Chapter 8 of Ernest Mandel, A Rebel’s Dream Deferred by Jan Willem Stutje, pp.147-164
“It is more pleasant and useful to go through the ‘experience of the revolution’ than to write about it.”
— V.I. Lenin, The State and Revolution 1
The progressive revival of the 1960s, which in Belgium began with the general strike of 1960-61, brought with it a renewal of the connection between struggle and theoretical debate, a connection that had been lost during the interwar ‘darkness at noon’ of Stalinism.
Although Marxist critical thought had not been entirely silenced, as shown by the works of Cornelius Castoriadis and Paul Sweeny, Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks and Karl Korsch’s later work, in academia it had been marginalized, confined to the domains of aesthetics and philosophy.2 In the 1960s such publishers as Maspero in France and Feltrinelli in Italy rediscovered the heterodox political literature that had long been on Stalin’s index. Creative Marxist thought emerged from the shadow of the universities and stimulated — in addition to the debates about neo-capitalism and the role of the proletariat — thinking about decolonization, revolution and post-capitalist society, the Soviet Union and China, Algeria and Cuba.
In Marxist Economic Theory Mandel had examined the economics of transitional societies.3 The sociologist Pierre Naville encouraged him to pursue the subject further. Naville was preparing to republish New Economics (first published in 1923), an analysis of the Soviet economy by Yevgeni Preobrazhensky, who had been killed by Stalin in 1937.4 He asked Mandel to write a foreword. 5 Central to the book was the question of what dynamic would arise in an agricultural society in transition from capitalism to socialism and what sources of socialist accumulation would be available. Mandel wrote that Preobrazhensky had made possible an economic policy free of pragmatism and empiricism.6 This book’s publication contributed to the economic debate in Cuba.
In Cuba with Che Guevara and Fidel Castro
Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara, who with Fidel Castro was the face of the Cuban revolution, took a leading role in this debate. In 1958-59 guerillas had ended the oppressive, US-backed Batista regime. In doing so they broke with the prevailing, understanding of revolution that had held sway since 1935. The dominant conception dated back to the stages theory held by Stalin’s Comintern, which had limited revolutionary ambitions to formation of a national democratic government with the task of achieving agricultural reform, industrialization and democratic renewal. The struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie would only take place in a more-or-less distant future phase of socialist revolution. The Cuban revolutionaries discovered that in practice such a revolution was impossible and looked for a model that would put a definitive end to capitalism in Cuba. In the process they risked an American invasion, a threat made clear during the Bay of Pigs (Playa Giron) incident and the October 1961 missile crisis. They also earned anathemas from Moscow, which saw Cuba’s, support for revolutionary movements -in Latin America, Asia and Africa as undermining a foreign policy aimed at peaceful coexistence with the West.
From 1962 to 1964 Che Guevara headed the Cuban ministry of industry. He opposed the growing influence of Moscow-oriented Communists and the state’s increasing bureaucratic tendencies. His ideas about the economy were formed in the debates of 1963-4. which were not only about economic development but also about the essence of socialism: a central budget structure versus, financial independence of companies, moral versus material incentives, thee law of value versus planning, and the role of consciousness.
Che considered an economy without a humanistic perspective, without communist ethics, unthinkable.7 ‘We fight against poverty but also against alienation…If Communism were to bypass consciousness…then the spirit of the revolution would die.’8 In a famous 1965 essay, ‘Socialism and Man in Cuba’, Che warned against ‘the pipe dream that socialism can be achieved with the help of the dull instruments left to us by capitalism’, like making value and profitability the absolute economic’ measure or using, material incentives. Che held that fully realized communism would require changing not only the economic structure but also human beings. 9
Impressed by the wave of nationalizations there, Mandel concluded in the fall of 1960 that Cuba had developed into a post-capitalist state.10 ‘Reality has shown that to consolidate power the revolutionary leaders have unconsciously resorted to Trotskyism.’11 Shortly after the publication of Marxist Economic Theory Mandel had a copy sent to Che and Castro via their embassy in Brussels.12 He had informal contacts, with the Cuban regime through Nelson Zayas Pazos,13 a Cuban Trotskyist and French teacher working in the foreign ministry, and Hilde Gadea, Che’s ex-wife a Peruvian economist of Indian and Chinese descent who lived in Havana.14 Gadea was sympathetic to Trotskyist ideas, and through her and Zayas documents of the Fourth International were regularly forwarded to Che. 15
In October 1963 Zayas told Mandel about the debate raging between what he called the Stalino-Khrushchevists and the circle around Che.16 While the former were arguing for financial independence for companies and for material incentives to increase productivity,17 Che called for centralizing finances and strengthening moral incentives.18 Zayas encouraged Mandel to intervene in the debate: ‘It seems to me that the entire Castro leadership would welcome such a contribution … Fidel, Che, Aragonés. Hart, Faure Chomón and many others are favourably disposed to us.’19. A month later Zayas distributed a stencilled contribution from Mandel to those taking part in the debate. 20 Mandel supported Che’s resistance to financial autonomy, not because he was opposed to decentralization but because centralized financing for small-scale industry seemed at that time the optimal solution. He shared Che’s fears of the growth of bureaucracy, all the more so because Clue’s opponents wanted to make decentralized financial administration efficient by using material incentives. Mandel was not against material incentives as such, on two conditions: that they were not individual but collective incentives in order to ensure solidarity, and that their use was restrained in order to curb the selfishness that a system of enrichment produces.
To combat bureaucratization Mandel argued for democratic and centralized self-management, ‘a management by the workers at the workplace, subject to strict discipline on the part of a central authority that is directly chosen by workers’ councils’.21 Mandel and Che differed on this last point. Che did support management of the enterprises by the trade unions, but only if they were representative and not controlled by Communists, who, he said, were very unpopular. The results of decentralized self-management in Yugoslavia, where companies acted like slaves of the market, had also made Che cautious. Mandel warned him against throwing the baby out with the bath water. Self-management by workers was entirely compatible with a central plan democratically decided by the direct producers.22
In early 1964 Mandel was invited to visit Havana. There were prospects of meetings with Che and Castro.23 Che had read Marxist Economic Theory enthusiastically and had large parts of it translated.24 Mandel confided to Livio Maitan: ‘I think that I can raise many issues openly and frankly’,25 and wrote again a few days later, `And in any case I can resolve the question of banning our Bolivian friends.’26
Maitan had visited South America for the first time in 1962. He had made contact with insurrectionary movements in Bolivia, Chili, Peru, Venezuela, Uruguay and Argentina and had urged them to work with the Cubans.27 In Buenos Aires he met such left-wing Peronistas as the poet Alicia Eguren and her partner John William Cooke, who had been in contact with Che since 1959.28 In Peru Maitan’s contacts were with the United Left and its present leader Hugo Blanco. In Bolivia he met with the mine workers in Huanuni, Catavi and Siglo XX. Trotskyists had strong influence there and hoped to be trained in Cuba for armed struggle.
Mandel stayed in Havana for almost seven weeks. It was a visit without official duties, an occasion for exchanging ideas, and these exchanges convinced him completely that Cuba ‘constitutes . . the most advanced bastion in the liberation of labour and of humanity’.29 The Marxist classics were widely studied in cadre schools, in ministries and beyond. Mandel wrote a friend, ‘The class I took part in had just finished volume one of Capital, with a minister and three deputy ministers present . . . And it was serious study, even Talmudic, studying page by page…’30 Mandel’s own works, including Marxist Economic Theory, were discussed; translated, stenciled excerpts circulated among the leadership.31 Mandel wrote to his French publisher, ‘The president of the Republic [Osvaldo Dorticos] himself is interested in the work and would like to publish it in Spanish in 2 Cuba.’ E. Mandel to C. Bourgois, 28 May 1964, E. Mandel Archives, folder 278.] He addressed hundreds of auditors at the University of Havana, speaking in Spanish — with a sprinkling of Italian when a words escaped him. There was even an announcement of his visit in Hoy, the paper, of the Communist Blas Roca. Revolutión, the largest and most influential daily paper, published an interview.
‘I was literally kidnapped by the finance ministry and the ministry of industry [Che’s ministry] to write a long article about the problem of the law of value in the economy of a transitional society.’32 Speaking French, Mandel met for four hours with Che, who received him dressed in olive green fatigues, his famous black beret with its red star within reach. Totally enchanted, Mandel wrote a friend, ‘Confidentially, he is extremely close to your friend Germain [the pseudonym Mandel used most], whom, you know well.’33
Mandel and Che worked together on a response to the French economist Charles Bettelheim. In April 1964 Bettelheim had published an article in the monthly Cuba Socialista34 that held that the central planning that Che advocated was unwise policy, considering the limited development of the forces of production. The Marxist Bettelheim had become Che’s most profound critic. Other opponents included Alberto Mora, the minister of foreign trade, and Carlos Rafael Rodríguez, the minister of agriculture. Years later Bettelheim commented,
Cuba’s level of development meant that the various units of production needed a sufficient measure of autonomy, that they be integrated into the market so that they could buy and sell their products at prices reflecting the costs of production. I also found that the low level of productive forces required the principle: to each according to his work. The more one worked, the higher the pay. This was the core of our divergence, because Che found differences acceptable only when they arose from what each contributed to the best of his ability.35
The research director of the Paris Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales still did not agree with Che’s thinking.
