Cuba and Western Intellectuals since 1959

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Author: Kepa Artaraz

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Cuba and Western Intellectuals since 1959

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Cuba and Western Intellectuals since 1959 Kepa Artaraz

CUBA AND WESTERN INTELLECTUALS SINCE

1959

Copyright © Kepa Artaraz, 2009. All rights reserved. First published in 2009 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States - a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN-13: 978–0–230–60301–1 ISBN-10: 0–230–60301–7 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from the Library of Congress. A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Integra Software Services First edition: January 2009 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America.

Contents

Acknowledgments

ix

1 A New Political Dawn: The Cuban Revolution in the 1960s Cuba and the New Left: The Story So Far What’s to Be Learned? History, Agents, and the Transmission of Ideas The Story from Now On Part I

1 3 5 8 13

The Actors

2 Cuba: The Myth and the Reality of an Original Revolution Cuba in the 1960s: Political Independence and Sovereignty A Radical Transformation of Society A Communist Revolution without a Communist Party Intellectuals in the Revolution: A Cuban New Left? The Early Days: Lunes de Revolución A New Cuban Intellectual Why Is Pensamiento Crítico Important? Conclusion

19 21 26 29 33 34 37 41 44

3 Who Cared about the Cuban Revolution Then . . . and Who Cares Now? Defining the New Left: A Multi-layered Reality Toward a Global Definition of the New Left A New Left in the Twenty-first Century?

47 48 54 58

Part II

Cuba in the Imagination of the New Left: Three Examples

4 Geopolitics and Race: The Cuban Revolution and the U.S. New Left Who Constituted the U.S. New Left? Enter Cuba: The Early Days of the New Left and the FPCC

63 64 67

vi

contents

Cuba Exits the New Left Stage: The Cuban Revolution in the U.S. New Left, 1965–1970 The U.S. New Left from the Cuban Viewpoint: Students or Black Liberation Movement? 5 British Intellectuals and the Cuban Revolution: Neutralism or Revolution? The First New Left: Agents and Formative Processes The Cuban Revolution and the British New Left The Radicalization: Cuba or the Advent of Third World Socialism The Cuban Revolution and the British New Left: A Fruitful Exchange? 6 French Intellectuals and Cuba: A Revolutionary Working Model? Membership and Formation of the Early French New Left The Cuban Revolution and the French New Left: Part One The Radicalization of the French New Left The Cuban Revolution and the French New Left: Part Two The Separation Between the French New Left and the Cuban Revolution Part III

75 83 84 94 98 102 105 105 111 116 118 120

The New Left and Its Ideas

7 Cuba and the Third World: Evolution of a Concept and a Relationship The New Left Journals as Outlets of Cross-fertilization Third World or Third Way? The Non-aligned Movement and Peace Third World Revolution as the Only Way The Long Decline of the Intellectual in the Twentieth Century 8

72

The New Left: Activists or Intellectuals? The New Left as a Search for the Role of the Intellectual The Role of the Intellectual in the New Left’s Discourse: A Story of Four Models Sartre’s “Traditional Intellectual” Gramsci’s “Organic Intellectual” Lenin’s “Revolutionary Intellectual” Marcuse’s “Dictatorship of Intellectuals” On the Mismatch Between Theory and Reality Conclusion

127 128 135 138 143 149 150 154 154 157 159 162 165 172

contents

9

Conclusion: Cuba’s New Dawn, Part II The Story So Far The 1990s: Crisis or New Dawn? Cuba and the New Battle of Ideas

vii

175 176 182 185

Notes

189

Selected Bibliography

211

Index

229


Acknowledgments

This book would not have been possible without the disinterested help of many individuals. Of those who were closest to the daily struggle of reading, pondering, self-doubt, and writing, I would like to thank Antoni Kapcia and Khursheed Wadia for being there when my ideas first began. Many others, however, participated in the completion of this project in different ways. Constantin Orasan, Andrew Caink, and Moritz Moeller were always prepared to offer support when I most needed it along with comradely banter and, in the case of the latter, also indispensable translation support. Luc Bonenfant also lent his much-needed linguistic skills in more than one occasion, both in Britain and in France. Also, I owe to Armando Chávez his friendship and the ability to formulate the right questions at the early stages of research. Staff at the National Libraries in London, Paris, and Havana deserve my most sincere thanks for assisting my endeavors over the past few years. Finally, my thanks to the Forum for the Study of Cuba for granting access to its valuable resources located at the University of Notthingham. In Cuba, all those who agreed to see me and share their recollections, memories, and opinions deserve my gratitude. The names are too numerous to mention but I would especially like to thank Rubén Zardoya for greatly facilitating the process of research whilst on the island. José Bell Lara and Fernando Martínez also showed enthusiastic personal interest in this project. Also, my thanks to all those interested individuals who opened their doors and unlocked their memories to talk to me, relive their youth, and suggest other people who could help me in my venture. I hope the book will add something to our understanding of recent history and become lasting testimony of my appreciation to all those who agreed to share their thoughts with me. Last but not least, I would like to thank my family, including my new one, and my friends, without whom this project would not have been possible. Of them, Karen, deserves my biggest appreciation and love.


Chapter

1

A New Political Dawn: The Cuban Revolution in the 1960s It seems that time compresses when we examine it from the future. As I write these lines in the spring of 2008, we look back 40 and 50 years ago at events that rocked the world and defined the twentieth century, prompting us to reflect on the meaning and legacy of those years and the events that framed them. The creation of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) in 1958 and the Aldermaston marches that followed—a political campaign spawned from the British New Left that brought the CND to the world’s attention—continue to claim relevance today. Ten years later, on April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated; in 2008, we remember King’s “I have a dream” speech on the fortieth anniversary of his assassination in Memphis. Later, a global explosion of anger took hold of students and workers in Paris, London, Rome, Berlin—as the famous chant went—and in every major university campus across the United States. Forty years later, many of the main players in those events occupy prominent intellectual and media spaces that link us to those days. During the same weeks in 2008, Fidel Castro occupied headlines worldwide: After 49 years at the helm, he finally retired from public office to devote himself to life as a foot soldier in the battle of ideas. Although Castro’s life and five decades of Cuban Revolution will inevitably be celebrated by some and denigrated by others, an undeniable connection exists between the Cuban Revolution and major political events of the 1960s. The purpose of this book is to stretch back the short period of time

2


marked by these anniversaries in 2008 in order to explore this relationship between Cuba and the CND, the civil rights movement, the student uprisings of 1968, and more. All were intimately connected to the New Left. This year, the Cuban Revolution marks its fiftieth anniversary, making it one of the longest-running experiments in the building of a socialist society in the world. Regardless of whether Cuba is judged to have been an economic and political failure that repressed its citizens while depriving them of everyday goods, or a successful societal example in the construction of socialism, it is inevitable that new assessments of the Cuban Revolution will be necessary to explain its longevity and developing ideological nature. Whatever the conclusions, Cuba has maintained its reputation for 50 years as an alternative model of societal development, deeply antagonistic to the United States’ society that builds the welfare of its citizens on the twin pillars of health, and education, driven by the principle of equality. Many characteristics of Cuba’s idiosyncratic nature and ability to reinvent itself in the face of relentless economic and political opposition from the United States require further study. This book discusses some aspects of Cuba’s ideological formation between 1959 and 1971 that owes to the varying levels of support it received at this time, concentrating on support from Western countries. Using examples provided by the United States, France, and Britain, the book explores intellectual and solidarity exchanges in the 1960s between the Cuban Revolution, or specific actors within it, and the New Left, focusing on the history of this “love affair” from its beginnings in early 1960 to its sour end 11 years later. The main characters of this story are, on the whole, intellectuals and new generations of politicized young people. If, on one hand, Sartre and de Beauvoir’s blessing in 1960 was initially what brought the Revolution to world prominence, it is because they enjoyed the status of intellectual superstars. Similarly, if the case against Heberto Padilla, a Cuban poet whose work was deemed “ideologically misguided” by the Cuban authorities in 1971, provoked the indignation of the international collective that had shown most support for the Revolution, it was because the case attacked the very basis of what was deemed to be the intellectual’s prerogative to criticize.1 On the other hand, the communication breakdown between Cuba and Sartre’s progressive universe represented the death of the role of the intellectual, including the belief that somehow the Cuban Revolution provided a panacea where intellectual labor fulfilled all the expectations commonly held by the 1960s New Left. On the Cuban side, the influence that the sympathetic Western intellectual exercised in the 1960s affected mainly a new generation of “organic” intellectuals who,

A New Political Dawn

3

from the island, were often pioneers in disseminating these ideas to the Spanish-speaking world throughout Latin America. This book aims to explore the intellectual exchanges that took place between the Cuban Revolution and the New Left during the 1960s exploring the ‘complete cycle’ in this relationship and using it to examine the future of Cuba’s symbolic status among intellectuals and activists in the West, at a time of rapid political change in Latin America and Cuba itself, currently contemplating life post-Castro. It does this by studying the New Left’s accounts of the Cuban Revolution’s uniqueness, originality and vitality and by trying to understand the ways in which the Cuban Revolution exerted an influence on the New Left’s discourse, whether coherently or not. On the other hand, this book also aims to explore the extent to which the New Left’s various intellectual contributions were assimilated and integrated into the debates that characterized Cuban society throughout the various evolutionary stages of the first decade of the Revolution. It is hoped that the resulting conversation between Cuba and the New Left that dominated the decade will lead to greater political understanding of the Cuban Revolution 50 years later. Cuba and the New Left: The Story So Far The Cuban Revolution constituted a momentous event in the 1960s. The sheer amount of interest it generated was matched by the enormous number of publications that followed, even though much of this literature tended to divide along ideological lines that owed more to the prism of the Cold War than to an objective assessment of the Revolution. Yet, the Cuban Revolution’s influence on the formative processes of the New Left has not been thoroughly studied.2 Only the works of Gosse (1993) and Lyons (1976) appear to have explored this issue at some length; both, however, offer a purely North American perspective of the New Left. Gosse in particular laments the absence of Cuba in many current histories of a New Left that has become associated exclusively with “white college students” (1993: 3)—even though some of the earliest writings by mainstream political commentators about the New Left stress the positive image held in the United States toward Fidel Castro during 1957–1959. Given that the influence of both the New Left and the Cuban Revolution reverberated throughout the world, it would be logical to conclude that a similar formative force was present elsewhere. This study attempts to fill the gap by examining the context of relations between the British and French New Lefts with Cuba and their lasting political legacy, which some have perceived as standing behind re-emerging currents in the solidarity movement with parts of 1980s Latin America, such as Nicaragua and El Salvador (Gosse, 1993).

4


In the case of the European New Left, the Cuban Revolution’s influence has been acknowledged by a number of authors. Hennessy (1993) argues that the British New Left’s reasons for emerging differed from its North American counterpart but that both focused on the Cuban Revolution as a form of emotional escape from the apathy of the 1950s. González (1984), however, concentrates on Cuba’s influence on the nascent European revolutionary movement in the “culture of the heroic guerrilla,” a message brought to Europe by revolutionary intellectuals among whom Régis Debray was the most prominent. Wengraf (1979), on the other hand, also stresses the importance of the Cuban Revolution, together with the Algerian war of independence, as unifying elements in the various strands that constituted the New Left. Finally, the influence exerted by the Cuban Revolution on the British New Left has also been acknowledged by Kenny (1995). In France, where the New Left simultaneously took more activist and intellectually developed forms, its relationship with the Cuban Revolution has been analyzed up to a point by Hamon and Rotman (1988). These authors note the importance of both the Cuban Revolution and the Algerian war to the formative process of a new generation of politically conscious protesters who made up the core of the French gauchiste (ultra left) movement and who, a few years later, would be at the heart of the May 1968 events that almost succeeded in bringing down the De Gaulle government.3 Evidence of the interest developed in the Cuban Revolution by the intellectually sophisticated French New Left is provided by François Maspero, who referred to the birth of the journal Partisans in 1961 as a direct consequence of the Cuban Revolution’s sway on a new generation of intellectuals (in Habel, 1991). At a different level, both Cranston (1970) and Oelgart (1970) stress the importance of Guevara’s thought as part of the New Left.4 Others, notably Lowy (1970) and more recently Anderson (1997), refer to Guevara’s subjectivism and voluntarism as evidence of his Marxist unorthodoxy. But in relating the Cuban Revolution to the European New Left, none of the above authors have gone beyond associating the Cuban Revolution with the “spirit” of the 1960s protests and counterculture, nor has any carried out a thorough analysis of this relationship—a contribution this book tries to make. Thus, the Cuban Revolution’s unorthodox exuberance was well received in the nascent New Left and provided it with a model of revolutionary activism. However, with the exception of Kapcia (1993), little scholarly work has been produced about the possibility that the New Left might have influenced intellectual debate in the Cuban Revolution. Part of this book seeks to investigate the New Left’s impact on Cuba throughout the first decade of the Revolution until sections of the New Left


5

parted company with the revolutionary process in 1971.5 Intrinsic to our analysis are the biographical connections that intellectuals and activists developed with Cuba in the 1960s with an emphasis on their various waves of interest and influence, starting in the early days of Sartre-de Beauvoir and Mills, continuing with the key date of 1968, and ending in 1971. Secondly, the book highlights and studies prominent themes as they appeared in publications reflecting ideological positions of the New Left in the West. Throughout the book, it is assumed that, although common elements existed, individual national expressions of the New Left were always mediated by the particular conditions and political culture of each society. In the case of Cuba, the 1960s represented the beginning of the most radical attempt in the history of the island to carry out a thorough transformation of its political culture. A radical break with the immediate past necessarily had to make use of alternative political traditions and of different contemporary ideologies; this is where the New Left entered the frame. Thus, the study of the encounter between the New Left and the Cuban Revolution must be carried out on the basis of discourses within the Revolution that were in existence at the time.6 The obvious issue that arises out of this evidence is that intellectual and political ideas must be studied within the context of their dynamic relation to the social groups and institutions that articulated and made use of them, a point revisited later in this chapter.

What’s to Be Learned? The study of the cross-fertilization of ideas between the Cuban Revolution and the New Left outlined above seems appropriate on two main counts that have historical and theoretical underpinnings. The former lies in the fact that a clear historical, yet largely unexplored, reality resides behind the claim that a mutual interest existed between the Cuban Revolution and the New Left for more than 10 years of revolutionary change—a process of exchange that ended abruptly in 1971. Providing empirical evidence to support this claim, however, leads to further questions on abstract issues concerning our main conceptual elements in this study. The first issue relates to the degree to which Cuba conformed to and embodied the changing understandings of the concept of the Third World expressed by the New Left in the 1960s. The second refers to a conceptualization of the agents who “performed” this exchange of ideas; namely, to the activists and intellectuals who are referred to broadly as the New Left.

6


If Cuba was en vogue among a new political generation during the 1960s, the 1970s brought about a distancing of this support or of the premises on which it was based. It could therefore be argued that the Cuban Revolution’s rise and fall from grace in the eyes of certain sectors of the Western intelligentsia make up a story that began as early as 1959 with the rebel victory and ended in 1971. The year 1971 saw the celebration of a Cultural Congress that denounced individuals who previously had been considered friends of Cuba (for example, Kewes Karol and René Dumont) and was characterized by letters from such luminaries as Sartre complaining of a perceived decline in intellectual freedom on the island. These events marked the beginning of a rapid change of ideological direction in the Revolution that had direct consequences for its economic, political, and cultural directions, signaling a transition to a new period in Cuba’s development fueled by a process of institutionalization and clear alignment with the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc (Mesa-Lago, 1974). Emerging from a study of this period of mutual admiration and exchange is the sense that, parallel to the hardening ideological positions in Cuba, a crisis that led to a precipitous decline of the New Left was taking place in the West. The rise in mutual attraction and subsequent distancing of these two realities—the Cuban Revolution on the one hand and the New Left on the other—point to the need for research into this history of collaboration and exchange in ways that take into account their symbiotic relationship. This book argues that the separation that took place in the early 1970s was partly rooted in the ultimate failure of the intellectual discourses they held in common. The first was based on the symbolic status acquired by the Revolution as the main point of reference of the Third World—one of the central concerns developed by the New Left. Third-world liberation cases that attracted widespread support in the New Left circles included Algeria and Vietnam. Both had been settings for wars that were crucial to the formative experiences of the New Left in individual national contexts: the Algerian war in France and the Vietnam case in the United States. But neither monopolized such longterm support as Cuba, nor did they invest such effort in legitimating their positions in an identifiable discursive manner. If it is true that during the first decade of Revolution Cuba seemed to represent a working model for other members of the Third World, this belief declined rapidly after Cuba abandoned support for revolutionary efforts in other parts of Latin America.7 A developmental approach to the study of the concept of Third World as it was appropriated and eventually discarded by the New Left can improve our incomplete understanding of the New Left, as it adds a relatively


7

unexplored dimension to this movement’s discourse. Furthermore, it can shed light on the particular case of the Cuban Revolution. The exploration of the circumstances in which this exchange on both sides of the Atlantic took place may help us comprehend how this contact led to a close identification between the various New Left groups. However, this dimension must be complemented with a study of the interest in the Cuban Revolution and how it shaped the New Left’s analyses in the 1960s of a Third World in rapid process of redefinition. This book proposes to explore the qualitative nature of the exchange that existed among these groups as it was reflected in diverse intellectual journals, mapping the rise and preeminence of the Third World and the subsequent waning of interest in the term. The second type of debate embodied in the 11-year alliance between the Cuban Revolution and the European New Left concerned the role of the intellectual in society, an issue that lay at the heart of the very definition of the New Left. In spite of appearances to the contrary, the purpose of the intellectual in relation to the New Left’s links with the Cuban Revolution remains only superficially explored. This is a topic in which stereotypes oversimplify the complex set of dynamic forces at play. From early on in the Revolution, this theme has been criticized by the North American Right (Draper, 1965) and by disillusioned Cubans, often intellectuals themselves, who have almost always concentrated on the repressive nature of the regime’s attitude toward intellectual endeavor (Franqui, 1985; Cabrera Infante, 1994). A number of other studies about the Cuba-Western intellectual exchange refer to the “fellow traveler” or “revolutionary tourist” phenomenon, making inferences about intellectuals from the particular study of western intellectuals’ pilgrimage at various points in the twentieth century to idealized socialist states such as the Soviet Union, China, and Cuba (Caute, 1974, 1988; Hollander, 1981; Enzensberger, 1988; Verdès-Leroux, 1989). For all their relative merits and contribution to knowledge, these studies assume an unquestioning position with regard to the ideological nature of Cuban society. This is based on a static and unproblematic vision of revolutionary Cuba dominated by an imported Soviet ideology with no space for debate or evolution. In addition, these studies tend to assume that all political power rested in the hands of a single individual, notably Castro.8 Often both assumptions are present in large sections of the literature that initially dubbed the revolution “ideology free” or “without a blueprint” and later argued that it had been betrayed or had become Stalinist (Sartre, 1961; Draper, 1965; Zeitlin, 1970). In many of these readings, Cuban intellectuals inevitably are perceived as victims of political oppression and denied any agency.

8


In sum, one of the most interesting aspects about Cuba since 1959 has been the Revolution’s ability to attract, engage, and dismiss in equal measure the figure of the intellectual both at home and abroad. This study advances our knowledge significantly by arguing in favor of a historically situated definition of the intellectual and by offering an understanding of this concept that is relational to the causes that spurred intellectuals into action. The Cuban Revolution in the 1960s offers the perfect case study to explore the identity of Western intellectuals. The book begins with an understanding of intellectuals on both sides of the divide as dynamic agents who came together to debate a series of issues, attempting to understand and effect their own role in society in ways that made them politically indispensable, yet independent of the pressures of power. The ultimate failure of this debate, it is argued, must be understood as part of the explanation of why attitudes toward intellectuals hardened considerably in Cuba after 1971 just as the concept of the New Left ceased to be relevant in the West. In Europe, this crisis led to the emergence of new types of intellectuals for whom such identification was not achieved through their engagement with any form of Third World socialism. In sum, the book represents a study that, while relying on the empirical and systematic exploration of the Cuba-New Left interface, understands this history and the agents participating in it as inextricably linked to discourses that can successfully be relied on to gain a complete picture of the cross-fertilization between the Cuban Revolution and the New Left. History, Agents, and the Transmission of Ideas The relationship between ideas and their dissemination within their historical perspective constitutes a key theoretical concern of the sociology of knowledge. In the case of the former, the New Left is part of the Marxist-influenced set of ideas that have been thoroughly re-interpreted throughout the twentieth century. Interpreting, rethinking, and expressing these ideas must be understood as a product of the mass movements and individuals who have taken part in this process since the mid-nineteenth century (Szymanski, 1985). This book partly traces the formative history of specific carriers of Marxism in the 1960s, recognizing the New Left’s attempt to rescue Marxism’s lost potential for the construction of a new type of socialist society. The characteristic New Left contestation of Soviet interpretations of then prevalent Marxism came with the realization that the mechanistic understanding of orthodox Marxism, whereby the economic structure determined the superstructure, was based on a reading that converted the specific case derived from nineteenth-century European


9

society into a universal truth. The 1960s represented a “coming to terms” with this reality both in the West and in the Third World. In addition, the sociology of knowledge traditionally has focused on the role of intellectuals as carriers of ideas, including the composition of this group, the method by which members are recruited, the rewards and prestige they receive, and their participation in other spheres of social life (Mannheim, 1991). This is where the appropriateness of Bourdieu’s work comes through key concepts that can be applied to our understanding of the figure of the intellectual and of the international circulation of ideas.9 For example, using two basic concepts—“field” and “capital”—Bourdieu successfully explores the French academic system by making reference to individual players; their schools of thought, power relations, and relative positions within the field; and the varying amounts of capital (symbolic or otherwise) they command (Bourdieu, 1988). In addition, Bourdieu’s conceptual framework has a proven record of success in the study of various aspects of the New Left. Two authors in particular reference the work of Bourdieu to describe the Argentinian New Left of the 1960s. Sigal uses his methodology to delimit the everchanging boundaries between the intellectual and the political fields (Sigal, 1991). Terán defines the New Left intellectual field according to three sets of parameters; a historical juncture, the institutional position of various collective or individual intellectuals, and their discourse (Terán, 1991). The degree of struggle in the field is partly driven by the habitus, defined as “the basic stock of knowledge that people carry out as a result of living in particular cultures or subcultures” (Layder, 1994: 143). It is constantly created through the conjunction of objective structures and an individual’s personal history and offers a mediating element between the structural conditions that tend to “pattern” the positions in the field and the realm of practice. This gives social agents the ability to construct or partially shape the social world around them. Because of the emphasis on their process-like nature, these two concepts are also flexible and valid for a variety of settings both in space and in time (Harker et al., 1990). Bourdieu’s methodology is particularly useful in the study of the role of the intellectual in society because it distinguishes between the structure of the field, composed partly by the changing groups of people whom society labels as intellectuals, and the content of their own exchanges about the identity and the role of the intellectual embodied in their habitus. Since both dimensions are interdependent, this excludes the possibility of partial objectifications that characterize the sociology of intellectuals (Bourdieu, 1988). This criticism also applies to other schools of thought that have studied the issue of influence or cross-fertilization, in particular through application of Kristeva’s basic principle of intertextuality, a concept that

10


has encountered numerous practical problems of application. In particular, it has been argued that the theory is unmanageable because it is concerned with infinite dimensions of meaning; more importantly, intertextuality studies tend to concentrate on the text as a self-contained artifact at the expense of biographical or historical evidence extrinsic to literature (Worton and Still, 1990; Clayton and Rothstein, 1991). Bourdieu’s framework illuminates some aspects of this book in a variety of ways. First, his conceptual framework makes a distinction between the structural conditions of the field and the habitus, that is, between the universe of intellectual journals, groups, and movements that lent an institutional dimension to the New Left and the knowledge that the participants (be they individual or collective agents) developed about their own position within the field. The politically charged concept “New Left,” which tends to be biased according to various political cultures and generations, can be more easily understood if we make use of the possibilities created by the concept of the field. By conceptualizing the New Left as a field that includes intellectual representatives of the various national cases explored in this study, the peculiarities of each—often products of the partial visions of the field—can be bypassed.10 In other words, by acknowledging the existence of a mutual interest between specific groups of Western and Cuban intellectuals, this study allows for the contribution that Bourdieu’s original framework can offer by establishing a distinction between the field’s structure (a community of like-minded individuals and their institutional relations) and its habitus. Furthermore, Bourdieu’s schema allows us to study the development of the field and the habitus in a way that is mutually influential. Bourdieu’s framework also helps establish the principle that the definition of “intellectual” underwent a radical reconceptualization throughout the 1960s. It can help us draw the map of the changing boundaries between what was considered the realm of the political and that of the intellectual by referring to the concept of the field and the fluid nature of a habitus influenced in turn by the changing structure of the field. Some of the particular changes in the structure of the field in the 1960s included the radical increase in the levels of student access to universities and the appearance of new publishers and journals capable of channeling many of the new intellectual concerns that existing forms of the Left failed to deliver. This dynamic understanding of the issues in question is qualitatively superior to that of the dominant debates in which authors attempt to give universal and ahistorical definitions of the intellectual. Finally, Bourdieu’s framework is useful for the study of the international circulation of ideas. Although the Cuban Revolution seemed to rationalize itself in ways that appealed to certain sectors of the New Left, this


11

book demonstrates that the New Left’s understanding of the Cuban sociopolitical reality was very slight and showed strong hegemonic tendencies. This echoes one of Bourdieu’s observations when he argues for inclusion of the context (or the field of production) with the “traveling texts,” because these typically are reinterpreted to fit the needs of the field of reception (Bourdieu, 1999). Whatever our conclusions about the specific reading of texts in different positions of the field (in Cuba, the United States, Britain, or France), the establishment of close contacts between periodical publications of the three national cases of the New Left often were made on the basis of shared positions in the field and similar interests. The choice of periodical publications for this book has been made on the basis of the closeness of their positions in the field. Understanding the interaction between Cuba and the New Left through the press has been the quest of a number of authors. Some of them have focused their research on the publications themselves rather than on the general phenomena they represented, honing in on the institutional symptoms that accompanied the formation of the New Left. This is the case with Rioux (1982) and Muchnik (1981, 1984) who accurately describe the life of L’Observateur within its historical and political context, providing a valuable biography of a publication synonymous with the French New Left throughout the 1960s. In the British case, although the general histories of New Left Review and Socialist Register have not yet been written, with the partial exception of Wengraf (1979) scholars interested in this period have situated these publications at the center of what was the British New Left and to some extent structured their analyses according to the changing conditions and interests of the periodicals themselves (Holden, 1976; Shepherd, 1995). The same is the case for many explorations of the U.S. New Left (Teodori, 1970; Gitlin, 1987; Miller, 1987). The intellectual and methodological importance of the means of diffusion of ideas often is emphasized in the social sciences.11 This has been recognized in the study of Latin American cultural activity as a whole, as is the case with Carter (1968). In the case of Cuba, this interest has extended to the study of the journal Casa de las Américas. Weiss (1977), Rochdi (1991), and Fornet and Campuzano (2001) have concentrated on the publication to make inferences about the intellectual world in general or the Cuban Revolution’s cultural policy. Yet, for all the importance attributed to the journal Pensamiento Crítico inside Cuba, no study has been carried out that can evaluate its contribution to the ideological universe of the late 1960s. This book fills the gap by providing an overall picture of the dominant intellectual project of this group of young intellectuals that can fit into the political context of the time. In

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short, it seeks explanations for the heterogeneity of influences, interests, and the experimental nature of the ideas it presented, including the notable presence of the New Left. The analysis of journals that reflected the main interests of the New Left is both a necessary and tested method for gaining valuable insights on the New Left. Kenny (1995) argues that it is necessary to study the institutional manifestations (i.e., publications) of the New Left to get an insight into its programmatic content. In other words, since it is clear that some influential journals had a monopoly over the content of New Left discourse, it is possible to map out this content by examining the thematic development of these periodicals over time. In reference to the British New Left, Meiksins Wood argues that the development of the New Left was marked by powerful journals where changes of content and style provide a record of the trajectory of this movement (Meiksins Wood, 1995). This book takes the view that the range of different publications that constituted the New Left field can be understood as the basic units of assessment in this analysis. As a group, they must be considered the most important means of creation, reproduction, and diffusion of New Left ideas. Although content analysis has a long tradition in the social sciences and has at times come under attack (see Cicourel, 1964; Carney, 1972; Holsti, 1972), more recent studies have modified it and adapted its principles to the aims and purposes of this study. A perfect example is the application of Bourdieu’s theoretical framework to the study of journals that has been carried out by Boschetti who, in her study of Les Temps Modernes, argues that the notion of “field” can be applied to different realities such as the entire cultural field or to a small group like the editorial board of a journal (Boschetti, 1985). Boschetti also provides evidence of cross-fertilization by empirically identifying the various instances of exchange of published materials, between Les Temps Modernes and other close publications such as Esprit and Critique. The study of these journals can allow us to identify structural changes in the New Left. For example, Boschetti highlights the 1961 editorial board changes in Les Temps Modernes that brought the journal under the control of career journalists rather than the philosophers who had dominated the previous era. She argues that these new actors were instrumental in changing the direction of Les Temps Modernes to a more marked interest in political processes, current affairs, and the gauchiste line characteristic of the New Left toward the end of the 1960s (Boschetti, 1985). This specific transformation of one journal can be understood as what Bourdieu considers changes of position in the field, which in turn can bring a journal into contact with other journals in the vicinity.12


13

Now that the methodological rationale has been established for studying the New Left press as one key element in this book, it only remains to identify the titles that in each national case have constituted the book’s basic pool of material. For Cuba, these include Pensamiento Crítico, Cuba Socialista, Lunes de Revolución, El Caimán Barbudo, and Revolución y Cultura. In France, the analysis has been based on the study of Les Temps Modernes, L’Observateur, Partisans, Clarté, and Rouge. In the United States, the reconstruction of the New Left is based on readings of Studies on the Left and Monthly Review. In Britain, titles include New Left Review, Socialist Register, Black Dwarf, Red Mole, and International Socialism. The Story from Now On The next chapter concentrates on elements of the Cuban Revolution that made the island attractive to an entire generation during the 1960s. This includes the myth as well as the reality of the Revolution’s image abroad among a new generation of politically motivated intellectuals. The chapter examines three main aspects of the Revolution that gave rise to this image. The first is the radical transformation of society that ensued after the rebel victory that seemed to deliver social equality, cohesion, and a sense of national independence and identity Cubans had never experienced. The second is the Revolution’s ability to foster a new ideology that appealed to the critical reception afforded to the formal sectors of the Western Left. Cuba’s love-hate relationship with mainstream Communist Parties was, in turn, channeled into a complex relationship with Western intellectuals, shaping the spaces available for home-grown intellectuals to work. Finally, this chapter defines the contours of Cuba’s intellectual body that acted as the mediator between its counterpart in the West and the revolutionary leadership. Chapter three introduces the range of constituencies that comprised the Western universe of intellectuals and activists keenly watchful of developments in the Cuban Revolution. The chapter introduces the historical and political coordinates that provide the context for understanding the myriad groups of intellectuals and activists that constituted the New Left, describing who they were, what differences existed between them, and the different ways they evolved according to national traditions. The chapter outlines key moments and themes in the relationship between Cuba and the New Left during the 1960s, including the emphasis on neutralism in the early part of the decade, the revolutionary option explored by the global student movement in the latter part, and the specific emphasis on race that was particular to a North American

14


New Left infused with the politics of the civil rights movement. This chapter serves as the basis for case studies of North America, Britain, and France in subsequent chapters. The book continues with the first of the case studies about the impact of, and the role played by, the Cuban Revolution in nationally defined intellectual fields. In the case of the U.S. New Left, it builds on the evidence of cross-fertilization it developed with the early British New Left through academic figures such as C. Wright Mills, organizations like Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), and publications such as Evergreen Review and Monthly Review. The chapter also explores the various changes of fortune in the importance of the Cuban Revolution to the varied constituencies of the student movement and its significance in bringing prominence to the concept of race in subsequent political discourse during the civil rights movement. Chapter five repeats this exercise with the British case and provides an outline of the politically committed sections of British intellectual life in the late 1950s and 1960s that would constitute the New Left in its various forms and shapes. Their formative experiences and networks of socialization are explored in relation to the importance of the Third World in general and the Cuban Revolution in particular. The last case study examines the structure of the French intellectual field and explores the elements that made it distinctive from previous periods as well as from examples presented in earlier chapters. Particular elements of interest include the generational heterogeneity of the French intellectual constituency that showed an affinity with the Cuban Revolution and the degree of radicalization experienced by this group as a result of a formative process that included opposition to the French government over the war in Algeria. French intellectuals were also the most involved in the Cuban Revolution, both intellectually and biographically, with several highly prominent individuals (e.g., Sartre and Debray) who were beacons for the interest and reception of the Cuban Revolution worldwide, thus having global rather than national levels of influence. The next two chapters concentrate on two key concepts that characterized much of the New Left’s discursive content. In chapter seven, we present the transition experienced in the New Left toward the definition of, and political significance attributed to, the Third World— a transition reflected in the historical development of the Cuban Revolution throughout the decade. The debate is reconstructed with reference to the intellectual outputs in the journals and magazines that were shared by various constituencies of the New Left in the countries represented in this study. The chapter refers to this interest in the Cuban Revolution, arguing that the attachment to the concept of the


15

Third World constituted a basic pillar on which the identity of an entire generation of intellectuals rested. Chapter eight examines the many self-definitions of the intellectual that were debated in those publications that came to characterize the New Left. It establishes the four main models of the intellectual that were dominant during that decade—embodied in the ideas of Sartre, Gramsci, Lenin, and Marcuse—and explores the ways in which these representations of the intellectual were embodied in the various groups that constituted the New Left. Finally, the chapter draws together the main arguments made throughout the book: that the very concept of intellectual needs to be contested and subjected to an ever-evolving definitional change; that the Cuban Revolution and the impact it produced on different constituencies of the politically committed intellectual serve to better define the concept in the 1960s; and that the separation and distancing between intellectuals and the Cuban Revolution in the 1970s marks the beginning of the long path that feeds into current debates about the decline of the intellectual. The collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s brought the ideological certainties of the 1970s and 1980s crashing down. Many commentators expected Cuba to follow suit in the process of ideological and moral disintegration that followed this dissolution. Yet, after a difficult political and economic period in the 1990s, and through much soulsearching, Cuba has ditched a lot of the ideological dogma that kept the Revolution firmly within the East European sphere of influence throughout the 1970s and 1980s and has returned to the fray of the global “battle of ideas.” The final chapter considers current developments in the new forms of opposition and contestation to certain aspects of the globalization process that have sprung in recent years and Cuba’s attempts to participate in those debates. The relationship between Cuban and the new anti-globalization social movements is explored in relation to conclusions drawn previously in the book about the elements that characterized the relationship between Cuba and a previous generation of Western intellectuals and activists. Thus, after an introduction, the book defines the main actors who participated in the encounters between Cuba and the West by setting the political and ideological context that gave rise to their formation in chapters two and three. Chapters four through six explore the history of these exchanges and mutual admiration by studying the specific cases of Britain, France, and the United States, allowing the many different influences that shaped the contours of each national New Left family to come to the fore. Chapters seven and eight explore the two main dialogical outputs from this relationship and their changing definitions through

16


time, namely, the relationship between the West and the Third World and the definitions that the main actors in this history gave themselves. The book concludes with an analysis of the new relationships forged by the Cuban Revolution with like-minded social movements that constitute the new frontier of anti-globalization forces fed by North-driven agendas, and considers the extent to which they are linked to their ascendants in the 1960s.

Part

1

The Actors


Chapter

2

Cuba: The Myth and the Reality of an Original Revolution Fifty years after the Cuban Revolution and almost two decades after the collapse of the Socialist bloc, a large gulf continues to separate Marxism—a body of social theories that arose in nineteenth century Europe in the context of the industrial revolution—and the political revolutionary movements inspired by it or claiming to represent the legitimate political face of Marxism. In the synthesis of the two, the intellectual and their political expression, the twentieth century produced authoritarian systems that were both politically and economically bankrupt. Yet, the Socialist bloc was by no means homogeneous: The high number of internecine “wars” seen this century between socialist nations and political parties claiming to represent the same Marxist ideals provides clear evidence of this. Of those factions, some exerted a hegemonic role as guarantors of universal truths of history and society. Stalinism is the case in point, its theses having been defended by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and its counterparts in all the countries discussed in this book. However, the dissolution of the Third International in 1943 opened doors to various Communist regimes that did not swear allegiance to the Soviet model. The 1948 Yugoslavian withdrawal from Soviet domination and the 1960s SinoSoviet conflict are examples of what was becoming a polycentric picture in the international Communist scene. The Cuban Revolution took its place in the international arena in this context, breaking away from its capitalist past (with the challenge that this position meant to the United States) and from the revolutionary legitimacy of Communist parties at home and abroad. In addition, the

20


international context must be understood as one in which the rapidly increasing Cold War tension between East and West further complicated analysis by giving an external appearance of harmony between the Cuban Revolutionary leadership and the Soviet Union—truer of some periods than of others—when in reality political challenges and ideological tensions always existed during the 1960s. These were at times expressed internationally (such as when Cuba denounced the policy of peaceful coexistence and deliberately set out to encourage guerrilla warfare in Latin America), and at times internally (as when “orthodox” Communist positions in the arts, the teaching of Marxism, or the pre-eminence of former Partido Socialista Popular (PSP)—Cuba’s prerevolutionary Communist Party—members in the revolutionary leadership were swiftly stopped). This chapter concentrates on this interface between politics and ideology, building an image of a Cuban Revolution that challenged existing orthodoxies in its political directions and ideological rationalization. In Europe, all this was watched with interest and internalized in a way that came to play a part in the shape, nature, and history of the New Left. This was not surprising, since the various New Lefts represented in the beginning a challenge to the bipolar political and ideological division of the world in a way that was not dissimilar to that of the Cuban Revolution. During the 1960s, this challenge was matched by the search for alternative ideologies pertinent to the original developmental path chosen by the revolution. However, the Cuban “experiment” fell prey to the explanatory strength of ideological frameworks that followed the logic imposed by the Cold War. As various authors of the New Left perceived, these accusations came before the revolution had even declared itself Marxist-Leninist.1 Yet the New Left rejected equally the two competing world ideologies and was thus prepared to emphasize the uniqueness of the Cuban Revolution, a revolutionary prototype that went beyond existing models (Hall and Fruchter, 1961). This chapter provides an overview of the challenge that Cuba represented to capitalism and Left orthodoxies. First, we consider two policy options peculiar to Cuba: an emphasis on increasing independence and the pursuit of a radical transformation of society. The third section explores Cuba’s idiosyncrasies in the area of internal power, concentrating on the lack of party institutionalization and its alternative means of ruling. Finally, we analyze the changing role of “New Left” intellectuals in the revolution, defining the contours of a little-understood body that acted as mediator between its counterpart in the West and the revolutionary leadership.

Cuba

21

Cuba in the 1960s: Political Independence and Sovereignty From the outset, the Cuban Revolution contained elements of a radical nationalism that had developed and evolved over a hundred years. It is therefore no coincidence that revolutionary discourse often has represented it as the culmination of a process that began with the wars of liberation against the Spanish Crown in the nineteenth century. The North American presence in Cuba for the first half of the twentieth century in the form of military, political, and economic domination further galvanized an ideological position that the 1933 Revolution failed to make hegemonic but would become more clearly expressed in the years ahead. Post-1959 events confirm this; the early confrontation with the United States, the nationalization of American assets on Cuban soil, the early industrialization drive, and the support for guerrilla warfare can all be understood as part of the development of political and economic independence and the maintenance of sovereignty in the face of overwhelming domination. The centrality of Cuba’s ideological revolutionary paradigm and its equation with a national identity that had either been split or denied for most of the twentieth century cannot be overemphasized. In the context of the early 1960s, geopolitical factors—more than ideology—may account for bringing Cuba into contention within the global ideological arena. And whereas anti-imperialism was a basic element in this ideology (and all that this meant for future Cuba-U.S. relations), the search for national political independence also implied a continued resistance to growing dependency from the Soviet Union. Thus, the Revolution maintained its original, though erratic and often contradictory, path. This is not always given due credit in much of the literature. Yet, the idea that the idiosyncrasy of Cuba’s ideological paradigm led the island to resist an uncritical assimilation of the Eastern European model of socialism in some ways explains its survival into the new millennium well after the collapse of that model. Here, one could point toward all those aspects of policy that did not necessarily mimic the Eastern European model. The point is important because, beyond exasperating orthodox Communists, these decisions inspired a new generation of university students in the West and Third World revolutionaries (Marshall, 1987). A second aspect of this indigenous ideology must be found in its moral content. After 1959, education, health, welfare, and employment were among the benefits enjoyed by the majority, implying a radical societal transformation in a way not sustainable by the logic of a capitalist socioeconomic order. These elements, necessary for the fulfillment of Cuba’s

22


utopian destiny, could in turn reinforce the feeling of “belonging,” strengthening the social fabric of a divided society and recreating the national identity along newly radicalized but now hegemonic positions. Inevitably, Cuba’s true national birth had to be “socialist” if it was to fulfill the moral promise of its ideology. On the economic front, revolutionary Cuba soon set up to eradicate the capitalist system and market (Mesa-Lago, 1981). This early period had as its main priority the rapid nationalization of foreign assets and socialization of the economy as well as the widespread sharing of economic benefits among the population. These were carried out swiftly in the first two years of the Revolution, often against the advice of foreign specialists. The first objective began in earnest with the confiscation of the estates formerly belonging to Batistianos (Batista supporters), continuing with the first Land Reform of 1959 and the wholesale nationalization of American-owned companies. This was sparked by the confrontation over Cuba’s decision to refine Soviet oil and led to the nationalization of the oil refineries followed by all U.S. firms, including electricity, telephone, sugar mills, and banks. Thus, by 1960 the Revolution had succeeded in abolishing the private ownership of key sources of national wealth (Goldenberg, 1965). The second objective was carried out through the establishment of full employment, general increase in wages, and creation of the Institute of Urban Reform, which decreased rents—halving them in some cases—and rapidly increased the number of homeowners. A constant element in Cuba’s economic policy over the first decade of revolution was that, whenever serious doubts arose about the adequacy of the economic directions, a further deepening of initially idiosyncratic positions resulted. For instance, the much criticized degree of land reform and agricultural diversification that such evident shortages were producing by 1962 was answered with a further collectivization of the land on November 12, 1963, making Cuba the country with the highest proportion of collectivized land of all the socialist nations (Rodríguez, 1979). The direct transition from privately run latifundia (great landed estates specializing in cash crops for export) to production cooperatives broke the trend in other socialist countries and was regarded by “orthodox” Communists as heresy (Dumont, 1963). By 1963, the main economic concern of the Revolution saw a return to agriculture as opposed to the initial industrialization drive that took place between 1961 and 1962 with disastrous consequences.2 The transition years that followed (1963–1965) were characterized by the existence of the so-called Great Debate on the broad questions of socialist construction, including alternative visions of the future Communist society. One was based on the model proposed by the East European countries;

Cuba

23

the second, favored by Guevara, was based on a human society made up of the “new man,” motivated by a form of communist morality based on self-sacrifice and human solidarity.3 On the face of it, however, the Great Debate seems to have concentrated on the purely methodological aspects of the construction of socialism. In terms of economic planning and management, the Guevarist positions that Dumont (1963) criticized predominated again toward the end of the decade, extending further the nationalization of the last remaining sectors of the economy, the overcentralization and planning of economic objectives, and an emphasis on moral incentives as opposed to the more “orthodox” Libermanian positions (Silverman, 1971).4 The U-turn in economic direction, from an initial industrialization impetus to a return to agriculture and the predominance of sugar, officially commenced in 1963 and included, the famous ten million-ton sugar production campaign for 1970 as its main economic objective (Borrego, 1964). It is well known how the failure to achieve such massive zafra (sugar harvest)—the previous highest had been seven million tons in 1952—constituted an economic and political disaster that inaugurated a new era in the Cuban Revolution. It was in the years leading up to this date, however, that a deepening of already heretical economic positions took place. The Revolutionary Offensive was launched in March 1968, at a time of political crisis, as an all-out drive toward constructing full Communism—even ahead of the USSR. The last remaining areas of the private sector were nationalized and higher levels of mobilization and voluntary work were demanded from the population, bringing to life the expression siempre se puede más (one can always do more).5 According to Karol (1971), Cuba’s late 1960s heresy lay in the belief that the simultaneous construction of socialism and communism was possible and even desirable. Using the economic implications that such a position carried with it as evidence of Cuba’s unorthodoxy is a doubleedged assertion. As Mesa-Lago (1972a) described it, Cuba’s economic path in the late 1960s had a more than purely coincidental resemblance with the economic debates of late 1920s Russia between a right position, represented by Bukharin who defended the Leninist orthodoxy of the new economic policy, and a left position defended by Trotsky. In the event, Stalin implemented a left alternative that was based on centralized planning and the use of forced mobilization. Similarly, 1960s Cuba increasingly relied on using high levels of mobilization to implement centrally planned economic objectives toward the end of the decade. The consequences of that economic policy were obvious. Whether or not it made economic and political sense, it increased the need for high numbers of workers who could only be found by means of forced or

24


voluntary labor or a combination of the two.6 The introduction in 1963 of servicio militar obligatorio (SMO) (compulsory military service) for three years had an equal number of social, economic, and military motivations, since a large part of the duties of these “soldiers” was to aid agricultural production. Economically, it made sense since they received little pay and worked under military discipline (Goldenberg, 1965); politically, it served the purpose of controlling “deviant” elements in society. Between 1964 and 1973, most of the SMOs were part of the unidades militares de ayuda a la producción (UMAP) (military units to aid production), the destination of many homosexuals between 1965 and 1966 (Mesa-Lago, 1974). Finally, exhortations for more and more voluntary work from the general population were also a characteristic of the late 1960s period (Karol, 1971). An example of the stress placed on this type of work in which the entire population was encouraged to participate was the cordón de la Habana (Havana greenbelt) project that aimed at creating self-sufficiency in the supply of agricultural produce for the capital city. Perhaps the factor that has done most to increase Cuba’s image as a distinctive “socialist” case is its various approaches to foreign policy, positions that have over the years converted many people to Cuban arguments. These approaches demonstrate a degree of independence unparalleled in the Third World that have made Cuba a major player in global affairs and are largely responsible for the island’s survival in the face of conflict between East and West. Cuba has developed close international relations with radical nationalist states that emerged as a result of anti-imperialist revolutions, like Algeria and Vietnam, without necessarily making ideological demands from them (Leogrande, 1982). If the 1950s ended with Castro’s assurance that the Revolution was neither capitalist nor socialist but humanist, the 1960s would open with a rapid rapprochement with the Soviet Union in a rapid succession of events from Soviet representative Anastas Mikoyan’s first visit to the island in February 1960 to the installation of nuclear weapons two years later to guarantee Cuba’s national integrity. In the meantime, the island had seen a rapid deterioration of diplomatic relations with the United States: a CIA-sponsored invasion in April 1961 and the Cuban leadership’s description of the Revolution as Marxist-Leninist. Yet, just as the Revolution had finally committed itself to one side of the global ideological divide––bringing the world close to nuclear disaster during the Missile Crisis in October 1962––the Soviet Union appeared conflicted. It is now accepted that Cuba felt humiliated when the two superpowers did not consult with the revolutionary leadership during the Missile Crisis, an incident that sparked a relations crisis between Cuba and the USSR. Publicized by Le Monde in March 1963, it marked a change of direction

Cuba

25

in the Revolution, clearly observable in political and economic terms (Goldenberg, 1965 and Julien, 1963a; 1963b). Isolated from the rest of Latin America from the time of suspension from the Organization of American States (OAS) in January 1962 and wishing to avoid the role of pawn on the world superpower stage, Cuba chose her own path in foreign policy by supporting revolutionary guerrilla tactics. By February 1962, the Second Declaration of Havana had already claimed that the duty of every revolutionary was to make the Revolution. The same call was repeated at the Organization of Latin American Solidarity (OLAS) Conference in August 1967, thus deliberately setting Cuba against the official Soviet line on peaceful transition to socialism while appealing to other Latin American communist parties to break ranks (Kenner and Petras, 1972). In the meantime, guerrilla activity had broken out in many parts of Latin America, all visibly influenced by the Cuban strategy. The theoretical justification of guerrilla warfare was published in Havana in 1967 to coincide with the OLAS Conference and came from Régis Debray. “Revolution in the revolution?” became an instant success in Cuba and in many New Leftist circles in the West, clearly representing Cuba at its most distant from the traditional communist parties. Similarly, Guevara’s call for “one, two, three Vietnams” carried the implicit critique of those regimes that called themselves communist, but were not prepared to suffer the same fate as Vietnam in their struggle against imperialism. If the initial 1961–1962 period represented Cuba’s attempt to seek protection from the Soviet Union, the Cuban Revolution in the following period sought to lead the Third World against imperialism, giving way to third-worldism, the belief that the world would be emancipated by liberating its impoverished and agrarian periphery (Hobsbawm, 1994: 443). In this sense, Cuba fits well and even provides the historical exemplification of the general transition made by the concept of the 1960s Third World explored in chapter seven. Yet, as with other policy aspects in the Revolution, a radical change of direction came only a few years later when Castro did not forcefully denounce the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968, setting the atmosphere for a new understanding with Soviet leadership. Ernesto “Che” Guevara’s recent death in 1967, the collapse of budding revolutionary experiments in Latin America, and many economic problems––accompanied by increased rationing that, due to a Soviet-Cuban diplomatic crisis, added petrol to the list—meant that, at least with reference to foreign policy, Cuba’s return to the Soviet fold had commenced, ironically, in the “Year of the Heroic Guerrilla.”

