First Published: The Call, Vol. 4, No. 2, November 1975.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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The World Peace Council conference, supposedly held in “solidarity with Puerto Rico”, concluded September 7 in Havana by actually providing the Soviet Union with a new stepping stone in its imperialist bid to penetrate Puerto Rico and the rest of Latin America.
Since 1965, when the Soviet Union won dominance for its revisionist line inside the World Peace Council (WPC), the Council’s activities have served the sole purpose of bringing revolutionary struggles under the thumb of Soviet social-imperialism (socialist in words, but imperialist in deed).
The Puerto Rican independence struggle is a case in point. The Soviet Union is attempting to take control of this just struggle by portraying itself as the “best friend” of the Puerto Rican people and the “champion” of the struggle against U.S. imperialism. In doing this, they are seeking to cover-up social-imperialism’s treacherous history of manipulating liberation movements for its own purposes, especially in Latin America where the revisionist betrayal in Chile is fresh in the minds of the masses. While claiming to support an “independent” Puerto Rico, the real aim of the Soviet Union is to replace the U.S. imperialists by bringing Puerto Rico into its own sphere of influence.
The Havana Conference was initiated by the World Peace Council precisely at a time when the revolutionary upsurge for independence is at its high point both in Puerto Rico and among supporters in the U.S. It is this revolutionary movement which the Soviet Union is trying its best to strangle into submission to Soviet domination. The USSR hopes to use Puerto Rico as a base for entering the rest of Latin America and thus contend more fiercely with U.S. imperialism.
For this reason, the Havana Conference was opposed by a number of U.S. Marxist-Leninists and revolutionary groups, including the October League, Congress of African Peoples and Puerto Rican Revolutionary Workers Organization, as the main focus of Puerto Rican solidarity work here in the U.S.
Throughout the conference itself, the Soviet Union and other revisionist parties like the Communist Party USA, blocked open debate on political questions and silenced opposition to political Soviet views either on Puerto Rico or the whole present international situation. The real intentions of the Soviet Union could be seen by the Final Declaration, which was written in advance by a Drafting Commission controlled by the Soviet Delegation. It was then pushed through with no debate. Although the Declaration referred to the “oppression of Puerto Rico,” its real purpose was to bring all the conference delegations into support for Soviet social-imperialism internationally and its fraudulent “detente” schemes.
For example, the Declaration characterizes the world situation as “the process of international detente.” In keeping with Soviet efforts to disguise its own aggression and the increased danger of world war, the Declaration calls on the Third World countries and the liberation movements to rely on “socialist countries” like the Soviet Union to defeat U.S. imperialism. In Europe, where the contention between the U.S. and the USSR is rapidly intensifying, the Declaration points only to the “advance of the democratic forces.”
The Declaration also seeks to drive a wedge between the Third World countries and gain dominance for Soviet views. On the question of Angola, for example, the Declaration openly interferes with the internal affairs of the Angolan movement, declaring one of the three liberation movements “revolutionary” while opposing the others.
Supporting only one particular organization among the three recognized by the Angolan people and the Organization of African Unity, the declaration calls the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola “the vanguard” of the struggle. This stand of endorsing only one liberation organization and condemning only the U.S. for its role in Angola was rejected by the overwhelming majority of Third World countries at the U.N. recently. These countries oppose the outside meddling of “all big powers” and support the unity of the Angolan liberation movements.
Even on the question of Puerto Rico itself, the Declaration was used as a lever for Soviet penetration. Rather than citing any of the examples of revolutionary struggle in Puerto Rico–such as the recent strike waves, mass mobilizations for independence, etc.–the Declaration portrays Puerto Rico only as “victimized” by U.S. colonialism, and therefore unable to struggle on its own without “Soviet aid.”
Carrying out the Soviet revisionist line in the U.S., the Communist Party (CPUSA) used the conference to gain a foothold for the first time in the Puerto Rican people’s movement in this country and to launch an all-out attack on the genuine Marxist-Leninists. Before the conference activity began, the CPUSA had virtually no base in the Puerto Rican Solidarity Committee. But in the course of “building” for the Havana event, the CPUSA emerged in the forefront, taking control of all the key organizing committees, manipulating finances, and assuring a full majority on the conference delegation itself for their revisionist line.
The CP worked with its opportunist supporters in the PRSC to make the Havana Conference the “main focus” of the PRSC’s work, although this was opposed by a number of forces in the PRSC including the October League. The O.L. and others stressed that the PRSC’s central work should be to build campaigns to support Puerto Rican independence and democratic rights for the Puerto Rican national minority in the U.S. They stressed the need for mass work and education among the people here, rather than focusing mainly on Soviet-backed, international conferences.
On the heels of the conference, the CP was forced to admit openly that its interests lie in supporting social-imperialism and not with the Puerto Rican struggle.
In Boston recently, the PRSC leadership, including representatives of the CP and the Puerto Rican Socialist Party (PSP), expelled all those who had criticisms of the Soviet social-imperialists. They demanded that groups like the October League, the Boston Guardian Bureau and several individuals, not be allowed to openly raise the “question of social-imperialism.” Taking a principled stand these forces refused to be silenced in the face of increasing contention between the two superpowers in Latin America. Now more than ever it is essential that people expose the true nature of the Soviet Union and its increasingly aggressive role in the world. Even while driving out these revolutionary forces from the PRSC, the leadership was forced to admit that these very people had been the “hardest workers and fighters” for the committee.
The whole work of winning support for social-imperialism and “detente” through the Havana Conference could not have been carried out without the help of the revisionists’ “allies on the left,” like Guardian editor Irwin Silber–who claims to oppose social-imperialism in words, but actually supported the conference and apologized for its revisionist line. Silber hailed the conference as a great victory for the Puerto Rican struggle, charging the genuine Marxist-Leninists who opposed the conference with “chauvinism.”
But who are the real chauvinists? The are those like Silber, who claim to be “supporting” the Puerto Rican people, but only lead them into the arms of another imperialist superpower. In contrast, the Marxist Leninists fight for genuine independence for Puerto Rico–independence from both imperialist superpowers. They are the true internationalists.
The principled stand of the Boston Guardian Bureau shows that Silber’s conciliatory line won’t go unopposed, even in the Guardian’s own ranks.
Throughout the world the peoples, nations and countries are uniting more closely to oppose both imperialist superpowers. All the international meetings and conferences in the world and all the declarations they can write will not save them from being exposed for what they are–the enemies of the world’s people.