MB3PI-12
Marxist Bulletin No. 3 – Part I
1962 Split in the SWP Revolutionary Tendency
Declaration on the Cuban Crisis
The Cuban revolution is now at its hour of greatest peril. The result of the round trip of the Soviet missiles has been to make a deal between Khrushchev and Kennedy at the expense of the Cuban people no longer merely a perspective but an immediate threat. U.S. armed aggression in the form of an all-out invasion of Cuba, though still not the optimum variant of U.S. imperialism, is now for the first time guaranteed the tacit support of the Kremlin if a formal “negotiated” settlement restoring U.S. hegemony in the Caribbean cannot be imposed on the Cuban people.
In this situation the duty of the Trotskyists toward the Cuban revolution only begins with demonstrations of sympathy and support for Cuba. The obligation of the Trotskyists, which no other tendency can even claim to fulfill, is to provide a political analysis, a political line upon which the defense of the revolution must be based.
The decisive point in the political line in defense of the Cuban revolution against all its enemies is explicit denunciation of the counter-revolutionary role of the Stalinist bureaucracy in the concrete instance of Cuba. The Cuban revolution cannot be defended by arms under the control of Kremlin bureaucrats whose only interest is to turn the revolution to the service of Russian foreign policy, including selling it out entirely if the price is right. The only defense of the Cuban revolution is the determination of the Cuban people to resist by any and all means, and the conscious solidarity of the international working class against all the enemies of the revolution. The false policy of the Castro leadership, its political bloc with the Stalinists, has gravely undermined this defense.
The International Committee of the Fourth International, in its statement entitled “Defend the Cuban Revolution” published in the November 3rd Newsletter, defined the basic lines of a Trotskyist defense of the Cuban revolution, particularly in its statements: “Installation of Soviet missile bases in Cuba is not for the defense of the Cuban revolution, but part of the diplomatic game of Khrushchev…the setting up of Soviet missile bases as a substitute for international working-class struggle cannot defend the revolution…the counter-revolutionary policy of Stalinism prepares the crushing of the Cuban revolution, not its defense.” We ask the editorial board of the Militant to print this I.C. statement.
We furthermore ask the PC to adopt the political line of the International Committee declaration as the basic line of the party in its defense of the Cuban revolution. This should be the starting point of a campaign for international working-class solidarity with the Cuban revolution based on the establishment of workers’ democracy in Cuba and full, open collaboration of the Cuban revolution with the international working-class movement in all phases, military as well as political, of revolutionary defense.
****
November 30, 1962
Roger Ahrams (New York)
Dorothy Bell (Oakland-Berkeley)
Emily Cavalli (Oakland-Berkeley)
Joyce Cowley (San Francisco)
Paul Curtis (Oakland-Berkeley) (1)
Maria di Savio (San Francisco)
Roy Gale (San Francisco)
Lynne Harper (New York)
Larry Ireland (New York)
Rose Jersawitz (Oakland-Berkeley)
Stanley Larson (Oakland Berkeley)
Ed Lee (Oakland-Berkley)
Albert Nelson (New York)
Shane Mage (New York)
Charlotte Michaels (New York)
Roger Plumb (Oakland-Berkeley)
Tony Ravich (New York) (2)
Leigh Ray (San Francisco)
James Robertson (New York)
Shirley Stoute (New York)
Marion Syrek, Jr. (Oakland-Berkeley)
Polly Volker (San Francisco)
Geoffrey White (Oakland-Berkeley)
Jack Wolf (Connecticut) (2)
(1) “I take exception to the last sentence of paragraph three. There may have been no alternative for the Castro leadership. The policy however, is a false one.”
(2) “I favor publication of the I.C. statement on the Cuban crisis. I am in general sympathy with this statement.”