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All right.
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Um, thanks everyone so much for coming. Okay, so the Cuban Revolution is one of the most inspiring events in human history.
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Prior to the revolution, Cuba was effectively a colony of the United States with essentially every key industry on the island being owned and operated in the interests of US imperialism.
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To give you a picture of the conditions in Cuba in the 1950s, just before the revolution, there was a chronic unemployment rate of 15 to 20%, thousands of women and children were trapped working in prostitution.
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A Cuban peasants lived in huts with that palm roofs and bare dirt floors, um, and the island was ruled by US-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista, who exercised monstrous repression against the working class.
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The Cuban Revolution of 1959 completely transformed the situation.
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It brought changes that were unprecedented and simply would have never happened under capitalism.
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Land was given to landless peasants, illiteracy, racial segregation and brothels were all abolished.
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Abortion was legalized decades before it was ever legalized in the US or Canada.
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So I'll quote some facts and figures from today just to give you an idea of what the revolution has done for people.
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So in education, Cuba's literacy rate is at 99.8%, uh, which is one of the highest in the world and education is free at every level.
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Um, in healthcare, there's a life a life expectancy of 78, which is 10 years higher than the world average.
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Um, and Cuba has the lowest HIV prevalence rate in the Americas.
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Uh, and in terms of general living standards, before 1959, only 35.2% of Cubans had running water.
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And 82.6% had no bathtub or shower.
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Now, 91% of the population has access to drinking water and 98% have access to improved sanitation.
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Uh, before 1959, just 7% of homes had electricity.
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And now that figure is at 95.5%.
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So maybe you've never heard of any of this before.
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Maybe you've only heard that the revolution was violent, that Castro was a dictator.
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And that poor, honest businessmen had everything taken away from them.
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Uh, and there's a reason we constantly hear these slanders.
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The revolution is living proof that there is an alternative to capitalism and it serves as a constant embarrassment for US imperialism.
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This was a tiny island that succeeded in kicking out the most powerful capitalist country that has ever existed.
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It nationalized all the key industries and established a planned economy to take control of its own destiny.
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As Marxist and as revolutionary socialists, we wholeheartedly defend the Cuban Revolution.
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We defend all the extraordinary gains it made for Cuban workers and in particular for women, peasants and black Cubans.
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Which were some of the most oppressed layers of Cuban society.
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The purpose of this presentation is to learn the lessons of the Cuban Revolution.
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Uh, in order to point the way forward for today.
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How and why did they win?
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What is the state of the revolution today?
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It's vital to understand these lessons both for our movement and for the future of Cuba itself.
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So in order to understand the Cuban Revolution, we first need to learn some history.
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The history of modern Cuba begins in the early 16th century when Spanish colonialists uh, invaded the island.
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And drove the native population to near extinction.
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Through a series of events culminating in a war between the US and Spain in 1898, Cuba was eventually freed from Spanish rule.
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But this was only to be placed under the control of its neighbor and rising imperialist giant, the United States of America.
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So up until the 19th century, uh, the Cuban economy consisted mostly of small-scale village-style farms.
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Uh, but this all changed when French settlers from Haiti, uh, came to the island following the Haitian Revolution of 1804.
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These settlers brought their knowledge of advanced uh, sugar and tobacco production techniques.
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Um, and this transformed the farms into large-scale agribusinesses.
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And these innovations also led to the use of slave labor on a massive scale.
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Uh, Cuba was the last colony in the Americas to end slavery.
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And heavy reliance on slave labor, uh, meant that the Cuban economy was extremely underdeveloped.
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There was no industrialization, no factories, just sugar and coffee plantations.
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The tiny Cuban bourgeoisie that did exist were extremely weak and heavily dependent on foreign capital.
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At the time, thanks to the wealth produced by industry and slave labor, the US was also rising as a power.
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They emerged as Cuba's largest trading partner, taking sugar, tobacco, and coffee in exchange for manufactured products.
