To Fidel Castro by Pablo Neruda

[Ecurb]

Actually my view is that the human potential for evil grows exponentially when it is hidden in dark places. Ignoring Castro's crimes only serves the next torturer-killer at the expense of the next victims. The same is true of Batista. It has nothing to do with hate. It has to do with facing the things human beings are capable of doing to one another without flinching or without pretending. It is easier, of course, to turn one's head and sing a happy song. But that is neither a just approach nor, I think, a particularly safe one.

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That's reasonable. However, it's also reasonable to think "the evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with the bones." To concentrate on one aspect of Castro's political career (whether it is his brutal dictatorship or courageous revolution) and ignore the other seems like political opportunism, and his death might not be the proper time for that. Some ignore Castro's brutality; others prefer to ignore his charisma and courage.

(Actually, "brutality" is the wrong word, but I didn't change it because word choice might stimulate discussion. "Brutes" kill people, but, generally, they are not evil when they do. Humans are capable of evil, not brutes. Also, I agree that we shouldn't ignore evil -- but we can and should admire virtues like courage, while deploring sin. It's fair to castigate Castro, but the man is dead, and it's reasonable to look back at the man as a complex human -- narcissistic, violent and power-hungry, but brave and capable.)

[Pompey Bum]

DW: I no longer respond to Red Terror's posts because I believe he is a minor. I assume adults can handle political discussions, but I don't want to involve children. I should really put him on my ignore list. There, I just did.

YesNo is on my ignore list, too. That means I normally can't see his posts. I see a white bar instead, although there is a button that allows me to view the post if I suspect he is up to something (as he is now). He knows all this. He's just trying to make a fight now because he is angry with me.

Castro's human rights record is well documented. I'll leave a couple of links for you, but you could easily do this for yourself. The real issue not whether the abuses occurred but if they were justified given Castro's achievements and historical context. My view is that they were not, and I have given my reasons above ad nauseam. You are obviously free to make up your own mind. I have no problem with disagreeing with you or anyone else on the point. But I am not going to remain silent.

https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/11/26/...ord-repression

http://www.therealcuba.com/?page_id=55

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/o...129-story.html

I didn't know there was such a thing as an ignore list, still less how it works. Not sure what the point of it would be.

It gets rid of people you don't wish to know anymore. You always have the option of looking, but after a while you stop caring--you just let them fuss. It's actually quite effective.

Case in point: I just checked out how my newest ignore was handling things. He wanted to know about torture-- fair enough and my bad. Here is an article from the New York Times about the memoirs of the Cuban poet Armando Valladares, an eyewitness and torture victim during 22 hellish years in Castro's prisons:

http://www.nytimes.com/1986/06/08/bo...pagewanted=all

Just do your own search, DW. It's not really a controversy.

[Pompey Bum]

That's reasonable. However, it's also reasonable to think "the evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with the bones." To concentrate on one aspect of Castro's political career (whether it is his brutal dictatorship or courageous revolution) and ignore the other seems like political opportunism, and his death might not be the proper time for that. Some ignore Castro's brutality; others prefer to ignore his charisma and courage.

(Actually, "brutality" is the wrong word, but I didn't change it because word choice might stimulate discussion. "Brutes" kill people, but, generally, they are not evil when they do. Humans are capable of evil, not brutes. Also, I agree that we shouldn't ignore evil -- but we can and should admire virtues like courage, while deploring sin. It's fair to castigate Castro, but the man is dead, and it's reasonable to look back at the man as a complex human -- narcissistic, violent and power-hungry, but brave and capable.)

We are all free to admire who we like. You and I are blessed to live in a country where our free speech is consitutionally secured. You may express your opinions about the things in Castro you find admirable. I refuse to be silent about his human rights abuses. I think we can both live with that.

[Ecurb]

We are all free to admire who we like. You and I are blessed to Live in a country where our free speech consitutionally secured. You may express your opinions about the things in Castro you find admirable. I refuse to be silent about his human rights abuses. I think we can both live with that.

Yes; and we can (perhaps) agree that Neruda can write his poem, or that Wordsworth could write "bliss was it in that dawn to be alive / But to be young was very heaven." Wordsworth's poem was about the French Revolution -- as replete with blood and hope as the more recent revolution in Cuba.

