We produce herewith extracts from Fidel Castro's speech attacking bureaucratic developments in Cuba together with some of the commentary made by our Australian comrades in their journal International (May 15th),
On: March 26th, Castre launched an attack on bureaucratic developments in the Integrated Revolutionary Organisations, a fusion of the July 26th Movement, the Popular Socialist Party (C.P.), and the Revolutionary Directorate. This speech has especial significance in sounding an urgent warning against one of the ereates; dangers which can overtake a revolutionary leadership after the conquest of power. Castro refers to "a saying of Lenin, that the attitude, that is the seriousness of purpose, of a revolutionary party is measured basically by the att— itude it takes towards its own errom"
In his speech, Casypro shows how easily a revolutionary leadership can’ fall into the fatal error of sectarianism, of condemning and displacing all who cannot claim 'a long record of Marxist militancy."" He shows how the people were converted into a vast revolutionary concourse of soldiers, members of the militia, fighting men and women, and how these revolutionary masses then sought methods of consolidating their initial victory over the reactionary forces of Cuban capitalism. But the methods applied were those applicable to entirely different conditions and "we turned certain mthods into a system and fell into a frightful sectarianism." "But were we really forming a true Marxist party?" he asked. "Were we really constructing a true vanguard of the working class? Were we really integrating the revolutionary forces? We were not integrating the revolutionary forces. We were not organising a party. We were organising a straitjacket, a yoke, companeros. We were not furthering a free association of revolutionists, rather we were form— ing an army of tamed and submissive revolutionists."” .wccascooe
"We believe that Anibal Escalante's actions in these matters were not the product of oversight nor that they were unconscious, but rather that they were deliberate and conscious.......He was creating conditions and giving instructions which tended to convort that apparatus, not into the apparatus of the workers! vanguard, but rather into a nest of privilage, into one which tolorated favouritism, into a system of immunitics-and favours." After attacking the cult of the individual Castro continued, "We waged a war, we led it, we won it, and there are no general's stars on our shoulders and no modals hang from our chests. And the first law which we proposed when we assumed governmental power prohibited the erectian of statues — these problems related to the cult of the personality were not discussed as much as thoy are now — but out of deep conviction we proposed p prohibiting the erection of statues of living persons, the naming of streots after living persons and, what is more, that the placing of our portraits in the Govern ment offices be prohibited by law..."
Castro then showed how the general secrotary of the P.S.P. (C.P.) in every province, in every municipality, in every nucleus was made the genoral sec retary of the Integrated Revolutionary Organisation for cach area, a procedure for which C.P. leader Anibal Escalante was held responsible. This was the sectarianism which Castro attacked, particularly because it isolated the leadership from the massese "To isolate oneself from the masses when one is in powor — that is madness It is another matter to be isolated by the ruling classes, by the exploiters, when. the latifundistas (great landowners) and the imperialists e in power; but to be divorced from the masses when the workers, the campasinos, tho working class is im power, is a crime, Then sectarianism becomes counter-revolutionary because it weakens and harms the revolution.
“oeeesA Marxist-Leninist party, which is the vanguard of the working class, is anassociation of free revolutionists, whorein all the revolutionists follow a policy based on methods and principles. a policy which offers equal guar— entces to all, to whoever works, to whoever fulfills his responsibiligics, A policy which offdrs guarantees to all against injustice, against abuso of power, against discrimination, against mistroatment, so that all nay foel they are ocqually guar— anteed, the new as well as the old. If we do the same on all levels it will strengthen us, it will make our revolution more poworful. It will make the poople's foith in the rovolutionary leadership firmer, It will make the faith of all revol— utionists of the world in us greater, It will make tho faith of all revolutionary organisations of Latin America in the Cuban rovolution greator. Why? Because the fact that we know how to make corrections will give the Cuban revolution prestige."