One of the largest sections of the International Left Opposition was in Cuba where by 1933 most Trotskyists had been expelled from the Cuban Communist Party. Gathering their forces in September, 1933 around leading Communist figures Sandalio Junco and Juan Ramón Breá, the Partido Bolchevique Leninista de Cuba was formed. Aligned mass organizations like the Workers’ Federation of Havana, and the PCC’s Student Group, and the International Labor Defense gave the new party real weight at its birth, though repression and factionalism would splinter the movement by 1940. The Partido Bolchevique Leninista de Cuba manifesto announcing its formation below.

‘To the Cuban Workers & Peasants: Manifesto of Partido Bolchevique Leninista de Cuba’ from The Militant. Vol. 6 No. 52. November 18, 1933.

(Ed. Note: We print below the full text of the manifesto recently published by the newly-formed Bolshevik-Leninist Party of Cuba.)

The delegates of the sections and nuclei of the Communist Opposition of Cuba, assembled on September 14th, 1933, after an extensive and thorough-going study of recent events decided to constitute nation. ally the BOLSHEVIK-LENINIST PARTY and to publish and circulate this manifesto which contains an initial statement of clear and definite principles.

The Importance of the Party

In the political struggles of the Cuban proletariat no event has ever occurred as important as this step which we have just taken. the midst of the present turbulent political situation accompanied by the most frightful confusion and chaos, the minority formed by the Communist Left Opposition has made a resolute decision and has worked out through the iron will of hundreds of workers, the form and essence of a new workers revolutionary party.

This party, which rises after long and difficult struggle of over a year, does not hesitate to openly declare before all the workers, that it emerges from the very womb of the Communist party of Cuba and that it is historically the negation of the latter.

It has become evident in the most recent times in the complicated economic and political situation of Cuba, that the lack of a real revolutionary party has frustrated the ascending developing of the revolution many times. The great tragedy of the oppressed Cuban masses consists in their not having found as yet a vehicle capable of carrying them on the road towards their final emancipation. On the crossroads to victory the masses have always felt the lack of the subjective factor which is necessary for the achievement of its liberation.

The existence of deep ferment and decomposition in the whole capitalist regime, means nothing if, nevertheless, there does not exist the organized force of a proletarian revolutionary party able to direct realistically the protest and rebellion of the masses during a political upheaval.

Irrespective of our wishes, a revolutionary workers vanguard can only be organized at certain historical conjunctures. In periods of great revolutionary struggles, the ebb and flow of the mass movement automatically produces the necessary means for carrying out successfully the creation of a new party.

The Cuban Situation and the Bolshevik Party

In the present period of rapid developments and sharp crises, the Cuban working class needs and produces a revolutionary vanguard from its own ranks. This step does not need justification before history because it is an integral and fundamental part of the historical process itself.

The present situation and the difficulty of our position in it is no secret to the Bolshevik-Leninist Party. Armed by Marxism with the most efficient instrument for analyzing the historic processes, understanding the extent and consequences of their development, we are able to comprehend that never before in Cuba has there taken place such an outstanding political event as the rising of the rank and file of the army in the early morning of September 4th. The revolt of the non-commissioned officers and soldiers of the army opens a new stage in the revolutionary process in Cuba. This rebellion completely confirms our correct political ne wherein we affirmed, ever since March 1933, that the fall of Machado would provoke clashes between the reactionary bourgeois wing of the Opposition, and the various elements of the petty bourgeoisie. The theory held by the leaders of the Communist party several months ago (May 30), that “a broad radicalization of the masses” existed, which “obliged the forces of counter revolution to unite”, has fallen to the ground smashed by the reality of the situation. Can it be said that there exists a broad radicalization of the masses at the very time when an uprising of the rank and file of the army takes place, and this uprising brings the petty bourgeois elements of the Directorio Estudiantil to the seat of power?

The coming to political power of the petty bourgeoisie has already placed before the masses in a practical form, the questions of bourgeois democracy and the instability of this outlived state form. In the face of the violent break of the petty bourgeoisie with the reactionary “mediation” forces, a regrouping of the bourgeois and petty bourgeois forces in struggle for the holding of power is taking place. Yankee imperialism, represented in Cuban politics by Sumner Welles, openly supports the formation of the counter-revolutionary front led by the ABC and Menocal.

In this situation the Bolshevik-Leninist party clearly understands that only a truly independent class position can save the proletariat from defeat. Confronted by the forces of the counter-revolution, the Bolshevik Party takes a determined stand, in the belief that in the present historical conjuncture the worker and peasant masses are in a position to marshall their forces and to prepare themselves for the revolution. The national liberation of Cuba, as a colonial country, must be posed in a concrete form. Under the pressure of imperialism the Grau San Martin government, successively wavers, gesticulates, threatens, yields; but does not firmly conduct the direct and fundamental attack against Yankee intervention. Only the working class in alliance with the poor peasants can liberate Cuba from the iniquities and oppression of imperialism.

The International Situation

The formation of a new revolutionary workers’ vanguard, must necessarily deal not only with national questions but also with international problems. The present historical period characterized by the decline of finance capitalism has transferred the solution of complicated national problems onto the international arena.

