Cuba, the Crossroads of the Left

In the face of Trump's offensive against Cuba, all Marxists must stand against imperialism. But we also need to understand the failures of the Cuban Communist Party's political program, and that the restoration of capitalism on the island has already taken place

7 July 2026

The trends and counter-trends in the global situation are calling into question the analyses (or lack thereof) of the entire global Left regarding its understanding of reality. And the issue of Cuba stands out as a qualitative factor—a new turning point—for the period ahead.

Trump, following the agreement that temporarily ended the war with Iran—at least temporarily—will likely turn his attention to Cuba. U.S. imperialism is launching a brutal attack against the island, with an energy blockade in effect since the beginning of this year, which exacerbates the blockade imposed since 1962. Trump went so far as to declare, in March, that he would have “the honor” of “conquering” Cuba and that he could do “whatever he wanted” with the country.

This reality means that any Marxist analysis must necessarily start from an anti-imperialist stance against Trump’s offensive. This involves challenging the expectations of those who believe that imperialist intervention can bring democracy and better living conditions to the Cuban people.

U.S. imperialism has not the slightest interest in democratic freedoms or in raising workers’ living standards. Not even in the United States, where Trump systematically attacks freedoms, seeking to stifle criticism of his administration and avoid a possible electoral defeat in the elections at the end of the year. Workers’ lives have only gotten worse since Trump came to power, and that is one of the reasons behind the record drop in his popularity during his second term.

This is even more true abroad. Trump is an ally of bloodthirsty dictatorships, such as Saudi Arabia, as well as the genocidal Zionist state of Israel. The Venezuelan people, the majority of whom had placed great hopes in Trump, are suffering under the ongoing Chavista dictatorship—now allied with Trump—without any improvement in their standard of living. They have not even received effective support from the United States during the terrible post-earthquake period.

Trump’s interest in Cuba stems from the provisions of his National Security Strategy document, published in November 2025. Faced with the decline of U.S. imperialism and competition from rising Chinese imperialism, Trump is reacting by attempting to impose—through violence and without pretense—an updated version of the Monroe Doctrine, once again turning Latin America into his backyard. He wants to turn back the clock and make Cuba, once again, a dictatorship subordinate to the United States—a tourist paradise for Americans, just as it was in the Batista era, before the 1959 revolution.

The Significance of the Cuban Government’s Measures

But there is a fundamental political fact that must be explained. In June of this year, the Cuban parliament approved a 176-point economic plan.

The main measures of this plan include unrestricted participation by foreign companies in the private sector, including the possibility for foreign private banks to operate in the country; the opening of the country’s entire tourism sector to foreign capital; and the transformation of state-owned enterprises into publicly traded companies—in other words, the privatization of state-owned enterprises. All wage regulations have been eliminated, and wages are now simply negotiated with companies. Furthermore, the plan allows for the existence of private companies with more than 100 employees and permits individuals to open foreign-currency accounts.

Thus, tourism, the banking sector, the foreign exchange market, and agriculture have been opened up to private investment, both domestic and foreign.

Previously, investment in these sectors was managed by state-owned enterprises linked to foreign capital.

In other words, this is an extremely harsh neoliberal plan that, in any other country governed by the right or the far right, would rightly be opposed by left-wing movements. A less radical plan recently sparked a revolutionary uprising in Bolivia.

The explanation given by defenders of the Cuban regime

Following the announcement of these measures, confusion set in among much of the Latin American vanguard and around the world. How can we explain this plan, coming from the Cuban government, the “bastion of socialism”?

The official explanation, immediately repeated by much of the Stalinist and reformist apparatus worldwide, is that “We are not seeking a capitalist restoration of the country. We seek to improve the construction of socialism under the extremely adverse conditions in which we live today” (Díaz-Canel, interview with the Corripio Group).

In the same interview, Díaz-Canel emphasized that the measures were inspired by “transformations in the construction of socialism, such as those that occurred in Vietnam and China.”

Several publications echoed these same positions. The magazine Brasil de Fato states in an article that “Since the 1990s, Cuban scholars have been analyzing the Chinese experience in search of lessons on how to integrate markets and private capital into a planned economy without losing political control” (Carlos Martínez is co-editor of Friends of Socialist China).

This type of stance is based on the trust that much of the vanguard places in the Communist Party of Cuba, without bothering to seriously argue the point. Identity alone suffices: political control by the Communist Party of China equates to the continuity of socialism; political control by the Communist Party of Cuba equates to the continuity of socialism in Cuba. Added to this is the label “market socialism,” so that the “explanation” can attempt some sort of alignment with reality. And that’s it—nothing more.

