FRFI 162 August / September 2001
The Cuban people are the most experienced anti-capitalist protesters on the planet. They have been locked in a life and death struggle with the forces of global capital for over 40 years. The anti-capitalist movement should look to Cuba for inspiration and for the alternative society we will need to build, as JIM CRAVEN argues.
It is one thing to tear down a corrupt system, but what is to be built in its place?
Socialism is the alternative and Cuba is showing how, even in adversity, a better, stronger, more revolutionary and democratic socialism can be built. Cuba has consistently stood by the side of those fighting oppression by the forces of global capital from Angola and South Africa to Nicaragua, Palestine and the people of Iraq. It denounces the impoverishment of the world’s people, the manoeuvres of the IMF and WTO, military aggression, the destruction of the environment and the corrupting culture of consumerism. And it has backed political support with material, technical and military aid. Most recently it has sent thousands of medical workers to help build health services in poor countries, opened new schools of medicine in Cuba to provide free training for health workers from these areas, including poor parts of the United States, and offered to provide the personnel and expertise to control the AIDS epidemic in Africa.
These things are interlinked. It is precisely because the Cuban people are steeped in the revolutionary struggle to build socialism that they are free to resist capitalist globalisation; that they have the human resources to assist the oppressed countries; that they have the moral and political integrity to give leadership to the anti-capitalist movement. In a recent series of electrifying speeches Fidel Castro emphasised these points.
‘No other nation (than Cuba) is more educated, less dependent on trade and economic relations with the country that has risen up as the wealthiest and most crucial power for the rest of the world. No other nation is freer to declare its truths and defend the rights of the world’s poor and exploited peoples in every international forum.’ 27 January, 2001.
On 16 April, commemorating the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, he said:
‘Without socialism, Cuba would not have been able to endure 42 years of hostility, blockade and economic war imposed by imperialism. Without socialism, Cuba would not be the only country in the world today that does not need trade with the United States to survive, and even to advance, both economically and socially. As to the latter, not even the wealthiest and most industrialised countries compare to Cuba.
‘Cuba is one of the few countries in the world that is not a member, and does not want to be a member, of the International Monetary Fund, which has become the zealous guardian of the empire’s interest. Nothing I have described here would have been possible if our hands and feet were tied to this sinister monster spawned at Bretton Woods, which politically crushes those who most turn to it, destabilising and destroying governments. There is no escape for those tied to the double yoke of the IMF and neo-liberalism, both manifestations of the unfair and irrational economic order imposed on the world.
‘Without socialism, Cuba would not be a country in which, for 42 years, no one has suffered the repression and police brutality so commonly practised in Europe and other parts of the world, where anti-riot vehicles and men dressed up in strange gear, like visitors from outer space, attack the population with clubs, shields, rubber bullets, tear gas, pepper gas and other means.
‘It is difficult for the West to understand why such things do not happen in Cuba. They do not have the slightest notion of the way human society can be enriched by the unity, political consciousness, solidarity, selflessness and generosity, patriotism, moral values and commitment built through education, culture and all the justice offered by a true revolution…
‘Without socialism, Cuba would not have become, without actually trying, an example for many people in the world, and the loyal and constant voice for the most deserving causes; a small country that enjoys the enviable privilege of being almost the only one that can speak out at any international forum and freely denounce, with no fear of reprisals or aggression, the unfair economic order and the insatiable, rapacious, hypocritical and immoral policies of the hegemonic superpowers’ government.’
At a rally in Havana on 31st March:
‘Today we are witnessing everywhere the forceful resurgence of popular rebellion by millions of human beings increasingly exploited and plundered, increasingly outraged by the growing number of poor and hungry, of illiterates, of people lacking medical care, of more unemployed, more children wandering the streets begging, the struggle has now become a colossal battle of ideas that will not cease as long as the imperial system exists. In no other stage of the political life of our country has imperialist ideology been subjected to a more demolishing and profound criticism by our people…
‘We Cubans will never renounce the principles we made ours in the struggle to bring all justice to our homeland by putting an end to the exploitation of man by man, inspired by the history of mankind and by the enlightened theoreticians and promoters of a socialist system of production and distribution of wealth, the only system capable of creating a truly just human society – Marx, Engels, and later Lenin…
‘Nothing and nobody will have the capacity to interfere with our destiny, neither with weapons, nor ignorance, nor deception, nor demagogy. We will tear apart their brazen and hypocritical lies and their dehumanised and selfish ideas. It will take us years, perhaps quite a few years, but they will continue to suffer defeat after defeat and will not obtain any victory that is not Pyrrhic. We dare to predict that in this battle of ideas, the imperialists are headed for nothing other than a colossal Bay of Pigs.’
