BY JACK BARNES AND MARY-ALICE WATERS
HAVANA - "In the present international conditions, we reaffirm that socialism is a necessity," said Cuban leader José Ramón Balaguer. "Not only is it the logical result of the development of productive forces on an international scale, it is also the only alternative to guarantee the survival of humanity."

Balaguer, a member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba, gave the keynote address to the October 21 - 23 international workshop here on "Socialism as the 21st Century Approaches."

On a world scale, Balaguer emphasized, the growing global contradictions of capitalism - economic, social, and political -and internal class conflicts do not point toward increased stability and accommodation to the needs of working people. Rather, these are more and more weighty factors "stimulating the struggle for a new social order," he noted.

"The contradiction between capital and labor is increasingly internationalized," he continued, "making imperative an in-depth study of socialism, beyond national borders and contradictions, and confirming the relevance of that slogan of classic Marxism: `Workers of all countries, unite!' - which, far from being outdated, could be extended, drawing in other social sectors and movements that are also subjected to the barbarity of capital."

Emphasizing that socialism is not simply a matter of economics, Balaguer underlined the critical need for the revolutionary workers movement to take the moral high ground falsely claimed by the ideologues transfixed by the aura of the exploiters and oppressors. He stressed the obligation "to show not only the possibility and viability of socialism, but also its desirability."

"For us, socialism is the only possible and valid option for placing social relations on a moral footing," he noted. "We cannot relax our efforts to demonstrate on a theoretical and practical level its superiority in fact in developing the highest of human values: justice, equality, fairness, freedom, democracy, respect for human rights, national sovereignty, solidarity."

The conference, attended by more than 200 participants from around the world, was one of a series of political gatherings that have taken place in Cuba over the last months. These began with the 12,000-strong International Festival of Youth and Students last July. It continued through the August international meeting of trade unionists sponsored by the Central Organization of Cuban Workers under the rubric of Workers Against Neoliberalism and Globalization; conferences on the legacy and relevance of the work of Argentine-Cuban leader Ernesto Che Guevara; the fifth congress of the Communist Party of Cuba; and the solemn ceremonies in mid-October during which Cubans and others around the world paid tribute to Guevara and the revolutionists who fought and died with him 30 years ago in Bolivia, as their remains were transferred to and interred in the city of Santa Clara.

Above all, the character and content of these conferences and other events began to confront the political confusion that has marked the leadership of broad popular movements in recent years, in Latin America and throughout the world. They reflected the broadening social and economic struggles that offer real possibilities of moving forward.

Overawed by the seeming wealth and power of the world capitalist order, and disoriented by incomprehension of the implosion of the bureaucratic regimes of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, the crisis of leadership within the workers movement has manifested itself, country after country, in the tendency toward worship of the existing fact. Radical rhetoric and accommodation, not revolutionary resistance and organization, has prevailed - even as the crisis of the imperialist system has deepened and the decline of popular struggles has bottomed out.

The initiatives taken by the leadership of the Communist Party of Cuba, however, have pointed in the opposite direction from this centrist capitulation, advancing efforts to find concrete points of agreement in common struggle out of which new alliances can be forged.

The leadership time and material resources that have gone into these important events would have been impossible in Cuba even a year ago. It is only now, as the worst years of the economic and political crisis precipitated by the collapse of the regimes and parties in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union begin to recede, that such an effort can be sustained. The relief from the extreme tensions of the last years, when all energies were concentrated on the battle for beans and potatoes, is palpable to returning visitors.

The year of the 30th anniversary of the death in combat of Ernesto Che Guevara and his comrades has become the occasion to celebrate, in a dignified and deeply determined manner, the fact that a corner has been turned, the worst of what is known in Cuba as the special period has been faced and conquered. Even more, it has become the moment for the communist vanguard of Cuba's workers and farmers to solemnly reaffirm the revolutionary socialist and internationalist course that the entire Cuban leadership, Guevara included, have fought to defend for more than 40 years, and to draw revolutionists worldwide into the international leadership responsibilities they shoulder in a world where new battles are on the horizon.

World gathering
Some 97 parties and other political organizations, as well as a number of academic or independently sponsored think tanks, responded to the invitation of the Communist Party of Cuba and its cadre school, the Ñico López School of Higher Learning, to take part in the international workshop. Its purpose was "to discuss socialism as a real alternative to the existing capitalist society."

The largest participation came from South America, with representatives of parties from every country where Spanish or Portuguese is the main language. From most countries, there were delegates from several political organizations with whom the Communist Party of Cuba maintains fraternal relations. Central America and the non-Spanish-speaking Caribbean were under-represented by contrast, and there were no delegates from parties in Guatemala, Honduras, or Nicaragua.

From the United States, delegates represented the Socialist Workers Party, Workers World, Committees of Correspondence, All African Peoples' Revolutionary Party, Socialist Action, and Freedom Socialist Party. From Canada, the Communist League, the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist- Leninist), and Socialist Action took part.

