A Letter to the Cuban Embassy

The Charge d' Affair Cuban Embassy, 22 Mount Street, London, W.1 Sir and Madam, We thank you for the invitation to attend the reception in honour of the Cuban Revolution on Monday, January 1, 1962, extended to our weekly paper The As you are aware, The Newsletter is a Trotskyist newspaper which has from the beginning supported the Cuban Revolution. In November 1960, we organized a demonstration through the West End of London protesting against the threat of American imperialist intervention in Cuba. When the intervention came in April 1961, our members did everything possible to rouse the British Labour movement against this cowardly attack upon the Cuban people. We rejoiced with all those friends of the revolution when the imperialist invaders were repulsed.

You can rest assured that our paper will continue its vigilance in defence of the Cuban Revolution.

During the past few months, however, we have been profoundly shocked by the intolerance which the Castro government has shown towards our co-thinkers in Cuba.

The August 15, 1961, issue of 'Ultima Hora', a Santiago de Chile daily newspaper, published a two-page spread reporting questions and answers in a press interview granted by Che Guevara at the Punta del Este Conference. The question of Trotskyism came up in the following way:

Question: 'Can you tell me the reasons for depriving the Trotskyists of Cuba of their means of expression - their press has been confiscated? ' Answer: 'The Trotskyists?

Well, there was a small printshop that published a weekly which gave us some problems, and we took some administrative measures because they did not have any paper nor permission to use paper, or a press, or anything; and, briefly, we resolved that it was not prudent to let Trotskyism continue to call for subversion. Because, among other things, sir—since you ask me this-it turns out that there is a very interesting antecedent. We have had some relations with the Trotskyists. One, of the members of the '26 of July' who was very close to Trotskyism, David Salvador, Che Guevara was the one who caused the death of our people on April 9 by refusing to carry out a united action with the mass parties in the strike and attempting to carry out a strike of a putschist type which was simply destroyed by Batista.

Naturally, Batista also knew that the strike was going to be carried out because it was a clandestine strike which scarcely got under way and a great number of our comrades were killed.

'After this, Guevara added, 'Trotskyism was born in Guantanamo. It is a strange coincidence but it was born in Guantanamo and has its forces there. Guantanamo is a city only a few minutes from the naval base at Guantanamo, and we suspect that there could be a certain relationship in this "geographical proximity". Because of this we took certain measures since these people who represented nothing and who got their money, we don't know from where, were continuing from extreme leftish positions to interfere with the development of our revolution.' This is nothing more than a brazen lie reminiscent of what the late tyrant Stalin used to say about Trotsky and the Trotskyists in the Soviet Union. It is interesting to note that your government, at least for the time being, enjoys the full support of the Cuban Stalinists in their denunciation of Trotskyism. These gentlemen endorsed all the crimes of Stalin and at one period extended support to the hated Batista regime since such a policy coincided with the interests of Stalin's foreign policy in Latin America.

The international Labour movement is now fully aware from the revelations at the 20th and 22nd Congresses of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, that the Trotskyists were the innocent victims of Stalinist oppression.

For Che Guevara to imply that our co-thinkers in Cuba are agents of American imperialism is nothing more than a scurrilous repetition of slanders which have already been powerfully disproved by events.

We demand that you urge your government to immediately repudiate these lies and grant the Trotskyists democratic rights as a political tendency within the new party now being formed in Cuba. This must include full freedom to print their newspaper and publish the books and writings of Trotsky so that the Cuban Labour movement may benefit and strengthen itself in the fight against United States imperialism.

Until we have this assurance, we regret we are unable to participate in your reception. If no assurance is forthcoming and our co-thinkers continue to be persecuted and maligned, we shall combine our defence of the Cuban Revolution with the strongest possible denunciation of such anti-working class methods because we believe they will in the end weaken the Cuban Revolution.

Yours faithfully, National Secretary, Socialist Labour League

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