Bolshevism was the inspiration of the glorious launching of the Third Communist International. Those of us who today militate in its ranks must honestly declare that a new stage has begun in the history of the world’s workers movement. The catastrophe which took place Germany with the shipwreck of the German Communist Party and the triumph of Fascism, have forever destroyed the possibilities of a regeneration of the Communist International. The cadres which throughout the world have broken from the domination of the Stalinist bureaucracy, now pose resolutely the question of a new International, which will turn its back on the bureaucratic centrism of Stalin-Manuilsky and face towards a real Marxist-Leninist conception of the class struggle.

At this juncture, we declare, as in the Bolshevik-Leninist statement at the recent. conference of Left groups (the Paris Conference-Ed.) that even in its present state the USSR is a workers state and that we are prepared to defend it. But his defense cannot be expected from the degenerate Soviet bureaucracy, but rather from the proletarian masses themselves guided by the new political orientation of International Leninism.

The Bolshevik Party and the Revolution in Cuba

Cuba, a semi-colonial country, which is rapidly becoming–if it is not already so–a Yankee colony, presents to the proletarian vanguard the clearest possible idea character and the realization of the agrarian revolution.

The Bolshevik Party cannot predict the exact date of the agrarian revolution, neither does it pretend to be able to build socialism overnight in a country of poor and middle peasants, with a proletariat that is still politically too weak to rally the peasants around itself and come to power. Like every other colony Cuba lacks independent economic unity, and on whole its economy is still in a pre-capitalist stage. Favorable objective conditions coincide with the marked liquidation of the subjective factor. And the possibilities of developing the movement have not been lost but rather delayed. The difference between the petty bourgeois elements and ourselves, the Bolshevik-Leninists, rests, in substance, on the form of government capable of guaranteeing the independence of the island, in the means of obtaining it and its aims. The most recent efforts of the “Anti-Imperialist” intellectuals of Latin America, led by the “Apristas”, are oriented towards finding the “Latin American liberation formula”. This formula has common denominator in all countries: the necessity of the capitalist development of the economy in these countries. The fact that the industrial proletariat is not entirely developed in the colonies and that the national bourgeoisie is an emaciated and spineless class incapable of struggle against imperialism in defense of its own class interests, leads them to the conclusion that the proletarian revolution cannot be realized in America and that the struggle must be limited to driving imperialism out of these lands in order afterwards to develop their “own independent economy”. This concept looks for sup port in quotations from Marx and Lenin, arbitrarily snatched from the text and rearranged to support their contentions. These so-called “Marxists”, state that it is impossible to jump over the stage of the bourgeois revolution in America, and consequently that only a gradual, slow development of the historical process, and “orderliness” of the “unsurmountable” historical stages, is possible without falling into utopian Socialism. This is false; absolutely false. Marxism as an economic doctrine does not believe in gradual, slow changes, in unsurmountable barriers, but rather a highly revolutionary theory which recognizes the possibility of jumping two stages at a time; two steps at a time.

In the present world situation, the interlocking character of the whole of world economy prevents the consideration of events from a one sided point of view of any single country in particular. From this springs the fact that, isolating Latin America from the rest of the world, and from the ripening 01 world economy for its revolutionary transformation, these petty-bourgeois arrive at the conclusion that in Latin America the necessary capitalist conditions for the realizing of the Socialist are not revolution mature.

This new petty bourgeois formula must be discarded in its entirety. We cannot consider struggle in an isolated sense but only as a part of the world proletarian struggle. Our internationalism is not based on bold theoretical statements but on the economic structure of world capitalism. If we separate the colonies from the other capitalist countries, they have no independent economic unity and are in reality incapable of developing by themselves. But the task with which we are faced today is not exactly that of initiating capitalist development in America but rather of realizing the agrarian revolution; carrying out the Socialist revolution and setting up the dictatorship of the proletariat. “It is a question of knowing if we can admit that the development of capitalist economy is inevitable in the backward countries that now emancipate themselves and in which certain progress has taken place since the war. We have reached the conclusion that the development of capitalism in these countries is not inevitable, especially in where the victorious proletariat has conducted systematic propaganda in them. With the assistance of the proletariat in the advanced countries, the backward countries can reach the Soviet organizational form, and passing through a series et pauses reach Communism, escaping a capitalist period.”

This opinion of Lenin’s is our conception. History cannot be turned backwards just because ten or fifteen countries are retarded in their development, neither can the revolutionary movement stop to wait for them.

For this reason, the Bolshevik Party declares on the agrarian and national question and on the content and aims of the agrarian revolution, the following:

1. The national liberation of Cuba, as a semi-colonial country can be obtained only through the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat winch applying the Bolshevik formula, draws the peasantry behind it.

2. The peasant question cannot be underestimated by the proletarian Vanguard and still less in these semi-colonial and agrarian countries. The victory of the agrarian revolution depends upon which class the peasantry follows, the Proletariat or the bourgeoisie.