Mandel thought that Bettelheim was making the mistake of looking for pure forms in historical reality. For example, according to the French economist, there could be no collective ownership of the means of production as long as legally there was no completely collective ownership. Mandel found Bettelheim’s insistence on such complete ownership- ‘to the last nail’ – a bit technocratic. Complete ownership was not necessary as long as their was possession sufficient to suspend capital’s laws of motion and initiate planned development.36 Mandel pointed out that the withering away of the commodity form was determined not only by the development of the forces of production but also by changes in human behaviour. It was a commonplace to say that the law of value also played a role in a post-capitalist economy without saying what part of the economy it would govern. The key question was whether or not the law of value determined investment in the socialist sector. If that was necessarily the case, Mandel said,then all underdeveloped countries – including all of the post-capitalist countries except Czechoslovakia and East Germany – were doomed to eternal underdevelopment. He pointed out that these counties agriculture was more profitable than industry, light and small-scale industry more profitable than heavy and large-scale industry, and above all obtaining industrial products on the world market more profitable than domestic manufacturing. ‘To permit investment to be governed by the law of value would actually be to preserve the imbalance of the economic structure handed down from capitalism.’37 With his criticism Mandel was not denying the law of value but opposing what he termed Bettelheim’s fatalism, which denied that a long and hard struggle was necessary ‘between the principle of conscious planning and the blind operation of the law of value’.38
Luis Alvarez Rom, Cuba’s finance minister, spent ten hours correcting the Spanish translation of Mandel’s article. It appeared in June 1964 under the title ‘Las categorías mercantiles en el periodo de transición’ (Mercantile Categories in the Period of Transition); 20,000 copies were published in periodicals of the ministries of industry and of finance.39 It included a flattering biography of the author.40 Mandel wondered if this was ‘to neutralize in advance certain ill-intentioned criticisms of my spiritual family [the Fourth Intemational]?’41 He treasured in his wallet a banknote personally signed by Che: more than a currency note, it was a proof of trust. Mandel admired Che’s courage in inviting him to Cuba for a debate that the Soviets and orthodox Communists had to accept, however grudgingly. He praised Che as a theoretician, a leader in the tradition of Marx, Lenin and Trotsky.42
Looking back in 1977, Mandel considered Cuba’s open debate on the economy ‘the big turning point’ in the Cuban revolution.43 Behind that debate had raged another, not held in public. This debate concerned the revolution’s sociopolitical orientation, the role of the workers and the issue of power. That is, along with the question of the law of value came the issue of how much freedom the proletariat would have to make its own decisions. As Mandel saw it, though Che triumphed in the public debate, he was defeated in the hidden one. Guaranteeing freedom was a political problem: it required the creation of workers’ councils and popular assemblies. Such organs were never developed.
When Che left Cuba in 1965, he was the most popular leader on the island. If the voice of the people had been heard, Che would have won the political as well as the economic round. But, as Mandel said, ‘Che did not want to appeal to the people. He did not want to split the party openly. This is why he left after his defeat.44 In his 1964 correspondence Mandel had acknowledged that he did not dare put some of his impressions on paper.45 Did he already suspect that the debate would have a tragic outcome?
On Mandel’s departure Luis Alvarez Rom assured him that he was always welcome; a request would be sufficient to assure an invitation.46 There was a rumour that within a few months Castro would officially invite him `so I can deal a bit with his affairs’.47 He returned to Brussels in a hopeful mood:
The influence of the Stalinist ‘sectarians’ (that’s what they’re called there) continues to decline . .. Slowly a new vanguard is forming, one that is close to our ideas . . . The revolution is still bursting with life, and on that basis democracy [can] bloom.48
He had also been assured that ‘the group around Che was noticeably stronger’ and that ‘workers’ assemblies would soon be started’.49 Was this the beginning-of workers’ self-management, however modest? The promise did not amount to much, but Mandel dosed his eyes to its limits. He reacted negatively to Nelson Zayas’s advice to pressure Che and to convince him that he’ll lose the battle if it’s only fought in the government and bureaucratic arena’.50 The people’s support for the government must not be underestimated.51 The die was not yet cast: ‘Nothing was definitely decided yet in the economic discussion.’52 Mandel did not want to hamper Che and Fidel in their conflicts with the pro-Soviet currents. This would not have been appreciated, either, by the swelling multitude of radical youth in France and elsewhere for whom Che was nearing the status of hero. Mandel’s reaction disappointed Zayas and hastened his decision to turn his back on Cuba and complete his study of French in Paris. He asked Mandel to use his influence with Che to secure the necessary exit visa.53
Mandel’s thoughts about Cuba changed only slowly. The Latin American revolution came to a halt: Salvador Allende lost the Chilean election in September 1964, there were military coups in Brazil and Bolivia, and leftist guerrillas in Peru and Venezuela were defeated. Cuba paid for these failures with its growing dependence on the Soviet Union. This was an arid climate in which social democracy could not thrive. As Mandel frankly admitted to ex-Trotskyist Jesus Vazquez Mendez,
I subscribe to your opinion that participation by the people is essential … . I had heard that management of the enterprise would come into the hands of the trade unions after their leadership was replaced; but the latest news is that nothing has happened. I’m sorry about it, and like you I’m afraid that if things are left to take their course, the result will be an economic impasse. Maybe I’ll go to Cuba again in l965 and can give the debate new impetus.54
But he didn’t visit in 1965, and he never saw Che again, not even when Che was in Algiers to address an Afro-Asian conference at the end of a trip through Africa in February that year. Never before had Che come out so strongly against the Soviet Union. He declared that ‘the socialist countries are, in a way, accomplices of imperialist exploitation’. Before all else oppressed peoples had to be helped with weapons. ‘without any charge at all, and in quantities determined by the need’.55 Che’s words took root in the fertile soil of Latin American campuses and the radical milieu in Paris, where his speech was duplicated and distributed,56 and the Union of Communist Students (UEC) invited Che to Paris for a debate on Stalinism.57 The initiative came from the EUC left wing, in which Mandel’s fellow-thinkers played a prominent role. Six months earlier they had been received by a deputy minister of industry, a dose colleague of Che’s.58 One of the group’s spokespeople, twenty-seven-year-old Janette Pienkny (Janette Habel after 1966) traveled regularly between Paris and Havana. She contacted the Cuban ambassador, who relayed the invitation to Che by phone. Meanwhile Mandel was attempting to get a visa for Algeria. After Che’s speech, Mandel had phoned him his congratulations. Che had immediately agreed to a meeting but it had to he the following day, a Monday, because he was about to leave.59 But that Sunday Mandel sought vainly to make contact – at home and at the embassy- with the ambassador and the consul. Without a visa, ‘they wouldn’t have even let me telephone from the airport . . . I finally decided, heartbroken, to miss the meeting that had meant so much to me.’60
The debate in Paris never took place. The Communists Party put a stop to it.61 Che was now viewed as a heretic, not only in Moscow but also within the Communist parties. Algiers was his last public appearance. He went to the Congo and Bolivia to help break the isolation of their revolutions, a solidarity that he summed up in his testamentary message with the call -Make two, three, many Vietnams!’62 That slogan became the catchphrase for the generation of ’68.
The Death of Che Guevara
Though a trip to Cuba had proved impossible in 1965-6, Mandel’s thinking about the Latin American revolution continued to develop. He praised the young philosopher Régis Debray, a student of Althusser’s. In a January 1965 essay in Les Temps Modernes Debray had characterized Castroism as the Latin American version of Leninism. Mandel described it as “an excellent piece’, though he dismissed out of hand Debray’s idea about spontaneous party formation.102 Mandel expressed himself more cautiously About Cuba’s relationship with Moscow: ‘politically they continue to have their own line. . . What is bad, however, is that [Castro] made a series of moves to satisfy the Russians (like his attacks against the Chinese and against the “counter-revolutionary trotskyists”).’103 Ac the final sitting of the Tricontinental Conference in Havana’s Chaplin Theatre, Castro had spoken of ‘the stupidities, the discredit, and the repugnant thing which Trotskyism today is in the field of politics’.104
Mandel thought that must be a genuflection towards Moscow, .camouflage for the call to armed struggle that Moscow might interpret as a concession to Trotskyism. In it confidential meeting with Victor Rico Galan. Castro’s representative in Mexico, Mandel later learned that Castro regretted his statement. Galan had pointed out to Castro that the attack ou Trotskyism was unfounded. Admitting his mistake, Castro had asked Galan to give him `A month or two to make public corrections of this at the proper time’.105 At the end of May Mandel unexpectedly got an invitation to visit Havana. The Cuban ambassador spoke of a personal invitation from Castro and promised a meeting with President Osvaldo Dorticós.106
In June 1967 Ernest aud Gisela arrived at the former Havana Hilton, re‑christened the Free Havana but with its former splendor carefully preserved. At the hotel’s bar, replacing the Americans of earlier times, were Russians and few East German technicians. Politics was never far away, even at the hairdresser’s, as Gisela discovered: ‘The girl sitting beside me was reading Lenin, and on the other side a woman was reading Mills’s The Marxists.’107
A beautiful English-speaking guide took care of all the formalities, including credit cards and a shabby Cadillac with chauffeur. Gisela immediately fell in love with the impoverished country. She sent Meschkat enthusiastic reports about their wanderings and the encounters in tobacco and sugar factories, on plantations and in prisons and schools. ‘Everything is exquisite and for us so encouraging and hopeful.108
Their programme was overloaded. Ernest often returned only at l:00 or 2:00 in the morning from a debate or lecture at the university or a party school. The atmosphere was frank and candid. as were the meetings with the host of Latin Americans attending the first conference of the Organization in Solidarity with Latin America (OLAS), held in Havana at the beginning of August.109 Ernest and Gisela were furious when the Czechoslovakian paper Rudé Právo published three pages slandering Che on the day that Soviet premier Kosygin arrived. Gisela wrote, ‘You should just hear how they talk about the Russians in all circles here, from the highest to the lowest, I’ve never heard such talk, from socialists yet.’110 Typically, Castro charged the Venezuelan Communists with falling the guerrilla movement.111 Though Cuba was dependent on the Russians, Castro continued to provoke them.112
Mandel spoke with functionaries high and low, but Castro and Dorticós avoided him. Every time he announced his departure. he received overnight request to stay ‘because the President and the Prime Minister both wanted to see me’.113 Fed up with waiting, he finally left, three weeks later than planned and without meeting them. Perhaps a meeting would have seemed too clear a provocation to the Russians. Castro had nothing to gain, as he had demonstrated his independence sufficiently at the OLAS conference.
