CARLOS RIPOLL
587
complications will develop from which I will die in an apparently
accidental manner.
It
is common knowledge that medical treatment
is used in Communist countries for coercion or elimination of un–
wanted prisoners. My own isjust one case among many. I am being
h~ld
incommunicado. In addition to all this I have not seen the sun
in six months . Conditions are such that it will be even more difficult
to stay alive."
Analyzed in its totality, Cuban literature since the revolution
reflects the ideological changes that have occurred in the govern–
ment.
If
literature is understood as having permanent value, as an
expression of the human soul, as a means to explore new paths and
analyze the world, and not merely as an instrument of propaganda
or instruction, Cuban literature has unquestionably grown and
diminished with the increase and reduction of official tolerance for
the creative act. Although some critics struggle to search for tradi–
tional artistic values in works authorized by the censors, it is evident
that in Cuba the printed word is now judged as an ideological wea–
pon to change society and alter the course of history, and that the
writer is to be regarded as an engineer of the soul.
Like Mao during the Cultural Revolution, the leaders of Cuba
appear to have reached the conclusion that not only writers but liter–
ature itself, in the broadest sense, is always guilty of some transgres–
sion because it is inherently subversive. Thus, their aim seems to be
to reach a state (which Marx predicted would come with the attain–
ment of a Communist society) in which the writer will disappear and
there will only be men and women for whom writing is merely an–
other function of daily life. Castro has decreed that literature has no
rights outside the revolution. The most expedient way to assure that
literature can never reclaim its rights has been to silence, imprison,
exile, and destroy writers. And literature itself.
