The crisis in Cuba: We must fight against Trump

A small delegation from the IWL visited Cuba in March 2026. The delegation consisted of Hertz Dias (the PSTU’s presidential candidate in Brazil), Gabriela (also from the PSTU), and myself.

First and foremost, we wanted to show our solidarity with Cuba at a time when the sordid blockade imposed by Trump is preventing oil from reaching the country and strangling a small island just 140 km from the United States.

We made sure to be there on March 21, the date of the arrival of the Solidarity Flotilla to Cuba, in which various international organizations participated. We brought what we could as a sign of solidarity, within our means: food and medicine.

The international situation was marked by the imperialist-Zionist military aggression against Iran, immediately following the invasion of Venezuela and the kidnapping of Maduro.

Everyone knows that we are critics and opponents of the Cuban dictatorship. But that does not change our stance in defense of Cuba, a semi-colonial country, against the attack by the most powerful imperialist country on the planet. All the more so when that country is led by a far-right government that brazenly claims it is going to “take Cuba.”

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

Trump wants to reverse the decline of U.S. imperialism and thus confront rising Chinese imperialism by openly using its military and economic might. In a National Strategic Security document published in November 2025, he explicitly states the goal of imposing puppet governments in Latin America.

In Venezuela, through the military invasion, he achieved what he wanted: control of the oil and a change in the country’s government, with Delcy Rodríguez aligned with his interests.

The U.S. blockade was imposed by John F. Kennedy in 1962. Now Trump has brutally intensified the blockade and wants to strangle the Cuban economy by suspending oil shipments to the island.

Electricity generation in Cuba depends on oil by between 80% and 95%. The system, which is old and in poor condition, relies on eight main thermoelectric power plants. There was neither modernization nor the necessary maintenance.

Cuba needs 110,000 barrels of oil per day, and produces only 40,000. The suspension of Venezuelan oil shipments, which supplied between 30% and 40% of Cuba’s needs, is a severe blow to the island.

It has a colonial character as sordid as the appropriation of Venezuelan oil, which Trump now claims “belongs to the Americans.” This kind of attitude harkens back to the actions of colonial empires toward their colonies in past centuries.

Trump declared a “national emergency” against Cuba, threatening to raise tariffs on countries that supply oil to the island. This was accepted by the so-called “progressive governments”: neither Lula, nor Petro, nor Claudia Sheinbaum—the three governments of oil-exporting countries—are supplying oil to Cuba, thereby accepting Trump’s imposition.

The consequences are severe.

The constant lack of electricity also directly affects the water and gas supply in a country that is already in recession. There is an ongoing humanitarian crisis.

A public reception event for the flotilla had been announced for the 21st, but it never took place. Since the Cuban dictatorship is very afraid of open events—because the public could turn against it—only two closed events were held, exclusively for international delegations. Neither of them was publicly announced.

We tried everything we could possible means to find out when the event would be that so we could see if we could participate. We only learned that there was a closed-door event on Friday, March 20, the following day. Cuban President Díaz-Canel participated in that event and delivered a rather left-leaning speech against Trump.

On Saturday, we went twice to the Malecón (Havana’s traditional seaside promenade), where the flotilla was supposed to arrive. There was nothing—no event and no ships arriving, at least as far as we could see.

We delivered the food we brought to a community kitchen initiative run by Cuban activists with whom we are in contact.

The medications (antibiotics used in Brazilian hospitals for more serious infections) were delivered directly to the Cuban government at the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples, where the donations brought by the flotilla were handed over. Hertz and I introduced ourselves as members of the PSTU and the IWL and delivered the medications.

As we left the institute, one of the activists present told us that, during that brief period of a few minutes while we were delivering the aid, a rally—also closed to the public—had taken place with the roughly one hundred people who were there, chanting “Cuba yes, blockade no.” That was the second closed rally; the only ones held during the week we were in Cuba.

We thus fulfilled our objective of solidarity with the Cuban people. But beyond denouncing the imperialist blockade and expressing immediate solidarity with Cuba, it is necessary to debate how to truly fight against imperialism. Here, two opposing strategies clash in reality: that of the Cuban government, supported by Stalinism worldwide, and the one we defend.

To understand this debate, we must go back in time to the history of the island.

1959: The First Socialist Revolution in Latin America

By defeating the Batista dictatorship and moving toward the expropriation of large U.S. corporations, the revolution led by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara gained enormous prestige among the masses and the vanguard across the entire continent. Cuba was the first and only country in Latin America to carry out a victorious revolution in 1959, declared socialist in 1961.