26


A Radical Transformation of Society As with foreign policy, Cuba’s radical transformation of society called on the ethical content of an ideology that placed mankind at its center and demanded international recognition for it. Although a clear symbolic capital was (and is still) extracted from Cuba’s advances in welfare and equality, these have proved only too real. Cuba’s undisputed advances in health and education have, throughout the decades, provided a model of development and embodied the aspirations of millions fighting for national liberation and independence in the Third World. From day one, an almost obsessive concern for the health of the population was one of the pillars on which this transformation was built. Universal access to medical services had already taken place three years into the revolutionary process, giving priority to the neediest areas of rural Cuba. By 1969, any remaining vestiges of past, semi-private forms of health provision had been totally eradicated. But what astonished international observers was the boldness of some of the vertical intervention programs of mass vaccination and sanitation that reached one hundred percent of the population, eradicating diseases at a single stroke.7 All of this was driven by the remaining half of a highly politicized medical profession whose current Hippocratic oath includes a commitment to work for the benefit of humanity and rejects individual private profit.8 Similar in effect was the great emphasis the revolutionary leadership gave to education. Already identified as one of the great problems of pre-revolutionary Cuba as early as 1953 in Castro’s History Will Absolve Me, education became the second pillar of the new society (Castro, 1960). “Vaccination” against illiteracy was carried out in one massive effort, requiring the collective effort of large sectors of a population that was either teaching or learning during eight months in 1961 when schools were closed to allow teachers and students to participate in the campaign. The “Year of Education” may not have resulted in high levels of literacy in those who benefited directly from it, but the symbolic victory it represented cannot be disregarded. Enthusiasm, optimism, and a sense of what was possible filled participants in the campaign; abroad, the vision of an island converted into a great school increased interest and support for the Revolution. Both of the aforementioned objectives required the collaboration of the masses and became crucial elements in the creation of a “New Man.” Initially attributed to Guevara’s writings, the New Man of the Revolution was not a robot that would act according to the whims of a despot; on the contrary, the New Man symbolized the highest stage of consciousness in the children of the Revolution who would become more complete as they fulfilled their true creative nature. The New Man (and woman), Guevara argued in his Man and Socialism, would think, not as an individual but as

Cuba

27

part of a wider collective grouping (Gerassi, 1968).9 It was therefore no coincidence that the medical doctor and the teacher became the ideal embodiments of the New Man and that these two professions produced record numbers of students that even today are key to the task of maintenance of social cohesion and legitimacy.10 Many other educational projects and examples of the emphasis that the revolutionary leadership placed on culture existed. The number of schools increased enormously as did the number of students at every level in an educational system that, like the health system, was state-provided, universal, and free. A “reel revolution” (King, 1990) in the film industry and plastic arts took hold as demonstrated by the creation of the Instituto Cubano de Arte e Industria Cinematográfica (ICAIC) (Cuban institute of art and film industry) in 1959. One of its first tasks was to popularize cinema by reaching every corner of the island, a cultural feat clearly reflected in Santiago Alvarez’s film Por primera vez, which depicts an audience’s first cinematic experience.11 Arts and culture in general were available to all and, correspondingly, readership at libraries increased dramatically with reports of a six-fold increase in patrons at Cuba’s national library from 25,000 in 1959 to more than 165,000 in 1960 (Goldenberg, 1965).12 The quality of life of the average Cuban clearly benefited from measures such as health, education, employment, equality, and access to the arts. Perhaps more important was the symbolic benefit of those measures as they constituted the basis for a new society that, in the leadership’s discourse, was founded on building comradeship, solidarity, national pride, and dignity—a new society based on a superior form of consciousness and a higher socialist morality. Opposed to “orthodox” positions that warned of economic difficulties created by such a scale of wealth redistribution and benefits, for most of the 1960s Cuba followed a direction in the construction of Communism that put man at the center. This carried an implicit rejection of mechanistic methods in the construction of Communism prevalent in eastern Europe, which endeared the Cuban Revolution to a worldwide range of Soviet model critics such as Kenner and Petras (1972), editors of a collection of speeches by Castro, who supported the Cuban position, arguing that the eastern European version of Communism was an ideology largely irrelevant to the values that guide people’s lives. The appeals to “sacrifice,” “higher moral consciousness,” “voluntarism,” and a clear increase in pressure to “participate” and “mobilize” seemingly characterized the Revolutionary Offensive in late 1960s and always focused on the young. This emphasis on youth, supporting the image of a revolution that was a far cry from the advanced age and grey

28


character of the Soviet leadership, was another key and distinctive characteristic of Cuba’s revolution. Although clearly based on traditional sources of youthful radicalism common to most of Latin America, highly politicized sectors of the European New Left (the source of which can be found among university students in the late 1950s and early 1960s) clearly identified with the Cuban Revolution. Thus, the generational element in the events we remember as defining of the New Left, the May 1968 events in Paris, were part and parcel of Cuban political radicalism that for decades previously had played an important role in the creation of the cubanista milieu (Kapcia, 1982). This young, collective effort of the will found its most appropriate setting for action in the university. The importance of the university in Latin American radicalism goes back to the university reforms of 1918 in Córdoba, Argentina, which sought to extend far beyond the purely academic or institutional powersharing issues. In the 1960s, the importance of the university as a focus of revolutionary discourse and practice was another connection between the university as the political training camp for many of the leaders of the Cuban Revolution and a movement that was already taking shape in the West. Sprinzak (1976) in particular studied the radicalization of discourse and consequently the actions of the New Left, making special reference to the role played by the university student population in 1960s France. The university’s centrality in the New Left movement of the 1960s had already been experienced in Cuba in the late 1940s and 1950s, but what is even more striking is the similarity of discourses, such as the emphasis on a prise de conscience (gaining conscience) and the importance attached to the idea of “struggle.” Scholars of the student movements in Latin America and beyond have pointed to common themes viewing students as vanguards of political and revolutionary change (Enzensberger, 1976; Hennessy, 1993; Maier and Weatherhead, 1979; Suchlicki, 1969). Given this Latin American experience of student involvement in radical politics, it is not surprising that the role of the university students in the 1933 revolution could be considered as a Cuban version of the student-led events of May 1968 in France. But perhaps more important than the young and educated leaders of the Cuban Revolution was the importance that the Revolution attached to the concept of youth, the “purest” form of human prototype and potential New Man of the future. Hennessy (1993) quotes Castro as saying that nobody over the age of thirty could possibly understand what the Cuban Revolution was about. Yet the Revolution’s emphasis on youth does not automatically suggest that 1960s Cuba shared all aspects of youth culture and lifestyle common in the West and so closely connected in some cases with the incipient New Left. On the contrary, any signs of adopting imported fashions and lifestyles—men with long hair,

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women wearing miniskirts, modern western music—were deemed “socially unhealthy” and responsible for variant degrees of repression that became more acute toward the end of the decade (Fagen, 1969).13 A Communist Revolution without a Communist Party Although Castro declared himself as Marxist-Leninist in December 1961, it was not until 1965 that a single party allegedly driven by a MarxistLeninist ideology, the Partido Comunista de Cuba (PCC) (Cuban Communist Party), was created. That year, its name was finally changed to PCC after undergoing a transformation of such scale that it challenged the line defended by its most powerful contemporary communist parties and led the call for the Latin American Left to share its world vision. This section addresses the development of the pre-Revolutionary Communist Party (PSP) and its role—beginning in 1965—in the events that led to its integration into a unified body of revolutionary groups and parties. From its conception in 1925 until its final dissolution in 1961, the Communist Party in Cuba exemplified the priorities, contradictions, and foreign policy needs of the Soviet Union in Latin America, similar to the rest of the Latin American communist parties. One example of this was the 1933 revolution that, despite its involvement, the Communist Party could not control because it followed the Comintern line that concentrated on specific working-class demands in the form of labor rights, which resulted in the revolutionary government of Grau San Martín accusing the Communists of betrayal and denying them the right to participate. The Comintern continued from the mid-1930s in the form of the Popular Front tactics aimed at the creation of broad left-wing coalitions against fascism. In 1934, Blas Roca took charge of the Cuban Communist Party and engineered a process of rapprochement with Batista starting in 1936, leading to the creation of the official Communist newspaper, Hoy, in 1938 and the Party’s legalization under the name of Unión Revolucionaria Comunista (URC) (Communist Revolutionary Union) in 1939 (Goldenberg, 1970). The anti-fascist Popular Front suffered a serious reverse during the German-Russian non-aggression pact (1939–1941) that the URC withstood only because of Batista’s reluctance to position himself on the war. Their task was made easier again after 1941 when Germany’s invasion of Russia provoked an overnight change in the international Communist line. This, however, brought another set of contradictions as the Party’s strong anti-fascist stance and support for the Allied cause converted the United States into a friendly, democratic neighbor, expressed in similar

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rhetoric to that of Communist Party USA (CPUSA) leader Earl Browder. The Browderite hold on the Cuban Communist Party, now renamed Partido Socialista Popular (PSP), was largely responsible for the Party’s ability to successfully catapult itself to its most fruitful period of collaboration with Batista in 1943–1944, placing two of its members in government: Juan Marinello and Carlos Rafael Rodríguez (Farber, 1983: 60; Alexander, 1957: 26). This, however, represented the height of revisionism for the Cuban Communists before the Revolution. The PSP’s downfall in Cuban politics followed soon after Browder fell victim to a bitter attack by the Soviet Union (speaking through French Communist leader Jacques Duclos). A number of factors contributed to this decline. First, Batista’s departure from the political scene in 1944 and the crushing victory of the Auténticos (literally the Authentics) meant that, although the Communists did well at the election, their support was not essential for the party of Grau San Martín. In addition, the new Minister of Labor, Prío Socarrás, denied the Party recognition in the unions where they were strongest, making their membership soon dwindle. Thus, one presidential term was enough to wither the Communist influence in a government that had taken so long to blossom. Second, the beginning of the Cold War forced the PSP into a renewed sense of opposition to the United States that resulted in the Party’s loss of favor with the government (Aguilar, 1970). The same international climate affected Batista’s position toward the PSP, as was demonstrated after his return in 1952. A year later, the Party was outlawed and, although its leaders were left relatively undisturbed, it appears that their marginal position deprived them of any political leverage, preventing them from strengthening what in their view was a necessary broad political coalition of opposition to Batista. On the other hand, the negative position taken by the PSP on Castro’s tactics only served to exemplify the deep divisions prevalent in the anti-Batista camp.14 The last thread of revolutionary legitimacy left in the Cuban Communists was rescued in February 1958 when Carlos Rafael Rodriguez and Osvaldo Sánchez were sent to join Castro’s guerrillas (Karol, 1971: 151). Although the official Party doctrine still spoke of a broad democratic front as the first step toward revolution, the existence of PSP members alongside the Movimiento revolucionario 26 de julio MR26 (26 July revolutionary movement) made the future integration of forces possible while it accepted the subordination of the Party to the young revolutionaries.15 Beyond the purely organizational, tactical, or external reasons behind the unification of revolutionary forces, the eventual creation of the PCC also symbolized the most serious attempt to fuse previously competing ideologies under

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one single revolutionary organization—the Stalinism that characterized Cuban Communism throughout the pre-revolutionary period and Cuba’s own brand of revolutionary nationalism represented in MR26. Although the PSP had played a marginal role during the rebellion, it had the most coherent and revolutionary set of policies of any party at the time of the victory. On January 6, 1959, for example, the PSP quickly reacted to the immediate power vacuum by presenting a government program based on land reform, the restoration of the 1940 Constitution, and a call for democratic elections (Farber, 1983: 63). Other advantages enjoyed by the PSP over the MR26 and Directorio Revolucionario Estudiantil (DRE) (Student Revolutionary Directorate) included its superior ideological coherence, political experience, and identification with the working class through the unions. After all, the Communist Party was the only longlasting political party of the pre-Revolutionary period (Blackburn, 1963). It also controlled Hoy, a publication with one of the largest readerships in Cuba, making it impossible to ignore even though its popularity was low. On the other hand, the position of the MR26 was very different. Its power base was mainly the Rebel Army; it enjoyed great popularity with the masses, but had neither a clear ideology nor the organizational and administrative means to exercise power effectively. In terms of its class base, Enzensberger (1976) argues that the MR26 was a special form of radical democracy that supported radical tactics but was bourgeois in nature. In terms of ideology, the first MR26 manifesto made public in Mexico in 1955 owed nothing to Marxism but to the Ortodoxo party in which Castro began his own political militancy (Thomas, 1971: 869). “Constructive friendship” was the term used to describe future U.S.-Cuban relations in the second 1957 MR26 manifesto (Farber, 1983: 61). The same spirit prevailed during Castro’s U.S. tour in the spring of 1959 when the Revolution was described by the entourage as both left-wing and nationalist (Karol, 1971). It took some time and a series of clashes with the United States for both groups to recognize their common anti-imperialist position before a rapprochement could be pursued. Meanwhile, the Communists chose to remain near the real power base of the Revolution, nurturing the appropriate environment for the future benefit of their own party. As for the DRE, although linked to the radical sectors of the student movement, it never played a major role as an independent group after the victory of the rebellion (Enzensberger, 1976). The line on revolutionary unity, first introduced by the PSP early in the Revolution, bore its fruits by the spring of 1961.16 By then, the increasing radicalization of the conflict with the United States had brought about the nationalization of North American economic interests, the imposition of the trade embargo, and an attempted invasion. Castro’s

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subsequent announcement of the “socialist character” of the Revolution, his demand for recognition from the Socialist bloc, and the practical implications of proximity to the PSP were all part of the same tendency toward consolidating the revolutionary forces that began in July 1961 with the creation of the Organizaciones Revolucionarias Integradas (ORI) (Integrated Revolutionary Organization). This was followed in 1963 by the Partido Unido de la Revolución Socialista (PURS) (United Party of the Socialist Revolution) and in 1965 by the PCC, although exactly who constituted it and when and where it met remained a mystery. The united party structure created by Aníbal Escalante resembled too much the PSP, with, in retrospect, too many members in positions of authority and power. The reaction that followed from Castro led to the devastation of the former PSP’s power base in the ORI, an event often referred to as the Escalante Affair (Goldenberg, 1965).17 As a result, only thirty percent of former PSP members entered the PURS in 1963, in a move that resulted in the hijacking of the Communist Party by Castro and the MR26 and allowed the national leadership to set its own priorities regardless of the ideological paths taken by Moscow. With regard to the Party, however, it did not seem to exist and its workings, congresses, and election of leaders were unknown abroad. Writing in the late 1960s, Enzensberger (1976) doubted whether a real Communist Party would ever exist in Cuba since it did not produce party congresses or a formal program of government at that time. Cuba would have to wait until 1975 to witness the first Party Congress in a move toward institutionalization that fit with the dominant discourse of the times. The generational and ideological overhaul that broke the ideological dependency on the Soviet Union traditionally shown by the PSP was reinforced by a series of blows to former members of this party. The distrust between “old” and “new” Communists that began with the Escalante Affair in March 1962 increased in the aftermath of the Missile Crisis and continued with the Marquitos Affair of 1964 and the Microfacción trial in 1968.18 Thus, political similarities between the PCC and the other governing communist parties of the Eastern European model can be considered theoretical only. This was a party created in 1965, six years after the triumph of a revolution in which its predecessor had only marginal representation. This shell of a party could only claim its place as the revolutionary vanguard on paper, as the real power rested in the hands of a small, elite group of mainly MR26 veterans. Finally, the population’s identification with the political process was achieved through a range of organizations different from the Party. The lack of an effective, working Communist Party in a one-party state was largely counterbalanced by the existence of an apparatus of mass

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mobilization that was already in place by the time of the Literacy Campaign of 1961. The initial enthusiasm after the rebel victory and the genuine mass participation in the tasks of the Revolution that resulted were soon harnessed by the leadership. It resulted in the creation of a systematic network of organizations, including the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR), the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC), the Popular Tribunals, and the unions, securing some form of participation of the population.19 Without doubt, the initial effect invested the regime with high levels of dynamism and popular legitimacy. This antidote against “bureaucratic sclerosis” carried with it an implicit critique of the East European model and led European New Left observers to believe that it signified a true example of direct democracy or socialist democracy lacking in Cuba’s European counterparts (Kenny, 1995). Yet this system of mobilization and control could not possibly act as a substitute for a conventional bureaucratic apparatus. As in other aspects of policy already described, the 1970s saw a reorganization of the unions and other mass mobilization structures destined to rescue them from the deep sense of disillusion that prevailed after the 1970 zafra (sugar harvest). The concentration of power in the hands of the few had led to a disintegration of the potential for empowerment of the mass organizations, giving way to a paternalistic centralization of power and a working pattern of command and mobilization from above. The mass organizations became neither the symbol of a democracy at the grassroots level nor an effective counterbalance to the excess of power at the top. The emphasis on political implementation of the late 1960s had been confused with political participation driven by the symbolic need for success in the process of construction of communism in a peculiarly Cuban way. During the 1960s, these unique sociopolitical structures and policy directions found a powerful legitimating force in the support shown by the intellectual class both in Cuba and abroad. Next, this chapter explores the nature of the relationship between the state and the Cuban intellectual stratum, pointing out a number of qualitative characteristics of a rapidly recreated intellectual figure that facilitated the development of a “natural” affinity with the European New Left, and outlining some of their thematic common ground that will be the focus in the rest of the book. Intellectuals in the Revolution: A Cuban New Left? One of the characteristics of the Cuban Revolution that did much to attract the progressive left-wing intellectual from the West was the special relationship developed between the state and the intellectual. The importance

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attached to intellectuals and their work was evident from the Revolution’s search for the support of the international intelligentsia and of the newly emerging student-based political class. This process began with the visit of Sartre and de Beauvoir in March and October 1960 and would be followed by delegations from the Western universe of the New Left, in a courting ritual that culminated in the 1968 Cultural Congress. This practical search for support abroad ran parallel to a program of creation of spaces for the articulation of ideas inside the Revolution. From the cultural supplement Lunes de Revolución to Pensamiento Crítico via Casa de las Américas, the Cuban Revolution followed a tortuous history between the ill-defined pluralism and exuberance of the early years and the militancy of the later part of the decade; between a new dawn of freedom to which Cuban intellectuals were quick to react and the high levels of political control of intellectual production characteristic of the early 1970s.20 In the process, sections of the Cuban intellectual field came into contact with their European counterparts.21 The following section uses signposts provided by some of these publications in order to explore the changing nature of the positions, roles, and dilemmas of the intellectual in the Cuban Revolution while outlining the formative process and contours of the groups and generations that constituted a Cuban version of the New Left. It presents two intellectual generations and the processes that led to their respective periods of domination as well as the way in which the message of the New Left was transferred from one to the other through a common formative experience in the university. The Early Days: Lunes de Revolución

The short but influential life of Lunes de Revolución (Lunes) exemplifies almost perfectly Cuba’s rapid transition from the exuberance characteristic of 1959 and the radicalization dominant by the end of 1961. As part of the revolutionary commitment to culture, Lunes’s beginnings can be understood in the same context that gave birth to the Imprenta Nacional (National Publishing House) and the ICAIC in March 1959.22 It achieved a run of 100,000 copies and soon was identified as a space for the returned intellectuals (Fornet in Rosquette, 1992: 2). However, its first editorial clearly stated that Lunes did not have a previous politicophilosophical position (Editorial, 1959a: 2), not surprising as one of its features was its lack of a fixed editorial team. Instead, it was organized loosely around key figures such as Carlos Franqui, Virgilio Piñera, Pablo Armando Fernández, Guillermo Cabrera Infante, José Antonio Baragaño, Antón Arrufat, Oscar Hurtado, and Humberto Arenal. This informal structure was similar to that of other international intellectual currents at

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the time, notably the British New Left, which gathered around a London coffeehouse, The Partisan. In the literary field, there was an enormously wide range of interests, from the new emerging Cuban intellectual scene, to international figures of high renown such as Sartre, Neruda, and Camus as well as North American black writers Julian Mayfied and Sarah E. Wright, reflecting the high importance the periodical attached to the international contribution.23 Thematically, almost anything found space in the pages of Lunes, from surrealism to existentialism, to the theatre of the absurd, in the true revolutionary spirit of engagement with universal culture that stemmed from the diagnosis of Cuba’s cultural situation as highly deficient. As its initial editorial pointed out, the first duty of the magazine was to bring to Cuba the very best of universal culture to make up for the lost time (Editorial, 1959a). Interestingly, the late 1960s brought the opposite project by emphasizing a specific Cuban intellectual discourse, particularly by Edmundo Desnoes and Roberto Fernández Retamar, in a “Cultural Offensive” in which the universe was deemed as colonizing and those who argued in favor of it as “colonized.” From the very beginning, it was obvious that a single, coherent position was absent in the magazine. A number of different currents were present in the Lunes group, mostly writers who belonged to the previous generation of Orígenes, Ciclón, and Nuestro Tiempo as well as those who, exiled in the 1950s, returned to Cuba in the wake of the rebel victory. They also represented two distinct intellectual generations that would be fundamental to some of the later conflicts and transformations at the end of the decade in ways somewhat similar to those of the European New Left. Notably, signs of discordance were soon revealed when certain elements in the younger generation argued that literature and art had to be closer to the political, social, and economic aspects of society (Editorial 1959a). This was clear from the continuous crossing of disciplinary boundaries to cover political as well as literary topics, a characteristic the journal shared with its European and North American counterparts. This feature gave the paper a markedly anti-imperialist character, not surprising since many of its authors belonged to the 1933 generation of a frustrated revolution in Cuban history (Kapcia, 2000). A dominant anti-imperialist ideology can clearly be detected in the denunciatory nature of the many articles and references to the Algerian war that found their way into the publication. This was particularly important because these articles were censored by the French government, as was the case with Alleg’s testimonies of the systematic use of torture by the French military in Algeria. In this sense, Lunes shared political positions that in France were reserved for the progressive New Left press such

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as Les Temps Modernes or L’Observateur. The anti-imperialist stance became a clearer conviction as the Revolution embarked on its rapid succession of nationalizations in the summer of 1960 during a period of increasing confrontation with the United States. From August 1960, the emergence of monographs unified editorial positions and added a certain common purpose to the individual issues of Lunes. The magazine soon broke with the tacit political disengagement that characterized Cuban letters during the time of predominance of the Orígenes group, defining itself along revolutionary lines. These positions on revolutionary commitment preceded similar debates about the role of the intellectual that would emerge later in the decade in the West. In Cuba, they divided the contributors along generational and personal lines—between a young group, among whom Heberto Padilla, Carlos Franqui, and Cabrera Infante were the most outspoken and the likes of Cintio Vitier, José Lezama Lima, and Virgilio Piñera, who were the object of recrimination from the first group. Apart from any truth in the argument that Orígenes lived in a glass bubble, without reflecting the political and social realities of its time, it is possible to understand this attitude from a new generation’s need to assert its cultural primacy or, in Pierre Bourdieu’s terms, its own symbolic capital, a possibility that the Revolution made a reality. This was clearly expressed by some participants who argued that the support of the young intellectual for the Revolution was enormous because it had consecrated a new generation of intellectuals, providing them with real cultural power. Ironically, these “revolutionary” young individuals would, at different times, become disenchanted with the Revolution or the object of its curtailment on intellectual freedom. The events surrounding the “PM Affair”—in which a film depicting Havana’s nightlife was shown on a television program commissioned by Lunes, accelerating the demise of the magazine—are well known. Of the three key figures in the paper, two (Infante and Franqui) eventually went into exile. The reason why these prominent individuals suffered the consequences of Cuba’s changes in intellectual freedom lies in the wider political and ideological development of the Revolution. An understanding of Cuba’s intellectual field as a highly contested space wherein conflicting views on the role of culture are found indicates the extent to which intellectual directions were the result of political battles. Although the most successful expressions of a cultural renaissance (i.e., Casa de las Américas and Lunes) initially were in the hands of the MR26, other groups—notably the PSP—never ceased to claim a stake.24 According to contemporaries of these events, the PSP wanted to control culture as it considered itself the most capable organization to define what was appropriate for a socialist state (Arrufat in Rosquette, 1992: 49).

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The political background of the closure is enlightening. By June 1961, the attack at Girón had already occurred, the socialist nature of the Revolution had been proclaimed, and steps were being taken to unify all remaining political groups with the former PSP leading the process. In this political context, it is not surprising that the decision to give culture a more institutional character was made, a choice that automatically signaled the closure of Lunes. The closure of Lunes coincided with the creation of the Unión Nacional de Escritores y Artistas Cubanos (UNEAC) (National Union of Cuban Artists and Writers) at the National Library in June 1961. The other literary publications (e.g., the Hoy supplement) were also closed in favor of new UNEAC-controlled publications Unión and La Gaceta de Cuba. The responsibility of running the new body fell expectedly to politically “safe” writer Nicolás Guillén—a lifelong member of the PSP— marking the beginning of a new epoch of collaboration between the state and an official intellectual body in the style of eastern Europe. Castro’s well-known Palabras a los intelectuales (literally words to the intellectuals) speech clearly did not represent a great advance for the definition of the intellectual. Although the dictum distinguished between an intellectual positioning in or against the Revolution, it placed the power to judge this in political hands, not in artistic or intellectual ones. On the whole, this meant that the definition was likely to change, as it did, following a trajectory parallel to the wider international climate. In fact, the political climate radicalized acutely toward the end of the decade. Yet the official engagement of the political and the intellectual realms of Cuban society did not necessarily mean a destruction of the creative, original contribution of intellectuals nor of the importance that the revolutionary leadership attached to this figure. It was, however, accompanied by a redefinition of the intellectual in a way prefigured by Guillén’s speech to the First National Congress of Culture organized by UNEAC in 1961 where he described the Congress as an opportunity for intellectuals to contact the average working man and woman and to bring them “. . . an experience that up to then they had had to see from afar, as something beyond their reach” (Guillén, 1962: 2). Thus, 1961 represented a significant transition to a new type of intellectual from an overtly Marxist perspective and from academic disciplines that favored philosophy and history to literature. A New Cuban Intellectual

One of the most enduring characteristics of the Revolution has been the power of political men to determine the fate, and indeed the definition, of the intellectual. Because the Revolution developed among a unique set

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of historical and political circumstances, it could think of itself in novel ways; indeed, the very existence of the Revolution demanded it. The need to express the distinctiveness of the radical Cuban tradition largely shaped the characteristics of the new Cuban intellectual. This section traces the formative process of a new form of Cuban intellectual after 1961, emphasizing the dominance of academic disciplines in the new definition and of the university as the central focus of formation and practice. One of the primary political priorities after the announcement of the socialist nature of the Revolution was to build a vanguard of intellectual workers as part of the mass-scale drive to extend the population’s internalization of some basic ideological precepts in conjunction with its political needs. This took place initially through the Escuelas de Instrucción Revolucionaria (EIR) (Schools of Revolutionary Instruction). Although primarily set up to train the political cadres necessary for the new unified revolutionary structure that had begun in 1961, it had other objectives. One was to provide mass revolutionary education to large numbers of people with low educational standards, more than 120,000 of whom graduated between 1961 and 1966 (Fagen, 1969: 226). The other objective was to train specialized staff in a number of key sectors, including the professorial staff necessary to extend the study of Marxism to higher education. Some of the most interesting developments in Cuba’s intellectual directions of that decade and beyond took place in the struggle for discursive predominance between various currents of academics that can be traced to the EIRs. The common point of confluence of these factors was the University of Havana. As seen earlier in the chapter, Cuba’s university student population was a small but historically politically influential social layer. The combined student population at the three pre-revolutionary universities in Havana, Santa Clara, and Santiago did not exceed 25,000.25 It was among this politically active mass that much of the Cuban tradition of dissent had flourished throughout the generations where the Castro brothers began their political involvement and a number of the first moncadistas (veterans of the Moncada attack in 1953) were recruited. During the rebellion, the underground movement was fed through the university; it was, in the words of C. Wright Mills, “. . . the cradle of the revolution” (1960a: 48). This led him to make overt references to the sectors of the middle class and intellectuals who sparked the Revolution, making explicit references to them as a social class and to their political outlook as representing the birth of a New Left that had not embraced Stalinist politics and ideology (Mills, 1960a). Mills’s general view of the university as the repository of a native and radical nationalist ideology was confirmed—after the purges of Batistianos

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and of those who opposed the end of the university’s autonomy in the summer of 1960, leading to the flight of about two-thirds of the academic staff—by the revolutionary leadership’s access to a majority of students who shared certain revolutionary principles and who constituted the pool from which the often indistinguishable political and intellectual key names were drawn.26 One such group of students was chosen among graduates at the University of Havana in the special EIR, Raúl Cepero Bonilla. This school was created to train lecturers in Marxism who taught at the universities. The move took place in a context of revolutionary unity that led to the political integration of various revolutionary groupings and the consolidation of an official ideology. According to academic excellence criteria and revolutionary disposition, the choice of candidates was made by lecturers and the students’ federation.27 The Raúl Cepero Bonilla functioned for two academic years (1962–1963 and 1963–1964) and many of its students eventually were transferred to the University of Havana where they constituted the newly created Department of Philosophy. Although this department’s initial objective was to deliver the new curriculum—which after the university’s reform of 1962 included the study of Marxism as a compulsory subject in all programs—in practice, its life and intellectual output exemplified many of the main issues related to the role of the Cuban intellectual in the 1960s and had a particular affinity with the European New Left.28 Despite the high political priority given to the formation of this group, its peculiarities accompanied it to the University of Havana. With an average age of 25, it was one of the youngest professorial teams in Cuba. In addition, the new philosophy department was accountable to the vice chancellor’s office and, by implication, to the State Council (Veitía, 1996: 43). This fact ccounted for the seemingly free hand enjoyed by this group to choose its own areas of intellectual concern and to shape the content of its teaching programs. Their initial course, a “Soviet” interpretation of Marxism or DIAMAT, was soon dropped for “History of Marxist Thought”—a fully developed course that was up and running by the 1965–1966 academic year. The class included a wide selection of original writings by a young Marx, Lenin, and Lukacs as well as contemporaries such as Althusser, Sweezy, and Lowy. The course’s section on Third World revolutionary thought was particularly innovative and heretical because of contributions made by the likes of Andre Gunder Frank and Frantz Fanon as well as its demonstration that Cuba had fully sided with the incipient revolutions of the Third World rather than with the Soviet Union.29 More importantly, this group differed widely from the EIRs because they clearly favored a historical approach to the study of Marxism rather than a logico-deductive one. This, it was argued, allowed students

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to understand the texts within the framework of the conditions of production rather than at face value. Although composed by the ideologically divergent, a global, coherent set of themes and intellectual positions is elicited from their published material, especially in the journal Pensamiento Crítico, in print between 1967 and 1971. This intellectual attitude must be understood in contrast to the positions embodied by the EIRs at least in theoretical terms, if not fully in historical ones. The EIRs traditionally were part of the political need for a strategy to popularize Marxism in Cuba in the early revolutionary years; the Raul Cepero Bonilla school and, with few exceptions, most of the staff at the initial Department of Philosophy shared this past. Two characteristics of this special school merit emphasis: first, the highly specific and elitist task the school fulfilled and the nature of the training received by this group—responsibility for which was handed over to Soviet teachers—and second, the course’s corresponding content.30 Yet, the positions defended by their respective publications (Teoría y Práctica for the EIRs and Pensamiento Crítico for the Department of Philosophy) enjoyed intellectual hegemony at different periods. Between July and November 1966, the two groups engaged in direct confrontation and debate over what in Cuba is often referred to as La polémica de los manuales (the debate on textbooks).31 The discussion occurred mainly between Aurelio Alonso, representing the Philosophy Department, and Humberto Pérez and Félix de la Uz—both recent graduates of the School of Higher Education of the CPSU—on the part of the EIRs. Although those close to the positions of the EIRs argued for the usefulness of Soviet textbooks for the general purposes of teaching Marxism at the university, the Pensamiento Crítico group disagreed, favoring instead a historical approach to the study of Marxism. The subtext of this debate can be seen as a struggle for pre-eminence between contending intellectual groups representing opposing ideologies and views of the intellectual. The former represented an anti-intellectual and unquestioned belief in Soviet dogma whereas the latter represented a more subtle search for Marxist rationalizations that were valid to the Cuban revolutionary example. The debate’s resolution in favor of the young group of graduates seemed to augur a new dawn of original and creative search for solutions to Cuba’s revolutionary path without resorting to outmoded and imported answers. Political leadership demanded the new intellectual find a rationalization for the revolution that permitted a diagnosis of Cuba’s position in the world and the discernment of future ones.32 This included an appeal to the fellow Third World intellectual—especially the Latin American one—and to his progressive European counterpart, an objective pursued chiefly through Pensamiento Crítico.

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Thus, the tradition of radical political culture that became the main ideological basis of the 1953–1959 rebellion came to the fore again throughout the 1960s at a number of critical moments that opened a new period of intellectual search and debate on all fronts. These events included as much the economic and political directions of the Revolution as the wider debates about the construction of socialism. The famous Great Debate discussed earlier is a case in point. This process of intellectual debate, however, deepened again in the 1965–1967 period as evidenced by the change of direction in the transmission of ideological discourses through journals and intellectual groups located in research centers. In 1967, both the EIRs and Teoría y Práctica, were suddenly closed. Cuba Socialista also ceased publication while Pensamiento Crítico began its journey. These events were closely linked to the wider political spirit of those years that required the need to theorize the Revolution in original and specifically Cuban ways (Gómez, 1999).33 Why Is Pensamiento Crítico Important?

Between 1967 and 1971, Pensamiento Crítico and Instituto del Libro reflected the dominant position of ideas favorable in the European New Left. The dominant intellectual project of this group that fits the political context of the time is explored here, describing the heterogeneity of influences, interests, and the experimental nature of the ideas presented by Pensamiento Crítico and emphasizing the notable contribution of the New Left to its intellectual project. Beyond the politics of the blocs, this intellectual current aimed to understand and to create an overall body of ideas that could explain the specific nature of Cuba’s path to socialism that resulted from its position at the heart of the emerging notion of the Third World. The EIRs could not confront this challenge because, between 1963–1967, they reflected a disenchantment with the Soviet Union and the conviction that uncritical borrowing of ideas from the Soviet Union would not serve to meet Cuba’s political needs (Fagen, 1969). The planned Institute of Higher Studies of Marxism-Leninism within the EIRs for the study, research, and clarification of ideology was never created, in part because the EIR structure was perceived as an impediment to the “Cuban way.” The timing of the closure of EIRs in 1967, is symptomatic and raises the question of whether Pensamiento Crítico filled the ideological vacuum left behind. Accordingly, the journal aimed to develop its theory through the analysis points of view developed in the Third World (Editorial 1967a). This project was aided by the creation in the same year of the Instituto del Libro, the national publishing house that immediately was placed

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under the directorship of Rolando Rodríguez, director of the Department of Philosophy at the University until that moment. The Instituto del Libro coincided fully with the intellectual project of Pensamiento Crítico, as the vast majority of its editorial production related to the social, historical, and political analyses of Latin America and the Third World. It also included the publication of many contemporary and re-discovered Marxist authors such as Althusser, Marcuse, Gramsci, and Mills (Alonso, 1995: 37). Thus, both Pensamiento Crítico and the Instituto del Libro were well defined in the politico-institutional juncture of the Revolution between 1967 and 1971. Directed by Rolando Rodríguez between 1967–1980, a total of 480 million books and 15,000 titles were published by Instituto del Libro during that period. The political juncture served by these intellectuals was established throughout the years by a combination of geopolitical factors that saw Cuba isolated from the rest of Latin America after expulsion from the OAS and deeply critical of the Soviet model of development as well as by the deepening of an autonomous radical nationalist discourse. These factors “liberated” Cuba from the need to adhere to any specific system and gave it a much greater voice in the world’s periphery, including those sectors who either suffered the consequences of oppression—such as blacks in the United States—or actively campaigned against that situation, as was the case with the New Left intellectuals and student activists. The specific Cuban context of this alternative system was marked by the celebrations of the Tricontinental Conference in 1966, OLAS in 1967, and the Cultural Congress in 1968 as well as the first conference of the Organización Continental Latinoamericana de Estudiantes (OCLAE) (Continental Organization of Latin American Students) in the summer of 1968. In the wake of the Tricontinental Conference, the Cuban Revolution situated itself at the heart of a Third World that included Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Its intellectual project sought to theorize the reality of underdevelopment. Equally, Pensamiento Crítico enlisted the collaboration of a growing number of foreign intellectuals to attempt a theorization of new forms of imperialism, as demonstrated by collaboration between Pensamiento Crítico and Gunder Frank. Frank’s collaboration also included a paper at the Cultural Congress in January 1968 and participation in drafting “Appeal of Havana,” the conference’s final document, which argued that it was the duty of intellectuals to support the struggles of national liberation, social emancipation, and cultural decolonization of people in Asia, Africa, and Latin America as well as the struggle against imperialism (Frank, 1997). Thus, the major thematic concerns of Pensamiento Crítico were linked to the dominant belief in the political role of the intellectual in the new

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society that became a hot topic in the European New Left. The belief in the necessity of intellectuals’ participation in the contemporary revolutions inspired a mutual interest in revolutionary processes in the West and the Third World. Pensamiento Crítico devoted a series of issues to the study of the student revolts of 1968, referring to them as the new forces of revolution in an apparent celebration of the overall voluntarism characteristic of the New Left (Editorial, 1969: 4). These analyses were complemented with studies of strategy in the various revolutionary situations of the Third World that were prescriptive in their identification of the appropriate revolutionary class for each situation. The Cultural Congress of 1968 was the high point of the Western intellectual influences in Cuba’s ideological development. The heterodox choice of participants in this Congress, the openness with which the organizers asked the gathering to deal with the problems of the Revolution— stressing the role that they felt best suited the revolutionary intellectual—and Castro’s post-Congress scathing attack on a certain brand of Marxists contributed greatly to increase Cuba’s high standing among the New Left, many of whom participated at the conference.34 Besides, revolutionary Cuba defined itself in terms of the stage where the contradictions between the developed and the underdeveloped worlds were overcome, a solution that demanded the collaboration of a new type of intellectual. In welcoming the Western intellectual to the Cultural Congress, President Dorticós clearly favored this line of thinking, arguing that politically committed intellectuals were the true defenders of universal cultural values that could not stand aside and watch the problems of underdevelopment in the Third World (Dorticós, 1968). Pensamiento Critico’s editorial team participated in this line of thought by reflecting the existing hegemonic discourses of the late 1960s both in Cuba and the European New Left. Although its contribution to the journal was rather thin, it set a clear pattern of themes. The new Cuban young intelligentsia was making possible the existence of the necessary intellectual space for ideas shared with like-minded intellectuals elsewhere in the world. Pensamiento Crítico came to represent the intellectual values and ideas peculiar to the New Left in the West.35 Yet, after 1968, Western intellectual contributions to the journal dried up. In 1967 and 1968, thirty to thirty five articles by westerners were published in Pensamiento Critico; by 1970, this figure had been reduced to about ten. This reduction directly reflected the rapidly diminishing power intellectuals had in setting the agenda inside the Revolution, leading to their irrelevance in the years immediately after 1970, a period characterized by the closure of spaces for debates in the terrain of ideas (Alonso, 1995). The structural reasons for this rapid ideological turn are

44


found in the failure of the guerrilla strategy (symbolized by Guevara’s death), the deep economic crisis that followed the 1970 zafra, and the subsequent rapprochement with the Soviet Union. The latter had already begun in August 1968 when, after the Prague invasion, Cuba sided with the Soviet justification, but was deepened with the insertion of Cuba in the East European economic bloc, Comecon, in 1972. The consequences that tighter links with the Soviet Union brought for the ideas represented by the New Left were equally devastating. They were reflected in the hard line adopted in the 1971 Congress of Culture and Education. For the intellectual group formed around Pensamiento Critico, the consequences were also noticeable. Having failed to establish a dominant ideology, the journal was closed down, the Department of Philosophy purged of all its most heretical members, and their program of study reverted to a “safe” curriculum based on Soviet Marxist literature. Perhaps the clearest indicator that Cuba was making an ideological U-turn was that, following the closure of Pensamiento Crítico, the EIRs were reopened, this time under the name of Escuelas del Partido (Party Schools). As a result, the rift between the Revolution and the European intellectual universe, which had started to grow since the summer of 1968, was consolidated in 1971 during the renowned Padilla Affair.36 Conclusion Although the Cuban ideological discourse may at times appear monolithic, presenting a united front to the outside world, it still accommodates a broad range of undercurrents. This chapter has suggested that during the 1960s, the Cuban Revolution presented a series of policy directions and ideological positions that attracted it to a growing international “dissident” Left. Although heterogeneous and often contradictory, the New Left was inspired by the apparent independence of the Cuban Revolution from Soviet orthodoxy. These included the Revolution’s initial hesitation to declare its Marxist-Leninist character and Cuba’s reluctance to follow expected paths in its economic or foreign policy. They all converged in an alternative, Cuban, version of socialism aiming to maintain national sovereignty and freedom from dependence on either the Soviet or the American spheres of influence. The role of the intellectual in the relationship between the Revolution and the New Left was perhaps the most characteristic element of this decade. Having been led by the young, educated classes, the Cuban Revolution shared—in its lack of Communist leadership—an inherent critique of the orthodox Left that was also under fire in the West. This, and the apparent freedom with which the intellectual was co-opted to

Cuba

45

work inside the Revolution, made a mecca of the Cuban Revolution for a large cross-section of the European New Left. Inside Cuba, throughout the decade, the role of the intellectual underwent severe transformations that were driven by the intellectual domination of a young group of writers returned from exile and the subsequent domination of academic disciplines and openly Marxist positions. The formation of what the political leadership described as an intellectual “organic” to the Revolution has been identified as a particularly clear reflection of many of the debates surrounding the competing discourses of “New” versus “Old” Left. This has been illustrated by the case of the intellectual group formed around the creation of Pensamiento Critico journal, its hegemonic dominance after 1967, and rapid demise after 1971. Besides the personal histories and experiences that illustrate the declining influence of the intellectual in the Cuban Revolution toward the end of the 1960s, the Pensamiento Critico group offered a clear set of thematic concerns dominant during “the Cuban heresy” period, notably the search for theoretical frameworks that could, from a critical conception of Marxism, explain the Revolution’s uniqueness as a representative of the Third World. Cuba’s revolutionary unity could not be compromised by the diffusion of certain ideas that became increasingly irrelevant to the political and economic conditions of the Revolution. The disappearance of Pensamiento Crítico in 1971 symbolized the reaffirmation of Soviet economic and, to some degree, intellectual models mediated by members of the former PSP in a coherent line of thought.


Chapter

3

Who Cared about the Cuban Revolution Then . . . and Who Cares Now? So far in our story of mutual attraction and support in the 1960s between the Cuban Revolution and Western activists and intellectuals, an element is missing: the supporters. This chapter introduces the range of constituencies that became known as the New Left and explores the universe of intellectuals and activists who—while keenly aware of Cuban developments—not only shaped the Revolution but were influenced in their political outlook by Cuba’s own radicalization. We outline the main political and historical timeframe of the birth of the New Left, providing a context for understanding the myriad groups of intellectuals and activists that constituted this movement. In addition, we describe who they were, identify their characteristics, and explore ways in which they evolved according to specific national traditions and political cultures. Where does Cuba fit into all of this? The existing literature on the New Left sees this as a European and North American development closely attached to the spirit of counterculture that dominated the 1960s. However, as we argue, the shared political and intellectual ground between the participants in this global encounter justifies their treatment as part of a single process. This chapter appeals for a global understanding of the New Left, introducing key moments and themes in this encounter on both sides of the Atlantic and emphasizing common elements and shared values that brought together the many agents and actors who supported the Cuban Revolution and engaged in a single “conversation.” This chapter also serves as the basis on which the case

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studies of North America, Britain, and France are subsequently built, exploring the differences that made each national tradition unique in responding to local and global concerns such as civil rights, the Cold war, the birth of the Third World, and the student movement. The chapter is divided into three sections. The first outlines some of the difficulties implicit in many of the most common definitions of the New Left. It presents these problems following categorization along spatial, temporal, and philosophical lines, bringing into focus the specific national traditions of the New Left, their historical development through the decade, and the various schools of thought that influenced them in quick succession. Next, we attempt to transcend these difficulties with a definition that emphasizes a “global” understanding of the New Left, brings together the characteristics common to various national cases, and contributes to an understanding of the cross-fertilization of ideas between them. The chapter ends with a look forward to the 1990s and a short discussion of current signs of interest in Cuba. Defining the New Left: A Multi-layered Reality So far in this book, the term New Left has been used without much attention given to its meaning or the existing literature on the subject. Yet, chapter two identified one particular intellectual group within the Cuban Revolution—the group of academics and intellectuals built around the publication Pensamiento Crítico—that embodied many of the characteristics of the New Left. This group of academic intellectuals saw themselves as part of a wider movement that brought together the deepest national ideological traits of the Revolution and the global concerns of a new generation in which both capitalism and imperialism as well as established forms of socialism were scrutinized. Fed by the pervading culture of protest of the 1960s, Pensamiento Crítico became closely associated with the wider global New Left, exchanging ideas and reprinting articles from journals like Cuadernos de Ruedo Ibérico, in the Spanish diaspora, Quaderni Piacentini in Italy, the French Partisans, New Left Review, and Monthly Review. The intellectual cross-fertilization was further reinforced by personal friendships with representatives of these journals such as Perry Anderson, Robin Blackburn, François Maspero, Paul M. Sweezy, K. S. Karol, and Rossana Rossanda (Díaz, 2000: 68). The New Left intellectual field can be explored in relation to the links, mutual influences, and habitus produced by international encounters of intellectuals and activists that were built and organized around common concerns, political campaigns, movements, and publications. As argued in chapter one, this approach allows for the study of its structure and

Who Cared About the Cuban Revolution?

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shared habitus, challenging us to observe the mutually influential and reinforcing relationship between the two, the individuals, the movement, the campaigns, and the ideas they espoused. Little agreement exists within the literature as to the origins of the concept of the New Left. According to Young (1977), the term was coined by C. W. Mills to refer to a previously purely British phenomenon close to the Labour Party that gave rise to a revisionist Marxist school. According to Young, the New Left also became eminently American in flavor after 1960. The majority of British commentators, however, maintain that the New Left had European political and intellectual parentage and link it directly to Claude Bourdet, editor of the French weekly France Observateur, and the political movement La Nouvelle Gauche (literally, the New Left) (Kenny, 1995). The latter conceptualization sees the New Left as a yearning in certain sectors of the European Left for a politicointellectual alternative that was more radical than the programmatic agendas enshrined in social democracies, yet one that did not fall in with the authoritarian methods of Stalinist Soviet Union nor accepted the views of the official Communist Party. In addition, this definition emphasizes the importance of the Cold war in propelling the New Left to develop a vision of Europe as a third international alternative to a bipolar division of a world led by the United States and the Soviet Union. Thus, this understanding brings into focus some common elements between the French and British New Lefts, namely the inherent and equal critique of social democracy and of established, orthodox communism that were not, initially at least, shared by their U.S. counterparts. The New Left literature indicates that the definition of this movement often is dependent on a specific national context. In the United States, for example, the link between the New Left and its official Communist Party (CPUSA)—such a clear presence in the origins of the European New Left—simply did not exist to the same extent. Instead, most of the literature emphasizes a view of the U.S. New Left dominated by the student movement and organizations such as Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) (Breines, 1982; Lyons, 1976). In addition, the civil rights movement was particular to the United States, but it represented a key component of the mutual interest with Cuba and showed solidarity with the student movement even though relations at the time were fractious. What the U.S. New Left brought to the rest of the world is a rarely explored interest early in the Cuban Revolution through the Fair Play for Cuba Campaign (FPCC), consisting of an assorted group of liberals, journalists, students, and African Americans appalled at the propaganda that was laying the foundation for hostile activities against Cuba in 1960. This early attention was disseminated in the English-speaking world

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through the British New Left Review and authors like C. Wright Mills, Saul Landau, Dave Dellinger, Leo Huberman, Paul Sweezy, and Norman Fruchter. Indeed, as chapter five explores, for a few years after the Revolution, the British New Left was somewhat dependent on North American assessments of Cuba. Even when it later developed its own understanding of the Revolution in ways appropriate to its own political and intellectual concerns, this was informed by concerns shared with their U.S. counterparts. For example, the concept of humanism was used to refer to Cuban Revolution images that were intrinsically bound to the emergent concept of the Third World. In turn, the Third World became linked to finding a compromise between what the First New Left—in agreement with Castro—considered opposed world systems: capitalism, which created freedom without social justice and communism, which offered social justice without freedom (Hall and Fruchter, 1961). As a result, a feeling of collective identification with the Cuban Revolution was one of the characteristics of the First New Left, a feeling which included a degree of friendly criticism based on what was considered its historical significance (Miliband, 1962).1 On the other hand, British sources and studies of the British New Left tend to emphasize the roots of a movement that could have the historical referents of post-colonialism in the international arena and post-Stalinism in the domain of Left activism and intellectual pursuit. The studies by Bamford (1983), Holden (1976), and Hughes (1973) share these same premises and place the New Left in a historical context that limits its span of activity and influence to the late 1950s and early 1960s. In Britain, the New Left in these early days was dominated by attempts at democratizing the structure and workings of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB), especially after the anti-Stalinist impetus by the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) in 1956. The New Left came into its own with the loss of legitimacy of the established Left that took place after the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary, an event that led to a mass exodus of intellectuals from the ranks of the CPGB. Many of them migrated to New Reasoner where they sought to fulfill an independent intellectual mission denied them inside the CPGB. Their criticisms of the Party were matched by their loss of innocence regarding the benign understanding of the Soviet Union that had, until then, characterized their militancy. This critical position was not solely directed at the Soviet Union. The early British New Left was equally critical of its own government and the persisting remnants of imperialist and colonialist behavior in a British Labour Party tainted by the country’s involvement in the 1956 Suez Canal


51

affair. The early British New Left also challenged the integrationist position of those sections of the Labour Party that agreed with the British government’s decision to seek stronger military links with the United States into a single military and ideological camp, a decision that led to the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) shortly after the end of World War II. In sum, the early New Left was born during the intensification of the Cold war; as a result, the group’s main aim was to put forward politico-ideological alternatives that diffused the increasing international tensions provoked by the Cold war. One of the greatest obsessions of the time was the fear of a nuclear holocaust. The British New Left responded with the creation of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) in 1958 that immediately set out on its pacifist marches to the weapons research center at Aldermaston. In France, the New Left had a broad range of initial roots. Similar to its British counterparts, the original French New Left occupied the political space beyond that of a particularly “Stalinist” Parti Communiste Français (French Communist Party) (PCF) and a reformist Section Française de l’Internationale Ouvrière (SFIO) (French Section of the Workers’ International) that became the Socialist Party in 1969. Conversely, the French New Left was highly distinctive because, unlike in the British case, it institutionalized into a political party, the Parti Socialiste Unifié (PSU) (Unified Socialist Party), whose single most distinctive issue was its opposition to the French war in Algeria, something which neither the SFIO—the ranks of which PSU had exited in 1958—nor the PCF opposed as late as 1958.2 This party was only one of the many constituencies that made the French New Left. In addition, in the mid- to late 1960s, the PSU accommodated within its ranks the wide range of small radical groups that comprised the gauchistes (leftists) of Trotskyist, Maoist, or anarchist tendencies led mainly by the student population that initiated the May 1968 events.3 The issue of definition is very important in France where La Nouvelle Gauche and gauchisme (leftism) are commonly used to refer to different aspects of what in English is encompassed under the “New Left.”4 Oelgart (1970) has argued for the expansion of the meaning of La Nouvelle Gauche to cover the meaning of gauchisme because it is wider than the latter and includes within its definition a sense of opposition to the communist parties (the “Old” Left) as well as an acknowledgment that they provided a common source to many in the New Left. How long the New Left lasted is part of the wider debate about the definition of this movement. With reference to the United Kingdom, Chun (1993) and to some extent Young (1977) follow the continuities of the early New Left as it was taken up by events and a new constituency of the

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young student population that led strikes, university occupations, and spontaneous political activism in the wider context of nonconformist politics that characterized the decade. Although this “second wave” of the New Left shared some concerns and elements with the first wave and its American counterpart, the discontinuities and contradictions between both waves were apparent. Quoting E. P. Thompson, Young (1977: 146) considers the New Left expressions of the late 1960s as “revamped Stalinism, tarted up with a few Sartrian neologisms.”5 There were, actually, many differences. While the early New Left had a wide range of social and cultural concerns, the later version had more obvious revolutionary and political interests. Although the early New Left sought to build a socialist project from within existing institutional structures, the second wave was either not interested in mainstream politics or sought to overturn the established political, economic, and cultural order. Whereas the first New Left searched for an alternative to an East-West bipolar international division via a “Third Way” alternative for the newly decolonized nations, the second New Left saw the world divided mainly between the North and the South in a transition that went from anti-colonialist ideologies to one that favored anti-imperialism.6 In each case and regardless of whether or not the New Left terminology changed, an increasing radicalization took place throughout the decade, leading to increasingly violent attempts to overturn the status quo, a process examined in the next three chapters. This multiplicity of meanings of the New Left affected by diffuse historical coordinates also found expression in philosophical terms. Here, the difference between Britain and France is quite apparent. In Britain, the intellectual context that gave rise to the New Left—a revival of a Marxism that was just coming out of decades of Stalinist domination— was fueled by the availability in English, of Marx’s early writings. In France, however, the New Left had a much stronger and indigenous intellectual basis built upon the works of Sartre, Lefevre, and Castoriadis—a three-pronged alternative to the monopoly exercised by the PCF on Marxist thinking and philosophy. Some authors emphasize the humanist tone of the New Left and its representatives, the rediscovery of which became the project of, for example, the existentialist Marxist tradition that could also include exponents of humanism such as Lucien Goldman (Hirsh, 1981). McLellan (1999) endorses this view, arguing that three major factors explain the revival of Marxist studies in the 1960s. The first is the translation into English of Marx’s early writings, notably the 1844 Manuscripts, and the influence of his views on alienation and the emerging critique of the affluent society. Second, McLellan argues that this renewed interest in the “humanist” Marx was closely related to a growing


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interest in Hegelian philosophy. Third, McLellan sees the first two elements as part of the historical context, outlined already in some measure but explored in greater detail in the explorations of individual New Left national traditions in subsequent chapters. After 1956, this saw a profound crisis of the legitimacy of Soviet Communism and the emergence of pluralism in the Communist world with the Soviet Union and China veering for global domination. This led to the appearance, and in some cases renewal, of older schools of thought (e.g., Trotskyism) or alternative Marxisms that owed marginal or no affiliation to the Soviet version. Against this background, McLellan sees the 1970s as representing a renewed challenge to humanist forms of Marxism mainly from the structuralism introduced by Louis Althusser who maintained the Stalinist distinction between an early Marxism and the scientific Marxism he advocated. Others, however, included the structuralist Marxism of Althusser and Nicos Poulantzas as part of the New Left, based mainly on their intellectual credentials (Oelgart, 1970).7 This position takes into account the highly original output of Marxist philosophers opposed to a Stalinist Marxism that commentators at the time saw in terms of a formal creed rather than a set of intellectual ideas (Colletti, 1977). In this sense, although Althusser showed the beginnings of a rupture with the “humanism” that—according to McLellan—characterized the birth of the New Left, his political opposition to Stalinism put him at the heart of the New Left as was the case with gauchiste political practice in France and the second New Left in Britain. This plurality of formative influences, contradictory positions, and numerous faces of the New Left led a number of commentators to argue that the term “New Left” should be considered a misnomer (Ellis, 1969). Despite these apparently contradictory positions, however, it is possible to make a virtue of the multifaceted New Left by arguing that all sides of the New Left contribute to the understanding of the “total” event itself. To account for the many expressions of what was by its very nature a confused—and confusing—reality, this book’s conceptualization of the New Left is inclusive and wide-ranging. This generalization does not, however, signify that every single group, faction, or current that participated in what often was a self-applied label (the New Left) was enthusiastic about the Cuban Revolution. For example, evidence exists that suggests some of the factions in the French New Left that were informed by anarchist ideas were unimpressed by perceived authoritarian traits in late 1960s Cuba and increasing emphasis on organization and military-style discipline demanded by the population. Neither does it indicate that every intellectual or group of intellectuals considered in this book as part of the New Left

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necessarily saw themselves as part of this movement.8 Allowing for this, it is arguable that all were part of a new, radicalized, activist, and, to some extent dissident intelligentsia that shared the characteristics of anti-Stalinism and Marxist unorthodoxy by a rejection of the economic determinism of orthodox versions of then-current Marxism.9 This definition also allows us to refer to the Cuban Revolution not only in terms of political revolutionary discourse and policy directions, but also in the more narrowly defined sense of representative individuals who echoed many of the intellectual concerns of the New Left. This broad definition of the New Left emphasizes the clear elements of continuity between the different waves of the movement and the various national contexts in which it developed. The main element—shared by a generation of radicalized activists and intellectuals—that defines the concept of New Left was its political and intellectual rejection of the so-called “Old” Left, as represented by the vast majority of the communist parties in Western and Eastern Europe. Whether we refer to Sartre, the editorial board of Le Nouvel Observateur, members of New Left Review, or Vietnam Solidarity Campaign activists, the 1960s were characterized by a profound crisis in the political and intellectual legitimacy of the communist parties and the model of society they advocated.10 This characteristic informed the New Left’s ability to recognize the Third World’s historical importance and its capacity for entering into dialogue with the newly independent nations. In this way, Cuba is perhaps the most representative case of Third World revolution among the many that took place in the 1960s and claimed allegiance to the same guiding values. Besides the recognition it gave to the Third World, the New Left is synonymous with the appearance of a new type of politically committed actor that the New Left itself described as the intellectual, either in its committed or revolutionary form. Toward a Global Definition of the New Left In this section, we examine the conceptual elements crucial for a “global” definition of the New Left. The vast majority of the literature considered in the previous section sees the New Left as a purely Western phenomenon, often conceptualized and understood either in purely national terms or according to the political objectives of individual social movements. The result is an array of in-depth studies with a focused understanding of the particular characteristics of small-scale movements where little or no attempt is made to generalize. A global understanding of the New Left can help supersede these problems by breaking down some of the limitations imposed by the more purist definitions, making it possible to


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explore the extent to which Cuba and the actors in many countries shared ideas and values. This book concentrates on the dialogue that took place between the Cuban Revolution, the United States, and the European New Left, suggesting that two key conceptual elements are necessary to reach a common characterization of the participants in this transatlantic discourse. These elements are based on a shared understanding of and relationship with the Third World and the intellectual. Judging by the enthusiasm with which the New Left welcomed the birth of the Third World, it appears that the formative process of the New Left was intimately linked to the new nations emerging from the former colonial world. This entry of the majority of the world’s population onto the global stage represented a major challenge to existing depictions of the world divided into two opposing camps. Acknowledging perhaps the Third World’s importance in changing the global map of the second half of the twentieth century, the New Left almost always touched on this theme. Thus, given that New Left thinkers were among the first to adopt the term “Third World” and show an intellectual and political interest in this area, it seems possible to explore our understanding of the meaning of Third World—especially in its relation to either the First or Second Worlds—by studying the changing nature of this notion for the New Left. Conversely, because the New Left was shaped equally by international and domestic developments, a systematic study of the Third World as seen by the New Left could help illuminate our understanding of the New Left itself. Exploring the Cuban Revolution can help us understand the New Left because of the Revolution’s role in defining the Third World. Official revolutionary discourse presented the Cuban Revolution as one of the leading exponents of the Third World in the 1960s. The term’s trajectory closely followed Cuba’s ideological evolution and foreign policy, emphasizing an understanding of the Third World as an alternative model of development, in opposition to both Capitalism and Communism. According to this view, Cuba was called on to diffuse Cold war tensions through neutralist positions and to prevent the possibility of a nuclear Armageddon. In the second half of the decade, however, Cuba aimed to represent a Third World that was the key source and location of social revolution in the world (Hobsbawm, 1994). Thus, it is possible to draw a number of conclusions about the nature, composition, and development of the New Left throughout the years by exploring its widely reported “love affair” with the Cuban Revolution in the 1960s and its transition from neutralism to revolution. In short, by exploring its development, limitations, and contradictions, it is possible to understand and evaluate the New Left’s contributions and legacy.

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The second key element to the habitus of the New Left field is the intellectual. Reference to the intellectual is essential for a number of reasons. First, the intellectual appears central to the definition of the New Left per se, since every study of the New Left describes the intellectual origins and aspirations of the movement. Second, implicit in these individuals’ actions and positions was an ever-present debate about their role in society and the type of intellectual figure they represented. As we have seen, this aspiration led to the formation of the original first New Left in Britain, or La Nouvelle Gauche in France, many of whose members abandoned the Communist Party after 1956 partly because of the deleterious consequences that Stalinism had on their ability to contribute as intellectuals.11 Ultimately, a historically situated understanding of the committed intellectual in the 1960s allows us to see the New Left intellectual as defined by his and her actions and wider political project. When these intellectuals entered into contact with their counterparts in the Third World and offered their support to revolutionary societies under construction, they were identifying with their counterparts and their societies and making a statement as to who they were. This historically situated understanding of the intellectual acknowledges that the New Left of the 1960s showed a predisposition to play a political role in some form or other. It is therefore possible to understand this type of intellectual as situated somewhere in the continuum between the “ivory tower” position of the politically unengaged intellectual and what we might call the “pure actor” politician or revolutionary. If a common element to the motley membership of the New Left exists, it is the constant search for a meaningful position in this continuum throughout the 1960s. This understanding of the New Left and of the individuals, groups, and campaigns contained therein differs greatly from the ahistorical visions of the intellectual put forth by authors who assume an essential distinction between “actors” and “thinkers.” Most of the literature based on a notion of the “fellow traveler” phenomenon discussed in chapter one maintains this implicit distinction, viewing intellectuals who support any noncapitalist society as ideological and in a historical vacuum. This perception of the intellectual leads to the conclusion that the only reason for their interest in these “idealized” societies was some sort of psychological strangeness and alienation from their own capitalist societies (Hollander, 1981).12 Not only is this reading partial in its denial of intellectual counterparts in these societies (i.e., Western intellectuals are supposed to have been fascinated only with leaders such as Stalin, Mao, or Castro), but it also denies historical authenticity to the concept of the intellectual.