[Pompey Bum]

Yes; and we can (perhaps) agree that Neruda can write his poem, or that Wordsworth could write "bliss was it in that dawn to be alive / But to be young was very heaven." Wordsworth's poem was about the French Revolution -- as replete with blood and hope as the more recent revolution in Cuba.

I don't understand. Are you under the impression I've said Neruda couldn't write his poem? Have you read the thread? I don't think I've even mentioned Neruda till now.

[Red Terror]

Pompey Bum's link to the N.Y. Times is strictly for entertainment purposes, folks! ---- Not to be taken seriously! I mean really!!! Are we supposed to be gullible enough to swallow that toilet paper of record the N.Y. Times??? After all the lies and filth they have churned out for decades, are we now suppose to take them seriously??? I don't read the N.Y. Times for the truth. I read it for the lies.

I wikied him. He worked for the secret police of dictator Batista and was arrested for terrorism-related offenses. Some poet he is since I never even heard of him. He's not even mentioned in Professor Harold Bloom's master list of the Western Canon.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armando_Valladares

Look at the poetaster Armando Vallardes today. He looks like a daper old man. He does not look like he's tortured. Where are the scars??? He still has his teeth. Come on, dude!!!



Look at him when he was released from prison. He does not look like the shell of a man that has undergone hell on earth!!!

Case in point: I just checked out how my newest ignore was handling things. He wanted to know about torture-- fair enough and my bad. Here is an article from the New York Times about the memoirs of the Cuban poet Armando Valladares, an eyewitness and torture victim during of 22 hellish years in Castro's prisons:

http://www.nytimes.com/1986/06/08/bo...pagewanted=all

Just do your own search, DW. It's not really a controversy.

[Red Terror]

Let us take a moment to examine in detail the legacy of the “tyrant” Fidel Castro:


+ Cuba is today the only country in the Americas where child malnourishment does not exist (UNICEF).

+ Cuba has the lowest child mortality rate in the Americas (UNICEF).

+ 130,000 students have graduated from medical school in Cuba since 1961.

+ Cuba has eliminated homelessness (Knoema).

+ 54% of Cuba’s national budget is used for social services.

+ Cuba has the best education system in Latin America.

+ Cuba has sent hundreds of doctors and nurses on medical missions across the Third World.

+ Cuba was the first country to eliminate mother-to-child transmission of HIV (World Health Organization).

If only the Haitian people or the people of the Dominican Republic had such a tyrant ruling their countries. If only the poor in the US and UK had such a tyrant at the head of their respective governments.

When it comes to the accusation that gays were persecuted in Cuba after the revolution, there is no doubt that LGBT rights were non-existent in Cuba in the sixties and for most of the seventies, just as they were non existent throughout much of the world. Homosexuality, for example, was decriminalized in Cuba in 1979, which compares favourably to Scotland and Northern Ireland in the UK, where it was decriminalized in 1980 and 1982 respectively. Moreover, same-sex sexual activity was only made legal across the entire United States in 2003. It is also worth bearing in mind that homosexuality today is criminalized in Saudi Arabia – a close UK and US ally and a society in which women are treated as chattel and people are routinely beheaded – where it is punishable by death.

The fact is that the existence of homophobia in Cuba predated Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution by around five centuries. It was entrenched as part of the cultural values of Cuban society, indeed the cultural values throughout the Americas, courtesy of the Catholic Church. Fidel Castro was a product of those values and to his credit later renounced them, awakening to the justice of LGBT rights. Today his own niece, Mariela Castro, plays an active role in the Cuban LGBT community, leading the country’s annual gay pride parade in Havana last year.

As for torture, meanwhile, the only place on the island of Cuba where this can be found is at the US military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay.

The key point to be borne in mind when it comes to Cuba and its state of development is that countries and societies do not exist on blank sheets of paper. In the Third World their development cannot be divorced from a real life struggle against the huge obstacles placed in their way by histories of colonialism, neo-colonialism, and imperialism, responsible for retarding their progress in service to the exploitation of their human and natural resources.

