To the Puerto Rican University Students
Communism or fascism: that is the great dilemma. Those who still foolishly dream of maintaining the discredited middle ground of today’s pseudo-democracy, with its fictitious individual rights and its single terrifying truth—the specter of hunger ravaging the earth—will awaken to reality with the sudden arrival of one of these two forms of government. The naïve or the wicked, who, whether from innocence or cunning, mislead the producing masses with deceptive promises of possible reformist advances within the current democratic system, will pay for their sin of childishness or corruption under the iron and merciless boot of a leader wearing a brown or black shirt. The recent example of Germany, to cite just one, where six million communist voters and seven million socialist voters, with their 221 representatives in the Reichstag, were swept away by a bold stroke from the nefarious house-painter Adolf Hitler, loudly proclaims that the ruling class will permit the democratic game only as long as their dominant position is not threatened, and when such danger approaches, they shatter their sacred institutions to impose their will through force supported by armies of mercenaries. It is then that fascism takes shape, which is nothing more than capitalism openly propped up by bayonets.
In one of the articles from the debate I had with the brilliant writer Carmelo Martínez Acosta about establishing a communist party in Puerto Rico, published in this newspaper on September 11, 1933, while commenting on another article by Rexford G. Tugwell titled “The Ideas behind the New Deal,” I stated:—”The violent revolution has been delayed by what Professor Tugwell calls the orderly revolution, but it will inevitably arrive when the new hope inspired by this new game fades from the still-believing spirits of the American people. And at that moment, the dilemma will be: Russia or Germany, communism or Nazism, Stalin or Hitler—or, equivalently, Christ or Barabbas.”
Recently, EL MUNDO published the following dispatch:—”New Haven, Connecticut. January 23. (H.T.N.S.) — The Yale Daily News, the student publication of Yale University, demands in an editorial the introduction of courses on communism and fascism, based on the premise that one of these extremes must prevail in the United States. ‘Education must open eyes, not close them,’ says the editorialist. ‘We are here to learn about the world as it is, not as our mentors wish to see it. We must know the good and the bad, the dangerous and the harmless, the pleasant and the unpleasant. Fascism and communism are realities that this generation must confront. They not only exist in the world and indirectly affect us, but also directly threaten us perpetually. Denying the possibility that these doctrines may take root in our country is stubborn myopia. These doctrines are and will remain vital issues in our lives.’”
Neither the recent statements from the Yale students nor my own from a year and a half ago should surprise anyone who closely follows the evolution of political and social thought worldwide. For many years now, the retreating forces of capitalism have raised the fascist banner in their last trench against the vigorous advance of the labor legions sheltered under the red banner of communist ideals. Only those who, in this Barataria of America, are caught up in trivial partisan struggles, obsessed with local victories of negligible consequence, seem oblivious to the gigantic conflict between these two opposing tendencies.
It is high time that in Puerto Rico, as in all countries worldwide, everyone chooses their side. Workers, whether manual or intellectual, must align themselves with the ranks of the dispossessed. The children of privilege, the great captains of idleness, will swell the ranks of the ultra-powerful magnates of banking, industry, and commerce. On one side will stand those who hunger and thirst for social justice; on the other, those who will not enter the kingdom of heaven.
Puerto Rican university students, like those of Yale, have a duty to feel the urgency of these ideas. Students are called, by virtue of their cultural preparation, their heightened sense of justice, and their willingness to sacrifice, to march at the forefront of the labor contingent. Students and workers: this is the necessary alliance of forces to triumphantly resolve the dilemma posed. Students represent potential science; workers, the proletariat. And communism is precisely this: the union of science and the proletariat.
It is beyond mere speculation that, in Puerto Rico, as in the United States and the rest of the nations, “one of these two extremes must prevail: communism or fascism.” Fascism, which under Mussolini glorifies war between men, under Hitler advocates racial hatred, and under both promotes narrow and brutal nationalism; and communism, which seeks to embody the golden rule of Jesus’ gospel—”love one another”—for which it is essential to exterminate the current system of class, exploitation, profit, and ignominy.
Faced with this dilemma, the choice is clear. Puerto Rican students, especially university students, are obligated to choose.