Last year I wrote a letter to Farooq Tariq, general secretary of the Labour Party Pakistan, responding to his request for our leadership’s disagreements with the Committee for a Workers’ International’s view of Cuba. The letter took the form of an extended polemic against Socialist Party of England and Wales (SPEW) general secretary Peter Taaffe’s 1982 pamphlet Cuba: Analysis of the Revolution. The letter was subsequently printed in The Activist for the information of DSP members. In June this year [2000] the CWI published a book by Peter Taaffe replying to my letter to Comrade Tariq entitled Cuba: Socialism and Democracy.

Peter Taaffe’s pamphlet on Cuba (first published in 1978 and reprinted in 1982) consists of three articles taken from the paper of the British Militant organisation (now called the Socialist Party), of which he was, and still is, general secretary. The first article presents an analysis of the revolutionary struggle in Cuba up to the expropriation of capitalist property and the establishment of a planned economy. The second article analyses the character of the group which led the Cuban socialist revolution, the central conclusion of which is indicated by the article’s title: “Power in the Hands of [a] Bureaucratic Elite”. The third article is an attempt to substantiate this view in the light of the foreign and domestic policies of this leadership group.

Peter Taaffe’s pamphlet on Cuba (first published in 1978 and reprinted in 1982) consists of three articles taken from the paper of the British Militant organisation (now called the Socialist Party), of which he was, and still is, general secretary. The first article presents an analysis of the revolutionary struggle in Cuba up to the expropriation of capitalist property and the establishment of a planned economy. The second article analyses the character of the group which led the Cuban socialist revolution, the central conclusion of which is indicated by the article’s title: “Power in the Hands of [a] Bureaucratic Elite”. The third article is an attempt to substantiate this view in the light of the foreign and domestic policies of this leadership group.

Using an attempted coup as the pretext, Bolivian President Hugo Banzer Suárez decreed a sweeping series of measures November 9 to clamp down hard on opposition to his shaky military regime.

As part of the “new order,” the general outlawed all political parties, labor unions, and student and business associations. Heavy penalties were set for any public or private institutions that engage in political activity.