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By 1894, most Cuban sugar mills were owned by American companies.
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Less than one in five mill owners were Cubans and more than 90% of all sugar exports went to the US.
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Most of the other key sectors of the economy such as electricity and telephone services were also US-owned.
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Um, and the economic domination that the US had over Cuba is quite obvious.
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Um, and this would later translate into political domination as I'll explain.
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So in 1898, the Spanish Empire fell and the US gained uh, gained control of the Philippines.
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Guam, Puerto Rico, and Cuba.
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For the next three years, Cuba was militarily occupied and ruled by the United States.
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This direct military occupation over Cuba, uh, came to an end in 1901 with the Platt Amendment.
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Um, and the Platt Amendment contained seven conditions for the withdrawal of US troops in Cuba.
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So I'll name just a few of them here.
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There was the the right of the US military to intervene in Cuba at any time.
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Uh, Cuba was disallowed from entering into any treaties with a foreign power that the US didn't approve of.
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Um, and Cuba also had to surrender three important uh, bases as or three important base as military bases for the US.
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Um, the US had complete domination over Cuban politics.
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Um, invading Cuba four times over the next 30 years to install a government of its choice.
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The US also had the ability to veto or overturn any decision made by the Cuban government.
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And the only benefit offered to Cuba was a virtual sugar monopoly in the US market.
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But this also had a uh, consequences for the development of the Cuban economy.
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US imperialism maintained sugar as Cuba's dominant export, as well as US manufactured goods as the dominant import.
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Um, this was all well and good for you uh, US and Cuban capitalists.
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But for the actual Cuban workers, it meant that domestic industry and society in general were highly underdeveloped.
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The entire island was essentially reduced to a sugar plantation.
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Cuban state officials may have literally stopped swearing an oath of loyalty to the US after 1901.
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But functionally, in practice, the Cuban state was a subsidiary of US capitalism.
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And this is what the Cuban ruling class and the Cuban government were loyal to.
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This dynamic between foreign imperialism and the local ruling class is important for understanding the theory of permanent revolution.
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Which I'll talk about more later.
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So the United States parasitic rule over Cuba only deepened the exploitation and oppression faced by the Cuban masses.
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Illiteracy was over 90% in many rural areas.
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And houses with running water and electricity were in the minority.
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Black migrant workers from Jamaica, Barbados, and Haiti were paid less than Cuban workers and deliberately kept in separate villages to divide the working class.
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And of course, US sugar tycoons profited immensely from this cheap plantation labor.
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So the exploitation faced by the Cuban workers at the hands of US imperialism was brutal.
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And the 1910s and 20s were characterized by ongoing resistance.
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Mainly from sugar workers.
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So in this situation of growing class struggle, uh, the uh, workers began to organize themselves.
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An important development in the Cuban labor movement was the founding of the Cuban Communist Party in August 1925.
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So at this time, the Cuban Communist Party played a leading role in fighting for better working conditions.
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And began to gain authority in the trade unions.
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However, this healthy role of the party would change in the 1930s as I'll explain.
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So in the early 1930s, Cuba witnessed a strike wave.
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Uh, due to the Great Depression's impact on the US economy, Cuban exports fell drastically.
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For example, sugar exports fell by 75% from 1929 to 1934.
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And this obviously had a massive impact on the workers.
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And forced them into struggle.
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The Communist Party led and supported many of these strikes, including one in 1933 that started with uh, Havana truck drivers.
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And eventually joined by the tram drivers, dock workers, teachers, and later the sugar workers.
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This strike grew to be quite powerful, so President Machado responded by attempting to make a deal with the Communist Party to sell out the strike.
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Essentially, give the workers a few concessions so they shut up and go home.
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The Communist Party actually accepted this deal, which is obviously a total betrayal.
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Although the workers rejected their leaders' agreement and remained on strike.
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This decision by the Communist Party to betray the workers would be a good indicator of their role for the next 20 years.
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So later that year, Havana workers would eventually end their strike.
