Socialist Lavatory League, Bulletin 6

A highly worthwhile contribution to the proceedings from The Institute, who reminds us how important public toilets are to the achievement of full Communism, quoting Lenin thus:

When we are victorious on a world scale I think we shall use gold for the purpose of building public lavatories in the streets of some of the largest cities of the world. This would be the most “just” and most educational way of utilising gold for the benefit of these generations which have not forgotten how, for the sake of gold, ten million men were killed and thirty million maimed in the “great war for freedom”, the war of 1914-18, the war that was waged to decide the great question of which peace was the worst, that of Brest or that of Versailles; and how, for the sake of this same gold, they certainly intend to kill twenty million men and to maim sixty million in a war, say, in 1925, or 1928, between, say, Japan and the U.S.A., or between Britain and the U.S.A., or something like that. But however “just”, useful, or humane it would be to utilise gold for this purpose, we nevertheless say that we must work for another decade or two with the same intensity and with the same success as in the 1917-21 period, only in a much wider field, in order to reach this state.

He also sends me further proceedings, which suggests, irrespective of the undeniable achivements of the Cuban revolution, that its dubiousness does not stop at homophobia and dynastic succession. Guevara, proving his hostility to the righteous cause of the Socialist Lavatory League, thus:

It is a bit like... I do not know, but I would almost classify it as a colonial mentality. I get the impression they are thinking of making the latrine the fundamental thing. That would improve the social conditions of the poor Indian, of the poor Black, of the poor person who lives in subhuman conditions. “Let's make latrines for them and after we have made latrines for them, and after their education has taught them how to keep themselves clean, then they can enjoy the benefits of production.” Because it should be noted, distinguished delegates, that the topic of industrialization does not figure in the analysis of the distinguished experts. Planning for the gentlemen experts is the planning of latrines. As for the rest, who knows how it will be done!

If the president will allow me, I will express my deepest regrets in the name of the Cuban delegation for the loss of the services of such an efficient specialist as the one who directed this first group, Dr. Felipe Pazos. With his intelligence and capacity for work, and with our revolutionary activity, within two years Cuba could have become the paradise of the latrine, even if we did not have a single one of the 250 factories that we are beginning to build, even if we had not carried out the agrarian reform.

Image via, and previous proceedings of the League here.