3. The formula issued by the Leaders of the Communist party Concerning the development of the agrarian revolution, its slogans of struggle, the contusion on the question of the mechanics of state power–in whose hands it should reside–all this must be discarded and in its stead should be placed the slogan of the agrarian and anti-imperialist revolution under the leadership of the proletariat in alliance with the peasantry.

4. The ultimate victory of the agrarian revolution can only be obtained by the development and triumph of the world proletarian revolution. Therefore the Bolshevik party recognizes the necessity of effectively joining our movement with the worker and peasant masses of the entire world and specifically of the United States and Latin America.

5. It is necessary to take advantage of all the conjunctures in order to unite the proletariat with the peasantry and develop the agrarian revolution to its conclusion. If the proletariat does not secure this support of the peasant masses in advance, if it does not manage to “draw them behind” itself, it is then utopian to even think of the victory of the revolution in Cuba.

6. The native bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie, rural as well as urban, organically and ideologically, are incapable of leading the revolutionary struggle of the oppressed people to its goal. All conciliation with these elements in regard to the specific purposes of the revolution, is but treason to the workers and peasants. To hand over these forces to a petty bourgeois leadership, is to repeat consciously the betrayals in China and Mexico.

7. The agrarian anti-imperialist revolution, will not only fulfill the tasks of the bourgeois revolution (liquidation of the feudal forms of production, national liberation, agrarian revolution, etc.), but must, by the very fact that the bourgeoisie is not the motive force in it and that it is carried out without the support of the bourgeoisie and against the bourgeoisie, lay the foundations, from which the step can be taken to the socialist revolution and the proletarian dictatorship.

8. Given the character and future development of the agrarian and anti-imperialist revolution only the proletarian vanguard organized in a Bolshevik party, can achieve the revolutionary alliance of the proletariat and peasantry, accomplishing by this, the final triumph of the revolution. The so-called Anti-Imperialist Leagues, are organically and politically incapable of fulfilling these tasks, and are nothing but coarse caricatures of the revolutionary “united front”. In their place, only the leadership of the proletariat organized in its class party will be capable of filling this role.

9. Finally; it is very clear to us that the victory of the agrarian anti-imperialist revolution can only be guaranteed by the proletarian dictatorship, and that this proletarian dictatorship will not appear after the revolution, but on the foundation of the revolution itself, as the only force capable of achieving the agrarian and anti-imperialist objectives.

It is necessary to leave no room for doubt in this respect. An enormous theoretical poverty exists in this question, which, however the Bolshevik party does not hesitate to tackle. The sectarian group has never been able to answer these essential questions, simply because it has not realized its responsibility in regard to them. In a petty bourgeoisie manner, they mask their ideological confusion by tacking together a half dozen anti-imperialist slogans from the international store-room of catch-words and slogans. In practice they have not advanced one inch further, in the agrarian and national questions, than the petty bourgeois of the A.B.C. However, they furiously attack these latter, perhaps because of a special desire to contradict themselves.

Possibilities of a Resurgence of the Official Communist Party

Before deciding to make the turn towards the formation of a party, we have given due consideration to the possibilities of a general political resurgence not only of the Communist International but of its Cuban section as well. The development of recent political events, has returned the most valuable and honest elements, who had been in exile abroad to the ranks of the Communist Party of Cuba. These new forces, which the bureaucracy is very careful to keep on the periphery of the party, clash objectively with the old routine, sectarian tactics of the leadership. But the intensity of the clash is toned down, because the sectarian leadership maneuvers capably, extending to these new elements the strings which will definitely tie it to the worn-out and worm-eaten party apparatus.

These comrades still believe that it is possible to restore the Communist party to its “political normalcy”, and that this restoration must take place from the inside. In spite however of their heroic efforts and sincere purpose, it will be proven useless. The degeneration of the party is complete.

We have fought hard ever since 1931 to create the renovating current capable of saving the party from its own corruption.

These efforts have been in vain.

Those comrades who still struggle for the regeneration of the party, do not yet feel the pressure of the ruling bureaucracy, because the latter finds the menace of our group enough for the present. As soon as the Stalinist wing of the party is definitely entrenched in its position, it will turn disloyally against these new elements in an attempt to suppress them. Then, the friction between the two forces will push towards the Bolshevik-Leninists, the most capable and revolutionary sections of the party. To those militants who still conserve their ideological honesty, the Bolshevik-Leninist Party will never close its doors.

The future of the world belongs to Bolshevism.

Long live the Bolshevik-Leninist Party.

CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE BOLSHEVIK-LENINIST PARTY

Havana, September 25, 1933.

The Militant was a weekly newspaper begun by supporters of the International Left Opposition recently expelled from the Communist Party in 1928 and published in New York City. Led by James P Cannon, Max Schacthman, Martin Abern, and others, the new organization called itself the Communist League of America (Opposition) and saw itself as an outside faction of both the Communist Party and the Comintern. After 1933, the group dropped ‘Opposition’ and advocated a new party and International. When the CLA fused with AJ Muste’s American Workers Party in late 1934, the paper became the New Militant as the organ of the newly formed Workers Party of the United States.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/themilitant/1933/nov-18-1933.pdf