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Uh, however, workers on the sugar plantations continue their strike with an extremely interesting development.
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By August 1933, 36 Cuban sugar mills were operating under workers' control.
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Uh, led by newly formed revolutionary councils.
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These were basically a proto version of the Russian workers' councils or Soviets that overthrew capitalism.
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And brought the workers to power in the Russian Revolution of 1917.
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So in addition to these proto-Soviets, the uh, workers also organized patrols and relief committees to protect and maintain their strike.
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And this showed the true revolutionary potential of the Cuban working class.
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Um, so this begs the question, why couldn't the Cuban Communist Party see the progressive and even revolutionary nature of this strike?
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Why did they betray the workers?
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Well, this has to do with the party's connection to the Soviet Union and the Communist International.
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So after the 1917 Revolution that brought the workers to power, the Soviet Union was seen as an example and leader in the fight for socialism.
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The revolution gave inspiration to workers and oppressed people all over the world.
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But by the 1930s, the Soviet Union had undergone a bureaucratic degeneration led by Joseph Stalin.
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While the planned economy was maintained, the workers had their political power stripped from them and unelected bureaucrats began to run the country.
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These bureaucrats received salaries much higher than that of the average worker and they had an interest in maintaining their privileges.
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Um, and so to do so, they promoted certain ideas and theories.
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Among the international Communist parties that would ultimately prevent revolution abroad.
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One of these ideas was the two-stage theory.
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This is the idea that an underdeveloped country like Cuba first needs to go through a stage of capitalist democratic revolution.
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And only later can it go through a socialist revolution.
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And so for the Communist Party, it was too early for a socialist revolution.
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It was the job of the progressive national bourgeoisie, in this case, the local Cuban bourgeoisie.
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First to kick out the imperialists and then the workers had to support them in this.
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Um, and only later could the workers fight for socialism.
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But when exactly that is is never explained.
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But hold on, where was this so-called progressive national bourgeoisie during the strike?
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You know, these people that were supposed to be leading the revolution according to the Communist Party.
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So while the Cuban workers were seizing American-owned sugar mills and running their own workplaces.
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The Cuban bourgeoisie, fearing US intervention, promised the US, and I quote, strict respect of the debts and obligations of the Republic.
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The Cuban bourgeoisie were weak, they came into being quite late.
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And were tied to US imperialism at every level.
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Cuban capitalism was not a native endeavor, but an American one.
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There was no room for the Cuban bourgeoisie to play an independent role.
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One of the founding members of the Communist Party, the Cuban Communist Party, Julio Antonio Mella, uh, was totally against this arbitrary two-stage line of thinking.
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Mella was a revolutionary activist, uh, who played a leading role in labor and student movements.
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Um, and in one writing, he gives a definition of the role of the national bourgeoisie.
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Which actually mirrors Leon Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution.
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So I'll quote him here.
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In their struggle against imperialism, the foreign thief, the bourgeois, the national thief, unite with the proletariat.
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The good old cannon fodder.
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But they end up realizing that it is better to form an alliance with imperialism.
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Which at the end of the day pursues similar interests.
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So at the very same time that this strike was going on, uh, a coup was being prepared.
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By future US-backed military dictator Fulgencio Batista.
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After the coup, Batista ran the country from the background.
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Uh, using a series of puppet presidents until 1952 when he launched another coup and took power as president.
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Uh, so while Batista's coup marked a turn to the right, it could not fully extinguish the revolutionary mood.
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More than 100 strikes took place over the next year, with the largest being a general strike.
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Uh, sparked by the teachers and students in February 1935.
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What started as demands for increased education funding eventually grew to a general strike of 500,000 workers.
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And this paralyzed banks, newspapers, telephone services, manufacturing industries, and government departments.
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Batista's puppet regime responded with brutality and terror.
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The constitution was suspended, martial law was declared in Havana, prohibiting public meetings.
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Uh, striking unions were dissolved.
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Strike leaders were abducted and assassinated.
