A butterfly against Stalin

25^th Anniversary of the Death of Celia Sanchez Manduley
by Celia Hart, January 14, 2005

Bureaucracy had unique adversaries. Celia Sánchez, Fidel Castro’s secretary, had not read much about Marxist theory in her life and about Stalin in the USSR. She was, however, the punishment for the practice of the Georgian’s methods that has given us so much to say and still does.

Celia, to whom I owe the beautiful sound of my name, was not only the personal secretary of Fidel renouncing everything: family, political visibility and other benefits she deserved for being the first woman rebel in the Sierra Maestra. Celia was, in fact, the personal secretary of the Cuban revolution. She was the first lady, but not the first lady of the Republic of Cuba, but the first and decided rebel of the Cuban socialist revolution.

Celia set up a bridge between Fidel and the people, a light and flexible bridge. Her wisdom and briskness, her light step, quiet, and her love for the revolution to which she devoted her best weapons. Freeing myself from any sense of machismo or feminism or any other isms they can assign to me, José Martí thought of Celia Sánchez when he wrote: “It is not that she is lacking the best capacity in man but that her fine and sensitive nature sends her to higher and more difficult tasks.”

As a child, Celia and her father, a physician working in Manzanillo, his home, took a bust of Martí to the highest point in the island. The minutes of the initiation of Cuban revolutionaries begins with the name of José Martí.  If the words of this mystery are felt rather than understood as a child, nothing more needs to be said; you will become a revolutionary. And if you betray it, nothing more can be done to prevent you becoming the worst of men.

In her fragile structure, her thin hands and colors of her unique clothing, José Martí, Fidel Castro and the Cuban people were joined without clashing.

To know about Celia suffice it to look upon the beautiful book “Ensayo para una biografía” (Essay for a biography) by Pedro Alvarez Tabío.  Celia Sánchez Manduley was born in May of 1920, in Media Luna, a small rural town with about 4000 inhabitants in Oriente (Eastern part of the island) near Vicana River that is born in the Sierra Maestra.

If anything can be said of the place, Media Luna worked in the production of sugar, that in 1920 was low; when several workers strikes took place; and when the auspicious Socialist Party, founded in 1906 by Martín Velóz (Martinillo), was spreading socialist ideas already in Manzanillo, during the first decade of the century. If we add to this the undaunted devotion to José Martí and the history of Cuba by her father Manuel Sánchez, in addition to an intrepid genetics, Celia could not have been different.

 Armando Hart writes in his essay “Profiles”: “I remember the first time I heard talk of Celia (1950). The comrades Pedro Miret and Ňico López went to Santiago to enter into contact with Frank País, to tour around Oriente province and analyze the probable areas we could use as revolutionary combat scenarios … They returned to Havana from Oriente happy with the possibilities they found in Manzanillo where she and other comrades organized clandestine cells and supported the popular movement against the tyranny”.

At some time we will have to stop and calibrate Cuban society then … Fidel Castro must have been a great man for being able to sum up, reorganize and launch as only one the revolutionary Party … and communist??? from the many and formidable forces existing in my country (THIS IS COUNTRY AND NOT HOMELAND I DEDICATE TO YOU, MARCIN, it cost me).

In 1957 Celia works definitively with Fidel Castro. From that moment on she turned over that people she carried within her to the immensity of Fidel, being present at every decision and giving that same audacity, tenderness and commitment with which she placed the first bust of Martí in the Pico Turquino. Celia Sánchez placed her gifts of revolutionary, guerrilla and organizer in the hands of Fidel Castro who, since then, could no longer leave behind that slender military strategist.

Once the revolution triumphed, her mission was the same: that of transducer. A perfect mediator between the work of the revolution, its people and leader. Also, one of the leaders. I remember, as a child, that my father would say: “I’m going to see Celia”. He said it like a sacred act, partially secret, as if he was going to confession. And that was true: facing Celia who had the magical power to join heaven and earth without showing off, like ideas and sublime projects that she transformed in rapid memos, efficient meetings and pertinent engagements. The administrative life of Fidel Castro: The impressive Agrarian Reform, the Declarations of Havana, Girón … to the October Crisis, when the world was about to end under a nuclear war, were decided, weighed, in some manner, in a building on 11^th Street of the capital neighborhood of Vedado. There Celia and Fidel lived, each in their own apartment, like good neighbors.

