A Hidden History of the Cuban Revolution. Stephen Cushion

the economic nationalist politics that dominated working-class political discussion, on condition that the necessity of operating within the prevailing economic and political system was accepted. Thus he was able to report to a May Day meeting in 1952 that he had called off the March 10th strike against the coup in return for Batista’s guarantee of workers’ rights and the confirmation of existing trade union officials.²³ He argued for the trade unions to stay out of politics and claimed that his friendly relationship with Batista was merely pragmatic and was the best way to advance workers’ interests, thereby avoiding any discussion of the nature of the regime.²⁴ He constantly spoke of increasing productivity to help create new jobs and argued that it was true solidarity for those workers in employment to make sacrifices to help create jobs for the unemployed: “Anyone who does not cooperate in promoting the prosperity of the nation is a traitor to Cuba. The workers’ movement is inclined to reach agreements and compromises which lead to more work and greater production.”²⁵

      A typical example of the mujalista method was Mujal’s relationship with the trade union organization in the U.S. base in Guantánamo Bay. In 1950, the trade union for the base workers was set up jointly by the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and the CTC as a moderate, bureaucratic, anti-communist organization with a no-strike policy, membership of which was confined to permanent staff, thereby excluding the daily-paid contract workers and potentially establishing the permanent employees as a sort of labor aristocracy. U.S. Navy authorities were reluctant to recognize the union at first, but following the establishment of the Batista dictatorship in 1952 and under pressure from the State Department via Romualdi, saw that a moderate organization that could channel workers’ resentments along harmless paths would be to their advantage. Mujal initially threatened to mobilize the whole Cuban labor movement in support of the base workers’ union if it were not recognized, but, as soon as he obtained this recognition, he ensured that the union was run by moderate men, confining themselves to occasional nationalistic rhetorical outbursts, while practically achieving little to improve the material conditions of the membership. When even this rhetoric proved too much for the base commander in 1954, Mujal “intervened” and called fraudulent union elections to ensure that his own people organized matters without troubling the employer.²⁶

      The CTC in the 1950s did manage to prevent some of the employers’ worst excesses, but if a trade union accepts the principles of capitalism, then during an economic crisis, if the employer really cannot afford to pay, the reformist trade union leader has no choice but to accept a cut in his members’ wages. This is of course easier for the trade union bureaucrat to accept as he does not himself have to lose money. In the world economic situation of the 1950s, particularly given the falling world price of sugar, Cuban capitalism could neither afford to pay the existing level of wages nor maintain manning levels as they were. So, opposition to productivity increases required a revolutionary perspective at odds with the normally cautious attitude of most full-time trade union officials. Such a revolutionary perspective had its deepest roots in Oriente Province, particularly in the town of Guantánamo, which, ironically, was also Eusebio Mujal’s hometown. It was in Oriente that Cuban anti-imperialism found its strongest base.

       Nationalism

      Some sections of the Cuban manufacturing bourgeoisie were attracted to ideas of economic nationalism such as protective tariffs and import substitution, but they were hampered in their campaign for such measures by two main factors. Firstly, there was considerable intermingling of commercial and manufacturing capital, which caused a conflict of interest because commercial capital was strongly attached to the link with the United States.²⁷ Secondly, both national and foreign manufacturing capital suffered from the same problems of low productivity, and this would push many Cuban employers into an alliance of self-interest with American capitalism.

      At a Conference for the Advancement of the National Economy in 1947, Cuban industrialists called for higher productivity and for easier dismissal of unwanted employees, linking this with measures to attract foreign capital. There was also a trend toward the merger of foreign and national capital in joint ventures, thereby increasing the convergence of interests between the Cuban industrial bourgeoisie and U.S. capitalism as foreign investment increased in the hope of larger profit margins.²⁸ This structural integration led to a lessening of nationalist sentiment among Cuban industrialists that was not reflected in working-class attitudes.

      Although the integration of U.S. and Cuban capital resulted in a more positive view of the United States among the elite, the attitudes of working-class people, who often bore the brunt of U.S. economic domination, became more hostile. Charles Page comments: “For years, the Cuban workers’ bloodiest strikes were against the intransigence of certain American enterprises.”²⁹

      This close relationship between U.S. and Cuban capital could inflame nationalist passions when that relationship seemed to the detriment of other classes. An example of this is the Canal Vía Cuba. This was an American project to build a canal that would cut across the whole island, from the Bay of Cárdenas in the north to the Bay of Pigs in the south. This elicited considerable opposition from many different sections of the community, but was most unpopular among the workers and students.³⁰ Thus the newly elected president of the university students union, the Federación Estudiantil Universitaria (FEU, Federation of University Students), José Antonio Echeverría, described it as a direct attack on the island’s sovereignty, and the railway workers of Guantánamo organized an opposition meeting jointly with the city’s student federation that attracted many of the city’s leading citizens.³¹ Carta Semanal, the Communist Party’s clandestine newspaper, called it a military project, which was designed to enable the United States to deploy its fleet and which would make Cuba a nuclear target in time of war. The paper went on to condemn the proposed canal as an 80-km-long port with lower wages and bulk loading of sugar where Cuban employment law would not apply.³² This last aspect drew the virulent opposition of the dockworkers’ union, the Federación de Obreros Marítimos Nacional (FOMN, National Federation of Maritime Workers), whose conference unanimously opposed the project, comparing it to the Panama Canal.³³ Juan Taquechel, leader of the Santiago dockers, sent a letter to all his fellow workers condemning the project in terms that combined anti-imperialism, nationalism, and anti-militarism with a promise to resist the canal’s threat to jobs and conditions.³⁴ The outcry was such that the project was quickly abandoned, an indication of widespread Cuban anti-imperialist sentiment just below the surface.

       TABLE 1.2: Direct U.S. Investment in Cuba (millions of dollars)

      Source: Through 1954, U.S. Department of Commerce.

       FIGURE 1.2: Direct U.S. Investment in Cuba

      Any nationalist movement requires a mass base to advance its policies and, given the island’s gross economic inequality, a Cuban nationalist program had to address the region’s social problems if it were to attract support from the impoverished peasants and workers. This gave Cuban nationalism its characteristic nature as a mass popular movement. Such arguments attracted considerable working-class support, with the close relationship between the Cuban bourgeoisie and U.S. imperialism leading many workers to see the national question in class terms. However, this did not often lead to the posing of socialism as an alternative, but merely to seeing the ruling class as “traitors.” Indeed there was no organization in Cuba in the 1950s advocating an openly socialist perspective. While nationalist sentiments dominated Cuban working-class politics in the 1950s, there were various forms they could take, ranging from the revolutionary to the reformist. The labor movement was to be one of the battlegrounds within which the competing approaches would seek support.

      In addition to a well-structured bureaucratic trade union organization, there also existed a long tradition of independent action organized unofficially at the rank-and-file level. The informal organization behind this was still actively operating in the early 1950s, despite the mujalista takeover of the official structure. This was particularly true in eastern Cuba