--- John Paul Cupp, NACAZAI Public Relations Director
Both of the Castro brothers and Hugo Chavez have made considerable gains in the fight against capitalism and imperialism, but while both countries have historically been allies of the anti-imperialist struggle, neither is genuinely revolutionary today. This has caused many of their allies and all sorts of anti-American and anti-war agitators to gloss over the direction both are going. Sentimental connections with Che Guevara have lots of people not noticing the social democratic and Trotskyite scum who are rapidly seizing openings in both countries, scum Guevara would have ensured were executed. It isn’t an accident that Chavez praised Trotsky, nor that this Zionist-cosmopolitan bastardization of true Marxism is allowed into Cuba as if it were another revolutionary anti-imperialist tendency. Cuba nor Venezuela is moving in a genuinely socialist direction, though both are objectively anti-imperialist and have good bases of support among the workers.
It isn’t an accident that Barack Obama is cuddling up to Cuba and Venezuela. This isn’t because Obama is a “socialist” as the right-wing media proclaim or because either of the two countries has won some dynamic struggle against the US imperialists, and hence forced Obama to his knees. Rather, both have taken a direction similar to Iran in that they are willing to forgo revolutionary anti-imperialism for social democratic foreign policies and drop anti-Americanism in exchange for the US simply moving against more dynamically anti-imperialist forces, namely north Korea, Myanmar, Sudan, the People’s Wars in the Philippines and Colombia and the Jihads against occupation throughout the Arab world and Afghanistan. Both Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez were talking counterrevolutionary nonsense when they attacked the FARC-EP, and both have been around Latin American geopolitics long enough to know that they were committing treason against principles in order to get sanctions and conspiracies by the US imperialists removed. Both know full well that no room for “political struggle” short of armed resistance exists in Colombia, and all too well understand that this beachhead of imperialism in Latin American literally assassinates at will as the US pours in tens of billions of dollars more.
The revolutionary vanguard in Latin America today, not just in Colombia, is the FARC-EP. Material conditions force them to remain true to the principles of People’s War and wage a dynamic patriotic struggle for socialism, national liberation and Bolivarian unification that absolutely isn’t going to come about because of any project Chavez leads.
We should not take the same dogmatic Maoist anti-Chavez and anti-Cuba lines that many revolutionaries have, but we shouldn’t deny a lot of the good points made in such arguments either. Solidarity and criticism are a synthesis that should be properly balanced. Recognizing that these regimes have a right to be masters of their own course and destiny is not the same thing at all as pretending that either country is developing genuine models of resistance as both claim to be doing. We should support both Venezuela and Cuba against imperialism and realize both are far more good than bad, but we also shouldn’t pretend reformist and social democratic traits are revolutionary.
Ultimately, both countries are oppressed people with a history of resisting imperialism. However, both regimes, especially Cuba being just ninety miles from the US with a well-funded pro-imperialist opposition, risk being totally destroyed if they attempt to build a Latin American version of Deng Xiaoping’s China. Taking a pragmatic approach to US imperialism, regardless of the current president’s skin color, is like asking to be shot in the head. Unless you have a Jewish-sounding last name, US imperialism isn’t your friend and never will be!
It’s good that Cuba promotes literacy and health care, but that isn’t remotely as relevant as national struggle and class warfare. Anti-imperialist principles come first. The illusions must be smashed!