The legitimacy of the Cuban Revolution lies in its survival in the face of the aforementioned US blockade, designed to starve the country to its knees for daring to refuse to be slaves of global capital. To understand what that would look like all we need do is cast our eyes over to the aforementioned Haiti or Dominican Republic, countries of comparable size located in the same region. Compared to them Cuba stands as a beacon of dignity, social and economic justice, and sustainable development.

Fidel Castro was no dictator. On the contrary, he dedicated his life to resisting Washington’s dictatorship of the Third World. Moreover, as a result of the Cuban Revolution the right to be homeless, illiterate, and to go without healthcare no longer exists in Cuba. In their place have come the most fundamental human rights of all – the right to be educated, to healthcare that is free at the point of need, and the right to live with dignity and pride in being the citizen of a small island that has stood over decades as a beacon of justice in an ocean of injustice.

This, in truth, is the reason ‘they’ despise him. And this, in truth, is why millions of Cubans will come out and pay tribute to his life and legacy on the day of his funeral. For them he will forever be ‘El Comandante’.

[Ecurb]

I don't understand. Are you under the impression I've said Neruda couldn't write his poem? Have you read the thread? I don't think I've even mentioned Neruda till now.

You clearly support freedom of speech in your posts, and specifically deplored Cuba's lack of such freedom. However, some people (other than you, perhaps) might not be able to appreciate Neruda's poem, or Wordsworth's poem, because the poems fail to condemn tyranny and torture. Some French aristocrats, for example, might NOT think it was "bliss" to be alive in such a dawn, and fail to find amusement in Wordsworth's poem. I wasn't arguing with you, I was simply making that point.

In the U.S., freedom of speech is limited for Capitalistic reasons, rather than political ones. Copyrights, patents, trademarks and other forms of property law limit our freedom of speech (and often rightly so, in my opinion). However we should recognize such laws for what they are: limits on free expression.

Red Terror's screed below is typical of communist apologetics. Torture and limits on freedom are OK, as long as some "greater good" is realized. No. They are not. Evil is evil, and breeds more evil. Torturing dissidents did not improve the child mortality rates in Cuba. But even if it did, it would be unacceptable and morally repulsive.

Nonetheless, heroic and idealistic revolutions remain heroic and idealistic, even when the governments they spawn are neither. Liberty, equality and fraternity are noble goals, however many guillotined heads rolled, or Napoleons terrorized Europe.

[Pompey Bum]

You clearly support freedom of speech in your posts, and specifically deplored Cuba's lack of such freedom. However, some people (other than you, perhaps) might not be able to appreciate Neruda's poem, or Wordsworth's poem, because the poems fail to condemn tyranny and torture.

I appreciate your balanced approach, but before you give me too much credit (), I want to assert that appreciating a poem (I don't mean in an aesthetic way) is not the same as recognizing that a poet doesn't have to answer to me in what he or she says. As it happens, I don't know how I feel about this poem from a non-aesthetic point of view. It depends when it was written and what Neruda knew about the Castro regime at the time. Many people had high hopes for Castro in the beginning (apparently including Kennedy). If Neruda's poem reflected that time, then well, it was naive at worst. If he wrote it later, knowing about the human rights abuses, then it is a literary artifact of a useful idiot, and I certainly do not appreciate it. But it would still deserve to be read. It's like a statue of Lenin or Caligula or Nero. Art is still art even when it depicts a homicidal goon.

In the U.S., freedom of speech is limited for Capitalistic reasons, rather than political ones. Copyrights, patents, trademarks and other forms of property law limit our freedom of speech (and often rightly so, in my opinion). However we should recognize such laws for what they are: limits on free expression.

Yes, and also court gag orders. My opinion is that US copyright laws are excessive and should be scaled back by judicial means. There are other limits, too, based on Mill's Harm Principle. But none of these things are analogous to torturing and murdering political dissidents, as I am sure we agree.

[YesNo]

The fact is that the existence of homophobia in Cuba predated Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution by around five centuries. It was entrenched as part of the cultural values of Cuban society, indeed the cultural values throughout the Americas, courtesy of the Catholic Church. Fidel Castro was a product of those values and to his credit later renounced them, awakening to the justice of LGBT rights. Today his own niece, Mariela Castro, plays an active role in the Cuban LGBT community, leading the country’s annual gay pride parade in Havana last year.