On 9 October 1967, the world learned of the murder of Ernesto Che Guevara. Convinced that guerrilla warfare was the only way to victory, he had gone to join the Bolivian struggle. His body was found mutilated in a remote village. This was the death of a revolutionary, a modern-day warrior chief. The left was in mourning; poets wrote elegies, laments that ended with calls to rebellion. In an interview with Gerhard Horst (pseudonym Andre’ Gorz), an editor of Les Temps Moderns, Mandel spoke of ‘a severe shock, all the more as I regarded him as a personal friend’.114 In La Gauche he mourned ‘a great friend, an exemplary comrade, a heroic militant’.115 On the Boulevard St-Michel in Paris and Berlin’s Kurfurstendamn, in London and Milan people shouted: `Che, Che, Gue-va-ra!’ The chopped syllables formed a battle cry against the established order. Neither Moscow nor Beijing had expressed even the most grudging sympathy.116 In openly showing their regret the Italian and French Communist parties proved they still possessed a little autonomy.
Mandel’s sympathizers in the French Revolurionmy Communist Youth (JCR), a radical group founded in 1966 in a split from the Union of Communist Students, refused to accept his death. ‘Che was our best antidote to the Maoist mystique’, Daniel Bensaid recalled.117 In the Latin Quarter of Paris, the Mutualité temple of the French workers’ movement, was full to overflowing. Mandel spoke alongside Maurice Nadeau, just back from Havana, and Janette ‘The Cuban’ Habel. He portrayed Che as he had come to know him in 1964.118 Emotion crested as those present softly hummed ‘The Song of the Martyrs’, the mourning march from the 1905 Russian Revolution, before launching into, ‘You have fallen for all those who hunger’ and belting out the chorus, ‘But the hour will sound, and the people conquer…’119
In Berlin too people were deeply moved. The SDS called for intensifying actions. Che had been Dutschke’s inspiration. With Gaston Salvatore, a Chilean comrade and friend in the SDS,120 Dutschke had translated Che’s last public statement, with it’s famous appeal for ‘two, three, many Vietnams’, from Spanish into German. Like Che, Dutschke lived the conviction that there “is no life outside the revolution’.121 He named his recently born son Hosea Chea. Latin America would not let Dutschke go. In 1968 he wrote a foreword to The Long March; The Course of the Revolution in Latin America, a collection of articles by such figures as Régis Debray, Castro and K.S. Karol.122. Meshkat was surprised to see letters from Gisela, which she had sent him from Havana in the summer of 1967, printed in the book. As far as he had known, Dutschke had asked only for permission to read them. 123.
1. Collected Works, vol. 25, Moscow, 1977, p. 497. 2. P. Anderson, In the Tracks of Historical Materialism, London, 1983. P. Anderson, Considerations on Western Marxism, London, 1977. 3. E. Mandel, Marxist Economic Theory, vol. 2, London 1968, pp. 605-53. 4.E. Mandel, ‘Introduction’ in E. Préobrazenskij, La Nouvelle économie (Novaia Ekonomika), Paris, 1966. P. Naville to E. Mandel, 20 May 1962, E. Mandel Archives, folder 278. A. Erlich analyzed Preobrazhensky’s work in The Soviet Industrialization Debate, 1924-1928, Cambridge, MA, 1960. C. Samary, Plan, Market, Democracy, Amsterdam, 1988. 5. P. Naville to E. Mandel, 17 September 1960, E. Mandel Archives, folder 318. 6.E. Mandel, ‘Introduction’, La Nouvelle économie , E. Préobrazenskij, p. 35. 7.M. LÖwy, The Marxism of Che Guevara: Philosophy, Economics, and Revolutionary Warfare, New York, 1973. 8. ‘Interview with Che Guevara’, L’Express, 25 July 1963, cited in: E. Guevera, Ecrits d’un révolutionaire, Paris, 1987, p. 9. 9. E. Guevara, Socialism and Man in Cuba, Sydney, 1988, p. 5. 10. Jack [E. Mandel] to ‘Chers amis’, 18 October 1960, E. Mandel Archives, folder 70. E. Germain [E. Mandel] to ‘Cher camarade’, 1 July 1961, E. Mandel Archives, folder 483. 11. Ibid. 12. G. Arcos Bergnes [Cuban ambassador] to E. Mandel, 12 Sepbember 1962, E. Mandel Archives, folder 16. 13. Using the pseudonym David Alexander, Zayas Pazos published a book about Cuba in 1967: Cuba: la via rivoluzionaria al socialismo, Rome. He also wrote letters signed with the pseudonym Emile. 14. H. Gadea, Che Guevara: Años decisivos, Mexico, 1972- P Kalfon, Che, Ernesto Guevara: Une légende du siècle, Paris, 1997. 15. N. Zayas to P. Frank, 20 October 1963, E. Mandel Archives, folder 23. 16. N. Zayas to ‘Cher camarade’, 25 October 1963, E. Mandel Archives, folder 21. 17. A. Mora, ‘En torno a Ja cuestión del funcionamiento de la ley del valor en la economia cubana en los actuales momentes’, Comercio Exterior, June 1963. Translated as: A. Mora, ‘Zur Frage des Funktionierens des Wertgesetzes in der cubanischen Wirtschaft zum gegenwärtigen Zeitpunkt’ in C. Bettelheim et al., Wertgesetz: Planung und Bewusstsein: die Planungsdebatte in Cuba, Frankfurt on Main, 1969. Alberto Mora was the Cuban minister of foreign trade. 18. E. Guevara, ‘On value’ (1963) in J. Gerassi, ed., Venceremos! The Speeches and Writings of Che Guevara, London, 1969, pp. 280-5. 19. N. Zayas to ‘Cher camarade’, 25 October 1963 E. Mandel Archives, folder 21. 20. N. Zayas to E. Germain, 16 January 1964, E. Mandel Archives, folder 22. 21. E. Mandel, ‘Le grand débat économique à Cuba’, Partisans, no. 37, 1967. Reprinted in E. Guevara, Ecrits d’un révolutionnaire, Paris, 1987. 22. E. Mandel, letter fragment, n.d. [1964], E. Mandel Archives, folder 26. 23. E. Mandel to R. Blackbum, 12 February 1964, E. Mandel Archives, folder 28. E. Mandel to N. Zayas, 12 February 1964, E. Mandel Archives, folder 21. 24. Nelson to Germain, 16 February 1964, E. Mandel Archives, folder 19. 25. E. Mandel to ‘cher ami’ [L. Maitan], 3 March 1964, E. Mandel Archives, folder 22. 26. E. Mandel to L. Maitan, 7 March 1964, E. Mandel Archives, folder 22. 27. L. Maitan, manuscript memoirs (unpublished), Paris, n.d., pp. 3, 19-20. 28. E. Mandel to L. Maitan, 10 June 1964, E. Mandel Archives, folder 24. “Che Guevara was Energetically Devoted to Anti-Imperialist Solidarity’, interview with M. Piñiero, The Militant, 24 November 1997. 29.La Gauche, 9 May 1964. 30. E. Mandel to Paul [Clerbaut], E. Mandel Archives, folder 23. 31. Mandel anticipated that he would soon see Marxist Economic Theory published in Cuba, ‘obviously’ without the chapter on the Soviet economy (‘There is no need for us to embarrass the Cubans.’). E. Mandel to Paul [Clerbaut], 7 May 1964, E. Mandel Archives, folder 23. Mandel wrote to his French publisher, ‘The president of the Republic [Osvaldo Dorticos] himself is interested in the work and would like to publish it in Spanish in 2 Cuba.’ E. Mandel to C. Bourgois, 28 May 1964, E. Mandel Archives, folder 278. 32. E. Mandel to Paul [Clerbaut], E. Mandel Archives, folder 23. 33. Ibid. 34. C. Bettelheim, ‘Forms and Methods of Socialist Planning and the Level of Development of the Productive Forces’, The Transition to a Socialist Economy, Atlantic Highlands, NJ, 1975, pp. 121-38. 35. J. Connier (in collaboration with H. Guevara Gadea and A. Granado Jimenez), Che Guevara, Monaco, 1995, pp. 291-2. 36. E. Mandel, ‘Mercantile Categories in the Transition Stage’, in B. Silverman ed., Man and Socialism in Cuba: The Great Debate, New York, 1971, pp. 63-6. S. de Santis, ‘Bewußtsein und Produktion: Eine Kontroverse zwischen Ernesto Che Guevara, Charles Bettelheim und Ernest Mandel über das ökonomische System in Kuba’, Kursbuch 18, October 1969. 37. E. Mandel, ‘Mercantile Categories in the Transition Stage’, in B. Silverman ed., Man and Socialism in Cuba, p. 82. R. Massari, Che Guevara: Pensiero e politica dell’utopia, Rome, 1987. 38. E. Mandel, ‘Mercantile Categories in the Transition Stage’, Man and Socialism in Cuba, p. 82 (italics in original). 39. E. Mandel, ‘Las categorias mercantiles en ei periodo de transición’, Nuestra Industria, June 1964. 40. J. Habel, ‘Le sens que nous donnons au combat du Che Guevara’ (1), Rouge, 13 October 1977. 41. E. Mandel to A. Eguren, 5 August 1964, E. Mandel Archives, folder 25. 42. F. Buyens, Een mens genaarnd Ernest Mandel, film, Brussels, 1972. 43. E. Mandel, ‘Il -y a dix ans, l’assassinat du Che, Les positions du Che Guevara dans le grand débat éconoimque de 1963-1965’, Rouge, 11 October 1977. 44.Ibid.v 45. E. Mandel to ‘Paul [Clerbaut]’, 7 May 1964, E. Mandel Archives, folder 23. 46. E. Mandel to ‘Emile’ [N. Zayas], 26 May 1964, E. Mandel Archives, folder24. 47. E. Mandel to A. Eguren, 5 August 1964, E. Mandel Archives, folder 25. 48. E. Mandel to ‘Lieber Freund’ [G. Jungclas], 22 May 1964; E. Mandel to K. Coates, 10 May 1964, E. Mandel Archives, folder 23. 