In defense of Cuba against Trump’s imperialist attack! No confidence in the CP government!

The only way to

US imperialism, strengthened after the invasion of Venezuela and the kidnapping of Maduro, now wants to overthrow the Cuban regime.

Those who believe that Trump’s intentions have anything to do with democracy are mistaken. US imperialism supports the worst dictatorships in the world, such as Saudi Arabia, as long as they serve its interests. It supports Israel’s brutal repression of the Palestinians.

Trump wants to reverse the decline of US imperialism and thus confront rising Chinese imperialism by openly using his military and economic power.

In Venezuela, with the military invasion, he got what he wanted: control of oil and a change in the country’s government, with Delci Rodrigues aligned with his interests. He thus imposed a retreat from the growing weight of Chinese imperialism in the country.
Now Trump wants to strangle the Cuban economy, aggravating the blockade—which has been in place for 64 years—with the suspension of oil shipments to the island. After the invasion of Venezuela, oil shipments from that country to Cuba, which was the main source of energy for that country, were blocked.

Trump declared a “national emergency” against Cuba, threatening to raise tariffs on countries that supply oil to the island. This has a specific target: to prevent Mexico from supplying the island’s needs. So far, the Mexican government is only sending oil in small shipments “for humanitarian reasons.”

According to the press, Trump is also preparing a naval blockade of Cuba, similar to what he did with Venezuela. 
This is a brutal imperialist attack by the strongest imperialist country on the planet against a small country, an island less than 200 kilometers from its coast.

The goal is the same: to impose a puppet government of the United States and roll back the influence of Chinese and Russian imperialism on the island. A brutal warning to all of Latin America.

Cuba: from the first socialist revolution in Latin America to the current crisis

Cuba was the first and only country in Latin America to carry out a successful socialist revolution, in 1959. By defeating the Batista dictatorship and moving forward with the expropriation of large US companies, the revolution led by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara gained enormous prestige among the masses and the vanguard of the entire continent.

The IWL has always opposed the US blockade against Cuba since its imposition in 1962. Similarly, we opposed the attempted invasion at the Bay of Pigs in 1961.

However, from the beginning we have criticized the Cuban regime, which never developed institutions of workers’ democracy like that of the soviets of the Russian Revolution of 1917. It has always been a regime controlled by a bureaucracy, which later linked itself to the Stalinism of the USSR.

It imposed a single-party regime, sometimes with violent repression at the grassroots level, persecuting opponents or critics, including those of the left The unions were incorporated into state control, closing spaces for the direct expression of working class proposals for reform As part of the same Stalinist model, this the rule of the bureaucracy has always been accompanied by racist, sexist, and LGBTI-phobic oppression. It is no coincidence that the Cuban ruling elite is white, from the Castro family to Díaz-Canel today.

Even so, the achievements of the Cuban revolution in the fields of education and health showed the world the possibilities for progress through the expropriation of the bourgeoisie and the planning of the economy.

After the restoration of capitalism in the USSR, led by the bureaucracy itself, Cuba began to follow the same path. In the 1990s, the Castro regime itself ended the monopoly on foreign trade and economic planning and began to privatize state-owned companies. It opened the country to multinational companies, which was exploited by European imperialism to occupy the island. A new Cuban bourgeoisie began to be formed, based on the state apparatus and associated with European multinationals.

This led to enormous confusion in the vanguard throughout the world. Cuba continued to be ruled by a bureaucracy, but a fundamental change had taken place: before, it was a bureaucratic dictatorship of a deformed workers’ state; now, the Communist Party of Cuba was presiding over moves leading to the restoration of capitalism. Moreover, they did so with the support of Stalinist parties worldwide, which continue to speak of “socialist Cuba.”

The Cuban economy began to be governed by the law of value rather than by economic planning. The center of the island’s economy became tourism, with large Spanish companies, such as the Meliá chain, occupying tourist destinations such as Havana and Varadero.

Why did the US imperialist bourgeoisie not do the same as the European bourgeoisie, being part of the capitalist restoration on the island? The explanation lies in the Cuban bourgeoisie based in Miami, expropriated by the revolution in 1959. This bourgeoisie integrated itself into the US imperialist bourgeoisie and does not simply want to return to Cuba, but to overthrow the Castro dictatorship and recover its expropriated companies.

Since the beginning of the drive to restore capitalism, Cuba has been in complete decline, including in terms of education and health indicators, which were once a source of pride in the past. Tourism, the center of the Cuban economy, brought in only two million visitors in 2025, the worst result in twenty years, excluding the pandemic.

The decline has brought back misery for Cuba’s working- and poor people. This has led to explosions at various times. The most important in recent years was on July 11, 2021, with massive mobilizations in major cities.

These struggles were harshly repressed by the Castro regime. To the shame of all those who defend socialism, Stalinist parties worldwide supported the repression of workers by the this pro-capitalist bureaucracy To this day, there are 1,185 political prisoners in Cuba, most of whom were arrested on 11 July.

The current crisis

The underlying explanation for the Cuban crisis is not only the US blockade, as Castroist-Stalinist propaganda claims, but rather the restoration of capitalism on the island.

But the US blockade has always been a factor in aggravating the crisis. And now, it is becoming an absolute factor, due to the oil blockade.

Cuba’s electricity generation is highly dependent on oil, between 80% and 95%. The system is sustained by eight main thermoelectric plants. Cuba needs 110,000 barrels of oil per day and produces only 40,000. The Venezuelan oil program supplied 30-40% of Cuba’s needs and has been suspended.

Today, the Cuban population in several cities is already going without electricity for 20 hours a day. There is an ongoing humanitarian crisis.

The criminal US blockade aims to impose a puppet government. Trump even said that Marco Rubio, the current US Secretary of State, “will be the president of Cuba.” The goal is to reoccupy the island with US capital, displace European imperialism, and ward off Chinese imperialism.

This is a huge threat to all of Latin America. First Venezuela, now Cuba. What will Trump’s next move be?
From the IWL, we call for a campaign to defend Cuba without giving any support to the Cuban Communist party regime.
In particular, it is necessary to demand that the Mexican and Brazilian governments supply oil to the island. Both Mexico and Brazil are oil exporters and can perfectly meet Cuba’s needs.

In the face of imperialist threats, it is essential to demand democratic freedoms and for the Cuban people from the Cuban government.

Freedom for the 11J political prisoners!

Freedom of union organization in Cuba!

Arms for the Cuban people to defend themselves against imperialism!