After the October Revolution in Russia, most marxists anticipated that successive socialist revolutions would follow more or less the same path, soviets would come into being which would be the instruments for taking over power and establishing workers' power; leadership would come from well-organised vanguard parties. It was also confidently expected that the technically advanced countries of Western Europe would be the first to follow the Russian example. Lenin, Trotsky, Zinoviev and other outstanding leaders of the Communist International in the early 20's were, however, not unaware that historical development does not always take the desirable course. Because of uneven development, not only between countries but also within specific countries, a revolutionary situation could ripen before a vanguard party reached the necessary maturity to lead it. The THESES ON TACTICS adopted by the Fourth Congress of the Comintern in 1922 provided for such eventualities. It emphasised that a coalition of working class parties could form "workers' governments" (or "workers' and peasants' governments") which would not be the same thing as the "dictatorship of the proletariat" but could under given conditions be pushed in that direction.
Dogmatic marxists, anxious to maintain their virginal purity, even if objective conditions demand new solutions, have stuck to the formula "no vanguard party, no soviets no workers' state." These people, of whom the Socialist Labour League is an outstanding example have, therefore, obstinately stuck to the position that Cuba is a capitalist country ruled by a petit bourgeois clique in the interests of Wall St.
WALL STREET CAPITALISTS KNOW BETTER
The Wall Street imperialists, of course, have taken a more realistic view of the situation and have drawn a "cordon sanitaire" round Cuba to prevent this "petit-bourgeois" contagion from spreading to their vassal states in Latin America.
The National Education Department of the Socialist Workers Party of the United States has done marxists an outstanding service by publishing the record of the controversy on the Cuban question in which marxists have been engaged since 1960∗ It contains the DRAFT THESES ON THE CUBAN REVOLUTION adopted in December, 1960, by the Political Committee of the SWP, which traces, step by step the developments in Cuba from the time Castro came to power in January, 1959, showing how the hostility of American imperialism and the propertied classes in Cuba to the July 26th Movement forced the Castro Government to turn to the left. From the autumn of 1959 Cuba could be said to be ruled by a workers' and farmers' government as foreseen in the Comintern's THESES ON TACTICS.
American imperialism declared economic war on Cuba and under the impact of this pressure the Castro Government was compelled to resort to increasingly radical measures. These included the establishment of a monopoly of foreign trade, nationalisation of the latifunda, expropriation of American and Cuban capitalist holdings. These steps necessitated economic planning and the property relations in Cuba began more and more to resemble those established by the October Revolution. Cuba became the outpost of the socialist world in the Western Hemisphere. The old state structure was smashed and the new state structure is so committed to a planned economy that only bloody counter-revolutionary invasion could restore capitalist property relations. The Cuban economy was tied to that of the Soviet bloc.
NO SOVIETS YET
The THESES underlines the fact that organs of democratic workers' form of power (soviets) have not yet been established in Cuba. In this sense Cuba can be described as a deformed workers' state just as the Soviet Union, where the soviets were destroyed by the stalinist bureaucracy is correctly designated by marxists as a degenerate workers' state. But the absence of these norms of workers' democracy in no way invalidates the fact that both Cuba and the Soviet Union are workers' states which must be unconditionally defended by socialists against attacks from imperialism.
There is abundant evidence that the Cuban leadership is painfully seeking to overcome this lack of workers' democracy. They are constantly discussing ways and means of preventing the consolidation of a bureaucracy and to absorb the necessary lessons from the experiences of the Soviet bloc, China and Yugoslavia. Above all, they have recognised the international character of their revolution and have not hesitated to place their own gains at risk in order to extend the revolution to the whole of Latin America. Their unconditional solidarity with the fighting people of Vietnam is also proof of their working class internationalism.
Cuba is today the acid test for all who call themselves marxists, just as the October Revolution was in 1917. This publication, with its valuable appendices which include extracts from the debates on the THESES AND TACTICS at the Fourth Congress of the Comintern, will help to clear away the cobwebs which clutter the minds of those who attach more value to the traditional forms of the revolution than to the real revolution which is taking place today.
∗ THE NATURE OF THE CUBAN REVOLUTION, obtainable from Pioneer Book Service, 8, Toynbee Street, London E.1.; 7/6d plus 10d postage.