Cuba: Sinking Submarine of the Left


Introduction

Among the untouchable leaders of the left is the military dictator who has ruthlessly ruled Cuba for nearly 50 years.

One would think Fidel Castro, the unabashed Stalinist, would be an embarrassment to the leftist cause. All should be relieved to see Castro resign and hasten the day when the nation could live in freedom.

However, the announcement that Castro would leave the government to his younger brother, 75, has only served to unite the left in their unreserved praise for this last vintage Latin American dictator.

Why are leftists so eager to pump up the sagging image of this declining communist despot? Perhaps it is because Castro's Cuba is an important symbol and rallying point to the communist movement worldwide. Leftists, guerrillas and even American liberals seem to gather courage from the fact that Castro and Cuba have survived.

The following article analyzes Cuba's great importance among leftists even as the leader of this despotic regime appears to be nearing his end. The end of communist Cuba would mean the sinking of the communist "submarine."

by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira

If there is a revolutionary remnant in the world today where the communist flag still insults the sun's rays with its presence, that remnant is Castro's Cuba.

Communists, more or less everywhere, have been scared and disconcerted by the spectacular collapse of the Soviet bloc. Certain macro-capitalist mass media always boastfully presented that bloc as being the second international empire after the United States.

Now the Soviet union - this nation of tattered wretches reduced to beggars by the cruelest of tyrannies - was suddenly pulverized, and this was a frightful psychological blow for communists the world over.

Nevertheless, these same communists are consoled to see that in small Cuba there still burns a communist Troy, radiating to the three Americas - even to Africa - her evil electro-political vibrations.

Cuba, the island-prison of the Antilles, nonetheless, is submerged in chaos. Castro appears to be "without oxygen" and the only possible way out for his delicate situation is his propaganda support from outside Cuba.

In this sense, caravans of colorful foreigners have not hesitated to give him this indispensable support.

Happy spokesmen of the Brazilian Catholic left such as the Dominican Friar Betto, the ex-Franciscan Friar Leonardo Boff, and others of the same persuasion, go there often. Forming a choir with ecologists and tribalists, these "showmen" of liberation theology continue to repeat the same song and dance which can be summarized more or less like this:

"The people in Cuba are happy. There is misery, that is true. But, what is the difference between misery and poverty? In the final analysis, is not a bearable poverty better than consumerism? Is it not at least the lesser of two evils, since the population is not obliged to work so much, in order to produce so much? Does not the idleness of misery bring attractions along with it? Is this not better than the vertiginous keeping up with the Jones' of the consumer civilization?"

Since they have no other defense of the island-prison, these apologists dedicate themselves to this lewd defense of misery. They could care less about the fact that their attitude helps perpetuate the brutalities, cruelties and crimes of Stalinist communism, that failed in Eastern Europe yet still reign in Cuba.

In spite of all this, international communism accrues a great advantage by preserving Cuba as a Stalinist holdout. Cuba ends up being their flag bearer, while they attempt their metamorphosis throughout the world.

For the sake of comparison, imagine a submarine, in which the periscope, besides its optical function, also serves as a snorkel which lets air in for those inside the vessel.

Cuba, presently, is playing the role of the hypothetical periscope. The communist crew, submerged amid the waters of misery, feels diminished, disheartened and asphyxiated before the vision of the sinking of Soviet Russian communism. However, the existence of Castro's Cuba brings oxygen to these lungs. In such a fashion that if communists breathe today it is because Castro breathes. And this is of great importance for the survival of communism.

The above article was written in the early nineties and refers to the then-recent fall of the Berlin Wall. However, the left still flocks to communist Cuba and takes courage in its continued existence