Based on interviews with Cuban generals Armando Choy, Gustavo Chui, and Moisés Sío Wong, the book covers a wide range of subjects. These include the revolutionary struggle that culminated on Jan. 1, 1959, when workers and peasants overthrew a U.S.-backed dictatorship and went on to establish their own government, overthrow capitalism, and begin building a socialist society; Chinese immigration to Cuba; the historic role of Cuban volunteer forces in Angola from 1975 to 1991 in defeating invasions of that country by the racist apartheid regime of South Africa; and Cuban internationalist missions today in Venezuela and other countries.

Participants hailed from Birmingham, Alabama; Houston; Miami and Tampa, Florida; and North and South Carolina. Many came from the Atlanta area. It was the first of four such regional meetings (see ad on home page).

Speakers included Mary-Alice Waters, editor of the book and a member of the National Committee of the Socialist Workers Party; José Martínez, secretary of the Bolivarian Circle in Miami, who was a combatant in the Cuban Revolution and a member of Cuba’s Revolutionary Armed Forces; and Jacob Perasso, representative of the Young Socialists and a leader of the SWP’s trade union work.

The event was co-chaired by Ellie García, chairperson of the Atlanta SWP, and Omari Musa, SWP candidate for mayor of Miami in 2005.

García talked about some of the activities socialist workers and young socialists in the region had been involved in recent days, including an action demanding immigrant rights the previous day. She noted that 20,000 people had turned out for a similar march in her hometown, Phoenix, March 24. She pointed to the impact that demonstration had had on her 77-year-old father, who had long insisted he was a Chicano not a Mexican. “Yesterday he was proud to be mexicano,” García told the audience.

Musa welcomed Sobukwe Shukura, co-chair of the National Network on Cuba, and James Gillam, professor of Chinese history at Spelman, and introduced them to the gathering.  
 
Book needed by workers in struggle
“Working people in this country are radicalizing slowly but surely in a situation where the organized labor movement continues to weaken just as class-struggle unions are needed more than ever,” said Perasso, who recently visited Utah where he met with coal miners who have been fighting to unionize for the last two years. Perasso said pro-union miners need to read a book like Our History Is Still Being Written, which describes how in practice revolutionary struggles can be fought and won.

“The single biggest question for the working class is the leadership question,” Perasso said. “We need to prove our self-worth to ourselves in the class struggle.” Because the new book gives a concrete example of such leadership development, he said, it “is indispensable for young people trying to understand revolutionary politics today.”

Perasso urged those present to build and attend the May 20 “Hands Off Venezuela and Cuba!” demonstration in Washington.

“Despite all attempts of the United States and its lackeys in Europe to destroy the Cuban Revolution, that has been impossible,” Martínez said. Cuban revolutionaries “were able to defeat the enemy not only in Cuban territory but in African territory,” he said, referring to the victory in Angola against the apartheid forces. “If you want to know how Cuba has survived and how it continues to survive and win, you must read the book.”  
 
Socialist revolution is possible
Waters began her talk by saluting the Cuban baseball team, which recently placed second in the World Baseball Classic. She noted that some journalists were incredulous that there were no defectors from the Cuban team, when most Cuban players could obtain multimillion-dollar contracts with U.S. professional teams if they defected.

“Why were there no defectors?” Waters asked. “It is for the same reason that Cuban volunteers go around the world to give medical service in Venezuela and other countries that request it, and why so many Cubans volunteered for military service in Angola.”

Waters returned to the example of the Cuban volunteer doctors later in the program, noting their contributions in the region of Pakistan devastated by an earthquake last year. She said many of the areas there can only be reached by foot. Cuban doctors there, the majority of whom are women, are providing medical care in places where many Pakistani rescue crews thought it was impossible to get to.

Our History is Still Being Written addresses questions such as whether a socialist revolution is possible, and why what has happened in Cuba is so different from what happened in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, Waters explained.

“The main point of tonight’s meeting is to get you interested in this book,” she continued, “Not only in reading it, but in using it as a tool. It is a genuine introduction to the Cuban Revolution, to the men and women who made that revolution and to those who continue to write that history today.

“In this book you see the creative joy of the Cuban people as they tear down the old racist and exploitive relations and build new class relations, a task more difficult than making the revolution or pushing back the U.S. attack at Playa Giron in 1961,” she said.  
 
Chinese in independence struggle
Waters contrasted the integration of Chinese indentured laborers into the Cuban independence struggle in the 19th century, which the book describes, to the anti-Chinese racist exclusion laws passed by the U.S. Congress following the defeat of the post-Civil War Radical Reconstruction. During that period many Chinese left this country to go to Cuba, she said.

Waters noted that in her recent participation in the Havana International Book Fair and at meetings across the island to promote and discuss the new book, she was struck by two things.

One was the sense of relief and guarded optimism on the part of Cuban working people in light of improving economic conditions and a sense that the “Special Period” is behind us. This is the term used in Cuba to describe the period of a formidable economic crisis triggered in the early 1990s with the abrupt cutoff of aid and trade on preferential terms with the former Soviet Bloc countries.

The second was “the seriousness of the national mood” about international challenges, Waters said. While expressing satisfaction with the advances of the people of Venezuela, at the same time many Cubans know that decisive tests remain, with capitalist property still firmly ensconced in that country. They know that Cuba will be targeted by the imperialist enemy along with Venezuela as the popular struggles there deepen. They are keenly aware of the mounting threats by U.S. imperialism against Iran, focused on that country’s nuclear energy program.

A lively discussion period followed the talks. Among those who participated was Genaro Pérez, 28, a Guatemala-born supermarket worker from Atlanta, who noted that “this book gives us the story of how Cuba has confronted the fight against capitalism.”

Maceo Dixon, a volunteer who helps lead Pathfinder’s distribution center in Atlanta, reported that he and others had sold 22 copies of the book at the three-day Association for Asian American Studies conference that had just concluded here (see article in this issue).

Kenya Evans, a 19-year-old sophomore at Spelman College, got news of the meeting from her class in world politics. “A lot was new to me, because I’ve never thought of applying the Cuban Revolution to the situation in America,” Evans said.  
 
Young Socialists meeting
The following day Young Socialists from Atlanta and Tampa met with YS leaders Jacob Perasso and Olympia Newton to discuss working with others to build and participate in the May 20 demonstration and other activities.

The youth at that meeting also discussed organizing and participating in YS-sponsored classes in New York, Chicago, St. Paul, Minnesota, and elsewhere this summer. Those taking part in this program will also be campaigning to get SWP candidates on the ballot in many cities and to collectively study questions important to understanding developments in the class struggle today.
 
 
Related articles:
‘Our History’ at Asian American Studies event  
 
 
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