49. Emile to E. Mandel, 5 Juiy 1964, E. Mandel Archives, folder 25. 50. Emile to E. Mandel, 13 August 1964, E. Mandel Archives, folder 25. 51. E. Mandel to ‘Cher ami’ [N. Zayasl, 12 October 1964, E. Mandel Archives, folder 25. 52. E. Mandel to A. Eguren, 25 September 1964, E. Mandel Archives, folder 25. 53. Emile to E. Mandel, 27 September 1964; E. Mandel to Emile, 11 November 1964, E. Mandel Archives, folder 26. 54. E. Mandel to J. Vazquez Mendez, 2 November 1964, E. Mandel Archives, folder 26. 55. E. Guevara, ‘At the Afro-Asian Conference’, Che Guevara Speaks, New York, 1967, pp. 108, 114. 56. P. Kalfon, Che, Emesto Guevara: Une légende du siècle, p. 402. 57. Ibid. Also: P. Robrieux, Notre génération communiste 1953-1968, Paris, 1977, pp. 316-7. 58. E. Mandel to L. Maitan, 10 June 1964, E. Mandel Archives, folder 24. 59. E. Mandel to ‘Dear friend’ 1, 19 May 1965, E. Mandel Archives, folder 31. 60. E. Mandel to ‘Pierre’, 1 March 1965, E. Mandel Archives, folder 30. 61. P. Robrieux, Notre génération communiste 1953-1968, p. 317. 62. E. Guevara, ‘Vietnam and the World Struggle for Freedom’, Che Guevara Speaks, p. 159. 63. E. Mandel to A. Eguren, 5 August 1964, E. Mandel Archives, folder 25. 102. The idea that a revolutionary party would form ‘in die natural course of die liberation struggle’, as it had in Cuba, was an illusion. Mandel held that Cuba was an exception and that to hope for spontaneous party formation was to idealize empiricism and pragmatism. Perry Anderson, the editor of New Left Review, agreed with this criticism, though unlike Mandel he thought this difference of opinion with the twenty-four-year-old Debray was minor. E. Mandel to P. Anderson, 21 January 1966, E. Mandel Archives, folder 32. 103. Ibid. 104. University of Texas: Fidel Castro speech database. The conference took place 3-15 January 1966. Its official title was ‘First Afro-Äsian-.Latin American Peoples’ Solidarity Conference’, The Fourth International’s response appeared in Quatrième Internationale, February 1966. 105. Miguel to ‘Dear Friends’, 1 March 1966, E. Mandel Archives, folder 32. 106. E. Mandel to E. Federn, 1 July 1967, E. Mandel Archives, folder 37. 107. G. Mandel to K. Meschkat, 12 June 1967, cited in R. Debray, F. Castro, G. Mandel and K. Karol, Der lange Marsch: Wege der Revolution in Lateinamerika, Munich, 1968, pp. 257-61. 108. Ibid. 109. E. Mandel, ‘Cuba 1967 et la première conférence de l’OLAS’, La Gauche, 9 September 1967. 110. G. Scholtz to K. Meschkat, 29 June 1967, cited in R. Debray, F. Castro, G. Mandel and K. Karol, Der lange Marsch, pp. 261-9. 111. T. Szulc, Fidel: A Critical Portrait, London, 1987, p. 497. 112. M. Kenner and J. Petras, eds, Fidel Castro Speaks, New York, 1969, pp. 14563. 113. E. Mandel to P. Refflinghaus, 17 July 1967, E. Mandel Archives, folder 38. 114. E. Mandel to G. Horst, 26 October 1967, E. Mandel Archives, folder 38. 115. ‘L’exemple de “Che” Guevara inspirera des millions de militants par le monde’, La Gauche, 21 October 1967. ‘ “Che” est mort’, La Gauche, 28 October 1967. 116.Le Monde, 27 October 1967. 117. D. Bensaid, Une Lente impatience, Paris, 2004, p. 75. 118 .Ibid., p. 76. Also: H. Hamon and P. Rotman, Génération, vol. 1: Les années de rêve, Paris, 1987, p. 384. 119. D. Bensaid, Une lente impatience, p. 76. 120. E. Guevara, ‘Vietnam and the World Struggle for Freedom’, op. cit., p. 159. 121. E. Guevara, ‘Notes on Man and Socialism in Cuba’, in Che Guevara Speaks, p. 136. J. Miermeister, Ernst Bloch, Rudi Dutschke, Hamburg, 1996, p. 144. 123. R. Debray, F. Castro, G. Mandel and K. Karol, Der lange Marsch. 124. Author’s interview with K. Meschkat, 10 September 2004.
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Translated and edited for CubaNews by Walter Lippmann.
Russian President Vladimir Putin warned at the opening of the high–level segment of the Ninth BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) Summit against “military hysteria” around the People’s Democratic Republic of Korea. He said it could lead to a “planetary catastrophe” and called it “useless and ineffective” to impose new sanctions against Pyongyang such as those recently announced by Washington.
Such a position raises the prospect of another dangerous confrontation between Moscow and the United States, whose president called for “the strongest possible sanctions” by the UN as a sign of rejection of North Korea’s sixth nuclear test. It was carried out in early September, according to according to a statement from Radio Havana Cuba quoting as its source the French Press Agency (AFP).
Putin, who participated in the summit recently held at the Xiamen International Convention Center in China, told reporters there that “Russia condemns these exercises in North Korea, but considers that the use of sanctions of any kind in cases like this is always useless and ineffective. ”
“A military hysteria has no meaning … because it can lead to a planetary catastrophe with a high number of victims,” warned the Russian president.
Following Pyongyang’s sixth most powerful nuclear test so far, the United States, its European allies and Japan have announced that they are negotiating new UN sanctions against North Korea.
However, the position of China and Russia –both with veto rights in the Security Council – has not been sufficiently clear.
The North Koreans “will not give up their nuclear program if they do not feel safe. For this reason, we must try to open a dialogue between the parties concerned, “Putin said.
The Russian president believes that “military hysteria does not make sense, because it is a road that leads us to a dead end.” Putin adds to the position of China, which advocates a “peaceful solution” to the North Korean crisis and wants to resume negotiations with the government of Kim Jong–Un.
By contrast, US President Donald Trump, who pledged last month “fire and fury” if Pyongyang continues its threats against Washington, considered last week that, from now on, “any appeasement talk no longer works” with North Korea.
In response to the North Korean nuclear test, South Korea began ground maneuvers with live fire. The South Korean navy had done the same thing a week earlier, hoping to dissuade Pyongyang from any alleged provocation at sea.
US ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, announced in New York that a new sanctions package would be presented by Washington –the eighth– will be negotiated in the coming days before being voted on by the Security Council on Nov. 11,.
At the beginning of August, the last resolutions sanctioning Pyongyang –each more severe than the previous one– were unanimously adopted by the 15 members of the Security Council.
According to diplomatic sources, the new measures being negotiated this week could affect oil, tourism, remittances to the country by North Korean workers abroad and other diplomatic decisions.
The hydrogen bomb that Pyongyang announced it had tested on Sunday, had a power of 50 kilotons, five times more than the previous North Korean test and three times more than the US–launched bomb on Hiroshima in 1945, according to South Korean sources.
North Korea is now capable of transporting an atomic bomb in a missile capable of reaching US territory, although, according to Washington, its experts have not confirmed this prediction with absolute certainty.
North Korea has never succumbed to the intimidation of the US and this has generated prestige and admiration for its proven intransigence and resilience in circumstances that have led many other governments of the world to indignant capitulation.
Pyongyang is proud to have survived as an independent nation with a communist orientation in a global context as extremely dangerous as its own. It attributes the success of its national security program –in large measure– to the fact that it includes possession and development of a small nuclear arsenal that serves a deterant. This is because of the possibility that Washington, through its participation in and monopoly of the atomic bomb, could launch another war like the one it carried out on Korean territory, in the 1950s of the last century.
September 6, 2017.
By Manuel E. Yepe
Exclusive to the daily POR ESTO! of Mérida, Mexico.
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Translated and edited for CubaNews by Walter Lippmann.
A century after the seizure of power by the Bolshevik Party led by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin and Leon Trotsky, the current validity of the ideas of the Russian Revolution of October 1917 can be seen in the orientation of the struggles waged by the peoples of the whole against capitalist exploitation.