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And for the first time, citizens were rounded up and executed by firing squad.
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Public service workers were put back to work by the military and literally forced to work at gunpoint.
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The strike was crushed and all political opposition was forced underground.
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Now, what lessons did the Cuban Communist Party draw from this affair?
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Was it that Batista was an utterly reactionary tyrant and an obvious enemy of the working class?
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Uh, you would hope so, but actually no.
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So in 1938, the party resolved to, quote, adopt a more positive attitude towards Colonel Batista.
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In hopes that he would adopt positively democratic attitudes.
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Uh, this was never hope.
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After that massacre.
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So if this sounds utterly ridiculous, uh, ridiculous, it's because it is.
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But the party did not embrace this position for no reason.
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This was an expression of popular frontism.
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Which was just the latest theory of the Stalinist bureaucracy in Russia.
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This promoted a strategy of teaming up with local capitalists in an anti-fascist alliance.
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Uh, which obviously lines right up with two-stage theory.
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So as I've explained, these theories did not correspond at all to the real situation in Cuba.
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In the strike of 1933, Cuban capitalists were not gearing up to kick out US imperialism.
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They were literally scared of US invasion and pledged their loyalty instead.
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This meant crushing the workers and therefore crushing any potential revolution.
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This is just one example, but the same phenomenon can be seen in all countries dominated by imperialism.
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The local bourgeoisie refused to play an independent role because, like Mella wrote, they end up realizing that it is better to form an alliance with imperialism.
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Which at the end of the day pursues similar interests.
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Those interests being profit at the expense of the working class.
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So the Communist Party publicly supported Batista as an anti-imperialist and man of the people.
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In exchange for legal party status and control over the trade union movement.
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All while Cubans who opposed opposed his regime were being taken into custody, tortured, and disappeared.
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So repulsed by the Communist Party's support for Batista.
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A number of groups began planning for his overthrow independently of the party.
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Fidel Castro and his brother Raul were part of one such group.
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Fidel uh, Fidel had been involved in the Cuban People's Party.
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But after Batista's coup, he include uh, he concluded that the only way to gain political power.
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Was not through an election, but by overthrowing the government through a revolution.
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So with an armed group of about 130 men and two women, he launched an attack on the Moncada Army Barracks.
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On July 26, 1953.
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The aim of the attack was to act as a spark for a nationwide uprising that would overthrow Batista's regime.
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The plan ended in disaster with 100 radicals, leftists, and socialists.
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Uh, being arrested and charged with organizing an armed uprising.
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Uh, and most of them actually had nothing to do with the attack.
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Um, and Fidel and his brother both received 15-year prison sentences.
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And Fidel actually used his trial as an opportunity to make his famous history will absolve me speech.
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Which would become the manifesto of the 26th July movement.
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Um, and I'll quote part of it here.
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I do not fear prison, as I do not fear the fury of the miserable tyrant who took the lives of 70 of my comrades.
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Condemn me, it does not matter.
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History will absolve me.
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So obviously, this is the type of fearless attitude that made Fidel a hero.
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Um, but I also have to say, while Fidel and Raul were no doubt heroic.
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Their first attempt to spark a revolution was a failure.
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And we have to understand why.
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Looking at this from a Marxist perspective, this was a group of petty bourgeois with no mass base.
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Or connection to any mass organization.
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Uh, they had no links to the workers or the peasants.
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And they were trying to artificially create a movement with a heroic deed.
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And while every strike, every movement, every revolution has needed a spark.
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This happens with the conscious intervention of the masses after an accumulation of suffering that suddenly can't be bared any longer.
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Fidel's group made no attempt to connect with the masses in order to mobilize them.
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It simply assumed that all the oppressed people of Cuba were angry enough with Batista.
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And would magically follow their lead.
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No political or tactical direction needed.
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So the 26th July Movement or M26J, formulated their program in 1956.
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The program was actually not socialist, but bourgeois democratic.
