Letters
Cuba Coverage I was very impressed with your report on Cuba [Sept/Oct, 1995]. It was broad and comprehensive, giving the reader a good sense of the difficult reality facing Cuba today. I also...
...Those weren't days of mere ideological confrontation...
...Moreover, in June of 1961, it was easy to say who and what was the Cuban revolution: it was the bearded rebeldes, the anonymous heroes of the Bay of Pigs, the men and women who went to the mountains to teach peasants how to read and write as part of the national literacy campaign, those who volunteered to cut sugar cane in the fields...
...What is interesting is not to dissect the cadaver, but to study under what conditions it can be revived...
...Let's remember that in January, 1961, the United States had severed diplomatic relations with Cuba, and in April of the same year, it had launched the Bay of Pigs invasion...
...I also liked the fact that you included viewpoints from a progressive perspective that are opposed to the Castro government...
...To me the answer for this country is simple: let the Cubans in Cuba decide what path their brand of socialism will take...
...Castro said it in a congress of Cuban and foreign intellectuals on June 30, 1961 in a context that was radically different from the present...
...It's a message that ought to be understood in Miami-as well as in Washington...
...they were days of war...
...You will be surprised by how progressive some of these people are...
...Where do we draw the line for and against these days...
...Cuban reality today is much more complex than in 1961...
...Cubans are either viewed as followers of Jorge Mas Canosa or naive believers who always have an excuse for Castro's wrongdoings...
...Everything points to the fact that socialism as an ideological bloc will not be the same in Cuba after the present conjuncture...
...Many Cubans support the revolution but they do not support Castro's autocracy-which is not a contradiction...
...I would also like to comment on Marifeli P6rez-Stable's assessment of the Cuban Committee for Democracy (CCD) in her essay on the meaning of Cuba...
...It's not clear if we are dealing with a structural crisis or if-to make reference to an old axiom of materialism, the dialectic-we are dealing with a transition towards another form of social organization, another idea of socialism...
...against the revolution, nothing," as shorthand for the Cuban revolution's cultural policy...
...However, as a member who considers himself a progressive, I believe that P6rez-Stable's definition of "moderate" is based on how Cuban politics is perceived by those on the outside...
...I hope your next effort will include the voices of dissidents that are fighting for democracy in Cuba like Yndimiro Restano...
...I am not sure if it is possible to analyze the present conjuncture using this phrase...
...organize," in his book, What is to be Done, which he wrote during an allout revolutionary war...
...Lorenzo Canizares Trenton, New Jersey W hat a thrill it was to pick up your Sept/Oct 1995 issue and read the fine coverage of Cuba...
...As a U.S.-based coalition that brings together different viewpoints and seeks to establish a middle ground, I believe that the CCD represents the vast majority of Cuban Americans...
...But the Cuban people with whom I spoke seemed to be up to the challenge and wanted to hold out against U.S...
...To use the phrase to condemn the current Cuban media, as Rius does in his essay, is like saying that Russian journalism is bad because Lenin said that the role of the media is "to inform, to educate and to Erratum The picture of day laborers in West Los Angeles on page 21 of the previous issue should have been credited to Tom McKitterick / Impact Visuals...
...meddling in Cuban affairs...
...Aldo Gamboa Rio de Janeiro, Brazil...
...On the other side were those who burnt down the cane plantations, those who attacked peasants and killed their livestock, those who put bombs in the movie theaters, those who launched surprise attacks on the beaches and machine-gunned sunbathers, those who invaded the country at the Bay of Pigs...
...It's clear that socialism (from an ideological point of view) has suffered changes in Cuba...
...I recently visited Cuba, and one thing everyone seems to agree about is that times are very hard...
...Jay Marvin WLS Radio Chicago, Illinois In NACLA's report on Cuba, the editors' introduction to the testimonies from Cuba and Mexican cartoonist Rius' essay on the meaning of Cuba both cite Castro's famous pronouncement, "Inside the revolution, everything...
...If the idea is to criticize the Cuban media objectively and constructively, we would do ourselves a big favor if we used other arguments (of which there are many and very good ones...
...She suggests that it is an organization of moderates, and it is true that many of its members are indeed moderates...
Vol. 29 • January 1996 • No. 4
