By IWU-FI
On 25 October 2021, the collectives made public a declaration addressed mainly to the President of the Republic of Cuba, following the expulsion of Chemical Engineer David Alejandro Martinez Espinosa, who was working as a professor at the University of Medical Sciences of Cienfuegos, after Resolution 109 of 2021 by the Rector of the aforementioned institution, who formalised the revocation of his teaching category because of publications on social networks in which he expressed “criticism against the political system and its leaders”, among other reasons invoked. The document reflects an exclusion from employment based on political discrimination criteria, which violates academic freedom and flagrantly violates his civil rights.
The public campaign supported by various left-wing groups is motivated by the systematic practice of this type of action by higher education institutions which, on previous occasions, have implemented similar measures against professors and students critical of social reality, belonging to the most diverse political tendencies or forms of thought, including those positions put forward from Marxist and/or socialist emplacements.
The declaration has been supported by many actors and groups of the international left, among them the Libertarian Workshop Alfredo Lopez (TLAL-Cuba), Marx21 (Spain), Socialist Workers’ Movement (Dominican Republic), Socialism and Freedom Party (PSL-Venezuela), Socialist Left (Argentina) and the Unified Socialist Workers’ Party (PSTU-Brazil), together with other collectives affiliated to the Fourth International such as the International Workers’ League (LIT-CI) and the International Workers’ Unity (IWU-FI), who together demand respect for the integrity of labour rights.
The organisations subscribing to the declaration express their attachment to Rosa Luxemburg’s concept that “Freedom only for the supporters of the government, only for the members of one party – however numerous they may be – is no freedom at all. Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently. Not because of any fanatical concept of “justice” but because all that is instructive, wholesome and purifying in political freedom depends on this essential characteristic, and its effectiveness vanishes when “freedom” becomes a special privilege”. We therefore speak out against the expulsion of the teacher and call on the authorities to respect freedom of expression and the plurality of political thought that should govern the foundations of a socialist state governed by the rule of law. We also demand, at a time of extreme polarisation, the cessation of hate speech from both anti-communist and neo-Stalinist sectors.
The groups that support this declaration express their will for the establishment of greater guarantees for the labour sector in Cuba, to allow the formation of autonomous trade unions not subordinated to state interests, the unconditional right to freedom of demonstration, the right of students to university autonomy, the right to strike by workers, as well as implementing a law of associations that protects the many forms of activism that emerge from the sphere of civil society. We also demand an end to the criminal economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by US imperialism against Cuba.
The leftist currents that subscribe to this document reaffirm that only through the just and fair socialisation of the means of production in the hands of the working class will it be possible to confront the different manifestations of oppression that take place under a socio-economic regime based on property relations that engenders class antagonisms and legitimises social differences in the processes of wealth generation, in a way that contributes to perpetuate inequalities in the distribution and consumption of goods that are perceived as the result of productive work. This implies renouncing the state-capitalist model exercised by a bureaucratic-military oligarchy sustained by the political hegemony of the CCP and the monopolistic economic character of the GAESA business conglomerate.
It is therefore necessary to promote greater spaces for participation within society, to promote the cooperative sector with higher levels of relevance in the economy, to create more appropriate legal frameworks for the exercise of the different economic actors in which social ownership (non-state ownership) of the means of production predominates, without this implying the nationalisation of small private property, as well as respect for all forms of thought and artistic creation, encouraging popular democracy and mobilising the reserves of human potential in a model dedicated to the consecration of equality and social justice as established by the emancipatory proposals of socialism.
1 November 2021