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Its demands included agrarian reform, profit sharing, and quote, a state of solidarity between capital and workers to raise the country's productivity.
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The program even defined itself as guided by the ideals of Jeffersonian democracy.
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However, it was radical in that it demanded the revolutionary overthrow of Batista's regime.
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And their refusal to compromise on this would gain the movement massive support in the future.
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So just a few years earlier, following the post-World War II boom, the price of sugar dropped massively.
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In order to avoid losing profits, the bosses attacked the workers' wages.
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With total wages dropping by almost 40% in one year alone.
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Almost 20 years after the repression of the 1935 strike.
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This sparked a revival of the Cuban labor movement.
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Uh, and by December 1954, 500,000 sugar workers were on strike.
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And typical of Batista's regime, this was, sorry.
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Typical of Batista's regime, there was intense violence against the workers from the police and the army.
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Along with hatred for Batista, the strike also had a strong anti-US character.
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Many militant workers believed that they needed to go beyond traditional trade union methods.
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In order to uh, fight this regime and to fight US imperialism.
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Um, and they were willing to support any movement that was against Batista.
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And against US imperialism.
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And this led to increased popularity of the M26J among the working class.
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Um, and so in another unorganized attempt to spark the revolution.
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The M26J made plans for a general strike while keeping the day of the strike a secret from the workers.
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Uh, the strike call was issued after 10:00 AM on April 9th.
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Uh, when most workers were already at work.
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Again, there was no attempt to go to the workers' organizations and win their support.
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And the strike was a failure.
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So after this, the M26J leaders didn't fully discount the importance of the working class.
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But now they were clearly subordinated to the role armed struggle.
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Rather than the workers leading the peasants.
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Activity in the cities was limited to providing supplies, food, and and personnel for the guerrillas.
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So this whole event touches on a fundamental question.
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What is the main force that can lead the revolution?
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So for Che and Fidel, it was the peasant army, the guerrillas.
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However, as a Marxist, I would say that this perspective was mistaken.
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Marx explained that only the working class can paralyze society and lead the revolution.
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This isn't necessarily because they're the biggest class or the most oppressed class.
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But fundamentally, it's because of their role in production.
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So think back to the general strike of 1935.
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By going on strike, the workers shut society down, proving that nothing gets done without the working class.
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The workers are the ones with the true power.
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In the case of the sugar workers in 1933.
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They were seizing the sugar mills and running their own workplaces.
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This is the revolutionary potential of the working class.
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And with the uh, with the right leadership, this kind of workers' control could have been generalized.
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In terms of building socialism, it's also important impossible to build workers' democracy.
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Without the workers themselves being the force that leads the revolution.
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And this would become obvious later on.
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So gaining confidence from the failed general strike, Batista launched an all-out assault on the guerrillas.
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Batista bombed and burned uh, entire villages to the ground.
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Notably with napalm supplied by the US.
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Regardless of whether these villages contained rebel troops.
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Wholesale massacres of men, women, and children took place.
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Ironically, this barbarism actually turned many peasant soldiers away from Batista.
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And towards Castro's guerrillas.
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On top of this, the Cuban economy was collapsing.
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And not even basic commercial activity could be maintained.
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The roads and railways had been lost to guerrilla roadblocks and blown up bridges.
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The revolution was gaining momentum and peasant as more peasants joined.
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And there was more support from the working class in the cities.
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The rebel army was making rapid progress.
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With the guerrillas led by Che Guevara, capturing the city of Santa Clara on December 31st, 1958.
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Batista saw the writing on the wall.
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And fled the country to the Dominican Republic.
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The US responded extremely quickly, installing a new provisional president to take Batista's place the next day.
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The M26J replied by calling a nationwide general strike to paralyze the country.
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With Fidel Castro broadcasting on the radio, Revolution yes, military coup no.
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This week-long strike was decisive in stopping the maneuvers of US imperialism.
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And guaranteeing the victory of the revolution.
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Leadership is always key in determining the direction of a mass struggle.
