cuban anarchists

Refused to allow the MLCE (movimiento libertario cubano en exilio) to join because they were anti-castro.

cos they were OUTSIDE and AGAINST!

OliverTwister wrote:

Fuck the euro-american progressive left. The IAF should be begging the cuban libertarians to forgive them.

What did they do?

Chapter 4: Manuel Gaona Sousa, an old railroad worker from the times of Enrique Varona and the Confederación Nacional Obrera de Cuba (CNOC), a libertarian militant his entire life and a founder of the Asociación Libertaria de Cuba (ALC), and in the first years of Castroism the ALC’s Secretary of Relations—and hence the person dealing with overseas anarchist media and organizations—betrayed both his ideals and his comrades. In a document titled A Clarification and a Declaration of the Cuban Libertarians, dated and signed in Marianao on November 24, 1961, Gaona denounced the Cuban anarchists who didn’t share his enthusiasm for the Castro revolution.

After the first confrontations with the most stalinist sectors of the Partido Comunista Cubano (PCC), it was understood in the ALC that the regime, on its way to totalitarianism, would not permit the existence of an anarchist organization, or even the propagation of anarchist ideas. The PCC wanted to settle accounts with the anarchists. For his part, Gaona preferred to save his own skin by settling in the enemy camp, leaving his former comrades to fend for themselves.

Chapter 4: Castroism & Confrontation

...

Chapter 5: In this propaganda war, the Castro regime of course used Gaona’s “Clarification” document (Chapter 4) to the fullest, even in the remotest parts of the planet, to “prove” that the anarchists’ charges—which they deceitfully labeled “anti-Cuban,” deliberately confusing the country with the political system—were in fact the product of ex-anarchists in the pay of the worst capitalist elements. They called the Cuban anarchists “CIA agents, go-betweens, drug traffickers, Batista supporters,” and many other epithets common to marxist propaganda. But above all they circulated the DDG in all of the libertarian milieus to which they had access, in this manner creating confusion first and doubt later in regard to the Movimiento Libertario Cubano en el Exilio (MLCE).

Of course, one would have expected this maneuver. What really surprised the Cuban anarchists was the reaction to it in the anarchist world. From the beginning the Cubans had believed in the justness of their cause. After supplying proof of their persecution in Cuba and receiving the solidarity of the American and Argentinian anarchists, they assumed—erroneously as it turned out—that, given the justness of their charges against Castroism, the rest of the world’s anarchists would naturally and spontaneously rally to their aid, as they had to the Spanish anarchist victims of Franco. But this didn’t happen. Doubts were raised in anarchist groups in Mexico, Venezuela, Uruguay, France, and Italy. Initially, these doubts were comprehensible in relation to the revolutionary process that was coming to a head in Cuba—especially so given that the same Cuban anarchists who were now in exile and attacking Castro had initially supported the revolutionary system.

At this time, in the mid and late 1960s, there’s no doubt that the DDG was doing its damage. The MLCE knew of it, but did little to combat it, assuming that no one would pay attention to such calumnies and fallacies. The MLCE strategy was to attack Castroism as the only political enemy. In hindsight, this was an error in judgment. In these years, there was a convergence in the charges made by the MLCE against Castroism and the charges made by the U.S. State Department against it. This was taken advantage of by the Castroites who charged that the Cuban libertarians were “following the imperialist political line.”

No one has ever denied the coincidence of the charges made; this was, and to a point still is, a fact. But anyone familiar with the history of anarchism and its partisans will recognize that at different times and places anarchists have made charges against governments similar to those made by the capitalist class, the Communist Party, and even the Vatican. When there’s a common enemy, one makes common cause with others, no matter how little one’s ideas coincide with theirs. But it’s one thing to make charges similar to those of non-anarchist forces and entirely another to place oneself under their command. In the Cuban case, the Cuban anarchists always maintained their independence. As well, one should ask who opposed Castro first? It’s undeniable that the Cuban anarchists opposed Castro before the U.S. government did.

Chapter 5 : Exile and Shadows (1962-2001)

The foundation of the IAF in 1968, they refused to allow the MLCE's delegate (who I believe may have been represented by Sam Dolgoff - I'm not sure but I know it was a 'celebrity', non-cuban anarchist) to sit, because the MLCE were for the overthrow of Castro.

Refused to allow the MLCE (movimiento libertario cubano en exilio) to join because they were anti-castro.