October cleared the roads to human liberation that Marxism had identified and discovered in other new ways. It led the nation to achieve great successes in economic, politics, culture, social justice and defense, to make backward Russia a world power in a short time.
October allowed the efforts and sacrifices of the peoples of the Soviet Union to reach the level of economic, military and scientific development that brought about a bipolarity of the world in which the nations of the planet could rest their hopes of progress. The United States was no exception.
In January 1919, Lenin invited the left wing of the Socialist Party of America (SPA) to join the newly-created Communist International in Moscow. In the spring of that year this wing took control of the whole party displacing its previous leadership, which was smaller and of social-democratic orientation.
From its origins, the SPA suffered attacks from several state governments and from the US federal government itself. It feared a repeat of the revolts that were taking place on European soil. In the United States, between the end of 1919 and January 1920, the “red terror” led the United States Attorney General to order the arrest of thousands of communists, with the Sedition Act of 1918 as a legal basis.
During the Great Depression of 1929, the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA) multiplied its pacts with small union groups. The election of Franklin D. Roosevelt as president also meant the renewal of the unions and increased in them the influence of the CPUSA.
During this period, the CPUSA was distinguished by its defense of the Second Spanish Republic, a victim of the Francoist uprising that led to the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). Leftists from all over the world joined to defend the Republic, providing funds for medical care and in many cases volunteering in the International Brigades. The CPUSA provided the first members of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, which, in addition to supporting the Republican government of Spain, was the first military force made of US-made military force in which blacks and whites were integrated in the same ranks, with the same rights and obligations.
When the United States Communist Party (CPUSA) was formed in 1919, the Washington government had long suppressed the Socialists because they had opposed American intervention in World War I and made a campaign against military service. As of January 1920, the new target of persecution was the communists who began to be massively imprisoned. The CPUSA was forced into hiding and had to change its name several times to avoid arrest of its cadres and militants.
In the 1930s, the FBI persecuted Nazis and Communists under suspicion that they intended to launch an armed revolt against the federal government. In 1940, laws that made it illegal to hold a favorable opinion to overthrow the government came into force.
In 1941, when the United States was about to enter the world war in Europe and Japan, the Roosevelt government accused 29 members of the Socialist Workers’ Party (SWP), then political allied with the Fourth International, of sedition and conspiracy to overthrow the government. The FBI raided the offices of the SWP and formed a grand jury for the trial. The accused used the process to proclaim their socialist principles from the dock, rejected the imperialist war and refuted the presentation of the socialist revolution as a conspiracy or coup.
The United States’ entry into World War II in December 1941 forced an alliance with the Soviet Union that enabled the recruitment of communist militants into the US military. At the end of the Second World War, in 1945, and the beginning of the Cold War against the USSR, the official US “truce” with the CPUSA ended and an anti-communist psychosis was exacerbated by the alleged discovery of “Soviet espionage networks” and the denunciation of a growing power of the communists in the industrial trade union sector. Then came the McCarthy or witch-hunt period, one of the most shameful episodes in the legal history of the United States, which included the political murder of the couple Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, of sedition and conspiracy to overthrow the government a hate crime that still cries out for justice.
August 31, 2017.
The Posadas return to Havana
By Gabino Manguela, Published July 3, 2017.
A CubaNews translation. Edited by Walter Lippmann.
Someone once said that there were no safer businesses than funeral homes and posadas (hot-pillow motels). The reasons are obvious: death and love are simply inevitable. However, their differences are notable: in the first, you cry, in the second you enjoy.
A CubaNews translation.
Edited by Walter Lippmann.
With the exception of the very young, the most Cubans remember at least something about the posadas: be it one unforgettable kiss, or the call of the clerk indicating to the lovers that their time was up. After the first position on the island –Carabanchel– established in the late nineteenth century and located in San Miguel and Consulado, in a three-story building with 22 rooms and apartments with independent entrance from the street–dozens of such establishments flourished. The rite was always the same: the man took care of the front desk process while the woman, with her face turned down, stayed at a distance keeping her discretion.
There had been many in the capital but, according to press reports, there were 60 in 1973, and only 30 in 1989. The truth is that despite long lines and the measures of “camouflage” that some developed in order not to be caught by prying eyes, the vast majority of people –myself included– wanted to go to these places because there we made love. “Villa Cándida”, “Dos Palmas”, “11 y 24”, “La Monumental”, “Edén Arriba” and “Edén Abajo”, “La Campiña” and many others, were names repeated furtively most of the time. They were open 24 hours and everyone knew their location, details and signs, although no one talked openly about them.
The posadas not only guaranteed a happy ending to the arrangements of interpersonal relationships, but were also an option for couples faced with the realities that were becoming more acute in the country, namely the lack of housing. No one had any doubts about the convenience of having these establishments, and even tradition demanded to keep them.
But, by the 90’s of last century, in view of very evident economic shortages, it was decided to move the victims of hurricanes –persons who had lost their homes– to many (almost all) of these buildings. The remaining buildings faced the impossibility of receiving adequate maintenance, and suffered much deterioration. Little by little the posadas, or INIT motels [Instituto Nacional de Industria Turistica – today INTUR] as they were called, disappeared from the national scene.
The new service will begin at Vento
The Empresa Provincial de Alojamiento de La Habana [Provincial Lodging Company of Havana] is in charge of an important network of accommodations in 27 different facilities in the capital where both natural and legal persons can today rent a room for a single night. This is the entity in charge of bringing about the reopening of the service the posadas used to offer: that is: lodging by the hour, with a minimum of three hours.
Except from the people who have a private room, own a house, or can pay for a night at a hotel, the rest can only afford hourly rents, parks, dark stairs, the beach or even the Malecón (seawall).
“This is a service that is now in the hands of private persons who provide the service lost with the famous posadas. We believe in the real possibility of bringing it back and developing it,” says Alfonso Muñoz Chang, director of the company. Today the couple that goes to a private lodging must pay the owner at least 5 CUC or its equivalent in CUP [Cuban pesos] –a high figure for the average Cuban– for three hours of amourous privacy.
Generally speaking, the room has air conditioning, a fridge, running cold and hot water and adequate comfort. Of course, that does not include beer at 1.20 CUC or more, drinks or a bottle of rum at sky-high prices, appetizers or some other finger-food to make the moment more pleasant.
Comfort, hygiene and privacy are fundamental in this business, private entrepeneurs say. This will undoubtedly be a challenge for the state-owned service, both in terms of price and comfort.
“We will start with the Vento Motel, on Vento and Santa Catalina. It is a two-story building with 16 rooms with bathrooms and other technical requirements, just a few meters away from where there used to be a well-known posada or Init motel,” said Muñoz Chang.”
“We are also working,” he added, “on other ideas to expand the service. From the old posada network we were also given the famous Monumental, a unit with 20 rooms and car parking space.”
We´ve been working on the project for a while and have already submitted it; but the funding is steep and we could not include it in this year’s plan. “We believe that by 2018 we’ll be able to undertake it. There is the will of the government in the capital to prioritize that emblematic place, which is not crumbling or anything like that, but needs work,” he said.
The Provincial Company director indicated that the strategy foresees –in addition to “Vento” and “La Monumental”– the recovery with equal purposes of “Edén Arriba” and “Edén Abajo”, as well as the “Motel Ocho Vías”, a facility that meets the indispensable requirements for this service. To think about diversifying the options for love is not a crazy idea: it is a reality that affects everyone and should not turn into a luxury item available only to a few.
“We can do many things as a company, but others equally important do not depend on us –he stressed. Our aim is to recover that in-demand service, of great social impact and, undoubtedly, very profitable. “The main thing is to demonstrate that we can fulfill that purpose at the state level, and although we are sure of succeeding, we do not want to create false expectations,” he concluded.
[/t]
By Adán Iglesias Toledo
A CubaNews translation.
Edited by Walter Lippmann.
The days-long shooting in various locations of the American film franchise Fast and Furious brimmed with day-to-day scenes of Cuban costumbrismo [“getting used to it-ism]among passers-by and neighbors.
Many streets closed to traffic or temporary detours, countless fly-bys of a filming chopper, the high number of people hired to keep onlookers at bay or silent, and Hollywood’s impressive amount of movie-making equipment… quite a breeding ground for a diversity of comments. Vin Diesel, the famous main character, waved to and greeted many locals with Spanish phrases as he drove around the municipality of El Cerro. It was nobody’s idea, as you can check on YouTube, where this and other videos of the cast and the shooting were posted.
That Central Havana’s El Curita park was closed to the public several days in advance became the talk of the town, but the funny thing was that, if you asked any of the improvised watchdogs what was going on there, the answer was that they were not authorized to say, which would sow all the more speculation and intrigue.
However, it is not my purpose here to question why so many shops and markets near the shooting locations were closed: my comment has to do with another store. In one of those mandatory tours to go around the no-pedestrians-allowed areas, I went into [the department store] Ultra at Galiano Ave. and San Rafael St. to buy a wall stand for a microwave oven. I spoke to a salesperson who was leaning on some boxes of such devices, but when I told him what I wanted, his not unkind reply was:
“Look, I don’t have any; you’d better talk to that other salesman over there.” So I approached the guy, together with the first salesman. They exchanged a few words, and the second one asked me what color I preferred. Anyone would believe that they should be receiving a fast professional service, but, as it turned out, their initial exchange was intended to call a scalper and have him bring the relevant item. Even as you realize what they’re up to, it’s difficult to make up your mind on the spur of the moment. Finding yourself “involved” in such a shady deal made me feel very uncomfortable, not to mention my strong sense of outrage at seeing two employees who are supposed to live on their salary trying to turn my purchase to their own profit instead.
