Cuba: Call for an anti-fascist front

David Lethbridge 

Cuba has a long and proud history in combating imperialism and 
supporting the anti-fascist struggle. Cuba was in the forefront 
of building international support for Angela Davis and in 
providing a safe haven for Assata Shakur and for members of the 
Black Panther Party who were fleeing assassination attempts by 
the US state. Cuban volunteers played a pivotal and decisive role 
in the armed struggle against the fascist government of South 
Africa in the apartheid era. Cuba, unique among all nations, has 
erected a monument to Julius and Ethel Rosenberg — Communists 
framed and murdered by the US Government.

Now, Cuba has called for the creation of an international anti-
fascist front.

Proclaimed under the leadership of the National Council of the 
Cuban Union of Writers and Artists (UNEAC), the statement calling 
for an anti-fascist front is based on the proposition that a 
"neo-fascist machine has been set in motion" by the US state, and 
that the "war of pillage and destruction against the people of 
Iraq" is an overt and obvious expression of this tendency.

According to Carlos Marti, president of UNEAC, US "neo-fascism 
has global aspirations and what is dangerous is that now it has 
neither armed opposition nor any containment wall, nor is there 
any force capable of stopping it".

Further, "the United States violates all agreements on 
international law and seeks to do away with the sacred principles 
of national sovereignty and the right to self-determination".

"Ominously", Marti said, "the rule of law is being replaced by 
the law of those that rule". Moreover, the machinery of global 
communications and media is so under the control of US propaganda 
that "every day repetitions of the message of the United States' 
superiority ... is complemented with a view that converts the 
Third World, anything that is not the United States ... into a 
caricature".

In short, "what we are denouncing is a sinister attempt to set up 
or impose a world neo-fascist tyranny".

Given the terrible force and power of US imperialism as it moves 
increasingly toward fascism, is there anything that can be done? 
In UNEAC's view, there are countervailing tendencies which must 
be nourished and expanded.

Marti points, for example, to an anti-war, anti-imperialist 
consciousness which has led to massive demonstrations around the 
world. And Dr Graciella Poglotti, speaking at a UNEAC meeting, 
made the point that it is now necessary to "move forward in our 
attempt to deconstruct the ultra-right's thinking, its neo-
fascist doctrine."

In this regard, Marti recalls the Havana Cultural Congress of 
1968 when Roberto Fernandez Retamar reversed the notorious remark 
by Nazi leader Joseph Goebbels, "When I hear the word culture, I 
draw my revolver". Retamar said in response, "When I hear the 
word fascism, I draw my culture".

A major plank, then, in Cuba's call for an international anti-
fascist front, is the mobilisation of intellectuals and artists, 
the mobilisation of a cultural front, to combat the power of US 
state propaganda.

UNEAC notes that there are important historical precedents in the 
cultural opposition to fascism: the First Congress of Anti-
fascist Intellectuals, held in Paris in 1935; the Second Congress 
of Anti-fascist Intellectuals, held in Valencia in 1937; and the 
"Manifesto of the 121" signed in France in support of the war of 
liberation in Algeria; and the very recent "Not In Our Name" 
manifesto signed by many US intellectuals.

Perhaps needless to say, UNEAC is under no illusion that the 
struggle against neo-fascism can be won by cultural workers 
alone. On the contrary, UNEAC's declaration is explicit in 
suggesting that the cultural struggle must be joined with — and 
be a fully integrated part of — a mass and broad-based people's 
struggle.

Nevertheless, it is UNEAC's position that the cultural struggle 
is central to rolling back neo-fascist aggression. Imperialist 
and anti-democratic ideas that are ceaselessly promoted by US 
propaganda and disinformation, and have unfortunately taken root 
in the minds of so many, must be countered by a concerted 
international campaign for democratic, anti-imperialist and anti-
fascist ideology and values.

And, as UNEAC highlights, there are already signs that a united 
cultural-political resistance is building, especially in Brazil, 
Venezuela, and other South American countries where universities 
and cultural institutions have for so long been under attack. 
Members of UNEAC also point to the very warm reception given to a 
Cuban children's dance troupe touring in California as the war 
against Iraq broke out.

Thousands of anti-war protestors went straight from the 
demonstrations to the theatre and a bond of solidarity was forged 
between them. "Culture and art", UNEAC maintains, "are the best 
weapons to fight barbarism".

Concrete steps have already been taken. UNEAC's call has been 
translated into seven languages and distributed to universities, 
intellectual organisations, and Internet websites. A website 
specific to UNEAC's call will be set up under the Cuban Ministry 
of Culture and constantly updated. New publications are being 
organised.

Today, this Cuban initiative is critical. Imperialist warmongers 
are stepping up the demand for armed aggression against many of 
the world's nations, and are deepening the police state tactics 
already in evidence in the US and Canada. Alarmingly, Cuba itself 
is coming under increasing threat by the US neo-fascist 
leadership.

What organisations in Canada are capable of rising to Cuba's call 
for an internationalist anti-fascist front? Certainly the trade 
union movement, broad progressive forces, and above all the 
Communist Party of Canada must play a leading role. Every effort 
must be made to enlist progressive writers, artists, film-makers, 
actors, and musicians to come to the defence of the Cuban 
Revolution and to raise the popular consciousness against the 
reality and the global danger of US neo-fascism.

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Bethune Institute for Anti-Fascist Studies, (Canada) Sept 
2003