I don't think the word "homophobia" is appropriate for the problem you are describing since it implies there is a fear involved. The anti-homosexual perspectives as well as the similar antisemitic perspectives are problems with certain cultures. Those cultures just need to get over these things even if it means reinterpreting a few of their sacred texts.

As for torture, meanwhile, the only place on the island of Cuba where this can be found is at the US military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay.

I have been wondering why we have that detention facility there at all.

The key point to be borne in mind when it comes to Cuba and its state of development is that countries and societies do not exist on blank sheets of paper. In the Third World their development cannot be divorced from a real life struggle against the huge obstacles placed in their way by histories of colonialism, neo-colonialism, and imperialism, responsible for retarding their progress in service to the exploitation of their human and natural resources.

The legitimacy of the Cuban Revolution lies in its survival in the face of the aforementioned US blockade, designed to starve the country to its knees for daring to refuse to be slaves of global capital. To understand what that would look like all we need do is cast our eyes over to the aforementioned Haiti or Dominican Republic, countries of comparable size located in the same region. Compared to them Cuba stands as a beacon of dignity, social and economic justice, and sustainable development.

I agree that the isolationism practiced by the US against Cuba is the real problem that needs to be addressed.

[prendrelemick]

I have been wondering why we have that detention facility there at all.

It's an attempt to get round a few annoying legal technicalities.

[Pompey Bum]

It is a nightmare. But once again, that has nothing to do with whether Castro's human rights abuses were justified. There is another logical fallacy called the argumentum ad nauseam, which involves repeating the same failed argument over and over as if that somehow makes it valid. It is especially common on the Internet, where one side or another typically gets frustrated and leaves. We can do better.

[Pompey Bum]

I heard an interesting program on The Federalist Radio Hour (podcast) today called: "How Castro's Political Persecution Destroyed Cuba." They discussed some of these issues, even briefly mentioning Neruda. He was described as a lionizer of Stalin (there was a lot of that going around) but also as someone who wrote a poem in praise of Batista. I don't really know his work, but (to follow up on my discussion with ecurb), those credentials incline me towards the useful idiot hypothesis. Still an artist's ideas can grow so I'll keep an open mind. The show is probably archived if anyone's interested.

[Red Terror]

Apropos to the subject of this thread, I received yesterday the monthly newsletter of Mr. William Blum called The Anti-Empire Report. Check it out

Cuba, Fidel, Socialism … Hasta la victoria siempre!

The most frequent comment I’ve read in the mainstream media concerning Fidel Castro’s death is that he was a “dictator”; almost every heading bore that word. Since the 1959 revolution, the American mainstream media has routinely referred to Cuba as a dictatorship. But just what does Cuba do or lack that makes it a dictatorship?

No “free press”? Apart from the question of how free Western media is (see the preceding essays), if that’s to be the standard, what would happen if Cuba announced that from now on anyone in the country could own any kind of media? How long would it be before CIA money – secret and unlimited CIA money financing all kinds of fronts in Cuba – would own or control almost all the media worth owning or controlling?

Is it “free elections” that Cuba lacks? They regularly have elections at municipal, regional and national levels. They do not have direct election of the president, but neither do Germany or the United Kingdom and many other countries. The Cuban president is chosen by the parliament, The National Assembly of People’s Power. Money plays virtually no role in these elections; neither does party politics, including the Communist Party, since all candidates run as individuals. Again, what is the standard by which Cuban elections are to be judged? Is it that they don’t have private corporations to pour in a billion dollars? Most Americans, if they gave it any thought, might find it difficult to even imagine what a free and democratic election, without great concentrations of corporate money, would look like, or how it would operate. Would Ralph Nader finally be able to get on all 50 state ballots, take part in national television debates, and be able to match the two monopoly parties in media advertising? If that were the case, I think he’d probably win; which is why it’s not the case.

