Trotskyists formal
insistence that only the proletariat could secure genuine national and social liberation
and their practical work which blurred the difference between the proletarian and
democratic anti-imperialist revolutions.

Through the 1940s, the Cuban Trotskyists in the POR not only borrowed the language
of the revolutionary nationalists, the name of their newspaper, Cuba Obrera, being the
most public expression of this, but they increasingly failed to propose a politically
independent course for the working class. In essence, they did not clearly distinguish
themselves from petty bourgeois nationalism and they developed an action programme
for a democratic anti-imperialist revolution which incorporated the forces of radical
nationalism in the leadership of an intermediate revolution. This was exemplified in
the 1944 election line-up when the POR rather loosely called for a critical vote for the
Autnticos of Grau San Martn, and then in the Trotskyists act of dissolving inside the
Movimiento Socialista Revolucionario, an organisation which professed a continuity
from Joven Cuba. While these tactical orientations could be seen as rather desperate
attempts to escape isolation, the Cuban Trotskyists ultimately failed to understand
Trotskys assertion that the revolution will either be proletarian or it will be defeated, or
285

in the light of post-World War Two developments would be some kind of national-
bureaucratic hybrid revolution facilitated by Soviet aid.

The actual disappearance of the POR as an organised force in the early 1950s, though
conditioned by the socio-politico context, also reflected the limited differentiation
which the Trotskyists themselves had made between working class and national
liberation forces. While the evolution of the PBL and POR in the period 1935 to 1950
retraced to some extent that which had occurred in hot-house fashion during the
Revolution of the 1930s, the Cuban Trotskyists political evolution was not a case of an
isolated national Trotskyist group abandoning the project of the working class leading
an anti-imperialist revolution and in so doing creating its own democratic organs of
power. This trajectory was a deep-seated feature of the post-Trotsky Fourth
International as a whole. While the Trotskyists in Loras Bolivian Partido Obrero
Revolucionario had not hesitated to join the nationalist Movimiento Nacionalista
Revolucionario government, this position was supported at the time by the majority of
groups which were about to make up the backbone of both the International Secretariat
and International Committee of the Fourth International.

This tendency towards compromising with revolutionary nationalism culminated in the


1950s when the Cuban Trotskyists either thoroughly renounced the need for a working
class revolutionary party in order to join the Movimiento 26 de Julio, or lent the
insurrectionary movement unconditional and uncritical support as individuals. In the
light of the 1959 Revolution, the reconstituted Cuban Trotskyist party, the Partido
Obrero Revolucionario (Trotskista) (POR(T)), conferred the status of Workers State
on the new revolutionary order in Cuba, accepting that not only could the petty
bourgeoisie attain power, but that non-proletarian forces in the absence of democratic
organs of working power could lead the construction of socialism. While this essentially
mirrored the evolution of a major sector of the international Trotskyist movement, the
United Secretariat of the Fourth International, this whole tendency to compromise with
the forces of radical nationalism was the defining feature of Cuban Trotskyism dating
back to 1932.

Just as the manifestation of anarcho-syndicalism in the Cuban working class was not
pure anarcho-syndicalism, so the Cuban Trotskyists interpreted the fundamental
postulates of Trotskys theory of Permanent Revolution in a Cubanised way
emphasising the question of national liberation. Though shaped by the international
experience and ideas of Trotsky and the Fourth International, the Cuban Trotskyists
interaction with the international movement was ultimately not central to their
development. Cuban Trotskyism was, then, essentially a home-grown political current
with roots in the reality of the Cuban political economy and the traditions of Cuban
revolutionary struggle. Certainly, it was less of a foreign transplant than the official
communist party which, apart from a brief period in the mid-1940s when it moved even
to the Right of Moscow in only reluctantly disentangling itself from Browderism,
largely concerned itself with following the foreign policy concerns of Moscow. Indeed,
if anything, the essence of the Cuban Trotskyists underlying political trajectory which
attempted to integrate national problems with the theory of Permanent Revolution,
prefigured the emergence of a one-sided approach to revolution favouring the struggle
for national liberation among Latin American Trotskyists. To this extent Cuban
Trotskyism in the 1930s can be figuratively characterised as post-Trotsky Trotskyism.
286

8.2 Composition and Organisational Characteristics of Cuban


Trotskyism

While most dissident communist opposition groups across the world were relatively
small in comparison with their respective official communist parties, the Cuban
Opposition was a notable exception. Although it is difficult to chart the exact number of
members that the OCC and then PBL had on a month by month basis, the Cuban
Trotskyist group undoubtedly grew quickly in late 1932 and 1933 before declining
sharply in 1934 and the first half of 1935. At their peak in the period 1932-34, the
Cuban Trotskyists constituted a relatively large group by Trotskyist standards, counting
on at least 800 members.(1) Certainly in Latin America no opposition movement within
any of the local communist parties rivalled the size of the OCC. Outside the Soviet
Union, only the Belgian Trotskyist group which emerged in the 1920s could claim a
membership which approached that of the Cuban Opposition group. Furthermore,
unlike other Trotskyist groups in Latin America which were largely limited to their
respective capital cities, the Cuban Trotskyists had centres throughout the country, most
notably in Havana and Oriente provinces.(2)

The principal reason for the relative size of the OCC was the official communists Third
Period turn which denied that the movement for national liberation had any progressive
content. Although all revolutionary groups were relatively large during the Revolution
of the 1930s, the dissident Cuban communists relative success in attracting a sizeable
section of the PCC and its front organisations to the camp of the OCC and PBL was
principally the result of the Oppositionists attempt to combat the PCCs ultra-leftism
and integrate the struggle for national liberation with the struggle for socialism. Taking
on board the fact that the PCCs tactical turn was implemented just at the time when the
forces of radical nationalism were beginning to displace older, more socially
conservative elements in the leadership of the anti-Machado struggle, it is therefore
reasonable to conclude that the conditions under which these dissident communists
organised themselves not only explain their early political trajectory but also explain, at
least in part, their exceptional numerical strength.

Having grown on the crest of a revolutionary wave during the Revolution of the 1930s,
thereafter the Cuban Trotskyist group shrank in size to proportions which paralleled
those of other Latin American sections of the Fourth International. Indeed, after the
Revolution of the 1930s the Cuban Trotskyists experienced no substantial period of
growth, proving unable to take advantage of the opportunity presented to them by the
official communists embrace of overt class collaboration with Batista immediately
before and during the Second World War. However, unlike the majority of other
revolutionary groups which sprang into being during the Revolution of the 1930s, the
Trotskyists theoretical grounding enabled them to survive to some extent the decades
of defeats in the 1930s and 40s. The POR only eventually disappeared in the general
atmosphere of stagnation in the early 1950s.

The Cuban Trotskyists ultimate lack of success in constructing a mass proletarian


party, while conditioned by the strategy they themselves employed to realise their
declared goals, was also determined by the peculiar features of the Cuban political
economy. In the first place, the poorly defined and weak class-based institutions in
Cuba, particularly after the defeat of the Revolution of the 1930s, facilitated the
tendency towards strong Bonapartist governments in Cuba, both pre- and post-1959.
287

Most significantly for the fortunes of the Cuban Trotskyists, such conditions
particularly benefited the opportunist official communist party. Having abandoned the
revolutionary project along with the principles of proletarian democracy and political
independence, the Cuban Communist Party was granted control of the labour movement
by Batista in exchange for certain economic incentives and ensuring that any attempts to
organise the working class around a programme of even moderate anti-imperialism
were derailed. With the official communists actually enjoying the prestige of formal
association with the successful Russian October Revolution, this introduced a further,
objectively counter-revolutionary, factor within the labour movement which the
Bolsheviks themselves had not had to confront.

With effective official communist state-sponsored control of the workers movement


and limited internal trade union democracy making it difficult to challenge the policies
and position of Stalinism, the Cuban Trotskyists were faced with substantial physical
barriers before being able to influence the mass of rural and urban workers who were
under the influence of official communism. The growth of the Cuban Communist Party
from the late 1930s into one of the largest and most powerful official communist parties
in the Americas, not only further depoliticised a working class which had suffered a
recent historic defeat, but also aided the effectiveness of their well-resourced campaign
against Trotskyism. The bitter struggle which the official communists waged against the
Trotskyists included verbal and written abuse in the form of slanderous accusations of
being fascists and pro-imperialists, as well as physical assaults. These supplemented the
prison sentences and victimisations which the Cuban Trotskyists suffered under
successive Cuban regimes. This apparent division of labour between the official
communists and various Cuban governments was not without effect and culminated in
1965 when the two institutions, that is the official communist party and the Cuban
government, had effectively become one, and Trotskyism, the only organised Left-wing
critic of the Revolution, was forcibly dissolved by a so-called communist government.

In addition to the weakness of class-based formations and the peculiar position of


Stalinism in the working class movement, the lack of a Marxist tradition in Cuba also
heightened the obstacles which the Trotskyist tendency within the OCC and PBL
initially had to overcome. As an example, despite benefiting from attracting a number of
well-known and experienced trade unionists to the OCCs ranks, most notably Sandalio
Junco, many of these had little faith in the revolutionary capacity of the working class in
the political field and as such had only a slender commitment to the building of a
Trotskyist party. The nascent Trotskyist group which had essentially developed as a
Second Period critique of Third Period official communism proved unable to sharpen
and clarify the distinctions between revolutionary communism and these essentially
reformist currents. As a result, the Trotskyist tendency failed to prevent these elements
from reasserting the influence of the old traditions of Cuban nationalism and
syndicalism within the ranks of the PBL. Indeed, the Cuban Trotskyists own strategy of
attempting to influence the petty bourgeois nationalist movement was ultimately turned
on its head when the latter not only influenced the development of Cuban Trotskyism,
but eventually carried the Trotskyists along organisationally with the dissolution of the
remaining POR members in the 1940s and 50s into the ranks of various democratic
nationalist organisations.

The long-term project of constructing a Trotskyist party was also hindered by the fact
that the revolutionary period in which the OCC and PBL were formed did not give them
288

time to cohere as an open party. While the Labour Laws of the Grau San Martn
government hit the PBL particularly hard in the sense that most members of the
Trotskyist-controlled General Commercial Workers Union of Cuba were of Spanish
origin and were thereby forced out of their jobs, the repression in the 1934-35 period led
to the jailing, torture and deportation of large numbers of Cuban Trotskyists.
Furthermore, rather like the Fourth International itself, in the aftermath of the
Revolution of the 1930s the Cuban Trotskyists attempted to regroup and consolidate
during a period which was ultimately one of defeat for the working class on an
international scale.