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The characterization into one universal group (i.e., the intellectuals) of what undoubtedly were many different discursive actors in the exchange that existed between the Cuban Revolution and the New Left might appear unrefined at first sight. To some, the thought of Guevara as an intellectual might seem stretching the point. Yet, regardless of what judgment the benefit of hindsight or more ahistorical definitions of the intellectual may allow us to make, it is important to consider that, in the 1960s, Guevara was considered not only an intellectual, but the quintessential embodiment of the intellectual.13 Equally, this “situated” understanding of the intellectual sees no contradiction between engaging with power at the same time as searching for recognition and opportunities for expression as intellectual. Thus, the New Left can be understood to be a metaphor for a form of committed intellectual that belonged to the 1960s, whereas Cuba acted as a specific example of the Third World—a concept crucial to the definition of the New Left. The combination of these two elements leads to a consideration of the New Left as a movement on a global scale in a way similar to what Katsiaficas refers to as a world-historical movement (1987). Discursively, in breaking—or attempting to break—the binary divisions of the world into opposing camps and promoting an alternative model of development, the New Left appealed to a new and original global order. At a historical level, the effects of New Left activism were present everywhere. Katsiaficas shows how, in 1968, major New Left mobilizations took place across the world—regardless of country, continent, or political system—from Africa to Europe to the Far East. This book suggests that a dialogue took place between certain Western intellectuals (the New Left) and the Third World, in this case represented by Cuba, thus illustrating the idea that a truly global movement and forces were at play. This book also suggests that a New Left, although it might well have originated in the West, was present on a global scale and that this was reproduced partly due to the dialogue generated between its different parts. In the same way as the New Left often is seen as having contributed to the beginning of the women’s and the black liberation movements— widening considerably our understanding of new, potential agents for social change—it came into contact with a new majority of the world’s population, visible for the first time and clamoring for self-emancipation. In the case of the Third World, its very existence significantly contributed to the birth of the New Left. The Cuban Revolution, although born out of particular conditions, became a beacon for the evolving movement that could survive only as long as this dialogue existed. Second, the book suggests that intellectuals as a universal class became both the protagonists

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of this dialogue and responsible for rationalizing the basis on which this engagement took place. The content of this exchange is the subject of chapters seven and eight. A New Left in the Twenty-First Century? The relevance of this book’s subject matter does not end in the 1960s. Ultimately, this is a story about our ability to dream of alternative societies and futures. As we saw in chapter two, Cuba aligned itself with the Soviet Union in the 1970s because of economic expedience, thus breaking with a key defining element of the Revolution’s first ten years of life—a desire to represent an independent alternative to the dual, Cold war-driven division of the world through either neutralist or revolutionary means. The political and ideological price of economic safety that came with closer alliance with the socialist world led to the very public break-up of relations between key representatives of the New Left with Cuba just as the New Left itself was under threat, thus closing the circle that had seen the Revolution and the New Left come together as they were emerging as political realities. Cuba’s ideological and economic alignment with the Soviet camp continued well into the early 1990s in spite of growing signs of economic and moral collapse in the Soviet Union. When the inevitable happened, the Revolution saw itself in need of a reassessment of the kind of society it wanted to build while continuing to reject the model proposed by the United States. In short, Cuba was—and is—in search of new friends in the West. These friends have come in the form of supporters of alternatives to capitalist development, often from all manner of social movements and alternative positions opposed to globalization. Is there a link between the New left that dominated intellectual and activist exchanges with Cuba during the 1960s and the anti/alter-globalization movements of the late 1990s and beyond? Undoubtedly. The literature on new social movements has made explicit the link between the 1960s New Left and its current generational heirs in the form of new social movements (Buechler, 1999; Melucci, 1986; Touraine, 1981). Of them, the global social justice movement contains the greatest ideological baggage from the 1960s in wanting to see Cuba as an alternative societal model that shows us the way of the future, not only in terms of social organization and social justice, but increasingly, around issues of sustainability. This process has been significantly aided by the Latin American turn toward the language of alter-globalization since the arrival to power of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, followed by Evo Morales in Bolivia, and others.


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The networks of solidarity developing among those countries—including Cuba—in the form of closer economic, political, ideological, and social development cooperation is illustrated by the creation of a Bolivarian alternative for the Americas (ALBA), a Latin American solidarity network that proposes an alternative to the U.S.-sponsored Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) (Dello Buono, 2007). Armed with more than just the anti-imperialist rhetoric and failed revolutionary practices of yesteryear, this new generation of leaders is speaking the language of the global social movements to influence new audiences and seek common terrain in the global battle of ideas. But it is as yet unclear the extent to which these nations can influence new social movements such as those represented by the world social forum. This is because clear differences exist between the New Left in the 1960s and current alternatives to capitalist globalization discussed at the global civil society level. For one, the language is different. No longer do terms such as “Third World” seem appropriate. Instead, the literature refers to a global south, common in its experience of poverty vis-à-vis the richer nations. But the main actors in this relationship have changed too, in everything except their age as they are dominated by young people. No longer are new social movements led by small groups exuding the elitism that the term “intellectual” implies, regardless of whether or not he (and it was always a “he”) appealed to the model of committed or revolutionary intellectual. Instead, they put all their emphasis on developing strong internal democratic structures as a way of guaranteeing the process of deliberation and reflective decision making, and not just the final outcome. As for “the dream,” new social movements also have been considered new insofar as they have abandoned the Marxist script of the 1960s. Furthermore, they have abandoned the focus on capturing the nation-state and concentrate instead on the cultural and symbolic domains (Crossley, 2002). To the extent that Cuba and Venezuela aim to represent the aspirations of the alter-globalization movement, this might be possible only at the level of ideas and not at the level of biographical and personal contact. In sum, our working definition of the New Left is political and historically contingent, an empirical category valid only for the 1960s. There are, however, elements of the New Left that, as a new social movement, can be explored as part of current developments in the relationship and exchange blossoming between Cuba and the global justice movement. Could this be an element of what has been described as repertoires and cycles of contention (Tilly, 1978; Tarrow, 1998)? The book returns to this issue briefly in chapter nine. In the meantime, it explores three case studies of the New Left in the 1960s.


Part

2

Cuba in the Imagination of the New Left: Three Examples


Chapter

4

Geopolitics and Race: The Cuban Revolution and the U.S. New Left This chapter constitutes the first of the case studies about the impact of and the role played by the Cuban Revolution in nationally defined intellectual fields. The U.S. New Left, along with its French counterpart, is perhaps the one example that has been studied the most by former members, activists, and academics. And yet, the U.S. New Left also has been most partially explored with few references ever made to the importance attributable to the Cuban Revolution to explain its composition, formative process, and ideological evolution. The U.S. New Left was unique in many respects and different to the other cases of the New Left explored in this book. First, unlike the European cases discussed later, the traditional Left had little footing in North American politics, making many studies devoted to it about white, middle-class university students. Second, Cuba was much more present in the political consciousness of a generation and the geopolitics of the region than in the other examples of the New Left explored later on. The Cuban Revolution was also at the center of defining events of the 1960s in the United States such as the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Missile Crisis, even getting tangled in the assassination of Kennedy by a Fair Play for Cuba Committee (FPCC) member Lee Harvey Oswald and, until now, the subject of conspiracy studies linking him to the Cuban secret services. Third, the civil rights movement is an intrinsic element of this story and one that is not shared by any of the other examples of New Left politics explored in this book.

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Although mainstream histories of the New Left in the 1960s seem to have forgotten the crucial importance of the Cuban Revolution to the definition and identity of the New Left and of the decade, this book contends that Cuba was more important than it is normally credited for in the various aspects of the New Left explored in this chapter. We also explore in this chapter the various changes of fortune in the importance of the Cuban Revolution to the varied constituencies of the New Left and its significance in bringing prominence to the concept of race in subsequent political discourse as part of the civil rights movement. Finally, the chapter turns its attention to the significance given to the U.S. New Left in Cuba, arguing that it was avidly, if selectively, followed in Cuba by both the leadership and the new intellectuals, providing an insight into the Cuban viewpoint as reflected in some of its most charismatic publications presented in chapter two. Who Constituted the U.S. New Left? The key political and historical coordinates of the New Left explored in chapter three do not, of course, always apply to all the political cultures explored in this book. Important differences and similarities existed between the North American and the European cases of the New Left. The New Left in the United States has been referred to as a white, middle-class, largely student movement of the late 1950s and 1960s (Breines, 1982).1 Although this characterization of the New Left is common, this book takes a set of broader characteristics to define this coalition of movements, groups, ideologies, and interests that the New Left represented. A central characteristic of the New Left is its emergence from the historical forms of the Left associated with orthodox Communism. This has an added significance in a country like the United States where mass consumerism, a conservative ideological climate, and the post-war economic boom had dented both the Communist Party’s membership levels and the popularity of traditional working-class organizations such as the unions. Second, the New Left lacked the organizational structure of a formal party as it was composed of a vast range of organizations, movements, and ideologies that radicalized increasingly throughout the decade (Gosse, 1993). Thus, a broad conceptualization of the U.S. New Left might exclude the hierarchy of the U.S. Communist Party (CPUSA) but needs to acknowledge that much of its intellectual force came from individuals as diverse as C. Wright Mills and Harold Cruse who had common communist allegiances until well into the 1950s, or that their young members were busy breaking the party’s line and engaging in political activities that captured the imagination of a generation. In this sense, the

Geopolitics and Race

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U.S. New Left was not so different from the French one, even though, for example, the force, stature, and size of the PCF in French society were altogether much greater. The U.S. New Left was also able to incorporate the radical politics of other organized forms of ideological orthodoxy such as the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party (SWP) as well as their youth wing, the Young Socialist Alliance (YSA), both of which became increasingly influential in the New Left toward the end of the decade. In the same vein, individuals and groups organized around pacifist and anarchist ideas proliferated throughout the decade and must be seen as essential elements of the New Left. In the end, a vast range of political actors, ideologies, generations, and intellectuals constituted the rise of single-issue, often informal, campaigns and movements that characterized the 1960s. Among them, the most recognizable political force was constituted by the students’ movement of white, middle-class America represented mainly by Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) (Vickers, 1975). The product of mass culture, high levels of university access, and economic affluence, the New Left often was perceived as interested in culture and other “subjective” conditions for revolution. And yet, critical elements of the U.S. New Left make for familiar reading when considered in relation to their European counterparts. First, the young, educated higher education students constituted the driving force of the New Left in the United States, just like elsewhere explored in the book. In addition, they shared the way in which they distinguished themselves from an “Old” Left that continued to regard the Soviet Union as a key point of reference for those trying to produce a global critique of capitalism and consumer society (Isserman, 1993). The New Left imbued the decolonization process as well as the rise of a new set of political actors in the global scene with the significance it deserved. By contrast, the “Old” Left continued to place its faith in the redeeming powers of an industrial working class as the agency of transformation to socialism in spite of evidence suggesting that this working class did not exist in the Third World and was either non-unionized or increasingly co-opted into the capitalist system in the developed countries. Furthermore, the political expression of the “Old” Left in the form of communist parties in all the western countries explored in this book maintained this ideology while opting for a political strategy of peaceful transition to socialism through democratic electoral means that further alienated their young constituencies, often keen to participate in alternative means of political expression through the New Left. Significant dates of the mainstream history of the U.S. New Left point to “Letter to the New Left,” an article written by Mills in 1960 and published

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in the British journal New Left Review. Motivated by the publication of “Out of Apathy,” a manifesto of the New Left originally published by several original members of the British New Left, Mills responded with an open letter in which he explicitly advocated a move away from the “Old” Left described above in favor of new forms of ideologically committed analyses of contemporary society. In particular, Mills elaborated on the role of a potentially new agent for change that included the intellectuals, making direct connections between himself, his audience, and a new generation of young people taking non-violent direct action all over the world (Mills, 1960b).2 The next stop in dominant analyses of the U.S. New Left points toward the creation of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) from the Student League for Industrial Democracy (SLID) and the Port Huron Statement, a political manifesto that launched SDS in 1962, calling for new forms of participatory democracy and non-violent disobedience (Teodori, 1970).3 SDS would come to represent the spirit of the New Left most famously and reflect its main preoccupations, which, at the time of its foundation, concentrated on the civil rights issue at home and on the challenges to global peace, made most relevant during the Missile Crisis in October of that year. Yet, these preoccupations would soon include free speech with the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley in 1964, organizing the first great university rebellion (McMillian and Buhle, 2003). From this moment on, the New Left focused primarily on the issues of Vietnam and the black liberation movement. These two main campaigns could, and often were, seen in tandem as they made evident the exploitative nature of capitalist relations at home and abroad. While white and blacks were pitted against each other in the United States, the country’s relations abroad were based on the domination of “peoples of color” as leaders of the Black Panthers would argue. By 1969, SDS was deeply divided between those who supported Third World guerrilla revolutionary movements—including the Revolutionary Youth Movement (RYM) who would transform into the Weathermen, a revolutionary organization calling for the overthrow of the U.S. government— and those who were in favor of resurrecting the working class as the agent of revolution. At this point, commentators agree, the U.S. New Left went into rapid decline and had virtually all but disappeared by the time U.S. forces had left Vietnam. This disintegration was characterized by the emergence of ultra sectarian revolutionary groupings espousing new revolutionary orthodoxies that took the place of previous New Left critiques of capitalism. In sum, in the United States, the New Left generally is associated with liberal, sometimes radical, political movements that took place during the


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1960s, primarily among college students. It is largely seen as a white university student affair, but included many currents (radical, libertarian, liberal, civil rights, pacifist). Similar to other examples explored, the various groups, campaigns, and ideologies that represented the U.S. New Left were characterized by their own publications; it is through these that the most accurate reassessment of the movement can be made. For example, this chapter is built on an exploration of themes developed by authors such as Leo Huberman and Paul Sweezy from Monthly Review who deserve attention as unorthodox Marxists with established relations with the British New Left during the late 1950s. The same is true for Dave Dellinger from Liberation, a journal with a libertarian/pacifist editorial line, the contributions of one of the founding organizations of the American New Left, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), and some of its political leaders like Saul Landau and Tom Hayden.4 Crucially, many of those currents identified with the Third World and liberation movements in other parts of the world, making a voyage of discovery between pacifist or neutralist positions for the third, decolonized world to calls for independence and socialist revolution. In some cases, they even made calls for the replication of revolutionary tactics that proved successful in those countries. This was, for example, the case of the civil rights and subsequent black liberation movement as well as the SDS currents they influenced. But where was Cuba in all of this? It was, after all, through the FPCC and the civil rights movement that the link between the U.S. New Left and Cuba was most obviously developed. And yet, the story of the FPCC is brief, having left few historical vestiges—despite the powerful influence Cuba exercised on those who were drawn through it to activism. Enter Cuba: The Early Days of the New Left and the FPCC In spite of the ways in which the U.S. New Left has been characterized as a liberal, white university student affair undergoing a process of growing radicalization throughout the 1960s, increasing evidence points to the formative influence that the Cuban Revolution had, in particular but not exclusively, on black Americans and the nascent New Left movement. Indeed, of the three specific New Left traditions explored in this book, the U.S. New Left appears closest to Cuba in terms of the personal experience of its activists in the Revolution, directness of the political link between Cuba and the New Left, and importance that some sectors of the New Left attributed to the Cuban Revolution in terms of their thinking and ideological evolution.5 The Cuban leadership, having enjoyed the

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support of the FPCC, was most aware of political developments in the United States, the need to win the propaganda battle, and the relevance of any attempts to influence developments in each other’s territories. This closeness and influence between the New Left and the Cuban Revolution were particularly important to black Americans and to the emerging array of artists, intellectuals, and activist gathering around the civil rights movement in the early part of the decade. In the North American case, the formative influence of the Cuban Revolution on the New Left has been acknowledged by Kenner and Petras (1972) and studied by Lyons (1976), Young (2001), and Gosse (1993). Of those, only Young and Gosse have acknowledged that Cuba’s role in the formative period of the U.S. New Left is partly the story of the FPCC, even though many other aspects of the Cuban Revolution were attractive to a broad range of U.S. intellectuals and activists. The first aspect was the United States’s romantic portrayal of the Cuban revolutionary war that lasted between 1956 and 1959. The second was the euphoric reception of the Revolution in the United States by these groups prior to the rapid decline of U.S.-Cuban relations in the wake of diplomatic and trade sanctions that resulted in the wholesale nationalization of U.S. economic interests in Cuba during the second half of 1960, leading to the break-up of diplomatic relations in January 1961. Finally, the creation of the first solidarity group with Cuba of all three cases of the New Left explored in this book gives a sense of the extent to which Cuba symbolized a new political beginning and hope for the emerging New Left. Romantic portrayal of the revolutionary war was aided by the historical link between Cuba and the United States, which had harbored Cuban political exiles before Cuba’s war of independence in the last days of the nineteenth century. Aware that U.S. political support to Batista and his military machine adversely affected the chances of the Revolution, Castro set out to win the propaganda war against the regime’s attempt to control the media’s portrayal of the rebellion. A particular coup in this battle was achieved by New York Times correspondent Herbert Matthews in his 1957 interview with Castro in the Sierra Maestra, which refuted Batista-sponsored propaganda on the progress of his campaign against the rebels.6 Matthews’s journalistic coverage sparked great interest in the United States and among a young generation that identified with a latter-day Robin Hood. This sympathetic view of the rebels, the morality of their aims, and their dogged resistance in the face of overwhelming military opposition played a part in the U.S. decision to withdraw military support to the Batista regime a year later. The battle for the media’s favor continued soon after the rebel victory, with Castro touring the United States in April 1959, famous for the


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neutralist position of Cuba he presented to the world. By autumn 1960, on the eve of Castro’s participation at the United Nations (UN) meeting in New York, relations had already began to cool significantly amid accusations from the United States that Cuba was being infiltrated by a Communist conspiracy, a position repeatedly branded by New Left commentators as propaganda similar to events that preceded the Guatemalan invasion of 1954 (de la Souchere, 1959). Cuba proved its neutralism by taking an early position in the global political scene. Appealing to a third, midway path between capitalism and communism, Castro defended this position in his well-known visit to the United States in April 1959 in which he talked of “neither bread without freedom nor freedom without bread” and a refusal to choose between communism or capitalism.7 The third element in the role Cuba played in the formative process of the New Left is the key, though short-lived, experience of the FPCC. And yet, the origins of the FPCC are found in mainstream liberalism. Originally set up in New York in the spring of 1960, the FPCC was a solidarity group that supported the Cuban Revolution in the United States where mainstream media, the FBI, and the state were deemed opposed to the Revolution; it was thought that they might move politically and militarily against the island. The FPCC had Cuba’s interest at heart and made allowances for many ideological and intellectual currents, including founding members Robert Sagner and liberal journalist Robert Taber, who was appalled by the propaganda campaign against the Revolution. The FPCC also included radical elements in the form of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP-USA), a Trotskyist outfit. It gained the support of a wide range of activists and intellectuals through its early days, including Mills, J. P. Sartre, and Simone de Beauvoir (Gosse, 1993). The FPCC also included African Americans from different walks of life such as Richard Gibson, a journalist and collaborator with Robert Taber, beatnik poet Leroi Jones, Harold Cruse, and even white liberal intellectuals such as Saul Landau who were best known for their part in SDS and the student movement. The formative importance of the Cuban Revolution and the American New Left can be explored in part through the formation of the FPCC and later the Non-Violent Committee for Cuban Independence (NVCCI). These two groups connect the activities of intellectuals such as Mills, Landau, and Gibson, clearly demonstrating the links between the Cuban Revolution and themes close to the American New Left through, for example, the association between the Third World and the civil rights movement.8 Gibson, the first CBS black journalist and executive of the Liberation Committee for Africa between 1961 and 1962, overtly linked

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Third World liberation struggles with the campaign for racial equality in the United States. It can be argued that, due to its proximity and the historic links between both countries, the Cuban Revolution was to the United States what the Algerian war was to the French New Left (see chapter six). With reference to the civil rights movement, Cruse, Robert Williams, and Jones were central to the connection between the FPCC and the New Left. Although originally quite different in their political and intellectual outlooks, all visited Cuba in the summer of 1960 as part of a FPCC-organized trip that awakened a collective ideological conscience. Jones was scrupulously non-political until that point, while Cruse’s political evolution was more consistent with many in the British first New Left, abandoning the CPUSA in the 1950s. The trip to Cuba marked a crucial moment for Jones, who immediately broke away from his former circles of artists and became increasingly politically involved, even chairing the FPCC in New York soon after his return from Cuba. This was followed by an article in the Evergreen Review in which he described this process and his trip to Cuba, marking his transformation from non-political poet to activist (Jones, 1998). Williams, an early exponent of armed self-defense in the civil rights movement, was at odds with the non-violent position of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), an early and influential civil rights movement organization. One of Jones’s first political campaigns after returning from Cuba was supporting Williams, exiled in 1961—the first of a number of prominent U.S. blacks exiled to Cuba—on trumped-up charges of kidnapping a white couple during a standoff between police and the NAACP he represented in Monroe, North Carolina.9 His time in exile in Cuba, where he was applauded and received with great fanfare, was partly spent starting radio-free Dixie, operated between 1961 and 1965, the year Mao invited him to move to China. From Havana, the radio aired the music and political commentary of black oppression in the United States. The broadcast was made famous during the Watts riots in 1965, when Williams called for a strong response to police violence (Cohen, 1972). Contrary to Jones’s rapid conversion to black politics and immediate radicalization, Cruse initially maintained a healthy skepticism about a revolution that claimed to have eradicated segregation and argued that racism was no longer a problem in Cuba when patently the majority of the new Cuban leadership was white.10 However, as Young (2001) argues, both Jones and Cruse met again in 1965, this time at an ideological level, through a search for a U.S. black nationalist culture (Reitan, 1999). This intellectual search forced them to make contact with the Third World to


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challenge the racist oppression of blacks in the United States. This view, linking national liberation to cultural regeneration, was common to Jones and Cruse and, increasingly, to the black liberation movement in the second half of the 1960s. The view, however, was exported by the Cuban Revolution which, as we saw in chapter two, invested much effort in providing spaces for a renewed national culture as part of the revolutionary process. In spite of the crucial link that the FPCC provided between an early civil rights movement and the Cuban Revolution, the status of this organization as a point of confluence between the many strands of the New Left was sealed with the way it attracted many young, white university students. The original setting for this recruitment was the University of Wisconsin, which, not unlike Oxford in Britain during the same years, was the site for the creation of “socialist” student groups interested in the challenge posed by humanist forms of Marxism to the Stalinism that had driven so many intellectuals from the Communist Party after 1956.11 One particular group of students among whom the FPCC had a great deal of success was led by Landau, a key to the organization’s recruitment in universities and organizer of the FPCC Christmas tour of Cuba in 1960 before a travel ban was imposed the following year. The student group’s publication, Studies on the Left, and editor Landau illustrate the interest Cuba provoked on campuses. The third issue of the journal was dubbed the “Cuba Issue,” and included a reprint of Sartre’s “Ideology and Revolution” article from Lunes de revolución; a series of translated speeches and articles by Guevara; and reviews of books by Mills, the editors of Monthly Review, and Sweezy and Huberman’s Cuba: Anatomy of a Revolution (Gosse, 1993).12 Just as the FPCC seemed to go from strength to strength, it suffered a very early death after its supporting role during defining moments of the Cuban Revolution and the deterioration of U.S. relations, the Bay of Pigs, the imposition of trade restrictions, and the Missile Crisis in 1962. After the attempted invasion of the island in April 1961, the FPCC declined rapidly. The NVCCI tried to fill the gap left by the FPCC, but its main campaign was limited to the organization of a QuebecGuantánamo walk after the Missile Crisis. The assassination of John F. Kennedy, Jr., and the accusation of Lee Harvey Oswald, a member of the FPCC in New Orleans, sealed the fate of the organization. Shortlived, the FPCC finds it difficult to attract the interest of historians of radical politics in the 1960s. However, it points to the enormous importance with which the Cuban Revolution was regarded by a disparate range of generations, campaigns, activists, and intellectuals who broadly constituted the New Left.

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Cuba Exits the New Left Stage: The Cuban Revolution in the U.S. New Left, 1965–1970 The period immediately after the victory of the Cuban Revolution attracted a great deal of enthusiasm in the United States among different generations, groups, academics, intellectuals, students, and ideologies, from pacifists to liberals and socialists. They constituted a New Left, as Mills described them, because they wanted to break with all the things that the “Old” Left represented. They were on Cuba’s side because the island represented a neutralist alternative to capitalism and communism in the middle of the Cold war. Others supported Cuba because they wanted to develop a humanist form of Marxism, marking a break with the anti-intellectualist intolerances of Stalinism. They were with the island because they wanted to believe that the Cuban Revolution was an enlightened society with no racial discrimination. They supported Cuba because they were dismayed at media reports that painted the island in dark overtones and, in a comment prescient of modern times, did not believe the lies created to justify military and economic hostilities, as Herbert Matthews argued in his endorsement of the first book on Cuba by Huberman and Sweezy in 1960.13 In the beginning, the main political act of this New Left was to join FPCC. But with its disappearance, did the Cuban Revolution cease to be influential in the New Left? If the early years of the New Left were highly indebted to the Cuban Revolution for the effect it had on many constituencies, histories about the second part of the decade have been limited in their understanding of the nature and depth of Cuba’s influence. Instead, this time period is remembered for the increasing radicalization of its members that resulted in campus violence across the country and a civil rights movement that, beginning in 1965, showed similar levels of radicalization in a continuing spiral that followed the increasing brutalization of the war in Vietnam (Teodori, 1970). In spite of this, the influence of Cuba was highly noticeable in the political discourse of the radicalized New Left, and this included a homogenization of the Third World that was led by the Cuban Revolution’s new ideological message as was spread through an international network of intellectuals and activists that included the New Left. No longer were efforts to revisit Gramsci to create humanist forms of Marxism an element of this discourse. Instead, theoretical developments attempted to explain and justify Cuba’s transition to socialism through revolutionary means and to suggest the application of this model to other revolutionary situations wherever they sprouted, including in the heart of the United States. The role of new social groups in conducting these transformations occupied large tracts of the ideology exported from Cuba during this period. Descriptions of Cuba in neutralist terms, serving to


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justify the country’s political transformation, ceased to exist. Instead of a third-way alternative, in the 1965–1968 period, Cuba was poised to represent the maximum exponent of an alternative form of socialism coupled with a heavy dose of anti-imperialism as the two main ingredients of third-worldism. Cuba, of course, did not objectively belong to the large group of countries that achieved sovereign status since World War II. However, the political discourse of the Revolution clearly exalted the dependent status of the economy, politics, society, and culture of the country during the first half of the twentieth century, a view propagated by the writings on Cuba from the New Left. A number of events in Cuba dominated this period and were widely reported in the New Left press. The case of Monthly Review is characteristic of this time and its concerns in relation to Cuba, as was The Guardian, a radical, independent left-wing newspaper—the iconic publication of the New Left. The journal, along with other news sources, mirrored the changing interests of the U.S. New Left in Cuba. For example, during 1963–1965, Monthly Review concentrated on the economic debate inside Cuba and actively participated, engaging in comradely debate with French Marxist economist Charles Bettelheim. However, by 1966, attention had shifted to the armed revolutionary struggle to achieve socialist transformation (Monthly Review, 1966).14 This change of interest reflected Cuba’s ideological transformation and foreign policy priorities in that period characterized by the island’s overt attempts to export the Revolution. The former were reflected in the celebration of the Tricontinental conference in 1966 followed by the Organization of Latin American Solidarity (OLAS) conference in the summer of 1967 in Havana. These celebrations raised awareness of the need for armed struggle in the Third World and were paralleled by Guevara’s failed revolutionary adventures (first in the Congo and then in Bolivia where he met his death). Together, these events constituted the birth of a supportive set of revolutionary countries and movements (Gerassi, 1967). The central link in all aspects of Cuba’s influence on the New Left in the second half of the decade is Guevara’s role as the new poster hero of the New Left. Guevara’s preeminence is common to all the national cases of the New Left explored in this book and perhaps is the most persistent element of the 1960s when he reached iconic status after his death. He has resurrected many times and in many guises ever since as a symbol of counterculture and resistance. His diaries, based on his own revolutionary experiences in Cuba and then in Bolivia, were published with great fanfare first in Havana and then by the New Left press throughout the world, adding to a cult that developed among the New Left and converting some of his statements—“the duty of every revolutionary is to make

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the revolution”—into a near-religious experience for generations of would-be revolutionaries. Guevara was eulogized in the New Left press and, with the exception perhaps of the writings of Fanon—another dead hero with ubiquitous presence in the New Left throughout the decade— constituted the face of a growing cult of guerrilla activity.15 Theorizing Guevara’s actions and Cuba’s new foreign policy export— revolution—was Régis Debray, a French philosophy student and hero of the New Left, especially after his capture in Bolivia in 1967 and the large international campaign that took place to secure his release. Debray’s 1967 Revolution in the revolution, written at the request of Cuban authorities, posited that Cuba’s revolutionary experience could be transferred to new settings. According to Debray, a small group of fighters could act as the catalyst, a spark that could ignite revolution in countries where the conditions were appropriate (Debray, 1967a). When the book was published, Debray and Castro had the official communist parties in Latin America in mind, meaning to produce a critique of the formal transition to socialism they espoused.16 The foco theory of revolution was widely discussed and put into action in Latin America in the years to come, informing guerrilla activity throughout the continent. But it was in the streets of Paris, Rome, and Berlin and throughout U.S. campuses that the fascination with action and violence became most notorious. The New Left interpretations of the Cuban Revolution-inspired work by Debray gave revolutionary meaning to increasingly radicalized and violent action, whether in opposition to Vietnam, in favor of black liberation, or, as the May events in 1968 France portended, to create a new society through the wholesale destruction of the old.17 The New Left interpreted these events and used them to explore the revolutionary roles of classes and social groups other than the working class. If the Cuban Revolution had been carried out by a small vanguard of university students with the help of the peasantry, why could not the students, blacks, or intellectuals play this role in the developed world? For the New Left, the idealization of the Cuban Revolution provided the language of alternative forms of socialist revolution and a blind belief in the political leading role of their generation. Coupled with the work of Herbert Marcuse, Monthly Review and other publications of the New Left reflected these concerns as did the practice of activist groups such as SDS and the Black Panther Party (Marcuse, 1967). As with the end of the FPCC, international events set in motion the beginning of the end of the relationship between Cuba and the New Left, just as it seemed that the lessons of revolutionary upheaval were followed most closely, when Castro failed to criticize the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in the summer of 1968. The event, dubbed a disaster by


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the editorial board of Monthly Review, signaled a declining level of interest in the Revolution even though Cuban poets Antón Arrufat and Nicolás Guillén received space in 1968 and 1970 respectively, and Huberman and Sweezy published a follow-up of their 1960 book (Huberman and Sweezy, 1969). The dwindling space devoted to Cuba was not dissimilar to what we find in British and French publications at the time. And yet, in the case of the United States, this was precisely the time when the Venceremos brigades began to travel to Cuba in direct response to Castro’s call for a ten million-ton sugar campaign in 1970. It would be wrong to assume that new, direct contact of young people with the Revolution at this time signified in any sense the revival of the New Left, in terminal decline at this stage, having adopted new communist and Leninist orthodoxies just as Cuba had. By the time Sartre and other leading intellectuals in France had openly broken with the Revolution, the trickle of Venceremos brigadistas were a strong part of the CPUSA, just as Cuba began to formally operate in Soviet Union’s orbit (Lyons, 1976). The end of the FPCC can be seen as a watershed in the links between the U.S. New Left and the Cuban Revolution. And yet, the Revolution did not end its influence on the U.S. New Left at that time. However, if during the first part of the decade Cuba had broad appeal to a wide range of ideologies, from liberal to socialist, the second half was characterized by Cuba’s greater self-definition as a revolutionary socialist state but one that did not wish to “belong” to the Soviet sphere of influence. It was this revolutionary appeal that attracted sections of radicalized students and black youth, despite awareness of Cuba’s overt attempts to influence them, during a period of revolutionary violence that made no great political gains leading ultimately to the end of the New Left once Cuba changed its ideological tack at a time of great economic pressure. During the 1960s, however, Cuba was well aware of the developing political culture in the United States, but few studies have defined Cuba’s relationship with the New Left, and in particular, with two of the main component groups identified previously: students and the African-American population. The U.S. New Left from the Cuban Viewpoint: Students or Black Liberation Movement? The political participation and subsequent radicalization of university students continues to be one of the most enduring images of the 1960s. Whether at Berkeley, Michigan, or many other American campuses, the student body constituted the bulk of the New Left’s membership through organizations such as SDS. The 1960s was, in essence, the decade in

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which a new generation came of age politically. The Cuban Revolution brought to power a group of people barely older than thirty. Castro was thirty-three in 1959, but many of his comrades were in their twenties. This idea, understood and explored by Mills, already described the youth of the Cuban Revolution and their university as the cradle of the Revolution. It is no coincidence that Mills spoke about the youth of Cuban revolutionaries when addressing the American youth he saw as the New Left. But were students in the United States a revolutionary agent that interested the Cuban revolutionary leadership? There is little record on the interest shown by the Cuban leadership on the potential of students as a revolutionary class except in Cuba Socialista, the official journal of the Cuban revolutionary leadership and guide to its ideology. Though not quantitatively important in Cuba Socialista, the importance of concepts that describe collective groups other than class was recognized as legitimate forces of resistance to capitalism. In particular, this journal explored the role of women—focusing on their position at the heart of the Cuban Revolution (Espín, 1961)—students, and blacks. Here, references to students often were conflated with references to the revolutionary importance of youth that increasingly became a euphemism for a new revolutionary vanguard (Quintela, 1962; Dorticós, 1964; Hart, 1966). When articles were devoted to the role of students, they were often referred to as intellectuals. This topic was explored in Cuba Socialista only after 1964, aided by the important role of the Latin American Congress of Students (OCLAE) (Comentarios, 1964, 1966; Portuondo, 1964). The increasing importance attributed to the intellectual may have been a decisive factor in the creation of and relative freedom attributed to the founding members of the journal Pensamiento Crítico. The interest in ongoing revolutions in the world determined the journal’s interest in some of the most unorthodox revolutionary processes that were taking place in the First World. The 1968 student movements became a central focus of interest. Several issues of the journal were devoted to the examination of student movements in Germany, Italy, the United States, and France, including analyses by many of the participants. The journal’s position on these events can be discerned through its editorials. Interest was high, and the journal recognized the importance of the events in Germany on the basis of their high profile at an international level, their importance in recovering the concept of revolution for the New Left and the high levels of repression suffered by the participants in the demonstrations. However, it analyzed the student revolts in organizational, tactical, and strategic terms, arguing that the lack of a single revolutionary party structure was the most important reason for the failure of the student uprising (Editorial, 1968).


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Thus, the interest expressed by Pensamiento Crítico in the 1968 student movement was not matched by uncritical support. Rather, the Cuban Revolution sought to make gains in symbolic capital by using the failures of the movement to overcome the passivity of the Stalinist camp, replacing it with a prescription for a new theory of a revolutionary party hierarchically organized along Leninist lines. In this sense, the new Cuban intelligentsia maintained a similar discourse to that of certain Trotskyist elements in the West who underwent a rebirth in the aftermath of the student mobilizations. Therefore, the Cuban Revolution and the New Left appeared to recover a rather orthodox discourse at the expense of the spontaneity and voluntarism typical of the New Left until then. Similarly, the editorial of the issue devoted to the May 1968 events began with the idea that the student revolts constituted the new forces of revolution, yet contradicted this view when it argued that the student movement needed to understand the new conditions in terms of a new theory of the party and the dictatorship of the proletariat (Editorial, 1969). The editorial board however, showed deep knowledge and perception of events and debates abroad, as was the case with the increasingly revolutionary impetus of the North American civil rights campaign. The Cuban leadership and its New Left intellectuals of Pensamiento Crítico were much more interested in the civil rights movement than in the revolutionary possibilities of students. This is not surprising since the relationship with black America was much more central to the Cuban Revolution and more constant throughout the decade, providing a good reflection of the way in which Cuba’s ideological evolution progressed in parallel to the civil rights movement, making a transition from civil rights based on a moral demand to increasingly radicalized forms of violent action seeking independence based on black forms of nationalism or socialist transformation. The civil rights movement was, from the beginning, a big issue in a revolution that had outlawed racial segregation at a stroke, igniting both cultural and political interests. Early in the Revolution, exchanges between African Americans and Revolución y Cultura made the civil rights movement the most written-about foreign policy issue in the magazine since the end of the Algerian war. In addition, the issue sparked fertile creative ground with short films on the civil rights movement such as Now!!18 Politically, the Cuban revolutionary leadership was much more interested in the civil rights movement than in the student movement, increasingly referring to it as part of high-level political statements—for example, in the Second Havana Declaration— and through “official” intellectual means such as the journal Cuba Socialista, which suggested a high level of political interest in U.S. race relations and in the Revolution’s potential political capital gain. However,

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the question of race was seen as a subversive force only in the United States and not as a Cuban issue or one the Revolution needed to concern itself with (Comentarios, 1965; Fontanellas, 1966). Cuba Socialista made the transition in its presentation of the civil rights issue from support for basic human rights of the U.S. black population, to making a direct link between them and the Third World. For example, the first reference to the issue found in this journal carries a description of the levels of socioeconomic and political discrimination suffered at the time by African-Americans, before arguing that Cuba supported the civil rights movement that was struggling against the same racial discrimination that the Cuban Revolution quickly eradicated. Very soon, however, following the discourse of the Black Liberation Movement (BLM), the journal’s editorial section made a direct link between civil rights and the Third World. Claiming the same ideological territory for the BLM and the Cuban Revolution and making a direct link between the actions of the black masses in the United States and the struggle of colonial people, the journal argued that both were, in turn, influenced by the example set by the Cuban Revolution (Comentarios, 1965). By 1966, the peaceful sections of the civil rights movement lost ground to increasingly radicalized sections within its constituency, a process explained as the result of the Cuban Revolution (Martin, 1967). If the early days of the civil rights movement began with the actions of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), a pioneering civil rights activist group infused with the principles of non-violence, by 1966, the tide began to turn in favor of ever-increasing levels of self-confidence for the BLM following the March Against Fear begun by Charles Meredith through the southern states.19 The SNCC and the Congress for Racial Equality (CORE) underwent this radicalization, and both opposed Vietnam and the recruitment of African Americans to fight in the war (Ware, 1967). This was music to the ears of Cuba’s leadership, bringing the BLM ever closer to its area of influence. Cuba Socialista, like Pensamiento Crítico that followed, never showed much interest in the aims and methods of other non-violent black leaders from the NAACP or the Southern Conference of Christian Leaders (SCCL) led by Martin Luther King, Jr., who were merely criticized for their integrationists policies (Fontanellas, 1966). Instead, official positions were markedly repetitive through the years, extolling the ability of blacks to “fight back”—in reference, for example, to the Watts uprising of 1965—and deducing from this a greater revolutionary self-awareness in this group (Comentarios, 1966). The Cuban position continued to appropriate the increasing radicalization of the civil rights movement by linking it to the Revolution’s own


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struggle against imperialism. The Vietnam war was an example of the way in which imperialism made blacks—who were overrepresented in U.S. armed forces—victims and perpetrators of racism by making them fight to maintain the oppression against what the Cubans described as “colored,” and “colonial” people of the world (Comentarios, 1966).20 According to this vision of the world, the solution to the conundrum of U.S. blacks involved a straightforward revolutionary fight; that is, by destroying the economic base that maintained U. S. imperialism, blacks could be freed from the racism that characterized it (Fontanellas, 1966). The radicalization of the civil rights movement was captured by Pensamiento Crítico, but here the journal also played an important role in welcoming those black leaders to Cuba. From 1966, leaders associated with the second generation of the civil rights movement (Black Power) followed in the steps of early visitors Williams, Jones, and Cruse, making their entrance in Havana. These leaders included Stokely Carmichael, Eldridge Cleaver, and George Ware. With articles by Ware, Donald Barnett, Malcolm X, Carmichael, James Foreman and Rap Brown, Black Power, racism, and the U.S. New Left constituted central features in Pensamiento Crítico’s September 1967 and July 1968 issues. Correspondingly, some authors have studied the formative influence of the Cuban Revolution on the U.S. black New Left’s reorientation toward the Third World (Young, 2001). Although the overall number of articles was small (no more than 20), as with other topics, most were imported from journals across the world and many were shared with some of the journals that identified the New Left in the United States and Europe. The seminal traces of the debates attracted attention in Cuba, not because racism was deemed an issue in the new society, but mainly because blacks were viewed as a natural constituency of a potential rise of the “wretched of the earth”—to use Fanon’s language—that lived at the heart of the imperialist enemy. Expectedly, the Cuban interest in and public support for the U.S. black liberation movement was restricted to its more militant representatives. This much was clear from the level of attention devoted to the star in this second phase of the Cuban interest in Black Power, Stokely Carmichael, whose famous conversion to Black Power and subsequent rise to the chairmanship of the SNCC—bringing Black Power to the mainstream of the civil rights movement—was widely reported in Cuba (Carmichael, 1967; Talia, 1967). The goal of Black Power was to empower and create a strong racial identity for African Americans who should form and lead their own organizations. Carmichael’s visits to Cuba were national events and took the place of pride in events of international importance at the time such as the Tricontinental and OLAS

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conferences, drawing commentary and support from Castro himself (Bohemia 1967). Cuba’s support for Carmichael was based on their shared view that the U.S. BLM was part and parcel of Third World liberation struggles, including the Vietnam war and guerrilla uprisings in Latin America (Editorial, 1967c). In wanting to nurture the revolutionary potential of the BLM, Pensamiento Crítico felt justified in supporting the Black Panther Party, created in Alabama in 1966 and joined by Carmichael as honorary president. Both the Black Panther Party and Carmichael were considered by the Cubans the highest expression of black liberation struggle in search of power through socialist transformation. For that, the argument followed, they needed to build strategic alliances with other revolutionary movements in the United States and around the world—the relations that existed between the Black Panthers and the SDS at this time was perceived as evidence of this (Editorial, 1968b). So, for the Cuban Revolution, the clear political capital of supporting the BLM lay in the possibility for socialist transformation in the United States, seen as the only permanent solution to racial discrimination. Black Panthers, with their leather jackets and Che-style berets, cut an impressive figure of modern day urban revolutionaries, but it was never entirely clear what they stood for. As a result, almost as soon as the words “socialist revolution” were uttered, any hope the Cubans had that the BLM would join forces with other revolutionary forces in the United States disappeared with calls for separatism constructed around an idea of black nationalism. Although black nationalism was still presented by James Foreman (1968) and Huey Newton (1968) as socialist revolution, it began to break with all forms of white solidarity, promoting an idea of black-only power that could not have been well received in Cuba. Carmichael moved away from the Black Panthers because of their links with white radicals and began to advocate a return to Africa, moving to Guinea in the early part of the 1970s where he remained for the rest of his life. Besides the internal divisions, repression from the authorities and the assassinations of prominent members meant that the revolutionary potential of the BLM, like that of the U.S. New Left in general, was unfulfilled; and in Pensamiento Crítico, it was no longer discussed after 1970.21 Unlike the case between the Cuban Revolution and French intellectuals, notably Sartre, there was no formal rupture between the U.S. New Left and the Cuban Revolution. However, the organizations that represented the U.S. New Left ceased to represent an intellectual alternative to the old Stalinist guard of the Communist Party. Instead, they glorified guerrilla tactics and armed struggle and took an entirely orthodox Marxist Leninist understanding of the vanguard and the role of the various


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revolutionary classes. In all cases, an anti-intellectualist cult of youth existed that was also reflected in the most revolutionary factions in the French case, or in certain Trotskyist sections of the British New Left that included members of New Left Review. For all those who still sympathized with the Cuban Revolution after 1970, it didn’t really matter that Cuba was turning to the Soviet fold. What mattered was that Cuba continued to represent a beacon of anti-imperialism—an island of resistance to the military forms of U.S. aggression that reached its pinnacle in Vietnam. Critical or not, the friendship of those who were part of the Venceremos brigades or the U.S. black movement represented by Angela Davis owed less to the New Left and more to orthodox communist beliefs and were welcomed in Cuba, as Davis was in 1972, as a new generation of supporters.


Chapter

5

British Intellectuals and the Cuban Revolution: Neutralism or Revolution? The politically committed sections of British intellectual life in the late 1950s and 1960s constituted the New Left in its various forms and shapes, an outline explored in the following pages. Their formative experiences and networks of socialization are also examined in relation to the importance that this heterogeneous group attached to the Third World in general and to the Cuban Revolution in particular. Unlike the North American New Left discussed earlier, the British example cannot claim to have been shaped originally by a revolutionary movement taking place 90 miles away from its shores. Instead, its attachment to the Third World found expression mainly through an interest in specific examples close to the country’s imperial past that ended during this period. And yet, like other New Lefts studied, Cuba brings a rare opportunity to provide a global understanding of both the New Left and its intellectual output. Thus, the chapter ends with an examination of this group’s dissemination structures of intellectual outputs as well as the linguistic and cultural differences that made their distance to the Cuban Revolution greater than in the French example.

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The First New Left: Agents and Formative Processes The specificity of the British circumstances that surrounded the formation and the rise and eventual decline of the New Left are studied here in relation to the definition of the New Left developed earlier. In contrast to its North American counterpart, the British New Left’s origins lie in events that led to a schism in the British Communist movement that eventually grew into an alternative voice of the Left. Similarly, the British New Left shared comparable conditions under which a student-based dissenting voice emerged in the late 1950s and quickly gained individual personality. The crystallization of this two-pronged process into “New Left” journals, their amalgamation in 1960, and their subsequent separation in 1964 is explored in relation to the significance attributed by this movement to the “issues” of the time as is the increasing mismatch that developed in the New Left between dissenting political practice and orthodox theoretical frameworks. According to a number of early participants in the New Left, the beginnings of the movement are closely linked with the journal The Reasoner. The latter was established in the aftermath of the secret speech delivered by Khrushchev at the Twentieth Party Congress in February 1956 when it became clear that the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) played an important role in suppressing the message and that no serious internal debate about the need for de-Stalinization was to be permitted within its ranks. Intellectuals within the Party membership such as E. P. Thompson and John Saville decided to publish The Reasoner as an alternative focal point for discussion, while wanting to preserve the general interest of the Party. After a series of disputes with the CPGB leadership about the publication, international events took them by surprise. The Soviet invasion of Hungary, depicted in Thompson’s article, “Through the Smoke of Budapest,” led to a hardening of Party positions, meaning that the struggle for democratic reform from within, as initially envisaged by this duo, became impossible (Widgery, 1976). The pair’s suspension from the Party triggered a large number of resignations from the rank and file, dealing a severe blow to the Party’s political power (Saville, 1976). The Reasoner published only three issues. After Saville and Thompson resigned from the CPGB in October 1956, New Reasoner was created as a “journal of socialist humanism,” a publication viewed as one of the pillars of the British First New Left. Born of the dissident intellectual elements within an increasingly inflexible and anti-intellectualist party, the journal aimed to rediscover the soul of Marxism by building bridges between workers and the intellectuals who created it. The journal

British Intellectuals and Cuban Revolution

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positioned itself on the side of those who sought the de-Stalinization of the Communist movement in Eastern Europe and with those who, politically unattached or on the left of the Labour Party, wanted to reaffirm a flagging Marxist tradition in Britain. The first editorial complained that the body of ideas contained in the Marxist tradition was reduced to political practices that, either under Stalinism or its opposition in the form of Trotskyism, were intellectually damaging by virtue of their emphasis on dogmas that asphyxiated new intellectual development. Worse still, the argument went, the internationalist outlook of the British labor movement was damaged by this anti-intellectualism and, as a result, its eventual revolutionary perspectives were diminished (Editorial, 1957a: 2) For its three-year run, New Reasoner attracted the vast majority of Communist intellectuals who abandoned the Party in 1956: Malcolm MacEwen, Christopher Hill, Michael Barrat-Brown, Peter Worsley, Mervyn Jones, as well as academic anthropologists, economists, and blossoming literary figures such as Doris Lessing (Shepherd, 1995: 14). Wide-ranging in interests and concerns, the journal typically included theory as much as fiction, satire, and poetry. It also managed to build links with international socialist and communist circles, notably with East-European anti-Stalinist currents. More importantly perhaps, links were established with some of the emerging figures of the French New Left: Jean Paul Sartre, leading representative of the “free” intellectual whose political and philosophical positions after the 1956 Communist débâcle came to represent those of the New Left, and Claude Bourdet from the Observateur group and representative of the Christian Left current that ran through the initial French Nouvelle Gauche.1 Given these links, it is perhaps not surprising that the New Reasoner modeled itself on the French left-wing Catholic publication Esprit, a publication rated highly by Saville (Saville, 1976). In a translated excerpt of an article in New Reasoner and originally published in Les Temps Modernes, Sartre criticized as much the Socialist government of Prime Minister Guy Mollet (1956–1957) for its intervention in Algeria and in Suez as he reproached the French Communist Party (PCF) for its Stalinism manifested in a full endorsement of the Soviet invasion of Hungary. For his part, Bourdet lamented the progressive decline of the Fourth Republic, completed with the arrival of General de Gaulle, an event he saw as the result of the colonial wars France had been involved in since the end of the World War II, first in Indochina and then in Algeria. He accused French Socialists and Communists of spreading the colonialist ideology and analyzed the steps that the New Left in France and abroad should have taken to counteract

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these forces (Sartre, 1957; Bourdet, 1959). Thus, members of the French New Left participated in the building of the British New Left not only through their ideas expressed in writing, but also in person. Bourdet participated as an invited speaker, in December 1957, at the Left Club in Manchester (Shepherd, 1995: 35). By this time, the merger between Universities and Left Review and New Reasoner had already started and the Left Clubs, initially created by the Oxford group, became a common feature of the New Left. In addition to concerns and close contact with individual members of the French New Left, another common characteristic shared by New Reasoner and the original Observateur group was financial independence based on a deliberate detachment from existing political organizations.2 The overall aim was not to enter into the spiral of factionalism that affected the British Left but to maintain a fundamentally intellectual review. The distinction, however, between a review of political and cultural ideas and a political organization with the journal acting as the propaganda vehicle was a constant source of division within the New Left, reappearing several times throughout the life of the movement.3 Yet, the early New Left’s coherence was based in part on the close thematic concerns maintained by French and British counterparts, which constituted a clear anti-colonialist position and, more theoretically, a concern over building a critique of existing forms of what came to be known as “dogmatic” Marxism. The anti-colonialist position of New Reasoner was not its main feature, although it was a constant presence in the publication kept alive mainly by regular contributions from Worsley and John Rex. An important area of concern was the role of French armed forces in the Algerian war. However, New Reasoner took a case study approach of British responsibility in various colonial conflicts such as in Cyprus or Palestine. It also included an interest in the Mau Mau revolt in Kenya developed mainly by Worsley.4 At this stage, however, neither the concept of a Third World nor a systematic theoretical approach for its study had been elaborated on or was commonplace in the British New Left. The focus of analysis and interest in the journal remained in the UK, and any research about existing or former colonies was carried out to influence international policy in the British government. This brought together under the same area of interest a critique of the bipolar division of the world, in particular, of the ways this ideological division affected Britain’s global role. The British First New Left saw certain elements as highly intertwined and pioneered critiques and policies that sought to redress some of the problems arising from this international situation. Some of these elements included NATO’s increasing encroachment in Western Europe, the escalating


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nuclear race that accompanied the East-West conflict, and the reality of the de-colonization process. Thompson held dominion over New Reasoner’s main theoretical concern. The latter was based on his concept of socialist humanism, which several authors have suggested was a major contribution to the political legacy of the New Left (Shepherd, 1995; Holden, 1976; Bamford, 1983). More than any other concept specific to this movement, socialist humanism must be understood as the product of the political forces that shaped it. Devoted to finding a revived Marxism based on national traditions, socialist humanism tried to find a way out of the prescriptive character of the entire Marxist tradition dominated by the orthodox practices of Communist parties while it tried to revive the flagging Marxism of the labor left. socialist humanism tried to break the excessive economic determinism characteristic of Communist Marxism mainly by appealing to notions of individual agency and choice, possibilities regimented not in a crude causal manner but by a higher moral order and as a result of ideas and intellectual convictions (Thompson, 1957). In this respect, Thompson’s notion of socialist humanism overlapped with the overall intellectual project of existentialist Marxism initiated by French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Sartre, and developed in France in the post-war period (Hirsh, 1981).5 The concept, as well as the work of French intellectual thinkers, was also a common point of reference between the New Reasoner intellectuals and a group of Oxford students formed around another publication, Universities and Left Review. Although the New Reasoner was a dissenting voice that emerged to encourage reform within the CPGB, a second international crisis—this time the aggression directed at Egypt by France and Britain over control of the Suez Canal—provoked serious social unrest in Britain where some of the largest demonstrations ever seen in London took place. The Suez Campaign, like the Soviet invasion of Hungary, thus had a major significance in the formative process of the early New Left as it confirmed fears that Western imperialism and its Stalinist counterpart were ideological systems based on the practice of intolerable levels of violence and aggression.6 It gathered intellectually around a new journal, Universities and Left Review, created by a group of students based at Oxford University, a majority of whom were not and had not been Communist activists (Kenny, 1995). Universities and Left Review brought together a disparate group of individuals. Having emerged from the Oxford students’ socialist club, it included people like Stuart Hall, former editor of Oxford’s student journal The Clarion; Charles Taylor, who had never been a

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member of the Communist Party; and others, such as Raphael Samuel and Gabriel Pearson, who abandoned the CPGB as a result of the Hungarian invasion of 1956. Both groups, represented by the New Reasoner and Universities and Left Review, constituted the pillars of the original British New Left. Common to them was a leftist critique of capitalist society made without recourse to the two existing ideologies of the Left and their representative parties. Signaling an equal disillusionment with orthodox Communism as with social democracy, both journals, though different in approach and content, attempted to encourage the discussion of alternative forms of socialism. And yet, Universities and Left Review was different in nature from New Reasoner. Committed to a more ideologically mixed debate than the latter, Universities and Left Review put forward a number of critiques of Britain in terms of a society that was entering a phase of consumerism and rapid social change. In both cases, their interests were political as they sought an international role for a country that was losing its leading position in the international arena. The group around Universities and Left Review was, however, broader in the range of themes treated and directed toward cultural and intellectual practice. Universities and Left Review drew inspiration from an earlier journal, Left Review, and became the focal point of critical New Left debate, together with its London Club and New Left coffeehouse the Partisan (Kenny, 1995). Often non-Marxist in its approach, Universities and Left Review’s initial constituency was based on the views of a small minority of people at Oxford University who did not belong to the mainstream student body, what Hall has described as “. . . an intellectual minority culture within Oxford’s dominant English upper-middle class tone of the 1950s” (Hall, 1989: 19), a minority that included a number of emigrés such as himself, Dodd Alleyne, and Taylor. The journal’s original contribution to the discourse of the New Left was perhaps its ability to politicize previously non-political aspects of society such as youth culture, very much like the journal’s North American counterpart, Dissent (Holden, 1976).7 However, its lack of links with the labor movement was a crucial difference in relation to New Reasoner and was seen as a major handicap at the time of their merger by Ralph Miliband, Thompson, and Saville (Shepherd, 1995). This criticism survived the fusion of both sections of the First New Left and was inherited by the descendants of the early New Left Review. The departure of Saville and Miliband from New Left Review in 1962 took place in part over the issue of links with the labor movement, something they tried to correct with the founding of Socialist Register in 1964 (Meiksins-Wood, 1995).


