American aggression against Cuba.
bean.
In the second policy might be, and asks sion — is excluded.
CASTROIST foreign policy has for a long time been marked by a protouna contradictionthe Cuban revolution ocol lic duvaiccu ouroosts ni against In giving birth to the first Latin American workers' state, ninety miles from the US mainland, it became a special target for the USA.
For twenty years it has survived economic blockade, invasion attempts, and repeated aggression by means of an extraordinarv mass mobilsation. bi people prepared for greatest possible sacritices to defend their victories and gains. It has survived thanks to considerable military economic assistance from the sover union anals aues These realities have conditioned the Cuban leadership's vision of the world situation. According to unem. inis nas to be analysed by starting from the confrontation between two fundamental camps: perialism and *the socialist Logically, they conclude that the struggie against perialism cannot be efficiently WHOU divine oneself, in one way or another with the socialise camp . Collective Any 'third road', they say, is illusory and dangerous. This is stressed in the internationai theses adopted by the Second Congress Cuban Communist Party: 'Unity in action needed between the great currents of our epoch: the socialist system, wore workers movemen. and the movement of national liberation. Any threat to unity of these three great currents, for whatever reason, objectively plays imperialism's Ball This analysis is reinforced by the conviction that any tective SUCCO perialism cannot avoid, sooner or later. leading to a struggle for socialism. Such a struggle, within the tramework of this analysis, is confused with the struggle for the reinforcement and extension of the 'socialist camp'. TWO WEEKS AGO we carried the first article in a two-part series on Cuban foreign policy the French revolutionary newspaper Rouge. It analysed the internationalist dimension of recent mass mobilisations in Cuba: their deep identification with revolutionary struggles in Central America, and the need to reply to any The article discussed the fears of Cuban leaders concerning a possible military adventure by the Reagan administration, in the framework of its counter-revolutionary offensive in Central America and the CaribIt also discussed their worries concerning the many problems of the socialist camp: economic problems, Afghanistan, Poland. It stressed the striving for new emphasis given, positions, Cuba's need for 'its own, foreign policy to avoid being 'subordinated to the policies of article, Jean-Pierre discusses the possible content of what such a whether substantial divergence with the Soviet Union - whose massive aid and military support have been a determining factor in guarantee ing survival in the face of imperialist aggresA policy which assimilates the interests of the world proletariat into the interests of the 'socialist camp' is ists, leads inevitably to a suborterests and of these peoples to those of the bureaucracies now in bower in workers' the interests of the bureaucracy. •All the more so because the the and im1TR -i Cuban communists see the "socialist camp' as geneous entity whose unity cannot be threatened. trary position, here also, only 'objectively perialism's game' We can now understand the positions which Castro the defended since the ference the Movement; likewise the official the •ecaratoss on rolau.
But at the same time, above and bevona tactical junctural positions, the Cuban leaders have never ceased to defend the Latin revolution. The victory Nicaraguan revolution in Central America followed rise or revoluton ln America have, in this consulutea tests or tne grcales possible importance:
Cubans have as lal have been able, actively aided the revolutionary process at the to any COSL ot real serious political risks for the Cuban workers' state. as it now ex- It is considered as a 'sacred' duty, as is often said in Cuba, a duty towards the oppressed peoples of Central America and also towaras me cuban people the themselves essentially to revolutionarv victories in Cen Soviet tral America are decisive for the reinforcement of our revolution.' Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev: in 1961 Russian military aid a homo- term which Castro applies to the new situation in Any LUll Auctica. this main axis wall play im- pull y The internationalist underlying it are in contradiction with a subordination to the has interests of conbureaucracy which is expressed Non-angnica in a conception of coexistence, which does not call into question the status quo in imperialism's strongholds and conMore than about 'the American their policy towards American by the the decisive Central attributed to it. and the pro sense, blems to lie behind the the leadership's as they foreign policy' The attempts, according sacrifices and take struggling because "Central has been the of Cuban foreign revolutionary and conception the Soviet peaceful their worries accumulation another confirmation desire to elaborate importance express in which it gives rise initiatives in Cuban call for 'Cuba's beginning However, the Cubans, from the situation in Cuba, to narrow maximum advan- manoeuvre is. tage of growing interimperialist contradictions - notably those arising from Reagan's counter Central revolutionary offensive - are, revolutionary process in Central America at the cost of real sacrifices' of their 'their own policy. As is the interest they social democracy's Latin Huncha. analysed as a particular expresinter-imperialist Cull' tradictions in the continent.
we can see how leaders to put forward a specific policy policy' The USA is responding to the rising tide of Contral American revolution with renewed military throats against Cuba the margin for The force of the rise of the American revolution has made it possible for Cuba of Castro with Grenada's President Maurice Bishop. "Cubans have actively aided the in the region which, in the pre sent international conjuncture, would enter into direct contlici with the politics of the USSR But the objective weight of Soviet influence on the Cubar economy and its / the Cuban limits imposed by the because of this reality in the full sense of the — and also the logic of some of their own such I as the division of the world into two camps still cut down the possibilities for the affirmation 'their independent term.
Important and significan though ine new insistence or this objective may be, it is no: today of such a character as to resolve the old and profound contradiction of Cuban foreign policy in an environment which remains OWIl Socialist Challenge 11 June 1982
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the leadership's official other socialist states
helped Cuba defeat the USA's invasion attempts Since the "Great turn' - the