Or perhaps what Cuba lacks is our marvelous “electoral college” system, where the presidential candidate with the most votes is not necessarily the winner. Did we need the latest example of this travesty of democracy to convince us to finally get rid of it? If we really think this system is a good example of democracy why don’t we use it for local and state elections as well?

Is Cuba a dictatorship because it arrests dissidents? Many thousands of anti-war and other protesters have been arrested in the United States in recent years, as in every period in American history. During the Occupy Movement of five years ago more than 7,000 people were arrested, many beaten by police and mistreated while in custody. And remember: The United States is to the Cuban government like al Qaeda is to Washington, only much more powerful and much closer; virtually without exception, Cuban dissidents have been financed by and aided in other ways by the United States.

Would Washington ignore a group of Americans receiving funds from al Qaeda and engaging in repeated meetings with known members of that organization? In recent years the United States has arrested a great many people in the US and abroad solely on the basis of alleged ties to al Qaeda, with a lot less evidence to go by than Cuba has had with its dissidents’ ties to the United States. Virtually all of Cuba’s “political prisoners” are such dissidents. While others may call Cuba’s security policies dictatorship, I call it self-defense.

https://williamblum.org/aer/read/147


Remember when Vice-President Joe Biden once said, "Mubarak isn't a dictator." Who makes this stuff up??? Read, Pause, Listen and Reflect!!!






“Freedom of the Press” by Leon Trotsky

One point particularly worries Kautsky, the author of a great many books and articles – the freedom of the Press. Is it permissible to suppress newspapers?

During war all institutions and organs of the State and of public opinion become, directly or indirectly, weapons of warfare. This is particularly true of the Press. No government carrying on a serious war will allow publications to exist on its territory which, openly or indirectly, support the enemy. Still more so in a civil war. The nature of the latter is such that each of the struggling sides has in the rear of its armies considerable circles of the population on the side of the enemy. In war, where both success and failure are repaid by death, hostile agents who penetrate into the rear are subject to execution. This is inhumane, but no one ever considered war a school of humanity – still less civil war. Can it be seriously demanded that, during a civil war with the White Guards of Denikin, the publications of parties supporting Denikin should come out unhindered in Moscow and Petrograd? To propose this in the name of the “freedom” of the Press is just the same as, in the name of open dealing, to demand the publication of military secrets. “A besieged city,” wrote a Communard, Arthur Arnould of Paris, “cannot permit within its midst that hopes for its fall should openly be expressed, that the fighters defending it should be incited to treason, that the movements of its troops should be communicated to the enemy. Such was the position of Paris under the Commune.” Such is the position of the Soviet Republic during the two years of its existence.

Let us, however, listen to what Kautsky has to say in this connection.

“The justification of this system (i.e., repressions in connection with the Press) is reduced to the naive idea that an absolute truth (!) exists, and that only the Communists posses it (!). Similarly,” continues Kautsky, “it reduces itself to another point of view, that all writers are by nature liars (!) and that only Communists are fanatics for truth (!). In reality, liars and fanatics for what they consider truth are to be found in all camps.” And so on, and so on, and so on. (Page 176)

In this way, in Kautsky’s eyes, the revolution, in its most acute phase, when it is a question of the life and death of classes, continues as hitherto to be a literary discussion with the object of establishing ... the truth. What profundity! ... Our “truth,” of course, is not absolute. But as in its name we are, at the present moment, shedding our blood, we have neither cause nor possibility to carry on a literary discussion as to the relativity of truth with those who “criticize” us with the help of all forms of arms. Similarly, our problem is not to punish liars and to encourage just men amongst journalists of all shades of opinion, but to throttle the class lie of the bourgeoisie and to achieve the class truth of the proletariat, irrespective of the fact that in both camps there are fanatics and liars.

“The Soviet Government,” Kautsky thunders, “has destroyed the sole remedy that might militate against corruption: the freedom of the Press. Control by means of unlimited freedom of the Press alone could have restrained those bandits and adventurers who will inevitably cling like leeches to every unlimited, uncontrolled power.” (Page 188) And so on.

The Press as a trusty weapon of the struggle with corruption! This liberal recipe sounds particularly pitiful when one remembers the two countries with the greatest “freedom” of the Press – North America and France – which, at the same time, are countries of the most highly developed stage of capitalist corruption.