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And the Cuban Revolution was no exception to this.
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The M26J were uncompromising in their determined to kick out Batista.
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And carry out the struggle to the end.
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However, they did have their weaknesses.
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Overall, Castro and the M26J had a limited perspective for the revolution.
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From history will absolve me up until the seizure of power, there was no suggestion that the guerrillas would take steps in a socialist direction.
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On May 21st, 1959, Castro said.
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Our revolution is neither capitalist nor communist.
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Our revolution is not red, but olive green, the color of the rebel army.
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So he's essentially trying to take social class out of the equation.
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Um, which as a Marxist, I would argue that you can never do.
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Class, meaning who owns what, who controls production.
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That is always the fundamental question and the leadership would later learn this from experience.
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So the M26J had come to power as a result of a revolutionary mass insurrection.
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That had destroyed the political power of the ruling class and smashed the state apparatus.
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Their primary slogans were for agrarian reform and an end to hunger.
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Reflecting the demands of the peasantry.
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The initial government following the revolution was actually a coalition government.
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Containing liberals and capitalists.
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AKA people who were openly hostile to the M26J's program.
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With these supposedly progressive capitalists in power, it was impossible to get anything done.
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Land reform was seen as full-blown communism.
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Castro was later made Prime Minister in February and this is when the reforms began to be implemented.
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So just to name some of the most immediate reforms put in place by the revolution.
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Um, there was a reduction in rents and mortgage rates.
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Uh, landlords were forbidden to evict tenants.
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Uh, there were there were wage increases for sugar workers and low-paid civil servants.
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Um, electricity costs were reduced by 30%.
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Dozens of new bridges were built to connect previously isolated villages to the rest of the country.
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And racist laws that barred black Cubans from entering skilled work.
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As well as whites-only facilities were abolished.
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There was free medical care, free dental care.
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Free meals in schools, inexpensive workplace lunches.
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Socialized care for the elderly and free amateur sports programs.
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And the first major revolutionary legislation to be introduced was the agrarian reform law.
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Which restricted the land ownership of big capitalists and landlords.
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Expropriations were still limited, but it was at this point when the uh, revolution began to clash head-on with US imperialism.
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When American sugar company United Fruit, uh, backed by the US administration, refused Cuba's offer for compensation of the land.
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They went ahead and expropriated them anyway.
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This triggered the US to pull the plug on the sugar quota and officially begin the embargo that same year.
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But no matter how many times they were provoked, the revolutionary government responded the exact same way every time.
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With expropriation and nationalization.
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The masses also mobilized in support of these expropriations, showing the popular character of the revolution.
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So confronted by imperialism, it's at this point when most petty bourgeois leaders of national revolutions backed down.
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They reassessed their programs, dropped their radical demands, and betray.
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So why did Fidel and Co make the choice that they did?
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I think this is where we have to consider the subjective role of leadership.
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Fidel witnessed the use of US napalm against Cuban civilians, uh, along with a bunch of other atrocities.
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Um, and this deeply disgusted and enraged him.
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So it's no wonder he had the guts to stand up to US imperialism.
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While Fidel made uh, many mistakes, I think we can draw a lesson here as revolutionaries.
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We must be willing to carry out the struggle to the end.
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It's these make-or-break moments that truly define the character of a leadership.
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So the M26J had originally aspired to liberal bourgeois democracy.
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After the revolution, Castro even said to President Nixon, we are not communists.
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The doors are open for private investment that could contribute to the development of Cuba.
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But the revolution showed in practice that this was not possible.
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A whole 90% of the economy was owned and controlled by the US.
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So in order to guarantee uh, not only basic reforms, but functional independence.
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Capitalism had to be undermined.
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This is what Trotsky meant when he wrote that the demo the democratic revolution grows directly over into the socialist revolution.
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And thereby becomes a permanent revolution.
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So by August, all US-owned properties were nationalized.
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Effectively abolishing capitalism on the island.