Although the Cuban Trotskyists kept in contact with the stabilising influence of the
international centres during the 1930s and 40s via correspondence, exchanges of press,
foreign refugees and the occasional visits from North American Trotskyists, in the post-
World War Two period a number of international factors also contributed to the PORs
organisational isolation. In the first place, although the Cuban Trotskyists were well
aware that the intervention of Stalinism in Cuba had introduced a new political factor
intent on deflecting the revolutionary movement, the PORs ultimate support for the
state capitalist, anti-defencist thesis on the Soviet Union cut the Cuban group off from
contact with the major Trotskyist parties in the U.S. and Latin America in the late
1940s. Furthermore, while the Shachtmanites largely evolved towards social democracy
in pursuit of an elusive Labour Party in the U.S., the dispersion of the groups adhering
to the Fourth International in the 1950s did not aid the Cubans in establishing any stable
external influences. The International Secretariat of the Fourth International in the
1950s, perhaps the most logical home for supporters of the national liberation
tendency within international Trotskyism, was of little assistance since it had become a
partisan of actual liquidation inside perceived centrist official communist parties, as
well as revolutionary nationalist groups.

Another feature of Cuban Trotskyism was its essentially proletarian base. While the
OCC initially counted on the support of significant sectors of the student sector in the
Ala Izquierda Estudiantil, particularly in Santiago de Cuba, its principal achievement in
terms of organisation was to take control of the Federacin Obrera de La Habana, the
trade union centre in Havana which grouped together some twenty trade unions
including that of the capitals most important union, the General Commercial Workers
Union of Cuba. In the post-1935 period, though, the PBLs initial mix of worker-
militants and students gave way to a composition which was predominantly working
class, this being most evident in the guantanameo branch of the PBL, POR and then
POR(T). Although a limited number of intellectuals, most notably Roberto Prez
Santiesteban, contributed to the elaboration of the Cuban Trotskyists political direction,
the predominance of worker-militants was striking. Gastn Medinas intervention in the
period immediately after the March 1935 strike strengthened the PBLs organisational
and political coherence, and after his premature death, the contributions of Rogelio
Benache in Oriente, Pablo Daz Gonzlez in Havana and then, in the 1960s, Idalberto
Ferrera Acosta, all worker-militants, were symptomatic of the working class
composition of the Cuban Trotskyist movement.

A further distinctive feature of the organisational development of Trotskyism in Cuba is


that apart from a short interval in the 1940s when one branch of the PBL hesitated over
a number of secondary tactical issues, at no time have there been two groups claiming
the Trotskyist mantle. However, although they avoided splits on so-called points of
289

principle as occurred in Argentina, Mexico and the United States, etc., the Cuban
Trotskyists were not immune to internal disagreements. In Cuba, however, these
internal discussions on the strategy to employ were instead largely resolved empirically
without the need for any kind of disciplined faction fight. Dissenting voices simply
abandoned the Trotskyist party and entered the most radical nationalist party or
movement of the day.

Although a Trotskyist party, the POR(T), was reconstituted in the post-1959 period, its
numerical weakness was such that when the popular Left-enthusiasm of the masses had
receded, and Stalinism had an increasing influence on the Revolution, the bureaucratic
steps initiated by some officials in the Ministry of Labour and eventually sanctioned by
Fidel Castro himself, were sufficient to suppress the Cuban Trotskyist organisation by
the time a new Cuban Communist Party was constituted. In the post-1965 period, a
nucleus of Trotskyists has remained committed to elaborating its critique of the
leadership of the Revolution and has insisted on the continuity of Trotskyism in Cuba.
However, the activity of these Trotskyists has been largely conditioned by the
constitution of the Cuban state which has prohibited and suppressed any form of
organised dissent. With no legal public audience, and largely abandoned by
international Trotskyism since the decline of Posadism in the late 1960s, the Cuban
Trotskyists have also lacked the information and resources to re-appraise their heritage.

8.3 The Cuban Trotskyists Contribution to National Political Life

While the Cuban Trotskyists never achieved their objective of leading a socialist
revolution, and were undoubtedly a small group throughout most of their history, they
cannot necessarily be dismissed as irrelevant circles who had no influence.(3) On the
contrary, I argue that their achievements and significance were far from negligible.
They contributed in many ways to political life in Cuba and the international
revolutionary movement, and in their history have left important markers for future
generations of revolutionaries.

The Cuban Trotskyists principal merit was that they tried to create a counter-current to
official communism which insisted on the validity of building a political party capable
of leading the working class to power while addressing the problem of national
liberation. In a country in which the official communists substituted the ultra-radicalism
of the Third Period, which dismissed all concerns of the national liberation movement,
for the abandonment of the whole project of working class political independence and
class struggle, evidenced by their participation in the Batista regime and reluctance to
jettison the conceptions of Browderism in the 1940s, the Cuban Trotskyists stand out as
advocates of the necessity of attempting to integrate the struggle for the agrarian
revolution and national independence with that for socialism in the colonial and semi-
colonial countries.

Their principal virtue, however, was at the same time their Achilles heel. On the one
hand, they recognised that a powerful national liberation movement cannot be dismissed
in Third Period fashion as irrelevant or counter-revolutionary and that revolutionary
communists have to intervene on this terrain in order to win the leadership of its most
advanced sectors. However, like the official communist parties in the post-1935 period,
as well as many other post-Trotsky Trotskyists, they used the relative strength of these
nationalist movements to justify their strategy of allying themselves largely uncritically
290

with various radical bourgeois nationalist groups. To this extent, the Cuban Trotskyists
were not only significant in terms of being a counter-current to official communism but
were illustrative of a large section of the post-Trotsky Marxist revolutionary movement.

The Cuban Trotskyists attempt to develop an analysis of the specific conditions of


historical development in Cuba also challenged the analyses of both the old nationalist
movement committed to ill-defined revolutionary violence and the official communist
party with its script largely passed down from the leading bodies of the Comintern. In
the first instance, challenging the heritage of the value of the isolated revolutionary
deed, the Trotskyists recognised the importance of developing a sustainable theoretical
base to direct practical activity. More significantly, though, their contentions that a
feudal landed aristocracy had been liquidated during the independence wars of the
nineteenth century, that the national bourgeoisie was exceptionally weak, and that Cuba
was dominated directly by U.S. imperialist interests as part of the world capitalist
economy, were all considerable theoretical acquisitions, preceding by at least thirty
years the assessment of large numbers of Cuban and non-Cuban scholars alike.

The Cuban Trotskyists furthermore aimed at the creation of a Cuban workers republic
as part of a United States of Latin America while, at the same time, understanding that
the revolutions in Cuba and the U.S. are aspects of a single and unified revolutionary
process. They also maintained the principle that the greatest threat to Latin American
countries was imperialism whatever its mask, bourgeois democratic or fascist. During
the Second World War they refused to put the principle of class struggle on the back
burner and opposed the official communists class collaborationist policy of supporting
U.S. imperialism and Batista in the name of anti-fascism. At the time this left the
official communists in the role of recruiting sergeants for war abroad and as strike-
breakers in the name of maintaining production at home. The Trotskyists identified U.S.
imperialism, the main local oppressor, not Nazi Germany as the principal threat and
broadly adopted the principles of the Proletarian Military Policy to challenge what the
official communists viewed as the progressive imperialist power of the U.S. as well as
the reactionary imperialism of the Axis powers.

The Cuban Trotskyists also advanced a critique of the Soviet Union which saw its
collapse in the Stalinists usurpation of working class democracy. While they adhered to
various anti-defencist theses on the Soviet Union from the mid-1940s, a position
without doubt influenced by the extreme Rightist policy of the official communists in
Cuba which had deleted all reference to the notion of revolutionary class struggle, the
Cuban Trotskyists did not accept the view that Stalinism was an inevitable product of
the Bolshevik Revolution. Indeed, in joining the International Left Opposition and
Fourth International they sought to defend the gains of the October 1917 Revolution by
preparing the foundations for world revolution.

Accusations emanating from the official communists that the Cuban Trotskyists acted
on behalf of fascist and imperialist interests or were associated with anti-democratic,
corrupt elements within the labour movement are largely groundless. Those elements
which had once belonged to the OCC, PBL and/or POR and who evolved towards
gangsterism and corrupt state-sponsored unionism were denounced by the Cuban
Trotskyists as renegades who were enemies of the working class movement. Individuals
such as Emilio Tr, Rafael Soler Puig and Eusebio Mujal were no more Trotskyists at
the time of their infamous activities than the ex-PCC member Rolando Masferrer was
291

an official communist at the time of his adventures as the head of the Tigers terror
gangs during the 1950s. Furthermore, if anything it was the official communists who
were more closely associated with corrupt state-sponsored unionism. The only essential
difference between the official communists version of collaboration with the state in
the field of organised labour and that of Mujal was that the Batista-PSP joint front did
not lead to the personal enrichment of the communist partys leading members.
Whereas Mujal and his cohorts lined their own pockets, the official communists during
their alliance with Batista saw to it that the official communist organisation and
apparatus received the benefits of state sponsorship.

Similarly, the conclusion of Rafael Soler Martnez that the Cuban Trotskyists were
sectarians and divisionists is without foundation. The Cuban Trotskyists consistently
argued for the unity of the workers movement within a single trade union centre
irrespective of the political affiliations of the workers or their leaders. Furthermore, it
was precisely the Oppositionists initial concerns to develop an orientation towards the
Left-wing of the nationalist movement which led them to reject the sectarian excesses of
Third Period official communism. In the 1940s and 50s, this perspective of attempting
to develop anti-imperialist fronts with nationalist groups largely continued to define
Trotskyism in Cuba. Within the Fourth International movement, they also rejected calls
from Justo to break from the formal centre in New York to form a new Latin American
centre. The Cuban Trotskyists, therefore, can be labelled as sectarians and
divisionists only by those who have reason to fear that an analysis of Trotskyist
history would highlight the inadequacy of their own brand of communism. Such
slanders were previously used as a device to discredit if not physically liquidate any
dissenting voice. Employed today by Soler in the guise of historical narrative, they are
useful only to the extent that they reveal something about his prejudices and the stifling
environment in which he lives and works.

