Source: Daily Worker, Vol. VI, No. 257, January 2, 1930
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 Cuban Federation of Labor, an organization controlled by Machado within which the secret polite carries on “labor activities” in order to fool the workers in the belief that the government gives full support to working class organizations, is now calling a fake Labor Congress to be convened on January 5th in Havana.
In accordance with the resolution adopted at the convention of the American Federation of Labor in Toronto, calling for a convention of the Pan-American Federation of Labor on January 21st in Havana, the tropical Mussolini of Cuba ordered his organization to prepare the ground and popularize the convention which was to give sanction to his regime of terror and murder.
The class revolutionary unions of Cuba resented the decision and a series of protests immediately followed. The militant leader, Santiago Brooks, in the name of his militant organization made a formal protest against the arbitrary use of the name of the Trade Unions giving adhesion to the call of the Pan- American Convention, thereupon, the furious assassin Machado had him murdered. One of the causes for the calling off of the convention by Mr. Green was the growing opposition of the Cuban workers to the treacherous imperialist labor lackeys of Wall Street.
It must be stated that the Cuban Federation of Labor is an organization that exists on paper only. The growing economic depression of the country has given rise in the last few weeks to a series of strikes of tobacco and millinery workers. These strikes took on a political character in spite of the repressive measures used by the government agents. At a meeting of young workers held in Havana a few days ago, the young working class militants marched from the hall to the government palace resulting in a street battle between the police and the hundreds of workers who defied the military rule of butcher Machado.
The regime of terror installed in Mexico against the revolutionary workers and peasants also aims at the annihilation of the Cuban revolutionary emigrants, the recognized leaders of the Cuban oppressed masses. In the arrests of Junco and Barreiro and the tortures administered on Cotono, the black hand of Machado is clearly seen. The supreme master of both lackey Governments of Mexico and Cuba, American imperialism is the chief operator in the attempts to crush the militant trade unions actively engaged in the class struggle and against Wall Street rule in the Caribbean Region.
Machado was forced to call this “labor” conference for January 5 in view of the postponement of the Pan-American Federation of Labor. He had welcomed Mr. Green’s coming to Havana where he expected to get his sanction for the hundreds of murders and jailings of which he is responsible.
The presence in Cuba of Hoover’s labor representatives was the hope of the President to lull the hungry masses into a sound sleep. His secret police agents are now active in the convening of the Congress which promises to be the most unpopular gathering of “labor” fakers.
The aims of Machado-Guggenheim’s Congress are obvious: in the first place an attempt will be made to show the workers of Cuba that they have the “right” to assemble and form an organization of their own wherein the government agents can exercise full control. Furthermore, the sharpening class struggle and the fighting mood of the oppressed workers can be appeased, so it is hoped. And in the second place, another attempt will be made to divert the workers from the regime of terror now in full swing in Cuba and Mexico against their best leaders, into the so-called economic demands that they will be called upon to make at the fake Congress.
But these trickeries will, of course, be of no avail. The exploited masses of Cuba know the game of the tyrant. Brooks’ valiant defiance to the Havana Pan-American Federation of Labor Convention will be followed by many more defiances and backed by the class conscious organized and unorganized workers of Cuba. Down with the fake Labor Congress of January 5th! Long live the revolutionary unions of Cuba!