From Africa, delegates came from Zimbabwe, Angola, and Ghana. Representatives of governing parties in China, Vietnam, Laos, and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea took part, as did political organizations from South Korea, India, Turkey, and Palestine. There were no delegates present from Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, or Japan.

The Communist parties of many countries of Europe, including Russia and the Czech Republic, were represented by one, and in a few cases more, delegates, but only a sprinkling of other political organizations in Europe were present. From the United Kingdom, the Communist League and Revolutionary Communist Group sent delegates. Denmark was the only Nordic country represented.

Balaguer's opening remarks on behalf of the Communist Party of Cuba introduced the main themes of discussion and offered a sharp political focus for the commission sessions that followed. The topics for the three different commissions were broadly defined as "Realities of Contemporary Socialism," "The Relevance of Marxist and Leninist Thought and Contemporary Marxists," and "Imperialism at the End of the Millennium."

For the most part, divergent political views held by the wide array of parties and individuals in attendance were addressed in an indirect exchange through 15-minute summary presentations made by spokespeople for each of the organizations. Over the course of the three days, however, a number of the questions introduced by Balaguer in his keynote became the center of more direct exchanges in some of the commissions.

Globalization and nation-states
After calling attention to the fact that many phenomena are bundled together under the "fashionable" banner of "globalization," Balaguer noted that from the beginning of the modern workers movement Marxism has "alerted us to the fact that the growth of the network of international economic relations is an objective process of capitalism. The international character of capital - one of its defining features -made it possible for capitalist rule to take on, as one of its ingredients, the establishment of a world system, the first, to be exact, in the history of humanity. That same international character, backed today by colossal advances in science and technology, has resulted in a very high degree of internationalization of capital."

But globalization does not imply the diminished importance of the state, he emphasized. "In the name of some future `global village,' an image that brings to mind turn- of-the-century arguments regarding `superimperialism,' we are told of a new world economy - where an atmosphere of permanent harmony will be possible, both between countries and within them - resulting from the end of the Cold War. Moreover, it is assumed that, as a result of universal tendencies that have been making the functioning of the system more uniform across the board, nation-states have virtually dissolved and national sovereignty has lost its meaning."

But the opposite is the case, Balaguer pointed out. "Globalization does not imply an automatic mechanism for solving the contradictions and unevennesses that have accompanied the development of capitalism." A new level of interimperialist rivalry, and the widening of the gap between the developed and underdeveloped countries and within them, means that the world is today "more unstable, more prone to disintegration, and more politically explosive than ever."

A work group of four Cuban participants from the University of Havana and the research department of the party Central Committee took up the discussion on this theme in the commission on imperialism. In their summary remarks they argued that the monopoly state capitalism of Lenin's time, on which his analysis of imperialism was based, has today "metamorphosed" into transnational capitalism. As capital circulates more and more massively across borders, they insisted, it "increasingly abandons any national basis."

The debate on this theme and its political implications continued on and off over the three days. One of the clearest replies came from another of the Cuban participants in the commission, Central Committee member Jorge Risquet Valdés. Risquet used his two-minute intervention to refute the implication that major capitalist enterprises no longer depend on one or another state to defend their property and interests. "Big capital still needs a state," Risquet replied. "With their growing crisis, each capitalist power - now more than ever - needs an army against its foreign competitors and a police force against its own working class."

To confront the power of imperialism, he emphasized, revolutionists need to take and wield state power, as they have done in Cuba. He reminded participants in the conference that he was speaking on October 22, 35 years to the day since the U.S. government brought the world to the brink of nuclear war and threatened the annihilation of the entire Cuban people over the issue of Soviet missiles that were installed in Cuba in an act of sovereign self-defense.

Other delegates, speaking for the Socialist Workers Party in the United States and the National Democratic Front of South Korea, also replied to the political implications of the position that "globalization" represents something qualitatively new in the history of capitalism and that nation-states have diminished importance in today's world.

The south Korean delegate reminded participants of the 37,000 U.S. troops stationed in his country and the permanent threat of war their presence brings.

Rectification
In the commission on Realities of Contemporary Socialism, a discussion unfolded around the character of the rectification process that was initiated by the leadership of the Cuban Communist Party in 1986. Manuel Monereo, education secretary of the Communist Party of Spain, and a member of the federal leadership of the Izquierda Unida (United Left), questioned the assessment put forward by Darío Machado, director of the Havana-based Center for the Study of the Americas, who explained that Cuba had been able to confront the challenge of the special period following the collapse of the Soviet bloc, because of measures taken during the rectification process that had strengthened the revolution. The spirit of internationalist missions had been brought home, voluntary work brigades expanded, and the involvement of workers in making decisions on production deepened, Machado said.