I was so upset at their shamelessness that the solution I chose was to get out of that store right away.
Alcoholism is a growing challenge for the countries of the area, which on average consumes more than in the rest of the world.
Author: Lisandra Fariñas Acosta | lisandra@granma.cu
17 January 2016 21:01:31
A CubaNews translation. Edited by Walter Lippmann.
It is scientifically proven that, as a result of its excessive consumption, alcohol diminishes the average lifespan of the population by more than ten years. This should be sufficient to maintain the commitment to combat this drug, which is legal but constitutes a health problem in Cuba.
Alcoholism, according to the report on the Regional Situation of Alcohol Consumption and Health in the Americas, issued by the Pan American and World Health Organizations, constitute a growing challenge for the countries of the area. Keep in mind that in the Americas region, alcohol consumption is, on average, higher than in the rest of the world.
According to the text, the burden of morbidity (diseases and trauma) is significant, as alcohol consumption contributes to the development of 200 diseases and damages/injuries, including neoplasms, HIV/AIDS infection and various mental disorders.
Cuba is no stranger to this health problem and the statistics do not lie. More than 45% of the population over 15 years old consumes alcoholic beverages, mainly in the age range of 15-44 years old. Meanwhile, the majority of alcohol-dependent people are between 25 and 42 years old, according to research by the National Unit for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention.
It is clear that the tendency towards having the first drink is becoming earlier and earlier in life, without establishing differences by sex. Recent studies suggest that women drink today at the same level as their male counterparts, a trend that complicates this scenario, if we take into account that females, biologically and psychologically, are more vulnerable.
Experts warn that once women are introduced into the field of consumption, they are much more discriminated against and censured. They drink faster and take longer to seek help because of the stigmata with which they carry this scourge, in the midst of an eminently macho society, which delays treatment and hinders rehabilitation.
However, the results of the latest Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (2014) showed that the proportion of men who drink alcohol is higher than the proportion of women. Alcohol consumption before the age of 15 is more common in men than in women (11% versus 3% respectively).
On the other hand, alcohol consumption is more common in urban areas, equally for both sexes, while in women alcohol consumption is more common in the capital. The highest percentage of alcoholic beverage intake is identified in the center of the country with 53%. Women in higher education consume more alcohol (24%) than those in lower education. In men, the highest percentage of consumers is among those who have not studied or who have only reached the primary level, according to the survey.
It is imperative for Cuban society to know where the gaps that condition this situation are, as well as the cultural and imitative patterns that are repeated within households. There are many places today that encourage irresponsible consumption of alcohol and it is not difficult to access drinks, although the law prohibits the sale of these products, in addition to tobacco, to minors under the age of 18.
“The bottle” often ends up in the hands of the teenager, in flagrant violation of his right to preserve his health. In addition, paradoxically and contrary to what is legally stipulated in almost all countries, in our environment it is frequent to travel through public spaces bottle in hand, and nobody talks about having a Dry Law, but about responsible consumption that allows avoiding risky behavior.
Professor Ricardo González Menéndez, a renowned expert on addictions, warns us well in his article La atención integral al alcoholismo: experiencia cubana [Comprehensive Attention to Alcoholism: Cuban Experience]. He reflects on how “although alcohol and alcoholism are currently considered as the drug and drug addiction of greatest socioeconomic and human significance, little progress has been made with regard to the classic global social attitude of underestimating it as a health problem when compared to other drug addictions”.
However, the negative impact it has on all areas of the life of the individual and those around him or her, as well as its gateway drug status, make alcoholism not only a health but also a social problem.
Around 75% of the world’s drug addicts do not receive professional help. However, Cuba’s health system has, on the other hand, provided ways to confront this problem at all levels of healthcare.
We start from an integrated network of services and various forms of care for the alcoholic patient, ranging from primary care in the community to hospital services specializing in addictions. Community Mental Health Centers or polyclinic teams are essential links in the rehabilitation of patients suffering from this and other addictions.
Jesus Christ, Revolutionary
Frei Betto: Now, I’d like to hear your views on somebody else, somebody much more important, much more universal, and also much more discussed and much more loved than the pope. What are your views on Jesus Christ the person?
Fidel Castro: Well, I’ve already told you the story of my education and my contacts with religion, with the church. Jesus Christ was one of the most familiar names to me, practically ever since I can remember — at home, at school, and throughout my childhood and adolescence. Since then, in my revolutionary life — even though, as I told you, I never really acquired religious faith — all my efforts, my attention, and my life have been devoted to the development of a political faith, which l reached through my own convictions. I couldn’t really develop a religious concept on my own, but I did develop political and revolutionary convictions in that way, and I never saw any contradiction in the political and revolutionary sphere between the ideas I upheld and the idea of that symbol, that extraordinary figure that had been so familiar to me ever since I could remember. Rather, I concentrated on the revolutionary aspects of Christian doctrine and Christ’s thinking. Throughout the years, I have had several opportunities to express the coherence that exists between Christian and revolutionary thought.
“I’ve cited many examples; sometimes I’ve used Christ’s words: “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” I’ve heard various people, including a priest, say that Christ wasn’t referring to the small needle we know now, because it’s impossible for a camel to go through the eye of that kind of needle. Rather, it meant something else; it had to be interpreted differently.
Frei Betto: Some biblical scholars take, it to mean the narrow corners in Jerusalem, Palestine, and the heart of Beirut, for it was very difficult for the camels to turn those corners. Why doesn’t anybody question how difficult it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven? That’s unquestionable. Comandante, from the theological point of view, it doesn’t mean that Jesus discriminated against the rich; it means that Jesus opted for the poor. That is, in a society characterized by social inequalities, God decided to assume the likeness of Jesus; he could have been born in Rome, to a family of emperors; he could have been born to a Jewish landowner’s family; he could have been born to the middle strata of parishioners. Instead, he chose to be born among the poor, as the son of a carpenter — one who certainly worked on the construction of the Brasilia of his time, the city of Tiberias, built as a tribute to Emperor Tiberius Caesar in whose reign Jesus Lived. It’s interesting that Tiberias is on the banks of the Lake of Gennesaret, where Jesus spent most of his life and carried out most of his activities. In the Gospels, he doesn’t visit that city even once.
So, what do we say? We say that Jesus unconditionally opted for the poor. He spoke to everyone, both rich and poor, but from a specific social stand, from the social stand of the interests of the poor. He didn’t speak in a neutral, universalist, abstract way; rather, he reflected the interests of the oppressed strata of the times. If a rich man wanted to have a place next to Jesus, he had to opt for the poor. There isn’t a single example in all the Gospels of Jesus’ welcoming a rich man beside him without first making him commit himself to help the poor.
I can cite three examples: first, that of a rich young man who was a saint because he observed all the Commandments, but in the end Jesus said that the man had to do one more thing: go and sell what he had, and give to the poor before he could follow him. I believe that many priests today would say, “Look, If you observe all the Commandments, come with us; stay here next to us; and in time you’ll improve!” But since Jesus was a little more radical than we are, he told the man, “You go honor your commitment to the poor and then come.”
The second example is that of the rich man whose home Jesus visited. Jesus had no prejudices but he was consistent so he went to Zacchaeus’s home not to praise his ceramics, which may have come from Persia, or his Egyptian figurines, but rather to tell him that he was a thief because he’d stolen from the poor. And Zacchaeus, who wanted to be at peace with him, said, “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold.” That is, the practice of justice was the basic requirement for following Jesus.
The third example is the preaching of John the Baptist, who prepared for Jesus’ coming. His preaching began with the practice of justice. The people who wanted to be converted didn’t ask what they should believe; they asked what they should do and John replied, “He who has two coats, let him share with him who has none; and he who has food, let him do likewise.”
The universality of Jesus’ preaching must also be explained; it is a universality that derives from an option and a very specific social and political stand: the cause of the poor.
Fidel Castro: I’ve been listening to you with great interest, because there’s a lot of substance in what you’ve said, However, I could make a mathematical objection: a rich man could never give back four times what he’d stolen, because everything a rich man has must have been stolen. If he didn’t steal it himself, it must have been stolen by his parents or grandparents, so it’s impossible — if everything he has is stolen — for him to return fourfold what he’s stolen, for he’d probably have to steal four times as much again to keep that promise.
Frei Betto: You’re repeating something that St. Ambrose said in the early centuries.
Fidel Castro: I’m glad to have coincided with him. So what do I think? It may be a bad translation of the Bible; maybe the translators are to blame, because they didn’t take into account the meaning of the eye of a needle, I realize that many of the phrases in the Bible are related to that environment, to the society and customs of the times; but I don’t know how this could be proved in this case. Anyway, somebody well versed in religion, somebody well versed in languages, must have interpreted, with quite some grounds, that it was the eye of the needle that everybody knows about in our language, because we don’t know of any other, for the people in Spanish-speaking countries don’t knew the first thing about camels, even though we do have an idea of what camels are.
In any case I liked the interpretation that the translators gave to that phrase, as I understood it, and I also believe the interpretation is absolutely in keeping and is consistent with all the other things that Christ preached. First of all, as you said, Christ didn’t choose the rich to preach the doctrine; he chose 12 poor and ignorant workers — that is, he chose the proletariat of the times or modest self-employed workers, some of whom were fishermen. They were poor people, very poor, without exception, as you said.