The IWL (and the Bolshevik Faction, which preceded it) has always opposed the U.S. blockade against Cuba, since its imposition in 1962. Similarly, we opposed the attempted invasion at the Bay of Pigs in 1961.

However, the Cuban regime never developed institutions of workers’ democracy such as the soviets of the 1917 Russian Revolution. Since 1959, there has always been an authoritarian regime, controlled by a bureaucracy, which later aligned itself with the Stalinism of the USSR.

Even so, the achievements of the Cuban Revolution in the fields of education and health care showed the world the possibilities for progress through the expropriation of the bourgeoisie and economic planning. Infant mortality rates in Cuba were lower than those in the United States.

A one-party regime was imposed, which often persecuted and repressed all opponents or critics, including those on the left. The unions were brought under state control, closing off key spaces for the working class to voice proposals for change.

Racism, sexism, and LGBTQIphobia exist in Cuba. As part of the same Stalinist model, under the rule of the bureaucracy, these forms of oppression have always persisted, along with repression against activists who oppose them. It is no coincidence that the 2019 march against LGBTQI oppression was suppressed. It is no coincidence that the Cuban ruling elite is white, from the Castro family to Díaz-Canel today.

The Restoration of Capitalism in Cuba

The Cuban bureaucratic workers’ state no longer exists. Following the restoration of capitalism in the USSR, Cuba followed the same path. In the 1990s, the Castro regime itself ended the monopoly on foreign trade and economic planning and began privatizing state-owned enterprises.

The Cuban economy opened up to multinational corporations, a development exploited by European imperialism to occupy the island.

From that point on, a new Cuban bourgeoisie began to take shape, emerging from the state apparatus—particularly the military high command—and linked to European multinationals.

The Central Planning Board, which directed the planned economy, was dissolved. At the same time, the state’s monopoly on foreign trade came to an end.

In September 1995, the National Assembly passed the Foreign Investment Law. Thus, the third pillar of the former workers’ state’s economy—state ownership of the principal means of production—was gradually dismantled, sector by sector. State-owned enterprises were handed over to European foreign capital, particularly through joint ventures.

A shift in the economy’s driving force was also imposed, with tourism taking center stage, as Spanish multinationals such as Meliá and Iberostar came to control the large hotels in Varadero and Havana catering to middle-class European, North American, and South American tourists. The idea was to carve out a niche in the Caribbean beach tourism market, competing with Punta Cana (Dominican Republic) and Cancún (Mexico).

Cuban rum is controlled by the French company Pernod Ricard. Cuban cigars are marketed by a joint venture between the Cuban state-owned company and Altadis, part of the British Imperial Tobacco Group PLC.

A new Cuban bourgeoisie emerged at the top of the armed forces, centered around GAE (SA)—Grupo de Administración Empresarial S.A., the hub and driving force behind the restoration of capitalism. This entity was led by Luis Alberto Rodríguez López-Calleja until his death two years ago. He was married to Raúl Castro’s daughter (Débora Castro).

GAESA partnered with European multinationals, established international companies from Cuba, and today controls between 40% and 60% of the island’s economy, according to various scholars of the subject.

This has profound significance: the emergence of a new Cuban bourgeoisie from within the state apparatus, more precisely from the military high command and Raúl Castro’s family. This new Cuban bourgeoisie maintains control of the economy and the regime in Cuba. Díaz-Canel is merely a figurehead, directly controlled by the Castro family.

All of this is glossed over by Stalinism, which claims that the changes in Cuba are expressions of “socialism today,” distinct from the past. There is nothing Marxist about this.

Cuban society functions on the basis of the law of value and not on the basis of economic planning, state-owned enterprises, and the monopoly of foreign trade as previously existed in the old bureaucratic workers’ state.

It was under the pressure of the market and the law of value that the Cuban bourgeois state opted for tourism as the engine of the economy.

This worked at first, but collapsed with the pandemic. Tourism never recovered its 5 million annual visitors, reaching 1.8 million last year and, this year, surely much less.

The state guarantees multinationals a skilled workforce with no possibility of mobilizing against low wages. It also guarantees the ability to remit profits to their parent companies without restrictions.

Inequality among Cubans, which already existed under the bureaucratized workers’ state, widened enormously with the restoration. The new Cuban bourgeoisie and the social sector linked to tourism enjoy great privileges, while misery has become the norm for workers and the poor people of Cuba.