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A possible explanation for the incipient differences between both sections of the early New Left lies in the intergenerational nature of this movement that arguably was composed of two different social groups. On the one hand, the original New Left was formed by ex-members of the “Old” Left—the CPGB militants whose formative political roots had developed at the time of popular front politics in the 1930s and 1940s. On the other hand, during the 1960s, university access increased dramatically, offering for the first time the possibility of education to the growing British middle classes. These young students, whose formative process of politicization had only included the relative economic prosperity corresponding to the post-war period, eventually came to split from those sections of the New Left that showed a clearer line of continuity with traditional socialist ideas. The new student generation dominated the New Left between the mid- to late 1960s and placed itself at the heart of an intellectual current within New Left Review, which broke off, at least in terms of political practice, the traditional ties of Marxism with the working class. Their intellectual project foreshadowed, partly, the wider middle class radicalism that reached its height between 1967 and 1969 (Holden, 1976). However, between 1956 and 1960, the aforementioned groups became increasingly close. Without wanting to impose a homogeneity and consistency that did not exist, a number of themes were seen as equally important for both journals. According to Hall, in addition to the debates around socialist humanism, these included a growing understanding of the Third World, the notion of neutralism built around the growing campaign for nuclear disarmament (CND), and debates about popular culture and the media (Hall, 1989).8 What united the two sections of the original New Left most clearly, however, was their opposition to political expressions of the “Old” Left represented by Stalinism as well as the different incarnations of social democracy exhibited by the mainstream political parties. Although both groups included former Communists as well as members of the Labour Party, their relationship with these parties, as to any other type of formal political engagement, was uneasy. The action taken by the two groups, that is, the creation of journals that reflected their intellectual anxieties, must be understood in itself as political. Although the individual concerns were varied and the intellectual frameworks plural, both groups embodied an image of the “committed intellectual” and the idea that it was possible to subvert the traditional ideologies of the Left just as much as it was possible to be politically active in ways that differed from those that demanded traditional forms of organization.9 In this regard, it is clear that the New Left movement that commenced in the late 1950s would

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spearhead the development of social movements in relation to the Cuban Revolution. It seems that the reasons for coming together were partly economic and pragmatic. New Reasoner regularly appealed to readers’ support to ensure financial survival. Although Universities and Left Review soon reached a respectable production (around 8,000 issues), it too suffered economic difficulties. Also, it seemed clear that Saville and Thompson were not prepared to continue to carry the weight of publishing New Reasoner much longer (Shepherd, 1995). Yet, the union of both groups took place mainly because they shared a common assessment of the prevailing political and ideological state of the Left. According to Universities and Left Review, the post-war decade brought an intensification of the political debate based on categories defined by the Cold war, as much in the revolutionary Left from which the New Left emerged as in the social democratic thinking that permeated mainstream politics in the UK (Editorial, 1957b). The New Left proposed to fill this arid waste with new thinking of its own. In doing so, just as both groups prepared to merge in late 1959, Thompson defined the New Left in a way that claimed for intellectuals the shared space between the existing political expressions of the Left, arguing that the New Left did not constitute a conversion of disillusioned Communists to communist orthodoxy nor to liberal socialdemocracy. Instead, the New Left was based on a rejection of both orthodoxies (Thompson, 1959). The 1960s commenced with the inauguration of a single medium of expression in the New Left represented in New Left Review, a journal that continues to this day, the competing voices explored in the 1960s. This merger between New Reasoner and Universities and Left Review in 1960 to form New Left Review came as no surprise to those who knew about the financial and organizational difficulties involved in left-wing activism outside institutional political structures of the Left. New Left Review, however, never overcame the differences represented by this partnership and, after two successful early years, saw these fundamental disparities re-emerge. These differences took place between two generations and two distinct political and intellectual backgrounds reflected in the journal’s variety of themes. The generational distinctions within New Left Review were noted by a number of authors (Meiksins Wood, 1995; Young, 1977; Williams, 1979). Raymond Williams, who was directly involved in the first editorial team, recalled his experiences during the early years and argued that, although he belonged to the New Reasoner group by age, he was motivated by the intellectual interests and concerns of the younger generation (Williams, 1979: 361). Williams’s attempts to bridge the gap


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between the two groups were unsuccessful, and the journal soon experienced identity problems. In the view of then editor, Hall, his own working style was criticized by all sections and interests that were brought together to the New Left. The journal could never satisfy everyone since at the heart of the debates lay the issue of whether New Left Review was part of a political movement or a magazine with cultural and social concerns (Williams, 1979). These debates resulted in a diminished readership and editorial board confrontations.10 A new generational split appeared between Hall, Thompson, Williams, and a team led by Perry Anderson, Tom Nairn, and Robin Blackburn, all Oxford graduates who followed in the steps of the Universities and Left Review group and who, while at Oxford, created their own journal, New University. The period between 1962 and 1963 was the most critical in the history of the New Left, often interpreted as the transition from the First to the Second New Left (Meiksins Wood, 1995; Sedgwick, 1976). Although characterized by many personal differences and much acrimony, mainly by Thompson and Anderson, who would eventually take ownership of the journal, it is obvious that this transition also reflected serious changes in the qualitative nature of the New Left as a movement.11 The most critical view of the Second New Left argues that the 1963 excision represented the hijacking of the New Left by arguments that were strictly “Old” Left. After the takeover by Anderson and others, the increasingly intellectual debate in New Left Review and the gradual importation of ideas from mainly French political and philosophical traditions were severely criticized for becoming narrower in focus, more doctrinaire, and “Old” Left (Young, 1977). Whether we agree or not with this assessment of the Second New Left, it is generally accepted that, after the 1962 crisis in New Left Review, the idea of a New Left as both a political movement and an intellectual journal that ran along a parallel course receded significantly to maintain only the “intellectual” aspects of the movement, a criticism made by Hall while reminiscing about the period (Hall, 1989). The New Left could not be all things to all people. The collapse of the CND after the Cuban Missile Crisis and the reinstatement of nuclear policy in the Labour Party brought about the end of the New Left clubs and the temporary disappearance of the New Left as an alternative political movement.12 From now on, the New Left, identified with journals of varying intellectual concerns, adopted political causes as they emerged, often disconnected from each other. This was the case with various groups of student politics between 1966 and 1969 that, having emerged from the CND’s most radical section, the Committee of 100, eventually came to lead the Vietnam solidarity campaign, the most third-worldist and

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anti-imperialist political expression of the New Left in all countries explored here. On a different level, the theme of industrial democracy also became part of the newly found form of militancy in this period, particularly among some sectors of the trade unions and the labor movement. Born in 1964, the Movement for Workers’ Control reached its zenith in 1968 with the creation of the Institute for Workers Control (Shepherd 1995). Having survived a virtual period of isolation, several members of the old generation of the First New Left, notably Miliband and Saville, jointly founded Socialist Register in 1964. Wanting to produce a journal that maintained certain continuities with the initial New Reasoner, Socialist Register was less abstract than a New Left Review that seemed to have broken with the past to become the British intellectual vanguard whose mission was to graft continental Marxism onto British Marxist traditions. These two journals co-exist today, yet in the 1960s they represented alternative faces of the New Left. Their relationship and exchange of ideas was contradictory. Trading ideas and authors was virtually non-existent,13 however, with some notable exceptions, both suffered a similar degree of radicalization toward the end of the 1960s, which brought them relatively close on many issues such as their support for the North Vietnamese war effort against the United States. A brief revival of the First New Left took place between 1963 and 1966 and was represented in the creation of Views, a journal that sought to develop a New Left theory while maintaining close links to the labor movement, and was accompanied by the participation of individual members such as Williams, Mike Rustin and Hall, along with close collaborators of Socialist Register like Michael Barratt-Brown.14 According to Shepherd (1995), its initial philosophical content was quickly superseded by overtly New Left concerns that included articles on the Third World and British foreign policy, Vietnam, culture, and socialism. The emphasis, however, rested on influencing and assessing Prime Minister Harold Wilson government’s construction of socialism after Labour’s victory in 1964. It was mainly the group’s recognition of their failure to achieve this objective that resulted in the dissolution of Views and the formation of the group that went on to publish May Day Manifesto. This 1967 book mixed analysis and interpretation of the social, political, and economic basis of the world and a series of fundamental principles to guide strategy and action for the transformation of capitalist society. Yet, this contribution continued its mainly British agenda, seeking to actively intervene and reform the labor movement in which many in this section of the New Left were active, but without creating politico-institutional structures needed to replace it (Williams, 1968).


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The Second New Left, embodied in New Left Review after 1963, became largely concerned with theoretical issues, progressively moving away from its previous, though small, connection with the labor movement and building itself into a review of international reputation. This allowed for a large degree of cross-fertilization with similar, mainly French, journals such as Les Temps Modernes, but also with members of the Italian New Left like Giovanni Arrighi and Lucio Coletti as well as the North American Monthly Review.15 Dealing with so-called “continental Marxism” New Left Review can be considered largely responsible for having introduced into Britain and assessed the contribution to Marxism of philosophers such as Sartre, György Lukacs, Louis Althusser, Antonio Gramsci, Galvano Della Volpe, Herbert Marcuse, or groups like the Frankfurt School. In this respect, New Left Review’s role in the late 1960s was comparable to that of Pensamiento Crítico in Cuba in the same period. At this time, it was also highly enthusiastic about student politics and their potential to fulfill an alternative political role in society, having commissioned the book Student Power before all the major student revolts had taken place worldwide in 1968.16 During the “revolutionary” high point of 1968, however, New Left Review became dominated by leaders of the student movement who took the review toward a variety of political actions, with no less than six members of New Left Review’s editorial committee contributing articles to Student Power. One such enterprise was the overt support New Left Review gave to the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign (VSC). In Britain, as in France, the student occupations of universities in the late 1960s cannot be separated from support for the VSC and Third World revolutionary movements. This movement however, never lasted past 1969 and marked the beginning of the end for the New Left in Britain as it never managed to connect with broader issues like racism or workers’ control that were so important to the 1968 events in other parts of Europe (Young, 1977). Another such political action was the infiltration of the Revolutionary Socialist Students Federation (RSSF) by members of the journal who argued for “student red bases.” Also, the growing association between New Left Review and the International Marxist Group (IMG) brought the New Left into contact with a resurgent wave of extra-parliamentary political opposition.17 Yet, although the IMG’s support for third-worldism and student power between 1968 and 1970 was suggestive of a New Left that believed the working class lost its place as the pre-eminent revolutionary class, its rhetoric—particularly after the transition from Black Dwarf to Red Mole in 1970—was presented in an orthodox Leninist framework (Callaghan, 1984). Thus, although the 1970s produced some of the most bitter confrontations of previous decades between the labor

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movement and the state, clear differences existed between these and the campaigns referred to that are an intrinsic part of the New Left. In the same way that the 1969 National Convention on the Left, proposed by those who launched the May Day Manifesto, failed in its attempt to produce a consensus, marking in this way the end of this line of the New Left, the mixture of implicit New Left ideals within an orthodox ultra-left political practice that aimed at creating a revolutionary party along Leninist organizational lines in the IMG, marked the transition to a qualitatively new movement. This was much closer to the “political sects” the early New Left had battled against than to a new form of the New Left. Politically predictable, it became more anti-intellectual, favoring political lines as opposed to genuine intellectual debate. The political transition that saw the return of old orthodoxies to the Second New Left was paralleled by the return of the corresponding rhetoric that emphasized the primacy of the working class. The next section deals with the reception given to the Cuban Revolution throughout the years of New Left domination. The Cuban Revolution and the British New Left Much of the literature makes reference to the early revolutionary years and argues in favor of inscribing the Cuban presence at the heart of the revolutionary movement that took place in developed countries and was reflected in the development of the New Left in the 1960s.18 This section examines the reception given to the Cuban Revolution in the British New Left and deals in turn with the influence that the Revolution had on the development of the New Left itself, emphasizing the changing nature of both realities throughout the decade. Both cases emerged at the beginning of the decade, initially attracted each other, and suffered a parallel and mutually induced degree of radicalization toward the end of the decade and resulted in a patent and growing distance between them in the 1970s. By this time, however, the British New Left and the Cuban Revolution had undergone radical ideological transformations that separated them from the unorthodoxies characteristic to both in the 1960s. The main contention here is that the Cuban Revolution and the New Left met in the 1960s in a context in which the political priorities of the New Left constructed an image of the Cuban Revolution that corresponded only partially with reality. Contrary to their North American and French counterparts, the British New Left did not immediately notice the Cuban Revolution. New Left Review, for instance, did not carry any references to it until September 1960 (nineteen months after the triumph of the rebel forces)


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and when it did, it was through the interpretations that came from France and the United States. At this time, New Left Review published some extracts of Castro’s History Will Absolve Me next to commentaries by C.Wright Mills, Saul Landau, and Dave Dellinger.19 This idea was confirmed in a 1961 editorial that presented Leo Huberman, Paul Sweezy, Mills, and Sartre as the most trusted sources of information on Cuba (Editorial, 1961a). Despite this late awakening, there is no doubt that the Cuban Revolution was regarded as enormously important for the New Left. Some of the positions on the Cuban Revolution espoused by the American elements of the New Left had already been succinctly presented in a ground breaking article by Anderson and Blackburn, published at the beginning of 1960 in New University. Speaking of the importance of the Cuban Revolution, the article argued that the Cuban Revolution disconcerted European observers because it overthrew conventional, binary classifications of political thought that opposed democracy with dictatorship or communism and capitalism, making a renewal of the categories used to understand the novel aspects of the Cuban Revolution an absolute necessity. In their view, the living example of the Cuban Revolution provided new opportunities for learning and theoretical development of Marxism because it represented a form of socialist thought free from ossifications developed in the post-war era (Anderson and Blackburn, 1960). Perhaps the importance of the New Left’s interest in the Cuban Revolution rested in the possibility to describe it, by referring to humanism in terms that appropriated it for the movement’s intellectual objectives in its first few years. Early in the life of the New Left and from the University of Oxford, Anderson and Blackburn spoke of the Cuban Revolution as a tumultuous celebration of the present that could not be described as simply communist, nationalist, or autocratic. They resolved to talk of a new form of humanism in Cuba to describe the new form of politics and human relations that dominated the Revolution in its early years. (Anderson and Blackburn, 1960). But it was the Revolution itself that initially used the term “humanism” to characterize its own political project, coinciding totally with the aspirations of the early New Left and journals such as New Reasoner subtitled “Journal of Humanist Socialism.” This concept, however, contained a series of divergent meanings with political implications at various levels. The first meaning appealed to Cuba’s independence and freedom to choose its own developmental path. In a world clearly divided between capitalism and communism, the pressures to choose were great in a country that, like Cuba, was undergoing a radical transformation of society through revolutionary means. Yet,

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the argument followed, Cuba was refusing to choose between a system that starved people on the one hand, or one that, in clear reference to Stalinism, did not value its citizens’ rights and freedoms. Thus, Castro was cited arguing that the Cuban Revolution was autochthonous in its action and independent in its ideological motivations (Editorial, 1961a). An example of how Cuba made early attempts to find a middle path between capitalism and communism was through the strategic alliances the country began to make with the emerging Third World. Cuba’s attendance at the Non-Aligned Countries Conference in Belgrade in 1961 supports the view that peace and neutralism were initially reflected in the international policy directions of a Cuban Revolution that at first presented itself as a representative of the dominant understanding of the concept Third World and the Non-Aligned movement seemed the obvious international forum for defending this view. In addition, Cuban found a lot of support very early on, with the Belgrade conference’s final resolution calling for an extension of the non-committed area of the world as the only alternative to the intensification of the Cold war. In addition, the final declaration made Cuba-specific demands, including the retreat of U.S. forces from the naval base at Guantánamo and the recognition that Cuba should choose its own destiny. According to commentators at the time, the call for Cuba to choose its own destiny was clearly aimed at both world leaders of the time and constituted clear evidence of the search for alternative and original political directions by the revolutionary leadership (Ross, 1961). The second meaning of the term “humanism” was supported by the fact that the New Left considered that the Stalinist, pre-revolutionary Cuban Communist Party (PSP) participated little or not at all in the events that led to the victory of the rebel forces.20 This fact was considered important for a New Left that owed its existence in part to the effective critique of former members of the CPGB of the dogmatism, control, and discipline inside the British counterpart of the PSP.21 Stalinist political practice and ideology were seen as a hindrance to socialist democracy, thus, a revolutionary example in which the party had not taken a pre-eminent part demonstrated that Stalinism had no place in the new Cuba. This, in turn, served to illustrate the originality of a revolution that could not be explained by appealing to existing conceptual categories. Writing in 1961, Landau argued that Cuba was building a new society with new economics, new politics, and new morality, based on a socialist system that differed from systems in Eastern Europe (Landau, 1961). The notion that gave revolutionary primacy to the working class was one such “sacred” principle dispelled by the Cuban Revolution. Cuban revolutionary experience justified the possibility that other agents of


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social change, notably the peasantry and the student sections, had the potential to also become revolutionary forces. Although the radicalism of the Cuban student sectors had clear autochthonous antecedents in the Federation of University Students (FEU), which contributed to the political training of a number of the leaders of the MR26, important to the British New Left was the fact that neither the working class nor the labor movement had a major stake in the events that led to the rebel victory. In a mixture of New Left analysis based on philosopher Frantz Fanon’s thought, Hall and Norman Fruchter wrote that the backbone of the Revolution consisted of a group of radical students and intellectuals based among the rural poor (Hall and Fruchter, 1961). Third, the term “humanism” was also related to Cuba’s alleged lack of ideology. By New Left Review’s own admission, nobody did more to increase the New Left standing of the Cuban Revolution than Sartre in his well-publicized and legitimizing visit of 1960. At the time, Sartre was trying to make connections between a theory of subjectivism and Marxism in order to counteract the excessive economic determinism of dogmatic accounts of Marxism. To some extent, Thompson’s socialist humanism had points in common with Sartre’s work as both sought to reconstruct a concept of human agency. With regard to the Cuban Revolution, these were reflected in Sartre’s descriptions of Castro as an existential man capable of emphasizing practice over and above theory (Lyons, 1976). Both ideas were received with enormous interest in the New Left as they were related to the supposed lack of institutionalization of the Revolution, the character of revolutionary action in Cuba, and, in particular, the absence of an ossified theory or ideological creed that dictated revolutionaries’ actions. All these characteristics were reflected in the decision-making style of the masses that allowed the New Left to speak of the Cuban Revolution in terms of a new form of direct democracy (Hobsbawm, 1960). In the early days of the Revolution, there was a patent lack of institutionalization and bureaucratization. This was articulated in two different ways. First, it was expressed through the mass organizations, mobilizations, and local forms of exercising power (for instance, the CDRs). Second, this was a theme that the New Left learned to exploit in relation to the intuitive, almost symbiotic, communication that existed between the leaders and the Cuban people—a characteristic clearly illustrated in Castro’s rhetorical power and the question-answer dynamic set in motion with the masses when he made important policy announcements. This practice met the approval of Westerners who saw in this direct form of understanding of popular consent a way to transcend the limitations of representative democracy (Kenny, 1995).22

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The Radicalization: Cuba or the Advent of Third World Socialism One of the most significant gaps in relation to the Cuban Revolution in this first epoch of the New Left was, without a doubt, the lack of assessment of the 1962 Missile Crisis in New Left Review, an event that received only a fleeting mention from author Ruth Glass. Although she blamed the crisis on the United States, Glass’s editorial focused mainly on the degree of helplessness and the dehumanizing effect the Missile Crisis had on a British society incapable of reacting to the growing sense of unreality in which they had no voice. She illustrated this by referring to the disparity of the mass media and the power it showed in standardizing the knowledge and public perception of the crisis by distorting the news and taking partisan editorial views. Only one example of dissent, of humanity, she argued, was maintained in Bertrand Russell, who refused to fall into a sense of helplessness (Glass, 1962).23 Yet, New Left Review did not seem to appreciate the epoch-changing importance of the crisis, and nowhere in the journal did a wider reflection of this issue take place. The reason for this is partly related to the very scale of the intellectual and political crisis that the New Left was undergoing at the time. The lack of wider commentary on the Cuban Missile Crisis in New Left Review fits in with a period of disarray in the publication of and transition to the Second New Left. With it, New Left Review suffered a takeover by a much younger generation, inherently more militant and more anti-imperialist than the earlier one, whose message came to the fore in 1968. It is also possible to argue that the “peace paradigm” defended by the First New Left was denounced by a crisis that clearly demonstrated the CND’s irrelevance and incapacity to act in the face of possible nuclear Armageddon. The qualitatively new global situation, inaugurated by the Missile Crisis, demanded a rapid evolution to a new series of positions defended by a new constituency of mass-based support that the CND did not recruit again until the 1980s, spending many years in the political wilderness (Young, 1977). Correspondingly, the First New Left failed to propose the Third World as an incipient global force for peace as it never translated these ideals into an arms reduction foreign policy proposal for Britain, concentrating instead on anti-Atlanticism—a position aimed at influencing the policy of the Labour Party by protesting against the military superiority of the United States in Europe through NATO. From 1963, the CND’s influence within the New Left entered a downward spiral that allowed many of its former members to transfer to the “blossoming” Vietnam Solidarity Campaign after 1966.


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Yet, the beginning of the transition toward radicalization symbolized by the Missile Crisis and its influence in the Second New Left has only been recognized lately by scholars who have identified a similar process of radicalization in the final part of Russell’s life.24 Ryan argued that it is necessary to understand the Cuban Missile Crisis as the turning point in Russell’s late political activities. Thus, he argues that Russell’s reading of the Missile Crisis and his subsequent statements on it tried to point out that the United States’s bullying of Cuba was no different in intent to that of the Soviet invasion of Hungary. This was the time when Russell launched the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation in September 1963, cut his links with the anti-nuclear movement in the following spring, and readied himself to join his last campaign against the war in Vietnam (Ryan, 1988). For a time however, New Left references to Cuba did not incorporate this new state of affairs. Instead, debate concentrated mainly on the New Left’s initial concern with the Cuban Revolution, that is, to categorize and explain a revolutionary example that did not seem to belong to existing categories. This is where Blackburn’s 1963 seminal article on the Cuban Revolution fits in. Written for the issue that appeared exactly one year after the Missile Crisis, it provided a picture of the Cuban social structure before the Revolution to offer an understanding of the nature of the development of the Revolution, aiming to go beyond existing paradigms that understood the Cuban Revolution as either an appendage of the United States or the making of one individual leader (Blackburn, 1963). Blackburn argued that neither the landed aristocracy nor the bourgeoisie, nor institutions such as the church, political parties, or the military were social forces that produced any form of social cohesion to pre-revolutionary Cuba. Thus, the rebel army, though small, had encountered little opposition and managed to defeat an enemy that crumbled at its feet. Yet, in keeping with the myth initially put forward by Sartre, the article also argued that the main hallmark of the Revolution was its lack of ideology and that pre-revolutionary Cuban society also lacked any decisive institutional or ideological structures. This explained how, presented with the revolutionary movement led by MR26, the regime imploded (Blackburn, 1963). This was the last written pronouncement by the British New Left about the Cuban Revolution. Although the article announced a future study to examine the tension between the distinctive characteristics of the Revolution and its objective economic needs, no follow-up was ever produced.25 From now on, the Cuban Revolution became an established revolutionary “ideal type” to which the New Left and New Left Review appealed, but always as an example of a more general trend applicable to a

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stereotyped vision of the Third World. For all the personal exchange between Blackburn, Anderson, Ken Coates, et al., and a Cuban Revolution that they visited on various occasions, no specific travel report or theoretical elaboration was ever produced that was directly attributable to these exchanges.26 This generally was true of intellectuals, such as J. M. Cohen and Göran Therborn, close to New Left Review’s editorial committee.27 After a transition period of two to three years, Cuba again made an appearance in New Left Review. Yet, there was nothing particularly unique about the British New Left’s reading of the Cuba Revolution since, for the rest of the decade, the clearest theoretical contribution made by the New LeftCuba link came through the work of Régis Debray. This transition came as a result of a combination of factors. First was the ideological and military counterattack against American imperialism launched by the Cuban Revolution. The Revolution’s self-appointment as the new leader of the Third World and Guevara’s calls for solidarity with Vietnam were theorized in the work of Debray whose activist praxis converted him into a “Cuban” ambassador to the New Left (González, 1984). Judging from its participation in the international campaign for his liberation, New Left Review’s attachment to Debray seemed beyond doubt. Set up by the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, Anderson, Blackburn, and Tariq Ali traveled to Bolivia to campaign for Debray’s release (Ali, 1978). Consequently, New Left Review praised his theses.28 Second, Debray’s articles brought the message of revolution, directly from Guevara, to a new social group with revolutionary ideals, namely students and intellectuals in the West. It was thus no coincidence that Guevara’s call for unity with Vietnam should have been published in New Left Review in the same issue that analyzed student occupations at the London School of Economics in March 1967. In this respect, New Left Review quickly recognized the potential importance that Debray’s theses had for the New Left as his “Latin America: The Long March” initially had a bigger resonance in Britain than in France. Together with the basic ideas from Marcuse, who saw a clear necessity in the revolutionary leadership of the student population, Debray’s work constituted a solid nucleus with which the Second New Left identified. In the context of Britain, the manifesto of the Revolutionary Socialist Students’ Federation’s (RSSF) Second Congress called for the creation of “red bases” throughout universities in a clear parody of Debray’s foco theory contending that a small number of guerrilla fighters could spark a continental revolution in Latin America. In an issue almost entirely devoted to the student movement, James Wilcox argues in favor of drawing lessons from the Cuban and Vietnamese revolutionary experiences and applying them to the student movement (Wilcox, 1969).29


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For this new class of student revolutionaries in capitalist countries, the biggest refusal of the mechanistic understanding of history in the European communist parties was reflected in the living revolutions in the Third World which, in turn, demanded they be reproduced elsewhere. This supported the notion that, if revolution was possible in such an unlikely place as Cuba, nothing could prevent it from happening in Europe. As in Latin America, the objective conditions could change through the committed effort of a reduced number of combatants. Revolution had finally arrived in Europe as a New Left Review editorial clearly expressed, presenting the struggles of Vietnam and Cuba as part of a common struggle in the West led by the New Left (Editorial, 1968a). In the last instance, however, perhaps the biggest influence of the 1968 generation was the symbol of Guevara, a quasi-mystical figure who embodied the ideas of unselfish sacrifice, struggle, and revolutionary conviction. To the participants of the Cultural Congress of 1968 in Havana, he was the quintessential embodiment of a revolutionary intellectual because he knew how to combine both ideas and action. The semi-religious experience associated with the celebration of Guevara’s life and martyrdom was not lost in the case of some British delegates to the congress (Salkey, 1971). Yet, the power of his presence was perhaps most notable among youth in European capitals. The eruption of student radicalism in Britain between 1967 and 1969, a phenomenon closely associated with the third-worldism portrayed by the Cuban Revolution, is proved by evidence in student journals such as Black Dwarf and later Red Mole where constant support through Guevara for the Cuban Revolution was ever present. Nowhere was this more evident than on the front cover of Black Dwarf’s second issue, which depicted the famous image of Guevara, or in poster sales to readers along with his Bolivian Diaries.30 Nor was it a coincidence that several articles and editorials were simply signed “VENCEREMOS!” (we shall win!). Articles about the hero abounded and were signed by Coates, Ricardo Rojo, Tariq Ali, and civil rights movement leader Stokeley Carmichael, among others.31 Evidence exists, however, that Black Dwarf’s third-worldist support was less sophisticated than its French counterparts’ where clear ideological lines were established between pro-Chinese, highly Stalinist Maoist publications—where the Cuban Revolutionary experience was not featured—and elements of the Trotskyist movement that supported Cuba on the basis of its anti-Stalinism.32 Thus, the Chinese, Cuban, and Vietnamese examples often were treated in the British periodicals as part of a common struggle against American imperialism. Yet, Black Dwarf kept a close eye on international events in Cuba and was quick to react to the island’s support for the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, offering at

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least some “understanding” of the imperative economic needs that could have driven the leadership to justify the invasion. Even when others lost interest in the Cuban Revolution—New Left Review did not publish anything further on Cuba or guerrilla strategy after 1970—or broke off relations with the regime (as with the French Les Temps Modernes), British student journals continued to show an interest in the island.33 The answer for this defense may well lie in the increasing degree of Trotskyist infiltration to which the British student New Left had been subjected. Beginning in the mid-1960s, important members of the Second New Left were highly influenced by organizations of Trotskyist character such as the International Socialists (IS), the Socialist Labor League (SLL), and the International Marxist Group (IMG). The IMG was considered representative of the Fourth International in Britain and was led by Blackburn and Tariq Ali, both close to the editorial committee of New Left Review. Trotskyist positions on the Cuban Revolution, however, were neither unanimous nor coherent. In fact, in the British case, the question of Cuba divided all major Trotskyist branches. On one hand, the IS and the SLL considered the Cuban Revolution a “petit-bourgeois nationalist aberration” (Callaghan, 1984: 125). Alternatively, the IMG belonged to the United Secretariat of the Fourth International, a current that came together in 1962 on the basis of the significance of a Cuban Revolution that hereafter became the acid test of socialist revolution (Hansen, 1978: 132).34 Although the IMG was enthusiastic about the idea of “student power” and presented pure New Left traits in terms of political practice, Callaghan argues that, by 1970, the IMG defended orthodox theoretical elaborations that called for the formation of a revolutionary party along Leninist lines (Callaghan, 1984)—a transformation evidenced in the transition from Black Dwarf to Red Mole. From 1970, this contradiction between theory and practice was transferred to the reading of the Cuban Revolution that Red Mole began to make, arguing that the defense of the Cuban Revolution explained the rise of young vanguards in Europe and that the political success of Jeunesse Communiste Révolutionnaire (JCR) (Communist Revolutionary Youth) and Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire (LCR) (Communist Revolutionary League) in France was due mainly to Cuba (Red Mole, 1971). The Cuban Revolution and the British New Left: A Fruitful Exchange? The interest provoked by the Cuban revolutionary experience in some of the most representative publications of the British New Left in the 1960s suggests that the British New Left pursued its own political


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priorities and that the originality of the Cuban Revolution was exploited insofar as it seemed to reflect the New Left’s raison d’être. It was therefore not surprising that the Cuban Revolution allowed members of the First New Left to conceive an alternative path of development that went beyond pre-ordained models constituted by “Natopolism,” to use Thompson’s vocabulary, or a Soviet model of communism. The “ideological breakthrough” constituted by a Cuban Revolution that refused to be labeled according to existing ideological categories not only supported the First New Left’s calls for a new global economic order, it was also necessary to solve the biggest challenge facing the First New Left at the international level—the escalating arms race and the possibility of nuclear holocaust. It was equally unsurprising that, during the revolutionary phase of 1968, the Second New Left resorted again to Cuba and guerrilla warfare as a potentially successful strategy for revolution in the capitals of the West. Some of the gaps in the British New Left-Cuba relationship have already been suggested. The case of the Missile Crisis, at a time when the New Left was living through its biggest turmoil yet, could only accelerate its end as it left no space for the peace paradigm that had been the hallmark of the early New Left. Yet, this was never overtly acknowledged, or analyzed, by the New Left itself. The New Left simply matched Cuba’s ensuing political and ideological radicalization. It did not, however, carry with it all the thematic concerns that characterized its progenitor, in particular, the lifestyle and cultural aspects that constituted a great part of the intellectual formative experience of the early generation of the New Left. It mainly took a militant position toward organization, revolutionary strategy, and the formation of student and intellectual vanguards in the extra-parliamentary struggle for power. This meant much of Cuba’s original cultural production developments, such as the experimental artistic and literary work carried out by young Cuban artists, were cast aside and never really interested the British New Left as much as “guerrillaism.” Similarly, the issue of intellectual freedom—central to the formative experience of former CPGB members of the New Left—was of marginal interest only to the second generation. Yet, these gaps also had positive effects regarding support for the Cuban Revolution from New Left sectors in the 1970s. Although much of the literature mentions that the Padilla Affair marked the distancing of an entire European intellectual stratum away from the Revolution, in the British case, no mention of it was ever made in New Left Review. Like Debray’s guerrilla strategy, Cuba simply was dropped after 1970. It could be argued, however, that, through publications such as Red Mole, the Trotskyist side of the New Left still showed unconditional support for the

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Cuban Revolution long after it stopped making headlines. In any case, the first few years of the 1970s were characterized by as notable a transformation of the Cuban Revolution as of the New Left. The type of peaceful transition to socialism that had triumphed in Chile—along with the failure to spark revolution in Latin America after the death of Guevara and the island’s political and economic needs after the economic disaster of the 1970 sugar harvest—brought the Cuban Revolution closer than ever to the Soviet sphere of influence. In the West, this period was marked by the return of more orthodox forms of struggle based on an intensification of the labor movement with an emphasis on UK-based conflict.

Chapter

6

French Intellectuals and Cuba: A Revolutionary Working Model? This chapter examines the structure of the French intellectual field and explores the elements that made this group distinctive from the North American and British cases. Particular elements of interest include the generational heterogeneity of the French intellectual constituency that showed an affinity for the Cuban Revolution and the degree of radicalization they experienced as a result of a formative process that included opposition to the French government’s involvement in the war in Algeria. French intellectuals were also highly involved in the Cuban Revolution; several prominent individuals (e.g., Sartre, Debray) acted as beacons for the interest and reception of the Revolution worldwide, thus having global levels of influence. This chapter also provides an overall image of the French New Left as it responded to the Cuban Revolution. A detailed study of the development of the French New Left, however, demands attention to the heterogeneity of constituents and formative experiences driving this process. In the case of the French New Left, the Algerian war dominated its formative context. Membership and Formation of the Early French New Left Sartre was one of the early exponents of the New Left. He made his call for such a movement in the late 1950s after Communist support for France’s intervention in Algeria and the Soviet invasion of Hungary cost the French

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Communist Party (PCF) much popular support. He put distance between the Party and himself, arguing for a New Left that incorporated the Christian and progressive Left and the dynamic elements of radicalism (Khilnani, 1993: 68). Seeking to bypass established Left/Right distinctions, this call was part of the wider pluralism in the French Left of the late 1950s that was galvanized in a number of institutional entities and social groups, notably L’Observateur and Parti Socialiste Unifié (PSU). Many British commentators recognize that the New Left’s origins lie in French political and intellectual sources, linking it directly to a political movement, la nouvelle gauche (literally the New Left) and to Claude Bourdet, editor of the French weekly France Observateur (Kenny, 1995). Although originally named L’Observateur in 1950, the journal changed its name to France Observateur in 1954 and to Le Nouvel Observateur in 1964. Authors Bourdet and Gilles Martinet were central figures at the weekly, one of the most successful French newspapers of all time From the outset, the journal displayed many traits that made it characteristic of the important intellectual role played by periodical publications in the 1960s (Muchnick, 1981; Pinto, 1984; Rioux, 1982). L’Observateur was originally rooted in the Resistance and in Combat, another publication that brought together individuals like Bourdet and journalist Roger Stéphane. Its pedigree as a publication of the Left was thus guaranteed, however, unlike other weeklies of its time, L’Observateur was not funded by any political organizations; instead, it belonged to a group of journalists who, like the New Left, represented divergent positions within a loosely defined structure and did not initially represent any party, government, or funding group (Editorial, 1959b: 9). The New Left’s major interest in international issues was marked by its opposition to all types of imperialism, including the 1956 Anglo-French campaign over the Suez Canal that was designed to neutralize Egyptian leader General Gamal Abdel Nasser and France’s role in the Algerian war of independence—perhaps the most important formative element of the French New Left (Nugent and Lowe, 1982). The opposition to imperialist military action was extended by an active resistance to the Soviet Union’s imperialist behavior in its own backyard—the Hungarian invasion of 1956 was a major unifying element in the New Left—and to the PCF’s popular front policy. This “orthodox” Left position appealed for a collaboration of communist parties in the Third World and a peaceful transition to socialism (Hobsbawm, 1994). However, given the violent tactics the Soviet Union was prepared to use in its backyard (i.e. 1956 invasion of Hungary), this emphasis on world peace was not a credible message. Instead, the successful achievement of world peace was an aspiration that belonged to groups of mainly Communist dissidents in the

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West for whom opposition to both superpowers was their single most important unifying point. This, they achieved through a common belief in the idea of neutralism explored more fully in chapter seven. Some individuals on the L’Observateur team deserve a special mention because of the variety of ideological currents they represented. Martinet and Bourdet are exceptional because of the contact and exchange they maintained with the First New Left in Britain, evident in the pages of publications such as New Reasoner. Also, their personal political backgrounds provide us with clues as to the ideological composition of this New Left. Whereas Martinet was a member of the Communist Party until the German-Soviet Pact in 1939 and continued to consider himself a Marxist thereafter, Bourdet was, in the words of Lucien Rioux—a former member of the L’Observateur editorial group—a moralist left-wing Christian like Emmanuel Mournier, another collaborator who founded the review Esprit (Rioux, 1982). All shared the politico-intellectual space of a Left that was independent of both the SFIO and the PCF. While the SFIO was considered reformist and implicated in the governments and politics of the Fourth Republic (such as supporting the war in Indochina and eventually Algeria), the PCF was criticized by the original members of the New Left on the basis that it was aligned with Soviet positions. In intellectual terms, the independence of thought these individuals and their publications demonstrated beyond the more politically partisan positions also pioneered a theme common to all components of the New Left.1 Politically, both Martinet and Bourdet were active during the agonizing end to the Fourth Republic and the birth of the Fifth under de Gaulle as well as the PSU, a party they helped establish. The PSU was formed in 1960 after the unification of various political forces, including three of the most influential: the Parti Socialiste Autonome (PSA), the Union de la Gauche Socialiste (UGS), and a group of former Communists situated in or around the publication Tribune du Communisme. Consisting of three organizations with different backgrounds and goals, the PSA was created in 1958 when it abandoned the SFIO because of its support for de Gaulle’s candidacy and was joined by the Centre d’Action Démocratique (CAD), led by Pierre Mendès-France. The UGS was composed of the Mouvement de Libération du Peuple (MLP), a catholic-socialist working class organization, and the Nouvelle Gauche (NG) whose members had broken away from the SFIO and the PCF and worked around France Observateur. The coming together of MLP and NG can be understood as an attempt to gain political strength to influence other parties of the Left (Hauss, 1978). Finally, the smallest of the component forces of the PSU was an organization of former Communists led by Serge Mallet and Jean

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Poperen who, as a result of the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary, abandoned the PCF in a way similar to their British counterparts’ departure from New Reasoner. The heterogeneous composition of the PSU meant that widely ranging ideas coexisted on the ideological front as well as in purely strategic terms. The party’s official stance was reformist through the early part of the decade but radicalized considerably in 1968, supporting the student revolts—the only party to do so in France—and seeking to increase its influence in the Union Nationale des Etudiants de France (UNEF). In the early 1970s, the PSU opposed anti-abortion laws, questioned the army’s right to conscript the young, and pioneered party political involvement in the ecological movement. Beyond these highly innovative aspects, however, the PSU was hindered constantly by factionalism, never quite managing to create and maintain the troisième secteur, always considering the possibility of uniting with the rest of the Left.2 Although the 1968 events brought an unexpected revolutionary surge within a PSU that showed support for the wide range of small radical groups that composed the different gauchiste factions, the demise of the PSU became evident toward the mid-1970s, with a serious split in 1974 over the decision of its secretary general, Michel Rocard, to merge with the Socialist Party (Hauss, 1978). In the end, only one issue managed to unite the various components of the PSU, a controversial issue that characterized the rest of the New Left’s constituency. While the Algerian war lasted, the PSU maintained a highly critical position with regard to French involvement and became the nerve center of the anti-war movement and, by extension, of all the anti-colonialist struggles taking place in the Third World (Sprinzak, 1976). Between 1958 and 1960, de Gaulle, invested with the objective of steering the country out of the politically turbulent waters caused by the Algerian war, was failing both sides of the increasingly polarized argument. His reluctance to take decisive action seemed concentrated on avoiding a coup d’Etat or worse, a civil war. Consequently, a polarization of the public debate took place between an increasingly exasperated Right that increased its terrorist activities under the name of Organisation de l’Armée Secrète (OAS) and a Left that realized this was the time to act. The New Left became politically defined by its position on the Algerian war. Part of it was composed of a number of left-wing intellectuals armed with the courage to challenge the government on the war issue and whose public exposure slowly created the conditions for a swing in public opinion in favor of a negotiated settlement in Algeria. Clearly on the Left while critical of the official parties of the Left, this select group of intellectuals acted in defense of universal values, converting themselves into the


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critical conscience of the nation, a statement that takes us back to the very definition of “intellectual” (Khilnani, 1993). During the Algerian war, the intellectual “class” denounced not only the injustice of the war itself, but the corrupting effect it was having on a government prepared to make systematic use of torture and enforce a rigid censorship. The “fascist menace” France lived under demanded the alliance of the French with the Algerian Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) (National Liberation Front) (Poperen, 1972). The Manifeste des 121, written in support of Algeria’s independence, provoked a national crisis that divided the country into two opposed camps—militarist versus democratic-intellectual— rather like at the time of the Dreyfus Affair (Polac, 1994).3 In reality, the category “intellectual” included many of the agents of the New Left previously mentioned. The connection between France Observateur, its many contributors, and the Algerian question was remarkable: Bourdet and Martinet took clear positions, and ex-Communist and prominent catholic intellectual Robert Barrat, Georges Souffert (another catholic intellectual), Albert-Paul Lentin, Edgar Morin, and Dyonis Mascolo, among others, were close to the Observateur team.4 The Christian Left was in fact connected to France Observateur to the extent that Temoignage Chretien, its most representative publication, was the only other periodical, which, along with L’Express, had condemned both the Suez expedition and the Hungarian invasion of 1956.5 Another figure that became key to the entire politico/intellectual scene of the 1960s and beyond was François Maspero, whose name had a “gravitational force” for a large cross-section of the embryonic New Left through his association with the review Partisans (Habel, 1991). This embryonic New Left included a side of the Parisian intellectual milieu particularly important in relation to the Cuban Revolution and often maintained rich and meaningful exchanges with the Revolution or certain aspects of it in the 1960s, consisting of an international, mainly Spanish-speaking, community of writers and intellectuals. Paris always attracted large sectors of Latin America’s intellectual elite as the international center of cultural production with Cubans Alejo Carpentier and Roberto Fernández Retamar having spent periods of their lives there. In the 1960s, this group also included Spanish exiles, mainly writers such as Julio Cortázar, Jorge Semprún, Juan and José Goytisolo, and Fernando Claudín. Some of them contributed directly to the Revolution through the review Casa de las Américas or indirectly through journals like Ruedo Ibérico and almost all condemned it in 1971, disengaging from it at the time of the Padilla Affair (Rochdi, 1991). Perhaps no other contribution received as much international attention and acclaim as that from Sartre and the group from Les Temps

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Modernes. Having founded in 1955 the Comité d’Action des Intellectuels contre la Guerre d’Algérie (Committee of intellectuals against the Algerian War), Sartre, together with his editor Claude Lanzmann and Simone de Beauvoir, became directly involved in calling for an end to the war and the victory of the FLN. His position involved openly sabotaging the French war effort by supporting those who resisted the army draft, as did the Manifeste des 121 (Cohen-Solal, 1985). In his intellectual stardom, Sartre’s stance toward the Algerian war clearly influenced a new generation of politicized students who became, along with the heterogeneous body of radical intellectuals described above, an independent political force and the chief New Left actors in the latter part of the decade. Through UNEF, a separate student “class” became immersed in the French New Left from 1960 and beyond. They did so, on the side of the FLN, by giving birth to a student movement that was eminently bourgeois yet more overtly revolutionary than other political groups of the organized Left (Sprinzak, 1976). Other student organizations with less independence of action were the youth wing of the PSU, the Christian Student Union, and the Union des étudiants communistes (UEC), which was founded by the PCF in 1957. In the case of the UEC its parent organization, the PCF, fought wholeheartedly against any involvement of its troops in the Algerian question. The party’s standard response to any cases of opposition to the Algerian war was expulsion from the party. This included refusing the draft or actively helping the FLN’s clandestine organization in France, les porteurs de valises—literally, the suitcase carriers, referring to their main role as carriers of documentation and funds for the FLN in Paris (Joly, 1990). Yet, these different student groups became part of the 1960–1962 generation that grew in political consciousness due to their opposition to the Algerian war and the OAS, even becoming part of an integrated anti-fascist organization, the Front universitaire antifasciste (FUA). This episode of political involvement brought them into conflict with their parent organizations during a radicalization period and disintegration into factions between 1962 and 1967 that was explored by Beldan-Fields (1970), Griset and Kravetz (1965a, 1965b), Hamon and Rotman (1987, 1988), and Kravetz (1964). A number of elements separated the various components of the New Left described so far. Principally, a clear generational divide existed between the aforementioned intellectual elements and the student activists. The earlier group, born well before the World War II (many took part in it) and politically formed at the time of the Popular Front, drew its distinct political positions out of the mid- to late 1950s French political context—the death of the Fourth Republic and birth of the Fifth— culminating in the Algerian war. Moreover, it was possible to find


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intellectual gurus in this generation in pursuit of clear philosophical objectives (i.e., existential Marxism). The second, invariably young, group presented itself as a political force as a result of the Algerian war. Both generations, however, came together because of the importance they attached to the maintenance of political distance with regard to other political forces of the Left. More importantly, both factions were united in the political significance with which they imbued the Algerian experience, and by implication the Third World, as the new stage of global revolution. At this point of confluence, Sartre became, at a global level, the theoretical bridge between these generations, a prophet of a new world ready to rid itself of the chains of Western colonialism and imperialism (Cohen-Solal, 1985: 552). Sartre’s rapid radicalization occurred in the space of the two years that passed between his visit to Cuba in the spring of 1960 and his meeting with Frantz Fanon shortly before his death at the end of 1961. Having marked the entry of third-worldism in the discourse of the French New Left, the censorship of Fanon’s work in a France at war only added to the enormous interest it produced worldwide (Lacoste 1985). In sum, the French New Left grew out of a plurality of roots but did so in a specific historical context that included support for the Algerian cause, a support that also extended to the Cuban Revolution, placing the Algiers-Havana-Paris triangle at the heart of global revolution in the 1960s. The Cuban Revolution and the French New Left: Part One For the French New Left, the Cuban Revolution was not the amalgamating issue that the Algerian war was.6 However, support for the Revolution played an important role in defining two key positions that largely reflect the variety of world views and formative experiences of the various generations of intellectuals, academics, and students described.7 Two main news sources and reciprocal commitment were given an enormous reception among the emerging dissident left in France. The first source included reporters, writers, and intellectuals whose written works brought home news, impressions, and the emerging legend of the bearded soldiers of the Sierra Maestra. Claude Julien, a reporter for Le Monde and France-Observateur, was one of the first to create a surge of interest in Cuba as early as 1959 (Rioux, 1982). He belonged to the wider intellectual milieu in which various members of Les Temps Modernes team participated, notably its editor Claude Lanzmann (author of Viva Castro) and Sartre (author of Sartre on Cuba). Other later additions to this group included Grigno-Dumoulin, editor of one of the first of Maspero’s

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publications about Cuba in 1961 and Ania Francos with her book, La fête cubaine, published in 1962. The second source of sympathy toward the Cuban Revolution came through the Cuban-Algerian collaboration during and after Algeria’s war of independence. It lasted initially until 1965, when Ben Bella, initial articulator of the mutual understanding and support between Cuba and Algeria, was overthrown. In Paris, the deep political involvement of an entire generation of young students in support of the Algerian FLN— only true men of the Left in France, as Sartre described them in 1960s— also brought them into contact with the Revolution (Bair, 1991). Now converted into les porteurs de valises, young students—some of whom were Communists regardless of the PCF’s prohibition to join organizations such as Jeune Resistance—became enemies of their own country. On the side of the FLN, these young students’ involvement represented a resistance to the authoritarian tendencies of a government prepared to use torture and systematically violate human rights in order to prevail in an unwinnable war thus seriously jeopardizing France’s democratic credentials. In military and humanitarian terms, the anti-colonialist sentiment of the French New Left developed into full-scale cooperation between Cuba and Algeria. Cuba donated weapons to the FLN in late 1961 and later participated in the Moroccan-Algerian border dispute of 1963. In addition, Algeria was the destination of the first Cuban internationalist medical venture (Gleijeses, 1996).8 Much of the rapprochement between both revolutions is attributed to Jorge (Papito) Serguera, ambassador to Algiers in the first half of the decade, and Guevara, whose campaign in the Congo was masterminded from Algeria (Gerassi, 1968).9 In the meantime, the perception that these were sister revolutions fed into the political consciousness of a generation of young people; in turn, this perception was internalized in ideological positions about Third World liberation and development. The first wave of reports about Cuba came from Julien (he reported from the island as early as 1958). Signatory of a document of support for the Cuban Revolution, his overall position was one of enthusiasm for a revolution he initially characterized as neutralist.10 This thesis went very much against the United States’s position that Cuba was being infiltrated by Communism.11 Cuba’s desire to present the Revolution in neutralist terms was evident by its early position in the global political scene by appealing for a midway path between capitalism and communism, a position defended by Castro in his visit to the United States in April 1959 and reinforced by Raúl Roa a year later at the U.N. (Grigno-Dumoulin, 1961).


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Several members of the French New Left, notably Bourdet and Julien, continued to repeat the neutralist thesis. This related to Bourdet’s own interests in the peace and nuclear disarmament issues that had led to his collaboration with the British first New Left and with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) (Bourdet, 1960). Bourdet’s commitment to finding the means of a genuine dialogue between East and West was, in his own view, a lone voice in the French political landscape. Yet, he refused to be drawn into Manichean characterizations of the USSR as the peace camp, as opposed to the West as the war camp, and continually returned to the responsibility of the third bloc in the search for global peace (Bourdet, 1962).12 For Julien however, Cuba was a nationalist revolution seeking the support of other non-aligned countries, aiming to take Bandung to Havana and demonstrating that Cuba was the testing ground of the attitudes of both blocs toward underdeveloped countries (Julien, 1960). Given that both Julien and Bourdet agreed on the idea that Cuba occupied a special position as a test case of the power of neutralism, the aftermath of the Missile Crisis in October 1962 served to reinforce their opinion, arguing for the need to find equal distance from both nuclear superpowers. They argued that Cuba understood that Soviet protection had its limits and that, as a result, they would be searching for support in the non-aligned countries (Julien, 1962). Yet although neutralism per se was not the main talking point of most of the French New Left with regard to Cuba—a view that received attention only in sectors of the Christian Left—commentaries about the leadership’s apparent lack of ideology were commonly shared in the early days of the Cuban Revolution. In practice, this was a different aspect of the same question by virtue of the fact that a non-ideological leadership could not be Communist and therefore on one side of the global ideological debate of the time. The Cuban leadership was the first to describe itself as “humanist” and to claim it was driven by the primary concern of the well being of the masses. This view quickly extended to Grigno-Dumoulin, who characterized the Cuban leadership’s vision of the world as a romantic aspiration of honesty and social justice (Grigno-Dumoulin, 1961) and Julien’s description of Cuban guerrillas as bearded, Christ-like figures (Julien, 1960: 5). For their part, Sartre and de Beauvoir talked of a revolution without ideology, as an experience in which actions drove ideas rather than the other way around (Sartre, 1961). This declaration would be shared by large sections of the New Left as was the claim that the masses’ wishes were directly articulated through the leadership because of the existence of a direct democracy in Cuba. This was supposedly based on the quasiintuitive understanding that existed between the leader and his people,

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transcending the obvious limitations that democratic politics had time and again demonstrated in Cuba’s modern history. The famous couple also coincided in their assessment of the Cuban Revolution as a revolution made by young people, where the leadership was hardly older than thirty, a characteristic that was extremely attractive for a newly politicized European generation in the making (de Beauvoir, 1960). A very different reading of the Cuban Revolution was held by the diverse groups of students in the 1960s. For the already politicized UEC, the existence of a living model of revolution led by university students legitimized their claims to revolutionary agency and political identity.13 Consequently, the student constituency of the French New Left did not fail to be attracted to the Cuban Revolution. The latter part of the Algerian conflict was also characterized by a trickle of individual visits and exchanges of French student leaders to Cuba. First to travel there were Roland Castro (future director of La cause du peuple) and Michèle Firk, who was accompanied by a delegation of the UEC in the summer of 1961. Other official invitations followed, notably in the summer of 1964. From then on, the staff at the publication Clarté began to organize trips to Cuba. Yet, contact with the Revolution was generally only possible for a handful of privileged students such as Jean Schalit, the director of Clarté between 1960 and 1965 who was largely responsible for the subsequent critical position maintained by the publication and the UEC toward the PCF. This critical stand did not last long as the “rebellion” of Cubasupporting students had been put down and the leaders expelled by the middle of 1965, the year in which a totally new periodical, Le Nouveau Clarté, began publication with what was referred to as “. . . the trust of the PCF” (Editorial, 1965a: 2).14 Others close to the leadership of the UEC who traveled to Cuba included Janette Habel, Bernard Kouchner, Paul Ribes, Jean-Jacques Porchez, Marc Kravetz, and Christian Blanc—all student activists in the UEC or the UNEF in the first half of the 1960s.15 At this stage, the various political positions that characterized them later on were in the process of development. Yet, very clearly, all felt they had reasons to praise what they saw in Cuba. In the case of Ribes and Grumbach, they traveled to Cuba as a result of a personal invitation from Guevara after meeting him in Algiers in June 1963 (Hamon and Rotman, 1987). Although this generation’s intellectual significance cannot possibly be demonstrated by the quantity of written material produced, it is obvious that the Algerian and Cuban cases were key in its political formative experience. Other sectors of the French New Left understood the Cuban Revolution in totally different ways. Writing about the importance of the Non-Aligned Conference that Cuba attended as an observer, Gérard


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Chaliand, editor of Partisans, argued that there was no third way for underdeveloped countries and that neutralism only delayed the inevitable choices that had to be made between socialism, albeit adapted to individual national circumstances, or to remain subjugated by imperialist capitalism (Chaliand, 1961). Chaliand’s reference to socialism for the Third World represented a massive qualitative discursive change from the positions described so far, all of which advocated the Cuban case with regard to its natural place in the neutralist bloc. By taking a clear side in the global ideological divide, the position defended by Partisans was not so much New Left as orthodox. On the other hand, it championed the diversity of paths for the construction of socialism and the multi-polarity of forms this might take. By implication, Partisans also defended the ways in which these liberated countries could take shape including the revolutionary means, thus contradicting the official Soviet line about the desirability of a peaceful transition to socialism. This vision implicitly carried a new understanding of imperialism as capitalist domination under the guise of political freedom. In this sense, some elements of the French New Left foreshadowed equivalent British debates that took place a few years later. The subversive nature of such a position was demonstrated in the second issue of Partisans, which was devoted to the Cuban Revolution and, along with Frantz Fanon’s books, promptly banned and impounded by de Gaulle’s government because they disturbed the order of France in the context of the Algerian war (Habel, 1991). The militancy of the French student cross-section of the New Left was defined very early on because of its most significant formative experience, Algeria, whose independence had to be won by violent means.16 The degree to which violent (i.e., revolutionary) means of “liberation” were necessary and the trademark of the Third World became the central elements in the second period of Cuban political stardom in the French New Left. The enormous diversity in the composition of the French New Left reflected, on one hand, the wealth of living expressions of left-wing political traditions and, on the other, the political leading role of various social actors and generations, as it included ex-Communists, members of the Christian Left, young Communists, activists formed during the Popular Front period, particular groups of journalists, elements of the French intellectual elite and undergraduates undergoing a “crash course” in political militancy. Yet, for all the diversity, there were elements in common between actors and ideological trends, notably interest in a new concept to describe the emerging global reality of the Third World and their rejection of the “Old” Left. In the French context, one particular expression of that interest was mediated by the Algerian war. The sudden political

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awakening represented by Algeria was translated into an enthusiastic welcome for the Cuban Revolution. Yet, beyond the overall support for the Revolution, radically different visions of Cuba were held between those who claimed its neutrality or its lack of ideology to those who saw it as the founder of a new type of socialist society. Cuba’s political and ideological transformation was accompanied by a clearer definition of the French New Left and the rise of student politics to the political limelight. The Radicalization of the French New Left The mid-1960s brought about a transition between clearly distinctive embodiments of the New Left.17 In France, the period between the end of the Algerian war and the May 1968 events was part of an important formative process that touched on all identified sectors of the New Left. For the older generation of the New Left grouped around the PSU, its pluralistic character meant that widely ranging ideas coexisted in its ranks, especially after the end of the Algerian conflict. Factionalism divided the party between those who defended the alliance of the PSU with the PCF (the unitarists, including Bourdet)—a sector that wanted to work in coalition with the SFIO—and a third strand (the modernists, including Martinet) who wanted the PSU to develop into a revolutionary party of the “new working class” (Mallet, 1975; Sprinzak, 1976).18 These divisions continued well into the second half of the decade and in the 1967 Congress, it was the modernist faction that took control of the PSU under the direction of Rocard. Although until then the party had been committed to the democratic process, it became the only political party to support the 1968 student actions through its connections with France’s most militant trade union, the Confédération française démocratique du travail (CFDT), and the UNEF, making in this way the transition to revolutionary politics. The aftermath of the 1969 election brought a large number of young radicalized students to the PSU, but this euphoric revolutionary political orientation did not last beyond the early 1970s (Hauss, 1978). The aftermath of the Algerian war was a turning point for France Observateur. In a quasi repetition of events elsewhere, the permanent tension between a publication with more or less political concerns and a political movement came to a climax in 1963, with board confrontations over the identity and role of the journal.19 The differences of opinion between Bourdet and Martinet over PSU strategy extended to the role that France Observateur should play. Bourdet wanted to see the publication reflect the needs of the party; Martinet wished to maintain independence. In the end, the departure of Bourdet from France Observateur was


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accompanied by the arrival of several reporters from its sister publication, L’Express, including Serge Mallet, André Gorz, Kewes Karol, and Albert Paul Lentin. They would later become crucial to our understanding of the reception of the Cuban Revolution by the French intellectual Left. The new period inaugurated in 1964 also brought to the renamed Le Nouvel Observateur regular articles by leading intellectuals like Sartre, Michel Leiris, and André Breton (Rioux 1982; Muchnik, 1981). In spite of the remaining influence of the older generation of intellectuals and politicians, the main characteristic element of the New Left in the second half of the 1960s was the predominance of a young generation of politicized students who transformed themselves into gauchistes, the common name given to all small and radicalized political factions of the Left proliferating in the mid- to late 60s.20 Accounts of this process have emphasized the enormous influence of the Cuban Revolution on the student leadership and on an idea of student politics that went beyond the demands of a small elite. Marc Kravetz, leader of UNEF, argued that in the same way that Cuban students had gained consciousness of their political identity through their struggle against imperialism, French students had done the same as a result of the Algerian war, making them question the values of their own bourgeoisie (Griset and Kravetz 1965b). The 1964 Plan Fouchet, a proposed university reform widely opposed by students, and the consequent reactivation of student politics was the backdrop of the direct confrontation between the PCF and student organizations such as UNEF and the PCF’s youth wing, the UEC (Johnson, 1972). This confrontation marked the full emancipation of students as an independent political force that contested the legitimacy of the previous revolutionary party. The PCF responded to this with the standard accusation of students as petit bourgeois, lacking both revolutionary conscience and legitimacy to lead the proletariat (Sprinzak, 1976). Between 1962 and 1967, the UEC divided along ideological lines, which on the whole, represented the heterogeneity of the Communist world. The “Italian” section was interested in the process of de-Stalinization undergone by the Italian Communist Party (ICP) since the late 1950s. This reformist section allowed for the development of different tendencies inside the PCF a certain democratization of its workings and a rejection of dogmatic and authoritarian positions.21 The reformists took temporary control of the national organization between 1963 and 1965, but lost their pre-eminence in the UEC’s Eighth Congress (Raymond, 1965). Two other main factions showed their opposition to the PCF and were subsequently purged. Both belonged to what could be termed as the “Left” critique of the PCF. The Trotskyists, led by Alain Krivine, ceased to be part of the UEC in 1966 due to their opposition to the candidature of

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François Mitterrand, who was supported by the PCF. Alain Krivine led the creation of the Jeunesse Communiste Révolutionnaire (JCR) in 1966 that subsequently became the Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire (LCR). Attached to the Fourth International, the JCR was perhaps the group closest to the Cuban positions in France’s gauchiste atmosphere. The other current, the Maoist, was formed after the PCF’s Argenteuil 1966 summit. Within the context of the Sino-Soviet split and the national conflict between the PCF and the various student factions, a number of prominent students from the École Normale Supérieure (ENS), created the Union des Jeunesses Communistes Marxiste-Leninistes (UJCML) in 1966, a group that included Règis Debray (Khilnani, 1993).22 The main characteristic of these small groups, apart from the very mixed and confusing set of ideas they defended, was their tendency to continuously fragment in the years leading up to and immediately after the 1968 events.23 One element only was common to all of them: the degree to which they were prepared to use direct action and violence as political means. Yet for all the radicalization of these forces, the war declared on the French government and the capitalist system was eventually lost and, with defeat came either disappearance or assimilation into older forms of politics to become the new upholders of orthodox ideological positions.24 The Cuban Revolution and the French New Left: Part Two Given the complexity of gauchiste ideological positions, their engagement with the Cuban Revolution could only be contradictory. In the event, all three main gauchiste currents described above had rich personal contact with the Revolution—from Bernard Kouchner, an “Italian” leader of the UNEF who in 1964 demanded to know from Castro precisely why he was opposed to holding democratic elections in Cuba; to Janette Habel, a member of the UEC who made her way to the JCR and the LCR; to Debray, a member of the UJCML who later popularized the biggest heresy in revolutionary strategy by popularizing the “Cuban method” of transition to socialism.25 The second half of the 1960s was marked by enthusiasm for a Cuba that took the lead in the Third World and demanded of intellectuals, Cuban and foreign alike, a revolutionary role. This demand was responded to in France with enthusiasm for an island that played a critical role in bringing to the fore the idea of third-worldism.26 The difficulties surrounding the celebration of the Afro-Asian Congress in Algeria in 1965—which had to be postponed due to the increasing tension surrounding the Sino-Soviet split—gave the impression that the new form of solidarity in the Third World that characterized


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the first meeting in Bandung ten years earlier was a thing of the past (Balandier, 1965). Arguing that what was common to all the bearers of the name was their degree of underdevelopment vis-à-vis the rich countries (including the USSR), the door was opened to a second prise de conscience that doubted the validity of imported models of development for these countries, even when these were socialist ones. This criticism justified the intellectual enthusiasm felt in France for Cuba as the island played a critical role in bringing to the fore the idea of third-worldism. In short, Cuba’s leadership of the Tricontinental in 1966, followed by the Organization for Latin American Solidarity (OLAS) in 1967, cemented its revolutionary status across the world, making Third World synonymous with revolutionary struggle in the eyes of the world’s New Left. Playing second fiddle only to Vietnam, Cuba supported the opening of a second front in the Andean range, the Sierra Maestra of Latin America, in order to divide and defeat U.S. imperialism (Lentin, 1967a). The extreme seriousness with which Guevara’s ideas were taken by all sides in the armed conflict became painfully obvious after his arrest in Bolivia and the fear for his life it generated.27 From now on, all attention turned to both Guevara and Debray. Their Bolivian campaign, Guevara’s death and instant sanctification—principally among the 1968 students in revolt—and the worldwide campaign for Debray’s release dominated the press for the remainder of 1967 and part of 1968.28 Yet their major, if ephemeral, influence in Europe was perhaps more symbolic than real. This influence fell mainly on radicalized students and intellectuals who could imagine themselves demonstrating the same “intellectual commitment” reflected in the actions of these two men. Inherent in the definition of the New Left itself, the issue of the role of the intellectual was, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, an integral part of the attraction felt for the Cuban Revolution. Various early “expressions” of the New Left, such as France Observateur and Partisans, emphasized the necessary degree of intellectual freedom from specific dogma that constrained political and intellectual debate as did overtly theoretical publications like Arguments (Delannoi, 1984). In the Cuban Revolution, its initial enthusiastic reception from the New Left was based precisely on the degree of originality, creativity, and openness to new ideas it demonstrated. According to the early New Left, the Cuban Revolution was free of dogmatism and ideological rigidity. It was, as de Beauvoir famously noted, a revolution where military barracks were transformed into schools (de Beauvoir, 1960). However, this liberal concept of intellectual freedom reached its limit very soon, led by an increasing radicalization of French politics and a transition to different forms of intellectualism that required commitment through action as well as freedom of thought.