At times I’ve referred to Christ’s miracles and have said, “Well, Christ multiplied the fish and loaves to feed the people. That is precisely what we want to do with the revolution and socialism: multiply the fish and the loaves to feed the people; multiply the schools, teachers, hospitals, and doctors; multiply the factories, the fields under cultivation, and the jobs; multiply industrial and agricultural productivity; and multiply the research centers and the number of scientific research projects for the same purpose.” At times I’ve referred to the parable of the rich man who employed several workers: he paid some of them one denarius for a full day’s work; to others he paid one denarius for half a day’s work; and to yet others he paid one denarius for half an afternoon’s work. The parable implies a criticism of those who didn’t agree with that distribution. I believe that it is precisely a communist formula; it goes beyond what we say in socialism, because in socialism each should be paid according to his capacity and work, while the communist formula is to give to each according to his needs. To pay a denarius to each one who worked that day implies a distribution more in keeping with needs, a typically communist formula.
Also, I believe that many of the passages of the preachings of Christ, such as the Sermon on the Mount, cannot be given any interpretation other than what you call the option for the poor. When Christ said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied,” it is obvious that Christ didn’t offer the kingdom of heaven to the rich; he really offered it to the poor, and I don’t think that the preaching of Christ is also a case of mistaken translation or interpretation. believe that Karl Marx could have subscribed to the Sermon on the Mount.
Frei Betto: In St. Luke’s version, not only are the poor blessed, but the rich are damned.
Fidel Castro: I don’t know if the phrase is in any of the versions of that preaching. You say that it’s St. Luke’s version. The one I recall doesn’t damn the rich.
Frei Betto: That’s the St. Matthew one, which is better known.
Fidel Castro: Maybe that’s the one that was more convenient at the time, to bring us up in a more conservative spirit. You said something profound: that the difficulty lies in understanding how a rich man can enter the kingdom of heaven, if you consider many of the things that go with the mentality of the rich: insensitivity, selfishness, lack of solidarity, and even the sins of the rich in all spheres. I really believe that what a rich man had to do to be a good Christian and reach the kingdom of heaven was expressed clearly. It was stated repeatedly in Christ’s preachings.
You should also take into consideration that we read many books of history and literature – some written by laymen and others by clergymen – that reflected the martyrdom of the Christians in the early centuries. Everybody’s had the opportunity to learn about those events, and I think that one of the things the church felt most proud of during the years when I was a student – I remember this clearly was the martyrology of the early years and throughout the history of the church.
SCANNED FROM:
Fidel & Religion: Conversations with Frei Betto on Marxism & Liberation Theology; Castro Talks on Religion and Revolution with Frei Betto. Introduction by Harvey Cox. Simon and Schuster (1987), pp. 267-271
By Esteban Morales Domínguez
June 16, 2017
A CubaNews translation. Edited by Walter Lippmann.
As has been said, we are working on a theoretical foundation of the Economic Model. Let´s not forget that the economy is essential, but it cannot be sustained without a Political Model.
Moreover, dialectically speaking, the economy is fundamental, but it is not always so in every particular moment of social dynamics. Quite frequently, politics prevails over the economy.
A call should be made to work on a theoretical foundation for our political model: the one that, whether we like it or not, will come about from the impact of the changes that will come as a result of the new economic model.
In a way, the recent speech by Vice President Diaz-Canel lays down that route when he calls upon universities, research centers, and the intelligentsia to conceptualize the processes that are taking place in the nation. They must emerge from ideological discussion, controversies and a critical, committed, and revolutionary analysis.
The discussion would have to cover several issues to produce a foundation for our socioeconomic model. It has to be seen within the dynamics of the changes that the process of conceptual and practical adjustments of the new economic model demands.
In our view, this process would have to address the following fundamental aspects:
-Firstly, it is not possible to fulfill the tasks that we have set in the economic, political and social fields if we do not obtain the most complete and dynamic participation of workers and all Cubans in that process. Participation is the key to success in everything we do to push forward the changes.
-For this reason, it is fundamental that all the organizations, led by the Party, finally break away from the schemas that limit the participation of each citizen –and in particular of each party member– in the discussion of problems.
-The structuring of Cuban civil society must be thoroughly examined. The structure must represent the new interests that emerge beyond those represented by the existing political and mass organizations. These should act as transmission mechanisms of the party´s politics, taking into consideration that citizens have private interests that go beyond those already represented in these organizations.
-Cuban media must leave behind secrecy, schematic thought, elitism, and exclusiveness in information management. It should give the revolutionary intelligentsia the widest participation in the critical analysis of difficulties so that it becomes a real platform for discussing the problems that affect us.
-The masses must feel that within the Party, state, government and other levels of the political structure there is an open space for criticism, for questioning policies, pointing out mistakes, and critical harassment of the bureaucracy that hinders processes. These actions should receive support and obtain appropriate answers.
-Party militants must be alert because there are “moles”: individuals posing as revolutionaries who slow down the processes, carry out some activities to introduce mistrust, discomfort, and discouragement and serve as subversion’s fifth column.
I think that a fundamental task before us is to pick out those who –by ignorance or intention– hinder the process the country is carrying forward. This is the new “counter-revolution” which, like corruption, can be found in the higher echelons of the country´s leadership, in the political and mass organizations, and in social institutions.
Undoubtedly, there is resistance to change on the part of certain elements in society. Especially in the media, which despite the many criticisms it has received, continues without making the expected contribution.
But is this something for which journalists are responsible? I do not think so. It seems that the responsibility is at the highest level of the Party that refuses to change the pattern with which it has led the media.
In my view, this is a clear indication that resistance to change can also come from the high echelons of the country’s leadership.
The same can be said regarding several issues in our social reality.
-Particularly on the racial theme –one of great sensitivity– the above-mentioned incongruities become evident. The schools, the media, and science have just begun to move forward to tackle the issue. This, in spite of the fact that we face the reality that subversion tries to turn it into a weapon against the revolution and the country.
There is no institutional racism as such, but state institutions responsible for working to solve the problem –and its different manifestations– are far behind in the tasks that must be carried out.
Progress has already been made in the fields of education and scientific work, but neither the printed media nor TV have embraced their role.
Fidel Castro and President Raul Castro have repeatedly referred to the problem as a shameful evil that Cuban society still drags on, but little progress has been made in banishing the problem from our social relations.
Both the racial issue and the media are two clear examples of the resistance that exists, hindering the advancement of projects directly related to the changes the country must make. These are also two objectives in the subversive plans against Cuba.
Nevertheless, I think that the most complex phenomenon we are facing today is the combination of resistance to assimilating and acting consequently, as the follow-up to the criticisms made by the highest political leadership; the magnitude of the problems; and the age limit of that political leadership.
Today Cuba finds itself at the crossroads of substantial change. No one knows if it will be led to term by the historic leadership of the Revolution. It is true that this leadership is in turn responsible for the mistakes made. At the same time, it is the one with the capacity and the experience to lead the country along the new paths.
Domingo Amuchastegui
Cuban economist living in the United States.
Analyst at Cuba Standard.
March 31, 2016
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Hundreds of foreign journalists covered this visit, including some twenty of them representing the Miami media.
All –as well as all the radio and television programs in Miami– stressed and emphasized that, for the first time, the Cuban people had access to the values and truths that the President of the United States carried: democracy, free elections, human rights and others of the same order. For the first time –according to all correspondents and media panelists in Miami– the revealed truth reached the ears of the Cuban people. The consequences must bring the regime’s final collapse to a close –almost all panelists agree– enormously.
No correspondent mentioned, mentioned, quoted or compared the statements of President Obama with those of another president –not in office at the time– who was also a Democrat, and the Cuban authorities gave him the opportunity to speak publicly from the Aula Magna of the University of Havana and to disseminate his speech verbatim, without altering a comma, in all the press and official media.
I mean President James Carter. Everybody was talking about Coolidge and no one was talking about Carter. And this was just, according to Gardel, 20 years ago. Could it have been a case of collective ignorance? Widespread forgetfulness? Very short memory? Wasn’t it elemental to compare and contrast both, or was it concealment with premeditation, nocturnality and malice? Since naivety is not an integral component of political exercise, then I have no choice but to lean towards the last hypothesis, that of concealment. Purpose? That of trying to demonstrate that “the Cuban people” lived, until Obama’s arrival, wrapped in a mantle of absolute isolation with respect to such messages and values, and hence the transcendence of the truth revealed by Obama.
In his very long speech at the time, Carter defended the same values as Obama, did not hesitate to criticize what he understood critical of the Cuban experience, and carried a very explicit message of support for the Varela Project and its promoter, Osvaldo Payá, a precedent that President Obama avoided repeating in his presentations. Wasn’t there anything in this that could be compared or written down as a reference? Hard to assimilate such premeditated silence.
And why not remember, also in the 1990s when almost everyone expected the inevitable Cuban collapse, as a large group of important North American figures from the Kennedy and Johnson administrations led by the most important Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, discussed no less publicly with Cuban leaders the whole conflict before, during and after the October Crisis of 1962 (a textual memory of this debate was published in Cuba, in 2012?
Everyone overlooked that since 1960 “the Cuban people” has been subject and saturated, day after day, to the messages and values that the United States has sought to impose by force and media penetration. From VOA and Radio Swan broadcasts to all Miami stations, headed by Radio Mambí as well as Radio and TV Martí. But, not just this. In any Soviet–style radio station, any Cuban could have access to the best Spanish–language broadcasts of the most important broadcasters in Western Europe, from the BBC to Radio Netherlands or France International, without danger to his life or individual freedom.