For this kind of narrative, for this ideology, reality doesn’t matter. Nor do the fundamentals of Marxism.

The reality in China has nothing to do with socialism. Capitalism was restored under the dictatorship of the Chinese Communist Party in a process that began in 1978 under Deng Xiaoping and was accelerated following the Tiananmen Square massacre. This type of reformism fails to take into account the reality of Chinese workers, who are subjected to a brutal dictatorship that imposed extremely low wages, thereby enabling the growth of the “world’s factory” in partnership with imperialist companies. Workers’ wages around the world have fallen as a result of the “Chinese model”: a new level of global exploitation linked to imperialism.

Nor is there any way to justify “Chinese market socialism” on the basis of Marxist principles. The “market” is, in reality, the term used to describe the law of supply and demand—the expression of the law of value present in capitalist societies—which has nothing to do with socialism. And, in fact, it is the law of value that prevails in China.

It is worth recalling the debate in the early years of the USSR regarding the evolution of the economy. Preobrazhensky, one of the most respected Bolshevik theorists, asserted that the evolution of the economy in the new workers’ state would take place through a struggle between two laws. On the one hand, the law of value, as an expression of past capitalism, of the peasant economy predominant in most of the country, and of pressure from the world market (“The New Economy,” 1926)

At that time, Preobrazhensky outlined a process of transformation from a capitalist economy, dominated by the law of value, and the changes brought about by what he called the “law of socialist accumulation,” underpinned by state planning, nationalized enterprises, and the monopoly on foreign trade.

The evolution of this conflict between the two laws could mark the strengthening of the non-capitalist economy—a product of the new workers’ state—in opposition to the law of value inherited from the capitalist past.

Preobrazhensky’s formulation has limitations. Trotsky identified these limitations at the time: “The analysis of our economy from the standpoint of the interaction (both in its conflicts and in its harmonies) between the law of value and the law of socialist accumulation is, in principle, an extremely fruitful approach; more precisely, the only correct one (…) But now there is a growing danger: that this methodological approach will become a definitive economic perspective that contemplates the ‘development of socialism in a single country.’ The interaction between the law of value and the law of socialist accumulation must be situated within the context of the world economy.” (“Notes on Economic Questions,” 1926)

In fact, Stalin later used this approach to downplay the role of the world economy in his formulation of “socialism in a single country.”

Another limitation of Preobrazhensky’s analysis is what he calls the “law of socialist accumulation.” This is not “socialist” accumulation, but rather accumulation planned and controlled by the bureaucracy. Speaking in this way ignores the bureaucratization of the USSR and its implications for concrete economic policy.

No historical process is identical; no process is “pure.” But, within these limits, this conflict between the two laws can also apply in the opposite direction—in the transition from the non-capitalist economy present in the workers’ state to the capitalist economy resulting from restoration.

The end of economic planning, on the monopoly on foreign trade, and on the decisive influence of China’s state-owned enterprises led to a new totality, a new essence: the economy as a whole came to be governed by the law of value. There was no longer a conflict between the two laws described by Preobrazhensky, but, once again, only the law of value.

Economic planning still exists in China, but it has nothing to do with the planning of the former workers’ state. The Chinese state, serving private monopolies, provides support through incentives, research, and credit to boost the monopolies’ profits, without deciding what or how much is produced. Those fundamental decisions are made by the “market”—that is, the law of value, supply, and demand. Or, more precisely, by the owners of China’s large private oligopolistic companies, such as Huawei, BYD, GWM, Alibaba, Tencent, etc. Chinese state-owned enterprises—whether banks or producers of the means of production—also operate in the service of China’s major oligopolies.

The outcome of the restoration is not defined by the number of privatized companies, but by the fact that the economy as a whole is governed by the law of value. The law of value operates in China, a capitalist economy.

China is not only capitalist but also imperialist. In this century, by capitalizing on the growth of its monopolies driven by its gigantic domestic market, China has undergone a qualitative change and has become imperialist.

Today’s China meets all the criteria defined by Lenin in “Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism.”

1. The concentration and centralization of capital in monopolies: today’s China exhibits a higher degree of monopolization than other imperialist countries
2. The fusion of banking capital with industrial capital (finance capital): the major Chinese monopolies rely directly on the large state-owned banks in their struggle for the world market
3. The export of capital: Since last year, China has been the world’s largest exporter of capital, surpassing even the United States
4. The economic division of the world by international trusts: China, a rising imperialist power, competes with the United States—still hegemonic but in decline—for international markets.
5. The territorial division of the world among the great powers: the conflict between the United States and China is one of the most important factors in the crisis of the current imperialist world order.