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Gauchistes and more generally New Left positions also exchanged views on the role of the intellectual that were imbued with the meanings that many leaders inferred from the Cuban Revolution. Guevara was perhaps the most important symbol of this. The influence of his revolutionary example was noticeable on a number of French student leaders who emulated his intellectual commitment by taking up his call to arms to take part in guerrilla activity growing in Colombia, Venezuela, Peru, and Bolivia. Michèle Firk and Pierre Goldman were perhaps the most salient examples of the Cuban Revolution’s influence on elements of the French New Left.29 For those who became protagonists of their own “revolution” in the streets of Paris in May 1968, Guevara had a presence,in his famous posters of that time and in the slogan shouted during student demonstrations: “Che, Che, Guevara!” and “Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh” (Ali and Watkins, 1998: 48). But perhaps the greatest expression of cross-fertilization between the French New Left and the Cuban Revolution was embodied in the figures of Debray and Guevara. Both men were heralded in Cuba as the quintessential embodiments of the total intellectual who could equally combine thought and action, providing the basis for a new form of intellectual commitment.30 The 1968 Cultural Congress was the heyday of collaboration, sympathy, and reciprocal interest between West European intellectuals and the Cuban Revolution. With more than 500 intellectuals from more than seventy countries, the Cuban Revolution announced that it was far from the closed, dogmatic, and ideologically inflexible revolution that the Soviet Union was accused of. Drawing on a religious analogy, Castro used the closing speech at the Congress to criticize orthodoxy and legitimize Cuba’s own developmental path, pouring scorn on those Marxists who had, in his eyes, become “a pseudo-revolutionary church” (Karol, 1971: 403). Gorz quickly pointed out the political significance of such an event, arguing that, for the first time in the history of socialism, a socialist country in its tenth year of revolution was accepted by intellectuals the world over, including Western Europeans who made up one-third of the participants (Gorz, 1968a: 20). Yet, the contradictions between the role that the Cuban Revolution wanted to impose on this European revolutionary avant-garde and the one European intellectuals—including students— saw themselves performing, soon became obvious. The separation between the French New Left and the Cuban Revolution Not every assessment of the Cuban Revolution by European intellectuals was as positive as some authors argue (Verdes-Leroux, 1989). Even when intellectuals saw themselves as part of the New Left movement, their


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comments often expressed independent thinking and measured criticism. Daniel Guérin, for example, made references to the excessive puritan views of a revolution in which homosexuality was persecuted and the degree to which school and work had been militarized, arguing that the paradise described by some French intellectuals after their short stay in Havana did not correspond entirely with reality (Guérin, 1968). These insights demonstrate that an honest understanding between the Revolution and the West European intellectual was never entirely reached. In hindsight, this view is easily tested by any serious assessment of Guevara’s writings, which often differed from French students’ perceptions of him (Minogue (1970). A general vision of the uncomfortable match between the Cuban Revolution of the late 1960s and the spirit of May 1968 in France was expressed by some of the participants at the first solidarity expedition from Europe, the Campamento cinco de mayo, in the summer of 1968. Originally proposed by Jacques Villier during the Cultural Congress of January 1968, the camp was organized by the Organización Continental Latinoamericana de Estudiantes (OCLAE) (Latin American Organization of Students), and gathered hundreds of activists in Pinar del Rio during July and August that year.31 Some French participants recalled the strangeness with which they received orders and had to function according to what in the Cuba of the day was a rigid military discipline. Stranger still (for some of the anarchist participants in the camp) was what Villier referred to as the widely practiced “cult of Che Guevara” by organizers and participants alike.32 But the signs of discord between the Cuban Revolution and the French New Left had already appeared by then. Karol recalls how the May 1968 events, born unexpectedly through great doses of voluntarism and unorthodoxy, went largely unreported in Cuba even though many of the student leaders in France were openly pro-Cuban in their views.33 When the revolutionary wave engulfing the world in 1968 made its way to Mexico and when Cuba remained silent about the massacre of hundreds of students and even sent a delegation to the Olympic Games that year, it was clear that both ideology and reasons of state forbade Cuba from speaking out (Karol, 1971). But the real catalyst in the clear distancing process that began that year took place when the Cuban leadership did not condemn outright the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968. Instead, the Cuban position was fudged with accusations about the illegality of the Soviet action while condemning the so-called “counter-revolutionary” path Czechoslovakia was taking and which, in effect, justified the invasion. Western intellectuals were outraged by the

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Soviet invasion and it was at this time, predictably, that the first criticisms were directed at the Cuban position, notably through Le Nouvel Observateur (Daniel, 1968). Surprisingly, Partisans, the most third-worldist of publications of the time, did not mention Cuba’s position on the Czechoslovakian affair, nor did it eventually reflect on the Padilla Affair. In fact, its coverage demonstrated an increasing lack of touch with the subject matter of the journal, the Third World, which became more concerned about student politics in France and throughout Europe. This eventually led to the discontinuation of the publication in 1971 and symbolized perhaps the quiet transformation of the New Left and the end of its original message. When they did criticize the Cuban Revolution, the student wing of the New Left did not indulge in outright condemnation but appealed for an understanding of the difficult circumstances through which the Revolution was living (Rouge, 1968). Representing the Fourth International, Rouge announced the position taken by the Ninth World Congress on the Cuban Revolution in April 1969 as one of total support, independent of the specific direction taken at that time. Similarly in 1970, the French section of the Fourth International, having noted the separation between Cuba and the European New Left circles, could afford to criticize the Revolution from “revolutionary” positions, defending its support for the Revolution and repeating—against every indication—that the measure of the Cuban Revolution was in its support for revolutionary struggle in Latin America (Maitán, 1970). The early 1970s marked Cuba’s entry into the Soviet fold, leaving the island’s revolutionary promise unfulfilled, a situation made more dramatic by Cuba’s incorporation into the Soviet economic and political sphere of influence. This ideological reorientation that followed also had implications for the model of intellectual fashioned by Sartre’s belief in the reconciliation of socialism and independence of thought. French intellectuals waited until the incarceration and subsequent public repentance of Cuban poet Heberto Padilla for “anti-revolutionary activities” before accusations of Stalinism became common in journals such as Les Temps Modernes and Le Nouvel Observateur (Revueltas, 1971; Daniel, 1971; González-Leon, 1971; Scammell, 1972). The public repudiation of the Revolution by French intellectuals was outspokenly matched by Castro’s depictions of critics as “. . . a mafia of pseudo-leftist bourgeois intellectuals and CIA agents” (Verde Olivo, 1971: 54) during the Cultural Congress in 1971, signaling the final break-up of relations between the New Left and the Cuban Revolution (Verde Olivo, 1971; Montaner, 1976).


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The picture that emerges from an exploration of the way in which the French New Left received and understood the Cuban Revolution throughout the 1960s suggests that, to the extent that the New Left was a multifaceted phenomenon straddling both theoretical and political elements, the reception of the Cuban Revolution was always complex and partial. This reception was mostly selective according to its role in justifying particular positions or aspects of these sections of the New Left. For example, while certain early Christian Left elements of the French New Left repeatedly appealed to Cuba’s neutralist vocation, students were drawn to the Revolution in the immediate aftermath of the Algerian war because it too seemed to give them a significant political role. A similar explanation can be found for the intellectual support of the time surrounding the 1968 Cultural Congress. Among this diversity, only one aspect maintained the unity of interest in the Revolution, namely the role Cuba played in the definition of and historical importance attributed by various groups of the New Left to the concept of “Third World.” The changing nature of the Third World was shaped by the Revolution’s own historical development and progressive radicalization. If, in the beginning, the term Third World was employed by pacifists, neutralists, and revolutionaries equally, the overall message rested with the anti-colonialist movement and with the search for political independence and democracy in newly liberated countries that demanded a place in the international arena. Reflecting Cuba’s own radicalizing circumstances during the second “wave” of enthusiasm for the Revolution, this message overtly tried to subvert Communist tenets defended by the living example of the Soviet Union and was dominated by an alternative path of the transition to Communism by means of multiple guerrilla focos in an increasingly frontal attack on the United States. In the end, only Trotskyist elements linked to the Fourth International stayed with the Revolution; the rest disengaged themselves due to their own political demise in the new France (i.e., the neutralists) or because of their disappointment with emergent signs of Stalinist practices in Cuba (i.e., Sartre and others). Yet, the limelight was stolen from revolutionary Cuba by the failure of revolutionary tactics, all too evident after the death of Guevara, and the example of peaceful revolution that the 1970 victory of Unidad Popular in Chile symbolized. European eyes now turned somewhat to Salvador Allende’s experiment in that country. To the same extent that Cuba sought the economic and political protection in the Socialist bloc, the 1970s signified a return to more “workerist” and thus “orthodox” positions in the political militancy of France.


Part

3

The New Left and Its Ideas


Chapter

7

Cuba and the Third World: Evolution of a Concept and a Relationship The Cuban Revolution’s political determination to lead the world’s movement for independence from colonial and anti-imperialist domination had conceptual and ideological implications shared by the various New Lefts presented thus far. This chapter begins the exposition of those conceptual elements that the various streams of the New Left held together. It starts by presenting the way in which the concept of the Third World evolved throughout the 1960s. The definition of the New Left was tightly connected to the Third World and its political evolution and radicalization followed closely that of the Third World, represented and led by Cuba. As argued in chapter one, it was ultimately the political evolution of Cuba through the 1960s decade that informed the theoretical arguments and depictions about the Third World and the role it played in international power relations. This chapter follows the process by which an attachment took place between the New Left and a new international political reality in the form of the Third World, exploring their parallel histories and eventual separation. The chapter presents these parallel histories before asking what significance the Third World played in the creation and maintenance of a coherent group identity among the various constituencies of the New Left. The answer to this question, further developed in chapter eight, lies in the second key element to the habitus and content of crossfertilization that took place between the various New Left memberships and is related to the identity and role that these memberships envisaged for the intellectual. The Third World’s relationship to the intellectual provides

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the natural link between this chapter and the next. First, however, we explore the Third World as a key element of cross-fertilization between the various New Lefts by examining some of the main publications that represented the New Left in the countries under study. The New Left Journals as Outlets of Cross-fertilization The thematic flows and intellectual cross-fertilization between the various groups that constituted the New Left can be followed and explored through representative periodicals in the various national cases chosen.1 This section includes a comparative description of some of these journals and intellectual groups and ideologies that constituted the New Left through shared authors, concerns, and world views.2 In the late 1960s, the Cuban New Left made a transition from political officialdom to occupying a place of intellectual hegemony, a change symbolized by the closure of Cuba Socialista and the emergence of Pensamiento Critico. Established in 1961, Cuba Socialista was a manifestation of the socialist character of the Revolution declared in 1961 and was intended for militants who needed to increase their political and ideological training (Castro, 1961a: 1). It was official in character and represented the views of the various organizations that went on to form the PCC in 1965, an organization that represented the fusion of the preRevolutionary Communist Party (PSP) with armed groups (DRE and MR26) of diverse ideological persuasion. The result was that the journal expressed a message at odds with orthodox communist discourse, reflecting more the views of MR26 than those of the former PSP. The ideological evolution of the publication also seems to confirm the tendency toward radicalization that characterized the New Left, in that the section devoted to the East European countries characteristic of the publication from its inception was dropped in November 1964. This was followed by a new format in the publication and a renewed emphasis on the Third World.3 This theme is a constant element in the journal and a discernible change of approach is not present throughout the years although the Tricontinental Conference of 1966 perhaps gave impetus to a greater emphasis on Latin America’s revolutions and Vietnam. Yet, Cuba Socialista included ideologically conflicting positions. On one hand, it often was unapologetic about the need for “liberation” and in favor of theoretical analyses of guerrilla warfare (Guevara, 1963a) as well as the need for this method against the advice of a number of communist parties (Lairet, 1965; Leon, 1963). The publication also included the views

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of enthusiastic supporters of anti-colonial revolution, members of the French New Left, and leading Cuban intellectuals who redefined Cuba’s intellectual past in terms of a modern, third-worldist vocabulary (Lentin, 1965a). Yet, it also included the analyses of orthodox Communist writers such as Santiago Carrillo, leader of the Spanish Communist Party in exile (Carrillo, 1962), and Jean Chesneaux, member of the PCF (Chesneaux, 1965). In a book review of Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth, Mirta Aguirre struggled to imply that his views on the development of colonial societies were identical to those of PCF cadre Jacques Arnault (Aguirre, 1965). In addition, another New Left theme in Cuba Socialista was recognition of the importance of concepts that describe collective groups other than “class” as legitimate forces of resistance to capitalism. In particular, Cuba Socialista explored the role of women, blacks, and students. Thus, the articles on women focused on their position at the heart of the Cuban Revolution (Espín, 1961). The treatment of race, however, was to see it as a subversive force only in the United States and not as a Cuban issue (Comentarios, 1965; Fontanellas, 1966). Finally, it is notable that the role of the intellectual/student was explored in Cuba Socialista only after 1964, aided by the important role of the Latin American Congress of Students (OCLAE) (Comentarios, 1964, 1966; Hart, 1966a, 1966b; Portuondo, 1964). The increasing importance attributed to the intellectual may have been a factor in the creation of the Pensamiento Crítico group. The appearance in Cuba Socialista of thematic interests, individual authors, and New Left interpretations owed more to Cuba’s revolutionary theory and practice than to imported New Left concerns. Thus, the journal contributed to the process of cross-fertilization between the Cuban Revolution and the European New Left insofar as it presented Cuba’s political practices and discourses to a forming European New Left that needed historical examples to identify with, show solidarity toward, and use as “definers” of an emerging political and intellectual identity. This history included the wide range of unorthodox policy directions Cuba followed throughout the decade that brought it to the attention of the European movement. Stemming from a form of Cuban radical nationalism that informed the MR26 and DRE, these ideas were expressed in the political leadership’s discourse through Cuba Socialista. Furthermore, this specific Cuban ideology was instrumental in setting the appropriate climate for promoting the replacement of Cuba Socialista and the intellectual supremacy of Pensamiento Crítico between 1967 and 1971. According to the final editorial of Cuba Socialista, its dissolution was necessary until such time as the as yet unannounced first Party Congress

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could take place (Editorial, 1967d). Since this only happened eight years later in 1975, both the closure of the journal and the justification that was offered reinforced the reading of the Cuban ideological evolution advanced in chapter two. The official reluctance to pronounce itself on the Sino-Soviet split and the limitations the existence of an official journal represented for the elaboration of purely Cuban visions of the world were temporarily solved by the closure of the publication. This allowed a new “class” of intellectuals to flourish and take over this task from the Party in the years leading up to the ten million ton campaign, giving a new degree of power and relevance to a new kind of intellectual. Judging by its contents, Pensamiento Crítico can be considered the best expression of the New Left of all the Cuban periodical publications in the 1960s. As soon as it began publication in February 1967, the journal set out to become a vehicle for pensar con cabeza propia (thinking with one’s own head), as demanded by the revolutionary situation of the time. Its main areas of interest was the return to Marx’s original writings in the hope of making Marxism relevant to an understanding of Cuba’s recent history and in opposition to those who advocated the adoption of Soviet interpretations of Marxism.4 This criticism was clearly reinforced by a positive appraisal of the existentialist critique of Marxism. In the process, Pensamiento Crítico sought the endorsement of recognized members of the European New Left such as Sartre to defend the need to re-examine Marxism in light of contemporary theoretical developments. In addition, the study of Cuba’s history through the new Marxist lens served the political purpose of constantly renewing existing ideas of “nation” in tune with the dominant political culture of the time (Azcuy, 1971). A second key concern of the journal was the potential for revolution in the First (capitalist) World with the 1968 student movements rapidly becoming a central focus. Several issues of the journal were devoted to the analysis of the student movements in Germany, Italy, the United States, and France. This interest was linked to explore the potential of different actors in the transition to socialism and concentrated on the role of youth, students, and intellectuals as a revolutionary class (Davidson, 1968; Jacobs and Petras, 1968; Sartre, 1968, 1969a). The main interest of this journal, however, was the political and economic situation in countries of the Third World. Pensamiento Crítico therefore fulfilled a role that was similar to that of the journal Tricontinental, that is, to describe and analyze Third World revolutionary situations. In the case of Pensamiento Crítico this aim went further, as there was a clear attempt to theorize the underdevelopment of the Third World, by publishing articles that explained this condition in light of emerging schools of thought in North America and Europe. For example,


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Andre Gunder Frank published his ongoing work in Pensamiento Crítico on four occasions in 1968–1969, which led to the publication of his best known work, Underdevelopment or Revolution. Following a global trend in the Western New Left, the journal included articles by Paul Sweezy, Giorgi Arrighi, Keith Buchanan, Wilfred Burchett, Bernard Couret, and Gérard Chaliand from journals such as Monthly Review Press, Socialist Register, New Left Review, Partisans and Les Temps Modernes. Republishing translated articles from the North American and Western European New lefts was totally in keeping with the stated objectives of the editorial group (Editorial, 1967a).5 Although the essence of Pensamiento Crítico’s intellectual purpose was to break away from any form of cultural and intellectual colonialism— from the Soviet Union as much as from the West—theorization of the imperialist phenomenon came almost always from the ranks of Western intellectuals, something that could be explained in terms of the legitimacy conferred by the ideas of established intellectuals.6 Another important element of the relationship sought with the Western New Left was a shared belief in the political role of the intellectual in society. Its relation to the Third World was explained in terms of the way in which a politically minded intellectual needed to identify with the revolutionary wars waged in the Third World. Echoing a contribution to the journal by Bertrand Russell, Pensamiento Crítico argued that it was necessary to treat the revolution as part of a single global war against the tyranny of imperialism reciprocated in the metropolitan nations (Russell, 1967). This view carried the implicit assumption that the Revolution was truly global in nature and shared with Cuba the understanding that the Cuban phenomenon was the spearhead of a global insurrectionary wave moving toward the First World. Based on the number of articles from other journals in the West that were reprinted in Pensamiento Crítico, it is possible to trace the rise and fall of the publication and, in turn, understand something about the New Left’s place in Cuba’s intellectual world. The importance of the New Left contribution to Pensamiento Crítico was at its peak at the time of the creation of the journal in 1967, when two-thirds of all published articles were reprints from the Western New Left. Yet, these contributions dried up enormously after 1969. By 1970, no more than ten percent of approximately 100 entries corresponded to foreign contributors. The rapid reduction of foreign material in Pensamiento Crítico in 1970 and 1971 may be explained as reflecting Cuba’s changing structural ideological circumstances driven by economic and political threats to the survival of the Revolution. Thus, the consequences of Cuba’s political hardening were also evident for the constituent members of Cuba’s New Left. If the

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New Left on the whole had dreamed of an equal relationship between the politician and the intellectual, the economic and political crisis of the early 1970s did away with that notion, imposing the same set of ideological values that gave rise to the New Left in Europe more than a decade earlier. In the English-speaking world, the North American Monthly Review and the British New Left Review and Socialist Register embodied the intellectual projects of the New Left better than most publications. This is because Monthly Review outlived many journals of the U.S. New Left such as Evergreen Review, Studies on the Left, and Liberation. The connection between the North American and the British New Lefts was initially facilitated by a shared language with the United States, but there was also a degree of direct experience and exchange between key individuals. The British journals represented two separate generations of the New Left. Although they originally coalesced in New Left Review, generational divisions in the editorial board gave way to New Left Review in 1962 run by a younger group of intellectuals who were more ideologically focused on re-establishing Marxist terms of reference. For this purpose, New Left Review turned to continental Europe, in particular, Les Temps Modernes. Representatives of the First New Left, on the other hand, created their own journal, Socialist Register, in 1964 and, curiously, shared their output mostly with Les Temps Modernes and Pensamiento Crítico (Shepherd, 1995; Wengraf, 1964).7 And yet, New Left Review and Socialist Register shared similar thematic concerns, shrouded in a project to discover a new type of intellectual (Wengraf, 1979: 4). Although commentary on the political developments in the UK was a task of the new intellectual, the thematic concerns that defined the two journals above included the 1960s revival of Marxism and the contemporary importance of the Third World. The first area of interest took off after 1966. In Cuba, the role of introducing contemporary theoretical developments in Marxism fell on Pensamiento Crítico whereas in France, it was the result of the combined effort of Les Temps Modernes and Partisans.8 The second and defining area of interest in the English-speaking New Left owed most to contemporary political developments in the Third World and followed its political evolution toward radicalization presented in the next section. As chapters five and six explored, this interest was awakened by the specific examples of Algeria and Cuba, bringing to life the decolonization process and leading to new understandings of the originality of socialist revolutionary experiences abroad.9 In New Left Review, 1963 began with a commitment to study the contours of the Third World and to inject an element of internationalization to British socialist


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thought (Editorial, 1963). But the period of fruitful exchange and fertilization with the European Left on this topic began in 1965 with the publication of Debray’s Latin America: The Long March and initiated an interest in the Third World that put a prime focus on the strategic concerns of taking power, a concern linked to the revolutionary potential of student or intellectual-led movements in the First World (Cockburn and Blackburn, 1969). In terms of exchange with Les Temps Modernes, this began in earnest with a relatively high number of article exchanges that peaked in 1968 and continued well into the 1970s. Of them, about half were related to the Third World.10 In the case of Socialist Register, its international focus was also central to the original vision of the journal as the first editorial committed to giving each volume a pronounced international character (Miliband and Saville, 1964). This promise was fulfilled by enlisting a large number of internationally recognized intellectuals whose thematic interests were dominated by the revolutionary experiments in the Third World.11 In terms of the French New Left, no other representatives received as much attention as Sartre and Les Temps Modernes. Khilnani (1993) argues that Les Temps Modernes exemplified Sartre’s attempt to reinvent the idea of the intellectual that was free from both party and state, a view echoed by Boschetti who argued similarly that “Les Temps Modernes embodied the crisis of relations between intellectuals and politics” (Boschetti, 1985: 301). Together with Partisans, Sartre and Les Temps Modernes represented the most active outlets of cross-fertilization with the rest of the New Left field.12 Sartre had a long presence in the French intellectual universe and entered the 1960s in the context of a crisis of a Stalinist PCF that suffocated intellectual practice (Poperen, 1972). Les Temps Modernes sought to revive the link between politics and the intellectual that informed New Left practice. The rapprochement between the two was provided by the issue of the Third World, in particular, by Sartre’s stance toward the Algerian war (Cohen-Solal, 1985). For its part, Partisans represented the voice of the younger generation. Although the range of concerns of Les Temps Modernes was vast, themes like the Third World, imperialism, and new Marxist developments were areas of interest it shared with other New Left journals, including British, American, and Cuban ones previously explored. Les Temps Modernes was also the most intellectually respected of the publications. Not surprisingly, Pensamiento Crítico reprinted more articles from Les Temps Modernes than any other publications examined, with Partisans coming in a close second.13 Evidence of cross-fertilization with Cuba followed the pattern established by other European journals in that analyses of revolutionary situations was left to European authors such as Gorz,

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Karol, Debray, and Habel, confirming that the European New Left saw itself as the producer of ideas and interpretations. Conversely, the Third World, Latin America, and Cuba in particular were seen mostly as providers of the practical examples or the testing ground for ideas produced elsewhere. This was also true for Partisans. Together with Pensamiento Crítico, Partisans was considered Cuba’s most representative journal of the militant third-worldism characteristic of the New Left, the belief in the primacy of the Third World as a platform for global revolution (Habel, 1991). The second issue in 1961, fully devoted to Cuba, revealed a very early association between the ideas of Third World liberation and “liberation” in the centers of the capitalist world, something that only became generally accepted within the New Left in the late 1960s. In this sense, Partisans was ahead of its time even though its analysis of the island came from Monthly Review (Huberman and Sweezy, 1961; Light and Marzani, 1961; Morray, 1961). However, the Cuban voice in the journal was dominated by the views of its political leadership, not its intellectuals.14 The impetus of the Third World dominated Partisans until the late 1960s.15 After an early euphoria about the Third World between 1961 and 1962, the subject was again revived by the influence of Cuba’s aid to guerrilla movements in Latin America and beyond, and dominated between 1966 and 1969. Thus, Cuba was presented as an ideal Third World revolutionary type, but the level of interest seen in other publications was not replicated in Partisans as Cuba seized it from January 1968—missing entirely the 1968 Cultural Congress and the implications of Cuba’s position in relation to the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia—in exchange for a marked interest in the student uprising in Europe. By 1972, when Partisans closed, the third-worldist perspectives dominant in the previous period were marginal, having recognized the limitations of the dominant conceptualizations that described them. As Chaliand argued a few years later, third-worldism, a phenomenon born out of the crisis of Stalinism and fed by the policy of peaceful coexistence, turned out to be a myth, overestimating the revolutionary potential of the Third World (Chaliand, 1977). By the end of the decade, one of the New Left’s most original contributions—bringing to the fore the potential of the newly independent countries to subvert existing global power relations—was outdated. But it was not always like this. As we explore in the next section, the meaning of the term “Third World” changed throughout the life of the New Left, becoming progressively radicalized during the 1960s. In the process, it mutated between representing a middle development path in the Cold war and occupying the global revolutionary stage. During this time, the


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vertical axis of global division between East and West gave way to a North-South horizontal axis. The next two sections explain this transformation as well as the Third World’s radicalization process which was similar to that of the Cuban Revolution. Third World or Third Way? The Non-aligned Movement and Peace The birth of the New Left can be outlined by making reference to the two predominant contextual elements of the international arena at the end of the 1950s. On one hand, the redrawing of the world map—due to many newly independent countries as well as those in the process of becoming independent—was often at odds with former masters who refused to accept the course of events and relinquish the cultural and ideological positions that justified former notions of empire. The development of events that led to the creation of the Third World occurred in the post–war era with the early independence of Syria and Lebanon in 1945, closely followed by India and Pakistan. Apart from the French presence in Indochina until 1954, Asia had been almost totally decolonized by 1950.16 Two major international conflicts, however, marked the interest and involvement of the New Left in Third World affairs. One was the 1956 Anglo-French campaign over the Suez Canal designed to neutralize Egypt’s leader general Nasser and regain a lost imperial pride in countries that, only a few years earlier, dominated the world. The other conflict was France’s involvement in the Algerian war of independence, perhaps the single most important formative experience of the French New Left (Nugent and Lowe, 1982), and one that explains the higher levels of radicalization showed by the young constituency of the French New Left. On the other hand, the newly independent nations were born into a world divided by the ideological systems of two superpowers, the confrontation of which led to the arms race of the late 1950s and threatened to lead the world to nuclear annihilation. The early New Left clearly understood the Third World in a manner that was particular to this novel global historical juncture. The product of a political and ideological evaluation of the new global order, the term was coined in 1952 by Alfred Sauvy in an article published in L’Observateur (Lacoste, 1985: 94) and later institutionalized by the Bandung Conference in 1955. The Bandung conference brought together a group of newly decolonized countries known as the Third World; at that time, it represented over 1.4 billion of the world’s inhabitants. Their recent emancipation also gave them a new status and weight in international politics, changing the total dominance of the previous world power centers in the old continent. Thus, beyond

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its descriptive power, Third World also had political and ideological connotations. In a world that was divided between First (led by Washington) and Second (Moscow) worlds, the Third World was conceptually used by the New Left to provide a counterbalance to the incipient Cold war. According to Barratt-Brown, the Cold War and the division of the world into two blocs were the main problems confronting the New Left in the late 1950s because they narrowed the intellectual opportunities for creative thought in relation to world problems (Barratt-Brown, 1989). The New Left fought to break the conceptual hegemony imposed by the reality of a world divided into two superpowers. It did so by giving importance to and emphasizing the role of the Third World and the mission of emancipation it was called on to play. Thus, the New Left made the Third World an integral part of its discourse. By promoting the international arena to the top of the hierarchy of concerns, the British New Left broke with the pattern of acting mainly on the home front.17 This internationalist move had many implications for policy and theory, including the New Left’s emphasis on peace and positive neutralism. The peace movement in Britain was represented by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND).18 The early British New Left was particularly interested in the CND because it broke with the existing political parties of the left, was the product of the same type of national and international crisis as the New Left itself, and was organized as a grassroots movement. The antithesis of this position was embodied in the Labour and Communist Parties, both representing the two sides of the Cold war at a national level and organized hierarchically. The New Left placed an enormous importance on the CND, and on the policy of positive neutralism, judging by the number of articles that appeared in New Reasoner and Universities and Left Review on these related subjects.19 Intimately linked to the emergence of the Third World, positive neutralism proposed to challenge bloc politics and create the space in which the hegemony of the superpowers was challenged. This was seen as the prerequisite for tackling world poverty and dealing with the threat of nuclear weapons (Worsley, 1989). In France, L’Observateur quickly became the main exponent of French neutralism, a policy they saw as imperative for achieving diffusion of Cold war tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States and one that required a clear European position. Not unlike its British counterparts, L’Observateur aspired to a French leadership in the sphere of neutralism, a policy that would permit a decrease in the risk of confrontation between the two superpowers (Rioux, 1982). For early New Left activists operating on the fringes of the British Labour Party, positive neutralism carried serious economic and trade


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implications. For instance, the policy called for a British refusal to join the emerging European Economic Community (EEC) on the basis that it would result in stronger links with the United States (Barratt-Brown, 1960). Beyond the international policy options advocated, positive neutralism thus had a comprehensive meaning as it clearly understood the interrelatedness of the ideological, economic and military spheres of the world system. Together with the nuclear disarmament of the world, neutralism sought to move beyond the existing binary limitations and logic that created the Cold war and now threatened the world. For that, the New Left proposed the creation of a new world economic order that would, through planned trade with the non-aligned Third World, allow for the mutual benefit of partners and, at the same time, guarantee world peace (Barratt-Brown, 1989; Chun, 1993). These views could be considered precursors to current notions of developmental aid and fair trade introduced by organizations such as the Third World Information Network and Oxfam. Barratt-Brown’s direct involvement in the latter exemplifies the coherent line of thought between policy proposals first made in the late 1950s and current thinking to which he contributed (Barratt-Brown, 1998). The idea of neutralism was doomed from the start. In France, members of L’Observateur decided to present a number of candidates to the legislative elections of June 1951 on a neutralist ticket. Their defeat put an abrupt halt to a potential institutionalization of the idea of neutralism in France though not to the importance placed in the international role of the emerging Third World. Thus, the idea itself had an impact in intellectual circles and foreshadowed one of the main definitional characteristics of the British First New Left later in the decade. In Britain, a growing realization dawned that there was a contradiction between the concept of neutralism and the attempts to create a third bloc in global power relations. Referring to Nehru, some in the British New Left realized that joining a bloc, no matter how neutral in name, would identify these countries as global political players and therefore not neutral by definition (Worsley, 1989). Beyond the concept of a Third World that included recently decolonized and neutral countries, the reality of the non-aligned movement—the closest thing to a third, neutral bloc at the time— corroborated the increasing realization that the Third World included divergent nations in the ideological and political senses. It was thus quite unrealistic to expect that these proposals ever had a real chance of success in Britain or worldwide.20 In theoretical terms, Kenny argues that E. P. Thompson tried to include a concept of “agency” in socialism by drawing a parallel between this idea and the possibility that the post-colonial countries might be

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allowed to develop in ways of their own choosing without having to follow any one of the preordained systems of economic and political development (Kenny, 1995). “Socialist humanism,” in particular, was used to describe ideological frameworks that owed nothing to capitalism or to the Soviet model of communism. This notion of “national agency” could take a physical expression if the non-aligned movement successfully fulfilled its mission of diffusing the Cold War tensions and providing an alternative socioeconomic mode of development. For a time, the Cuban Revolution defined the new society as neither capitalist nor communist, defending the ideas of humanism, third- way development, and positive neutralism in the Bandung spirit while participating as an observer in the non-aligned movement’s Conference at Belgrade in 1961. Yet by the mid-1960s, new interpretations and understandings were necessary. This initially took place mainly through the work of Worsley (1964) and Buchanan (1963) who began to question dominant interpretations of Marxism because they concentrated on class division as the primary source of conflict in society and were based on a uni-directional and linear conception of history in which “backward” nations essentially were on the same development path as capitalist societies. In opposition to class analysis, New Left authors believed fundamental world inequality between rich and poor nations as the great “alienation” of the twentieth century, considered more important than any gulf between worker and bourgeois in capitalist society (Worsley, 1964). The First New Left argued that positive neutralism was indeed the best practical means to challenge the growing gap developing under the existing political and economic order between rich and poor nations. It would be over this issue of “strategy” that the first and younger sections of the New Left came to clash most forcefully. Third World Revolution as the Only Way It appeared that the pacifist route to the emancipation of the Third World was a failure, partly due to an international course of events that precluded any realistic chance of putting into practice policies advocated by the New Left. Also, any ideas that focused on the centrality of the British or French roles in leading the proposed third, neutral bloc were contradicted by the reality of their empires. Clear signs of radicalization in the discourse about the Third World in the British New Left coincided with the transition to the Second New Left in the early 1960s. These ideas became more forceful at the end of the 1960s with the eruption of overt calls in favor of violence—a celebration of the heroism of guerrilla struggle and calls for the liberation of the oppressed peoples of the underdeveloped world, often


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romanticizing Third World regimes and turning a blind eye to emergent signs of authoritarianism. The process of radicalization, however, needed two main conditions. One was the redefinition of imperialism as a tool for the underdevelopment of the Third World; the other, a redefinition of the Third World itself, which ceased to represent a third, middle path of development and became identified with a common experience of imperialism. In theoretical terms, the gap between the First and Second New Left was bridged by authors like Worsley (1961) and Barratt-Brown (1960) who made a distinction between the old empire coming to an end in the 1950s and new forms of domination that had little to do with direct colonial rule and exploitation. They saw the unequal terms of trade between the former colonies and the West as the main problem that maintained colonial exploitation and as the continuation of a vicious circle that constantly increased such exploitation. However, Worsley and others developed this thesis further to uncover the underlying historical and social reasons for domination. The preservation of local hierarchies and social stratification in the newly independent countries—often more culturally linked to the social elites of the colonizing nation than to the rest of their society—ensured the continuity and transfer of exploitation from direct colonial rule to a post-colonial epoch. This gave rise to the persistence of imperialism in a form different from that of the previous epoch, one that emphasized the extension of the power of a class on an economic and social system from one country to another that did not need direct political rule through colonialism (Barratt-Brown, 1960). On the basis of this, imperialism per se did not disappear with decolonization, only its expression in the new international arena. The Third World as an actor gained independence but, in economic terms, the former colonies were still dominated. The naïve belief that the decolonization process was creating fully independent countries had to be replaced through a search of theoretical models that explained the global economic processes of exploitation. Yet, for all the efforts and valuable illustrations of the ways in which imperialism affected the development of individual Third World countries, some authors estimate that effective theorization was never achieved by the New Left (Birchall, 1981). By 1963, however, the new internationalism was openly declared in New Left Review, opening the journal to an absorption into global history and a thorough examination of comparative Third Word country studies (Editorial, 1963). This “intuitive” solidarity toward the Third World, however, foreshadowed a qualitatively new reading of imperialism. In ideological terms, once it had been established that imperialism was not a thing of the past, the process of radicalization of the New Left was only a natural development, a step forward. This gave way to a certain

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rehabilitation of the Leninist conception of imperialism, recasting it as an essential component of the capitalist search for profit. In the new thesis, however, imperialism was not followed by an eventual capitalist decline; rather, it was the means by which capitalist countries effectively produced underdevelopment in the Third World by pumping wealth out of the less developed nations. This idea left the door open to the claim that it was up to the less developed nations to break the new chain of economic enslavement and was foreshadowed by the New Left’s enthusiastic support for Third World revolutionary processes in the second half of the 1960s (Barratt-Brown, 1995; Lenin, 1966). The realization that a new form of imperialism was taking hold led to the emergence of Marxist reinterpretations which, in the 1960s, took the form of Dependency and World System Theories. Originally developed in Latin America, Dependency Theory can be traced back to the emergence of development economics as a discipline, the work of the Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLA), and to the Argentine economist Raúl Prebisch. In Britain and America, it is equally linked to Andre Gunder Frank, the Monthly Review group, and authors such as Paul Baran, Sweezy, Samir Amin, and Immanuel Wallerstein. These re-interpretations were based on the idea that the world capitalist system was biased in favor of the core capitalist countries and created a one-way flow of capital from the periphery to the developed countries. Arguing that this was a characteristic of the neo-imperialist epoch, some authors explain the mechanism of underdevelopment in terms of increasing division of labor between producers of raw materials and producers of manufacturing goods, with the terms of trade always benefiting the rich countries (Jalee, 1968: 97). In addition, the exploitation of the Third World was backed by an enormous military power that justified its existence with the need to police the world and bring into line any attempt from Third World countries to “opt out” of the hegemonic system. Any attempt to break free from this economic system carried the threat of invasion, as Cuba discovered in 1961, or worse, full-scale war as in Vietnam. In the last part of the 1960s, the moral outrage that these two examples provoked on the world’s New Left confirmed that only military defeat of the power that increasingly came to be equated with imperialism, the United States, would suffice. The general implication encapsulated in this vision of development—that the interests of the peoples of the rich and poor countries were in conflict—presented the major source of conflict in society as one between the “imperialist” north against the “exploited” south, a view expressed in Pensamiento Critico with the charge that the battlefields between imperialism and socialism had moved to the Third World (Editorial, 1970). This criticism justified the intellectual enthusiasm felt


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for Cuba as the island played a critical role in bringing to the fore the idea of third-worldism. For Cuba, this meant a renewed pre-eminence in New Left quarters between 1966 and 1968 driven by the island’s international attempts to galvanize revolutionary sentiments in the global south through the 1966 Tricontinental Conference and the creation of the Organization for the Solidarity of the Peoples of Africa, Asia, and Latin America (OSPAAAL), which, based in Havana, sought to regroup forces for a “revolutionary re-launch” of the Third World (Lentin, 1965b). Castro used this conference to publicly denounce the Chinese for meddling in Cuba’s internal affairs, prompting headlines that wondered if China was on the way to alienation from the Third World (Estier, 1966: 2).21 It did not stop the general perception in the New Left that the Communist bloc did not in fact reflect any coherent idea. Many commentators within the New Left had no illusions as to the potential reform of the Soviet Union either. In the meantime, revolutionary Cuba became the intellectual leader of the Third World for large sectors of the New Left.22 Cuba’s political and ideological influence in the Third World increased even more after Castro praised Douglas Bravo—a leading guerrilla commander in Venezuela who was expelled from the Venezuelan Communist Party for “adventurism”—in a carefully orchestrated move to publicly denounce any challenges to the peaceful path to revolution espoused by the communist parties. Thus the 1966 Tricontinental Conference led commentators to argue that, for Castro, neither Peking nor Moscow represented the homelands of socialism (Geoffroy, 1967). This was followed by the celebration of the Organization for Latin American Solidarity (OLAS) conference in the summer of 1967. In the interim, Cuba’s revolutionary standing increased in two ways. First, together with Vietnam, it occupied the leading position in the international struggle against imperialism. Second, the Cuban revolutionary experience was popularized by Debray in a way that contributed to the rebirth of the revolutionary Left in Europe, by presenting the revolutionary potential of Latin America. Along with a large contingent of Latin American and European revolutionaries who gathered in Havana, the OLAS signaled support for Cuba’s armed struggle as the only means of opposition to imperialism. It also symbolized a break with pro-Soviet communist parties, including some that were not invited to the Congress, and their theses (Maspero, 1967). However, this pinnacle of revolutionary status was only the culmination of a global role the Cuban Revolution had been trying to take on since it was first suggested to hold the Tricontinental in Havana. After all, the general idea that “the duty of every revolutionary is to make the

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revolution” was initially proclaimed back in 1962 in the Second Havana Declaration. Thus, Cuba’s organization of OLAS only represented the institutionalization of a Cuban ideological principle stated five years previously. Cuba’s position of leadership in the Third World and identification with the most intransigent representatives of revolutionary antiimperialism reached a peak between 1966 and 1968. This process was accompanied by the most heretical positions on the centrality of socialist revolution in the world’s economic periphery, the role of social groups other than the working class in the revolutionary process—such as students and intellectuals—and the necessity of a violent transition to socialism inspired by guerrilla tactics. This period owes much of its radicalism to the Vietnam conflict and the influence it had on the First World’s youth in equal measure to the Cuban Revolution and the theorization of guerrilla warfare by Debray. Just as the Tet offensive was in full swing, the radicalization of the conflict in the 1967–1969 period also brought a radicalization of New Left groups and campaigns in the West.23 New Left Review manifested the pervading mood, arguing that the resistance of the Vietnamese against the United States had become an inspiration for all those exploited by imperialism throughout the world and the New Left in developed countries since, in the long run, capitalism itself had to be destroyed worldwide (Editorial, 1967c). There were obvious similarities and differences between the two visions of the Third World outlined by the competing embodiments of the New Left in the late 1960s. Whereas both generations were aware of the qualitative change in the concept and workings of imperialism, the consequences they drew from this were very different. The British First New Left re-emerged in 1967 in the publication May Day Manifesto, aiming to develop a better understanding of the interconnectedness of the imperialist system with the view, never spelled out, of achieving a new international order. The publication specifically referred to Cuba as a direct challenge to the political and economic hegemony of the United States. Thus, it implicitly agreed with a revolution that clearly opted out of the imperialist system and sought to found a new international order, one free of economic oppression and underdevelopment (Williams, 1968). In opposition to this understanding of the Third World in a socioeconomic developmental sense stood the younger second New Left, which used the term as a call for armed struggle and revolution in the Third World as part of a universal fight against capitalism. But the collapse of interest in the revolutionary understanding of the Third World came about almost as quickly as its dominance had risen. Reflecting the obvious failures of armed struggle in the Third


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World—represented by the collapse of Guevara’s campaign in Bolivia— the new decade commenced with the rebirth of a different, albeit implicit, definition of the term. This included the publication in the New Left press, of studies about industrialized Third World countries with a sizeable working class and a history of labor struggle. A theoretical rebuttal to the third-worldism of the late 1960s was also reflected in the work of Bill Warren, published for the first time in New Left Review in 1973.24 Yet, the greatest criticism of the New Left must lie in its inability or unwillingness to reflect upon and take stock of the changing conditions that resulted in the failure of the third-worldist approach. Without serious assessment of these, coverage of revolutionary processes was simply dropped in the 1970s, abandoning any idea that the Third World could take center stage for original paths of development. From its beginnings in socialist humanism, a policy of neutralism, and peace, the New Left had transformed itself into a movement committed to revolutionary violence. In doing so, it followed a path similar to that of the Cuban Revolution. The identification of a new intellectual class with the revolutionary processes in the Third World could only have direct consequences for their identity once the concept and the political strategy attached to it were no longer valid. The Long Decline of the Intellectual in the Twentieth Century The story of the intellectual in the twentieth century is one in which society offers ever-decreasing spaces for action to an intellectual at the mercy of a dominant mass media. This marginalization takes place because the intellectual increasingly is forced to appeal to diverse audiences, thus losing some of the “ivory tower” nature in the process of intellectual production, and because this is a medium generally outside the intellectual’s control. The “death of the intellectual” was widely announced in the last part of the twentieth century by authors such as Jacoby (1987), who investigated the end of the “public intellectual” and his/her withdrawal into academia, and others who wondered why and how this dominant position of the intellectual was lost so precipitously (Hazareesingh, 1991; Jennings, 1993; Khilnani, 1993; Reader, 1993; Ross, 1990, 1991; Schalk, 1997). All authors stressed the impasse in the importance traditionally attached to the intellectual, adding to the wave of “ends” announced in the 1990s that included the end of the Third World (Harris, 1990) and the end of history (Fukuyama, 1992). For their part, Hamon and Rotman (1981) argued that the monopolization of access to, and increasing interpenetration of, the media with the academic world produced a

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sort of intellectual establishment—an “intellocracy”—that occupied strategic positions in the opinion-forming apparatus of society, resulting in more and more conformist messages and an inability to foster criticism. Besides the disagreement on the general picture, the end effect was the same in all cases: the intellectual is figuratively dead and no longer the critical voice of society. The various positions described above share a basic understanding of a key characteristic of the intellectual: the “true intellectual” must be defined as that person whom society recognizes as having the legitimate role to “speak the truth to power” (Said, 1994). This position assumes that the true role of the intellectual is keeping in check the abuses of power in which elites might indulge, thus ensuring a politically committed, yet positively critical, position for a figure who otherwise helps to maintain a healthy system of governance.25 This definition claims its heritage back to the origins of the term “intellectual,” universally acknowledged to have been used as a noun for the first time during the Dreyfus affair (Johnson, 1966; Ory, 1990). This general understanding of the right of the intellectual to enter the political world and demand some form of commitment has, in the process of the development of the twentieth century, spread from the specifically French national context to be universally accepted.26 Yet, the idea that intellectuals can or should have a political role in society was not always predominant. Julien Benda, for example, lamented the passing of an idealized past in which the intellectual maintained a “clerical detachment” from public debates (Benda, 1955). This position was ultimately unsustainable, as Paul Nizan suggests, arguing that detachment is easily conflated to connivance with the abuse of power (Nizan, 1971). Arguing from a Marxist position, Nizan rewrote the terms of intellectual commitment and denied the neutral, non-ideological claim to the status quo made by liberal authors. In the case of intellectual commitment, Nizan’s response to Benda foreshadowed a debate that resurfaced at various points in the last century. As for the effect it had on the definition of the role of the intellectual, Nizan’s Marxist commitment preceded what became the French intellectual paradigm in the post-war period, first at the side of the PCF, and then independent of the Party. During the postwar period, the Communist Party offered intellectuals a direct link with the embodiment of the universal revolutionary project as it was represented by the Soviet Union. In addition, the Party gave intellectuals a role both as intellectuals and as committed revolutionaries (Khilnani, 1993). In France, the affiliation of intellectuals to the Communist Party was significant in the immediate aftermath of World War II, denying existentialist positions that the intellectual acted in a political vacuum,


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embodying universal ideals. Though never a member of the Communist Party, Sartre perhaps best reflected this transition. After the war, “historical responsibility” and engagement were the order of the day for French intellectuals, always in the shadow of a PCF whose “gravitational force” gave them a sense of identity and presented their “calling” in coherent terms (Ory and Sirinelli, 1986). The crisis of this conception of the intellectual began with the 1956 events in the Soviet Union and Hungary, setting in motion the biggest challenge to the monopoly ever held by the communist parties on the definition of the intellectual. The Left became problematic for the intellectual since, after 1956, it reformulated his/her role to that of mere propagandist. This situation was met with a reaffirmation of the role of the intellectual, demonstrated by the birth of the New Left. The rebellion of intellectuals that the birth of the New Left signified was compounded by the communist parties’ stand on the Soviet invasion of Hungary. At this time, a large intellectual membership began to explore alternative means of self-definition by moving out of the orbit of the communist parties. The period between the Algerian war and May 1968 was definitional for the French New Left, marking the beginning of the end for the historical association between intellectuals and the Left (Ross, 1990). Once the image of the communist parties was questioned and the gravitational force exerted by them began to diminish, the entire debate about the role of the intellectual in society resurfaced. It was a mixture of insecurity and arrogance on the part of the intellectuals themselves: insecurity, as “safe” roles inside the Party structure began to vanish rapidly and were not replaced by other, similar political organizations; arrogance, as the intellectual aimed to take on a revolutionary role that neither the Party nor its natural constituency, the working class, appeared to live up to. Ultimately, the defining moment of the New Left was also a critical test of independence of thought and action as the endemic dogmatism of the Party drove many away either voluntarily or by force. Thus, the 1960s bore witness to a phenomenon never matched since: the rise of the figure of the politically committed, yet independent, intellectual. In France, this process was explained by the lack of space for intellectuals, already mobilized against the Algerian war, to participate meaningfully in the working-class institutions (Ross, 1991). The real separation of intellectuals from the communist parties was paralleled by the equally increasing reflection of this separation in debates, self-definitions, and intellectuals’ search for a new identity and role. Sartre typified the characteristics of this new version of the committed intellectual. Clearly positioned on the Left, but outside the organization that until the late 1950s had been the point of reference for left

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intellectuals, Sartre appealed to a historically specific understanding of commitment advocating a role in terms of engagement with the politics and conflicts of the time. The new form of intellectual engagement typical of the New Left intellectual came in the form of interest in and commitment to the Third World. Two alternative forms of commitment dominated. The first was to defend the liberation of the ex-colonial world according to universal principles of justice and the right to self-determination. The second was a commitment to the Third World that was born out of rewritten Marxist orthodoxies. These two general ideological strands, though on the Left, included an enormous variety of intellectual motivations for showing support for the anti-colonial and, later in the decade, third-worldist struggles. It included support for the Third World, on purely ethical grounds, against what was seen as the abuse of power of the West. These positions were very close to some Christians’ concern for the fate of the oppressed that would later feed into the discourse of Liberation Theology, mostly in the Third World and with particular strength in Latin America. Most important, however, was the Marxist contribution to this form of commitment that discovered in the Third World a new and more deserving subject for carrying out a global revolution (Crouzet, 1963). As previous chapters demonstrated, the Cuban Revolution typified the New Left’s interest in the Third World, making this particular example a valid case study that fits in with the general trend of exchange between intellectuals in the First and Third Worlds. This trend went from mutual attraction, followed by varying degrees of cooperation and exchange, to eventual separation. The reciprocal attraction between the European New Left and the Cuban Revolution may be explained by a number of factors. First, the Cuban revolutionary experiment openly appealed for the participation of radical intellectuals out of favor with the state in their respective countries. Second, they shared disdain for Communist dogmatism. Thus, since the Cuban example fed the European New Left’s sense of identity as distant from Communist doctrine and political practice and the New Left stimulated revolutionary Cuba’s intellectual need to “think itself ” in ways that went beyond established orthodoxies, both partners in this exchange justified each other’s existence. It was no coincidence then that the issue of the role of the intellectual became a point of confluence. The type of commitment to the Third World expressed by European intellectuals did not last any longer than the practical attempts to carry out worldwide revolutions themselves. By the early 1970s, Cuba no longer was considered fashionable in New Left circles. Although explanations vary, most commentators today agree that the failed commitment to the Third World of the early 1970s was a turning point in the long-term


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decline of the political influence and commitment of intellectuals (Hourmant, 1997; Lacoste, 1985; Liauzu, 1986; Schalk, 1991; Sorum, 1977). Hourmant and Schalk offer specific case studies of the connection between the Third World and intellectuals in France and the United States, respectively. Hourmant explores the fascination with China among French intellectuals in the 1960s as an example of Third World commitment and argues that the decline of the Chinese revolutionary myth came in the 1970s, accompanied by the disappearance of the intellectual star and his prophetic political forecasting (Hourmant, 1997). Alternatively, Schalk studies in depth the parallels between Algeria and Vietnam—from the point of view of the responses of committed intellectuals—to ascertain “how [these responses] related to the status and possibly the survival of the intellectual class” (Schalk, 1991: 273). In both cases, there is agreement with Sorum who argues that the involvement of intellectuals in supporting the Third World may prove to be the last great battle in the twentieth century’s long tradition of intellectual engagement (Sorum, 1977). Lacoste (1985) and Liauzu (1986) trace the divergent trajectories of the idea of the Third World and the intellectuals who first defended it from its beginnings in the Bandung movement to the openly anti-Third World movement represented, among others, in the work of Pascal Bruckner who offers a right-wing critique of what he describes as a form of masochism of intellectuals who hypocritically nurture a sense of guilt in the face of the misery of the Third World (Lacoste, 1985). Whereas Lacoste’s main target is the underlying ideology of Bruckner’s antitiersmondisme (anti-thirdworldism), Liauzu argues that the term “Third World” offers a window into the understanding of the recession suffered by the militant commitment characteristic of a particular section of the Left in the 1960s. Further, he argues that the object of study was not the Third World but those who talked about the Third World, since “when intellectuals talk about the Third World, they speak about themselves and for themselves” (Liauzu, 1986: 74). The distinction described by Liauzu lies at the heart of this book’s understanding of the difference between the historical interaction among European and Cuban intellectuals in the 1960s and the message of their intellectual production; between a personal mutual interest and exchange and the way this cross-fertilization translated into an understanding of their own role in the revolutionary process they advocated. Given that this exchange provides clues to the specific identity of New Left intellectuals, the next chapter explores the changing concept of the intellectual that various memberships of the New Left espoused, as presented in their own intellectual production.

