To dissect this in a methodical and analytical way, let’s start with that last statement. Socialist Cuba is a technologically developing country. Like every other country around it in the Caribbean i.e. the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, Trinidad, and every country in the Western Hemisphere, Cuba was built on an economy based on stealing Indigenous lands and exploiting kidnapped Africans as free slave labor. This reality built the country into a playground for privileged classes from the U.S. until the Cuban revolution overthrew the Batista regime in 1959. Embarking upon a socialist path, Cuba has spent six decades building a society where social justice for the collective is the priority, not protecting the so-called “rights” of the privileged minority to profit from exploiting the masses of Cubans.
The accomplishments of the Cuban revolution are numerous and have been widely documented for anyone who wishes to truly understand them. So, we won’t repeat their many accomplishments here. Instead, we introduce a simple analysis and question. If you live in the U.S. or the other industrialized capitalist countries that have worked relentlessly against Cuba’s socialist revolution for decades, you already know that the U.S. (for example) experienced severe economic challenges during the pandemic. Millions lost their jobs. Homelessness has increased to unprecedented levels. Poverty has grown. Crime has risen, etc. Yet, there is no sustained mass uprising against the capitalist empire within the U.S. or in any of these capitalist countries. There is no question that Cuba, being an infant country struggling to develop and stabilize (like any country capitalist, socialist, etc), while being ruthlessly sabotaged by the 60+ year U.S. led economic blockade against their socialist revolution, has been hit hard by the pandemic. Still, there is certainly no argument that conditions in Cuba are as bad or worse for the people there than in any of the surrounding countries i.e. the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, etc., yet no one is surprised that no mass uprisings are taking place in those countries where there is no tangible debate to suggest that their conditions are more stable than what exists in Cuba. In fact, Haiti has had a president assassinated within the last week and has had mass uprisings and protests for months there due to systemic capitalist exploitation of the people there, but now, out of the blue, despite all of those ill-refutable facts, we are supposed to believe that the “oppressed” people of Cuba “have had enough” and are going to overthrow their revolution? A revolution that has provided them quality healthcare that even millions of people in the money rich U.S. don’t have. A revolution that has nonexistent crime compared to capitalist countries. A revolution that even according to the World Health Organization has quality nutrition, a nonexistent infant mortality rate, and a strong education system that most countries on earth cannot compare to. A revolution that unlike the capitalist U.S., provides its people with subsidies of food and money to survive in crisis times instead of leaving them at the mercy of the most brutal conditions to fend on their own. Its this revolutionary country where these uprisings are taking place while nothing of the sort happens in all the countries that don’t provide a fraction of the support to its people that Cuba does?
The capitalist media is telling you that this hashtag “CUBASOS” is trending. That the masses of Cuba are demanding that their president Miguel Diaz-Canal step down. This is what they are telling you despite the fact this makes absolutely no sense. Cuba is a socialist society governed by Marxist/Leninist principles. Changing the president doesn’t change their system no more than changing presidents in this capitalist empire changes this system. Yet, this is what they are telling you and because so many people in the U.S. wouldn’t study the Cuban revolution if a gun was placed against your head. As a result, most of us here will believe some elements of what they are telling you (whether we want to or not. Whether we are conscious of it or not).
Undoubtedly, there are some people in Cuba who will never accept the principles of the revolution. South Florida is filled with them. People who abandoned the Cuban revolution. That so-called “Cuban exile community” in Miami, Florida, U.S. is 98% European (white). That’s predictable because revolutions are fought and sustained for the oppressed, not the beneficiaries of that oppression. So, those beneficiaries typically have a pretty strong history of opposing the revolutionary efforts and that 98% in Florida still have relatives and friends in Cuba. Its primarily those people who are the face of this so-called “uprising.” Backed by an established and elaborate network of reactionary capitalist minded thugs in Florida who receive unstop financial support from the U.S. government, these people want to convince you that the majority of people in Cuba oppose socialism and want to be capitalist like the U.S. The question you have to ask yourself is how is it that upwards of 70% of Cuba’s population are Africans (remember, 98% of the so-called exiles in the U.S. are white), yet its not Africans you see speaking for these so-called resisters in Cuba? Sure, they will find one or two sellouts just like they do here, but the masses of Africans, the majority of the people in Cuba, strongly support their socialist revolution. Over 70% of Cuba’s population alive today was born after the revolution of 1959. As a result, they have always had free healthcare so they don’t want healthcare premiums they can’t afford. They have always had living expenses that are no more than a small percentage of their income so they don’t want monthly rent that is 150% of their income. They have always had free education so they don’t want student loan debt. And yes, white supremacy is a system so its far from being eliminated, but the Cuban revolution has made strides against it in concrete ways that this country cannot even comprehend (like government funding of African history curriculum in schools instead of denying even a discussion about that history as is happening here).
In other words, this uprising is manufactured by the capitalist system, using and escalating those dissident voices in Cuba, to make it appear to you that this is a mass uprising. This is an old tactic from imperialism. A few years ago it was the so-called “Ladies in White” who were supposedly protesting the Cuban revolution and they carried this lie until it was revealed that this group was financed by the Cuban American National Foundation in Florida, a longtime rightwing anti-Cuban revolution lobbying and terrorist group.
And, since imperialism (Biden, Trump, Obama, Rockerfellers, Duponts, Kelloggs, etc.) knows it cannot refute any of the points being made in this article, they depend upon their go to move, using celebrities. For this week, they are pulling out the usual tired old retreads. Has been performers like Gloria Estaban and Andy Garcia. Longtime reactionaries, European of course, who have spent decades fabricating opposition to the Cuban revolution.
The concrete truth is what’s happening in Cuba is another concerted attempt by imperialism to undermine the Cuban revolution. The truth is Cuba has done more to protect people from covid and the economic impacts of the pandemic than most of the world, including the U.S., but they don’t want us to know that because to know that will force us to acknowledge the logical alternative of socialism to address social, economic, and other problems we face. So, these thugs do what they do best, they lie, sabotage, and depend upon you trusting them despite nothing they have told you in 500 years being true. Meanwhile, a tried and true and legitimate uprising against a government is happening very close to Cuba in nearby Haiti and due to them wanting you to ignore that genuine struggle for justice against capitalism, this manufactured “event” in Cuba is being highlighted, but they will not have their way. Instead, what the world is about to learn is despite the outstanding contributions of Fidel and Raul Castro. Vilma Espin. Che Guevara and Juan Almeida, and Camilo Cuengugos, etc., those outstanding revolutionaries have never been what the Cuban revolution has been about (despite imperialism’s efforts to make you think that). Its always been about the masses of Cubans. Those primarily African people, that working class mass. Those descendants of Carlota – the African woman from Nigeria, kidnapped and taken to Cuba to work on the Mantillas plantation, who led a massive uprising that led to the eradication of slavery in Cuba. Its those people who will again rise victorious for the Cuban revolution. And, its that optic that capitalism is so intent on ensuring we don’t see.