Two other substantial secondary source contributions to the study of Trotskyism in


Cuba have more convincingly argued that the Cuban Trotskyists were closer to Joaqun
Maurn and the Bloque Obrero y Campesino in Spain than to Trotsky in terms of their
strategy for revolution.(4) Pierre Brou has furthermore developed the central argument
that the Cuban Trotskyists committed political suicide by placing themselves at the
service of non-proletarian social forces. In the first instance, this conceptualisation is
useful in that it draws attention to the Cuban Trotskyists long-term tendency to build
broad inclusive anti-imperialist blocs. However, because it is ultimately based on an
acceptance of Trotskys intransigent understanding of Maurn as a petty bourgeois
revolutionary, it fails to take into account either the varied roots and subtleties of
Maurns thought and trajectory or the different socio-politico contexts of Spain and
Cuba.(5)

Thus, I argue that while the roots of the Opposition lay in an essentially Second Period
critique of the official communists Third Period tactical line, to characterise the Cuban
Trotskyists as Maurinistas in the sense which Brou implies is imprecise. However,
taking into account Andrew Durgans illuminating analysis of the subtleties of Maurns
strategy and tactics it is evident that there were indeed some similarities. In the first
place, like Maurn in Spain, the Cuban Trotskyists insisted that the working class could
not take power in a country like Cuba without the support of the poor petty bourgeoisie,
while the peasantry could not realise the agrarian revolution without the leadership of
292

the working class. This strategy, furthermore, was similar to that embodied in the theory
of Permanent Revolution.

Like both Maurn and Trotsky, the Cuban Trotskyists in the 1930s also believed that if
the petty bourgeois attained power, it would do so only temporarily. Although their
interpretation of the form and content of the Anti-Imperialist United Front led them in
practice to a de facto acceptance of the independence of the democratic anti-imperialist
revolution, in theory they viewed the petty bourgeoisie in power only as a phase, not a
stage, in the proletarian anti-imperialist revolution. This permanentist understanding
was particularly evident during the Revolution of the 1930s. The PBL made clear its
view that the petty bourgeoisie could not hold power for long and any such nationalist
regime would collapse, thereby leading the followers of petty bourgeois nationalism to
align themselves with either the proletariat or the counter-revolution. Indeed, it was
only upon this basis that the PBL took up arms alongside Joven Cuba in late 1934 and
early 1935.

However, despite these qualifications to Brous presentation of the Maurn-Cuban


Trotskyist analogy, to attach the label Maurinista to the Cuban Trotskyists also fails to
view Maurn and the Cuban Trotskyists in motion. While Maurn was inconsistent over
time, if anything moving to the Left in the mid-1930s under the influence of Andrs
Nin, the Cuban Trotskyists generally moved to the Right after 1933-35. During the
period 1935-58, between revolutions, the PBL and then POR increasingly viewed the
democratic anti-imperialist revolution as a distinct stage as they considered the
Autnticos and then various revolutionary petty bourgeois nationalist groups as vehicles,
rather than obstacles to socialist revolution. While, then, it is fair to say that the Cuban
Trotskyists did eventually share Maurns alleged early desire to participate in the
formation of nationalist movements, this only became explicitly evident in the 1940s
and 50s when much of the international Trotskyist movement had also accepted such a
perspective.

This thesis, then, is an attempt to outline and evaluate the history of Trotskyism in
Cuba. I believe that it demonstrates the honest and principled way a small, but
determined group of Marxists attempted to take society forward in conditions in which
independent working class organisation was weak. They viewed the Russian October
Revolution as the first in a series of revolutions which would lead to the building of a
communist society on a world-wide scale and they saw Trotsky as the principal
surviving leader of that revolution. They embraced his ideas and although they may not
have fully understood or agreed with everything he had to say, they sought to apply the
essence of the theory of Permanent Revolution in a way which they considered took
into account the peculiarities of the Cuban political economy.

Their virtue lay in the fact that they attempted to interpret the successful post-April
1917 Bolshevik strategy in the Cuban context, addressing the tasks of national liberation
in the struggle for socialism. They demonstrated that the national peculiarities of a
revolutionary party and its prescription for revolutionary change are not necessarily a
rejection of internationalism, but a recognition that the revolutionary party must be a
reflection of the reality of each country. However, their fundamental weakness was also
derived from this national context. While the socio-politico context ultimately
conditioned their failure, at the subjective political level they also could not overcome
the essentially democratic anti-imperialist bloc strategy so embodied in the Cuban
293

revolutionary tradition. The Cuban Trotskyists origins in a split from the PCC during
the Cominterns Third Period, their evolution within the national liberation camp of
Latin American Trotskyism, and their final return, full-circle, in the 1960s to advocate a
caricature of the Second Period position that a force other than the working class could
secure genuine social and national liberation and lead a socialist revolution, can
therefore be explained by the nature of the specific society in which the Cuban
Trotskyists themselves were conceived and developed.

FOOTNOTES
1. See Appendix E for a graph depicting this rapid and decline in the PBLs membership
during the Revolution of the 1930s.(Back to text)
2. See the list of known Trotskyists in Cuba in Appendix F for a comprehensive picture
of the breadth of the Cuban Trotskyists geographical spread in the 1930s.(Back to
text)
3. One lesson which can be drawn from the history of official communism in Cuba is
that membership figures alone are meaningless in terms of providing a measure for a
partys revolutionary socialist capacity. Certainly given the depth of the official
communists social chauvinism and Popular Frontism from the mid-1930s, no
member of the official communist party could be considered anything approaching a
revolutionary communist.(Back to text)
4. Alexander, RJ, (1973), op cit, pp. 215-235; and Brou, P, (1982), op cit, pp. 13-30.
(Back to text)
5. See Chapter One, pages 8-9 for my review of the debate over the essence of Maurns
political thought.(Back to text)
294

APPENDIX C
Trotskyism in Cuba: A Chronology of Events

August 1925 Foundation of the Partido Comunista de Cuba (PCC).


December Julio Antonio Mella goes on hunger strike in prison for which he is
1925 subsequently expelled from the PCC.
Mellas pamphlet Qu Es el ARPA? labels Victor Ral Haya de la Torre
April 1928
the Latin American Chiang Kai-shek.
January
Mella assassinated in Mexico City.
1929
6 April 1930 International Left Opposition (ILO) established at a meeting in Paris.
The PCC turns to apply the Third Period tactical line after the 1930
October-
intervention of the Communist Party of the United States and the
November
Caribbean Bureau of the Comintern.
The first organised opposition within the PCC led by Pedro Varela opposes
July 1931
the partys red trade union line.
Opposition arises within the PCC-controlled Ala Izquierda Estudiantil over
August 1931 the partys position of passive neutrality during the August Revolt led by
the bourgeois opposition.
February Sandalio Junco returns from the Soviet Union. He resumes his work in a
1932 leading capacity in the PCC before detaching himself from the party.
August 1932 The Oposicin Comunista de Cuba (OCC) is founded.
Resolution of the Central Committee of the PCC on the Opposition in the
9 September
PCC signals the expulsion of Junco, Marcos Garca Villareal and others
1932
from the party.
The Central Committee of the OCC publishes its programmatic document
10 May
En el Camino de la Revolucin. The ILO subsequently states that it
1933
conforms with the general principles of the Left Opposition".
June 1933 Statutes of the OCC published.
July 1933 Trotsky argues that the Comintern is dead for the purposes of revolution.
General strike in Havana against the Machado government. The PCC
August 1933
issues a call for a return to work which is ignored.
4 September Sergeants Revolt leads to the installation of the Grau San Martn
1933 government with Antonio Guiteras as the Minister of the Interior.
The Partido Bolchevique Leninista (PBL) is constituted by agreement of
14 the National Conference of the OCC. However, the Guantnamo section
September refuses to recognise the directives of the PBLs Central Committee,
1933 arguing instead for the creation of an anti-imperialist bloc as an external
road to the building of a section of the Fourth International in Cuba.
25
Manifesto of the PBLs Central Committee is published in which its formal
September
adherence to a permanentist strategy is set out.
1933
29 The PBL forms an impromptu bloc with the Grau San Martn government
September in a violent confrontation with the PCC at a demonstration to mark the
1933 return and burial of the Mellas ashes.
27-28 National Plenum of the PBL in Havana at which the partys programme is
295

October
approved.
1933
Mid-January Batista switches the support of the army to Mendieta and forces the
1934 resignation of the Grau San Martn government.
4 February
First issue of the PBLs organ Rayo is published.
1934
Emergency National Conference of the PBL ratifies the separation of Junco
July 1934 and others from its Central Committee. Of the original members of the
OCCs Central Committee only two remain.
27 August A Stalinist paramilitary attack on the offices of the Federacin Obrera de
1934 La Habana. One death reported.
October Latin American communist parties take their first steps towards adopting
1934 the Popular Front tactical line.
7 October
The Joven Cuba organisation led by Guiteras is constituted.
1934
Central Committee of the PBL adopts the Resolution on the Present
16 October Political Situation and Our Tasks recognising the theory of the
1934 independence of the democratic anti-imperialist revolution in forming a
narrow alliance with Joven Cuba for insurrection.
Letter from A.J. Muste of the Workers Party in the U.S. to the PBL
8 January
attempts to reorientate the Cuban Trotskyists towards the proletarian anti-
1935
imperialist perspective.
January- A series of meetings of the Central Committee of the PBL expels 1935
February Garca Villareal as General Secretary, replacing him with Gastn Medina.
March 1935 General strike is smashed. The Revolution of the 1930s is defeated.
Report by Gastn Medina to the International Secretariat of the Fourth
20 March
International analysing the internal situation of the OCC and PBL from
1935
August 1932 to March 1935.
8 May 1935 Guiteras is shot by the Cuban army. Joven Cuba gradually disintegrates.
October The Political Thesis written by Gastn Medina reasserts the PBLs
1935 proletarian anti-imperialist line.
September
PBL publishes the journal Noticiero Bolchevique.
1936
February
PBL holds National Plenum to restructure the party.
1936
21 July 1936 The Spanish Civil War begins.
Charles Simen substitutes Gastn Medina as the PBLs General Secretary
1936-37
as Medina succumbs to illness, the result of torture in Batistas jails.
9 January
Trotsky arrives in Mexico.
1937
17 August Gastn Medina the principal defender of the proletarian anti-imperialist
1938 line within the PBL dies.
September
Fourth International formally founded.
1938
Late
1939/early Simen expelled from the PBL.
1940
24-25 Meeting of the SWP(US) Minority decides to break from the SWP(US).
296

