Mary Curtis Horowitz gives remarks at the Installation Ceremony for Douglas Luke, Ph.D. as the first Irving Louis Horowitz Professor in Social Policy
On October 12, 2021, at the Installation Ceremony for Douglas Luke, Ph.D. as the first Irving Louis Horowitz Professor in Social Policy ( the full event is available online here), Mary Curtis Horowitz gave remarks in which she mentioned Professor Horowitz's early criticism of the Castro regime: "At heart though Irving was an essayist, and during his years at Washington University he wrote more than 80 articles and essays. One of the most notable may have been his 1965 article "The Stalinization of Fidel Castro" which challenged those who romanticized the Cuban regime, making him one of the earliest critics."
Center for a Free Cuba chairman Guillermo Marmol attended the installation ceremony at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.
Below is an excerpt from September 2003 taken from the Institute of Cuban and Cuban American Studies occasional paper series in which Professor Horowitz discussed the circumstances that led to the 1965 article and some of the polemics generated following its publication.
CUBAN COMMUNISM AND CUBAN STUDIES:
The Political Career of an Anthology
Dr. Irving Louis Horowitz
ICCAS
Occasional Paper Series
September 2003
[Excerpt]
During this period [1962-1965], the Cuban regime hardened its control over the island. It became the undisputed outpost of the USSR in the region, and the source of support for insurrectionary movements throughout Latin America. The choice of national consolidation (Castro) versus international agitation (Guevara) took on the “classic” form of the rivalry between the ideologies of the Third and Fourth Internationals—otherwise known as Stalinism and Trotskyism respectively.
It was this internal development in Cuba that provided the basis for my 1964 essay in New Politics “The Stalinization of Castro".1 It was clear to me that such an article would be perceived as a public break with, indeed a betrayal of, the Millsian legacy. I chose as a place of publication an impeccable left-socialist publication, albeit one that displayed evident roots in Trotskyism. I viewed the piece as a source for possible dialogue within the Left, but in point of fact, it led more to ostracism and assault than anything resembling dialogue. In retrospect, not even the moderate liberal wing of the Democratic Party was prepared for such a strong characterization of the Cuban regime. The Republicans for their part, saw the USSR in such rigid geo-political terms, that the subtleties of Trotskyism vs. Stalinism never entered into their hemispheric thinking.
Even at this point, when a variety of scholars reluctantly now assign the label of Stalinism to Castro’s regime, they often do so in emotive rather than analytic terms. The sheer absence of human rights or voting rights is scarcely some special hallmark of Stalinism. From my own viewpoint, Stalinism was a highly specific variant of totalitarian rule in the twentieth century. It features the fusion of civil and party functions, the militarization of economic activities, the exploitation of human labor and its reduction to a subsistence status, the steady elimination of all political parties other than the Communist Party, hierarchical leadership propensities, dynastic concentration of power in the hands of select families and cronies, and the cult of personality. It is a universe in which the leader can make no mistake and certainly cannot be criticized by others for making any. It became apparent to me, and to anyone who cared to look at the Cuban situation with their eyes wide open and their minds intact, that Castro’s assertion of being a dedicated communist was not an idle boast but a proven fact.
[...]
Perhaps the most incriminating (and also the most typical) argument from my critic, who was a professor of economics at a major Canadian university, was that even should I be proved right in my criticisms, they should be kept to myself. To do otherwise was to aid and abet the cause of the common enemy - American imperialism. I realized then, five years into the regime, that the struggle was on two fronts: against the new totalitarianism in Cuba and, for me at least, against the growing expansion of New Left thinking in the United States. My strong opposition to the US involvement in Vietnam muted some of the concerns of my old friends. However, drawing the line between opposition to military adventurism and support for a despotic regime in North Vietnam only served to remind such critics that I was not to be trusted on Cuba - I had crossed the line from a weak comrade to enemy of the people.
1. “The Stalinization of Fidel Castro.” New Politics, Vol. 4, No. 4, 1965, pp. 61-69. Also see my rebuttal to critics in “Castrologists and Apologists: A Reply to Science in the Service of Sentiment.” New Politics, Vol. 5, No. 1, 1966, pp. 27-34.
Full presentation available here: https://scholarship.miami.edu/discovery/delivery/01UOML_INST:ResearchRepository/12355425600002976?l#13355497000002976