Sectarianism and microfraction

Toward the Party Conference (Part IV)

By Jorge Gómez Barata

“The seriousness of a revolutionary party is measured by its attitude toward its own mistakes.”

Thus began Fidel Castro his appearance on national television on March 26, 1962, to inform the population of the existence of a sectarian current within the Integrated Revolutionary Organizations, the embryo of the party that the Revolution wanted for itself. It was the first time I heard someone quote Lenin.

Three years had passed since its triumph and, through the agrarian reform law and the nationalizations, the Revolution had crossed an historic Rubicon. Among its experiences were the counter-revolutionary sabotages, the struggle against the gangs of upstarts, the effects of the U.S. blockade, and the victory at the Bay of Pigs. The danger that emerged at that moment came from its very ranks and from a most unexpected source: the party that was born of the union of revolutionary forces.

With extraordinary lucidity, Fidel Castro conducted the Revolution as a pluralistic effort that had space for all men and women willing to fight against the dictatorship and for the people’s cause. That spirit was carried through to the government and political structures that emerged from the process of converting the revolutionary movement into power.

Dozens of writings, speeches and testimonies describe the efforts made by Fidel to add to the Revolution elements that, although less consequent, might contribute to the march of the process, and to keep those elements from falling away. That accent on unity was assumed from the earliest days by the principal leaders and commanders of the Revolution, especial by Raúl Castro and Che Guevara, whose contributions to that task were decisive and still are.

Guided mainly by confusion and personal ambition, a few elements of Cuba’s old Marxist Party, acting as individuals, tried to take advantage of the spaces opened by the unifying integration of the organizations that had participated in the struggle against tyranny to introduce in the party being founded a sectarian current that threatened the unity and cohesion of the revolutionary ranks. By denouncing that deed and mentioning its principal promoter, Aníbal Escalante, Fidel considered those deviations as a natural, even probably inevitable phenomenon.

The trauma was overcome with grace and generosity, above all with the understanding of the leaders of the old Marxist Party and its devoted members, who correctly joined the criticism aimed at their former leader.

Nevertheless, four years later came another outbreak, this time in the form of a “microfraction” formed by several dozen people who held ultraleftist positions and proselytized in the bosom of state institutions and the Party. Making things worse was the fact that that group, which included elements mentioned during the criticism of sectarianism, maintained communication with officials at the Soviet Embassy. In 1968, Raúl Castro notified the Central Committee plenum, and the people implicated were tried by ordinary tribunals.

According to Fidel, that group, “as a political force, lacked significance; as a political intention, its acts were of a serious nature; and, as a current within the revolutionary movement, it was an openly reformist, reactionary and conservative current.”

Those who from abroad — be they friends or foes — criticize the Cuban Revolution for having only one party are frequently unaware that this Party, like every human work made of lights and shadows, is the genuine result of the Revolution and the child of an extraordinarily complex and fecund political process based on the search for unity within the principles.

That Party, which went through different stages and overcame huge difficulties, is now looking for resources to perfect its task. Part of that effort is the forthcoming Conference, announced on Aug. 1 by Cuban President Raúl Castro.

Jorge Gómez Barata is a Cuban journalist. He lives in Havana.