AT NO time since the Revolution triumphed on 1 January 1959 has Cuba been placed under economic duress as intense as that imposed under the “maximum pressure” regime change agenda of the second Trump administration led by anti-communist attack dog Secretary of State Marco Rubio.  

Despite this, last weekend the Communist Party of Cuba hosted the 24th International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties. Over 100 delegates from 48 Communist parties across every continent gathered in Havana to defend and honour the legacy of the Cuban revolution on the centenary of the birth of historic leader Fidel Castro.  

The Communist Party of Britain, represented by general secretary Alex Gordon and chairperson Lorraine Douglas, paid tribute to the enduring achievements and resilience of Cuba’s Revolution. We saluted the priceless heritage of Fidel.

We celebrated Cuba’s decades of anti-imperialist initiatives, which have served working peoples of so many countries in health, education, public administration and in southern Africa, brought military victory over imperialism.

No country has faced greater obstacles in trying to build a post-capitalist society than Cuba.
An illegal genocidal blockade, sanctions, invasions, imperialist terrorism, externally supported internal subversion, the loss of lifelines, natural disasters such as hurricanes and drought.

But still, Cuba survives and persists as does its international solidarity missions that marked even its early years.

Medical brigades were sent to Chile after the earthquake in 1960 and to Algeria in 1961-65. Since 2004 in collaboration with Venezuela, Operation Miracle has been restoring eyesight across Latin America to this day; in 2005 spending nine months looking after the injured in the Kashmir earthquake, and  Cuba was the first country to send volunteer doctors in 2014 to Africa to fight Ebola. Covid saw Cuba excel in developing five vaccines  and ensuring its population were looked after throughout the pandemic, vastly better than in both Britain and the US.

Cuba has been able to defeat 67 years of counter-revolutionary efforts by the strongest power on Earth, US imperialism.

In his speech to the meeting of the world’s communist and workers’ parties, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel acknowledged the gravity of the current situation. He denounced the “the total asphyxiation to which we are subjected” as a “collective punishment that seeks, through the deprivation of the most basic resources and services to survive, to promote fatigue, discouragement and social fracture, with the aim of destroying the Cuban socialist project.

“They cannot be called less than criminals and fascists, those who sadistically devise an energy siege against an entire nation, leaving a humanitarian toll of alarming proportions that deprives Cuban children of their lives at birth, that reduces the life expectancy of cancer patients, that denies our people access to medicines, food, electricity, water, transportation, and many other resources for a full life.” 

Comrade Diaz-Canel called for the communist and workers’ parties to play a vanguard role in the face of the imperialist offensive and the structural crisis of capitalism.

For our part, the Communist Party of Britain pledges our unswerving support for socialist Cuba.

We pledge to increase practical solidarity with Cuba’s people who bear the wounds of the imperialist assault. Our party works closely in Britain through the Cuba Solidarity Campaign, trades unions and popular movements representing millions of workers, to raise money and material aid for Cuba.

Our appeal is to common humanity, but a deepening class and internationalist consciousness results from this work and turns extraordinary levels of popular support for Cuban socialism into material aid.

The Cuba Vive! appeal has raised over half a million pounds in aid for the socialist island. This campaign raises consciousness of the illegal US blockade amongst workers in Britain.

As well as mobilising for this initiative, in our recent party appeal we exceeded our target of £26,000 by July 26, raising over £32,000 to fund a container of medical and food aid.

On a daily basis US imperialism escalates its pressure on Cuba. A criminal indictment of past President Raul Castro was followed by open threats of takeover and increased CIA intervention.

As in the case of the successful campaign to release the Cuban 5 from the Empire’s prisons during the first two decades of this century, Britain’s communists will not be found wanting in answering the urgent call of our Cuban comrades for solidarity against the current onslaught of the state terrorists in Washington DC.

Kevan Nelson is international secretary of the Communist Party of Britain.