Source: Daily Worker, May 29, 1934
Transcription/Markup: Paul Saba
Copyleft: Internet
Archive (marxists.org) 2018. Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the terms of the Creative Commons License.
(The following is the concluding article on the 2nd National Convention of the Communist Party of Cuba.)
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The general report of the Central Committee and the special emphasis on the military work of the Party revealed serious weakness in activity among the armed forces. In the armed struggles which developed during the military occupation of the mills in the last zafra (sugar harvest), the agitation among the soldiers resulted in fraternization, including the refusal on the part of many of the soldiers to fire on the strikers. In spite of this favorable situation, the Party, as pointed out by the Congress, has made only the barest beginnings of work among the army. Organization of committees of soldiers and the recruiting of soldiers into the Party was taken up as an urgent task.
The delegates gave their serious attention to the trade union report. The tremendous extension of the C.N.O.C. (Cuban National Confederation of Labor) during the course of the last three months had resulted in an increase of workers organized in revolutionary trade unions from 12,009 to 431,000. A large part of the discussion centers around the consolidation of the unions in the C.N.O.C., especially among the tobacco workers, the greatest number of whom had gone over to forma part of the C.N.O.C..
The victory achieved by the Party by the extension of the C.N.O.C. and its historic Fourth Congress held in January 1934, placed in the forefront the slogan and practical realization of the winning of the majority of the working class.
The great political and organizational weakness of the unions was also brought forward, as was the pressing need of strengthening Communist fractions in the unions. The Congress raised the slogan of the preparation and organization of mass political strikes.
On the basis of a concrete and correct analysis of the present situation in Cuba, the Congress called the attention of the whole Party to the danger confronting the revolutionary movement in the growing influence of Grau San Martin and Guiteras among the working class and peasantry, especially in the interior of the island, as well as the influence of the reformist leaders (railroad). The urgent necessity of unmasking them and carrying on a struggle against their influence, counterposing to the “leftism” of Grau and Company the program of a workers’ and peasants’ government, was stressed.
Among the immediate tasks set by the Congress were: The concentration of the Party in the reformist railroad unions where an increasing revolutionary opposition can be found, and concentration among the port, workers as well as among the workers of certain strategic enterprises such as telephone, electricity, etc., where the work of the Party has had only a weak beginning.
The strengthening of our influence among the petty bourgeoisie and especially among the students, who are going more and more to the left, was pointed out as an immediate necessary task.
One of the best reports was that given on the youth work of the Party which showed the influence of the Party among the masses of working youth. The weaknesses of the Young Communist League were singled out and were almost entirely reflections of the weaknesses of the Party.
An important task undertaken by the Second Congress was the decision unanimously adopted for the creation of a mass daily newspaper capable of agitation and propaganda on the program of the Party, guiding and organizing the Cuban toiling masses in their daily struggles, raising their political level and winning them for the agrarian anti-imperialist revolution, for Soviet power.
For the realization of the numerous tasks outlined by the Congress, the most important subjective factor was dwelt upon, the consolidation and extension of the Communist Party of Cuba and its transformation into a mass party, strengthening its iron discipline and breaking with all the deviations which can obstruct the march toward the victory of the revolution.
Before the closing of the Congress, the delegates heard the greeting of the delegate from the Communist Party of the United States, Robert Minor. Comrade Minor declared that the Communist Party of the United States had much to learn from the rich experiences of its brother party and that its most important task was, therefore, not only fraternal inspiration from their struggles, but the realization in practice of the revolutionary duty of the Communist Party of the metropolis with the people oppressed by the imperialism of its own country, concretized in the mobilization and organisation of the proletariat of the United States for a powerful movement of solidarity with and help to the struggles of the Communist Party of Cuba, for the overthrow of the common enemy, Yankee imperialism.
The Second Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba before electing a new central committee unanimously adopted the political resolution and sent its greetings to the following brother parties: The Communist Party of the U. S. S. R., and to Comrade Stalin; to the heroic German Party and its leader Comrade Thaelmann; to the Communist Party of China and the Chinese Red Army; to the Communist Parties of South America, and the Caribbean and to the Communist Party of the United States.