Vol. 78/No. 46      December 22, 2014

Making History: Interviews with Four Generals of Cuba’s Revolutionary Armed Forces is one of Pathfinder’s Books of the Month for December. Below is an excerpt from the interview with Gen. Enrique Carreras, considered the father of revolutionary Cuba’s air force. Jack Barnes, national secretary of the Socialist Workers Party; Mary-Alice Waters, president of Pathfinder Press and editor of the book; and Martín Koppel conducted the interview on Oct. 24, 1997, in Havana. Copyright © 1999 by Pathfinder Press. Reprinted by permission.

BARNES: In the United States we tell revolutionary-minded workers and young people that the living traditions of the Cuban armed forces represent for us today what the young fighters in the soldiers’ soviets in Russia meant for toilers the world over in 1917. It has the same kind of political attraction to revolutionists as the army Lenin and the Bolsheviks forged seventy years ago to defend the young Soviet workers and peasants republic against the counterrevolutionary bandits of that time, and against the invading imperialist armies that backed them.

Right now, the FAR [Revolutionary Armed Forces of Cuba] is the only revolutionary army working people and youth in the United States today have a chance to see. And they need to learn about and understand a revolutionary army, because some day they are going to be soldiers in such an army.

No worker in the United States has ever known a general like those in the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Cuba. Young workers who’ve served in the U.S. army know the officer corps as a caste who consider the ranks to be trash — just pieces of meat to be trained, used, and disposed of, dead or alive. That is one of the reasons the generals of the FAR who spoke to the young people from the Americas taking part in the youth festival last summer had such a tremendous impact on them. Young fighters in the United States had the opportunity to learn about some very important history, the traditions of a revolutionary army.

Many revolutionary-minded workers in the United States study the Russian revolution, and they develop a pretty good feel for the workers’ soviets — the mass councils of workers’ delegates that grew up in the heat of battle and formed the foundation of the new revolutionary government. Workers and other young people in the United States even develop somewhat of an understanding of the peasants’ soviets, although fewer and fewer of them today have ever been on a farm. But they have a much harder time understanding the soldiers’ soviets, since it’s even a step or so further removed from anything they’ve ever experienced, even indirectly. So we tell them: learn what you can about the armed forces in Cuba, and you’ll have about as good a feel for the soldiers’ soviets as is possible short of major new revolutionary developments.

Traditions of Cuban army
CARRERAS: If you’ll pardon my saying so, armies have their own traditions. The Soviets have theirs, of course, very strong ones. We have our own traditions — very appealing ones, which we fight to maintain and guard.

Who were our soldiers in Cuba’s war of independence from Spain? The slaves, the peasants — that’s who joined up as soldiers together with Carlos Manuel de Céspedes to liberate Cuba and put an end to slavery. During the revolutionary war against Batista, the majority of the soldiers who joined the Rebel Army were peasants, as well as workers and students. That’s the source of our traditions. And you can’t transfer experiences from one country to another.

I’ve seen firsthand the traditions of other armies, traditions very different from our own. For one thing, we are incapable of laying a hand on a soldier. That is the greatest abomination we can imagine. Yet once, right in front of several of us, I witnessed a Soviet general strike a soldier for being drunk. I can put up with a lot, but seeing that made me so angry I had to get out of there. Laying a hand on a soldier shows a lack of respect, and that’s something we do not allow. That’s just the way we are.

BARNES: Yes, and your traditions are more like those of the young working-class and peasant soldiers in the soviets of 1917 who gave everything when Lenin and the Bolsheviks called on them to defeat the imperialist invasion and the counterrevolutionary armies of the landlords and capitalists. That is what we have always believed.

The example of Che is part of your traditions, too, and this month, October — here in Cuba, in the United States, and elsewhere — we’ve been commemorating the thirtieth anniversary of the combat waged in Bolivia by Che Guevara and his comrades. For Che the military, the political, and the economic were not separate, unconnected arenas, but instead parts of an integrated strategy to fundamentally transform society and in the process transform the human beings engaged in that revolutionary activity. Could you tell us a little more about what Che’s example means for the cadres and leaders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces, and for the Cuban people?

Che Guevara
CARRERAS: Che is the greatest exponent of the Latin American revolution. As Fidel explained in Santa Clara last week, few individuals have done what Che did to point the way for humanity — to give everything, as he did. I flew with Che a number of times. I got to know his personality. Che foresaw and spoke about many of the things that are happening to us in Cuba today. He was a man of great foresight, like Fidel — who has even greater foresight. Both of them were able to see things far down the road, and that proved decisive in helping us emerge victorious from the most difficult moments the revolution has passed through.

The image of Che can be found wherever there is a young person who wants to change humanity. Che does not represent only armed struggle, only Cuba, only Argentina. No, he represents the image of the new man.  
 
 
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