By MARCELO BUZETTO*
Cuba has always paid a very high price for challenging the greatest imperialist power in the world.
The Republic of Cuba has been continually attacked, assaulted, sabotaged and victimized by an illegal and cruel economic blockade since 1962. All US governments have maintained this illegal blockade. The UN, in the last 29 years, through a vote in the General Assembly, condemned the blockade and demanded its end. Cuba won all these votes. But US governments do not defer to the decisions of the UN General Assembly.
Joe Biden's government released $20 million to finance organizations, people and acts that want to "defend freedom and human rights in Cuba". In fact, a program to finance discord, disunity and the economic and political destabilization of this heroic Latin American nation.
Cuba has always paid a very high price for challenging the greatest imperialist power in the world. About 150 kilometers separate Cuba from the USA.
An attempt to transition to socialism right on the US side. The American bourgeoisie panicked. It was a bad example.
Cuba surprised the world. It created true instruments of popular power, multiplied actions of international solidarity, helping peoples in Africa, Latin America and Asia to consolidate their independence or to fight against dictatorships and injustices.
Cuba gave support to Algeria right after independence, in 1962. It showed solidarity with all African countries that freed themselves from colonialism, especially with Angola, sending doctors, teachers and soldiers.
Cuba received weapons from Vietnam, after 1975, and sent them to El Salvador, for the people to fight against torture, death squads and one of the bloodiest dictatorships in Central America.
Cuba has welcomed the persecuted, exiles, refugees and former political prisoners from all over the world, people who could only have a home, a job and a peaceful and peaceful life when they arrived on the Caribbean island.
Cuba is the most complete and faithful representation of the expression “Homeland is humanity!”.
Cuba has the best social indicators in America. He invested a lot in education, health, culture, sport, leisure for his people.
The transition to socialism is a challenging process, accompanied by difficulties and contradictions. Within it coexist, with greater or lesser intensity, different social and political forces, with different, even antagonistic, interests.
In the 50s and 60s, the Latin American revolutionary left arranged a meeting with the Revolution. But only Cuba got there, at the agreed place. And Cuba has been, since 1959, firmly in the same place, waiting for the arrival of other nations, of other peoples in the region.
There have been attempts in Bolivia, Chile, Nicaragua, etc., different ways to reach the meeting place with the Revolution.
In Colombia, since 1964, there has been a huge (but not very recognized) effort.
In Venezuela, since 1999, another path has emerged, still marked by many uncertainties, as it is a complex attempt to transition to socialism without a Social Revolution (??????). But Venezuela has managed, so far, to face and defeat the US attacks, but it is also paying a high price. Economic blockade, kidnapping of money and government gold reserves in banks in the US and England/European Union, attempted coup d'état and terrorist actions against the democratic and popular government of Nicolás Maduro, including the assassination attempt on the president.
Cuba is going through a difficult time, even though it has once again set an example of solidarity and humanitarian cooperation during the Covid19 pandemic.
Cuban doctors continued to bring health, hope and dignity to the entire planet, despite the expansion of the economic blockade during the administration of Donald Trump.
It is necessary to understand the context that stimulated popular sectors of Cuba to take to the streets. Apparently, they are still a minority segment of the population. But there is dissatisfaction with the restrictions imposed by the blockade and internal problems, internal contradictions, a drop in income due to the closure of the country, in a situation where tourism is still an indispensable sector for economic development. Internal contradictions, such as encouraging self-employed activities, private initiative, small businesses, something we know here as “entrepreneurship”. .
Where conditions are created for the process of capital accumulation, it is inevitable that the capital social relationship is always reproduced in an expanded and uncontrollable way.
Small businesses end up stimulating the formation of a petty bourgeoisie that tends to be more concerned with the expanded accumulation of its capital than with fighting against the imposed economic blockade or by Socialism.
It is necessary to analyze the Cuban process through its multiple determinations.
Not everyone who took to the streets in Cuba, screaming against the government, is against the Cuban Revolution or Socialism. The imperialist siege against Cuba and US sabotage actions are responsible for the lack of electricity, economic restrictions and the drop in the population's income. But the Cuban government needs to find the most appropriate means to explain these and other issues to the popular masses, as it has done in the past.
The debate on material stimuli and moral stimuli, so present in the process of raising the level of political awareness of the masses in the period 1959-1979, needs to be resumed, updated and adapted to new times and the new situation. It is neither simple nor easy to debate capitalism and socialism with a generation of young people who did not experience what Cuba was like before 1959. Neither is the battle of ideas in current social networks.
Popular power mechanisms, mass organizations and the Communist Party of Cuba are also aware of the need to increasingly improve their relationship with the working class and popular masses, creating or strengthening spaces for more active political participation.
Bureaucratization, the absence of an effectively collective political leadership and the concentration of power and decision in the hands of a leading minority can result in a loss of the revolutionary energy needed to innovate, renew or rectify certain attitudes and actions, aiming at deepening the revolutionary process, with the collective discussion and resolution of existing problems. Such problems can occur in any transformation process or in any organization.
Solving problems through the method of collective political leadership has been the path to Cuba's victory and superiority over its enemies.
Cuba will face internal difficulties and a certain regional isolation for some time to come.
But Vietnam and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea also faced similar situations, and survived. How was it possible?
We are sure that the Cuban people and their political vanguard will know how to identify the problems, difficulties and even the errors and flaws that existed in the last period, and will continue on the path of building the first and only (so far) victorious Socialist Revolution in Latin America.
The Latin American left owes a great debt to Cuba. Who knows, maybe we'll meet Cuban men and women soon. They are still waiting for us, since 1959. Perhaps Brazil will arrive a little later. But new popular, democratic and anti-imperialist revolutions would be welcome in the next period, as they could repay Cuba's solidarity with the peoples of “Nuestra América”.
Whoever fights for justice and against social inequalities will always find an example, a reference in Cuba, as a new society inspired by the best human feelings and values is being built there. Cuba is – and will continue to be – our reference, despite everything, despite everyone. In Cuba fits all humanity!
*Marcelo Buzetto is a member of the state board of the MST-SP.