The three countries Harkin lists are all ones in which deep-going popular revolutions have taken place. Each involved the mobilization by masses of workers and peasants who fought arms in hand, through strikes and land seizures, and other mobilizations. They each toppled imperialist-backed regimes and established workers and farmers governments. The Chinese revolution occurred in 1947-49; Korea's in 1948. In Cuba the Batista regime was toppled in early 1959, followed the next year by the mobilizations that led to the expropriation of the big imperialist holdings.

Washington has sought through wars, economic embargoes, invasions, and political pressure to regain what it lost. The "human rights" card is one it hypocritically uses to justify its interference and attacks.

The 1917 revolution in Russia opened a new epoch of human history—that of proletarian revolution and the advance toward socialism, the next stage in the development of human society. But the tiny super-wealthy minority will defend outmoded and historically bankrupt capitalism with every means at its disposal.

The Cuban revolution is a particularly thorny problem for Washington. Cuban working people have revolutionary leadership; they hold power politically in the country.

The new Pathfinder title Making History: Interviews with Four Generals of Cuba's Revolutionary Armed Forces includes a discussion with José Ramón Fernández, field commander of the Cuban forces at Playa Girón, the first military defeat of Yankee imperialism in Latin America.

Fernández gives a concise and convincing answer to the question Harkin asks — a good reason to purchase the book, which contains many other important lessons and invaluable information. The Cuban general says the accusations of human rights violations are "part of a selective campaign carried out by our adversaries to create hostility against Cuba and undermine our prestige. As far as I am concerned, the first human right is the right to live, to receive an education, to live with dignity, to have the possibility of always receiving health care, to a job, to hold a place in society based on one's capacities, technical training, talent, and desires. And to have a right to a country that exists with dignity, as a sovereign nation."

Fernández, though, does not stop there. "Not a single prisoner has been tortured here in Cuba," he says, "not a single person has disappeared—not one, in thirty-eight years. Who among those who accuse us of human rights violations, or who act as accomplices by voting to condemn us, could raise their hand and say the same thing? We do not permit anyone to be mistreated for reasons of sex, religion, or the color of one's skin."

Workers and peasants in China face a different political situation than do Cubans. There, the revolution was distorted from the beginning because of the nature of the Chinese Communist Party. This was discussed at length several weeks ago with a reader who asked why the Chinese government attacks workers on strike (see the Militant, January 10, 2000.) Chris Rayson explained that the revolutionary character of the party was destroyed by the scourge of the workers movement, Stalinism, in the late 1920s and 1930s.

Korea is an even more sharply posed situation because it is a country that is literally divided in two, a separation enforced by Washington. It secured this position through the suppression of popular struggles following World War II and a bloody war in which it literally leveled the northern half of the country. The Militant backs the struggle for national reunification, a goal advocated by the government of North Korea for decades. A victory in that struggle will push back the U.S. domination of the country, and open up the possibilities for working people there to deepen their revolutionary struggles against capitalist exploitation and national oppression.

From the defense of the system of capitalism—which is the purveyor of the injustices, inequalities, and denials of basic rights the world over—to its outright assaults, including the use of nuclear weapons and wars—U.S. imperialism and its government spokespeople have no moral standing to raise the question of human rights. Our job is to educate about these realities and join the struggles of working people the world over that can change them through following the example of the Cuban revolution.

—GREG McCARTAN  
 
 
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