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The entry into and gradual evolution of the term “Third World” in the discourse of the New Left reflects a relationship between two historically contingent realities. This relationship brought about a particular type of commitment forced upon a New Left that lacked more traditional forms of commitment. Since the New Left was defined according to this new type of engagement, the very notion of intellectual that underlies the New Left is defined also with respect to his/her relation to the Third World. This explains why when the revolutionary aspirations of the Third World suffered irreversible setbacks, the notion of intellectual attached to it also failed to become a reality. The next chapter explores this issue in more detail.

Chapter

8

The New Left: Activists or Intellectuals? Although the political expressions and campaigns of the 1960s were the result of very specific national circumstances and concerns, the individual groups that comprised the New Left in the countries we have explored so far shared many similarities in their political and ideological makeup. Throughout the book, Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of the field explored in Chapter one has been used to refer to the New Left. The “New Left field” thus becomes a heuristic tool that can help us locate both the dynamic relation of exchanges between the schools, journals, and individuals that constituted the field as well as the intellectual capital they traded. Part of the affinity among journals and individuals is demonstrated by the personal interaction and exchange that existed between them throughout the decade. This rich personal experience shared by members of the New Left field was reinforced by an abundant intellectual production that often showed signs of common interest and cross-fertilization. This chapter explores the discursive nature of the changing role of the intellectual within the New Left during the 1960s. It develops the argument about the significance that the search for an independent, yet committed, role of the intellectual was key to the very definition of the New Left itself. In the first section, this is pursued with reference to the anti-Stalinism that characterized the original membership of this movement. This is followed by an exploration of the discursive models of the intellectual debated within the New Left presenting the four key ideal types that dominated debates throughout the decade. The final part of the chapter superimposes those ideal types to the various generations, activists, and intellectual groups that constituted the New Left. The

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chapter argues that, to the same extent that attachment to the idea of the Third World failed to provide a secure anchoring for the intellectual, the New Left failed to produce an original and alternative role for his/her persona. The New Left as a Search for the Role of the Intellectual The backdrop to the debates generated by the changing role of the intellectual throughout the decade is provided by the contention that the New Left, no matter its political and ideological diversity, shared a collective identity that built around the type of intellectual it wanted to represent. Sartre made this point most succinctly in relation to the great diversity of figures from the New Left who participated in the war crimes tribunal set up by Bertrand Russell to put the international spotlight on the role of the United States in Vietnam. It included, for instance, Dave Dellinger, a pacifist, but also Stokely Carmichael, who argued for the inevitability of violence as a response to racism. For Sartre, the link between them was that they shared common ideals and that they all became representatives of the masses (Sartre, 1967). This section begins with the presentation of the reaction of the different component members of the New Left community to a common element that threatened their status as politically committed, yet independent, intellectuals: Stalinism. This common target of denunciation dominated the pages of the New Left press in no uncertain terms, although the political contexts within which those denunciations took place were different in each case. For example, in Cuba, where 1956 had had no significant impact on intellectuals, overt criticism of the corrupting effect Stalinism had on the intellectual’s role never took place. This was either because Stalinism was seen as a potentially valid model or because the party most closely associated with it, the PSP, became a key component of the political apparatus in the Revolution.1 Instead, when infighting for hegemony among the various intellectual groups took place in the mid-1960s, the various positions taken on a single issue—the debate over the appropriateness of the manuales (textbooks) for the teaching of Marxism—encapsulated the two contending models of the intellectual struggling for supremacy. On one side stood the EIRs; on the other, the newly created Philosophy Department at the University of Havana. This infighting produced accusations of dogmatism for those positions that aimed to universalize and apply to Cuba the theoretical basis on which Soviet society was built. The famous manuales represented that

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experience and, in the resistance shown to them, it is possible to see an attempt to define intellectual activity through the power of reason and critical thinking. This argument, as it appeared in Cuba Socialista, contended that revolutionary instruction had to rest on methods that taught how to reason, how to think dialectically, and how to develop a selfcritical spirit to prevent the formation of dogmatic thought (Soto, 1967). Where the New Left had been born out of the catastrophe that 1956 signified for the communist parties, the critique of Stalinism was far more direct and pertinent even though the wider social effect of a crisis in the Communist Party was less visible in the United States than in Europe. In the British case, the “revolt” of the Communist Party intellectuals, the famous historians’ group, signified in itself a self-definition through a concept of the intellectual not shared by the Party leadership. The break with the organization that had for so long given left intellectuals their identity through a process of shared experiences and activism had enormous personal and emotional consequences for this collective membership. This heterogeneous movement managed to develop a devastating account of Stalinism as the overwhelming weight of the political and ideological lines on the creative possibilities of thought denied the very essence of what it was to be considered an intellectual (Kenny, 1995). If Cuban dogmatism referred to the adoption of the Soviet-specific political experience on the island, its European example demanded that the intellectual become a servant of the “universal” class, the proletariat; or rather, of the political body that acted as agent of the working class, the Communist Party. For the intellectual, this resulted in the total subordination of creative activity to the demands of the political apparatus. The intellectual became a pamphleteer of a “written creed,” yet retained a symbolic role at the pinnacle of the party structure. The anti-Stalinist critique of the First New Left was best represented in E. P. Thompson’s notion of socialist humanism. Along with the French existentialist Marxist project, it attempted to rescue Marxism from the grip of the communist parties in order to redress the mechanistic understanding of history characteristic of Stalinism. This philosophical endeavor to develop a notion of human agency had direct implications for the debate about the role of intellectuals. Although perhaps not realized at the time by the participants themselves, a clear connection existed between the philosophical objectives and their political consequences in terms of the new role increasingly played by intellectuals in the 1960s. Later in the 1960s, an increasingly radicalized student movement also led the accusations against Stalinism. In Cuba, this type of criticism was veiled by the issue on the adoption or rejection of Soviet textbooks. In Britain, accusations of Stalinism were also mediated by explicit reference

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to the events of May 1968 and the role, or lack of it, played by the communist parties in those events. The deleterious political effects the communist parties suffered during the potential revolutions of 1968 were discussed in various issues of New Left Review. Referring to the French case, issue 52 criticized the PCF for choosing the reformist, democratic, and electoral path over the truly revolutionary one; issue 63 criticized a similar attitude on the part of the CPGB as reflected in the document The British Road to Socialism (Vincent, 1968; Warren, 1980). Accusations of Stalinist politics for the effect they had on intellectual practice had given way to accusations of the same politics on the basis of their reformist and anti-revolutionary nature (Editorial, 1968a).2 In France, criticism of Stalinism’s influence in the life of the communist parties also played an important role in the search for the New Left’s soul. The critique was more open than in the British counterpart due to a much greater presence of French communists in the politics and intellectual debates of the Left. In a damning critique of the past role played by intellectuals inside the communist parties, a member reviewed his own responsibility in having for so long given legitimacy to the anti-intellectualism characteristic of Stalinism. The member spoke of the rigid conception of party discipline and the need for unity as the political justifications for Stalinist abuse, leading to a distortion of the principles of democratic centralism, a reinforcement of centralization and personal rule, and an increase of bureaucracy (Amendola, 1962). This control had more than the purely theoretical consequences of putting a lid on the individual freedom and creative spirit of intellectuals within the Party. In a condemning article on the role of the PCF in writing, and rewriting, its own history, Pierre Vidal-Naquet criticized in 1965 the continuous lies and omissions, and showed how in a contemporary history of the PCF the Stalinist period was glossed over with hardly any references to the man himself other than to point out the date of his death in 1953. More depressing, in his view, was the role of Marxist historians responsible for interpretations that offered sustenance to these abuses of power (Vidal-Naquet, 1965). The gauchiste movement was much more institutionally rooted in the PCF than was the case in Britain or in the United States. This was reflected in the various political formations that emerged from it in the 1965–1967 period. In the case of Partisans, the rejection of those forms of political Stalinism that had a negative effect on the possibilities of frank theoretical and political discussion was openly proclaimed, as expressed in the editorial of issue 19. Claiming to offer no political line, it printed the approval of readers who enthusiastically welcomed the journal because they could read in it everything one could not find in

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l’Humanité, including perspectives defined by anti-dogmatic Marxists not overwhelmed by the weight of the PCF (Editorial, 1965b). Consequently, the student wing of the PCF, the UEC, argued that the prevalence of Stalinism in the Party impeded the free circulation of ideas. This argument justified abandoning the institutional protection of the PCF in 1966. In reference to the history of the gauchiste movement embodied in the UEC, Partisans argued that between 1956 and 1962, the student organization of the PCF served to relay and further increase the volume of criticism that existed among Communist intellectuals whose critique of Stalinism was dressed in demands for greater internal democracy. It was only at the sixth congress that the critics finally took part in a public and visible crisis (Partisans, 1966). Besides the well-known political incidents between the student wing of the New Left and the Communist Party, notably in France, the Stalinist phenomenon had philosophical underpinnings that were mostly studied in publications with a relatively greater theoretical input such as Les Temps Modernes. With regard to the Stalinist solution to the problem of the relationship between the political and the intellectual spheres of the Party, it was left to former Communist intellectuals to make an analysis. Writing about the politico-intellectual interface at the pinnacle of the Communist Party, Edoarda Masi, a veteran of the Italian Communist Party, declared that the Stalinist solution to the relations between politicians and intellectuals was a compromise in which decision-making powers rested with the politicians in exchange for the privileged recognition of intellectual status that was guaranteed on condition that they became mandarins, propagandists determined to put theory at the service of politicians. Thus, argued Masi, in Stalinism “the revolutionary function of both groups is suppressed, power is institutionalized and the correct relation between theory and practice is destroyed” (Masi, 1971: 1383). The critique provided the basis from which to offer negative assessments of Stalinist ideology. In an article widely disseminated in France (through Les Temps Modernes) and in Britain (through Socialist Register), André Gorz dissected the Stalinist ideological phenomenon, arguing that it strictly identified the Soviet Union with socialism. Further, in relation to the intellectual, the article argued that, by emphasizing the Soviet Union as the ideal of a world victory of socialism in the distant future, Stalinism solved the question of global alternatives to capitalism without the need for the mediation of intellectuals (Gorz, 1968b). This brings us back to two important elements mentioned at the beginning of this section. First, Stalinism involved the imposition of the specific Soviet experience as a universally valid one. Second, stemming from the former, since the universal model was ever present in Soviet

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society and in the reality of the Soviet camp, the mediation of intellectuals, especially of those who might conceive of potential alternative futures, was redundant. The importance of this statement for the definition of the intellectual is crucial. If Stalinism, either in terms of political practice or ideology, was seen by most constituencies inside the New Left as their common enemy partly because of the implications it had for intellectual practice, then it follows that those who shared an external or critical position toward the Party were driven by a common concern for a workable definition of the intellectual. The models on which they based their search were varied, and either implicit in their actions or explicit in their discourse. The following section surveys these models and explores their shortcomings as they were reflected in the various constituencies of the New Left.

The Role of the Intellectual in the New Left’s Discourse: A Story of Four Models Sartre’s “Traditional Intellectual”

Sartre’s post-war contribution to the issue of the role of the intellectual in society appeared in Les Temps Modernes in 1947.3 Representing the ethos of a journal that deliberately broke disciplinary boundaries in favor of mixing political, literary, and social commentary, Sartre saw the intellectual as a representative of the masses; rather, he argued, the masses, the universal class, spoke through the intellectual (Khilnani, 1993). Having moved from a position of extreme individualist existentialism before the war to one in which he advocated a role of the intellectual in terms of engagement with the politics and conflicts of the time, Sartre immediately ran into the problem of seeing his role taken away by a political formation (the PCF) and the embodiment of the universal class (the working class) in an integrated “whole” that Marxism could explain and bind together. Thus, the free intellectual Sartre claimed to represent had little claim as the voice of the people on which his own identity rested. Although, just as he maintained a position against the interference of power on ideas, Sartre never formally joined the PCF, and the 1950s would be characterized by a constant redefinition of his position toward this political formation. He joined the ranks of the fellow travelers when he visited the Soviet Union in 1954, but Sartre was also a prominent voice in the break with the Communist Party after 1956 that came to define an entire generation and gave impetus to the search for a renewed concept of the committed intellectual. As before, Sartre turned to the possibility that the intellectual might be capable of gaining universal knowledge. To his

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aid came the international political events that produced new independent countries whose whole sociopolitical context was challenging preordained truths. Was Castro—given his ability to “speak the mind of the masses”—the embodiment of the individual with universal knowledge?4 Sartre’s ultimate philosophical failure in this search, reflected in the abandonment of his Critique of Dialectical Reason, signals the progressive deterioration of his conceptualization of the intellectual (Khilnani, 1993).5 Evidence of this deterioration is most obvious in many of the articles published and reproduced in the 1960s in the New Left media. During his tour of Japan in 1965, Sartre produced the most detailed account yet of the intellectual. “A plea for intellectuals,” as it came to be known, tried to theorize a concept of intellectual later repeated in many subsequent pieces.6 The intellectual, it argued, was always recruited from among the so-called “technicians of practical knowledge” such as scientists, doctors, lawyers, or academics. The condition of possessing practical knowledge did not automatically produce an intellectual; another condition was necessary for this, one that brought to the consciousness of the potential intellectual the reality of the contradiction between himself as an individual with special knowledge, and society. Thus, according to Sartre “every technician of knowledge is a potential intellectual since he is defined by a contradiction which is none other than the permanent tension within him between his universalist technique and the dominant ideology” (Sartre, 1974: 245). This permanent tension was brought about by the contradiction between a practical knowledge that aimed at universality, and a historically specific position of the technician of practical knowledge immersed in a bourgeois society that maintained pretensions of universality only with the aid of an ideology. To describe the technician of practical knowledge as an intellectual, the individual had to become aware of this condition.7 Using a Hegelian concept to describe the awareness of this contradiction, what he called “unhappy consciousness,” Sartre captured the characteristic that in his view best described the identity of what he called the “classical” or “traditional” intellectual. Thus, Sartre qualified the often quoted general definition of intellectual as “someone who used his intellect” to one that included a political commitment. For Sartre, being uncritical and politically disengaged was tantamount to being a mere “technician of practical knowledge” or a “theoretician of the bourgeois class” (Sartre, 1968: 192). The role of “technician of practical knowledge” demanded a type of bad faith—an unwillingness to live, experience, and act on the inherent contradiction between the universal knowledge of the technician and the particular type of society this knowledge served. This distinction between “technicians of

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practical knowledge” and “intellectuals” is very close to that between “intellectual workers” and “intellectuals” described by Paul Baran. He argues that the difference between the two lay in the ability of intellectuals to recognize the specificity of the bourgeois culture and ideology and to think beyond the boundaries they imposed by acting as social critics and standing in defense of the progressive forces of society (Baran, 1965). However, taking a left-wing political position was, by itself, no guarantee of becoming a committed intellectual. This affected those too close to revolutionary parties or other formal structures of power. For Sartre, the intellectual who follows a revolutionary process becomes powerless if he is tied to the workings of a party, something he must always contest (Sartre, 1974). So while the intellectual’s role was to show the particularism of bourgeois society disguised as universalism, in the case of collaboration with a revolutionary party he had to always maintain a critical distance and limit his analysis to the general principles and directions, leaving the detailed programmatic aims and objectives to the party (Sartre, 1968). The distance between the party and the intellectual was critical to his view and critique of dominant revolutionary models of the time, mainly because Sartre never really renounced the concept of individual freedom and, in the case of the intellectual, a basic independence of thought. Thus, after the failure of the May 1968 events, Sartre did not follow the revolutionary student groups’ emphasis on revolutionary organization and maintained instead the basic principle of freedom of thought while continuing to search for the intellectual’s role in society. For Sartre, the intellectual “is someone who, being loyal to a social and political reality, never stops questioning it [. . .] if there is loyalty but no doubt, something is wrong; he stops being a free man” (Sartre, 1969a: 288). The point is key to an understanding of his own behavior because, in a prophetic comment on the reasons why he would break relations with Cuba in 1971, Sartre argues that power always tries to use intellectuals for its own propaganda while distrusting and making them the first victims of a purge (Sartre, 1974). For Sartre, the intellectual was not only defined as a member of the political Left but as someone who acted on the side of the universal class.8 In other words, the intellectual was the one whose own unhappy consciousness would lead him to position himself with the least favored of society (Sartre, 1968). A specific example of this positioning was undoubtedly taking sides on the issue of the Vietnam War. The Russell Tribunal in which Sartre participated expressed both the reasons for showing commitment to that cause as well as the collective identity that could be gained from the act of combating the Vietnam war. Opposition was an intellectual act insofar as it represented the views of free men who did not speak for any form of power or party (New Left Review, 1967).

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Sartre’s relationship with the events of his time affected this view later in the decade. In reference to the student activists who emerged as the most radicalized section of society, “the young” were the social category that increasingly started to enter the philosophical vocabulary of those who referred to intellectuals and their role in society. The May 1968 events were critical in redefining the previous Sartrean model of the intellectual. In the meantime, Sartre abruptly descended into increasing antiintellectualist positions. Positioning himself on the side of “the new intellectuals,” he adopted the contestation of power inherent in some of their actions, including those against the established forms of knowledge provided by the university system and argued that those lecturers who had signed manifestos identifying themselves politically with the New Left, were in fact doing so to alleviate their guilt at being classical intellectuals (Sartre, 1974). According to Sartre, the events of May 1968 demonstrated that the figure of the classical intellectual—the individual who, from a position of superiority, could speak to the universal class—ceased to have validity. The inherently elitist nature of this figure was democratized as it did not allow the forging of the necessary links with the universal class. From this moment on, the road was open to a denial of one’s own intellectuality. For Sartre, this was the only true intellectual position at that time. By 1970, when he wrote “A Friend of the People,” his view was that the intellectual had to suppress himself as an intellectual because he was always an enemy of the people (Sartre, 1974). By 1974, when he wrote an introduction to the English translation of the same text, Sartre gave up all hope of ever finding a role for the intellectual that would allow him to be politically committed, yet independent-thinking, individual. Including himself in the group of classical intellectuals with a guilty conscience, he defended those who joined the workers, those who resolved this guilt by negating their intellectuality (Sartre, 1974). Gramsci’s “Organic Intellectual”

Some of the models that entered the universe of the New Left and participated in the debate about the role of the intellectual did not necessarily have a living presence, yet were part of the discursive arena. This was the case with Gramsci and Lenin’s writings. Gramscian ideas were rediscovered and appropriated by the British New Left after the publication in English of The Modern Prince in 1957 (Kiernan, 1972). This rediscovery was followed by an assessment of his ideas that began to take place in the 1960s. This would very much have affected knowledge about his positions on intellectuals since his Prison Notebooks—where Gramsci made most

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explicit his ideas about this topic—did not make an appearance in English until 1971. The same was the case in France. In Cuba, however, the Revolution had access to Gramsci’s writings as early as 1960 through an Argentinian translation that was reviewed in Cuba Socialista (Portuondo, 1964). Gramsci’s model, though limited in its participation in the New Left’s debates, made an impact at the time and allows us to see a bridge between some aspects of Sartre’s vision and those of Lenin that replaced it.9 Gramsci argued that intellectuals could be divided into two types. One was the traditional intellectual; the other was referred to as the organic intellectual. The former—Gramsci was thinking mainly about teachers, clerics, and administrators—constituted a group that survived historical transitions to new periods of dominance by new classes, thus giving the impression that intellectuals could exist independently of class ties. He called the latter organic intellectuals because they emerged directly connected to the dominant classes of each historical period. Thus, organic intellectuals were actively involved in society whereas traditional ones, whose survival ultimately depended on past historical class attachments, claimed to hold a position independent of worldly matters (Gramsci, 1971a). Since the key characteristic of the New Left’s vision of intellectuals was one of commitment and involvement in the wider political affairs of the time, only Gramsci’s notion of organic intellectual was possibly deemed to act as a model. In the 1960s, any reference to the role of the intellectual by the New Left had a special emphasis on the type of intellectual that corresponded to a Marxist reading of history. Accordingly, the Gramscian notion of intellectual that acted as a model for the New Left was based on the idea that the working class was fertile ground for a new generation of organic intellectuals. Gramsci’s schema therefore seems to have similarities with Sartre’s on a number of issues. The first is that Sartre’s “technician of practical knowledge,” from which intellectuals were normally recruited, included most of the social groupings that Gramsci saw as either the traditional intellectuals or intellectuals organic to the bourgeoisie—the “fundamental social group” of capitalism.10 The second is that the organic intellectuals Gramsci understood to be intrinsically linked to a class formation and who were called to play an involved role in society were equivalent to Sartre’s “traditional” or “classical” intellectual. Key to these intellectuals—beyond the fact that they had risen from within the new dominant class, the proletariat—was that they could not possibly represent a simple orator but had to be “directive, specialized and politically involved” (Gramsci, 1971a: 10). With reference to the debate over the correct combination of theory and practice, Gramsci argued against the idea that purely abstract, deductive mental processes—entertained by

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what he called “pure intellectuals”—could lead the way forward (Gramsci, 1971b). The New Left understood this position in such a way that offered a valid definition of the committed intellectual, one who was both a scholar and a man of action (Kiernan, 1972). Although Sartre’s lack of rigor in terms of the constituency on whose behalf the intellectual spoke—ranging from the working class to the oppressed—makes it difficult to compare to the model proposed by Gramsci, the need to make contact and maintain a clear connection between the intellectual and the collective remained. The major difference between the two models, however, rested in the ties that linked the intellectual to his/her constituency. Sartre never considered this issue until after the May 1968 events prompted a rapid and wholesale reconsideration of his theses and produced the criticism that the idea of intellectual he created spoke to the universal class but was not necessarily part of it. In other words, Sartre’s model of intellectual was either an elitist one, or it ceased to represent an intellectual. With Gramsci, this problem was removed by virtue of his belief that all social groups, including the intellectuals, were dependent on a class. Thus, in his view the working class, like the bourgeoisie before it, was capable of developing from its ranks its own organic intellectuals (Gramsci, 1971a). Regardless of the democratizing effect of a notion of intellectual that demands a link with the masses, it could be argued that Gramsci’s model doesn’t go beyond Sartre’s as it still depends on the input of intellectuals joining the party from the outside. Yet, part of the success enjoyed by Gramsci in the New Left was due to the ways in which his ideas fit within a period of Marxist revival. This made Leninism a natural contributor to ideas on the role of the intellectual. Lenin’s “Revolutionary Intellectual”

Doubts about Stalinism created by Khrushchev’s 1956 speech at the Twentieth Party Congress in February 1956 led to a reappraisal of the Marxist legacy that included the issue of the intellectual. In France, the Communist Party and its prestige remained powerful and creative elements in the rescue of a role for the intellectual who worked within the Party’s control and authority. In the 1960s, Louis Althusser provided just that. He searched for an intellectual role that was, as in the case of Sartre, politically committed, yet independent of interference from the Party. His own circumstances as a Communist Party member throughout the period as well as lecturer at Paris-based, prestigious École Normale Supérieure ENS radically differ from those of Sartre who refused to be linked to any structure of power. These different circumstances explain

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partly the process by which Althusser’s Leninism flourished in a young student generation among whom Régis Debray, future author of “Revolution in the revolution?”, was the obvious reference.11 However, where Sartre sought personal freedom from the structures of power, Althusser arguably maintained a philosophical type of freedom, and was thus able to propose a model of disciplined revolutionary and committed intellectual that could maintain a distance from the questions of the time as described by Sartre. Although not often making specific reference to the role of the intellectual, Althusser devoted the first half of the introduction to his book For Marx, originally published in 1965, to recollecting his personal and generational history as a member of the intellectual class within the French communist movement (Althusser, 1977). In it, he outlines a number of objectives as valid for the work itself as for the rest of his philosophical career. First, he deplored the lack of a French Marxist theoretical tradition comparable to that of Germany, Poland, Russia, or Italy. Althusser explained this lack of a French Marxist theoretical tradition as being the result of the revolutionary nature of the French bourgeoisie that had co-opted intellectuals who would otherwise have joined the workers’ revolutionary movement. The consequence of such a tradition was that, in the theoretical vacuum in which the French Communist movement operated, Stalinist authoritarian politics and anti-theoretical deviations had a free reign in which to flourish. Althusser cited the case of those intellectuals who, because of their bourgeois origins, felt compelled to “pay” with political activism to make up for the debt they imagined they owed for not being proletarians (Althusser, 1977: 27), a condition that he believed also affected Sartre during his years as a fellow traveler. Second, Althusser set out to redress this situation by justifying a role for himself as Marxist theoretician of the Party. This involved outlining Marx’s intellectual production to establish a difference between pre-Marxism and Marxism, between what he described as the ideological Marx and the scientific one that was possible to observe after 1857, especially with the production of his main book Capital. Based on the main Marxist texts, Althusser’s theoretical project fit in very much with that of Lucio Colletti, a member of the Italian Communist Party (ICP) whose work was a reaction to the humanist and Gramscian developments in the Italian New Left represented at the time by Lucio Magri (Colletti, 1969). What the Althusserians said in relation to the role of the intellectual was very much what Lenin had already said sixty years earlier: in short, that the working class could not, of its own accord, develop the necessary revolutionary consciousness for the revolution to take place. This had to be created on the basis of the correct revolutionary theory, one that only

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the most educated members of the intellectual elite were capable of formulating. For Lenin, it was apparent that, beyond the role of trade unions, ideas could only come to the working class from the outside, from the intellectual class (Bottomore, 1991). Thus, it appears that, contrary to Sartre—whose theory demanded that the intellectual somehow expressed that which was essential to the “universal” class—Leninism had no such problem. For Lenin, intellectuals were the only enlightened elements in the revolution. Their role was to produce the scientific theory that could in turn be implemented by the class destined to make the revolution. Thus, whereas Sartre’s main problem always remained making the impossible democratic connection between elite and mass without eventually removing the elite, for Lenin this was a non-issue. His standpoint was based on the assumption of a difference of roles between thinkers and actors. Since Lenin’s understanding of intellectuals was based on the empirical observation that revolutionary theory was accessible only to a small group of individuals, the real issue became how to find a place for these intellectuals inside the driving force of the revolutionary movement, the vanguard party. The possibility of degeneration of the Leninist model into Stalinism, something with an obvious historical basis, hardly featured in the highly philosophical lucubrations of theorists who constituted this school. Only tangential to the role of the revolutionary party, this view of the role of intellectuals went only as far as it was necessary to ensure that a potentially excessive centralization did not degenerate into the lack of democracy that Magri and other Gramscians of the New Left identified (Magri, 1970). For Lenin, the answer to this problem lay in instituting democratic centralism, that is, a free and open confrontation of ideas within the party and a disciplinary safeguard that guaranteed a single line of command. These ideas never convinced a number of critics who were part of the New Left. For Miliband, Lenin’s State and Revolution only underlined that the exercise of socialist power “remains the Achilles heel of Marxism” (Miliband, 1970: 309). The argument was further taken by Kolakowski who, in a review article of For Marx and Reading Capital, makes clear the philosophical connection between the Leninist orthodoxy defended by Althusser and Stalinism as political practice. Arguing that the Leninist view that ideas had to be imported through intellectuals, he contended that this became the ideological instrument to justify a new type of party, what he referred as “the party of manipulators” (Kolakowski, 1971: 122). To these criticisms, Althusser’s only response was that philosophy was a revolutionary weapon (Althusser, 1970). Continuously using the language of the “sacred texts” of Marx, Engels, and Lenin, he insisted that

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the object of the philosopher was to search for the true theory of revolution. Ultimately, both the failure of the Party he represented during the revolutionary situation of 1968 and his own weak denunciation of Stalinism undid Althusser’s philosophy and his personal relationship with the PCF. His contributions after 1968 in France generally were seen as apologetic for a party that acted in every sense against his theory’s ideal, that is, against an idea of revolutionary takeover of power through the action of the vanguard representing the working class. Thus, the very fundamentals of Leninist theory became as discredited as its politics inside the Party. For the student-intellectual force that emerged in 1968, a different alternative model of intellectual commitment might still offer a revolutionary role. Marcuse’s “Dictatorship of Intellectuals”

Herbert Marcuse and the Frankfurt School developed in the 1930s to reach a high point of global influence and intellectual hegemony in the late 1960s. The influence of Marcuse on the student activists of the time was demonstrated by the prevalence of his publications, yet Marcuse pointed out that he had merely articulated some ideas that were in the air at the time.12 The starting point of Marcuse’s global philosophy was in many respects no different than the rest of the models already discussed. He belonged to the wave of Marxist renewal that characterized the 1960s and searched for understandings that could improve on weaknesses in Marxist theory—namely, a lack of concern for individual agency and a libertarian deficit—by producing a situated Marxism that could better explain the present (Magee, 1982).13 Marcuse’s aim in One Dimensional Man was to explore and explain the apparent ability of the capitalist system to neutralize traditional revolutionary forces. He termed this capacity for the integration of dissonant voices “repressive tolerance” (Kellner, 1984; Marcuse, 1969c). This conclusion was partly reached through the empirical observation, shared by many in the New Left, that the working class was increasingly co-opted into the system and thus becoming inactive as a potential revolutionary player. One Dimensional Man did, however, contain an element of hope for radical politics. Marcuse’s observation was that, since the totalitarian nature of capitalism was so extreme—shaping the consciousness of those who were affected by its all-encompassing power—only the social strata not integrated in the system, the outsiders, had the potential to challenge it and act as a revolutionary force (Marcuse, 1964).14 From 1964 and beyond, Marcuse appears more interested in radical politics and prepared to theorize the new period of revolutionary

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activism. Distancing himself from the original group of the Frankfurt School, his work followed the changing mood in the New Left, concentrating on the search for a theory of revolution that could accommodate new agents of social change, including intellectuals. The initial characteristic of Marcuse’s conceptualization of active resistance was his emphasis on the violent nature of this resistance, advocating revolutionary violence and taking positions in favor of action and commitment as the only means to break the “distorted universe of thought.” Intellectual neutrality was, in other words, considered as tantamount to choosing a reactionary position. He shared this key characteristic with all the different players of the New Left, a fundamental point of convergence on the nature of intellectual commitment.15 Marcuse’s understanding of the global capitalist system was strengthened by the prevalence of Third World revolutionary movements that reflected the weakness of capitalism in subverting the consciousness of the periphery and provided evidence that revolution was still possible. Always very critical of orthodox conceptions of revolution, Marcuse championed the revolutionary cause of the Third World (Marcuse, 1969a). Similarly, he thought, revolutionary activity was possible in the advanced capitalist countries amid groups not integrated in the process of production like the New Left. Marcuse offered support to the civil rights and women’s liberation movements and to student activism. All these component movements of the New Left appeared in his language as a euphemism for the term “intellectual,” and their political role and involvement was seen as a reflection of their intellectual’s commitment. But, more importantly, both of these elements of liberation—the Third World’s ongoing revolutions and the processes of radical activism in the metropoles—provided a symbiotic link between the Third and First Worlds in a single global revolution. Thus, in a curious reversal of Lenin’s famous dictum, Marcuse argued that the Cuban Revolution and the Vietcong directly influenced the radicalism of the New Left and that it was here, where the structure and cohesion of the capitalist system was greatest, that the challenge to the system had to be made. In his own words, “the chain of exploitation must break at its strongest link” (Marcuse, 1969a: 82). Marcuse’s framework presented a number of similarities with Frantz Fanon, author of The Wretched of the Earth. At a superficial level, and perhaps reflecting closely his formative environment in Algeria, Fanon celebrated the use of violence in a manner akin to that practiced by the second wave of the New Left. His advocacy of radical politics took him to argue that “Violence alone, violence committed by the people, violence organized and educated by its leaders, makes it possible for the masses to understand social truths and gives them the key to them”

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(Fanon, 1967: 118). Fanon also added the question of race to the center of his political ideas, often equating colonial rule with white racism (Woddis, 1972). This was not an element that had as much impact in the European New Left as it did in the North American New Left. Yet, it was Marcuse who offered his personal support to the cause of black liberation. The issue that made Marcuse and Fanon’s frameworks come together was the primacy that both intellectuals attached to classes other than the working class as key engines of revolution. Attempting to rationalize the reality of Third World revolutionary processes, both Marcuse and Fanon saw in those who were outside the productive system a revolutionary potential on the basis that they challenged the all-encompassing power of capitalism to shape the consciousness of those in its grip. Yet, whereas Marcuse followed this line of reasoning and argued—in similar fashion to some of the May 1968 students—that intellectuals were an “outsider” class, Fanon distrusted the intelligentsia. Although he was prepared to accept that sometimes the intellectuals could emancipate themselves from the colonial system, he was pessimistic about those who had not participated sufficiently in the struggle because of the pull that the bourgeoisie, their natural class, could effect on them (Woddis, 1972). Marcuse’s concept of the intellectual shared a number of characteristics with the previous models. Although he always opposed the orthodox Leninist theory of revolution led by the vanguard party, in which intellectuals had a designated place, he advanced the notion of the role of the intellectual as a form of leader of revolutionary practice. In the case of Lenin, the intellectual vanguard was blessed with knowledge on the basis of ability and intellectual capacity and interpreted this correct knowledge to the masses through the Party. This view of intellectuals on the basis of their education is also implicit in Sartre and Marcuse. For Marcuse, however, the correct consciousness came to student-intellectuals due to their externality to the productive process. Yet, they remained elite. When Marcuse abhorred the close link between power and intellect in a revolutionary party (as proposed by Gramsci and Lenin) for fear that it might result in a loss of creative possibilities, he was reacting in the same way as Sartre to the same dilemma. However, whereas Sartre quickly rejected the elitism implied in his model of the traditional intellectual, Marcuse continued searching for a role that was at the same time politically committed yet independent. Marcuse’s concept of the intellectual may be furthest from the models proposed by Sartre and Gramsci. Eventually, both Sartre (in his most anti-intellectualist mood at the beginning of the 1970s) and Gramsci aimed for the same thing, that is, to create a concept of intellectual that could legitimately represent and speak for a type of universal class (the working class). In the case of Sartre, his concept

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ultimately blended with the masses. Gramsci’s concept, however, emerged from the masses. In any case, both resulted in alternative forms of antiintellectualism.16 This statement presupposes that, ultimately, intellectuals are always elite. Seen sociologically, intellectuals constitute, as Gouldner argues, a class in itself with their own interests and drive for power (Gouldner, 1975). This is why orthodox Marxists criticized the views put forward by New Left intellectuals. According to Woddis, they show signs of “. . . paternal guidance of the working class” (Woddis, 1972: 398). With Marcuse, a fusion was reached between the sociological phenomena of the late 1960s (the student revolutionary activism that characterized the New Left) and the rationalintellectual one (a theory that placed them at the center of explanations about the role of intellectuals). With the collapse of the New Left’s commitment to the Third World—referred by Marcuse as “outsiders”—the Third World’s link with the First World’s revolutionary youth was broken. As a result, Marcuse returned to more familiar Marxist territory during the 1970s. Speaking in a 1982 interview, he rejected previous claims about the revolutionary role of the type of new intellectual, arguing instead that these catalyst groups could never replace the working class as subjects and agents of the Revolution (Magee, 1982: 54).17 On the Mismatch between Theory and Reality Superimposing the ideal types or theoretical models of the intellectual on the various generations, activists, and intellectual groups that were part of the New Left in their different political contexts permits us to consider the radical transformation of the intellectual and eventual failure to live up to the models of intellectual discussed in the previous secion. This section provides commentary on the different receptions of the various models of the intellectual and on how each was embodied. On the whole, a general awareness and implicit acceptance of all models took place in the New Left, even when they provided contradictory visions or understandings of the role of intellectuals in society. One key question dominated the debates on the role of the intellectual that informed exchanges in the New Left. This is whether emphasis on definitions and practice should be made on the acquisition of knowledge or, on the contrary, the pursuit of power. Two of the interpretations of the role of the intellectual that were most significant in the field during the 1960s belonged to rediscovered Marxist perspectives on this question and, as a result, emphasized the role of intellectuals as participants in a project for radical social change above everything else. However, the New Left as a whole was characterized by an attempt to fuse these two aspects

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of intellectual practice in order to produce a total definition of the intellectual. The implicit understandings of the role of the intellectual of the various constituencies of the New Left can be gathered from their practice and discourse. The dominant position that led in part to the formation of the New Left in the late 1950s was one that emphasized the formation of a new socialist culture through the creation of links to the working class, expressed the socialist ideas of new political players, or provided a leftwing intellectual reading of the global problems of the time. This project took place in the context of a development of democratic perspectives of intellectual practice from a Marxist point of view. Often, though not always, all three elements were present simultaneously. The British First New Left was a case in point. Clearly articulated as an attempt to redefine Marxism in humanist terms, as E. P. Thompson’s position demonstrated, its intellectual project fell within the Gramscian category. Although there is little evidence in the New Reasoner or in the early New Left Review (at least until 1962–1963) that the editorial committee openly called itself Gramscian, their publication’s initial rationale called for the creation of links between culture and the working class. Thompson and the ex-Communist members from New Reasoner wanted to produce these links without recourse to a party that was uninterested or deemed to have failed in this project. In this sense, it resembled the intellectual project pursued by Gramsci himself in Ordine Nuovo.18 New Reasoner’s aims were further reinforced by New Left Review in its early stages as it attempted the creation of an organic link to the working class through the publication, the coffeehouse, the single issue campaigns such as the CND, to which it devoted its energies, and the New Left clubs where politics and culture were mutually influential.19 To the extent to which the original members of the New Left in the UK were linked to their U.S. counterparts, their intellectual aims were very similar, as was evident in the New Left manifesto that C. Wright Mills published in New Left Review in 1960. The link of British representatives of the New Left with their North American and French counterparts reduced the insularity of their concerns and extended the understanding of the role of the intellectual as a mediator with the new political actors of the time— young people, black activists, pacifists, and others organized around social movements—and as interpreters of new global issues: the Bomb, decolonization and the loss of empire, and the beginning of socialist revolutions in the Third World. The French New Left shared some characteristics with its British and American counterparts. However, although it showed a preoccupation with the relevant issues of its time, notably with the birth of the Third

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World as was the case with Partisans, it did not attempt the creation of organic links with any class. Although Partisans responded to Marxist interpretations of the world, these interpretations were the work of an intellectual elite. In this sense, it shared an understanding of the intellectual as specialist that was characteristic of the Sartrean model and of the emblematic publication, Les Temps Modernes. This does not mean that the intellectual refused to act or to play a political role. Besides showing qualities of a “superior intellectual ability,” the model proposed by Sartre aimed to become the conscience of humanity. Recognition was gained by possessing privileged intellectual virtues and by acting in defense of universal values and truths. When Sartre campaigned to denounce the systematic use of torture by the French state in Algeria, his persona demonstrably became the model of the intellectual he proposed. The same can be said of Russell’s involvement in the CND and beyond. Both individuals and their campaigns were fundamental to the definition of the New Left and the type of intellectual it represented. Nowhere was the transition from a Sartrean model of intellectual to a Marxist one more evident than in Cuba. The Cuban example exemplified a move from the first few years of the Revolution, dominated intellectually by a self-appointed group of young writers in Lunes de Revolución who radicalized at the same pace as the Revolution itself, to one that secured ideological control in the hands of the Party. The transition of the model of committed intellectual embodied went from Sartre—after all, Sartre himself was invited to Cuba under the auspices of Lunes de Revolución—to a Marxist rationalization of the intellectual recruited by the body politic to work for the construction of a new society. Unlike anywhere else, where this transition was characteristic of different intellectual groups or generations, in Cuba the bourgeois intellectual elitism characteristic of the Sartrean model was exchanged for a new form of revolutionary elitism— implicit in Castro’s Palabras a los Intelectuales and Guillen’s contribution to the first Congress of UNEAC—in a transformation that took place almost overnight and in the same group of individuals. It is possible to explore this transformation of theorizations of the figure of the intellectual beyond the simplistic assumption that it resulted in the imposition of political directives over intellectual ones in Stalinist fashion. A few clues are present in an article by Jose Antonio Portuondo about intellectuals in the Revolution in Cuba Socialista in 1964. Making use of Gramsci, Portuondo applied his ideas to the Cuban Revolution to categorize every social layer of “users of the intellect”—clerics, politicians, professionals, technicians, scientists, artists, writers, and philosophers. Those who did not show “counter-revolutionary tendencies” (i.e., had not left Cuba in the first three years of the Revolution) were divided into

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either traditional intellectuals—if, despite having “belonged” to the previous regime, they showed revolutionary attitudes or were politically neutral (intelectuales honrados) (honest intellectuals)—or organic ones. According to the author, the latter type of intellectual acted as the voice of a new understanding of reality (Portuondo, 1964).20 A number of characteristics and inconsistencies of this conceptualization of the organic intellectual was evident immediately, specifics that made possible the rapid series of theoretical and historical transformations in the final part of the decade. The first was the almost automatic equation of the organic intellectual with the young. Some commentators in Cuba planned to create organic intellectuals from the youngest and easiest to integrate layers of thinking society (Portuondo, 1964: 62). This cult of youth as redeemer of the national destiny was not peculiar to Portuondo but increasingly common in the general discourse of the Revolution and the New Left itself. Cuba Socialista was full of references to the study of youth. Increasingly, youth were considered a euphemism for the new revolutionary vanguard, a vision totally in tune with Guevara’s notion of the New Man. The new intellectual, like the New Man, would lead the masses along paths previously unknown (Dorticós, 1964; Hart, 1966a, 1966b; Quintela, 1962).21 The transition that allowed the conceptual transformation of intellectuals into an elite who, while maintaining their Marxist credentials, did not necessarily have to emerge from the working class, took place in Cuba Socialista, reflecting an attempt to catch up theoretically with the transformation of reality in which the young were becoming protagonists of their own intellectual production. A partial exception came from the previously hegemonic New Left generation. They still commanded a presence in New Left circles through Monthly Review, Socialist Register, and Les Temps Modernes. In an essay dealing with the intellectual responsibilities awakened by the Vietnam war, Miliband clearly appealed to the Sartrean model of the intellectual, arguing in favor of the need to defend universal values (Miliband, 1967). However, there was acceptance in the First New Left that, next to intellectuals such as Sartre or Russell, new generations of students were claiming their role. Thus, although by 1967 the Sartrean “traditional intellectual” was still heralded as a valid model, the logic of student-based activism challenged dominant definitions of the intellectual. In this regard, it was possible to consider the ex-Communist constituency based in Socialist Register as having acted as a bridge from one concept to the other. Any acknowledgement that students made up the ranks of a new, active intelligentsia, however, did not come with the recognition that the young generation might have an alternative understanding(s) of its role in society. Contradictory views were

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therefore often presented. Thus, in an article that stuck to the philosophical principle that was the hallmark of the British First New Left, Kiernan could claim, as late as 1969, that the world student movement was “. . . a new intelligentsia that leads the way toward a reborn humanist socialism” (Kiernan, 1969: 83). As expected, Marcusean theorizations that took into account the dominant role of student activism were prevalent in publications that served this constituency. In the context of the late 1960s, it is easy to understand how the combination of a failure of traditional forms of working-class politics and the rise of student activism may have been interpreted in these terms. This was particularly true for the comités d’ action, born in the wake of May 1968 in order to channel the spontaneity of many students who did not want to belong to any of the organizational platforms constituted by the revolutionary parties responding to orthodox Leninist ideology (Fraenkel, 1971). The need for a new organizational model for the student movement followed the more spontaneous experiences provided by student struggles throughout Europe and the United States generally. According to Partisans, they revealed a new course for revolutionary struggles in advanced industrial countries, while pointing out the new means by which students—and intellectuals more generally—were factored into the contradictions of the development of Western capitalist societies (Partisans, 1968: 238). But, if in the latter part of the decade Partisans reflected a predominant adherence to the Marcusean model of the intellectual, its British counterpart was much more ambivalent about the way in which the entrance of a young generation into the intellectual arena could be interpreted. In issue 43 of New Left Review, an editorial entitled, in clear reference to Lenin, “What is to be Done?” provides the basis on which to link the protest that took place at the London School of Economics in March 1967 to a common legacy present in the First New Left as it argues that the protest began as a traditional issue of liberal morality. On closer inspection, however, students are presented as “the new poor” of the world, “students are an oppressed group, oppressed economically by the state and their parents, oppressed intellectually by the suffocating weight of dead and conformist departments” (Stedman Jones et al., 1967: 5). It is in this externality to the productive process that the weight of international militant student action is considered, giving the editorial a character that shares some of the ideas put forward by Fanon—if one emphasizes the aspects of “new poverty”— or Marcuse—if, on the contrary, the specificity of the student’s experience is stressed. Barely two years later, the editorial board of New Left Review appeared more revolutionary in its language, including the interpretations and

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revolutionary prescriptions of Mandel and Glucksman in May 1968 and of Lenin (Editorial, 1968a). The editorial deciphered these experiences in Leninist language shared by the reading that Debray made previously of the Cuban experience in his book Revolution in the Revolution?, arguing that Debray’s depiction of students as the “small motor”—the spark that could set a revolution—must work in tandem with the students of Asia, Africa, and Latin America in the revolutionary struggle (Editorial, 1968a: 5). The description of student activism and the rationalization of the university as the “weakest link” initially appears contrary to the reading by Marcuse, who—in a deliberate attempt to reverse Lenin’s language— argued that the metropole constituted the “strongest link” of the capitalist system and was the necessary target of a global anti-capitalist movement. In fact, the ability of the same group of students to jump from one set of rationalizing concepts to the next in the space of twenty months demonstrates that theoretical models were not consistently or systematically applied, but rather, used as part of wider exchanges of symbolic capital. The recourse to Leninist language was most obvious in the following issue of New Left Review that included the Revolutionary Socialist Students’ Federation (RSSF) manifesto. Committing itself to the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism and to the idea of the primacy of the working class as the revolutionary agent, it returned a communist orthodoxy to the central arena of political conflict of the time, marking a total separation from the Marcusean model implicit in 1967. The role this manifesto assigned to revolutionary students made them an integral part of the new revolutionary party necessary to make the transition to socialism. Arguing that the existing political parties and trade unions could not lead revolutionary socialist change, the RSSF argued that students should play a part in the building of such organizations (RSSF, 1969). The part students could play was explained by David Triesman who, having established that guerrilla warfare in Cuba and Vietnam was the best strategy for making the transition to socialism, discussed the possibility of creating red bases—or focos, in reference to Debray—in what was considered the natural territory of students: the university. The purpose of red bases was to formulate an ideology of revolution that could then be transferred to the working class (Triesman, 1969). In other words, students associated with this publication saw their intellectual role in Leninist terms, as a vanguard whose vision could bring the necessary consciousness and theoretical understanding to the working class. These new intellectuals, the argument followed, could lead the replication of existing revolutionary models in the specific conditions of advanced capitalism. If certain European sectors of the second wave of the New Left saw themselves as reincarnated Lenins or Guevaras, how was the Leninist

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model of the intellectual appropriated by Cuban intellectuals? The international student movement on which the New Left depended did not have much impact in Cuba beyond Pensamiento Crítico, although it was followed with interest. This was partly due to the very different set of meanings the editorial group of Pensamiento Crítico gave to the Leninist concept of the intellectual as part of the vanguard party, meanings determined by the specific role played by component members of this group inside a de facto revolution. The intellectual dynamic of the late 1960s in Cuba was characterized by what could be considered as “guerrilla envy” on the part of this Cuban New Left. Indeed, the logic of the Leninist theory of the vanguard combined with Guevara’s concept of the New Man meant that integration of intellect and action could be achieved in one. José Martí was, after all, revered both as intellectual author of the attack at the Moncada Barracks and as the man of action who died fighting for the liberation of Cuba. This understanding erased any difference between the intellectual as “thinker” and intellectual as “man of action.” During the 1968 Cultural Congress that brought together hundreds of intellectuals from Western Europe, Guevara and Debray were heralded as the perfect synthesis of these two elements, as New Men and as revolutionary intellectuals. Guevara was not only a seasoned fighter who overcame all odds to become commander of the Rebel Army, he also was the intellectual author of unorthodox views on the economy and held critical positions toward the communist parties, the Soviet Union, and socialist realism. Debray had just theorized the Cuban Revolution and was at the time awaiting a death sentence for his participation as a Bolivian guerrilla.22 Former members of Pensamiento Crítico have acknowledged that the notion of intellectual they represented was one that, in spite of their lack of guerrilla credentials, gave them a role in setting the correct political line of the vanguard party. By contributing specific skills and knowledge available only to them as the “high priests of Marxist science,” the young generation of academics that made up the Philosophy Department at the University of Havana took on a specific intellectual role. In a 1967 article that described the relationship between the theoretical production and the political needs of the revolutionary party, Fernando Martínez Heredia argued that linking theory to practice was possible only if making and interpreting theory was recognized as a practice in its own right (Martínez Heredia, 1967: 5). This view gave intellectuals a role that was committed to the advancement of the Revolution in its specific circumstances, and one that respected their identity as thinkers in a pure Althusserian mode (Rossanda, 1968). An important moment of self-definition and one that demonstrates the degree of acceptance of this view among certain sectors of intellectuals

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took place within the first three issues of Revolución y Cultura at the beginning of 1968. Two commentaries by Lisandro Otero and Jorge Serguera in issues 1 and 2 of the journal called for an abolition of the division between guerrilla fighter and intellectual.23 This was immediately answered by a letter of protest in which virtually the entire editorial committee abandoned the publication in protest against those views. This committee included a number of leading members of the Philosophy Department such as Rolando Rodríguez, Aurelio Alonso, Jesús Díaz, and Juan Antonio Blanco and leading writers Roberto Fernández Retamar, Ambrosio Fornet, and Edmundo Desnoes (Fornet et al., 1967). Yet, as in other historical examples of the relationship between power and intellect, the completeness of the intellectual-guerrilla remained paramount in Cuba where a sense of inferiority was pervasive in this generation as they accepted their secondary role to the “real vanguard” embodied in Castro and Guevara who were considered intellectuals of the same stature as Lenin (Editorial, 1967b). The ambivalence of the relationship between the political and the purely intellectual lived unchallenged in theory (never in practice) until the logic of international events forced a rupture. The alliance between the Cuban political leadership and the intellectuals, between the Third World and the European New Left, began to disintegrate only seven months after it was established during the Cultural Congress when the leadership supported the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 (Otero, 1986). From this moment on, once the inherent superiority of the guerrilla leader was acknowledged, there was no time for the “philosopher” to regain lost status. Previous chapters described the process of rupture or distancing between the Cuban Revolution and the various European intellectual groups as well as the personal consequences it had on Cuban members of the New Left. It is important to acknowledge at this stage that the 1960s witnessed the birth of an intellectual movement whose energies were devoted to the development of a concept of the intellectual that was politically effective yet independent. The decade ended, however, at the same point it started: with a re-emphasis of the overriding power of the political over the intellectual. Conclusion At this point, the argument has gone full circle. The decade started with an “intellectual rebellion” that demonstrated a genuine desire of Communist Party members to affirm their status against the political direction of anti-intellectual parties who demanded that intellectuals fulfilled a “pamphleteering” role. Thus, the transition that took place in

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the first half of the decade transformed this dependence on the political into an independence of thought and action. In all cases, the second half of the 1960s was dominated by a new generation of actors, a new intelligentsia trying to make the reverse journey, starting at a position of initial independence from the traditional institutions of the working class to one that recognized them as revolutionary intellectuals. At this point, various possibilities opened up in terms of the degree of association with a revolutionary party that the intellectual was prepared to endorse. Either they returned to an earlier Marxist form of engagement (i.e., to Leninist forms and, in the case of Cuba, to a new dependence on the political), or they rejected any engagement altogether. The idea of the intellectual’s political commitment received less and less attention and eventually became taboo. Either way, the notion of the uniqueness of the Third World also died, with the political failure of attempts to ignite revolution from, among others, Cuba; thus, the question of the role of intellectuals tied to this element no longer was important. It could not possibly have been otherwise. As Gouldner (1975) and Bourdieu (1999) argue, intellectuals are a cultural bourgeoisie whose main capital is knowledge, which in turn makes them a relatively autonomous social grouping prepared to align with one or more historical agents. This is partly why in the 1960s they attached themselves to the Third World, seeking new answers to the eternal search for a role both universally valid and ethically satisfying. Yet, in their dialogue, they could only revert to the language, models of rationality, and discourse of the West.