January
The Brazilian Mario Pedrosa is with the Minority.
1940
May 1940 The official communists support Batista in the Presidential elections.
May 1940 The Cuban Trotskyists form a new Provisional Executive Committee.
19-26
Emergency Conference of the Fourth International held in New York.
August 1940
21 August
Trotsky murdered by the Stalinist agent Ramn Mercader.
1940
19 The Partido Obrero Revolucionario (POR) is constituted. The PBLs
September Santiago de Cuba branch initially refuses to join the new party. It is only
1940 incorporated into the POR in 1941-42.
September POR launches a newspaper, Cuba Obrera. The last issue appears in August
1940 1941.
8 May 1942 Stalinist gun-squad murders Junco.
Batista declares war on the Axis powers and appeals to political parties in
July 1942 Cuba to form a Government of National Unity. The official communists
join Batistas cabinet.
At the Third National Congress of the Confederacin de Trabajadores de
December Cuba (CTC), the POR supports the founding of the Frente Democrtico
1942 Sindical, a workers opposition front inside the CTC, to challenge Stalinist
control.
January Rogelio Benache, the PORs most talented leader in Oriente dies as a result
1944 of past torture in a Batista jail.
POR gives critical support to Grau San Martn in the Presidential
May 1944
elections.
POR launches a newspaper, Revolucin Proletaria. The last issue appears
May 1944
in May 1946.
The majority Havana faction circulate a highly critical Internal Bulletin
March 1946 arguing that the POR has remained behind the coat-tails of the
Autnticos.
The POR joins the Movimiento Socialista Revolucionario (MSR) of
Mid-1946
Rolando Masferrer.
Collapse of PSP-Grau San Martn alliance in the light of the outbreak of
July 1947 Cold War is confirmed when the PSP is forcibly evicted from the premises
of the CTC.
The POR joins the Accin Revolucionaria Guiteras after the MSR declares
1948 its support for Carlos Pro Socorrs, the Autnticos candidate in the
Presidential election.
10 March
Coup dtat returns Batista to power.
1952
Group led by Fidel Castro launches assault on the Moncada barracks in
26 July 1953
Santiago de Cuba.
The International Committee of the Fourth International is formed. It takes
November
a strong stance against the Pabloism of the International Secretariat of the
1953
Fourth International.
Pablo Daz, a leading member of the PBL in the late 1930s and the POR in
October
the 1940s joins Castro in Mexico as a member of his General Staff on the
1956
Granma yacht.
297

2 December Granma lands on Oriente coastline marking the beginning of a two-year


1956 guerrilla war.
1 January
Batista flees Cuba and the Revolution begins.
1959
6 February
Partido Obrero Revolucionario (Trotskista) (POR(T)) is constituted.
1960
POR(T)s launches its newspaper Voz Proletaria. Eight issues are
April 1960
produced up to April 1961.
April 1961 Cuban exile invasion force quickly defeated at Playa Girn.
Issue number ten of Voz Proletaria and the printing plates of Trotskys The
26 May
Permanent Revolution are seized by PSP officials acting on behalf of the
1961
National Printing Office and Ministry of Labour.
August 1962 First large-scale arrest of POR(T) members begins.
24-26
POR(T) holds its Second National Conference.
August 1962
September POR(T) relaunches Voz Proletaria as a fortnightly A4-sized
1962 mimeographed bulletin.
October
The Cuban Missile Crisis.
1962
United Secretariat of the Fourth International is founded in the light of
1963 differences between Trotskyist groups over the nature of the Cuban
Revolution.
First charges formally brought against POR(T) members for alleged
Early 1964 counter-revolutionary activity. Sentences extend up to nine years
imprisonment.
22 March
Che Guevara disappears from public view.
1965
The POR(T) formally dissolves itself as a condition for the release of
April 1965
POR(T) members from prison.
October First meeting of the Central Committee of the new Cuban Communist
1965 Party.
Castro publicly sides with Moscow in the Sino-Soviet dispute and uses
January
Trotskyism as a surrogate for his attack on Maoism in a speech at the Tri-
1966
Continental Conference.
March 1966 Leading members of the POR(T) again imprisoned for continued activity.
December POR(T) members sentenced to up to 12 years in prison for attempting to
1973 reorganise a Trotskyist party.
298

Appendix F
List of Known Trotskyists in Cuba

The place of origin and Trotskyist activity of the individuals marked with a # is
uncertain.

1. Trotskyists in Cuba, 1932-40: The Oposicin Comunista de Cuba and the Partido
Bolchevique Leninista

1.1 Guantnamo

1. Jos Abdo
2. Miguel Amador
3. Manuel Arcas
4. Daniel Barrier
5. Ramn Cesar
6. Bartolo Cuza
7. Esteban de la Cruz
8. Idalberto Ferrera Acosta
9. Gustavo Fraga Jacomino (*Guapaya)
10
Giraldo Garca
.
11
Luciano Garca Pellicier (*Chano, *Chanito)
.
12
Gilberto Goliat
.
13
Guerra (Guerrita)
.
14
Isidro Lpez Surez
.
15
Juan Medina Campos
.
16
Laureano Moreira
.
17
Eusebio Mujal Barniol (*Chapovolov)
.
18
O. Perdomo
.
19
Gilberto Rodrguez
.
20
Rojas
.
21
Carlos Sebastin
.
299

22
Rafael Sebastin Cobas
.
23
Elas Surez Caunedo (*Bani, Spanish)
.
24
Pedro Torres
.
25
Francisco Vega
.
26
Salustiano Wilson Magdariaga
.

1.2 Havana

1. Angel Armenteros (#)


2. Urbano Armesto
3. Pablo Balbuena (#)
4. Luis M. Busquet
5. Armando Cruz Cobos (#)
6. Enrique de la Uz (#)
7. Jos Antonio Daz Ortega
8. Roberto Fontanilla
9. Lorenzo Garca Jimenez
10 Marcos Garca Villareal (*A. Gomez Villar, General Secretary of the PBL from
. September 1933 to February 1934)
11
Joaqun Gass (#)
.
12
Sandalio Junco Camelln (*Saturnino Hernndez, *Jurez)
.
13
Armando Machado (Central Committee member)
.
14
Silvio Machado
.
15 Gastn Medina Escobar (*G. Capablanca, General Secretary of the PBL from
. February 1935 to 1936-37)
16
Jess Menocal (#)
.
17
Juan Prez de la Riva
.
18
Samuel Powell (#)
.
19
Pedro Riveiro (#)
.
20
Fermn Snchez
.
21 Charles Simen Ramrez (*Chacel, Originally joined OCC in Matanzas, General
300

. Secretary of the PBL in late 1930s)


22
Emilio Tr (#)
.
23
Andrs Vargas Gmez
.
24
Pedro Varela (*Magon)
.

1.3 Matanzas

1. Julio Alvarez
2. Domingo Alvarez del Puerto
3. Jorge Beato
4. Rafael Betancour Granado
5. Francisco Bustamente
6. Miguel Busto Garca (Spanish, Local leader of Bakery Workers Union)
7. Francisco Campos
8. Rogelio Cardounel
9. Edelmiro Castellanos
10
Adriano Delgado
.
11
Doblado
.
12
Jos Ramn Duharte Brito
.
13
Armando Fernndez
.
14
Ral Fernndez Artiles
.
15
Bertha Garca
.
16
Digualdo Garca
.
17
Manuel Garca Suarez
.
18
Gerardo Gonzlez Socarrs
.
19
Jos Iglesias Vega
.
20
Jos A. Marqunez
.
21
Manuel Montao
.
22
Ramn Perna
.
301

23
Jacobo Planas
.
24
Federico Rodrguez
.
25
Jos Ral Ruz
.
26
Jos Luis Tpanes
.
27
Tet Valds
.
28
Ernesto Varela Daz
.
29
Andrs Vargas Gmez
.

1.4 Santiago de Cuba

1. Petra Acosta
2. Roberto Acosta Hechavarra
3. Augustina Arce
4. Eulalia Ayala Campos
5. Felipe Ayala Cano
Rogelio Benache (*Cirano Prez, General Secretary of Sectional Committee after
6.
Carlos Gonzlez Palacios)
7. Marcelino Boler
8. Juan Ramn Bre Landestoy (*Neneno)
9. Amor Briones
10
Fraternidad Briones
.
11
Libertad Briones
.
12
Newton Briones
.
13
Progreso Briones
.
14
Amrico Caballero
.
15 Manuel Campos (General Secretary of local SGECC and Oriente District Committee
. member)
16
Rubn Carbonell Torres
.
17
Eleuterio Casamayor
.
18
Chich Casero
.
302

19
Ernesto Despaux
.
20
Pablo Daz Gonzlez (*Pedro Durn)
.
21
Argelio Fabre
.
22
Aurelio Fernndez Via
.
23
Arturo Ferrer
.
24
Crescencio Freyre (#)
.
25
Carlos Gonzlez Palacios (General Secretary of District Committee)
.
26
Alejandro Lamo
.
27
Angel Larramendy
.
28
Dario Larramendy
.
29
Amrica Lavad Arce
.
30
Caridad Lavad Arce
.
31
Cecilia Lavad Arce
.
32
Lolita Lavad Arce
.
33
Valentina Lavad Arce
.
34
Augusto Lozano
.
35
Argelio Marin
.
36
Luis Maris (*Macraset)
.
37
Rubn Martn Tamayo
.
38
Carlos Martnez Snchez
.
39
Luis Milanes
.
40
Angel Mioln (From The Dominican Republic)
.
41
Francisco Miyares (*Pancho)
.
42
Luis Miyares (*Manuel Lpez, Sectional Committee member)
.
303

43
Hector Mont
.
44
Jos Mujal
.
45
Roberto Nieto
.
46
Rafael Oliver
.
47
Pedro M. Ortz
.
48
Nieves Otero (#)
.
49
Carlos M. Padrn Ferrer
.
50
Gerardo Prez Cruz
.
51
Abelardo Ramos
.
52
Mariano Roca
.
53
Ana Salvador
.
54
Leida Sarabia Rodrguez
.
55
Rafael Solr Puig
.
56
Humberto Vila
.

1.5 Victoria de las Tunas and Puerto Padre

1. Manuel Artime
2. Andrs Cu Boada
3. B. Cueto
4. Eugenio Cusid Torres
5. Indalecio Daz
6. Jess Daz Rodrguez
7. A. Domnguez
8. Alberto Carlos Fabres Reyes
9. Rafael Feria Rodrguez
10
Luis Galano Torres
.
11
Segundo Gonzlez
.
12 Alberto Gonzlez Palacios
304

.
13
Dalio Guerra
.
14
Isabel Izada Curbelo
.
15
Martn Juantorena Juantorena
.
16
Ral Lara
.
17
Pascual Maestre Tamayo
.
18
Roberto Nieto Daz-Granados
.
19
M. Prez
.
20
Castor Prez Morin
.
21
Francisco Prez Santiesteban
.
22 Roberto Prez Santiesteban (*Lassalle, General Secretary of Sectional Committee,
. 1933-35)
23
Josefina Rovira Tur
.
24
Pedro Verdecie Prez (*Axelrod)
.
25
Maria Esther Villoch
.
26
Montiniano Villoch
.
27
Francisco Villoch Leyva
.