Feeding on the old scandal of the political ante-rooms of the Russian revolution, Kautsky imagines that without Cadet and Menshevik freedom the Soviet apparatus is honeycombed with “bandits” and “adventurers.” Such was the voice of the Mensheviks a year or eighteen months ago. Now even they will not dare to repeat this. With the help of Soviet control and party selection, the Soviet Government, in the intense atmosphere of the struggle, has dealt with the bandits and adventurers who appeared on the surface at the moment of the revolution incomparably better than any government whatsoever, at any time whatsoever.

We are fighting. We are fighting a life-and-death struggle. The Press is a weapon not of an abstract society, but of two irreconcilable, armed and contending sides. We are destroying the Press of the counter-revolution, just as we destroyed its fortified positions, its stores, its communication, and its intelligence system. Are we depriving ourselves of Cadet and Menshevik criticisms of the corruption of the working class? In return we are victoriously destroying the very foundations of capitalist corruption.

But Kautsky goes further to develop his theme. He complains that we suppress the newspapers of the SRs and the Mensheviks, and even – such things have been known – arrest their leaders. Are we not dealing here with “shades of opinion” in the proletarian or the Socialist movement? The scholastic pedant does not see facts beyond his accustomed words. The Mensheviks and SRs for him are simply tendencies in Socialism, whereas, in the course of the revolution, they have been transformed into an organization which works in active co-operation with the counter-revolution and carries on against us an open war. The army of Kolchak was organized by Socialist Revolutionaries (how that name savours to-day of the charlatan!), and was supported by Mensheviks. Both carried on – and carry on – against us, for a year and a half, a war on the Northern front. The Mensheviks who rule the Caucasus, formerly the allies of Hohenzollern, and to-day the allies of Lloyd George, arrested and shot Bolsheviks hand in hand with German and British officers. The Mensheviks and S.R.s of the Kuban Rada organized the army of Denikin. The Esthonian Mensheviks who participate in their government were directly concerned in the last advance of Yudenich against Petrograd. Such are these “tendencies” in the Socialist movement. Kautsky considers that one can be in a state of open and civil war with the Mensheviks and SRs, who, with the help of the troops they themselves have organized for Yudenich, Kolchak and Denikin, are fighting for their “shade of opinions” in Socialism, and at the same time to allow those innocent “shades of opinion” freedom of the Press in our rear. If the dispute with the SRs and the Mensheviks could be settled by means of persuasion and voting – that is, if there were not behind their backs the Russian and foreign imperialists – there would be no civil war.

Kautsky, of course, is ready to “condemn” – an extra drop of ink – the blockade, and the Entente support of Denikin, and the White Terror. But in his high impartiality he cannot refuse the latter certain extenuating circumstances. The White Terror, you see, does not infringe their own principles, while the Bolsheviks, making use of the Red Terror, betray the principle of “the sacredness of human life which they themselves proclaimed.” (Page 210)

What is the meaning of the principle of the sacredness of human life in practice, and in what does it differ from the commandment, “Thou shalt not kill,” Kautsky does not explain. When a murderer raises his knife over a child, may one kill the murderer to save the child? Will not thereby the principle of the “sacredness of human life” be infringed? May one kill the murderer to save oneself? Is an insurrection of oppressed slaves against their masters permissible? Is it permissible to purchase one’s freedom at the cost of the life of one’s jailers? If human life in general is sacred and inviolable, we must deny ourselves not only the use of terror, not only war, but also revolution itself. Kautsky simply does not realize the counter-revolutionary meaning of the “principle” which he attempts to force upon us. Elsewhere we shall see that Kautsky accuses us of concluding the Brest-Litovsk peace: in his opinion we ought to have continued war. But what then becomes of the sacredness of human life? Does life cease to be sacred when it is a question of people talking another language, or does Kautsky consider that mass murders organized on principles of strategy and tactics are not murders at all? Truly it is difficult to put forward in our age a principle more hypocritical and more stupid. As long as human labor power, and, consequently, life itself, remain articles of sale and purchase, of exploitation and robbery, the principle of the “sacredness of human life” remains a shameful lie, uttered with the object of keeping the oppressed slaves in their chains.