Chapter

9

Conclusion: Cuba’s New Dawn, Part II The 1960s represented the birth of many nation states in Africa and Asia through a process of decolonization that gave them the opportunity to join either the capitalist or the socialist systems. Alternatively, the newly decolonized nations could, as Cuba attempted to do, create their own coalition of countries in a Third World bloc. On the whole, by the end of the decade, this idea failed to embody an alternative model of development with a single global political presence, and the individual countries that for a while dreamed of this possibility had to choose between the two dominant camps, including Cuba that by 1972 was formally part of the Soviet area of influence. The collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s put in jeopardy the ideological certainties as well as the economic survival of the Revolution that Cubans were accustomed to during the 1970s and 1980s. Many commentators thought Cuba would follow suit in the process of ideological and moral disintegration that followed the collapse of the former Soviet Union. Yet, after a difficult political and economic period in the 1990s, and through much soul-searching, Cuba ditched much of the ideological dogma that kept the Revolution firmly within the East European sphere of influence for two decades and returned to the fray of the global “battle of ideas.” In the end, Cuba had no alternative but to join a single world. However, the Revolution is doing this on its own terms and continues to march forth in search of a promised land of its own. For this, the Revolution still needs friends and intellectuals who can imagine the alternative future the island is trying to build. This chapter considers some of those friends by exploring current developments in the new forms of opposition and contestation to economic globalization that have taken the lead in recent years as well as Cuba’s attempts to participate in those

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debates. The chapter also explores the relationship between Cuba and the current anti-globalization movement by making references to earlier conclusions about the nature of the relationship between Cuba and a previous generation of Western intellectuals and activists, both ascendants and pioneers of current attempts to offer alternative visions of the future. The Story So Far At a time when Cuba is emerging successfully from the worst economic crisis in its recent history, it seems particularly appropriate that scholars should take time to rethink the Cuban Revolution. Such reflection should include an explanation of why given understandings of the Cuban political and ideological development over the last fifty years, as the product of an outdated global ideology, have so far failed in their prediction of imminent collapse of the Revolution. If there are many reasons for continuing resistance to the most pessimistic predictions, it also seems evident that part of this explanation should incorporate the unbroken legitimacy of the world view from which the Cuban Revolution derives its support, both at home and abroad. The dissident and unorthodox character of the developmental alternative presented by Cuba in the first few years of the Revolution was and remains part of the answer to the question. To the extent that intellectuals continue to participate in the elaboration and support of ideas that criticize capitalist ideological and economic orthodoxy—yet move beyond the reiteration of outdated alternatives— this book concentrates on an important issue and hopefully sheds light on the main question posed. Although it is possible to draw inferences about the current relationship between the Cuban Revolution and the anti-globalization movement, this study focuses on their respective 1960s forebears, reflecting on the mutual reception of ideas and intellectual influence. The universally accepted view that the Cuban Revolution was a defining moment of the 1960s is explored by examining its reception in three related examples of the global New Left. The specific elements in the individual readings of the Cuban Revolution depended largely on a series of conditioning factors such as the country-specific formative processes undergone by the various New Lefts, the generational grouping of those who articulated their views on Cuba and, often, the varying degrees of symbolic capital they stood to gain. From the Cuban perspective, current scholarly production offers little evidence that the 1960s global movement of protest provoked any interest other than that developed through an examination of certain instances in which the Revolution and the New Left came together. The study of those instances is complemented by a

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reconstruction of the restless political and intellectual climate of the 1960s that defined the Cuban players closest to the spirit of rejection of dogmatism characteristic of the New Left. This book argues that two main concepts dominated the cultural capital in the dialogue that followed the coming together of the Cuban Revolution and the New Left. Both of these concepts helped establish the identity of the participants in this dialogue. The first was the notion of the Third World. Although this term made its appearance before 1959, it quickly was appropriated by the Cuban Revolution. Furthermore, references to the Third World were also used and interpreted by New Left intellectuals, according to the political evolution of revolutionary Cuba— a development that mirrored the radical transformation of the concept during the 1960s. The second element in the shared discourse on both sides of the Atlantic was the concept of the intellectual. Indeed, by its very existence, the New Left represented the embodiment of a radically new figure of the intellectual, one that showed political commitment but demanded the freedom to act and think beyond the bounds of the main Communist and mainstream left-wing parties. Both terms—“Third World” and “intellectual”—provided mutual definition for the Cuban Revolution and the New Left. This is evidenced by the separation in the 1970s of Western intellectuals and Cuba (and other examples of Third World socialism), which was accompanied by the rapid erosion of the previous meaning of these terms in a way that now represented the beginning of the decline of the politically committed intellectual in the West. In its wake, the intellectual opened the door to other forms of political support for Cuba that current academics have conceptualized as social movements. Where the former actors represent the elitist, individualist, and top-down approach to the transmission of ideas, the latter could be the key to a democratic, collectivist, and bottom-up riposte for the twentyfirst century. This chapter retakes the history of Cuba’s search for support abroad in a totally different world to the one that saw the Revolution come to life. If the history of Cuba in the 1960s was characterized by a revolution trying to steer between the virulence of the United States and the ideological suffocation of the Soviet Union, since the 1990s the second world model of development ceased to exist, making Cuba’s identification with a notion of Third World nonsensical when a second world no longer exists. Cuba now identifies with the global south instead, but with a global south that is not less critical of the model of capitalist globalization that puts limits to its sovereignty, dignity, and development. On the question of revolutionary Cuba’s transformation and the origins of the New Left, the book argues that both realities emerged

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separately and through developmental processes of their own. In the case of Cuba, no evidence suggests that an internal revolutionary logic sidelining the Communist Party before 1959 was in any way planned in parallel with a set of similar processes taking place mostly in Europe. Although anti-colonialism was a fundamental source of inspiration in each case of the New Left examined, the instances of colonial conflict that shaped the formative processes of the New Left were always closely related to the specific national contexts. Thus, in the case of Britain, the New Left initially responded in opposition to the 1956 Suez Canal affair whereas the dominant conflict that shaped the French New Left was the Algerian war of independence. Unlike the North American New Left, neither the British nor the French New Left had fruitful contact with Cuba until after the triumph of the Revolution in 1959. All three cases of the New Left presented here shared similar contexts in terms of structural conditions of affluence and consumerism and of the serious crisis of legitimacy suffered by the parties of the Left. This crisis resulted in the initial exodus of intellectuals from the communist parties that went on to form the original New Left. Recognition of these similarities is supported by evidence that suggests a close friendship and intellectual collaboration among individual members of the New Left on both sides of the English Channel and the Atlantic. This was clearly the case with Bourdet and members of the editorial board of New Reasoner in the late 1950s and early 1960s. In addition, although the relationship between the first and second generations of the New Left often was strained in their respective countries, clear political sympathies developed in the late 1960s among individuals such as Debray, Habel, French student movement leaders, and the editorial board of New Left Review and their North American counterparts. However, many differences also existed between the various New Lefts. First, for example, the little relative importance of communist influences on the respective political systems of Britain and the United States on one hand, and France on the other, explains some of the distinctions. Second, although the peace movement was seminal in the formation of the British New Left, it had little influence on the French New Left born in the shadow of the all-powerful PCF that could effectively harness the rhetoric of peaceful coexistence. Consequently, given that the French New Left was formed in opposition to the role of the French government in Algeria, the ideas it articulated were, in the first instance, a lot more belligerent and revolutionary that those of their British counterparts. Also, as chapter six discussed, the French New Left was considerably more divided between generations than the British or North American New Lefts. These divisions, and the fact that the myriad groups constituting the

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French New Left often controlled their own channels of communication, were reflected in the separate identities that fed into the various generations of the New Left via French historiography and political science. In Britain, however, the New Left was much smaller in its numerical and political importance. Thus, even though differences between the various generations remained, the British New Left often tended to present a single, unified position as was the case with the North American student movement and its most identity-forming campaign against the war in Vietnam. The New Left and the Cuban Revolution came together around the meanings they bestowed on the new concept of Third World. Taken as a metaphor, the Cuban Revolution embodied the radical transformation of the concept of Third World during the 1960s, and support for this defined the New Left itself. Two distinct periods have been identified in the book. The first corresponds to the initial awakening that followed the decolonization process that dominated international politics in the 1950s and 1960s. Cuba, though not a colony in the formal sense of the word, shared with most New Left supporters of the Third World at the time the neutralist theses institutionalized in Bandung in the 1950s. It did so by proclaiming the political role of the new nations in diffusing the Cold War tensions produced by the binary political and ideological division of the world. Cuba’s short-lived, neutral stance vis-à-vis the political and economic division of the world appealed equally to heterodox Marxists, progressive Catholics, civil rights protesters, and liberals concerned with mainstream media manipulation, all of whom were searching for a “third way” between capitalism and the forms of socialism represented by the Eastern European experience. The second period of mutual interest and exchange between Western activists and intellectuals and the Cuban Revolution corresponded to the second half of the 1960s and was dominated by the idea of revolutionary transition from colonialism and dependency to socialism. Where the Algerian case ceased to act as a beacon for the French New Left after 1965, the specific examples of Cuba and Vietnam monopolized the New Left’s interest from this moment on. Discursively at least, Cuba made every attempt to support any revolutionary uprising modeled on the Cuban example. This position also led to the creation of the Tricontinental, the OLAS, and the OSPAAAL, demanding at every stage the solidarity of all progressive forces of the Left in the developed world. Furthermore, the Cuban analysis informed contemporary radical new developmental theories that challenged Rostow’s modernization theory, such as Frank’s analysis of dependency. Only when the Third World revolutionary alternative began to fail as other possibilities appeared on

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the horizon—for instance, Chile’s peaceful transition to socialism with the election of Allende in 1970—did previous intellectual support for the Cuban Revolution begin to wane. Significantly, in Cuba this process was accompanied by a hardening of political attitudes toward intellectuals and the closure of their channels of communication. In terms of the general flow of ideas within the New Left, and contrary to what was suggested by authors who tended to emphasize the Cuban role in the generation of the New Left’s cultural capital, the book has shown that intellectual production was very prominently skewed toward Europe and North America. In particular, Pensamiento Crítico, the main representative of New Left thinking inside Cuba, reproduced articles from many of the publications of the global New Left movement. Such contributions comprised a sizeable percentage of the total content of the journal. Although varied, the extent of this contribution peaked in 1968 and began to diminish a year later. This evidence therefore suggests that, contrary to common assumptions, Cuba maintained a negative intellectual balance with the Western New Left, producing the historical and practical example of ideas theorized elsewhere. This process of replication and therefore assimilation of ideas was, however, selective. For example, the main Cuban representatives of the New Left did not share many of the rest of the field’s concerns. In particular, gender analyses of society are notable for their absence from Pensamiento Crítico, whereas European representatives of the New Left, notably Partisans, found gender an important theoretical lens through which to examine the social world. As far as the issue of race was concerned, Cuban authors only explored it insofar as the civil rights movement first, and the black liberation movement later, represented a dissident force that on the whole supported the Cuban Revolution inside the United States. As such, “race” was seen more as a category that could include an extension of the Cuban Revolution’s foreign support than an element that demanded attention in Cuba itself. Evidence suggests that the main motivating factor for reprinting articles that had appeared elsewhere in the field was the amount of symbolic capital gained rather than the content of the ideas themselves. In each of the national cases, there are examples of lack of collaboration between groups that constituted the New Left at a national level, whereas these barriers disappeared when compared internationally. For example, whereas exchange was poor between Les Temps Modernes and Partisans, both journals traded articles equally with Pensamiento Crítico. A similar phenomenon was present in the British New Left with its chosen representatives, New Left Review and Socialist Register. Furthermore, the nature of intellectual fertilization between the Third World, in this case represented

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by the Cuban Revolution, and the Western New Left appears very asymmetrical. The evidence proposes that the Cuban Revolution maintained a secondary role by repeating ideas generated elsewhere, essentially, by reprinting articles from the European and North American journals, and providing the revolutionary practice that European intellectuals could in turn analyze and support. The pattern of intellectual exchange between Cuba and the New Left therefore replicated the political and economic domination exercised by the West over the Third World. This domination perhaps was most evident in the content of the shared understandings of the definition and role of the intellectual that dominated the field in the 1960s. The New Left represented a transition to practices that defined the role of the intellectual in novel ways. Paradoxically, although some of these practices were anchored in meanings in which the concept of Third World was imbued, the models, categories, and discursive strategies that referred to the hegemonic intellectual were those of the West. Yet, diverse and contradictory models often were appealed to in order to favor the short-term objectives of whichever group furthered their own political prominence. Furthermore, the book has argued that the second half of the 1960s was characterized by a return to pre-New Left Marxist forms of engagement and justifications for the new, politically committed type of intellectual. The first generation of New Left intellectuals initially sought to reclaim their title by demonstrating their independence of thought and action from the parties whose practices stifled intellectual activity and subsumed their thought to the political priorities of the Communist Party. However, toward the end of the 1960s, the discursive element of this search led a younger generation of individuals who fulfilled the same role, to seek the endorsement of the working class in order to appear as revolutionary intellectuals. The book has argued that the collapse of the New Left and the subsequent paradigmatic shift that led to the long-term decline of the idea of the politically committed intellectual was intimately linked to two equally crucial developments that took place in the early 1970s. The first was the failure of the models of the intellectual shared by the field to respond to the contradictory demands made on them for independence from political interference while maintaining a committed political role. The second element was the European intellectual’s discursive and personal separation from the Third World in the early 1970s. Given that a self-sustaining understanding of the New Left intellectual was not possible without some reference to the Third World, any idea of the committed intellectual disappeared rapidly or went underground when the Cuban Revolution turned against the New Left and downplayed revolutionary objectives in the Third World.

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The 1990s: Crisis or New Dawn? Cuba often is considered a unique exception to the political and economic rules that apply elsewhere. In tandem with this idea, we tend to see Cuba in a time warp that takes visitors back to the 1960s, with halfderelict buildings and old Cadillacs and Chevrolets ever present on the streets of Havana—an ideological relic, old-fashioned and unable (or unwilling) to share the dominant values of the world around it. Part of this image is based on the political longevity of the Castro brothers and a small coterie of Sierra Maestra veterans still at the helm of the Revolution, creating the impression that nothing has changed in Cuba since 1959 and making the island inflexible and unable to adapt to changing circumstances. The last two decades have seen some of the biggest threats to the Revolution’s survival, including political, economic, and ideological challenges that Cuba’s detractors never thought the island could survive. And yet, that the island seems to have now turned a corner in what, in the early 1990s seemed an insurmountable challenges, may be testament to its ability to adapt to the changing global ideological winds. This book has so far been concerned mainly with events that took place during the 1960s. The story in chapter two ended in 1972, at a time when Cuba formally entered the orbit of the Soviet Union, receiving in exchange economic and military security. These were mainly responsible for Cuba’s social and economic advances that rapidly improved its international human development rankings, impervious to the economic drama of the lost decade in the rest of Latin America. It was also behind the country’s confident foreign military interventions, mostly in Africa, of which Ethiopia and then Angola carried the bulk of material and human resources, giving Cuba the ability to punch above its weight in the international arena (Leogrande, 1982). But Cuba’s protection from capitalism and from the ravages of lowlevel warfare with the United States came at a heavy political and ideological price. As we discussed in chapter two, the “Sovietization” of Cuban society after the failed ten million-ton sugar harvest of 1970 did not stop at the economic spheres but became deeply entrenched on the political, ideological, and cultural aspects of society. This had enormous consequences for a nascent New Left inside Cuba, whose main protagonists lost political favor and were quickly sidelined and redeployed, their academic jobs reassigned to ideologically more orthodox and safer individuals. The remarkable philosophy curriculum they developed through the decade at the University of Havana—based mostly on contemporaneous developments in Western European and North American social sciences—returned to models imported from the Soviet Union.

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The 1990s began badly for Cuba as the collapse of the Soviet Union brought the ideological certainties of the 1970s and 1980s crashing down. The collapse of the Soviet Union had enormous economic and social consequences for the island. It resulted in new fears of imminent collapse of the Cuban Revolution widely shared and celebrated by the Cuban-American community in Miami (Pérez Stable, 1993). Things started to break down for Cuba as soon as Gorbachev came to power in the mid-1980s. The immediate effect of his policy of glasnost and perestroika toward the West might have been the catalyst for the rapid succession of events leading to the formal collapse of the Soviet political and economic system glimpsed in the 1989 enduring images of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Soviet-Cuban relations deteriorated rapidly as soon as Gorbachev’s reforms resulted in the introduction of market mechanisms and the restoration of private property. Cuba’s outrage at this led to a typical response, reinstating the moral and ideological principles of voluntarism and moral incentives that guided the Revolution during the 1960s in a process known as “rectification.” However, when the 1991 collapse came, it knocked out every assumption and every belief that the Cuba Revolution had grown accustomed to over the previous two decades (Kapcia, 1992). The economic crisis was devastating as the island lost, over a period of no more than eighteen months, the trading partners that had sheltered the Cuban economy and propelled societal gains by means of very favorable trade terms. Trade relations with Russia declined by ninety percent and the little trade that took place involved convertible currencies, something Cuba was desperately without. As a result, the size of Cuba’s economy shrunk by more than thirty-five percent between 1991 and 1993 when it finally hit rock bottom. The loss of Cuba’s main trading partners in the early 1990s was even more calamitous than the early days of the Revolution because, unlike then, Cuba now had no powerful friends to turn to (Pérez, 1995). On the contrary, the United States increased political and economic pressure on Cuba with the Torricelli Act of 1992, followed by the Helms Burton Act in 1996, both designed to further destabilize the island. For Cuba, it was time to either adapt to the new situation or become another footnote in history. And adapt to the situation is exactly what the Revolution did, in a most Cuban way. The collapse of the economy led to the implementation of austerity measures planned for the eventuality of war. Named “special period,” it reorganized every aspect of the country’s economy on a war footing, making hundreds of products available only on a rationing card, including all basic goods like food and clothes. Services, including water

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and electricity, were only available for a few hours a day. Some goods were just impossible to find, such as cooking oil and soap. Petrol was a rare commodity and the busy Havana roads ground to a halt. Traveling in 1994, Cuba welcomed visitors on bicycle (thanks to China), and horsedrawn carts made an appearance on the streets of every town after decades of relentless motorization. Public transport in Havana introduced the infamous camellos, those truck-pulled carriages for hoarding hundreds of suffering travelers at a time. It is of little comfort to Cubans to know that life expectancy at this time acually increased because of a reduction of cardiovascular disease and diabetes precipitated by a much leaner and healthier diet and a national increase in exercise (Franco et al., 2007). The privations of every day life were accompanied by wholesale transformation of the economy that, having been dependent on sugar since plantations were first established on the island, welcomed the Western tourist and his dollars for the survival of the Revolution. The growth of the dollar economy, eventually legalized, was accompanied by the creation, for the first time of self-employment status in the Revolution, leading to the birth of the famous paladares (family-run restaurants) and private accommodation. Heavily taxed, all these economic activities were essential sources of revenue for the state that now had to rely on the open market for importing all goods instead of on the subsidized and barter arrangements that existed with the Soviet Union for decades, exchanging sugar, nickel, and fruit for oil, food, and manufactured goods. Although the sense of political crisis has recently reawakened as a result of Fidel Castro’s poor state of health and retirement from public life, Cuba has in fact turned the corner and a considered look at the last two decades gives cause for cautious optimism. Yes, Cuba battled with the worst shortages in revolutionary history, and this led to serious political crises motivated by the exodus of thousands more Cubans in the summer of 1994 (Kapcia, 1995). But the economic disaster of the early 1990s is now firmly in the past. The economy began to grow again, beginning in 1994. Also, the current leadership of the slightly younger Castro is introducing the small, gradual economic reforms likely to improve the material conditions of Cubans and the availability of food while maintaining social advancements made over the last five decades. In a possible overture to the next American president, Castro commuted a number of death sentences in April 2008. Thus, out of near-collapse and catastrophe emerged the chance to reevaluate the Revolution, its direction, and the future Cuba wants to represent. Just as the voices of those who presaged doom for the Cuban regime after Castro’s political retirement begin to quiet, a reassessment of the last two decades in the Cuba Revolution could conclude that the crises provided the regime with the opportunity

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to prove its enduring legitimacy and a chance to reconnect with a growing global current of dissatisfaction with economic globalization that follows mainstream neoliberal thinking. Cuba and the New Battle of Ideas It would be impossible to imagine many of the taken-for-granted ideas that dominate our society today without a reference to the 1960s and the concerns pioneered by New Left intellectuals and activists. Out of a period of post-war conformism erupted a critical outlook on society that wanted to see the original and more human reflection of Cuba’s future. Similarly, during the 1990s, just as the Revolution was struggling to survive its worst economic crisis to date and Francis Fukuyama (1992) announced that, at last, all nations of the world found themselves on a single caravan heading in the same direction, small groups of individuals and countries decided to renege on the inevitability of the new frontier. Latin America houses some of those rebels and, yet again, Cuba presents an alternative model of societal development that is no longer an isolated case. The origins of Latin America’s headstrong resistance to imported models of development and visions of the future is not surprising if, as Naomi Klein argues, the current type of economic globalization in all its guises— from the liberalization of the Chilean economy under Pinochet, to Bolivia’s shock therapy in the 1980s, to the current North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)—were first imposed here and their social costs are well remembered by the masses (Klein, 2007). As the book demonstrates, during the 1960s, Cuba was rightly or wrongly deemed to demonstrate an alternative vision of the future. After the catastrophic collapse, both economic and moral, of Soviet-style Communism, Cuba’s persistence in searching for its own destiny marks the Revolution as a beacon of resistance to economic globalization even though the island’s survival strategy was based on further penetration into the global economy by opening doors to tourism and foreign investment. At this point, others have joined in and there are now at least three types of resistance to the current dominant ideas of economic globalization that, in the Americas, are symbolized mainly by NAFTA. On New Year’s day in 1994, on the same day the treaty between Canada, the United States, and Mexico took effect, the Zapatista army of national liberation (EZLN) was born—an “alternative,” new-age revolutionary group that gains the support of the international community and civil society through widely reported communiqués and solidarity groups (Holloway and Peláez, 1998). Their struggle for recognition of

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indigenous peoples, sovereignty in the use of natural resources, and support for traditional forms of development share a platform with the demands of the indigenous movement across Latin America. The revolutionary resistance of the Zapatista army, outwardly portrayed as part of the wider anti-globalization movement, is expected since both represent similar ideals. However, driven from the West—as the New Left was in its day—the wave of protests against the symbols of economic globalization began in earnest in 1999 at the World Trade Organization (WTO) ministerial conference in Seattle. The “Battle of Seattle” sparked a series of global protests at meetings of those institutions that drove the process of globalization. This form of global resistance is launched from within civil society and consists of a vast array of solidarity networks and ideas that converge in the World Social Forum (WSF), which, under the rallying cry of “another world is possible” began in 2001 in the city of Porto Alegre and has been going from strength to strength ever since (Patomaki and Teivainen, 2004; Sen, 2007; Smith, 2004). Finally, taking shape is a new coalition of countries in Latin America that look up to Cuba for the symbolism of the Revolution’s role as a beacon of resistance in the form of economic globalization represented by NAFTA and promoted by the United States. The countries themselves are very different and the formative political processes that led to the triumph of their individual leaders—Correa in Ecuador, Morales in Bolivia, and Chavez in Venezuela—are quite different. However, even if their convergence is based on no more than a marriage of convenience, the coalition they represent, the Alternativa Bolivariana para las Américas ALBA (Bolivarian alternative for the Americas), represents an alternative and common front against mainstream neoliberal ideas, new versions of Latin American socialism for the twenty-first century (Dello Buono, 2007). All three countries have sought the support of, and a working relationship with, forms of power that go beyond the state. This came in the form of anti-globalization and global justice movements. Thus, in anti-imperialist rhetoric, the current coalition of these countries has produced—through the ballot box—what Cuba failed to achieve during the 1960s by exporting the revolution. As the twenty-first century begins, Cuba is no longer alone as a pariah state in mortal danger. But, judging from the continuing presence of symbols of the 1960s global rebellion represented by the ubiquitous presence of posters depicting Guevara, it appears that the new anti-globalization movement driven by a growing disquiet about the form of economic globalization that multinational corporations and international governments seem to favor, draws its inspiration partly in this mythical past when the first “global movement” of students took

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place. Cuba acted as a revolutionary beacon and led this global movement for a short period in the 1960s. It is therefore not surprising that today the Revolution continues to draw attention to these issues, offering its support to the political descendants of the New Left. Through the state media, Cuba has regularly supported the anti-globalization movement, starting with the campaigners who gathered in April 2001 in Quebec to protest during the celebration of the third summit of the Americas and those who converged on Genoa three months later, a move that coincided with Castro’s tour of the Third World and increasing pronouncement on matters of global significance that continues to this day (Frank, 2001; Juventud Rebelde, 2001). And yet, although the new social movements that dominate the current alternative visions of the future might have sympathies with Cuba, neither their relationship nor the main area of interest is dominated by the island. Further research could explain the ways in which the current anti-globalization movement draws its credentials from the 1960s New Left while the manner in which it does and the discourse that justifies it have transformed so radically. At a theoretical level, the blurring of boundaries between power and intellect and the changing concept of the intellectual during this process could be further studied. As the book shows, during the 1960s, politically-committed activism was an essential characteristic of what was considered to be an intellectual. Today, although the international anti-globalization wave of protest has emerged partly as a response to concerns that can be traced back to the 1egacy of the 1960s, the figure of the intellectual who led the build-up of conscience a generation ago has all but disappeared as a question of interest and concern, even though the intellectual political actor continues to have a presence. The question of whether it is possible to reconcile the contradictory forces of power and intellect into the single figure of the committed intellectual is no longer a relevant issue. Why this is the case remains unanswered. What we know is that today’s main challenges to globalization are as likely to come from global forms of civil society as they are from “rebel” states like Cuba or Venezuela. But, although the purpose of the politics of the past was to conquer the power of the state, today’s World Social Forum, as an example of global civil society’s contribution to an alternative vision of the future, responds more to a new form of politics that challenges the very nature of the nation state as well as traditional politics. Instead of encouraging a set of vertical relations, the World Social Forum has been described as an open space of ideas that takes on a self-organized, emergent form of politics based on principles of horizontality, equality, and open-endedness (Sen, 2007). Not surprisingly, the participation of

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state representatives in Porto Alegre has raised mixed feelings, as was the case with the Cuban delegation in 2001 (Teivanen, 2002). As a result, whereas the politics of the past relied on the effectiveness of political actors—the intellectuals—in a top-down and elitist fashion, current dominant political processes emphasize democratic, collectivist, and bottom-up ideals. In this regard, the fifty years of separation between the New Left and the current new social movements represent a much greater distance represented in the transition from the twentieth to the twentyfirst centuries. If a type of globalization so closely related to the form of imperialism that both Cuba and the New Left warned against in the 1960s has today become the target of the new generation of activists and latter-day firebrands, future studies will hopefully concentrate on the analysis of the part Cuba is playing in this new, post-Cold war global period of dissent. In particular, it is important to note the similarities and differences between the Cuban unorthodoxy of the 1960s and those that, beginning with the native process of rectification of the mid-1980s, culminated in the necessary questioning of orthodoxy that characterized the 1990s. Some Cuban authors, notably Juan Antonio Blanco, have argued that the unorthodoxy characteristic of the 1960s returned to Cuba at the beginning of the last decade, both in the set of circumstances that saw it arise— a critical need for alternative forms of development that made every aspect of society open to challenge—and in the names of individuals who led this resurrection (Benjamin, 1997). Even though it appears that the Centro de Estudios Sobre América (CEA) affair might have dampened the original buoyant mood that resulted from the renewed lease of life intellectuals were given before 1995 (Giuliano, 1998; Hoffmann, 1997), a new sense of urgency is necessary to examine the role that intellectuals will continue to perform, informing the Cuban and global political processes. Success is imperative, for if we refuse to accept the inevitability of the current processes of globalization, it will always be necessary to resort to individuals who, as Ambrosio Fornet argues (1977), are capable of dreaming of a future that is both possible and desirable, and to invent the paths that lead directly to this end.

Notes 1

A New Political Dawn: The Cuban Revolution in the 1960s

1. For an outline of the events surrounding the Padilla Affair, see chapter two. 2. Kenner and Petras limited themselves to mentioning the enormous importance of a Cuban Revolution with which a great number of the North American New Left identified. They also dedicated their book to the Cuban and Vietnamese people for “giving North Americans the possibility of making a revolution” (1972: 5). 3. For an explanation of the term gauchiste and of its relevance to the New Left, see chapter six. 4. However, this consideration has been rather critical in the case of Minogue (1970). 5. The general consensus seems to be that, as the Revolution entered a period of rapid Sovietization following the failure of the ten million ton sugar harvest of 1970, Western intellectuals, who until then had showed support, sought to distance themselves from the Revolution. The single incident that seemingly sparked this reaction, in particular from some French intellectuals, was the Padilla Affair. 6. Here a clear distinction must be made mainly between the Communist Party of the pre-Revolutionary period, the Partido Socialista Popular (Popular Socialist Party) and the 26 July Movement (MR26). The former had a legacy of Popular Frontism, collaboration with Batista in the postWar period and a general distrust of “middle class adventurers” as it referred to the leadership of MR26 until 1958 (Karol, 1971: 150). The latter, led by Castro, had a radical though incoherently articulated ideological basis. The process of unification of revolutionary organizations carried out between 1961 and 1965 did not completely obliterate the individuality of these competing discourses and it was in their struggle for supremacy that the New Left’s contribution was made. 7. This was notably the case in Venezuela, where revolutionary leader Douglas Bravo voiced his disappointment over Cuba’s abandonment of the revolutionary effort on a continental scale in 1970 (Karol, 1971).

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Notes

8. The assumption is that all socialist societies in the twentieth century were ideologically identical and that these could be equated to their individual leaders (i.e., Stalin’s Soviet Union, Mao’s China, Castro’s Cuba). Hollander (1981) uses a single label for all of them as police states (Hollander, 1981). 9. According to Jennings (1993), Bourdieu’s biggest success lies not in having bequeathed the ultimate definition of intellectual but in the contribution that the range of concepts and methodologies he developed can make to the study of the intellectual (Jennings, 1993). 10. These partial visions tend to dominate the current academic literature, given that many of the former participants are the current agents of reproduction. 11. According to Debray (1981), journals, in particular, constitute the main means of organization of the “intellectual army” on a territorial scale and their analysis can often yield important results in the study of the political and ideological directions of collective groups. 12. Speaking about L’Observateur and Les Temps Modernes, Boschetti has observed that the evolution of the latter from philosophy toward journalism is evidenced by the participation of many of Les Temps Modernes’ writers in the founding of Le Nouvel Observateur in 1964, leading to a situation in which the readership of both largely overlapped (Boschetti, 1985).

2

Cuba: The Myth and the Reality of an Original Revolution

1. According to this argument, the logic of the Cold War had already forced a definition on the Cuban Revolution, before Castro’s famous declaration of his Marxist-Leninism in December 1961. And yet, this declaration met with a cold response from the Soviet Union until April 1962. See Hall and Fructer (1961). 2. For an analysis of the initial industrialization drive, see Draper (1965). Guevara often is portrayed as the greatest critic of the Soviets due to his Algiers speech in February 1965. Yet, others have argued that by 1962, it was already clear that Guevara had a great disillusionment with the USSR partly as a result of Cuba’s failed industrialization experience (Karol, 1971). See also, Guevara (1962, 1963b). 3. I am grateful to Arnaldo Silva, former director of the Schools of Revolutionary Instruction, for discussing these issues with me. 4. Lieberman’s economics gave weight to a degree of decentralization and the market, albeit as part of the socialist system, whereas the Guevarist position was in favor of using moral incentives and the centralization of planning in the economy. 5. The USSR typically described itself as the most advanced of socialist nations in the process of constructing communism. Cuba repeatedly challenged this dogma in the late 1960s, arguing that it was constructing both socialism and communism at the same time through a process of raising

Notes

6.

7. 8. 9.

10. 11. 12. 13. 14.

15.

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consciousness and creation of the New Man. By 1971, however, there was official acceptance of Soviet society’s superiority and therefore an implicit critique of the “excessive idealism” of previous years (Mesa-Lago, 1974). Little doubt exists that the predominant use of moral incentives was a logical extension of the ideological importance placed on the subjective aspects of the construction of socialism. Furthermore, Castro has been reportedly argued that there would be little point in providing more economic incentives given that the shortage of consumer goods was so widespread in the 1966–1968 period, suggesting that beyond the purely ideological, pragmatic reasoning always has been at the forefront of Cuba’s policy directions (González, 1974). For an overall picture of the development of health services in the first decade of the Revolution, see Delgado García (1989) and Santana (1987). For a uniquely interesting account of the pre-revolutionary medical profession’s political role and participation in Cuban society, see Danielson (1979). Different interpretations have been given to the idea of the New Man. Marshall links it to the humanist writings of Marx and Cuban traditions reflected in the publication of the journal Hombre Nuevo in the 1920s (1987: 144). Castro, on the other hand, used the idea of the “New Man,” especially during the Revolutionary Offensive, to refer to Cubans prepared to sacrifice themselves for others, reflecting perhaps the religious influence in his own Jesuit education and subverting the Leninist vanguard idea in vogue at the time. For further reading on the issue of the New Man, see Lowy (1970). For an introduction to Castro’s own intellectual background, see Betto (1985), Miná (1987), and Szulc (1986). For an earlier version of some of the ideas that would later be expressed in Man and Socialism, see On revolutionary medicine—written by Guevara as early as 1960—in Gerassi (1968: 112–120). For a thorough study of Cuban cinema inaugurated with the Revolution, see Chanan (1985). An enormous increase in the number of Cuban publications also took effect after the Revolution, in a country where, according to Cuban commentators, national culture had been sidelined by colonial society. I am grateful to Brian Pollitt for describing those days so vividly for me. Both after the Moncada attack in 1953 and the Gramma landing, the PSP issued statements denouncing the “putchist” methods of “petit bourgeois” young men while calling for the unity of opposition forces to the dictatorship (Goldenberg, 1970). MR26 was the name of the movement led by Fidel Castro in commemoration of the attack to the Moncada Barracks that took place on July 26, 1953. During the last stages of the revolutionary war in 1958, the ideological distinction between the PSP and the MR26

192

16. 17.

18.

19. 20.

21.

22. 23.

Notes

was not clear-cut. Raul Castro, for example, had belonged to the Communist Youth during his time at the University of Havana (Szulc, 1986). Shortly after, on July 26, 1961, the Revolución disclosed news about the imminent creation of ORI with the headline “Unity, unity of all the revolutionary organizations against imperialism” (Editorial, 1961b: 1). The published list of former PSP leaders who were heading ORI included Blas Roca, Carlos Rafael Rodríguez, the Escalante brothers, Severo Aguirre, Francisco Bravo, Luis Peña, and Manuel Luzardo. The purge of Aníbal Escalante and of numerous regional and local representatives of the new party who belonged to the former PSP met no opposition. Roca, from his post in Hoy, declared his total agreement with Castro, and other legendary Party members like Luis Peña had already lost their access to the media and the right to comment publicly. In April 1962, the Soviet Union also favored Castro’s move (Goldenberg, 1965). The Marquitos Affair refers to the 1964 trial of former PSP member Marcos Rodríguez for his implication in the deaths of various DRE members in 1957. At the time, this process was interpreted as a serious setback to revolutionary unity as the event marked the political downfall of various former PSP members accused of “collective responsibility,” notably Edith García Buchaca. For more on this event, see Habel (1964). In 1968, the Microfacción trial resulted in further purges against former PSP members. For further elaboration on a number of these organizations, see Fagen (1969). Prior to 1959, an entire generation of intellectuals and educated Cubans had left the country for the United States, Mexico, or France partly due to the underdeveloped nature of higher education and partly because of political repression and censorship. This led to the paradox of a country that, being home to the likes of Alejo Carpentier, Nicolás Guillén, or José Lezama Lima, had barely any literary production. In 1959, Humberto Arenal, Pablo Armando Fernández, Antón Arrufat, Mirian Acevedo, Edmundo Desnoes, Roberto Fernández Retamar, Ambrosio Fornet, Heberto Padilla, and others who lived abroad, decided to return to Cuba. Yet, the biggest process of cultural cross-fertilization took place between Cuba and Latin America, something particularly important in the artistic and literary fields. It is now acknowledged that the journal Casa de las Américas was initially created to cultivate this intellectual link (Fornet and Campuzano, 2001). The appearance of Lunes de Revolución coincided with the publication of a literary supplement to the newspaper Hoy. Although clearly Marxist in outlook, Hoy never achieved the resonance of its counterpart. Lunes played a key role in the visit paid by Sartre and de Beauvoir to the island in March 1960, a trip arranged by Franqui that received such attention as to reflect the importance with which it was seen by the revolutionary

Notes

24.

25. 26.

27. 28.

29.

30.

31.

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leadership. An entire issue of Lunes was devoted to the historic visit that receives attention even today (see Sarusky, 1997: 12–17). The PSP had virtually no say in Lunes as nobody on its editorial board was a Party member. In any case, it functioned along very loose hierarchical lines that made imposing a clear political line almost impossible. Similarly, Casa de las Américas, initially in the hands of Haydée Santamaria, who was close to Castro, was out of bounds for the Communist Party of the prerevolutionary era. I am grateful to Jose Antonio Tabares del Real for his views on the political situation among university students prior to 1959. All interviewees in Cuba agree on the importance of the University of Havana as a focal point in the formative process of what in the 1960s constituted a very small and close student/activist community. In this respect, the role of this institution in creating the governing and intellectual elite seems no different from that of Oxbridge in Britain or the Ecole Normale Superior in France. In all three cases, an important membership of the 1960s New Left emerged from these institutions. I am grateful to Armando Chavez, one of the original members of the philosophy department at the University of Havana, for the generosity shown with his time and sharing his personal experiences. A real difficulty in documenting the life of the initial Department of Philosophy lies in the lack of documentation and archival material between 1962–1971. The building that housed the department is gone and many of the materials seem to have been lost. Thus, it is necessary to rely on personal accounts of the ex-members, many of whom are still connected to academia or research posts. The type of teaching and content of the programs can genuinely be seen as truly revolutionary for the period. See Departamento de Filosofía (1968) (two Vols.). It is important to recognize the qualitative step forward that the study of Marxism in its historical context signified between 1966–1971. The experiment, however, was abruptly reversed, and the Soviet textbooks (Kuusinen and Konstantinov’s are the most common) predominate today in a Marxist mode of instruction that continues to emphasize learning by rote. Both Luis Arana Larrea and Anastasio Mancilla, the main teachers at the Raul Cepero Bonilla, were of Spanish descent, belonging to a group of about fourteen hundred children who had been evacuated from Bilbao during the Spanish civil war. Some of these children went to the UK, others to Mexico. The vast majority were sent to the Soviet Union and, in many cases, never returned. As adults, Larrea and Mancilla were sent to Cuba to fulfill this “intellectual mission” for obvious linguistic reasons. By that time, Pensamiento Crítico had not yet been created, although many of its future members (Jesús Díaz, Aurelio Alonso, and Fernando Martínez) already were working in another key publication of the time, El Caimán Barbudo.

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Notes

32. I am grateful to Rolando Rodríguez, former director of Instituto del libro (1967–1980), for his interview and for sharing with me unpublished materials. 33. Thus, Pensamiento Crítico found the space to become critical of “Soviet” Marxist discourses in Cuba and beyond. As such, it was a fundamental part of the political project of elements within the leadership and its very existence in the long term was subject to the continuation of that political project (Martínez Heredia, 1970a, 1970b). 34. The list of guests included names such as Russell, Sartre, Hobsbawn, Axelos, Semprún, Milliband, Cortázar, and Benedetti. 35. Other Cuban publications of the time also shared many of the values and ideas of Pensamiento Crítico, notably Revolución y Cultura (1967–1971) and Casa de las Américas. Yet, as the former editor of Revolución y Cultura admitted, the journal never had the support of a large section of the intellectuals (Otero, 1986:7). As for Casa de las Américas, despite the obvious interest in the debate over the role of intellectuals (Casa de las Américas no. 35, 1966) and the personal friendship of Debray and Retamar at the time, the journal always had literary-cultural concerns rather than politico-historical ones and inclined itself more to the rest of Latin America than to Europe. 36. In October 1968, the international jury of UNEAC awarded the annual poetry prize to Heberto Padilla. This decision was met with dismay by the cultural authorities who greatly disliked the young non-conformist. As a result, the journal of the armed forces, Verde Olivo, launched a vicious campaign against intellectuals. This persecution was compounded when the poet was arrested in 1971 and subsequently forced to retract his anti-revolutionary views in public. This infamous episode in the Cuban Revolution was met by an international campaign for Padilla’s release and marked the separation between European progressive intellectuals and the Revolution.

3 Who Cared about the Cuban Revolution Then . . . and Who Cares Now? 1. This concept of “humanism,” however, did not survive the rapid radicalization of both the Cuban Revolution and the New Left. With the transition to the Second New Left and the collapse of CND, partly inspired by the Missile Crisis, came a more militant and revolutionary period. It heralded a new peak of revolutionary fervor in the New Left that came to dominate, particularly after 1965, and coincided with the most ultra-revolutionary and heretical phase of socialism in the Third World. In so doing, Cuba’s revolutionary example, together with that of Vietnam, helped subvert the original meaning of “Third World.” 2. Other groups integrated in the PSU included Parti Socialiste Autonome (PSA), which also left the SFIO in 1958 over the Algerian War; Union de la Gauche Socialiste (UGS); and a number of ex-PCF individuals who left

Notes

3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

9.

10.

11.

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the Party in 1956 (like their British counterparts), working around the Tribune du Comunisme. The factors behind the growth and increasing radicalization of these small groups are explained in chapter six. Perhaps the closest to a distinction in the British case is the use of “first” and “second” waves of the New Left. For an interpretation of E. P. Thompson’s polemics with several members of the second wave of the New Left, see chapter five. The conceptual evolution of the term “Third World” is explored in chapter seven. In the latter part of the 1960s, Althusser’s work dominated the pages of journals such as New Left Review in the UK and Pensamiento Crítico in Cuba. For example, I use evidence gathered from Salkey’s 1971 account of his participation at the 1968 Cultural Congress in Havana and include him along with co-participant C. L. R James as part of this wide definition of the New Left, even though neither of them would have seen themselves as part of the British form of the movement. Given that Cuba was part of a polycentric communist world in the mid-twentieth century, a space shared with China, readers might be confused about the meaning of the notion of unorthodoxy. Some may think that Cuba and China occupied similar positions insofar as they both represented a critique of the Soviet Union. This has been confirmed by the fascination with Maoism in certain sectors of the New Left, especially in France, and arguments about a supposed affinity between Cuba and China on the importance seemingly attributed to the peasantry as a revolutionary class. Mesa-Lago (1974) has even talked of the “Sino-Guevarist” stage of Cuban development between 1966–1970. This argument, however, was contradicted by the strained nature of diplomatic relations between both countries that stemmed from clear ideological differences and by the Maoist fascination with Stalin. Equally, a quick look at the Maoist literature of the time shows theoretical positions that criticized the communist parties and the Soviet Union because they represented a “right” deviation from the correct line set out by the great leader; in other words, arguing that they were not Stalinist enough. The same is true, to some extent, of the number of Cuban intellectuals selected for study in this book. Although all were members of the new Cuban Communist Party (PCC) created in 1965, their formative influences and intellectual concerns led them to hold critical positions with regard to the Soviet Union and the developmental model represented by the people’s democracies. See chapter two. An issue very close to this was the debate over the nature and definition of intellectual and intellectual worker in the French Left of the 1960s, sparked in part by the need for a coherent policy on class alliances in the PCF after the adoption of the policy on “the peaceful road to socialism” in 1956 and the need to react to sociological changes in French society (Wadia, 1986).

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Notes

12. The book’s subject rests on the assumption that the content of these ideas was significantly affected by the historical and dominant ideological context in which they took place. This would go a long way in explaining why the rupture between the New Left and the Cuban Revolution took place just as Cuba’s increasing economic and ideological ties were forged with the Soviet Union in the early 1970s. It would also explain the radical change of heart that otherwise sympathetic observers demonstrated toward Cuba between 1968 and 1972 (Caute, 1974; Salkey, 1971). 13. One of the reasons why Guevara was seen as an intellectual was the enormous influence he had over a whole generation of radicalized students who participated in the creation of the guerrilla myth. In their commitment and association with the new, dissident, yet soon-to-be hegemonic global revolutionary discourse, these activists were also a component of the definition of the intellectual and the protagonists of some of the exchange that took place with the Cuban Revolution.

4 Geopolitics and Race: The Cuban Revolution and the U.S. New Left 1. Lyons (1976) defined the U.S. New Left as a white, educated student movement linked to SDS. 2. The issue of non-violence is particularly important at this stage in the development of the various New Lefts, all of which shared a commitment to it in various forms, ranging from calls to non-violent behavior in direct action for black and student activists during the early days of the civil rights movement, to the policy of neutralism advocated for and by newly decolonized nations, to the campaigns for nuclear disarmament that characterized the British and U.S. New Lefts at a time of increasing Cold war hostilities in the late 1950s and early 1960s. 3. Not only did the Port Huron Statement identify the big questions of the day, including the civil rights issue, the global political order that put the United States on the side of the old colonialists in Europe, and the economic system designed to increase the gap between rich and poor countries. In this sense, the document can be seen as very prescient. But the document goes further in that it also reflects on the role that students as intellectual-activists could and should play in search for solutions to these problems in the early 1960s. In a tone that prefigures much of current writing about social movements, the Port Huron Statement ends with an appeal to the creation of a global New Left as a social movement for this kind of transformation. 4. Tom Hayden is credited as the author of the Port Huron Statement and president of SDS for its first year of existence. Saul Landau is a key name of the U.S. New Left who made his own contribution to the New Left’s views on Cuba. 5. It was not only the “official” New Left that was attracted to the Cuban Revolution. The Student Committee for travel to Cuba (SCTC), a

Notes

6.

7.

8. 9.

10. 11. 12.

13.

197

propaganda campaign of the Progressive Labor Movement (PLM) in New York, and a splinter group from the Communist Party USA (CPUSA), organized a number of trips to Cuba in 1963 and 1964 in which more than a hundred university students participated, breaking the travel ban of 1960. The point, however, is that Cuba’s effect was greatest among the young and, even though their formal political allegiance was with the CPUSA, as with their counterparts in France, this relationship would be severely tested and broken in the years to come (Umezaki, 2007). Not only was this a journalistic scoop of the most immense nature at the time, but it continues to be seen as one of the great interviews of the twentieth century and has been republished as part of a series under that title in 2007 by the British newspaper The Guardian, with a foreword by Tariq Ali. Faced with the refusal to be accepted by the management of the hotel in which delegations to the UN normally stayed, the Cuban entourage caused a stir by making its way to the Theresa Hotel in Harlem where— to the delight of thousands of passersby and the media—they were received by the FPCC and visited by statesmen like Khrushchev, Nasser, and Nehru. The Cuban delegation’s popularity was highest with the black population especially after Castro met Malcolm X. Present at the event were familiar names of the French New Left: Claude Bourdet and K. S. Karol as well as their American friend Mills who was about to publish his classic book Listen Yankee in November of that year (Karol, 1971). A number of publications reflected this interest. Monthly Review outlived a number of other journals and pamphlets such as Evergreen Review (published by the FPCC) and Studies on the Left (published by SDS). This incident led to Williams seeking refuge in Cuba, a fact widely reported on the island. In a two-page article in Revolución, Williams denounces the NAACP because, he argues, they want to control the black population while showing a subservient attitude to the white majority (Cubillas, 1961). This critical position was also held by the NAACP and was the source of disputes with Robert Williams in 1960. The Oxford student group around Universities and Left Review is explored in chapter five. Sweezy and Huberman’s Cuba: Anatomy of a revolution is the result of experiences typical in the New Left of the time. As the preface to the book confesses, it was written in haste after a visit to the island in March 1960. The result is a sympathetic book that relates to the English-speaking world, the new official interpretation of Cuban history presented by the revolutionary leadership. The book enjoyed the endorsement of, among others, familiar names Herbert Matthews and C. Wright Mills. On the book’s jacket (third edition), he wrote: “In my thirty years [with] The New York Times, I have never seen a big story so misunderstood, so badly handled, and so misinterpreted as the Cuban Revolution” (Matthews, in Huberman and Sweezy, 1960).

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14. This review, which reflects the views of the editorial team, was published shortly after articles on the Tricontinental conference appeared in Havana and before a series of articles published the following year that explored the new strategy of revolution in Latin America. See Monthly Review (1966, 1967). 15. The life and writings of Frantz Fanon were discussed in Monthly Review at least three times in 1966, 1967, and 1969 by American, French, and British representatives of the New Left. See Goldman (1966); Ehrenreich (1967); Geismar and Worsley (1969). 16. Debray’s book was translated soon after it was published in Cuba. It appeared in a special issue of Monthly Review in July–August 1967. Exactly a year later, another special issue, “Debray and the Latin American Revolution,” was published in the same publication. 17. The editorial board of Monthly Review commented on these events on their regular review, “Reflections on the French upheaval,” published in September 1968 and “Problems of the student movement,” published in December of the same year. See Monthly Review (1968a; 1968b). 18. Now!! is a short film by iconic Cuban film director Santiago Alvarez. The film consists of still photographs taken during the racial disturbances of 1965 in California depicting images of brutal police violence against blacks in the United States and is one of the classics of early revolutionary Cuban cinema. 19. Meredith also hoped to encourage locals along the route of his march to register to vote and participate in that year’s primary elections. He was shot soon after starting his protest but Stokely Carmichael, along with other civil rights campaigners Martin Luther King, Jr. and Floyd McKissick, decided to complete the march in Meredith’s name. 20. This vision of blacks as the oppressed colonial people at the heart of the United States is one that blacks shared with other groups. As chapter eight shows, sections of the student population also described themselves in these terms to justify their aim of revolutionary socialist transformation of their societies. 21. The last article published in Pensamiento Crítico is an interview with Eldridge Cleaver in which he extolled violence as self-defense and presented the Black Panther Party manifesto. See Cleaver (1970).

5 British Intellectuals and the Cuban Revolution: Neutralism or Revolution? 1. See chapter six for further details. 2. This is crucial because it supports the idea that the New Left was not a political movement in the strict sense of the word. 3. In Britain, this was an important issue in 1962, during the transition from the First to the Second New Left, in New Left Review. In 1970, it

Notes

4. 5. 6. 7.

8. 9.

10.

11. 12.

13. 14. 15. 16. 17.

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was again an issue at the time of the polemic surrounding the closure of Black Dwarf, later replaced by Red Mole. In France, this debate always existed between France-Observateur and the PSU. See Worsley (1957); Rex (1957, 1959b), and Hanson (1958). On the theme of socialist humanism, see Thompson (1957, 1958, 1959) and Hanson (1957). I am grateful to Stuart Hall for taking time to have a telephone interview with me and bring to life the wider context in which the birth of the New Left was based. Samuel goes as far as to consider both journals as “sister” publications (Samuel, 1989: 44). The connection between the United States New Left and the British New Left commenced at this early stage through individuals like Norman Birbaum and Fruchter. With regard to the treatment of Third World issues in Universities and Left Review, see Davidson (1957), Marr (1959), and Rex (1959a). Contrary to the French case, the British New Left never organized into a traditional party group. Yet, its influence could be discerned around single issues campaigns such as the CND and the peace campaign. The object of their political action was to influence the positions of the left parties from within. Thus, there is little institutional framework through which to study them other than their publications and the varying intellectual currents that its members adhered to. Williams argues that the one issue that united the various factions within New Left Review was the CND. This, however, suffered serious setbacks in the early 1960s, a decline that was followed by dwindling participation in the Left Clubs. Within New Left Review, this signaled the time for Hall to be replaced by a new editorial team led by Anderson and Blackburn. Public details of their differences appeared in Anderson (1966) and Thompson (1978). One of the biggest victories of the CND, and by implication the New Left, was the successful lobbying of the Labour Party to the extent that the national party conference of 1960, at Scarborough, passed a resolution in favor of unilateralism. The following year, this decision was reversed. According to Barratt-Brown and Worsley, none of the members of the First New Left were ever invited to contribute to New Left Review. Views (1963–1966) has been very poorly studied as a journal that represented a rebirth of the First New Left. See contributions to New Left Review by Arrighi (1966) and Colletti (1969). See Cockburn and Blackburn (1969). Although published in 1969, the concept for the book was developed in 1967. The International Marxist Group became the sole representative of the United Secretariat of the Fourth International (USFI) in Britain after 1965, although its origins can be traced back to the late 1950s. Initially, the IMG was closely connected to traditional mass organizations, mainly

200

18. 19.

20. 21.

22.

23.

24. 25.

Notes

through its publication, The Week, which was edited by Ken Coates. It also received the support of Lawrence Daly and Russell, among others. Increasingly, however, it showed solidarity with the Vietcong and launched—in conjunction with the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation—the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign (VSC) in 1966. According to Callaghan, the contradictions implicit in this dual activity led to a split in October 1967. With Coates’s departure, much of the IMG’s remaining influence on the Movement for Workers’ Control and its working class support were substantially reduced (Callaghan, 1984). In the British case, the formative influence of the Cuban Revolution on the New Left was acknowledged by Hennessy (1993), Gonza´lez (1984), and Kenny (1995). See Castro (1960). New Left Review established formal exchanges with the American New Left through an article by Mills, Letter to the New Left (Mills, 1960b). Other names include Huberman and Sweezy from Monthly Review, Dellinger from Liberation (with a libertarian/pacifist line), and Landau, student leader and member of one of the founding organizations of the American New Left, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). At the time of the triumph of the Revolution, the Cuban Communist Party (PSP) had a history of collaboration with Batista and an official line that called the Fidelistas petit bourgeois putschists. See Blackburn (1963). According to the New Left, one of the major limitations of the CPGB was its extreme form of sectarianism, a clear obstacle to any notion of socialist democracy. This was precisely the danger certain ex-Communists members tried to avoid in a movement as fluid and open as the New Left. See Landau (1961). “Direct democracy” was a term widely used in Cuba to refer to the type of democracy exercised during the Revolution. Since their republican past was fraught with corruption, Cubans had a particularly negative view of formal democratic procedures, including elections. This argument explained, in the eyes of the New Left, the reluctance to announce fresh democratic elections even though Castro’s victory would have been guaranteed by his popularity. The issue of direct democracy has been commented on by Bengelsdorf (1994) and described more fully by Salkey (1971). Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) was a philosopher, logician, social reformer and pacifist. He was an active campaigner against the Vietnam war and for nuclear disarmament. He became a hero of the New Left in the 1960s and was founder of the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation and the Russell Vietnam War Crimes Tribunal. Indeed, his message to the 1968 Cultural Congress celebrated in Havana offered his support for the Cuban and Vietnamese causes. See Russell (1967). Blackburn’s silence about Cuba in the pages of New Left Review was broken in 2000 in an article inspired by the Elián González case. See Blackburn (2000).

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26. The opposite is perhaps less true. A series of articles by Blackburn and Anderson, published in New Left Review, were reprinted in Pensamiento Crítico in the late 1960s. 27. Cohen participated in the international jury that gave the Julián del Casal literary prize to Padilla in 1968 for a piece the UNEAC found objectionable on ideological grounds. Therborn produced an article about the Vietnam war, written while in Cuba at the end of 1967; published later in New Left Review, it celebrated the Marxist-Leninist character of the Vietnamese leadership. See Cohen (1965) and Therborn (1968). 28. Some of Debray’s contributions to New Left Review are Debray (1965, 1967b, 1970). 29. With regard to analyses of the British student movement in New Left Review, see Stedman Jones et al. (1967) and issue no. 53, 1969. 30. Another publication was Gerassi’s 1968 Venceremos. Yet for all of Guevara’s popularity, his writings were practically unknown to the vast majority of British students who revered him. 31. Ricardo Rojo went on to publish a biography of Guevara (Rojo, 1968a). 32. An example of a Maoist publication was L’Humanité Rouge, while the Trotskyist ones included Quatrième Internationale. 33. Castro’s support for the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in the summer of 1968 caused consternation in continental Europe. A number of contributors to Black Dwarf, however, “understood” the difficulties of the Cuban Revolution and stopped short of condemning it. See Halliday (1968) and Ali et al. (1968). 34. This continuing support for the Cuban Revolution was, as late as 1979, one of the major reasons for the British Socialist Workers Party’s (SWP) reluctance to join the Fourth International. See Callinicos and Goodwin (1979).

6

French Intellectuals and Cuba: A Revolutionary Working Model?

1. The idea of thinking independently and breaking established orthodoxies of both the Right and the Left was a trait common to all examples studied in all countries under consideration. 2. Troisième secteur was the name given by Jean Poperen (1972) to what could be taken as an euphemism for New Left. Yet, although the PSU’s political influence in the 1960s was enormous, this was never translated into electoral results, which on the whole were rather poor, never reaching the four percent share. 3. The Dreyfus affair was a French political scandal that took place in the 1890s in which a young army officer was wrongly convicted of treason, deeply dividing the country between supporters and detractors. The term “intellectual” is said to have been coined at the time to refer, in derogatory terms, to writer Émile Zola, who came to the defence of Dreyfus. In 1960, 121 intellectuals signed the manifeste des 121, calling on the French government to recognise the legitimacy of Algeria’s independence aspirations and

202

Notes

4. 5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

respect French conscientious objectors. The manifesto is said to have produced a societal division in France similar to that which took place during the Dreyfus affair. According to Poperen, both Morin and Mascolo were expelled from the PCF in the early 1950s for having contact with “bourgeois intellectuals” from L’Observateur and sharing their neutralist theses (Poperen, 1972). L’Express is considered the sister publication of France Observateur. Created in 1954, it had similar concerns and readership. In 1964, following the crisis between Bourdet and Martinet, Le Nouvel Observateur was created with the addition of numerous journalists from L’Express, notably Michel Bosquet (pseudonym of André Gorz), Jean Daniel, and Kewes Karol. Economically and politically, Cuba and France had little contact at the time although this increased in the 1960s, albeit driven by pragmatic considerations (Lambie, 1993). Both Henessy (1993) and Kapcia (1993) commented on the influence of French thought in Cuban revolutionary ideology. Verdes-Leroux identified three major waves of enthusiasm with Cuba in the 1960s. The first corresponded with the triumph of the Revolution itself. The second, with the revolutionary image of Che Guevara; and the third, with the Salon de mai exhibition in 1967 and the Cultural Congress of January 1968 (Verdes-Leroux, 1989). Although this categorization is largely correct in the thematic sense, it does not emphasize the difference of positions within the generally pro-Cuban views of the New Left nor does it situate these positions in the context of the different generations that constituted the French New Left or their publications. Other examples of the fine ideological and strategic tuning between Cuba and Algeria can be observed in the parallel between the formation of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), led initially by Ben Bella, and Cuban attempts to galvanize the Latin American revolution around its own example. Algeria was also the stage for one of Guevara’s fiercest critiques of the Eastern Bloc at the speech made in Algiers in February 1965 to the AfroAsian Solidarity Conference in what was one of his last public appearances (Gerassi, 1968). The manifesto of support appeared in Lunes de Revolución, denouncing what was seen as a campaign of misinformation to distort the Revolution and the enormous hope it represented for the people of Cuba; it was signed by eleven people, including Julien, Sartre, and André Breton. Although, given its own distrust of U.S. foreign policy and its attempts to build an independent international position, the French government had a somewhat similar position toward Cuba, the island’s unwavering support for the Algerians during the war severely damaged any potential rapprochement between both states. In this context, any enthusiastic coverage of the Cuban Revolution by the French New Left met with immediate censorship.