2. Trotskyists in Cuba, 1940-50s: The Partido Obrero Revolucionario

1. Felix Balanque
2. Daniel Barrier
3. Juan Ramn Bre Landestoy (*Neneno)
4. Francisco Castillo
5. Armando Cruz Cobos
6. Pablo Daz Gonzlez (*Pedro Durn)
7. Arturo Ferrer
8. Idalberto Ferrera Acosta
9. Luciano Garcia Pellicier (*Chano, *Chanito)
10
Anton Grylewicz (Refugee, Leader of the German Trotskyist movement)
.
305

11
Daniel Guerin
.
12
R. Guerra Ayala
.
13
Mary Low (Australian-British)
.
14
Jos Medina Campos
.
15
Juan Medina Campos
.
16
J. Navarro
.
17
Roberto Prez Santiesteban (*Lassalle)
.
18
Guarina Ramrez Acosta
.
19
Louis Rigaudias (*Rigal, Turkish-French)
.
20
Amart Singh
.
21
Rafael Solr Puig
.
22
Elas Surez Caunedo (*Bani, Spanish)
.
23
Antonio ico Torres Chedeveaux
.
24
Godofredo Vega
.

3. Trotskyists in Cuba, post-1959: The Partido Obrero Revolucionario (Trotskista)

1. Roberto Acosta Hechavarra (*R. Carvajal)


2. Andrs Alfonso
3. Mariano Blanco
4. Guido Braas Medina
5. Homero Cristalli (*J. Posadas, *Luis, Argentinian, 3 weeks in July-August 1960)
6. Carmen de Arribas
7. Pablo Daz Gonzlez
8. Angel L. Fanjul (*Heredia, Argentinian, July-August 1960)
9. Idalberto Ferrera Acosta (General Secretary from 1961-62)
10
Idalberto Ferrera Ramrez (Left Cuba in the mid-1990s)
.
11
Juan Leon Ferrera Ramrez (*Esmeglin, *Mismelt)
.
12 Ricardo Ferrera Ramrez
306

.
13
Floridia Fraga
.
14
Luciano Garcia Pellicier (*Chano, *Chanito)
.
15
Adolfo Malvagni Gilly (*H. Lucero, Argentinian, July 1962 until October 1963)
.
16
Mary Low Machado (Australian-British, Left Cuba in 1964)
.
17
Jos Oscar Lungarzo (*Juan, Argentinian, 1961-62 until December 1963)
.
18
Armando Machado (Left Cuba in 1964)
.
19
Fernando Martian Romero
.
20
Jos Medina Campos (General Secretary, 1960-61)
.
21
Luis Naguil (Uruguayan, September 1963)
.
22
Rafael Oliver
.
23
Guarina Ramrez Acosta
.
24
Ren Rivera
.
25
Olga Scarabino (*Miranda, Uruguayan, early 1959 until 1961)
.
26
Alberto Sendic (*A. Ortz, Uruguayan, early to mid-1960)
.
27
Reinaldo Singh
.
28
Elas Surez Caunedo (*Bani, Spanish)
.
29
Roberto Tejera
.
30
Jess Andrs Vzquez Mndez
.
307

BIBLIOGRAPHY

SECTION ONE: ARCHIVES AND COLLECTIONS


Archivo Histrico Provincial de Santiago de Cuba, Santiago de Cuba, Cuba.
Fondo Audencia de Oriente, Sala de Urgencia.
Fondo Audencia de Oriente, Tribuna de Defensa Nacional.

Archivo Nacional de Cuba, Havana, Cuba.


Fondo Especial.

Brynmor Jones Library, University of Hull, Great Britain.

British Library Newspaper Library, London, Great Britain.

Biblioteca Nacional Jos Mart, Havana, Cuba.


Coleccin Reserva.

Centre dtudes et de Recherches sur les Mouvements Trotskystes et Rvolutionnaires


Internationaux, Paris, France.

Centro Studi Pietro Tresso, Foligno, Italy.

Hoover Institution, Stanford, California, USA.


Bertram Wolfe Collection.
Socialist Workers Party Collection.

Houghton Library, Harvard University, Massachusetts, USA.


Satellite Collection of Octavio Fernndez.
Trotsky Archive.

Idalberto Ferrera Acostas personal archive, Havana, Cuba.

Instituto de Historia de Cuba (archive), Havana, Cuba.


Fondo Leornardo Fernndez Snchez.
Fondo Personalidad.
Fondo Primer Partido Marxista Leninista.
Fondo Vilaseca.
Registro General.

Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.


Lev Trotsky and the ILO/ICL Collection.

Marx Memorial Library, London, Great Britain.

New York Public Library, New York, USA.


308

Oficina de Asuntos Histricos, Havana, Cuba.


Fondo Pablo Daz Gonzlez.

Olga Cabrera Garcas personal archive, Goias, Brasil.

Pierre Brous personal archive, St. Martin DHres, France.

Prometheus Research Library, New York, USA.

Robert J Alexanders personal archive, Rutgers University, New Jersey, USA.

Rafael Solr Martnezs personal archive, Santiago de Cuba, Cuba.


Luis Miyares Archive.

Rossiiskii Tsentr Khraneniia i Izucheniia Dokumentov Noveishei Istorii, Moscow,


Russia. Fond 495, opis 105. (The Cuban Communist Party, 1919-38.)

Socialist Platform archive, London, Great Britain.

Socialist Workers Party (United States) archive, New York, USA.

Taniment Institute Library, New York, USA.


Shachtman Papers.

United States National Archives, Maryland, USA.


Record Group 59.

Widener Library, Harvard University, Massachusetts, USA.

SECTION TWO: PRIMARY SOURCES


2.1 Cuban Trotskyist Newspapers and Journals

Cuba Obrera (Havana), 1940-1941. Partido Obrero Revolucionario.

Noticiero Bolchevique (Havana), 1936. Partido Bolchevique Leninista.

Revolucin Proletaria (Havana), 1944-1946. Partido Obrero Revolucionario.

Voz Proletaria (Havana), 1960-1964. Partido Obrero Revolucionario (Trotskista).

2.2 Principal Cuban Trotskyist Pamphlets and Leaflets

Bur de Oposicin Comunista, Que Significa el Congreso de la U.F.O.N.?, Santiago


de Cuba, 15 January 1933.

Central Committee of the Oposicin Comunista, En el Camino de la Revolucin,


Havana, 10 May 1933.
309

Central Committee of the Oposicin Comunista, Estatutos de la Oposicin Comunista


de Cuba, Havana, 30 June 1933.

Central Committee of the Partido Bolchevique Leninista, Estatutos del Partido


Bolchevique Leninista, Havana, 15 September 1933.

Central Committee of the Partido Bolchevique Leninista, A Todos los Obreros y


Campesinos. Al Pueblo de Cuba, 25 September 1933.

Central Committee of the Partido Bolchevique Leninista, Programa del Partido


Bolchevique Leninista, Havana, 1934.

Central Committee of the Partido Bolchevique Leninista, A las Masas Trabajadoras


de Cuba, Havana, 15 October 1939.

Central Committee of the Partido Obrero Revolucionario, Aprestmonos a la Defensa


Armada de Nuestros Derechos Democrticos!, Havana, 14 December 1941.

Central Committee of the Sindicato General de Empleados del Comercio de Cuba, El


Sindicato General de Empleados del Comercio de Cuba Frente al IV Congreso
Obrero Nacional, Havana, Federacin Obrera de La Habana, 12 January 1934.

Central Committee of the Sindicato General de Empleados del Comercio, A Todos los
Empleados del Comercio, Organizados y no Organizados. A los Empleados
Ocupados y Desocupados. A Todos los Trabajadores en General, Havana, 1 April
1934.

Federacin Obrera de La Habana, Sindicato General de Empleados Del Comercio De


Cuba Frente Al IV Congreso Obrero Nacional, Havana, 12 January 1934.

Federacin Obrera de La Habana, Cual Es La Salida?, Havana, 2 July 1934.

Guantnamo Sectional Committee of the Partido Obrero Revolucionario, Hagamos de


la Victoria Obtenida el 1 de Junio un Paso Decisivo en el Camino de la Liberacin
Nacional y Social de Cuba!, Guantnamo, 3 June 1944.

Guantnamo Sectional Committee of the Partido Obrero Revolucionario (Trotskista),


Obreros de Cuba!, Guantnamo, 2 June 1943.

Junco, S, Fuera Caretas!! Contra la Demagogia, las Vilezas y a la Incapacidad de


los Lderes de la C.N.O.C., Havana, January 1934.

La Voz Revolucionaria del Trotskismo en el III Congreso Nacional Obrero,


Havana, Ediciones Cuba Obrera, nd.

Manifesto Programa del Bur de Oposicin Comunista de Santiago de Cuba,


Santiago de Cuba, January 1933.

Mesa Ejecutiva de la Federacin Obrera de La Habana, A Todos los Obreros de la


Provincia, Havana, 18 September 1933.
310

Mesa Ejecutiva de la Federacin Obrera de La Habana, A Todos los Obreros de la


Provincia. Al Pueblo de Cuba, Havana, 30 September 1933.

Mesa Ejecutiva de la Federacin Obrera de La Habana, A Todas las Organizaciones


Federadas y Afines, Havana, 18 November 1933.

Oriente District Committee of the Partido Bolchevique Leninista, Manifesto del


Partido Bolchevique-Leninista, Santiago de Cuba, December 1933.

Partido Bolchevique Leninista, Obreros! Defendemos la Unin Sovitica!, June


1941.

Partido Obrero Revolucionario (Trotskista), Las Tareas Econmicas y la Poltica del


Estado Obrero, Havana, Ediciones Voz Proletaria, September 1963.

Santiago de Cuba Sectional Committee of the Partido Bolchevique Leninista, Al Pueblo


de Cuba, November 1941.

Tejera, R, Leon Trotsky, Havana, 1948.

Trade Union Department of the Guantnamo Section of the Partido Bolchevique


Leninista, A los Obreros de los Centrales y Sus Colonias. A Toda la Clase Obrera,
Guantnamo, 25 January 1940.