Therefore, those who defend China as “market socialism” are, in reality, defenders of an imperialist country. There is no such thing as “good imperialism” or “bad imperialism.” Workers must maintain their independence from all forms of imperialism.

Furthermore, the “Chinese model” is unviable in today’s Cuba. There is no possibility that Cuba will become a “world factory,” as China was. The role that imperialism has in store for Cuba in the global division of labor is exactly what the Cuban regime has been striving for over the past thirty years: that of a tourist hub.

Do the measures adopted by the Cuban regime point toward the restoration of capitalism?

Many sectors of the left disagree with Stalinism’s explanation. These sectors openly criticize these plans and assert that they aim at the restoration of capitalism in Cuba.

We also disagree with this assessment, for one simple reason: the restoration of capitalism in Cuba already took place in the 1990s.

Following the restoration of capitalism in China and the USSR, the Cuban Communist Party itself led the restoration. In that sense, it followed the Chinese model, maintaining political control through the continuation of the dictatorship, but with a different social content.

State planning was abolished, and the Central Planning Council was directly dissolved. The monopoly on foreign trade ceased to exist. In September 1995, with the Foreign Investment Law, the privatization of state-owned enterprises began.

State-owned enterprises were gradually transferred to foreign capital, mainly from European imperialism, primarily through joint ventures.

The Cuban state-owned telecommunications company (Etecsa) was privatized even before other state-owned telecommunications companies in Latin America. It was transferred to the Mexican group Domus and, subsequently, to a subsidiary of the Italian company Telecom.

Until last month, European companies dominated the main sector of the Cuban economy—tourism—with Spanish multinationals such as Meliá and Iberostar controlling the major hotels and resorts that catered to middle-class tourists from Europe, North America, and South America.

GAESA, a company managed by the Cuban leadership—specifically by Raúl Castro’s family—has been the driving force and governing body behind the entire process of capitalist restoration in Cuba to date. According to independent sources, this company controls between 40% and 70% of the Cuban economy. It was through Gaviota, a subsidiary of GAESA, that partnerships were established with Spanish companies in the tourism sector.

In addition, joint ventures control the extraction of oil, iron, nickel, and cement; the production of soap and perfumes; the provision of telecommunications services; and most of the agro-industry. Cuban rum is controlled by the French company Pernod. Cuban cigars are marketed by a joint venture between the Cuban state-owned company and Altadis, part of the British Imperial Tobacco Group PLC. Havana International Airport was privatized and sold to the French company Aéroports de Paris.

If we apply the Marxist criteria used to define the situation in China, we will reach the same conclusions regarding Cuba. The end of the foreign trade monopoly, state planning, and the central role played by state-owned enterprises in the economy led to a new reality on the island: the reign of the law of value and the market.

It was the law of value that brought about the most significant change in the Cuban economy: the shift toward tourism. This strategy, adopted by the Cuban regime, sought to adapt to the same market reality present throughout the Caribbean: the goal of transforming Cuba into a tourist destination as important as Cancún (Mexico) or Punta Cana (Dominican Republic).

And this strategy enjoyed relative success in the early years, from a capitalist perspective. The number of tourists reached nearly 5 million in 2019. The pandemic changed everything, and visitor numbers plummeted from that point on. By 2025, there were only 1.8 million tourists. And in 2026, with the energy blockade and power shortages, the failure is complete.

The restoration was led by high-ranking military officers, with Raúl Castro’s family at the helm. This led to growing inequality, with the Cuban people living in poverty, while the new Cuban bourgeoisie—which grew in the shadow of the state apparatus—enjoys privileges.

The Impact of the U.S. Embargo

The U.S. blockade against Cuba was an imperialist reaction to the 1959 revolution. It began in 1960 and was formalized by Kennedy in 1962. This brutal imperialist measure caused—and continues to cause—serious harm to the Cuban people. It constitutes an attack by the world’s most powerful imperialist country against a small island 150 km off its coast.

The Helms-Burton Act of 1996 severely exacerbated the blockade by penalizing companies that maintain commercial relations with Cuba.

Why doesn’t the U.S. imperialist bourgeoisie do the same as its European counterpart, which was and continues to be part of the capitalist restoration on the island? The explanation lies with the Cuban bourgeoisie based in Miami, which was expropriated by the revolution in 1959. These bourgeois elements integrated themselves into the U.S. imperialist bourgeoisie and exert considerable influence over the Republican and Democratic parties.