Monereo challenged this assessment, asking whether rectification and volunteer work brigades had not in fact exacerbated the economic problems Cuba faced because of their "inefficiency," and argued that there was nothing inherently revolutionary in involving workers in production decisions - that is what Toyota does to increase productivity.

Machado had presented a report that expanded on another of the themes in Balaguer's opening remarks.

Noting that at this conference he had "no desire to spend time in an analysis of the collapse of socialism" in Europe, Balaguer called attention to the fact that "the so- called domino effect" did not extend to Cuba. "The liquidation of socialism in Eastern Europe and the USSR had its historic, socioeconomic, and political causes, which we have been clarifying among ourselves," he remarked. "But one thing has been well demonstrated: that European process did not mean the failure of socialism as a system."

Nor did it imply, Balaguer continued, "that Marxism and Leninism are useless as guides for our actions. It did mean the crumbling of a dogmatic and vulgar type of Marxism, which in those countries came to hold the strength of an official theory, burying many of the central principles of our classics and elevating to the position of universal law certain theses that only served to justify political positions and that had barely any scientific basis."

We all know, Balaguer added, "that the classics did not present us a blueprint of the socialist society; rather they elaborated fundamental theses. The socialism that succumbed had been moving away from the socialist ideal envisioned by Marx, Engels, Lenin, and other Marxists."

As that was happening, Balaguer noted, "Cuba was going through a process of rectification of errors and negative tendencies initiated in 1986 by the leadership of our party. We had arrived at the conclusion that the model of economic management, copied in large measure from the Soviet experience, had to be deeply transformed," because it had "diverted the construction of socialism into paths that were in no way revolutionary."

"We began a process on a social scale, which started in the economic arena and spread to the political life of the country. We began a process of rectification and perfecting of our socialism, based on socialist positions."

In answering the challenge to rectification raised by the representative of the Communist Party of Spain in the commission discussion, Machado insisted that the involvement of Cuban working people in solving the basic economic and social problems they confronted - as the workers parliaments during the special period had done -meant recovering the most "indigenous" element of the Cuban revolution.

Alliances, principles, and the ranks
A third discussion, and one with even more direct political consequences throughout the world, took place informally around the question of what kinds of alliances revolutionists should negotiate with other political parties that oppose capitalist austerity offensives (and the temporary relationship of forces that make them possible) often referred to, throughout Latin America especially, as "neoliberalism." This strategic question too had been raised by Balaguer in his keynote remarks.

Because of the "increasing transfer of sovereignty and decision-making toward the centers of world power and the transnational bodies," Balaguer noted, "state power, one of the objectives that revolutionary struggles are fought over, begins to be undervalued. That is why it is a priority to reassess the question of struggles for power, as well as the instruments and forms of political participation by the left in society."

In pursuing a policy of alliances in response to capitalist policies aimed at driving down the wages and living standards of working people and at curtailing democratic rights, Balaguer argued, "in our opinion, an agreement of revolutionary forces with other sectors around short-, medium-, or long-term objectives should be a process in which the parties put forward their own essential interests with total clarity. It does not seem acceptable to renounce socialism or revolutionary positions in order to be accepted. The one thing that is not negotiable is principles."

Balaguer also stressed the importance of nonexclusion - not reproducing "on other levels the old traditions of sectarianism that leave us so vulnerable in the face of imperialist domination." The great diversity of new social forces, along with the reshaping of others, he noted, creates new possibilities for a broad policy of alliances involving environmentalists, peasants, those without land or without a roof over their heads, forces organized against gender, religious, racial, or ethnic oppression, and others.

Alliances negotiated as deals between leaders without the support and understanding of the rank and file, moreover, are unacceptable from a revolutionary standpoint, Balaguer noted. "The essence of any alliance that claims to have a left perspective is that it be structured from, by, and for the ranks," he emphasized.

Although it did not come to the workshop floor in an explicit manner, it was clear from several days of informal discussions with delegates that debates and divisions over such questions have cut deeply into centrist political regroupments such as the Workers Party of Brazil. They also pose major challenges for revolutionary forces.

Despite suggestions from a few delegates that it would be good to draft a common political statement to be adopted at the conclusion of the three days of discussion, the conference hosts and the overwhelming majority of participants insisted that the importance of the gathering was the fact that it had initiated a process of discussion that, together with events like the youth festival and trade union gathering, should be pursued in coming months, in various journals and conferences as appropriate. The workshop concluded with a consensus among the majority of those present, however, that the initiative to bring together such an international gathering of political parties could not have come from any quarter other than the Communist Party of Cuba and that it represented an important watershed.

As Balaguer expressed it, "we have not the slightest doubt that the world has the choice of two roads: either the continuation of capitalist barbarism or the search for alternatives to this stage. For us Cubans, as for millions of human beings, the alternative continues to be socialism."

Marcella FitzGerald and Michel Prairie contributed to this article.  
 
 
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