My mother and Celia formed a sort of revolutionary sisterhood. The intuition in face of the problems, the character of the comrades, everything was settled by these two women as if they were still doing revolution. And they were! The revolutionaries that lasted in time, the ones who did not betray, those who did not abandon us either politically or economically, that is also a form of betrayal. They are there today, in combat. Those who still suffer negligence who, where ever they are, do not stop and ask and question and change. Because the revolution that Celia planned together with Fidel, Frank, Che, Camilo, Haydée is absolutely the only revolution possible in Cuba and in the world. And that revolution is permanent. Celia was a permanent revolutionary. For this reason only we remember her 25 years after her death. Because we need Celia Sánchez.

Recently I uselessly tried to make myself understood by a comrade about the elements of Stalinist bureaucracy in the Cuban revolution. I tried to explain how this revolution lived its first fifteen years without becoming institutionalized, how tasks of prime importance were pushed forward, with that heterodox form, such as the illiteracy campaign, the educational plans and all the reforms that more than reforms are revolutions or missions that made this revolution the dream of millions of young men and women in the world, that perfectly organized the political life of Cuba.

The triumphant socialist revolutions must conquer a subtle and persistent and … deep-rooted … enemy. Stalinism. Stalinism (to somehow give a name to this tendency) can do away with the resolves of socialism. The danger of trying to keep alive the socialist revolution and not try, uselessly, to build socialism in only one country, the agony of always being alone … or having poor bed fellows, infects us with this disease, that is mortal if not caught in time but easy to cure if we have hearts, intelligence and courage in its service, as Celia showed. Stalinism with its resort to dark and spread out power, his contract with political mediocrity, his hatred for talent. This disciplined adventure is like a power capable of destroying the bacteria that defeated the Martians in the renowned work by H. G. Wells and broadcast by Orson Welles “The War of the Worlds”.

Neither science, nor the highest skills and will of men could destroy them. Merely some minute organisms were able to wipe out these invaders from space. That is the way Stalinism works. No, but don’t think I am a pessimist: We are hit by bacteria and acquire bacteria every day. But we also have lymphocytes. They protect us from disease in this battle. If the macrophages cannot handle it, if there are too many bacteria or if they are very new, it’s enough to attack them with the right antibiotic and in a few days we are saved. Stalinism is a bacterium we acquire when we achieve power. But, we also have many good bacteria that we didn’t have before. With Stalinism it’s enough to be vaccinated periodically. The socialist revolution, while being a new form of power needs new vaccines. We spend time being careful about “accidents” or foreign “aggressors” and do not take care to be vaccinated against self generating ills. This has been one of the problems of revolutions … A vaccine, a simple vaccine. There are moments when it is too late and we must apply drips with strong antibiotics that are drastic measures, those that are a two faced sword, but necessary.

“It would be naïve to think that Stalin, unknown by the masses, suddenly rose up from the background armed with a strategic plan all prepared. No … Before he had set out on his road, bureaucracy had predicted him …”, Trotsky said (“The revolution betrayed”). In my opinion he has always given the best diagnosis of the disease. That is Stalin: he was the repository of that natural stress that a socialist revolution assumes. Even more so if it is a socialist revolution, isolated, persecuted by a fierce imperialism. The invisible siege of Stalinism is much more dangerous then.

One of these vaccines, one that fought this bacterium in my revolution, naturally and organically, was Celia Sánchez. She never lost the bonds with the people. The harder the international political scene the more she boosted popular opinion.

In Cuba, Lenin has not died and this is a new experience, a form of salvation. But in the early years when the revolution was an infant, then the arms of Celia lulled it through her devotion to the truth, her incredible practical sense and her deep knowledge of the personality of Fidel and the rest of the leaders of the revolution. She fulfilled her task protecting them from the assaults of Stalinism that was, of course translated from Russian to our Spanish. I don’t know if Celia had read about the Bolshevik revolution. It doesn’t matter; her instinct added, of course, to the impact of Fidel, the audacity of Che and the mental structure of this people that saved the new born.