Trump severely tightened the blockade beginning in early 2026, following the invasion of Venezuela and the seizure of its oil. He blocked the shipment of Venezuelan oil to Cuba and threatened any country willing to sell oil to the island.

In doing so, he imposed an energy blockade that paralyzed Cuba’s electricity supply. The country has an obsolete and deteriorating infrastructure that continues to rely on oil-fired thermal power plants.

There is a sector of the U.S. imperialist bourgeoisie that opposes the blockade. However, the pro-blockade faction remains in the majority—at least for now—and seeks to overthrow the Castro dictatorship and reclaim its expropriated companies.

For these reasons, we have been fighting against this blockade for more than fifty years. Similarly, we support Cuba against all attempts at imperialist military intervention, such as the failed Bay of Pigs invasion. For that same reason, we denounce Trump’s current energy blockade.

Stalinist propaganda attributed all of the island’s problems to the imperialist blockade. We do not agree with that. There are the effects of the restoration of capitalism in Cuba, as well as the disastrous results of the government’s economic plans on the standard of living of Cubans. But we do not ignore the serious effects of the blockade on Cuba.

The Political Reality in Cuba Today

We were in Havana in March of this year. Our main objective was to show solidarity with the Cuban people in the face of Trump’s genocidal blockade. We brought antibiotics to hospitals and food for the population, to the extent that our resources allowed.

Our second objective was to understand what was happening to the Cuban people. The crisis was evident everywhere. On the streets of Havana today, you see unemployed people with the empty gaze of despair.

Throughout our stay in Havana, there were more periods without electricity than with it. The piles of trash in the streets reflect a scene of decay. However, it is also possible to see luxury cars, such as Porsches and BMWs, belonging to the new Cuban bourgeoisie.

Cuba’s GDP fell by nearly 15% between 2020 and 2025. A 6.5% decline in GDP is projected for 2026 (data from the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, ECLAC).

The Cuban people hate the dictatorship, both because of poverty and because of constant repression. To date, there are nearly 600 political prisoners from the July 11 protests, many of them teenagers sentenced to between 15 and 20 years in prison.

The dictatorship prevents any active political life in Cuba. There are no free trade unions in Cuba. The CSP Conlutas, a trade union and grassroots organization supported by the PSTU, would be illegal in Cuba.

The “cacerolazos” (pot-banging protests) in Cuba against power outages occur almost daily and are frequently suppressed by the police.

The minimum wage in Cuba today is equivalent to $5. Food, when available, is priced similarly to that in Brazil. A dozen eggs costs $2.40.

The misery of the Cuban people today is the opposite of the reality that existed when the Cuban workers’ state was still in place. At that time, the imperialist blockade was also in effect. But despite the Cuban dictatorship, a workers’ state still existed. Social achievements, such as education and healthcare for the people, were a source of pride for the population and for the global left. That no longer exists. Today, not even public healthcare exists anymore. An activist told us that it is impossible to see a doctor in Cuba without paying a bribe to someone.

We spoke at length with Cuban activists from the group Socialistas en Lucha, a left-wing group critical of the regime and anti-imperialist. They told us that the Cuban masses have definitively broken with the dictatorship. And, contrary to Cuba’s anti-imperialist tradition, they are placing great hopes in Trump.

Something similar to what happened with the Venezuelan masses is happening in Cuba. During the U.S. invasion, the people did not take to the streets.

They stayed in their homes. They did not support Maduro’s dictatorship in any way. But neither did they feel safe enough to protest, out of fear of repression.

Some activists from the critical Cuban left estimate that support for Trump among the Cuban population ranges from 60% to 80%. The blame for this regression in the consciousness of the Cuban masses lies entirely with the Cuban dictatorship.

The True Meaning of the Reforms Approved by the Cuban Regime

What is the deeper meaning of the plan approved by the Cuban regime? We have already seen that it is not a “path toward the restoration of capitalism”—that has already happened.

In reality, the plan is a giant step toward the recolonization of the country by U.S. imperialism. It opens the door for the Cuban bourgeoisie in Miami to recolonize Cuba.

About a month ago, the Spanish chain Meliá announced the closure of 15 of its 34 hotels on the island. Another Spanish company, Iberostar, withdrew from 12 of its 16 hotels on the island. The Canadian company Blue Diamond abandoned all its operations in the country. The largest hotel chain in Southeast Asia, Archipelago International, withdrew its subsidiary Aston from several hotels in Cuba.

