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Vol. 81/No. 16 April 24, 2017
(special feature)
US, Canadian socialists, Cuban youth discuss
US class struggle
BY MARTÍN KOPPEL
HAVANA — “I didn’t know anything about Cuba’s role in the fight to
defend Angola’s independence until I came to this country to study,”
said Godwin Konnyebal, a student from Ghana, at a meeting at the
University of Havana’s School of Dentistry.
The 150 students in attendance listened with great interest to two Young
Socialists, Rebecca Williamson from Los Angeles and Philippe Tessier
from Montreal, and Róger Calero, a leader of the Socialist Workers Party
in the United States. A centerpiece of the meeting was the book Cuba and
Angola: The War for Freedom by Cuban Gen. Harry Villegas, which had just
been launched at the Havana International Book Fair. Published by
Pathfinder Press, it’s a firsthand account of how Cuban volunteer
combatants helped defend Angola from invasions by South Africa’s
apartheid regime and hastened the demise of the white-supremacist regime
in the early 1990s.
A number of the youth at the Feb. 21 event were from Ghana,
Congo-Brazzaville and other African countries. Like Konnyebal, they
belong to a generation that grew up three decades after the battles
against apartheid and colonialism in southern Africa that changed the
course of history, and before arriving in Cuba knew little about the aid
to Angola of 425,000 Cuban internationalist volunteers between 1975 and
1991. Several spoke about how important the Cuban people’s solidarity
and example has been in the struggles against imperialist oppression and
exploitation in Africa.
The meeting at the dental school was one of two organized by the
leadership of the Union of Young Communists (UJC) for the Young
Socialists and Calero to talk with youth in Cuba. The other was an
exchange with young workers at a pharmaceutical plant.
The Cuban Institute for Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP) organized a
third meeting, held at the University of Pinar del Río in western Cuba.
Mary-Alice Waters, a Socialist Workers Party leader and president of
Pathfinder Press, also participated in two of the meetings. All four
were in Cuba for the annual Havana International Book Fair, where
Pathfinder Press had a stand.
‘What kind of socialism?’
In addition to the interest in Cuba’s internationalist aid to the
freedom struggle in southern Africa, the students and workers had many
questions about the class struggle in the United States.
The speakers described the depth of the crisis of the capitalist system
unfolding today, its devastating consequences for working people in the
U.S., Canada, and other imperialist countries, and how communists there
are part of working-class discussions and struggles that are developing.
They drew on three new books by Socialist Workers Party leaders about
class politics in the United States: The Clintons’ Anti-Working-Class
Record and Are They Rich Because They’re Smart? by Jack Barnes, and Is
Socialist Revolution in the US Possible? by Waters. Those titles, which
also were presented at the Havana book fair the week before, and a wide
selection of other books on revolutionary working-class politics, were
on sale at the meetings. Dozens of students left with one or more books
in hand.
At the University of Pinar del Río event, attended by more than 100
students, Yamil Alexander Otero, from El Salvador, said he had learned
from many Central American workers about the brutal conditions they face
as immigrants in the United States. Those conditions should be known
more broadly, he said.
Calero agreed, and underlined the importance for the U.S. labor movement
of demanding amnesty for undocumented workers and organizing them into
unions regardless of their immigration status.
“Immigrant workers are not simply exploited,” he noted. “They are
strengthening the working class in the U.S. as they join protests
against deportations and union struggles.” Their actions help break down
divisions imposed by the bosses on working people. He pointed to
demonstrations by tens of thousands that had just taken place across the
country in response to a recent wave of immigration police raids.
“Can you achieve socialism in the United States through elections, or do
you need a revolution?” asked Alejandro Simón, a law student at the
University of Pinar del Río.
A youth from the Democratic Republic of Congo asked, “Are you in favor
of the kind of socialism Bernie Sanders talked about during the
elections?” referring to one of the 2016 Democratic presidential
candidates.
“No revolution has ever been made anywhere through elections,”
Williamson said. “The president of the United States acts as a manager
for the interests of the capitalist class. What we need is not a change
of president but a change in the class that rules the country — and that
will take a socialist revolution by millions of working people.”
“For us the Cuban Revolution is a concrete, living example we can point
to. It shows how workers have taken state power and transformed
society,” Calero added. Even today, he said, “when Cuba is surrounded by
the world capitalist crisis, workers and farmers here continue to defend
their own revolutionary gains as well as the interests of working people
internationally.”
Exchange at medicine factory
At Medsol, a pharmaceutical complex, the Young Socialists had an
exchange with a group of 40 workers at a production unit that
manufactures a wide range of medicines. Nearly half the workers in that
plant are 35 years old or younger.
Workers described some of the obstacles they face in obtaining needed
raw materials and spare parts as a result of U.S. policies that were not
changed when diplomatic relations were re-established two years ago.
Cuba is barred from buying U.S. products or even using U.S. dollars in
commercial transactions, and have to obtain more costly imports from
other countries.
“When materials are delayed because of the U.S. blockade or other
difficulties,” one worker said, “we organize ourselves to make sure we
can produce in a timely way the medicines our country’s public health
system depends on.”
Many of the employees belong to the Technical Youth Brigades, a
nationwide movement of young workers dedicated to developing more
efficient production methods and improvising creative solutions to the
lack of spare parts — another consequence of U.S. trade sanctions — that
cause machines to be idled.
“In Cuba we produce medicine in order to cure diseases. In other places
it’s a business,” said a director at Medsol.
“In our plant solidarity among workers is very strong,” one worker told
us. “We try to deal with problems collectively. We look after each
other. How do workers in your countries show solidarity with one
another?” she asked.
The speakers described how the capitalist rulers foster competition and
dog-eat-dog values. At the same time, they noted the kinds of struggles
for safety and dignity on the job that workers become involved in as the
bosses, in their drive to increase profits, force working people to look
more and more toward each other and their unions to protect themselves,
their communities and the environment.
Tessier pointed to the current frame-up trial of Thomas Harding and
Richard Labrie, two rail workers accused of causing the 2013
Lac-Mégantic rail disaster in Quebec. The workers explain that the
derailment and deadly fire was a direct consequence of the employer’s
profit drive, he said, and many working people in Canada have rallied to
their defense.
Róger Calero and Jonathan Silberman contributed to this article.
Related articles:
Chicago event raises funds for May Day brigade to Cuba
Cuba Sends Doctors to Aid Peru Flood Victims
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