I’ve just heard the distressing news that Celia Hart, the Cuban Trotskyist has died. When my thoughts are more collected I will say more but mostly I remember laughing when I was with her. She was full of life and fun and was a revolutionary internationalist who loved the Cuban revolution and understood how important it was to revolutionaries who looked to it as an example of an alternative vision for humanity. She stayed with me for a week when she came to London for a Socialist Resistance dayschool and acquired a taste for Guinness. This little video is an interview I did with her last year in Havana.

We have lost an inspirational comrade whose loss is almost as devastating to revolutionary socialism as it is to her family

The Communist Party daily Granma reports that Celia and Abel Hart Santamaria were in a car that hit a tree in the Miramar neighborhood on Sunday. Celia Hart was 45 and Abel 48.

They were the offspring of Armando Hart and Haydee Santamaria, who were key figures in the revolution led by Fidel Castro.

Hart is a former student leader who went on to head Cuba’s ministries of education and culture. Santamaria accompanied Castro in his 1953 assault on the Moncada military barracks in Santiago. That nearly suicidal attack paved the way for the revolution that triumphed six years later. She died in 1980.

Here is an obituary by Alan Woods who knew her well.

Here is a summary of the interview.

This is an edited version of an interview I did with Celia Hart in Havana in August 2007. The video is below in a mixture of Spanish and English. Celia was expelled from the Cuban Communist Party for being too Trot for their taste. Socialist Resistance has published a book of her writings.

Thanks to Jorge of Socialist Appeal for the translation. The reaction from the mainstream media, in particular the BBC, to Fidel Castro’s decision to stand down tended to focus of what Bush and his scumbag mates in Miami had to say. We can expect a period of active subversion of the legitimacy and the gains of the Cuban revolution. Solidarity with the revolution has to be one of our priorities.

The video quality is poor, even by the standards of this site, but worth listening to.

CH I am going to Caracas on an invitation by the Ministry of [Peoples’ Power] for Labour and Social Security to commemorate the anniversary of the assassination of revolutionary Leon Trotsky.

LM Who has organised this, the government or Trotskyist organisations?

CH No, this has been organised by the Ministry of Labour and Social Security, and several comrades are going to participate, amongst them, fortunately, Leon Trotsky’s grandson, Estaban Volkov; also a very old Cuban Trotskyist, Ydalberto Ferrera, 90 years old, who has had a consistent attitude towards the Cuban revolution and the ideas of Leon Trotsky, and he is going with me, together with Esteban Volkov, Ricardo Napuri and other comrades.

LM What has been the impact of the Venezuelan revolution on Cuba?

CH It has been the most important thing in the world, I think that the Bolivarian revolution has proven the most important ideas of the permanent revolution, I think we are in the century of the permanent revolution. And I think, in a symbolic way, that the Cuban revolution lives in the streets of Caracas.

LM Some comrades say that the democracy that one sees in the Venezuelan revolution is having an impact in the Cuban revolution, would you say that is true?

CH This is true, because there are many Cubans who travel to Venezuela, as doctors or teachers, and therefore the forms in which Venezuela carries out her revolution have an impact in Cuba.

LM Is this having any practical effects? Do people arrive at a meeting and say “we need to be more democratic”?

CH My problem with you and in general with the Trotskyists is about what is democracy, the concept of democracy. As a Trotskyist myself, what is democracy? I think that in Venezuela there are more sections participating in the process. It is a young revolution in relation to ours, which is now 50 years old, and this means that without the pressures of Stalinism and the Soviet Union, it is working well. The question as always, and as Trotsky pointed out, lies in the revolutionary leadership. Sometimes we are not able to understand the historic process we are living through.

I think that in relation to Venezuela and Cuba there is something I must say before the end of the interview: a lot of Latin Americans, Cubans and Venezuelans, think that there is only revolution on our side, but I think that without the collaboration of left-wing forces, the organisation of left-wing forces in Europe and Latin America, we will not be able to succeed. For the first time there is a genuine globalisation of the world from the point of view of the left-wing forces. For this we need an organisation, so that the vanguard participates in the processes that are taking place.

LM We were here 4 years ago, my impression is that it is slightly more prosperous

CH This is true, a few years ago we had to face the collapse of the socialist block, and now the economy has started to recover, last year the Cuban economy grew by 12%, but, what we must avoid is that this economic growth is of the same type as the Peoples’ Republic of China. Economists will forgive me but we do not need to grow that fast, there are other priorities.

LM As a tourist in Cuba there are two economies, one for Cubans who work in the tourist industry and another for those who don’t.

CH All means of production belong to the state. What is true is that tourism, by being the one sector which brings more income, has become much more important from a purely economic point of view than other sectors of the economy (like education, teaching, etc). This is a contradiction.

LM You w
ere talking about Fidel’s role in changing the education system in a very positive way. What do people feel happens after Fidel dies?

CH I do not know what people will feel. Honestly there is something much more important than even Fidel and my sons, and that is the revolution. When Fidel became ill, to us revolutionaries we saw it as he had fallen in combat, because there are still so many things to do. Like Lenin/s last fight, Fidel needs to wage his last fight, and Fidel’s last fight will be linked with Leon Trotsky.

LM Why?

CH Because is the only left that is left. It is the only real point of reference of Bolshevism. This is what Che Guevara fought until his death. Because Fidel Castro is like Lenin was, but the difference is that Fidel has been in power for 50 years, and we do not have a Trotsky. Our Trotsky was killed in Bolivia.

LM It seems Fidel has decided to wage his last battle on ecology and bio fuels. We republished an article of his in the last issue of SR.

CH He knows the importance of not turning food, grains, maize, and soya, into fuel. This is related to the survival of humankind. He has even questioned his alliance with Lula in Brazil regarding bio-fuels.

LM Your big nightmare is that China is the example that Cuba follows.

CH It is a nightmare. I am a physicist and I think it is one of the possible outcomes to the problem of Cuba. This is why I am terrified. I think that the other outcome is to proof, together with all left-wing forces in the world, that there is another way forward. We must give more emphasis to the role being played by revolutionary events in Latin America. We must remember what Che said, that there could only be revolution in Cuba if there was revolution in the world.