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12. Unlike in Britain, where the CND was the most important campaign issue, in the French case the message of peace was clearly monopolized by the PCF, which participated in the global propaganda war used to characterize itself as the only “peace camp.” 13. The 1960 October–November issue of Clarté, the official publication of Communist students, inaugurated a new epoch by carrying an editorial that announced a renewed interest in the youth of the Third World and contained the impressions of one such student, Gilbert Druard, who, after a three-month stay in Cuba, maintained that his biggest surprise was precisely the youthfulness of the revolutionary leadership (Druard, 1960: 10). 14. Until its disappearance in 1965, Clarté was considered representative of the ferment that produced the gauchiste element of the French New Left at the end of the decade. Its transformation into Le Nouveau Clarté was preceded by the purge of Serge July and Bernard Kouchner, both key actors in May 1968. 15. I am grateful to Janette Habel for sharing her memories about the period. 16. An element conspicuously missing in the discourse of Partisans is any reference to peace, a key element of the early British New Left. Two explanations seem appropriate for this peculiarity. First, the issue of peace was too much part of the PCF’s vocabulary and any self-definitional exercise for the New Left demanded a distancing from the “Old” Left. Second, perhaps most importantly, the degree to which the Algerian war was the first and only formative experience of the French student population imposed from very early on a bellicose attitude in certain members of this group. 17. Some authors refer to these two stages in independent terms. In Britain, the adjectives “first” and “second” are commonly employed to distinguish the two waves of the New Left. In the French case, this issue provoked a debate over the appropriateness of using the terms nouvelle gauche (New Left) and gauchisme (literally “Leftism” but associated to more radical left politics). 18. The “new working class” was the conceptual creation of many sociologists who argued that modern capitalist society brought about the proletarianization of white-collar jobs. Thus, a modern left-wing party should attempt to attract these sections of society to carry out new forms of activism that complemented the developed world, the anti-colonialist struggle of the Third World. 19. The crisis at the heart of France Observateur seems remarkably similar to that which characterized the British publication New Left Review in 1962. 20. According to Nugent and Lowe (1982), they grew due to a combination of circumstances that went from the rapidly expanding university population to the existence of a chronic conservative political regime to which a disorganized and ineffective Left as well as a discredited Communist Party could not present a challenge.

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21. According to Ross (1990), this and other reformist tendencies within the PCF were suppressed in such a way that it united them in their search for anti-PCF leftist politics, thus killing off any future potential accommodation between the PCF and its intellectuals as occurred in the ICP. 22. This is by no means a comprehensive description of the gauchiste scene. There was a large degree of ideological confusion in the aftermath of 1968 with the emergence of ouvreriste forms of student politics (Lutte Ouvrière) or spontaneist Maoists bent on the systematic use of violence (Gauche proletariènne). Further, there were other groups not mentioned, notably the anarchists, represented by the 22nd of March group led by Daniel Cohn-Bendit and the situationists (Jappe, 1998). 23. Ideological confusion was not the prerogative of student groups only. Intellectuals like Sartre held the contradictory political positions that characterized the New Left as a whole by showing support for reformist democratic parties such as the Italian Communist Party at the same time as Chinese ultra-Bolshevism (Bondy, 1970). Here, not even an ideological anti-Stalinism was the common ground between all factions of the New Left as the front page of l’Humanité Rouge, a Maoist weekly, regularly published headlines such as “Viva Stalin!” or referred to the PCF as the “revisionist” party. Rather, an anti-PCF position was the only common element of the entire New Left. 24. After the political and ideological exuberance of the late 1960s, a clear return to ideological and political forms of the “Old” Left ensued. This was not a particularly French characteristic. In Britain, only the Trotskyist element of the student political movement remained in the political scene but, as in France, it soon recycled its message supporting workerist positions. More importantly perhaps, the degree of political and ideological heresy that Cuba had represented throughout the 1960s came also to an abrupt end in the early 1970s. 25. Debray’s book Revolution in the Revolution was “commissioned” and corrected by Castro himself and published in 1967. It justified the revolutionary guerrilla strategy that Guevara was trying to implement in Bolivia and constituted the biggest critique yet of the official Communist position on the peaceful transition to socialism. 26. Cuba’s political maneuverings to lead and monopolize the idea of Third World in this period are explored in chapter seven. 27. Cuba’s call for revolution was also taken seriously by a French government that, in 1968, banned the French edition of the journal Tricontinental published by Maspero, motivated partly by a belief that the student revolt was a Cuban-inspired conspiracy (Karol, 1971). 28. Le Nouvel-Observateur for example, devoted more than eleven exclusive articles to both men by authors such as Albert-Paul Lentin, François Maspero, Olivier Todd, Perry Anderson, and Robin Blackburn. 29. Michèle Firk aided the FLN in Paris during the Algerian war before moving to Cuba—where she lived for a number of years—and joining the Guatemalan guerrillas. She was killed in 1968 at the age of thirty-one

Notes

30.

31. 32. 33.

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(Maspero, 1968). Pierre Goldman traveled to Cuba in 1961 to volunteer to fight during the Girón invasion. He then joined the Venezuelan guerrillas for some time. He was killed in Paris in 1979 (Goldman, 1975). The issue of action versus theory was divisive throughout the years in the battle for legitimacy inside and outside the Revolution. By 1968, when the Cuban Revolution demanded the participation of the West European New Left in the debate to try to answer the question “what should be the role of the intellectual?” the models proposed were invariably those of Guevara and Debray. The choice of these two names must be seen as more than a publicity stunt on the part of the participants at the Cultural Congress in Cuba in 1968. Both men incarnated the perfect combination of action and theory in their practice, representing a “Cuban” alternative to orthodox Marxism. I am grateful to Manuel Quintana, member of the Organizing Committee of Campamento 5 de Mayo in the summer of 1968, for sharing his views. I am grateful to 1960s student activist Thierry Aube, who participated in Campamento 5 de Mayo in the summer of 1968, for sharing his views. The official position was, of course, not followed in its entirety by other sectors of the Cuban Revolution. In particular, the Pensamiento Crítico group devoted a series of issues of the journal to the student events in Western Europe (France, Germany, Italy). Yet, their explanation for the failure of the movement to develop a “recipe for success” was a straightforward Marxist-Leninist view of the revolutionary role of the communist vanguard, hardly heretical for a publication that defined itself in those terms. I am grateful to Kewes Karol for meeting with me to share his memories about this controversy.

7

Cuba and the Third World: Evolution of a Concept and a Relationship

1. Some of these periodicals are Cuba Socialista, Pensamiento Crítico, Monthly Review, New Left Review, Socialist Register, Les Temps Modernes, and Partisans. Others, like Casa de las Américas, have already been studied (Rochdi, 1991; Weiss, 1977). Lunes de Revolución, like the French Le Nouvel Observateur or the British Red Mole and Black Dwarf, were newspapers; as such, neither the length of articles, frequency of publication (barely two years in some cases), nor the depth of analysis was deemed comparable to the material in the journals. In Cuba, Revolución y Cultura also provided an accurate reflection of the dominant ideas of the late 1960s; however, although its contents were similar to Pensamiento Crítico, Revolución y Cultura enjoyed little prestige in 1960s Cuba. 2. The prominent journals in the individual national cases always attempted to displace similarly “engaged” journals on the basis of what can only be described as personal and generational struggles for the maintenance of

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3.

4.

5.

6. 7.

specific positions in the field (Bourdieu, 1999). In Cuba, this displacement occurred mainly between Pensamiento Crítico and Revolución y Cultura. In France, the same process took place between Partisans and Les Temps Modernes; in Britain, between New Left Review and Socialist Register. Thus, it is notable that Pensamiento Crítico drew many of its contents from all of them, suggesting that the differences in treatment of topics in these journals was a strategy to assert intellectual hegemony over certain positions of the field. This is in spite of the importance that a journal like Cuba Socialista had to give to the understanding of the heritage of the working-class movement of sister popular democracies. This was mainly the job of PSP senior members such as Aníbal Escalante, Fabio Grobart, and Blas Roca (Escalante, 1961; Grobart, 1966; Roca, 1964). To these can be added articles of fellow intellectuals from the socialist bloc that often took a didactic form, referring often to the development of sister communist parties in Eastern Europe. This was also the issue that most attracted Cuban authors. Their numerous contributions concentrated on the study of the young Marx and of Marxist intellectuals banished from the pages of Soviet manuals—Lukacs, Luxemburg, Gramsci, and Trotsky—as well as contemporary European luminaries such as Sartre, Althusser, and Poulantzas. See Martínez Heredia (1970a, 1970b), Bell Lara (1970), and Díaz (1970). Pensamiento Crítico reproduced articles from many of the publications of the global New Left movement, including Socialist Register (11), New Left Review (19), Les Temps Modernes (23), and Partisans (21). Also, there were a few from Monthly Review Press (6), Cuaderni Piacentini (3), Problemi del socialismo (2), the U.S. radical newspaper The Movement (2), Esprit (2), Le Nouvel Observateur (2), the Uruguayan Marcha (2), Cuadernos de Ruedo Ibérico (1), and others. In light of this evidence, it is arguable that Pensamiento Crítico formed part of the New Left field. Further, it often announced Cuaderni Piacentini, Problemi del socialismo, New Left Review, and Ruedo Ibérico in its inside cover as well as other Maspero and Feltrinelli’s publications. In fact, most of Pensamiento Crítico’s nonCuban or Latin American authors were covered by these countries: France, Britain, United States, and Italy. This is most clear in, for instance, issue No. 20, which, devoted to the study of Africa, included only the writings of Western specialists. The reason for the lack of exchanges between the British journals when they clearly had thematic interests in common are found in Bourdieu’s individual journals as transmitters of ideas in competition with one another over their relative position in the field. Thus, in continental Europe, Les Temps Modernes maintained the most central position in the field. This explains why both New Left Review and Socialist Register were prepared to share (borrow and receive) their output with it, a strategy that must be identified as a means of increasing their symbolic capital. Conversely, intranational exchange and cross-fertilization hardly took

Notes

8.

9. 10. 11. 12. 13.

14.

15.

16. 17.

18.

19. 20.

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place, partly because the preservation of a distinct position within the field was most important at the national level. In Pensamiento Crítico, these articles appeared as Lukacs (1970) (reprinted in New Left Review), Luxemburg (1967) (reprinted in Partisans), Gorz (1967) (reprinted from New Left Review), Krassó (1968) (reprinted in Les Temps Modernes and New Left Review), and George (1969) (reprinted from Les Temps Modernes). See Hall and Fruchter (1961), Landau (1961), and Worsley (1961). See Debray (1965), Guevara (1967), and Therborn (1968). See Arrighi and Saul (1969), Davidson (1970), and Hobsbawm (1970). Other journals also shared a New Left space with Les Temps Modernes and Partisans, notably Esprit, influenced by Christian values; Arguments; and Socialisme ou Barbarie, led by Castoriadis (Bondy, 1970; Hirsh, 1981). And yet, the two French journals only shared one article through the entire decade. Although this would confirm that different positions in the intellectual field were established mainly on the basis of generations grouped around publications contending for symbolic capital rather than purely on the various ideas they defended, a difference of intellectual concerns did exist between Les Temps Modernes and Partisans. The journal published Castro’s Words to the intellectuals (Castro, 1961b) and Dorticós’ The role of intellectuals in the Revolution (1961), followed by many other reprinted speeches (Castro, 1963; Guevara, 1964, 1965). Partisans devoted special issues to Algeria, Africa, Cuba, the collaboration between the Western Left and the Third World, Latin American revolutionary prospects, Cuba and Castroism, Latin American guerrillas, and the Vietnam war. Britain participated in conflicts in Malaysia, Cyprus, Kenya, and Borneo. France had a long and painful separation from Indo-China and then turned against the Algerian independence movement. The enormous importance attached to these events by the New Left escaped the CPGB. Although it condemned the British action in Suez, the Party was at the time busy dealing with internal conflict and mass desertions from its camp. The CND did live beyond 1963. In fact, it remained the biggest radical organization outside the CPGB and was only overtaken by the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign (VSC) in 1967. Yet, according to Young, the Cuban Missile Crisis signaled its fall from grace (Young, 1977). In spite of this, we saw a resurgence of the CND during its fortieth anniversary in 2008, arguing that the need for nuclear disarmament is as great now as it was then. For example, Saville and Thompson, 1958; Mills, 1959; and Thompson, 1958. In Britain, the 1961 Labour Party conference reversed its commitment to unilateral disarmament and neutralism that had taken place a year earlier and central to the aspiration to create a neutral bloc. The failure of the

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Notes

21. 22. 23.

24.

25.

26.

conceptual association between the Third World and neutralism was reflected in the downward spiral of the CND’s influence after 1963. In addition, New Left commentators compared the personality cult of Mao to that of Stalin (Roy, 1966). Notably Maspero, who through Partisans, celebrated the spirit of independence of a Cuban Revolution, which he described as the true representative of the world’s revolutionary avant garde (Maspero, 1966). In a study of the VSC in Britain, Young argues that most of its membership previously took part in the CND, pointing out the contradiction between a movement that called for peace and one that called for the defeat of the United States (Young, 1977). Bill Warren’s article on the industrialization of the Third World marked a frontal attack on the third-worldism characteristic of the previous phase and opened up the path for the work presented in Imperialism: Pioneer of Capitalism (1980) in which Warren offered the most consistent critique of Dependency Theory yet. Chomsky diverges from the notion that the intellectual should waste time speaking to power, arguing instead that the role of the intellectual is to take a critical position toward society from “chosen” audiences, in order to maximize the political effect. This does not undermine the main proposition that a wide body of literature points to the need for the intellectual to be critical as a necessary pre-condition to their claiming intellectual status. Authors who emphasize structural definitions of the intellectual would argue that this social group can equally attach itself to the political right, favoring a definition of intellectuals simply as “men of ideas” (Coser, 1965). See also Brym (1980).

8 The New Left: Activists or Intellectuals? 1. Although the most obvious signs of Stalinist political sectarianism were removed in 1962, during and after the Escalante Affair, its intellectual symptoms remained strong. 2. Of course, it is still possible to see a link between both positions as they have implications for intellectual engagement. In the case of increasingly antiintellectual and inflexible communist parties (i.e., the communist parties of 1956), the role of intellectuals was clearly seen to be subsumed to that of the political apparatus. Communist “reformism” in the late 1960s reflected the electoral priorities of the Party. Either way, intellectuals on the outside claimed their identity on the basis that their positions were divergent from those of the political apparatuses of the communist parties. 3. The reasons why Sartre’s outlook changed so fundamentally after the war are acknowledged and explained in Sartre (1969b) (reproduced in Sartre, 1974). Further references here to this interview correspond to the reproduction in the latter.

Notes

209

4. Sartre described this ability in Castro during his visit to Cuba in 1960 and very prominently in the notes that make up the bulk of the unfinished Critique of Dialectical Reason. 5. Khilnani interprets the failure to complete this project as the starting point of Sartre’s failure to combine a notion of political commitment and intellectual independence, arguing that he adopted an anti-intellectualist position, subordinating himself to the masses and denying himself any right to be considered as an autonomous agent of revolutionary politics (Khilnani, 1993). 6. These lectures appeared in Sartre (1974). All references to them are based on this text. 7. This is a process whose mechanism Sartre never explained. He contented himself only with saying that “such conversion will depend in part on his personal history, which may determine whether the tension which characterizes him is released” (Sartre, 1974: 245). 8. This universal class Sartre claimed to represent was never explicitly defined, as it ranged between “the proletariat,” “the oppressed,” “the people,” and “the world’s poor.” 9. A “rediscovery” of Gramsci’s writings did not take place in the New Left until 1968 but, by that time most commentary on Gramsci made an explicit comparison between his work and Lenin’s. Positions often were polarized between those who identified with Gramsci on the basis of his “humanism” and those who, from Leninist positions, stood critically against. The first group includes Kiernan (1972) and Paris (1965, 1970); the second group includes Anderson (1968) and Debray (1970). 10. “Fundamental social group” was one of the various euphemisms used by Gramsci to refer to “class” in the Marxist sense and at the same time circumvent censorship while writing his Prison Notebooks. 11. In a short piece devoted to the role of the intellectual, Debray paid homage to his tutor Althusser and his Leninist convictions (Debray, 1967c). 12. For a sample of the writings by or about Marcuse that made an appearance in the field, see the articles in Socialist Register (Sedgwick, 1966); New Left Review (Cohen, 1969; Marcuse, 1965, 1967, 1968a, 1969b; Therborn, 1970); Partisans (Marcuse, 1966a, 1966b, 1968b; Fraenkel, 1971); and Pensamiento Crítico (Marcuse, 1968c, 1969c). 13. His critique of Stalinism came in 1958 with the publication of Soviet Marxism. 14. The reason why, in Marcuse’s opinion, intellectuals were non-integrated was because their privileged position, education and training, and intellectual capacities were developed partly independent of the material process of production (Magee, 1982). In what he called “catalyst groups,” they engaged in political education and formation of revolutionary consciousness that counteracted the control of consciousness by the established power structures. Although he never fully explained what he meant

210

15.

16.

17.

18. 19.

20.

21.

22.

23.

Notes

by it, Marcuse’s faith in the liberating possibilities of intellectual skills was such that he often called for a dictatorship of the intellectuals. A stress on the importance of political commitment was shared by all the major intellectual players of the New Left even though this was not always accompanied by a desire to take part in revolutionary action, as was the case with the Leninist intellectual vanguard characteristic of Althusser’s position and that of the intellectuals associated with Pensamiento Crítico. This, however, does not mean that, when their models were referred to by the various constituencies of the New Left, the interpretations given were not often irrelevant to the word and the spirit of the canons themselves (Aronson, 1980). The fusion of politics and intellect, of action and thought, of revolutionary and intellectual practice could be summed up in Hobsbawm’s argument that, although revolutionaries were intellectuals, this did not mean that all intellectuals were necessarily revolutionaries (Hobsbawm, 1977: 245). Ordine Nuovo was a weekly publication edited by Gramsci, which aimed at developing socialist ideas and culture. See Gramsci (1971a: 10). The reinforcement of links with the working class was, in practice, directed from above and paternalistic in nature. Also, they were as entrenched in the Marxist tradition as the Trotskyist-Leninist influences that dominated the New Left late in the decade. Besides pointing out the qualitative distinction between philosophers (as the highest representative of the intellectual) and mere administrators of the new hegemonic values, the author announced that Cuba was already in the process of forming its own organic intellectuals, in clear reference to the formative process of the group of academics that would lead the editorial board of Pensamiento Crítico (Portuondo, 1964). One issue that remains to be examined is the source of knowledge of this intellectual vanguard. In the late 1960s, knowledge came from two sources: pure revolutionary action, as practiced by the guerrilla, or pure theoretical work, as advocated by academic philosophers. Both of these groups traced the justifications for their roles to Lenin. Debray’s book was, however, misleading about the meaning attached to the concept of intellectual. Whereas in Latin America, the vanguard guerrilla role had been taken by “students and revolutionary intellectuals,” he seemed to use a traditional understanding of the concept of intellectual when he argued that during the guerrilla campaign, the intellectual was naturally “weak” and “less able than others to invent, improvise, make do with available resources” (Debray, 1967a: 21). Thus, at times he made a distinction and a hierarchy of the importance between the pure military guerrillas and the intellectual ones; other times, he argued that they were the same thing or could be fused into the same individual. See Revolución y Cultura, issues 1 and 2.

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Index activists 3, 47, 63, 67–9, 71–2, 110, 114, 121, 136, 149, 157, 176, 179, 188 activists versus intellectuals 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 15, 47, 54, 58, 71, 162, 165, 185 Afro-Asian Solidarity Congress (1965) 118, 202 agency 7, 65, 114, 151, 162 Aldermaston 1, 51 Algeria 24 Algerian War 4, 14, 35, 51, 70, 77, 85–6, 106, 108, 116, 123, 178 support for Algeria 6, 110, 114–15, 179 Ali, Tariq 100, 197 Allende, Salvador 123 Alonso, Aurelio 40, 172 Alternativa Bolivariana para las Américas (ALBA) 59, 186 Althusser, Louis 39, 42, 53, 93, 159–62, 171 For Marx (book) 160–1 Alvarez, Santiago 27, 198 see also Now!! Amin, Samir 140 anarchism 51, 65 Anderson, Perry 48, 91, 95, 100 anti-globalization movement 15–16, 176, 186–7 anti-imperialism 21, 31, 73, 81, 92, 98 anti-imperialist ideology 35–6, 52 “Appeal of Havana” 42 Arana Larrea, Luis 193 see also Raúl Cepero Bonilla

Arenal, Humberto 34, 192 Argentinian New Left 9 Arguments, see journals and periodical publications Arrighi, Giorghi 131, 199 Arrufat, Antón 34, 75 Aube, Thierry 205 Auténticos 30 Bandung Conference (1955) 113, 119, 135, 138, 147, 179 Baragaño, Jose Antonio 34 Baran, Paul 155 Barrat-Brown, Michael 85, 92, 136–7, 139–40 Barrat, Robert 109 Batista, Fulgencio 29–30, 68 Batistianos 22, 38 “Battle of ideas” 1, 15, 59, 175 “Battle of Seattle” 186, 189 Bay of Pigs 63, 71 Belgrade Conference (1961) 96 Benda, Julien 144 Berlin Wall 183 Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation (BRPF) 99 Bettelheim, Charles 73 Birbaum, Norman 199 black activists 76, 78, 166, 196 black Americans 67, 77–9 Blackburn, Robin 48, 91, 95, 100, 199, 201, 204 Black Dwarf, see journals and periodical publications black exiles 70

230

Index

black intellectuals 74, 79 black liberation movement 57, 66–7, 71, 74, 78–9, 81, 164, 180 black nationalist culture 70, 80 Black Panthers 66, 74, 80, 198 Black Power 79 black writers 35, 69 Blanc, Christian 114 Blanco, Juan Antonio 172 Bolivia 58, 100, 119–20, 143, 185–6, 204 Bosquet, Michel 202 see also Gorz, André Bourdet, Claude 49, 106–7, 113, 116 Bourdieu, Pierre 9–12, 190 capital 9–11 field 9–12, 14, 48, 56 habitus 9–10, 48–9, 56 Bravo, Douglas 141, 189 Breton, André 117 Browder, Earl 30 Brown, Rap 79 Buchanan, Keith 131 Bukharin, Nikolai 23 Burchett, Wilfred 131 Cabrera Infante, Guillermo 34, 36 Camellos 184 Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) 1–2, 51, 89, 91, 98, 207–8 Campamento cinco de mayo 121, 205 Camus, Albert 35 Carmichael, Stokely 79 Carrillo, Santiago 129 Casa de las Américas, see journals and periodical publications Castoriadis, Cornelius 52 Castro brothers 38, 182 Castro, Fidel 1, 3, 7, 24–5, 31, 50, 56, 68, 74, 96, 118, 120, 122, 141, 172, 184 History will absolve me (book) 26, 95 Palabras a los intelectuales 37, 167 tour of the Third World 187

United Nations meeting 69 U.S. tour (1959) 31, 68–9, 112 and young people 28, 76 Castro, Raúl 114 Castro, Roland 114 see also journals and periodical publications, La cause du peuple Centre d’action démocratique (CAD) 107 Centro de Estudios sobre América (CEA) 188 Chaliand, Gèrard 115, 131, 134 Chávez, Armando 193 Chávez, Hugo 58, 186 Chile 104, 123, 180, 185 China 7, 53, 70, 141, 147 Maoism 51, 101, 118 Mao Tse Tung 56, 70 Chomsky, Noam 208 Christian Left 85, 106, 108, 110, 113, 115, 123 CIA 24 Ciclón, see journals and periodical publications civil rights movement 2, 14, 48, 49, 63–4, 66–71, 77–9, 163, 179–80, 185 armed self-defense 70 radicalization of 77–9 civil society 186–7 Clarté, see journals and periodical publications class 31, 57, 109 class struggle 101 dominant class 158 middle class 63, 65 universal class 151, 154, 156–7, 159, 161–2, 164 working class 29, 31, 64, 66, 74, 107, 116, 154, 158, 161, 164, 166, 170, 173, 181 Claudín, Fernando 109 see also Spanish diaspora Cleaver, Eldridge 79 Coates, Ken 100–1

Index

Cohn-Bendit, Daniel 204 Cold War 3, 20, 30, 72, 90, 96, 188 bipolar division of the world 20, 72, 179 Colleti, Lucio 160 Colonial Conflicts 50, 52, 55, 86, 111, 131, 137, 139, 146, 178–9 Combat 106 see also journals and periodical publications Comecon 44 Comintern 29 Comité d’action des intellectuels contre la guerre d’Algérie 110 Comités de Defensa de la Revolución (CDR) 33 Committee of 91, 100 see also Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) Communist parties (‘Old’ Left) 51, 53–4, 56, 74, 105, 107, 109, 113, 128, 136, 138, 141 Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) 50 Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) 19, 49–50 Communist Party of the USA (CPUSA) 30, 49, 64, 67 Confédération Francaise démocratique du travail (CFDT) 116 Congress of Culture and Education (1961) 37 Congress of Culture and Education (1971) 6, 44 Congress for Racial Equality (CORE) 78 consumerism 64, 88 Cordón de la Habana 24 see also Havana, Havana greenbelt Correa, Rafael 186 Cortázar, Juan 109 see also Spanish diaspora Couret, Bernard 131 Critique of Dialectical Reason (Book) 155 see also Sartre, Jean Paul

231

cross-fertilization of ideas 5, 8, 9, 12, 48, 120 Cruse, Harold 64, 69–71, 79 Cuadernos de Ruedo Ibérico, see journals and periodical publications Cuba and Algerian collaboration 4, 112 Angolan intervention 182 and the anti-globalization movement 15–16, 59 art and culture 11, 27, 35 Cuba: Anatomy of a Revolution (Book) 71, 197, see also Sweezy, Paul; Huberman, Leo Cuban-American community 183 Cuban cinema 27, 198, see also Alvarez, Santiago Cuban Communism 20, 29–33 Cuban Communist Party 29–30 Cuban Constitution of 1940 30 Cuban economic development 22–5, 27, 31, 35, 41, 44, 183 Cuban exiles 70 Cuban ideological unorthodoxy 4, 20, 44 Cuban ideology 2, 7, 15, 43, 58, 72, 77 Cuban intellectual field 11, 14, 34, 36 Cuban intellectuals 4, 7, 10, 34–6, 38–9, 75, 77 Cubanista 28 “Cuban way” 41, 183 Cuba’s heresy 45, 72 education 26–28, see also Literacy Campaign Ethiopian intervention 182 foreign policy 21–5, 73–4, 182 health 26–7 neutralism 69 and the New Left 2–5, 7–8, 13, 33–44, 47, 49, 53, 55, 57, 63–4, 67–71, 111, 128, 180 peaceful transition to socialism 25

232

Index

Cuba (Continued ) quality of life 27, 182 revolutionary strategy 25, 40, 42, 73–4, 79, see also Guevara, Ernesto, guerrilla strategy and the Third World 5–6, 57, 135–48 Cuban Revolution and China 195 economic debate 23, 24 humanist 24 ideology free 113 Marxist-Leninist 20, 24 national identity 22 radicalization 47, 72–3, 78 relations with the U.S. 31, 67–71 Sartre’s visit 34, 113 socialization of the economy 22 “special period” 183 and students 28, 38, 49, 76 utopian destiny 21 Cuba Socialista, see journals and periodical publications Cultural Congress (1968) 42–3 cultural power 36, 52, 59 cycles of contention 59 Cyprus 86 Davis, A. 81 De Beauvoir, Simone 2, 5, 34, 69, 110, 113, 119 Debray, Règis 2, 14, 25, 100, 118, 133, 178 and Bolivia 74, 119 foco theory of revolution 74, 100, 170 and the intellectual 120, 141, 171, 210 Revolution in the Revolution? (book) 25, 74, 160, 170, 204 theory of revolution 74, 103, 141–2, 170 Decolonization 26, 65, 132, 139, 175, 179 de Gaulle, Charles 4, 85–6, 107, 108 de la Uz, Félix 40

Della Volpe, Galvano 93 Dellinger, Dave 50, 67 Dependency Theory 140 Desnoes, Edmundo 35, 172 Díaz, Jesús 172 dictatorship of intellectuals 162–5 see also Marcuse, Herbert, and intellectuals direct democracy 33, 97, 113, 200 Directorio Revolucionario Estudiantil (DRE) 31 Dissent 88 see also journals and periodical publications Dorticós, Osvaldo 43 Dreyfus affair 109, 201 Duclos, Jacques 30 Dumont, René 23 Eastern Bloc 6, 27, 37, 54 Eastern European model of socialism 21, 27, 32 École Normale Superieure (ENS) 118 Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLA) 140 Ecuador 186 Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (EZLN) 185 El Caimán Barbudo, see journals and periodical publications El Salvador 3 The End of History 143 Engels, Friedrich 161 Escalante Affair 32 Escalante, Aníbal 32, 206 Escuelas de Instrucción Revolucionaria (EIR) 38 Escuelas del Partido 44 Esprit, see journals and periodical publications European Economic Community (EEC) 137 Evergreen Review 14, 70 existentialism 35 existentialist Marxism 87, 111 see also Merleau-Ponty, Merleau

Index

Fair Play for Cuba Campaign (FPCC) 49, 63, 67–72, 74–5 fair trade 137 Fanon, Frantz 39, 74, 79, 97, 111, 115, 129 Federación de Estudiantes Universitarios (FEU) 39, 97 Federación de Mujeres Cubanas (FMC) 33 fellow traveler 7, 56 Fernández, Pablo Armando 34 Fernández Retamar, Roberto 35, 172 Fifth Republic 107 Firk, Michèle 114, 120, 204 Foreman, James 79–80 Fornet, Ambrosio 172, 182 Fourth International 102, 122–3 Fourth Republic 85, 107 France Observateur, see journals and periodical publications Francos, Ania 112 Frankfurt School 93, 162 Franqui, Carlos 34, 36, 192 Free Speech Movement, Berkeley 66 Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) 59 Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) 109 Front universitaire antifasciste (FUA) 110 Fruchter, Norman 50, 97 Fukuyama, Francis 185 García Buchaca, Edith 192 Gauche Proletariènne 204 see also journals and periodical publications Gauchisme 12, 51, 108 Generation 1960s generation of activists 2, 13, 28, 58–9, 63–4, 165 generational elements of the New Left 14–15, 21, 28, 32, 34, 48, 54, 66, 74, 76, 132, 168 intellectual generation of 1933 35

233

German-Soviet Pact (1939) 29, 107 Gibson, Richard 69 Girón 37 global battle of ideas 59, 175 global civil society 59, 187 global definition of the New Left 54–8 globalization 15, 58–9, 175–7, 185–8 global New Left 176, 180 global revolution 131, 134, 146 global social justice movement 58–9, 186 global social movements 59, 65, 176, 186–7 global south 59, 141, 177 Goldman, Lucien 52 Goldman, Pierre 205 Gorbachev, Mikhail 183 Gorz, André 117, 120, 133 Goytisolo, Juan 109 see also Spanish diaspora Gramsci, Antonio 15, 42, 93, 160–1, 164, 166, 209 and intellectuals 157–9 Ordine Nuovo 166 organic intellectual 157–9 Prison Notebooks (book) 157 traditional intellectual 157–9 Great Debate 22–3, 41 Grobart, Fabio 206 Guantánamo 71, 96 The Guardian 73 see also journals and periodical publications Guatemala Guatemalan guerrilla 204 Guatemalan invasion (1954) 69 Guérin, Daniel 121 Guevara, Ernesto Algeria 114 Algerian speech, (1965) 190 Bolivia 119, 143, 204 Bolivian diaries (book) 101 Congo 68, 112

234

Index

Guevara, Ernesto (Continued ) guerrilla activity 25, 73, see also Cuba, revolutionary strategy guerrilla strategy 25, 44 intellectual 4, 57, 71, 74, 121, 171–2 Man and Socialism 26, 191 New Man 23, 26, 168, 171, 191 On revolutionary medicine 191 Guillén, Nicolás 37 Gunder Frank, Ander 39, 42, 131, 140 Underdevelopment or Revolution (book) 131 Habel, Janette 114, 134, 203 Hall, Stuart, 89 91–2, 97 see also journals and periodical publications, New Left Review Havana 25, 36, 38, 70, 73, 79, 141, 182, 184 Havana greenbelt 24 Hayden, Tom 67, 196 Helms Burton Act 183 Hill, Christopher 85 History of Marxist Thought 39 History will Absolve Me 26, 95 see also Castro, Fidel Hobsbawn, Eric 194 Hoy 29, 31, 37 see also journals and periodical publications Huberman, Leo 50, 67, 71–2, 75, 95 humanism 52, 194 Cuban humanism 24, 71–2 socialist humanism 84, 87, 89, 95–7, 194 Hurtado, Oscar 34 imperialism 25, 42, 48, 79, 87, 100, 131, 133, 139–42 Imprenta Nacional 34 India 135 Indochina 85, 135 industrialization drive 21–3 Institute of Land Reform 22

Institute of Urban Reform 22 Institute for Workers Control 92 institutionalization 20, 32 Instituto Cubano del Arte e Industria Cinematográfica (ICAIC) 27 Instituto del Libro 41–2 Intellectual academic intellectual 48 and activists 69 classic intellectual 154–7, see also Sartre, Jean Paul committed intellectual 43, 54, 56–7, 89, 143–8, 181 Communist intellectuals 85, 151, 153 Cuban intellectuals 7, 33, 35, 38, 129, 131, 147 Cuban New Left intellectuals 33–44 “death of the intellectual” 2, 143–8 definition of 8, 10, 37, 50, 53–4, 56, 58, 109, 143–8, 154–65, 187 dictatorship of intellectuals, see Marcuse, Herbert intellectual cross-fertilization 48, 128, see also cross-fertilization of ideas intellectual exchanges 2–3, 7 intellectual field 9–12, 14, 48, 63, 105 intellectual freedom 2, 6, 36, 85, 103, 119 intellectual groups 39, 41, 44–5, 48, 64, 69, 71–2, 108, 128, 130, 150 intellectual hegemony 40, 128, 206 intellectual output 14, 39, 83 intellectual workers 38 left-wing intellectual 33 New Left intellectual 77, 109, 150–4 organic intellectual, see Gramsci, Antonio public intellectual 143

Index

relationship with the state 33, 43 revolutionary intellectual, see Lenin role of the intellectual 2, 7, 9, 44–5, 151, 159, 188 and social movements 58–60, 66 traditional intellectual, see Sartre, Jean Paul Western intellectual 2, 15, 34, 42–3, 47, 56, 103, 176–7 Intelligentsia 34, 164, 168, 173 dissident intelligentsia 54 Western intelligentsia 6, 34 “intellocracy” 144 international circulation of ideas 9–10 International Marxist Group (IMG) 93, 102, 199–200 International Socialism, see journals and periodical publications International Socialists (IS) 102 intertextuality 9–10 “Italian” section of UEC 117 see also Julia Kristeva ivory tower 56, 143 Jeunesse Communiste Révolutionnaire (JCR) 102, 118 Jones, Leroi 69, 70–1, 79 Jones, Mervyn 85 journals and periodical publications Arguments 119 Black Dwarf 13, 93, 101–2, 199, 201, 205 Casa de las Américas 34, 36, 109 Ciclón 35 Clarté 13, 114 Combat 106 Cuadernos de Ruedo Ibérico 48, 109 Cuba Socialista 13, 41, 128–9, 151, 158, 167–8 Dissent 88 El Caimán Barbudo 13, 194 Esprit 85, 107 Evergreen Review 70 France Observateur 49, 105–7, 109, 111, 116, 119

235

Gauche Proletariènne 204, see also Maoism The Guardian 73 International Socialism 13 Juventud Rebelde 187 La cause du peuple 114 La Gaceta de Cuba 37 Le Monde 111 Le Nouveau Clarté 114 Les Temps Modernes 13, 36, 109, 111, 122, 131–3, 153–4, 168, 180 L’Express 109, 117 L’Humanité 153 L’Humanité Rouge 201 Liberation 67 L’Observateur 13, 36, 106–7, 136–7 Lunes de Revolución 13, 34–7, 192 Lutte Ouvrière 204 Marcha 206 Monthly Review 13, 48, 67, 71, 73–5, 93, 131–2, 134, 140, 168 New Left Review 13, 48, 88–94, 97–103, 131–2, 139, 142–3, 152, 156, 166, 169–70, 178–80 New Reasoner 50, 84–8, 90, 92, 95 New University 91, 95 New York Times 68–70 Nuestro Tiempo 35 Orígenes 35–6 Partisans 13, 48, 109, 115, 119, 122, 131–4, 152–3, 167, 169, 203 Pensamiento Crítico 13, 40–5, 48, 128, 132, 134, 140, 171, 180, 194 Problemi del Socialismo 206 Quaderni Piacentini 48, 206 Quatrième Internationale 201 Red Mole 13, 93, 101–3 Revolución y Cultura 13, 172 Rouge 13, 122 Socialisme ou Barbarie 207, see also Castoriadis, Cornelius

236

Index

journals and periodical publications (Continued ) Socialist Register 13, 88, 131–3, 153, 168, 180 Studies on the Left 13, 71 Temoignage Chretien 109 Teoría y Práctica 40–1 Tribune du Communisme 107 Tricontinental 130 Unión 37 Universities and Left Review 86 Verde Olivo 194, see also Padilla, Heberto Views 92 The Week 200, see also Coates, Ken Julien, Claude 111–13 Karol, Kewes 48, 117, 121, 134 Kennedy, John F. 63, 71 Khrushchev, Nikita 84 King, Martin Luther 78 Kouchner, Bernard 114, 118 Kravetz, Marc 114, 117 Kristeva, Julia 9, 10 Krivine, Alain 117–18 Labour Party (British) 49, 85, 89, 91–2, 98, 136 La cause du peuple, see journals and periodical publications La Gaceta de Cuba, see journals and periodical publications Landau, Saul 50, 67, 69, 71 Land Reform of 1959 22, 31 La Nouvelle Gauche 49, 51, 56, 106 Lanzmann, Claude 110–11 latifundia 22 Latin America Cuba and Latin America 25, 42, 134, 182 indigenous movements in Latin America 186 Latin America: the Long March (1965) 133 Latin American communist parties 29, 74

Latin American intellectuals 40, 42, 109, 129 Latin American students 28 radicalism in Latin America 28, 146, 185 revolution in Latin America 20, 74, 80, 122, 128, 170 solidarity networks 58, 141 Lebanon 135 Lefevre, Henri 52 Left Clubs 86, 91 Leiris, Michel 117 Le Monde 111 see also journals and periodical publications Leninism 23, 29, 41, 44, 75, 77, 80, 93, 102 Leninist understanding of imperialism 140 Lenin, Vladimir 15, 39 democratic centralism 161 revolutionary intellectual 4, 43, 59, 101, 130, 159–62 State and Revolution 161 vanguard 171 What is to be Done? 169 Le nouveau Clarté, see journals and periodical publications Lentin, Albert Paul 109, 117 Lessing, Doris 85 Les Temps Modernes 13, 109, 111, 122 see also journals and periodical publications “Letter to the New Left” 65–6 L’Express 109, 117 see also journals and periodical publications Lezama Lima, José 36 L’Humanité 153 see also journals and periodical publications L’Humanité Rouge 201 see also journals and periodical publications

Index

Liberation 67 see also journals and periodical publications Liberation Theology 146 Libermanian positions 23, 190 Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire (LCR) 102, 118 Listen Yankee 197 see also Mills, C. Wright Literacy Campaign 26, 33 see also Cuba, education L’Observateur, see journals and periodical publications London School of Economics 100, 169 Lowy, Michael 39 Lukacs, György 39, 93 Lunes de Revolución, see journals and periodical publications Lutte Ouvrière, see journals and periodical publications MacEwen, Malcolm 85 McKissick, Floyd 198 see also March against Fear Magri, Lucio 160–1 Malcolm, X. 79 Mallet, Serge 107, 117 Mancilla, Anastasio 193 see also Raúl Cepero Bonilla Manifeste des 121, 109 Man and Socialism, see Guevara, Ernesto Marcha 206 see also journals and periodical publications March Against Fear 78, 198 Marcuse, Herbert 15, 42, 74, 93, 100, 169–70, 209 dictatorship of intellectuals 162–5 and intellectuals 162–5 One Dimensional Man (book) 162 repressive tolerance 162 Marinello, Juan 30 Marquitos Affair 32, 192 Martí, José 171

237

Martinet, Giles 105 Martínez Heredia, Fernando 171 Marxism 8, 19, 31 early Marxism 53, 130, 160 existential Marxism 87, 111 humanist Marxism 53, 72, 166 Marxist-Leninist 28, 41, 44 Marxist orthodoxy 8, 20, 39, 53–4, 71, 138, 151, see also Soviet, ideology; Stalinism Marxist revival 52–3, 132 teaching of Marxism 20, 38–40, 150 textbooks 40, see also polémica de los manuales Mascolo, Dyonis 109 Masi, Edoarda 153 Maspero, François 48, 109, 111 mass consumerism 64 Matthews, Herbert 68, 72 Mau Mau revolt 86 May 1968 4, 28, 51, 74, 77, 116, 120–1, 164 May Day Manifesto (1967) 92, 94, 142 Mendès-France, Pierre 107 Meredith, Charles 78, 198 Merleau-Ponty, Merleau 87 see also Marxism, existential Marxism Metropolitan nations 131 Microfacción trial 32, 192 Middle class radicalism 89 Mikoyan, Anastas 24 Miliband, Ralph 88, 161, 168 Mills, C. Wright 14, 38, 42, 64–6, 71–2, 76, 95, 166 Missile Crisis 24, 32, 63, 66, 71 Mitterrand, François 118 Mollet, Guy 85 Moncada Barracks 38, 171 Moncadistas 38 Monthly Review 13, 93 see also journals and periodical publications Morales, Evo 58, 186

238

Index

moral incentives 23, 27, 183, 191 see also Guevara, Ernesto, New Man Morin, Edgard 109 Mournier, Emmanuel 107 Mouvement de Libération du Peuple (MLP) 107 Movimiento revolucionario 26 de julio (MR26) 30–2, 36, 128–9, 189, 191 Nairn, Tom 91 Nasser, Gamal, A. 106 National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) 70, 78, 197 national identity 21–2, 27 nationalism 27, 31, 38, 42, 44, 78, 80 nationalization of foreign assets 21–3, 31, 36 national liberation 26, 42, 71 national library (Cuba) 27, 37 national traditions of the New Left 48, 53–4 Nehru, Jawaharlal 137 Neruda, Pablo 35 networks of solidarity 14, 59 neutralism 13, 55, 69, 135–8, 143 New Left British New Left 1, 3–4, 12, 14, 35, 49, 83–103, 178, 199 Cuban New Left, see New Left groups definition of 48–59, 177 dissident Left 44 European New Left 2, 4, 25, 28, 33, 35, 39, 41, 43, 47–9, 146, 172 First New Left 50–1, 87–9, 169 French New Left 3–4, 11, 49, 51–2, 178–9 New Left and activists 9–12, 57–9 New Left Campaigns 51, see Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) New Left clubs 91 New Left discourse 3

New Left field 9–13, 48, 149 New Left intellectuals 9, 20, 146–7, 177, 185 New Left publications 15, 143 New Left and the Third World 54–5, 57, 146 North American New Left (also US New Left) 3, 14, 49, 64–7 Second New Left 52–3, 170] New Left groups in Cuba 34–44, 48, 171, 182 in France 106–11, 116–18 in UK 84–94 in U.S. 64–7 New Left journals as outlets of cross-fertilization 128–35, 190 New Left Review, see journals and periodical publications New Reasoner, see journals and periodical publications Newton, Huey 80 New University, see journals and periodical publications New York Times, see journals and periodical publications Nicaragua 3 Nizan, Paul 144 non-aligned movement 96, 137–8 Non Violent Committee for Cuban Independence (NVCI) 69 North American 21, 31, 35, 47, 50 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) 185–6 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) 51, 86, 98 Nouvelle Gauche (NG) 105–7 Now!! 198 see also Alvarez, Santiago Nuclear 22, 24, 51, 55, 200 Nuestro Tiempo 35 see also journals and periodical publications “One, two, three Vietnams” 25 Organic Intellectual, see Gramsci, Antonio, and intellectuals

Index

Organisation de l’Armée Secrète (OAS) 108, 110 Organización Continental Latinoamericana de Estudiantes (OCLAE) 42 Organización de Solidaridad con los pueblos de Africa, Asia y América Latina (OSPAAAL) 141 Organizaciones Revolucionarias Integradas (ORI) 32 Organización Latinoamericana de Solidaridad (OLAS) 25, 42, 141 Organization of African Unity (OAU) 202 Organization of American States (OAS) 25, 42 Orígenes 35 see also journals and periodical publications orthodox communism 21, 23, 27, 49, 54 Ortodoxo party 31 Oswald, Lee Harvey 63 Otero, Lisandro 172 Oxfam 137 Pacifism 65, 143 Padilla Affair 2, 44, 194, 201 Padilla, Heberto 2, 36 Pakistan 135 “Palabras a los intelectuales” 37, 167 Paladares 184 Parti Communiste Français (PCF) 51, 106–7, 110, 112, 114, 116–18, 152–4, 162 Partido Comunista de Cuba (PCC) 29–33 Partido Socialista Popular (PSP) 20, 29–33, 37, 150, 189, 193 Partido Unido de la Revolución Socialista (PURS) 32 The Partisan 88 Partisans, see journals and periodical publications Parti Socialiste Autonome (PSA) 107, 194

239

Parti Socialiste Unifié (PSU) 51, 106–8, 110, 116, 194 Pearson, Gabriel 88 Pensamiento Crítico, see journals and periodical publications “pensar con cabeza propia” 130 Pérez, Humberto 40 periodical publications 11, 35, 48 diffusion of ideas 12 see also journals and periodical publications Piñera, Virgilio 34, 36 PM Affair 36 polémica de los manuales 40 political culture 5, 10, 41, 47 Poperen, Jean 107 Popular Front 29, 115 Popular Tribunals 33 Porchez, Jean Jacques 114 porteurs de valises 110 Port Huron Statement 66, 196 Porto Alegre 186 positive neutralism 13, 89, 96, 138 Poulantzas, Nicos 53 Prague invasion 44 see also Soviet Union, invasion of Czechoslovakia (1968) Prebisch, Raúl 140 see also Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLA) Problemi del socialismo 206 see also journals and periodical publications Progressive Labor Movement (PLM) 197 Quaderni Piacentini, see journals and periodical publications Quatrième Internationale, see journals and periodical publications Quintana, Manuel 205 race 13–14, 64, 77–8 Raúl Cepero Bonilla 39–40, 193 Rebel Army 31 rebel victory 6, 13, 33, 35

240

Index

red bases 93, 100, 170 Red Mole, see journals and periodical publications repressive tolerance, see Marcuse, Herbert resistance to capitalism, role of women, blacks, students 129–30 return to Africa 80 Revolución y Cultura, see journals and periodical publications revolution 1933 revolution 21, 29 1959 revolution 30, 31–3, 48, 51, 55, 57 revolutionary discourse 55 revolutionary intellectual, see Lenin, Vladimir revolutionary movements 66 Revolutionary Offensive 23, 27 Revolutionary Socialist Students Federation (RSSF) 93, 170 Revolutionary Youth Movement (RYM) 66 Revolution in the Revolution?, see Debray, Règis Rex, John 86 Ribes, Paul 114 Rioux, Lucien 107 Roa, Raúl 112 Roca, Blas 29 Rocard, Michel 108 see also Parti Socialiste Unifié (PSU) Rodríguez, Carlos Rafael 30 Rodríguez, Rolando 42 Rossanda, Rossana 48 Rouge 122 see also journals and periodical publications Russell, Bertrand 98, 100, 131, 200 Rustin, Mike 92 Sagner, Robert 69 Salkey, Andrew 195 see also Cultural Congress (1968) Salon de mai (1967) 202 Samuel, Raphael 88

San Martín, Grau 29–30 Santa Clara 38 Santamaría, Haydée 193 see also journals and periodical publications, Casa de las Américas Santiago (Cuba) 38 Sartre, Jean Paul 2, 5–6, 15, 34–5, 52, 54, 69, 71, 75, 80, 122, 130, 133 classical intellectual 154–5 Critique of Dialectical Reason (book) 155 and the French Communist Party 105 and intellectuals 105, 109, 146, 154–7 Sartre on Cuba 111, 113, 192 and students 112 technicians of practical knowledge 155 traditional intellectual 154–7 universal class 151, 154, 156–7, 159, 161, 164 Sauvy, Alfred 135 see also Third World, concept of Saville, John 84–5, 88, 90, 92 Schalit, Jean 114 see also journals and periodical publications, Clarté Schools of Revolutionary Instruction (SRI) 38, 44, 190 Second Declaration of Havana 25 sectarianism 200 Section Française de l’Internationale Ouvrière (SFIO) 51, 107, 116 Semprún, Jorge 109 see also Spanish diaspora Serguera, Jorge 112, 172 servicio militar obligatorio (SMO) 24 Sierra Maestra 68 situationists 204 Socarrás, Prío 30 social democracy 88 Socialisme ou Barbarie, see journals and periodical publications socialist humanism 84, 87, 89, 97 Socialist Labor League (SLL) 102

Index

socialist realism 171 Socialist Register, see journals and periodical publications Socialist Workers Party (SWP) 65, 69 see also Young Socialist Alliance socialization of the economy 22 social justice 50, 58 social movements 15–16, 54, 58–9, 177, 187–8 Souffert, Georges 109 Southern Conference of Christian Leaders (SCCL) 78 Soviet ideology 7, 185 interpretation of Marxism 8, 39–40, 44, 53, 130, 171 Soviet orthodoxy 8, 19, 25, 44, 49, 115, 120, 138, 153 Soviet teachers 40 Soviet textbooks 40, 151 Soviet Union alignment with 6, 20, 24, 44, 58 Cuban relations 25, 113, 151, 182–3 foreign policy, 29 106 invasion of Czechoslovakia (1968) 25, 44, 121, 134 invasion of Hungary (1956) 50, 84, 105, 108, 145 model of development 16, 27, 42, 123 Sino-Soviet conflict 19, 130 Spanish civil war 193 Spanish Communist Party 129 Spanish diaspora 48, 109 Spanish intellectuals 109–10 “special period” 183 spontaneous action 52, 169 Stalinism 7, 31, 38, 49–54, 56, 85, 89, 96, 101, 122, 133–4, 150 Stalin, Joseph 23 Stéphane, Roger 106 student 1–2 role of 129 Student League for Industrial Democracy (SLID) 66

241

student movement 13–14, 47–9, 51, 64, 110–12, 114, 116–17, 130, 134, 169, 178, 186 Student Non Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) 78 Student Power (book), 93 Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) 14 students as intellectuals 28, 39, 76, 130, 133, 142, 164 students as political actors 21, 28, 39, 71, 114, 168, 170 student ‘vanguard’ 28 Studies on the Left, see journals and periodical publications Suez Canal 50–1, 85, 87 Sweezy, Paul 39, 48, 67, 71–2, 75 symbolic capital, see Bourdieu, Pierre Syria 135 Tabares del Real, Jose Antonio 193 Taber, Robert 69 Taylor, Charles 88 technicians of practical knowledge, see Sartre, Jean Paul Temoignage Chretien, see journals and periodical publications ten million ton campaign 23 Teoría y Práctica, see journals and periodical publications Tet offensive 142 Therborn, Göran 100 Theresa Hotel 197 Third International (1943) 19 Third World 15, 42–3, 48, 65 concept of 14, 41, 50, 57, 135–6, 146–8, 177, 179, 181 third way 52, 69, 73, 135, 179 Third World bloc 49, 54, 175 Third World intellectual 40, 55, 57 Third World liberation 70, 80, 147 Third World revolution 21, 39, 54, 56, 66, 138–43 Third World (under-)development 43, 55

242

Index

Third-worldism 25, 73, 146 Thompson, Edward Palmer 84, 87–91, 97, 103 Traditional Intellectual, see Sartre, Jean Paul, and intellectuals Tribune du Communisme, see journals and periodical publications Tricontinental, see journals and periodical publications Tricontinental Conference 42 troisième secteur 108, 201 see also Poperen, Jean Trotskyist 51, 53, 85, 101–3 Trotsky, Leon 23 Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1956) 50, 84 ultra left 94 underdevelopment 42–3, 130, 138–40, 142 Underdevelopment or Revolution 131 see also Gunder Frank, Ander unidades militares de ayuda a la producción (UMAP) 24 Unidad Popular government (Chile) 123 Unión, see journals and periodical publications Union de la Gauche Socialiste (UGS) 107, 194 Union des Étudiants Communistes (UEC) 110, 114, 117 Union des Jeunesses Communistes Marxiste-Leninistes (UJCML) 118 Unión Nacional de Escritores y Artistas Cubanos (UNEAC) 37, 194 Union Nationale des Étudiants de France (UNEF) 108, 110, 114, 116–17 Unión Revolucionaria Comunista (URC) 29 United Secretariat of the Fourth International (USFI) 199

see also International Marxist Group (IMG) universal class, see Sartre, Jean Paul Universities and Left Review, see journals and periodical publications university as a site of radicalization 1, 34, 38, 52, 170 university reform of 1918 28 university reform of 1968 39 university reform (Plan Fouchet, 1964) 117 University of Havana 38–40, 150, 182 Department of Philosophy 39, 42, 150, 171, 193 University of Oxford 87–8, 95 USSR 23 Venceremos brigades 81 Venezuela 58–9, 186–7 Venezuelan guerrilla 141 see also Bravo, Douglas Verde Olivo 194 see also journals and periodical publications Vidal-Naquet, Pierre 152 Vietcong 163 Vietnam Solidarity Campaign (VSC) 54, 91, 93, 98, 208 Vietnam war 6, 24–5, 92, 99, 150, 156, 168, 170, 179 Views, see journals and periodical publications Villier, Jacques 121 Vitier, Cintio 36 voluntarism 27, 43 see also moral incentives voluntary work 23–4 Wallerstein, Immanuel 140 War Crimes Tribunal 150 see also Russell, Bertrand Ware, George 79

243

Index

Warren, Bill 143 wars of liberation 21 Watts riots 1965, 70 Weathermen 66 The Week, see journals and periodical publications Williams, Raymond 70, 90 Williams, Robert 197 Wilson, Harold 92 working class organizations 64, 89, 93, 96 World Social Forum (WSF) 186–7 World Systems Theory 140

World Trade Organization (WTO) 186 World War II 51, 85 Worsley, Peter 85–6 “wretched of the earth” 79 see also Fanon, Frantz Wright, Sarah E. 35 Young Socialist Alliance zafra 23, 33, 44 Zola, Émile 201 see also Dreyfus Affair

65

Cuba and Western Intellectuals since 1959

Intellectuals

Intellectuals

Intellectuals, Universities, and the State in Western Modern Societies

Cuba

Cuba

Cuba

Intellectuals, Universities, and the State in Western Modern Societies

Cuba

Cuba

Cuba

Cuba

Intellectuals and the People

Intellectuals and the People

Intellectuals and the People

Gifts and Commodities: Exchange and Western Capitalism Since 1700

Intellectuals and Power

Writing National Histories: Western Europe Since 1800

Encyclopedia of Western Colonialism Since 1450

Intellectuals and Apparatchiks

Gifts and Commodities: Exchange and Western Capitalism Since 1700

Organic revolution!: the agricultural transformation of Cuba since 1990

Cuba in Revolution: A History Since the Fifties

Western European Liberation Theology: The First Wave (1924-1959)

Jewish Intellectuals and the University

Jewish Intellectuals and the University

The Intellectuals and the Flag

The Intellectuals and the Flag

Cuba Libre

Missie Cuba

Cuba and Western Intellectuals since 1959

Intellectuals

Intellectuals

Intellectuals, Universities, and the State in Western Modern Societies

Cuba

Cuba

Cuba

Intellectuals, Universities, and the State in Western Modern Societies

Cuba

Cuba

Cuba

Cuba

Intellectuals and the People

Intellectuals and the People

Intellectuals and the People

Gifts and Commodities: Exchange and Western Capitalism Since 1700

Intellectuals and Power

Writing National Histories: Western Europe Since 1800

Encyclopedia of Western Colonialism Since 1450

Intellectuals and Apparatchiks

Gifts and Commodities: Exchange and Western Capitalism Since 1700

Organic revolution!: the agricultural transformation of Cuba since 1990

Cuba in Revolution: A History Since the Fifties

Western European Liberation Theology: The First Wave (1924-1959)

Jewish Intellectuals and the University

Jewish Intellectuals and the University

The Intellectuals and the Flag

The Intellectuals and the Flag

Cuba Libre

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