Vol. 72/No. 19      May 12, 2008

King was one of several panelists at an April 24 meeting at Iowa State University here to discuss the book Our History Is Still Being Written: The Story of Three Chinese-Cuban Generals in the Cuban Revolution. Most of the 115 attending the event were ISU students, including many originally from Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Several retired and working farmers also attended. The meeting was sponsored by a dozen student groups and university committees, including the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences.

Speaking along with King were Juan Luís Vivero from the Asociación de Latinoamericanos; Aaron Bleich from the Socialist Club; Mack Shelley, professor of political science and statistics; and Mary-Alice Waters, editor of the book. The meeting was chaired by Isela Guzmán from the Asociación de Latinoamericanos, and Christopher Hudson of MANRRS. The panelists’ remarks sparked a wide-ranging hour-long discussion that for many continued informally for another couple of hours at a local cafe.

“More than anything else,” Waters said, Our History Is Still Being Written “is an introduction to the Cuban Revolution—what it’s about, who made it, what it means when working people take state power and use it to transform their society and themselves.”

The book, published by Pathfinder Press, contains interviews with three generals of Chinese ancestry—Armando Choy, Gustavo Chui, and Moisés Sío Wong—who as teenagers joined in the revolutionary struggle to overthrow the U.S.-backed Cuban military dictator Fulgencio Batista in the late 1950s. All three remain leaders of the revolution today.

The questions the Cuban people faced are important also in the United States, said Waters. “Is socialist revolution possible in the United States? How do we accomplish here the kind of transformation that was carried out in Cuba?” she asked. “Is this possible in the United States, the most powerful imperialist empire in the world? And it will be the last empire,” she added.

In her remarks Waters shared the importance of the 1959 land reform in defining the class dynamics of the Cuban Revolution, and described the development of small-scale urban agriculture in meeting the food crisis the Cuban people faced in the 1990s.

Vivero said he had read a lot about Cuban revolutionary leaders Che Guevara and Fidel Castro, but that until reading Our History Is Still Being Written, he did not realize the role of ordinary working people in leading the revolution.

“I also did not know about the role of Cuba in helping people in Africa win their independence” from the colonial powers in Europe.

“I think one reason the Cuban Revolution has survived,” he said, “is that Cuban young people have seen how hard life is” in capitalist countries around the world where tens of thousands of them today volunteer to provide free medical care.

Shelley focused his comments on the Cuban role in Angola. “Defeat of racist apartheid at Cuito Cuanavale in March 1988 was a victory for all of Africa and for the world,” he said. Cuba has proven that a small country can beat an imperialist power.

Bleich spoke about the situation facing young people in the United States and the role of youth in making change.

“Many, like myself, have to hold two jobs and still take out loans” to pay for college, he said. “And even after graduation, there is no guarantee of a job.”

Later one member of the audience aggressively asked Bleich how many Cuban young people are guaranteed jobs when they finish their schooling. When Bleich responded that all are, the questioner slunk away.

It is important for young people to get involved in politics and fight for freedom, like the three generals did, Bleich said. “They were our age” when they made the revolution.

While the three generals had different social backgrounds, Waters said, all three as teens confronted the biggest decision in their lives: “Go down on their knees, or stand up and fight against the social injustices they saw around them; conform, or refuse to accept the indignities and brutalities of life under the Batista military dictatorship.

“All three decided to join the underground movement, and when it became too dangerous to remain in the cities, they joined the revolutionary army in the Sierra Maestra and Escambray” mountains.

During the discussion period, Tony Barsic, an electrical engineering student, said he had read the book before the meeting and found the sections on the “special period” and “facing the food crisis” of great interest, both for how Cuba is dealing with the need to grow more food and how it is tackling the challenge of protecting the environment.

“What lessons are there that can benefit us today, besides just waiting for the socialist revolution?” he asked. “Can’t some of the lessons from Cuba be applied in other countries now?”

Cuba’s example is important, Waters replied, but rising food prices, the destruction of the environment, farmers losing their land—“all these things are part of how capitalism works, not how capitalism doesn’t work.” We can’t just copy Cuba’s methods, she added. “Property relations must be transformed here as they were in Cuba.”

Earlier in the day, at the invitation of Professor Ebby Luyaga, Waters also spoke to a class of 25 students on economic development in the semicolonial world, concentrating on Cuba’s land reform and agricultural policies, including expansion of food production and restructuring the sugar industry today. Her presentation was followed by a lively discussion on questions such as, “What is the incentive to produce under socialism?” and “What has the Cuban Revolution done to narrow the gap between city and countryside and raise the status of women?”
 
 
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