Cuba At 65: Still Triumphant, Still Strong, Still In The Hearts Of The People

Richard S. Dunn  –  December 31,  2023

This January 1, 2024 will mark the 65th anniversary of the victorious Cuban Revolution; a successful revolution not only against the tyrannical and corrupt regime of Fulgencio Battista and the local oligarchs, but a revolution against United States imperialism and its multinationals. The triumph and continued success of the Cuban Revolution, has empirically proved that for the poor and oppressed masses, socialism is the only option, to rid the society of capitalist exploitation and political repression; and usher the country onto a path of creating an equalitarian and a socially just society.

Further, the Cuban Revolution has “set the standard” for working class solidarity, international cooperation, and peaceful coexistence; Cuba’s interaction is based on a Foreign Policy of non-interference in the domestic affairs of other countries. All the human and material assistance Cuba has given to other countries, throughout it’s 65 years of building socialism, is based on “no strings” attached or political interference.

Cuba Still Triumphant and Still Strong

On November 16 and 17, 2023 an international tribunal on the Blockade against Cuba was held in the European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium. The proceedings were presided over by well-known and experienced international jurists from Belgium, Portugal, Spain, and the United States. Despite reeling from a unilateral and immoral blockade imposed by the United States; Cuba was still able to express its solidarity with the people of Palestine, currently undergoing the worst action of genocide and ethnic cleansing, seen in modern times. The Secretary of Cuba’s National Assembly, Homero Acosta, in his opening remarks commented on the link between Palestine and Cuba, both faced with a common enemy; United States imperialism. Homero Acosta said: “Comrades, my first words are for the Palestinian people that suffer a true genocide by Israel with the complicity of the North American government, the same one that has blockaded us for more than 60 years.”

The UN General Assembly on November 2, 2023 once again voted overwhelmingly for the United States to lift the unilateral, immoral, and illegal blockade against Cuba, which it has imposed for 60 years; 187 countries voted in favor of lifting the blockade, 2 against (US and Israel) and 1 abstained (Ukraine). According to UN News, the United Nations General Assembly for 29 consecutive years have voted against the continued blockade against Cuba; however, like its genocidal and racist bedfellow Israel, world opinion has fallen on deaf ears. It should be clear by now to the US government and their supporters, that the intent of the embargo, to crush the Cuban revolution, has failed; the Cuban people continue to build their socialist society in the midst of natural and imposed challenges.

United States imperialism has not tire from their attempts to crush the gains of the revolution also from within, by the recruitment of backward Cuban nationals aided and abetted by Miami based expatriates and their CIA benefactors. Recently on December 9, 2023 Cuban security authorities arrested a man who infiltrated the island by jet ski. The Cuban authorities are still investigating and has reported that this destabilization attempt is tied to two reactionary groups, Nueva Nacion Cubana and La Nueva Nacion Cubana en Armas. In related news, Granma, the official publication of the Cuban Communist Party, had reported earlier this month, that information is being circulated on social networks, from Washington and Florida sources; that the US State Department and their intelligence agencies, plan to “increase subversive and violent attacks against Cuba, with the purpose of generating a social explosion before the end of 2023.”

Despite all these failed attempts to suffocate and strangle the victory of the Cuban Revolution, the Communist Party of Cuba, and the revolutionary government, have continued to provide social services and improving the living conditions of the Cuban people. It is the resilience and the commitment of the Cuban people in the building of socialism, that will see the completion or substantial completion of numerous socio-economic projects, that will mark the 65th anniversary of the victory of the Revolution.

As the late president Comandante Fidel Castro once said, Cuba has always found ways to solve its problems in a creative and objective manner; while at the same time being sensitive to the impact decisions will have on the lives of the Cuban people. In that regard, Cuba’s structural modification of the economy is a case in point. A developing private sector is providing more and more consumer products, due to scarcities caused by the embargo. Quite a number of small and medium-sized businesses are registered with the government, which has contributed to the growth of the Cuban economy in the past two years. This phenomenon no doubt will suggest new and pressing challenges for the revolutionary government; however, one thing is clear, the building of socialism is still on track. This is a fundamental and critical point for the government and must be sustained as the lifeblood of the revolutionary process.

Cuba: A Beacon of Hope For All Oppressed People

In September of this year, the Cuban people overwhelmingly voted in a referendum, in favor of a new Family Code, which further guarantees Rights already in the Constitution and applies to international Treaties of which Cuba is a signatory. It is ironic that those bourgeois democracies that vehemently criticize Cuba for “dictatorship” does not have an encompassing family code Law as Cuba does. The new Family Code addresses gender-based violence, the rights of children, the elderly, disabled people, prohibition of child marriage, adoption by same-gender couples and marriage equality among other provisions.

Earlier this month the Cuban National Assembly approved a new Public Health Law, which according to the Public Health Minister: “is perfected, is enriched, is updated…and then gives way to a new law that transcends the political will to guarantee this right to health and reflects it in legal protection.” Mariela Castro of the National Assembly further opined: “The right to public health is not only recognized, but it is a right conquered and developed throughout the Cuban revolutionary process.”

From the assault on the Moncada Barracks in 1953 to the victory of the Cuban revolutionary  process on January 1st 1959, the leadership of Cuba was driven by not only a sense of social justice but an undying love for humanity; and a global vision that for the whole world to live in peace and security, imperialism must be defeated. Cuba’s defeat of imperialism on its own soil and the establishment of a society of self-determination and real independence, has enabled it to put in place the continued building of an equalitarian society and the ability to provide basic socio-economic services for the people of Cuba. This revolutionary path has come at a high personal and material cost to the island, but the price for freedom and independence is not cheap and many outside of Cuba are not prepared and willing to pay that price. Cuba’s solidarity  with the oppressed in word and deed stands as a glowing symbol not only of anti-imperialist resistance, but as the only option against tyranny, capitalist greed and oppression, and the upliftment of the human species.

  Richard Dunn can be contacted at: contact@makingitplain.net