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In 1960, uh, with the leadership of Che Guevara, Cuba created a department for economic planning.
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So now the American capitalists obviously didn't like this.
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They just had their little sugar island ripped out of their hands.
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So in April 1961, the CIA launched the invasion of the Bay of Pigs.
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With the intention of overthrowing the revolutionary government.
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The CIA-backed army was composed of Cuban exiles.
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AKA those who had their property and their land expropriated by the revolution.
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So the day before the invasion, Fidel announced the socialist character of the revolution.
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Which inspired the masses to come out and defend all of its gains.
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The Bay of Pigs ended up being a complete failure.
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It was defeated by the organized people determined to keep US imperialism out for good.
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By the end of 1961, Fidel came out openly as a Marxist.
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And later admitted that the revolution, the way that the revolution developed, forced him in this direction.
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So we see in practice, uh, you can't stop the revolution halfway.
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You have to carry it out to the end.
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And this is something that Fidel learned from experience.
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Uh, regardless of what his ideals were.
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So Cuba's turn towards nationalization and a planned economy did not happen in isolation.
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With moving away from capitalism, Cuba was naturally propelled in the direction of the USSR.
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There were positive and negative sides to Cuba's relationship with the USSR.
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So when the US began their embargo and refused trade with Cuba.
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Uh, the Soviet Union, as well as the People's Republic of China, bought up the excess sugar.
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Going forward, the Soviet Union would buy Cuban sugar for above market prices.
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Uh, and provide crude oil for below market prices to allow Cuba to finance programs like healthcare, education, uh, etcetera.
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However, the steel actually interfered with one of the main aims of the revolution.
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Which was to move away from this single crop economy and industrialize.
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Industry was put on the back burner and Cuba rapidly increased sugar production.
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When Cuba failed to meet their sugar quota in 1968, the Soviet bureaucracy used this as leverage to politically and economically intervene further.
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So speaking uh, purely on economic growth.
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Cuba benefited from this uh, with a growth of about 4% per year.
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However, the Soviet bureaucrats also imposed social and cultural backwardness.
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Uh, discrimination against gay men became institutionalized.
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Uh, social sciences were banned in universities.
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And arts and culture became heavily censored.
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And this uh, censorship of social sciences and arts was to prevent criticism of the Soviet Union essentially.
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So economic planning became even more bureaucratized.
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And those at the top gained special privileges that the workers did not enjoy.
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So this was clearly not genuine socialist internationalism.
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This was a self-seeking bureaucracy imposing its will on a much smaller, more underdeveloped country.
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But why is internationalism even important in the first place?
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So a socialist revolution begins on the national scale.
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But it can only be completed by spreading to other countries.
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Under capitalism, no national economy exists in isolation.
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It wouldn't be able to survive if it did.
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Just think of poor countries that are impacted by sanctions.
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The entire point of socialism is to raise the productive level, uh, far beyond what it currently exists under capitalism in order to end scarcity.
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This is why a socialist federation for combined economic planning is absolutely necessary.
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Just like a capitalist state can't survive in isolation, a workers' state can't either.
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And this is all especially true for a small island like Cuba.
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After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Cuba was left even more isolated than it already was.
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Uh, and has since relied on tourism as its main industry.
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You can imagine that the economic impact that the pandemic had on Cuba when tourism was almost at a complete stop.
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So where is the Cuban Revolution today?
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The Cuban bureaucracy have been slowly opening up to the market.
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And making concessions to capitalism since the late 80s.
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Among these measures have been opening up to foreign investment, promotion of tourism as a source of hard currency.
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Uh, legalization of the dollar, decentralization of foreign trade and introduction of self-employment and small businesses.
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This has led to quite a few social inequalities.
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As, you know, the free market naturally does.
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Those with access to the US dollar, uh, such as those who work in tourism or live abroad.
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Um, have been able to obtain a level of privilege above other workers.
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The introduction of self-employment and small businesses in particular have led to a thin layer of petty bourgeois in Cuban society.