We used to fight against the death penalty introduced by Kerensky, because that penalty was inflicted by the courts-martial of the old army on soldiers who refused to continue the imperialist war. We tore this weapon out of the hands of the old courts-martial, destroyed the courts-martial themselves, and demobilized the old army which had brought them forth. Destroying in the Red Army, and generally throughout the country, counter-revolutionary conspirators who strive by means of insurrections, murders, and disorganization, to restore the old regime, we are acting in accordance with the iron laws of a war in which we desire to guarantee our victory.

If it is a question of seeking formal contradictions, then obviously we must do so on the side of the White Terror, which is the weapon of classes which consider themselves “Christian,” patronize idealist philosophy, and are firmly convinced that the individuality (their own) is an end-in-itself. As for us, we were never concerned with the Kantian-priestly and vegetarian-Quaker prattle about the “sacredness of human life.” We were revolutionaries in opposition, and have remained revolutionaries in power. To make the individual sacred we must destroy the social order which crucifies him. And this problem can only be solved by blood and iron.

There is another difference between the White Terror and the Red, which Kautsky to-day ignores, but which in the eyes of a Marxist is of decisive significance. The White Terror is the weapon of the historically reactionary class. When we exposed the futility of the repressions of the bourgeois State against the proletariat, we never denied that by arrests and executions the ruling class, under certain conditions, might temporarily retard the development of the social revolution. But we were convinced that they would not be able to bring it to a halt. We relied on the fact that the proletariat is the historically rising class, and that bourgeois society could not develop without increasing the forces of the proletariat. The bourgeoisie to-day is a falling class. It not only no longer plays an essential part in production, but by its imperialist methods of appropriation is destroying the economic structure of the world and human culture generally. Nevertheless, the historical persistence of the bourgeoisie is colossal. It holds to power, and does not wish to abandon it. Thereby it threatens to drag after it into the abyss the whole of society. We are forced to tear it off, to chop it away. The Red Terror is a weapon utilized against a class, doomed to destruction, which does not wish to perish. If the White Terror can only retard the historical rise of the proletariat, the Red Terror hastens the destruction of the bourgeoisie. This hastening – a pure question of acceleration – is at certain periods of decisive importance. Without the Red Terror, the Russian bourgeoisie, together with the world bourgeoisie, would throttle us long before the coming of the revolution in Europe. One must be blind not to see this, or a swindler to deny it.

The man who recognizes the revolutionary historic importance of the very fact of the existence of the Soviet system must also sanction the Red Terror. Kautsky, who, during the last two years, has covered mountains of paper with polemics against Communism and Terrorism, is obliged, at the end of his pamphlet, to recognize the facts, and unexpectedly to admit that the Russian Soviet Government is to-day the most important factor in the world revolution. “However one regards the Bolshevik methods,” he writes, “the fact that a proletarian government in a large country has not only reached power, but has retained it for two years up to the present time, amidst great difficulties, extraordinarily increases the sense of power amongst the proletariat of all countries. For the actual revolution the Bolsheviks have thereby accomplished a great work – grosses geleistet. (Page 233)

This announcement stuns us as a completely unexpected recognition of historical truth from a quarter whence we had long since ceased to await it. The Bolsheviks have accomplished a great historical task by existing for two years against the united capitalist world. But the Bolsheviks held out not only by ideas, but by the sword. Kautsky’s admission is an involuntary sanctioning of the methods of the Red Terror, and at the same time the most effective condemnation of his own critical concoction.

I heard an interesting program on The Federalist Radio Hour (podcast) today called: "How Castro's Political Persecution Destroyed Cuba." They discussed some of these issues, even briefly mentioning Neruda. He was described as a lionizer of Stalin (there was a lot of that going around) but also as someone who wrote a poem in praise of Batista. I don't really know his work, but (to follow up on my discussion with ecurb), those credentials incline me towards the useful idiot hypothesis. Still, an artist's deas can grow so I'll keep an open mind. The show is probably archived if anyone's interested.

[Press]

An excellent read, Red Terror, more than a few valid points too. Rest in Peace, Senor Castro.