Now, with the plan approved by the Cuban regime, the possibility has arisen of transferring control of this hotel complex to U.S. hands. And with the new measures approved, U.S. hotel chains will not even need to be directly affiliated with GAESA.

Similarly, the door is now open for U.S. banks to operate directly in Cuba, as well as in other sectors of the economy.

Trump not only wants to drive China out of Latin America, but he is also seizing the opportunity to nullify the advantage that European imperialism held in Cuba, having played a prominent role during those years of restoration.

It is an obvious fact that these negotiations between the Cuban dictatorship and U.S. imperialism are taking place—a fact that the Cuban government has explicitly acknowledged since last March:

“These negotiations aim to find solutions, through dialogue, to the bilateral differences between the two nations,” Díaz-Canel said in a video broadcast on state television shortly before his address to the Cuban press. (G1, March 13, 2026)

The current plan, approved by the Cuban regime, is therefore the result of negotiations with Trump that have been ongoing since last March.

Some sectors of the press report that direct negotiations are taking place between the sector of the Cuban bourgeoisie in Miami that advocates for recolonization—while maintaining the Cuban dictatorship—and Raúl Castro’s family, in particular “El Cangrejo,” the nickname of Raúl’s grandson.

These sources claim that this sector of the bourgeoisie’s plan for Cuba includes the ports of Mariel and Havana as part of the U.S. port system.

The plan approved by the Cuban Congress therefore has a specific significance: the Cuban regime intends to replicate the Venezuelan process and adopt a stance similar to that of Delcy Rodríguez. And it is doing so without even demanding a U.S. military invasion.

If this hypothesis is confirmed, a major political and ideological crisis will erupt within the Latin American left. Cuba holds immense historical and political significance as the only victorious socialist revolution in Latin America. It will be difficult to maintain the narrative of “a tactical adjustment” with Raúl Castro as a new version of Delcy Rodríguez.

However, these negotiations are still ongoing. The other faction of the Cuban bourgeoisie in Miami—which opposes this agreement and advocates for an invasion of Cuba to directly govern the country—carries considerable weight and, so far, holds the majority.

The Cuban bourgeoisie in Miami, with all its factions, exerts far more influence over Trump than the Venezuelan bourgeois opposition led by María Corina Machado, because it is part of the same U.S. imperialist bourgeoisie.

Trump and his secretary, Marco Rubio, are evaluating the best options for U.S. imperialism. If they side with the sector of the Cuban bourgeoisie that advocates for an invasion, they will not accept this capitulation by the Cuban regime and will demand the dismantling of the regime and of GAESA in order to assume direct control of the Cuban government.

To that end, Trump continues to prepare for a military invasion. The U.S. nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Nimitz and its strike group remain in the Caribbean region. The U.S. legal proceedings against Raúl Castro are still ongoing.

All possibilities remain open in Cuba. Neither of these two alternatives offers any advantage to the Cuban masses. The only real possibility that could benefit the Cuban people would be the emergence of a mass movement, reviving the mobilizations of July 11, 2021, which could usher in a new chapter in Cuba’s history.

Is it possible to fight against Trump?

Yes, it is possible. But that would require doing the opposite of what the Cuban regime is doing. The only way to prevent the recolonization of Cuba and to confront Trump is through a mass movement, both inside Cuba and abroad—particularly in the United States.

The Cuban government, until now, has followed the opposite strategy: it negotiates with imperialism, represses its own people, and does not resort to mass mobilization against Trump. Its reasoning is almost always based on the same argument: the imbalance of forces.

The imbalance of forces is, in fact, unfavorable to Cuba. But Cuban history has already shown that it is possible to defeat U.S. imperialism. In 1961, Cuba repelled the U.S. invasion at the Bay of Pigs.

In Venezuela, a popular mobilization defeated the coup attempt carried out by the Venezuelan Armed Forces against Chávez.

A combination of military resistance against the invasion, mass mobilization in Cuba, and an active alliance with the struggles of American workers against Trump would be the only real alternative to shift the balance of power.

To achieve this, the Cuban regime would have to release political prisoners, call for a mass mobilization, and arm the workers. The Cuban dictatorship, at least so far, is doing the opposite. There is no mass mobilization within Cuba, nor any connection to the mass mobilizations in the U.S. It maintains a repressive stance toward the Cuban people, while negotiating with Trump and the Miami bourgeoisie. We advocate for the masses to resume their leadership role in Cuba, with a new and stronger July 11. We advocate for broad democratic freedoms on the island, starting with the release of political prisoners. That is the only path—not only to try to prevent the recolonization of Cuba, but also to get back on the path toward a new socialist revolution on the island.