In 1975 the first Congress of the Party and its institutionalization occurred. Armando Hart again says: “The guerrilla fighter of the mountains of Oriente, she who liked to sleep in hammocks, walk along the trails (…) was, however, capable of promoting, organizing and moving about the formalities of the official tasks that all States inevitably have.”

It was another stage of the revolution. Left behind were many things. The young revolution dressed in long gowns; she was 15 years old. Celia knew how to rise up to the occasion and understand the road and somehow solve the new circumstances around her … this young woman. She enjoyed the beautiful: she enjoyed and cultivated it like the mariposa flower. I still don’t understand how these two women who never went to university were the masters of beauty in Cuba. Mi mother in the Casa de las Americas with the irreverent intellectuals of this country and Celia in the mystical ambiance of Fidel Castro. I have a clear memory of the Ibero-American Summit in 1979, Celia displayed a fine sense of taste in the uniforms of the waitresses, of the homes of the invited heads of state, the meals, cocktails. Every thing had a tropical flavor with light and clarity without excess, maintaining the strictest etiquette. She designed everything, from the beautiful reception hall of the Council of State where still, they say, the giant ferns sway and the rocks are still in the majestic and popular Lenin Park.

Perhaps her love of beauty made her a true revolutionary and could frighten off the dark ghost of Stalin, that gray ghost that has always wanted to swallow up the infinite light of the authentic phantom of the Communist Manifest or maybe, perhaps she could enhance and harmonize the life of Fidel because she was a true revolutionary. It’s the famous story about the egg and the chicken. It doesn’t matter. One thing is clear for us: Somehow Celia was the summary of the people of Cuba, not of the woman, nor the man, but the best part of the Cuban people. She never stopped being a delicate country and educated woman who wielded power (like the majority of the comrades).

Che reminded us endlessly that one of our sacred duties was world revolution. Celia, with her rapid gait reminded us to never stop the revolution within our watery borders. Better advice, impossible!

The many Viet Nams in America are the simple solution to the problems of the world, although so many Congresses and useless rhetoric wants to complicate it. Today, to fight against that serial assassin that is the government of the United States and its allies has become the same target for communists, Muslims, Christians if they are all authentic. It is beautiful to say that the socialist revolution is the only savior of Christianity and other religions (I want to list them but I don’t know Islamism???) This monster has no pity. And, little by little, but assuredly, he is approaching Hitler. Perhaps his new team can help him to write Mein Kampf. The world is getting desperate. The tsunami in Southeast Asia could not be prevented, but know it yes, if the sensors of seismic movements had been put in place, like in other places, if only Bush et al who are so Christian had remembered the commandment Thou shall not kill, he would have saved bullets and bodies, then we would know a lot more that the stupidity of power and money hides from us. And after the triumph there is the care of Celia. Simple as that.

Celia was implacable with imperialism and the enemies of the Cuban revolution who are, all told, the enemies of the world. She didn’t permit, for one instant, that the shroud of bureaucracy cloud the task at hand. She could not save us from all manifestation, but at least the enemy, because Stalinism is also our enemy. She knew that while she lived alongside Fidel she had no space. There were, undoubtedly, Stalinist tendencies, those tendencies, although not bureaucratic, served to penetrate society and for that which was not mediocre, was to find followers.

I remember as if today were January 9, 1980. Haydée Santamaria got us out of bed, just this once. They say that the only time they saw her in that state was in 1967 with the death of Che. Amid constant tears I heard mi mother say only one word that made her cry more: “Fidel, my daughter.” “Who will take care of Fidel  now?” “Fidel is healthy mama, there are many comrades of taking care of him” I answered. But today I understand my mother. With Celia the people took care of Fidel, its best comrade.

Twenty five years have passed since these two women are no longer with us. So many things have ceased to exist! Now the USSR is not threatening us with its oil, its cement, its protection but the double economy in my homeland is dancing and I don’t know if there is a way to free ourselves from this economic artifact that the double currency represents and brings with it. Imperialism we combat with weapons and ideas … it seems that to care for ourselves from these new evils we need the “mariposa”…

Every morning when I take my son to school I observe those fragile and willful winged beings who, in unequaled flight, enfolds us. I wonder if Celia remembered, before dying, to explain to these little ladies how much we need them to protect us from the new ghosts.

Edited and web-posted by Walter Lippmann, January 2005