Trotskyist Fraction, El VI Congreso Nacional Obrero, Culminacin de Once Aos


de Traicin y Entreguismo en el Movimiento Sindical, Havana, 6 May 1949.

V. I. Lenin Testamento Poltico, Leon Trotsky El Testamento de Lenin, Tesis


Fundamentales de la Revolucin Permanente, Havana, Ediciones Voz Proletaria, nd.

2.3 Principal Reports, Correspondence and Other Unpublished


Documents

Boletn Interior del Partido Obrero Revolucionario, Year 1, No. 1, March 1946.

Central Committee of the Partido Bolchevique Leninista, Tesis Poltica, Havana, 25


October 1935.

Central Committee of the Partido Bolchevique Leninista, A Todas las Secciones,


Clulas y Militantes del Partido, Havana, 24 October 1936.

Central Committee of the Partido Bolchevique Leninista of Cuba, Bilan et Perspectives


+ Programme de Revendications Dmocratiques + Programme dAction, Havana,
25 October 1935.

Central Committee of the Partido Obrero Revolucionario, Declaracin de Principios


del Partido Obrero Revolucionario, Havana, October 1940.

Central Control Commission of the Partido Comunista de Cuba, Resolucin sobre el c.


Gomez-Villar, Havana, 24 August 1932.
311

Fraccin Comunista del Ala Izquierda Estudiantil de Cuba, Al Comit Central del
Partido Comunista de Cuba, Havana, 5 October 1932.

Gmez Villar, A, A Propsito del Primer Congreso del Partido, Untitled Internal
Document of the Partido Bolchevique Leninista, April 1934.

Gmez Villar, A, El Frente nico de los Stalinistas y de los Bolcheviques en Victoria


de las Tunas, Untitled Internal Document of the Partido Bolchevique Leninista,
April 1934.

Gmez Villar, A, Importante, Untitled Internal Document of the Partido


Bolchevique Leninista, April 1934.

Gmez Villar, A, La Conferencia Nacional de los Empleados del Comercio, Untitled


Internal Document of the Partido Bolchevique Leninista, April 1934.

Gmez Villar, A, La Reaparicin de RAYO, Untitled Internal Document of the


Partido Bolchevique Leninista, April 1934.

Gmez Villar, A, Las Luchas en los Sindicatos y el Porque de la Alianza Obrera,


Untitled Internal Document of the Partido Bolchevique Leninista, April 1934.

Gmez Villar, A, Los Camaradas de Oriente y el Caso de Guantnamo, Untitled


Internal Document of the Partido Bolchevique Leninista, April 1934.

Gmez Villar, A, Resolution On The Present Political Situation And Our Tasks,
Havana, 16 October 1934.

Letter from A. J. Muste for the National Committee of the Workers Party of the
U.S. to the Central Committee of the Partido Bolchevique Leninista of Cuba, New
York, 8 January 1935.

The free translation of the letter from the Partido Bolchevique Leninista to the
International Secretariat of the International Communist League, signed by G.
Capablanca (Gastn Medina), the General Secretary of the Partido Bolchevique
Leninista, Havana, 20 March 1935.

Letter from the Bolshevik Leninist Party, the Cuban section of the International
Communist League, to Comrade Gonzalez in New York. Signed and dated in
Havana by the General Secretary, G. Capablanca on 15 April 1935.

Letter from Manuel Lpez to G. Melt, Santiago de Cuba, 11 September 1936.

Letter from Jos Lpez to the Political Bureau of the Bolshevik-Leninists of Cuba,
21 October 1938.

Letter from the Provisional Executive Commission of the Partido Bolchevique


Leninista to C. Munis, Havana, 2 May 1940.
312

Letter from the Political Bureau of the Partido Obrero Revolucionario to the Latin
American Department of the Fourth International, Havana, 26 March 1941.

Letter from the International Executive Committee and the Latin American
Department of the Fourth International to the Santiago de Cuba Comrades, 16
August 1941.

Letter from Pablo Daz Gonzlez to Morris Stein, Havana, 9 May 1948.

Letter from R. Carvajal to Joseph Hansen, Havana, 27 May 1961.

Letter from R. Carvajal to Joseph Hansen, Havana, 8 June 1961.

Partido Comunista de Cuba, Draft Resolucin sobre la Oposicin en el Partido, 1


November 1932.

Prez Santiesteban, R, Por una Rectificacin del Curso Poltico del M.S.R., Havana,
18 April 1948.

Provisional Executive Commission of the Bolshevik Leninist Party of Cuba, Resolution


on the Problem of the Opposition in the S.W.P., Havana, 11 May 1940.

2.4 Cuban Labour Movement and Communist Party Press

Bandera Roja (Havana), 1933-1937.


Boletn de la Unin Sindical de Artes Grficas (Havana), 1934.
El Comunista (Havana), 1940.
Cultura Proletaria (Havana), 1933.
Dialctica (Havana), 1937-1938.
Fundamentos (Havana), 1941.
Lucha de Clases (Havana), 1925-1927.
Noticias de Hoy (Havana), 1938-1962.
El Obrero Panadero (Havana), 1933.
El Repartidor (Havana), 1938.

2.5 International Trotskyist and Official Communist Press

Boletn de Informacin (New York), 1938-1939.


Boletn de la Oposicin Comunista (Mexico D.F.), 1930.
Boletn Sudamericano (Buenos Aires), 1943.
Claridad Proletaria (New York), 1933-34.
Clave (Mexico D.F.), 1939-1941.
The Communist International (London), 1932-1934.
The Communist International (New York), 1930 -1939.
Comunismo (Madrid), 1933-34.
Fourth International (New York), 1940-1956.
Fourth International (Amsterdam/Paris), 1958-1964.
Fourth International (London), 1964-1966.
Frente Obrero (Montevideo), 1963-1965.
Intercontinental Press (New York), 1968-1986.
313

International Bulletin (New York), 1940.


International Press Correspondence (Berlin, Vienna, London), 1921-1937.
Labor Action (New York), 1940-1958.
Labour Review (London), 1957-1963.
Lutte Communiste (Paris), 1962-1967.
The Militant (New York), 1928-1934.
The Militant (New York), 1941-1965.
New International (New York), 1934-1936.
New International (New York), 1938-1958.
New Militant (New York), 1934-36.
The Newsletter (London), 1957-1969.
Quatrime Internationale (Paris), 1959-1962.
Socialist Appeal (New York), 1937-1941.
Spartacist (New York), 1965.
El Trabajador Latino Americano (Montevideo), 1928-1935.
Voz Obrera (Mexico), 1963-1964.
World Outlook (New York), 1963-1968.

2.6 Edited Contemporary Works and Memoirs

Allen, N (ed.), Leon Trotsky: The Challenge of the Left Opposition (1923-25), New
York, Pathfinder Press, 1975.

Allen, N, and Saunders, G (eds), Leon Trotsky: The Challenge of the Left
Opposition (1926-27), New York, Pathfinder Press, 1980.

Allen, N, and Saunders, G (eds), Leon Trotsky: The Challenge of the Left
Opposition (1928-29), New York, Pathfinder Press, 1981.

Breitman, G, and Maisel, M (eds), The Struggle against Fascism in Germany, New
York, Pathfinder Press, 1971.

Breitman, G (et al., eds), Writings of Leon Trotsky (1929-1940), New York,
Pathfinder Press, 1972-80.

Breitman, G (ed.), Writings of Leon Trotsky: Supplement (1929-33), New York,


Pathfinder Press, 1979.

Cannon, JP, Writings and Speeches, 1932-34: The Communist League of America
1932-34, New York, Monad Press, 1985.

Claraval, B, Cuando Fui Comunista, Mexico D.F., Ediciones Polis, 1944.

Degras, J (ed.), The Communist International 1919-1943: Documents, Vol. 1,


London, Oxford University Press, 1956.

Deutscher, I (ed.), The Age of Permanent Revolution: A Trotsky Anthology, New


York, Dell Publishing Co., 1964.
314

El Movimiento Revolucionario Latinoamericano: Versiones de la Primera


Conferencia Comunista Latino Americana, Junio de 1929, Buenos Aires, La
Correspondencia Sudamericana, nd.

Evans, L, and Block, R (eds), Leon Trotsky on China, New York, Monad Press, 1976.

Gilly, A, Monthly Review: Inside the Cuban Revolution, Vol. 16, No. 6, October
1964.

Guevara, E, Cuba: Exceptional Case?, Monthly Review, July-August 1961, pp. 56-
71.

Guevara, E, Escritos Econmicos, Crdoba: Argentina, Ediciones Pasado y Presente,


1969.

Guevara, E, El Socialismo y el Hombre en Cuba, Havana, Editora Poltica, 1988.

Guevara, E, Episodes of the Cuban Revolutionary War 1956-58, New York,


Pathfinder Press, 1996.

Hansen, J, Dynamics of the Cuban Revolution, New York, Pathfinder Press, 1978.

Instituto de Historia del Movimiento Comunista y de la Revolucin Socialista de Cuba


(ed.), J.A. Mella: Documentos y Artculos, Havana, Editorial de Ciencias Sociales,
1975.

Lenin, VI, The April Theses, Moscow, Progress Publishers, 1951.

Losovsky, A, El Movimiento Sindical Latino Americano (Sus Virtudes y sus


Defectos), Montevideo, Ediciones del Comit Pro Confederacin Sindical Latino
Americano, March 1929.

Low, M, and Bre, J, Red Spanish Notebook, London, Martin Secker and Warburg,
1937.

Low, M, and Bre, J, La Verdad Contempornea, Havana, 1943.

Low, M, and Bre, J, Red Spanish Notebook, San Francisco: CA, City Lights Books,
1979.

Lbbe, P (ed.), Ruth Fischer / Arkadij Maslow: Abtrnnig wider Willen, Munich,
R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 1990.

Luxemburg, R, The Russian Revolution and Leninism or Marxism?, Michigan, The


University of Michigan Press, 1961.

Maritegui, JC, The Anti-Imperialist Perspective, New Left Review, No. 70,
November-December 1971, pp. 67-72.

Marx, K, The Class Struggles in France (1848-50), London, Martin Lawrence, nd.
315

Marx, K, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, Moscow, Progress


Publishers, 1977.

Marx, K, and Engels, F, Address of the Central Authority to the League, Karl Marx
and Frederick Engels Collected Works, Vol. 10, London, Lawrence and Wishart,
1978, pp. 277-287.