The average Cuban during the 56 years of the revolutionary triumph has also been exposed to the best of American cinema, and it should be noted that about 70% of all the films seen in Cuba, on cinemas and TV, are American productions. Many of the best works of his literature are reproduced in Cuba, in addition to the recent use of the famous “Paquete.” And the Internet –with all its costs, past blockades and limitations– has been advancing every day for years now, with more than 2,000 blogs, growing connectivity and more than four million users of cyber telephony, but never thinking about equaling or surpassing the Yuma (a term that is born from a North American west of the 50’s that became popular again in the 70s).
With such a heavy media burden for decades, how can we possibly refer to the contents of Obama’s speech as if it were an exceptional novelty and a first? Such coverage becomes deceptive and manipulative, beyond any possible merit of President Obama’s pronouncements.
Something very similar happened with the exaltation of Miami as a monument to Cuban–American exile ingenuity called historical. Did anyone make the slightest question, expressed doubts about the relevance or otherwise of the example used by Obama? Nobody. Is it true or untrue in the history of migration to the United States, that there has never been a Cuban community in exile like the Cubans of 1959 that received the sum of the beneficiation amount?
Something very similar happened with the exaltation of Miami as a monument to Cuban–American exile ingenuity called historical. Did anyone make the slightest question, expressed doubts about the relevance or otherwise of the example used by Obama? Nobody. Is it true or not in the history of migration to the U. S., that there has never been a community exiled like the Cubans of 1959 that received the sum of benefits, support and federal, state and local privileges, without forgetting the few fortunes taken from Cuba when they began to notice the imminence of Batista’s defeat? Why don’t you take a quote from the well–known sociologist Alejandro Portes about it? Or some revealing angles of Back Channel to Cuba, Kornbluh and LeoGrande? Are they so busy that they don’t have time to find out?
I don’t know who would have suggested Miami to President Obama as a monument of Cuban exiles, but no one could mention or intersperse the enormous contributions of the Jewish community, of Colombians –with or without drugs– Peruvians and Brazilians, Mexicans and Central Americans; of the flows of enormous capitals from the “south” to Miami, which for decades have dwarfed most of Cuba’s fortunes.
It’s unnecessary to go to the Mafia, Miami Vice, the narcos and their billions, violence and hatred, murders and unsolved terrorist acts, dirty connections of all kinds up to the “plumbers” of Watergate. Alongside honest work and truly enterprising personalities, there is all this. This is all Miami. A close friend of the administration told me right away: It is absurd to compare Cuba with Miami. Its components and levels do not correspond.
Any comparison with Cuba must be in relation to that of its neighbors on a scale and in context such as the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Guatemala and other similar countries. And why not say it when such a unilateral pronouncement occurs? I do not intend to subtract “merits,” but I do claim comprehensive, documented, balanced and unspoken coverage.
By Fabián Escalante
April 12, 2016
Division General (retired), former head of Cuban intelligence services. Author of several books on the intelligence services of the US against Cuba and has investigated the assassination of John F. Kennedy from the Cuban viewpoint.
A CubaNews translation.
Edited by Walter Lippmann.
Last year, talented American actor Tom Hanks acted in and produced a Steven Spielberg-directed film called Bridge of Spies, which, by the way, earned one of his supporting actors an Oscar this year in that category. The film tells the story of the capture and exchange of Francis Gary Powers, a US pilot, for the head of the illegal Soviet intelligence network in the United States, Rudolf Abel. He had been operating in that country since 1948, and that he was only caught in 1957 when he was betrayed (something that is omitted from the film) by one of his officers – Reino Heihanen – of Finnish origin, who, after stealing money from the operation, deserted the United States to escape his responsibilities.
The real stories of one and the other are quite different. The Soviet was a middle-aged man, fluent in 10 languages, a mathematician and painter with a fine brush, cultured and experienced in the vicissitudes of intelligence. The young American U-2 spy airplane pilot, who appears in the film version as if he was carrying out his first operation, was shot down on Soviet territory on May 1, 1960, the exact day on which President Eisenhower and Premier Khrushchev were to meet in Vienna, Austria, for negotiations on détente and eventual disarmament of the blocs headed by the two countries.
The main character in the film attorney James Donovan, played by Tom Hanks. Donovan had been a partner with Allen Dulles, then head of the CIA, in the years of World War II at the OSS Strategic Services Bureau, the first U.S. intelligence formation. Then he was part of his country’s team at the Nuremberg trial, where the then-allies tried the Nazi leaders. Later, without losing his ties to the nascent CIA, Donovan dedicated himself to the practice of law. Years later, he was the lawyer appointed by the Kennedys to negotiate the exchange of the mercenaries of the Bay of Pigs for children’s food and agricultural implements that the blockade – which we still suffer – had made inaccessible to our people. In 1963 the CIA, through him, tried to get a poisoned diving suit to Fidel Castro, which Donovan refused. A few months later he introduced journalist Lisa Howard to conduct an interview with the Cuban leader, in which he would investigate alternatives for the normalization of relations between the two countries.
However, the aim of this article is not the explanation, nor even the omissions or distortions of the film, but the reasons why Powers the was captured, precisely on the day when the American and Soviet leaders tried to negotiate for a possible détente in the Cold War.
In December 1959, former Marine Lee Harvey Oswald, who was later accused of being the lone assassin of President John F. Kennedy, defected in an unlikely manner into the USSR. There, after a blistering renunciation of his citizenship at the American embassy and a suicide attempt at his hotel, Oswald obtained his residence permit in the city of Minsk, Belarus, where he lived for nearly three years, married a young Soviet citizen and had a daughter.
Who Oswald was, and why he deserted, is a question so far unanswered. He joined the Marine Corps in 1958 for military service. According to his service record, he studied Russian at the language school in Monterrey, California. Later, he was transferred to the Atsugi Naval Air Base in Japan, specializing in the operation of radar that operated U-2 aircraft flights through Soviet and Chinese territories for the purpose of photographing weapons sites and military camps. This base was run by the CIA. His activity made him familiar with the flight parameters of these aircraft and enabled him to perfect his Russian. According to some American investigators, during his stay in Japan, Oswald was involved in the CIA’s attempted recruitment of the military attaché of the Soviet embassy in Tokyo, accompanied by another agent.
After completing his work assignment in Japan, Oswald returned to the United States to be stationed at the El Toro Base in California. One night he was visited by the well-known CIA agent Gerry Patrick Hemmings, who in that year, 1959, had been in Cuba spying on the nascent Revolutionary Air Force. Together with his colleague Frank Sturgis he was involved in a failed attack on Fidel Castro.
The truth is, according to official US research, that the month after the visit, Lee Harvey Oswald applied for leave the following month, citing health problems of his mother, a New Orleans resident. He received it, and, after a fleeting visit to that city, went by boat to England. From there he flew to Finland, the next day by train to Soviet territory. All in record time, something unusual for a tourist. The Soviets questioned him and knew his background, as they recognized him when the Americans asked for information after the crime against JFK.
Oswald was the bearer of vital information for the strategic defense of the Soviet armed forces. It consisted of the flight parameters of the U-2 aircraft that had hitherto been unbeatable by anti-aircraft rockets. The terms on which he was granted asylum were never clarified and were, of course, unrelated to his claims to be a convinced marxist-leninist. The usual way in cases where there was no precedent or political persecution was to return him through the same border that he had entered, but the opposite happened. In a very short time, about 30 days, he obtained a residence permit in the Belarus capital and a job in an electronics factory. Oswald probably gave sensitive information to the Soviets to ensure his asylum status.
Another element to be taken into account in the analysis of this case is the fact that from, December 1959 to May 1, 1960, the American U2s did not fly through the territory of the USSR. And it was precisely on that day, at a crucial time when Eisenhower and Khrushchev were meeting in search of a way to alleviate the rigors of the Cold War, that Powers’ plane was shot down by Soviet rockets. Why a flight on that date? Was it a provocation? Did they intend to be overthrown by the Soviets – already knowing valuable information about their flight parameters – with the vain intention of having some superiority in the negotiations that were beginning?
What was clear was that, a few months after the plane was shot down, Oswald returned to the U.S. consulate in Moscow, where he had previously torn up his U.S. passport, and applied for repatriation. It was approved, including his wife and daughter, and his expenses were paid by the U.S. government.
Then his story will continue in the United States. He was linked to the FBI, the CIA and anti-Soviet organizations, his location in Dallas, and finally connected to the Cuban counterrevolutionaries with whom was is going to join in his wishes – a few weeks before Kennedy’s assassination – to travel to Cuba so that his relations with our country would be legalized, his activities all documented in official U.S. investigations.
As we know, Oswald was killed on November 24, 1963, by Jack Ruby, a well-known Texas gangster. The investigation into the assassination of President John F. Kennedy was at least informally closed. How many secrets did Oswald know that made him so dangerous? Was he a patsy, as he called himself, when questioned by the police in the first few hours after the crime? How many more years will it take for the U.S. government to declassify all documents from its investigation of the assassination?
So, on that Berlin bridge that linked the two sectors – Soviet and American – what was exchanged? A pilot for a colonel who had not betrayed anyone or acknowledged the charges against him and was sentenced to 37 years in prison? Seems unlikely. Perhaps what originated that exchange was the need to recover a potentially explosive witness, who might have known important information about the spy Lee Harvey Oswald a year before the assassination.
Finally, Colonel Vilyam Guénrijovich Fischer, alias Rudolf Abel, was decorated with the Red Flag Order in his homeland and died among his own in 1971. He was, without a doubt, one of the heroes of the Cold War, who made it possible with his silent and modest work to provide the USSR with invaluable materials on the defense and offensive capabilities of the United States at that time.
(Taken from La Pupila Insomne)
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