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Uh, creating a social basis for the protests we saw last year.
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Uh, SOS Cuba.
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And of course, we can't forget the Cuban bureaucracy.
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Who use their status in government to gain material rewards.
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Uh, and higher paid than the workers.
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Of course, our capitalist governments aren't any better than this.
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Uh, but our goal is to build a society free from social inequality.
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Social inequality was the material basis for the rise of the bureaucracy in the USSR.
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And these contradictions piled up, uh, until eventually the planned economy collapsed.
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So going in this direction, Cuba is faced with the very real threat of subversion of the workers' state.
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And a restoration of capitalism.
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Uh, there is currently a debate within the Cuban bureaucracy, uh, on the way forward.
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Um, with many arguing that opening up to capitalism could lead Cuba in the direction of the Chinese model.
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However, I would argue that this could never be the case.
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The Chinese Revolution established a planned economy.
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However, the Chinese bureaucracy later up uh, opened up to foreign investment.
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Gradually leading to the restoration of capitalism.
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China is a resource-rich country with over a billion inhabitants.
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Uh, and today contains the largest industrial working class on Earth.
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Opening up to foreign investment allowed the Chinese bureaucracy to build up the local economy.
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Um, and become the second largest imperialist power.
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Cuba does not have the land or resources to do anything like this.
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Instead, uh, with the direction of opening up to capitalism, Cuba would be reduced to some, I'm sorry.
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Cuba would be reduced to semi-colonial backwardness and imperialist domination.
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Similar to the conditions pre-1959.
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So what is the way forward?
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First and foremost, we stand in defense of all of the gains of the revolution.
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In order to protect these gains, it's necessary that the key sectors of the economy remain state-owned.
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This includes things like banks, uh, tourism, mining, and airlines.
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The state must also retain control of foreign trade and the country's national economic plan.
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Must be uh, continued to be based on social need rather than profit.
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But how can we actually defend and maintain all of these gains?
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The answer is through workers' democracy and socialist internationalism.
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As I've explained, real workers' democracy has always been missing from the revolution.
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This is one of its key weaknesses.
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Time and time again, the Cuban working class has shown its determination to defend the gains of the revolution.
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These mobilizations must be extended to real democratic control over the economy.
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Workers already know how society functions and how everything operates.
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Production must be planned through elected and recallable representatives from the working class itself.
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This will ensure that the interests of the entire working class are upheld.
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As well as prevent bureaucratic privileges and mismanagement.
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But even with uh, workers' democracy, Cuba cannot build socialism in isolation.
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The future of the Cuban Revolution is bound to the revolutions in the rest of Latin America and the world.
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Imperialism continues to dominate the entirety of Central and South America.
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The only way to defeat imperialism is with an international revolutionary mass movement of all the peoples of Latin America.
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In a struggle for United Socialist Federation.
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And this idea of international revolution, it's not a fantasy or an abstraction.
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In the 70s, we saw the Nicaraguan and Chilean Revolutions.
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In the 90s, the Venezuelan Revolution.
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And just in the past five years, we've seen mass movements in Ecuador, Haiti, Chile, Uruguay, Colombia.
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And outside of Latin America, we've seen countless movements of the working class.
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Uh, from the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020 to the incredibly inspiring movement happening right now in Iran.
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Capitalism is in crisis and revolution is on the agenda all over the world.
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What's lacking is a revolutionary leadership that can lead these struggles to victory.
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Canadian imperialism, along with other imperialist powers, uh, is attempting to return Cuba to a state of semi-colonial dependency.
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In Canada, the best solidarity that we can offer the Cuban workers is to struggle against our own ruling class.
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This means building a revolutionary party in the here and now to fight for international socialism.
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Because only the spread of the Cuban Revolution can guarantee its survival.
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Thank you.
![[Full Episode]Nothing Else Compares（English-dubbed）#cdr… — Transcript](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/YYJruShKWz8/maxresdefault.jpg)