Mella, JA, Qu Es el ARPA?, Lima, Editorial Educacin, 1975.

Mella, JA, Escritos Revolucionarios, Mexico D.F., Siglo Veintiuno, 1978.

Mella, JA, Proyecto de Tesis sobre la Unidad Sindical Latinoamericana, Memoria


(Centro de Estudios del Movimiento Socialista, Mexico), Vol. 1, No. 6, February-March
1984, p. 125-138.

Pearlman, M (ed.), The Heroic and Creative Meaning of Socialism: Selected Essays
of Jos Carlos Maritegui, New Jersey, Humanities Press, 1996.

The Platform of the Joint Opposition 1927, London, New Park Publications, 1973.

Ramrez Acosta, G, Autobiografa de Guarina de la Caridad Ramrez Acosta,


Havana, 12 July 1985. (Unpublished)

Reisner, W (ed.), Documents of the Fourth International: The Formative Years


(1933-40), New York, Pathfinder Press, 1973.

Revista Comunismo (1931-34), Barcelona, Editorial Fontamara, 1978.

Rigaudias, L, Unpublished Manuscript of the Memoirs of Louis Rigaudias, pp. 208-


217. (Translation by Margaret Gretl Glogau.)

Roca, B, Estados Unidos, Teheran y la Amrica Latina: Una Carta a Earl Browder, In:
Quintanilla Obregn, L (ed.), Lombardismo y Sindicatos en Amrica Latina, Mexico
D.F., Ediciones Nueva Sociologa, 1982, pp. 271-302.

Sorel, G, Reflections on Violence, New York, Collier, 1972.

Theses, Resolutions and Manifestos of the First Four Congresses of the Third
International, London, Pluto Press, 1983.

Tibol, R, Julio Antonio Mella en el Machete, Mexico D.F., Fondo de Cultura Popular,
1968.

The Transitional Programme: The Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of
the Fourth International, London, New Park Publications, 1980.

Trotsky, LD, Por los Estados Unidos Socialistas de Amrica Latina, Buenos Aires,
Ediciones Coyoacn, 1961.
316

Trotsky, LD, The Permanent Revolution. Results and Prospects (1906), London,
New Park Publications, 1962.

Trotsky, LD, History of the Russian Revolution, London, Victor Gollancz Ltd, 1965.

Trotsky, LD, Problems of the Chinese Revolution, Ann Arbor: MI, University of
Michigan Press, 1967.

Trotsky, LD, The Spanish Revolution (1931-39), New York, Pathfinder Press, 1973.

Trotsky, LD, The Third International after Lenin, London, New Park Publications,
1974.

Trotsky, LD, My Life: An Attempt at an Autobiography, Harmondsworth, Penguin


Books, 1975.

Trotsky, LD, The Transitional Program for Socialist Revolution, New York,
Pathfinder Press, 1977.

Trotsky, LD, Sobre la Liberacin Nacional, Bogota, Editorial Pluma, 1980.

Trotsky, LD, Escritos Latinoamericanos, Buenos Aires, Centro de Estudios,


Investigaciones y Publicaciones Len Trotsky, 1999.

Trotskyism Versus Revisionism: A Documented History, Vols 1-6, London, New


Park Publications, 1974-75.

2.7 Unpublished Written Testimonies

Letters to Gary Tennant:


Guillermo Cabrera Infante. Exiled Cuban writer.
Angel L. Fanjul. Argentinian Trotskyist active in Cuba in 1960s
Adolfo Malvagni Gilly. Argentinian Trotskyist active in Cuba in 1960s.
Louis Rigaudias. Turkish-born Trotskyist active in Cuba in 1940s.
Margaret Gretl Glogau. Companion of Louis Rigaudias in Cuba in 1940s.
Mary Low Machado. Australian-born Trotskyist active in Cuba from 1940 until 1964.
Ricardo Napuri. Peruvian who as a leader of the Argentinian Grupo Praxis led by
Silvio Frondizi collaborated with Ernesto Che Guevara in Cuba in the early 1960s.
Tim Wohlforth. Leading U.S. Trotskyist in the 1960s.
Alberto Sendic. Uruguayan Trotskyist active in Cuba in 1960s.

Letters and Manuscripts of interviews given to Robert J. Alexander:


Antonio Alonso vila. Exiled Cuban historian.
Joseph Hansen. Leading U.S. Trotskyist in the 1960s.
Charles Simen Ramrez. General Secretary of the Cuban PBL in the late 1930s.
Raul Valdivia. Autntico trade union leader.

Letters and Manuscripts of interviews given to Rafael Soler Martnez:


Blgica Fraga. Daughter of Cuban Trotskyist, Gustavo Fraga Jacomino.
Gustavo Fraga Velez. Son of Cuban Trotskyist, Gustavo Fraga Jacomino.
317

Luciano Garca Pellicier. Cuban Trotskyist (1930s-60s).


Manuel Garca Surez. Cuban Trotskyist (1930s).
Sergio Mateo. Student activist and Guiterista during the Revolution of the 1930s.
Luis Miyares. Cuban Trotskyist (1930s).
Carlos M. Padrn Ferrer. Exiled Cuban Trotskyist (1930s).
Carlos Padrn. Son of Cuban Trotskyist, Carlos M. Padrn Ferrer.
Jos Antonio Portuondo. Student activist during the Revolution of the 1930s.
Pedro Verdecie Prez. Cuban Trotskyist (1930s).

Manuscript of an interview given by Roberto Acosta Hechavarra to Tano Nario,


Havana, 13 April 1990.

2.8 Interviews

Rafael Acosta de Arribas. Son of Cuban Trotskyist, Roberto Acosta Hechavarra.


Carmen de Arribas. Wife of Cuban Trotskyist, Roberto Acosta Hechavarra.
Olga Cabrera Garca. Exiled Cuban historian.
Orlando Cruz Capote. Cuban historian.
Idalberto Ferrera Acosta. Cuban Trotskyist (1930s to date).
Juan Len Ferrera Ramrez. Cuban Trotskyist (1950s to date).
Guarina Ramrez Acosta. Cuban Trotskyist (1950-60s).
Octavio Louit Venzant. Guantnamo railway worker and leader of the M26J Workers
Section.
Mary Low Machado. Australian-born Trotskyist active in Cuba from 1940 until 1964.
Fernando Martnez Heredia. Cuban historian.
Francisco Medina Escobar. Brother of Cuban Trotskyist, Gastn Medina Escobar.
Mario Medina Escobar. Brother of Cuban Trotskyist, Gastn Medina Escobar.
Mario Menca. Cuban historian.
Jos A. Tabares del Real. Cuban historian.
Roberto Tejera. Cuban Trotskyist.
Carlos del Toro Gonzlez. Cuban historian.

SECTION THREE: SECONDARY SOURCES


3.1 Books

Aguilar, LE (ed.), Marxism in Latin America, New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1968.

Aguilar, LE, Cuba 1933: Prologue to Revolution, Ithaca: NY, Cornell University
Press, 1972.

Aguilar, LE, Cuba c.1860c.1930, In: Bethell, L (ed.), Cuba: A Short History,
Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1993, pp. 21-55.

Alba, V, Esquema Histrico del Comunismo en Iberoamrica, Mexico D.F.,


Ediciones Occidentales, 1960.
318

Alba, V, Historia del Movimiento Obrero en Amrica Latina, Mexico D.F., Editorial
Limusa Wiley, 1964.

Alba, V, Politics and the Labor Movement in Latin America, Stanford: CA, Stanford
University Press, 1968.

Alba, V, and Schwartz, S, Spanish Marxism Versus Soviet Communism, New


Brunswick: NJ, Transaction Books, 1988.

Alba, V (et al.), Andreu Nin i el Socialisme, Barcelona, Universitat de Barcelona,


1998.

Alexander, RJ, Communism in Latin America, New Brunswick: NJ, Rutgers


University Press, 1957.

Alexander, RJ (ed.), Aprismo: The Ideas and Doctrines of Vctor Ral Haya de la
Torre, Ohio, Kent State University Press, 1973.

Alexander, RJ, Trotskyism in Latin America, Stanford: CA, Hoover Institution Press,
1973.

Alexander, RJ, The Right Opposition: The Lovestoneites and the International
Communist Opposition in the 1930s, Westport: CT, Greenwood Press, 1981.

Alexander, RJ (ed.), Biographical Dictionary of Latin American and Caribbean


Political Leaders, Westport: CT, Greenwood Press, 1988.

Alexander, RJ, International Trotskyism 1929-1985: A Documented Analysis of the


Movement, Durham: NC, Duke University Press, 1991.

Anderson, JL, Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life, London, Bantam Press, 1997.

Angell, A, The Left in Latin America since c. 1920, In: Bethell, L (ed.), The
Cambridge History of Latin America, Vol. 6, Part 2, Cambridge, Cambridge
University Press, 1994, pp. 163-232.

Barckhausen-Canale, C, Verdad y Leyenda de Tina Modotti, Havana, Ediciones Casa


de las Amricas, 1989.

Baumann, GG, Los Voluntarios Latinoamericanos en la Guerra Civil Espaola, San


Jos: Costa Rica, Editorial Guayacn Centroamericana, 1997.

Becker, J, and Jentsch, H, Heinrich BrandlerBiographische Skizze, 1924-1967,


Jahrbuch fr Historische Kommunismusforschung (Berlin), Vol. 6, 1998, pp. 305-
329.

Benton, G, Chinas Urban Revolutionaries: Explorations in the History of Chinese


Trotskyism, 1921-1952, New Jersey, Humanities Press, 1996.
319

Bethell, L (ed.), Cuba: A Short History, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press,


1993.

Bethell, L, and Roxborough, I (eds), Latin America Between the Second World War
and the Cold War, 1944-1948, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1992.

Boersner, D, The Bolsheviks and the National and Colonial Question (1917-1928),
Geneva, Librairie E. Droz and Paris, Librairie Minard, 1957.

Bonachea, RL, and San Martn, M, The Cuban Insurrection 1952-1959, New
Brunswick: NJ, Transaction Books, 1974.

Bornstein, S, and Richardson, A, Against the Stream: A History of the Trotskyist


Movement in Britain 1924-38, London, Socialist Platform, 1986.

Bonachea, RE, and Valdes, NP (eds), Che: Selected Works of Ernesto Che Guevara,
Massachusetts, MIT Press, 1969.

Brewer, A, Marxist Theories of Imperialism: A Critical Survey, London, Routledge,


1990.

