Rodríguez, who spoke on behalf of the national leadership of the Association of Combatants of the Cuban Revolution, said he found the article titled “Their Transformation and Ours,” in issue 6 of the Marxist magazine, particularly useful. He noted that the document, a resolution of the Socialist Workers Party, explains what is driving the “transformation of the American army aimed at achieving a greater geographic reach and an increase in its military actions.”

Other speakers at the event were Carlos Rodríguez Almaguer, president of the Martí National Youth Movement; Fernando Rojas, vice president of the Federation of University Students (FEU) in Havana; Darío Machado, member of the editorial board of the magazine Cuba Socialista; Eliades Acosta, director of the José Martí National Library; and Mary-Alice Waters, the magazine’s editor. They were joined on the platform by Armando Hart, one of the central leaders of the urban underground during the revolutionary struggle that overthrew the Batista dictatorship in the 1950s, and today director of the Office of the Martí Program.

Waters, who also chaired the meeting, explained that Nueva International is the Spanish-language translation of New International, which is published in French as well. A number of issues and many articles have also appeared in Swedish, Islandic, Greek, and Farsi. All are distributed by Pathfinder Press.  
 
‘Great turning point in class struggle’
As a magazine of Marxist politics and theory, Waters said, New International is “above all, a tool to arm, and to be used by, workers and youth actively involved in the practical work of building a communist party and youth movement in the United States especially.”

Issues 6 and 7 of Nueva Internacional—nos. 12 and 13 of the English-language magazine—“put forward, with conviction and with facts, the view that we are today living through a great turning point in the class struggle,” Waters said. “Communists and the broader vanguard forces they lead must fully absorb this historic moment and begin acting on its political logic. Its origins do not lie in a single mythical event such as September 11. They do not lie in specific policies pursued by one or another Congress or U.S. president, whoever his advisers may be.

“The roots are to be found in the downward turn in the curve of capitalist development that began almost three decades ago with the exhaustion of the economic expansion spurred by preparations for and the enormous destruction resulting from World War II. Today we are witnessing the sharp acceleration of that crisis. As the lead article in Nueva Internacional no. 6 explains, ‘One of capitalism’s infrequent long winters has begun.’ And for us it is going to be very long and very hot.”

As the U.S. rulers, in preparation for the coming battles at home and abroad, carry out the most far-reaching transformation of their military policy and organization in more than 60 years, Waters said, we also see “the beginning of another transformation: the transformation of the working class. Impelled by these momentous changes, by the increasing social and economic pressures, working people are beginning to resist, and a small but expanding and combative vanguard is beginning to take the lead to reach for, organize, and use union power and other forms of popular power to defend themselves.” (The text of the remarks by Waters, along with those of Acosta and Mario Rodríguez, will appear in a coming issue.)

Eliades Acosta saluted Nueva Internacional as “a magazine written and promoted by communists” in the United States who say “loudly and clearly: we’re communists and we’re here to do away with capitalism, to do away with imperialism. We know that capitalism is by definition the enemy of humanity.”

He focused his remarks on the feature article in issue 6, “Capitalism’s Long Hot Winter Has Begun,” by Jack Barnes, national secretary of the Socialist Workers Party. The article “is an accurate assessment of the deep structural—not conjunctural—crisis of capitalism, and of the opportunities for communists posed by this crisis,” he said.

Acosta noted that the article explains how the Northern Command, part of the reorganization of the U.S. military, was initiated under the Clinton administration. It establishes a command structure for deployment of the U.S. armed forces against working people at home.

He cited Washington’s recently released Quadrennial Defense Review, in which Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld emphasized that Washington is waging a “long war” that “will last no less than 20 years.” In Nueva Internacional, Acosta said, “Barnes and the American communists signaled this development and gave an accurate assessment of it.”

“But out of the great crises come great solutions,” he concluded. Yes, capitalism’s long hot winter has begun. “But their winter is our springtime.”

In her opening remarks Waters noted the importance of the presence on the platform of multiple generations of Cuban communists. The Association of Combatants of the Cuban Revolution, a nationwide organization made up of Cubans who have taken part in revolutionary struggles and internationalist missions over more than half a century, was represented by Mario Rodríguez Martínez. He himself was involved in the underground struggle in Havana in the 1950s against the Batista dictatorship. In 1994-2001 he served as Cuba’s ambassador to Italy and then Mexico.

“Defense of the socialist state as our number-one task is not a slogan—it’s a reality that conditions have imposed on us. Our people face this task with dignity, renewed spirit, and intelligence,” Rodríguez said.

“What encourages us and deepens our commitment even more, however, is the demonstration of how revolutionaries in the United States are committed to and participate in this struggle from within the very belly of the beast.

“They fight for Cuba. They fight for the Americas as a whole. They fight for their own people.”  
 
Promote knowledge of Marxism
To confront Washington’s threats today the Cuban people are strengthening the defense of their revolution, Rodríguez said. “The collapse of the meringue in the USSR will never happen here,” he stated. What distinguishes Cuba is “the role of the masses as the main protagonists of the revolution.”

The communist political perspectives presented in Nueva Internacional “are very important today,” Rodríguez concluded. To answer the imperialist propaganda offensive against the Cuban Revolution, “we must awaken a knowledge of Marxism” among workers and youth.

Fernando Rojas of the Federation of University Students and Carlos Rodríguez of the Martí Youth Movement addressed these same questions from the viewpoint of the new generations in Cuba.

Rojas said that in face of imperialist threats and propaganda against the Cuban Revolution, “we need to promote discussion among young people” in order to “develop resistance to the pro-capitalist offensive.”

“Think socially; act politically: the key to the party today” was the title that Carlos Rodríguez gave his remarks. He called special attention to “Their Transformation and Ours” as “an excellent and clarifying summary of the current conditions of workers’ struggles and of the ideological and structural changes of the empire we confront.”

He noted “the clear need to increasingly involve youth in this organized struggle, since they are the ones who will live well into the 21st century, where not only the triumph of an idea but the survival of the human species will be decided.”

Also speaking was Darío Machado, a member of the editorial board of Cuba Socialista, the theoretical magazine of the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party. Machado, the author of numerous books including ¿Es posible el socialismo en Cuba? (Is socialism in Cuba possible?), is a researcher responsible for the social sciences in the Ministry of Science.

Drawing attention to the article “Our Politics Start with the World” in Nueva Internacional no. 7, Machado said he found especially useful a section of the article titled “What was opened by the Cuban Revolution,” which points to the fundamental shift in the development of revolutionary leadership in the world that came with the victory of the Cuban Revolution.

At the conclusion of the meeting the audience welcomed Armando Hart’s request to say a few words. Expressing his respect for the work of Pathfinder and those who produce Nueva Internacional, he spoke about the need to reach out to U.S. society with the ideas of Cuban anti-imperialist leader José Martí. He noted above all the importance of those ideas in the Cuban Revolution’s fight against corruption and for political integrity.

At the Havana book fair the two issues of Nueva Internacional were among the best-selling titles brought by Pathfinder Press. Over the course of the 10-day fair and at events the following week in Havana and other Cuban cities, a total of 189 copies were sold or distributed as complimentary copies to libraries, organizations, and individuals.

Many of those who visited the Pathfinder booth, eager to gain a better understanding of U.S. and world politics, were immediately attracted to the title of the article “Capitalism’s Long Hot Winter Has Begun.” One of these was Yanet Fuentes, 20, a student at the University of Havana. “I want to know why the U.S. government is carrying out these wars,” she said. “This is what I’ve been looking for.”  
 
 
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