Brotherstone, T, and Dukes, P (eds), The Trotsky Reappraisal, Edinburgh, Edinburgh


University Press, 1992.

Brou, P, Histoire de lInternationale Communiste, 1919-1943, Paris, Fayard, 1997.

Brunner, D, Fritz LammExil in Kuba, In: Grebing, H, and Wickert, C (eds), Das
andere Deutschland im Widerstand gegen den Nationalsozialismus, Essen,
Klartext Verlag, 1994, pp. 146-172.

Buell, RL (et al.), Problems of the New Cuba: Report of the Commission on Cuban
Affairs, New York, Foreign Policy Association Inc., 1935.

Caballero, M, atin America and the Comintern, 1919-1943, Cambridge, Cambridge


University Press, 1986.

Cabrera, O, El Movimiento Obrero Cubano en 1920, Havana, Instituto del Libro,


1970.

Cabrera, O (ed.), Antonio Guiteras: Su Pensamiento Revolucionario, Havana,


Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 1974.

Cabrera, O, Guiteras, la poca, el Hombre, Havana, Editorial de Arte y Literatura,


1974.

Cabrera, O, and Almodbar, C (eds), Las Luchas Estudiantiles Universitarias 1923-


1934, Havana, Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 1975.

Cabrera, O, Los que Viven por Sus Manos, Havana, Editorial de Ciencias Sociales,
1985.
320

Cabrera, O, Alfredo Lpez: Maestro del Proletariado Cubano, Havana, Editorial de


Ciencias Sociales, 1985.

Callinicos, A, Trotskyism, Milton Keynes, Open University Press, 1990.

Cantn Navarro, J, Cuba: El Desafo del Yugo y la Estrella, Havana, Editorial SI-
MAR, 1996.

Carr, B, Marxism and Communism in Twentieth-Century Mexico, Lincoln: NE,


University of Nebraska, 1992.

Carr, B, From Caribbean Backwater to Revolutionary Opportunity: Cubas Evolving


Relationship with the Comintern, 1925-34, In: Rees, T, and Thorpe, A (eds),
International Communism and the Communist International 1919-43, Manchester,
Manchester University Press, 1998, pp. 234-253.

Carr, EH, Foundations of a Planned Economy: 1926-29, Vol. 3, London, Macmillan


Press, 1978.

Casanovas, J, Bread, or Bullets! Urban Labor and Spanish Colonialism, 1850-1898,


Pittsburgh: PA, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1998.

Casciola, P, Trotsky and the Struggles of the Colonial Peoples, Foligno, Centro Studi
Pietro Tresso, 1990.

Castaeda, JG, Utopia Unarmed: The Latin American Left after the Cold War,
New York, Vintage Books, 1994.

Castaeda, JG, Compaero: The Life and Death of Che Guevara, London,
Bloomsbury, 1997.

Cerdas-Cruz, R, The Communist International in Central America, 1920-36,


Basingstoke, Macmillan Press/St. Anthonys College Oxford, 1993.

Chilcote, RH, Revolution and Structural Change in Latin America: A Bibliography


on Ideology, Development and the Radical Left (1930-1965), Vol. 2, Stanford: CA,
Hoover Institution Press, 1970.

Claudin, F, The Communist Movement: From Comintern to Cominform,


Harmondsworth, Penguin Books, 1975.

Cliff, T, Deflected Permanent Revolution, London, Socialist Workers Party, 1990.

Cliff, T, Trotskyism after Trotsky: The Origins of the International Socialists,


London, Bookmarks, 1999.

Coggiola, O, Historia del Trotskismo Argentino, Vol. 1 (1929-1960), Buenos Aires,


Centro Editor de Amrica Latina, 1985.
321

Coggiola, O, Historia del Trotskismo Argentino, Vol. 2 (1960-1985), Buenos Aires,


Centro Editor de Amrica Latina, 1986.

Coggiola, O, El Trotskismo en Amrica Latina, Buenos Aires, Ediciones Magenta,


1993.

Crdova, E, Clase Trabajadora y Movimiento Sindical en Cuba, (1819-1959), Vol.


1, Miami: FL, Ediciones Universal, 1995.

Crdova, E, Clase Trabajadora y Movimiento Sindical en Cuba, (1959-1996), Vol.


2, Miami: FL, Ediciones Universal, 1996.

Cupull Reyes, A, Julio Antonio Mella en los Mexicanos, Havana, Editorial Poltica,
1984.

De Armas, R (et al.), Los Partidos Polticos Burgueses en Cuba Neocolonial 1899-
1952, Havana, Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 1985.

De la Torriente-Brau, P, Peleando con los Milicianos, Havana, Ediciones Nuevo


Mundo, 1962.

De la Torriente-Brau, P, Presidio Modelo, Havana, Editorial de Ciencias Sociales,


1975.

Debray, R, Revolution in the Revolution?, London, Penguin Books, 1972.

Del Toro, C, El Movimiento Obrero Cubano en 1914, Havana, Instituto del Libro,
1969.

Departamento de Orientacin Revolucionaria del Comit Central del Partido Comunista


de Cuba (ed.), ...Porque en Cuba Solo Ha Habido una Revolucin, Havana, Empresa
de Medios de Propaganda, 1975.

Dolgoff, S, The Cuban Revolution: A Critical Perspective, Montral, Black Rose


Books, 1976.

Domnguez, JI, Cuba: Order and Revolution, Cambridge: MA, Belknap Press, 1978.

Domnguez, JI, Cuba since 1959, In: Bethell, L (ed.), The Cambridge History of
Latin America, Vol. 7, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1990, pp. 457-508.

Draper, T, Castros Revolution: Myths and Realities, New York, Frederick A.


Praeger, 1962.

Draper, T, Castroism: Theory and Practice, London, Pall Mall Press, 1965.

Drucker, P, Max Shachtman and His Left: A Socialists Odyssey through the
American Century, New Jersey, Humanities Press, 1994.
322

Duarte Hurtado, M, La Maquina Torcedora de Tabaco y las Luchas en Torno a Su


Implantacin en Cuba, Havana, Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 1973.

Duarte Hurtado, M, La Estrategia Unitaria de la Revolucin Cubana, Havana,


Editora Historia, 1997.

Dumpierre, E, J.A. Mella: Biografa, Havana, Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 1977.

Durgan, AC, B.O.C. 1930-1936: El Bloque Obrero y Campesino, Barcelona, Laertes,


1996.

Esteban, R, El Movimiento Obrero de Europa y Amrica, Havana, Ediciones


Lluita, 1946.

Falcoff, M, and Pike, FB, The Spanish Civil War, 1936-39: American Hemispheric
Perspectives, Lincoln: NE, University of Nebraska Press, 1982.

Farber, S, Revolution and Reaction in Cuba, 1933-1960: A Political Sociology from


Machado to Castro, Middletown: CT, Wesleyan University Press, 1976.

Fernndez, F, Cuba: The Anarchists and Liberty, Sydney, Monty Miller Press, 1987.

Fernndez, LM, Lzaro Pea: Capitn de la Clase Obrera, Havana, Editorial de


Ciencias Sociales, 1984.

Foner, PS, A History of Cuba and its Relations with the United States, Vol. 2 (1845-
1895), New York, International Publishers, 1963.

Frank, P, The Fourth International: The Long March of the Trotskyists, London,
Ink Links, 1979.

Franqui, C, Family Portrait with Fidel, London, Jonathan Cape, 1983.

Friedlaender, H, Historia Econmica de Cuba, Havana, Editorial de Ciencias Sociales,


1978.

Fursenko, A, and Naftali, T, One Hell of a Gamble. Khrushchev, Castro, Kennedy


and the Cuban Missile Crisis, 1958-1964, London, Pimlico, 1999.

Gall, O, Trotsky en Mxico y la Vida Poltica en el Perido de Crdenas, 1937-


1940, Mexico D.F., Ediciones Era, 1991.

Garca Montes, J, and Alonso vila, A, Historia del Partido Comunista de Cuba,
Miami: FL, Ediciones Universal, 1970.

Gilly, A, The Mexican Revolution, London, Verso, 1983.

Gilly, A, La Senda de la Guerrilla (Por Todos los Caminos/2), Mexico D.F.,


Editorial Nueva Imagen, 1986.
323

Goldenberg, B, The Cuban Revolution and Latin America, London, George Allen
and Unwin, 1965.

Gonzlez Carbajal, L, El Ala Izquierda Estudiantil y Su poca, Havana, Editorial de


Ciencias Sociales, 1974.

Gonzlez Casanova, P (ed.), Historia del Movimiento Obrero en Amrica Latina,


Vol. 1, Mexico D.F., Siglo Veintiuno Editores, 1984.

Gonzlez Palacios, C, Revolucin y Seudo-Revolucin en Cuba, Havana, Cultural


S.A., 1948.

Gosse, V, Where the Boys Are: Cuba, Cold War and the Making of a New Left,
London, Verso, 1993.

Grobart, F, Un Forjador Eternamente Joven, Havana, Editorial Gente Nueva, 1985.

Guerra, R, Azcar y Poblacin en las Antillas, Havana, Editorial de Ciencias Sociales,


1970.

Habel, J, Cuba: The Revolution in Peril, London, Verso, 1991.

Halebsky, S (et al., eds), Cuba in Transition: Crisis and Transformation, Boulder:
CO, Westview Press, 1992.

Henderson, P, The Rise and Fall of Anarcho-Syndicalism in Latin America, 1880-


1930, In: Fowler, W (ed.), Ideologues and Ideologies in Latin America, Westport:
CT, Greenwood Press, 1997.

Hodges, DC, The Latin American Revolution: Politics and Strategy from Apro-
Marxism to Guevarism, New York, William Morrow and Co., 1974.

Huberman, L, and Sweezy, PM, Anatomy of a Revolution, London, Monthly Review


Press, 1960.

Huberman, L, and Sweezy, PM, Socialism in Cuba, New York, Modern Reader
Paperbacks, 1969.

Ibarra, J, Historia de Cuba, Havana, Direccin Poltica de las F.A.R., 1968.

Ibarra, J, Cuba: 1898-1921 Partidos Polticos y Clases Sociales, Havana, Editorial de


Ciencias Sociales, 1992.

Ibarra, J, Cuba: 1898-1958. Estructura y Procesos Sociales, Havana, Editorial de


Ciencias Sociales, 1995.

Ibarra, J, Prologue to Revolution: Cuba, 1998-1958, Boulder: CO, Lynne Reinner,


1998.
324

Iglesias, A, Revolucin y Dictadura en Cuba, Buenos Aires, Editorial Reconstruir,


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