Why didn’t the U.S. imperialist bourgeoisie do the same as the European bourgeoisie, being part of the capitalist restoration on the island? The explanation lies with the Cuban bourgeoisie based in Miami, expropriated by the revolution in 1959. This bourgeoisie integrated itself into the U.S. imperialist bourgeoisie and not only wants to return to Cuba but also to overthrow the Castro dictatorship and recover its expropriated companies.

This change caused enormous confusion among the vanguard worldwide. Cuba continues to be governed by the Communist Party, but a fundamental transformation took place: previously a bureaucratic dictatorship of a deformed workers’ state, later the restoration of capitalism, led by the Communist Party itself. Yet, with the support of Stalinist parties worldwide, people still speak of “socialist Cuba.”

Why did Cuba become isolated?

The only way for Cuba to advance toward socialism would be through the development of the world revolution, and particularly in Latin America. But that did not happen. There is no possibility of advancing toward socialism in a single country, as was demonstrated in the USSR. Even less so on an island, like Cuba.

Cuba’s current isolation was not due solely to the end of economic support from the USSR. Nor was it solely due to the U.S. blockade. These factors are important, but one could not expect any other response from the imperialist counterrevolution.

There is another factor, in our view a decisive one: the policy adopted by the Castro dictatorship. Castroism never sought to develop an international revolutionary strategy based on the struggles of the masses.

In the 1960s, the Cuban government made a disastrous attempt to spread guerrilla pockets throughout Latin America, isolated from the real movement of the masses. This led to successive defeats, the deaths of thousands of activists, and facilitated the repression by bourgeois governments against the mass movement as a whole.

Even more seriously, after joining the Stalinist apparatus in 1972, the Cuban bureaucracy adhered to the Russian bureaucracy’s policy of “peaceful coexistence,” seeking the support of the Latin American “progressive bourgeoisies.”

As the prime example of this, in the face of the revolutionary upsurge of 1979 in Latin America, following the defeat of Somoza’s National Guard and the Sandinista Front’s seizure of power, Fidel Castro opposed the revolution in Nicaragua becoming a “new Cuba.”

Furthermore, Castro supported the Contadora and Esquipulas agreements in the early 1980s. These agreements channeled the revolutionary upsurge into the dead end of elections, defeating the revolutionary process throughout Central America.

Still as part of “peaceful coexistence,” the Cuban dictatorship supported bourgeois governments, such as those of López Portillo, Luis Echeverría (Mexico), and many others. This continued with the “progressive” governments of Lula, Evo Morales, Michelle Bachelet, Cristina Kirchner, etc. Beyond that, it sought a rapprochement with democratic governments in the U.S., such as those of Carter and Obama.

Finally, the Castro dictatorship helped the MPLA dictatorship in Angola and the FRELIMO dictatorship in Mozambique follow the same path as Nicaragua. In those countries, following the defeat of the Portuguese armed forces, bourgeois dictatorships led by those movements were imposed, giving rise to new bourgeoisies that continue to govern to this day.

This is the main reason for Cuba’s isolation. The forces of imperialism will always seek counterrevolution. But the truth is that the Cuban government’s policy, opposed to revolutionary processes, was an expression of the same counterrevolutionary policy of Stalinism throughout the world, which resulted in the defeat of countless revolutionary processes.

The policy to break the isolation is not support for “progressive bourgeoisies,” but support for workers’ struggles, independent of those same governments, aiming toward new socialist revolutions.

When the Stalinist dictatorships in Eastern Europe fell, Cuba suffered the consequences of that policy, becoming extremely isolated.

Has the restoration of capitalism been completed?

Even today, there is a sector of the global left that is critical of Castroism and acknowledges the existence of a process of capitalist restoration in Cuba. But they understand that this process has not been concluded and that Cuba remains a deformed workers’ state. From there, they argue that it is necessary to “defend the gains of the Cuban revolution.”

These sectors generally make three errors of analysis. The first is that they focus the process of capitalist restoration in Cuba on the study of the small production and commercial enterprises that are growing on the island, but which do not control the economy.

They are mistaken. That petty bourgeoisie does not determine the course of the Cuban state and economy. It was the new bourgeoisie, emerging from GAESA (Grupo de Administración Empresarial S.A.), led by the Castro family and formed by the state, that led the restoration of capitalism and benefits from it. It is no coincidence that tourism is the driving force of the current Cuban economy, based on large Spanish companies partnered with Cuban ones.

Second, these sectors argue that capitalism has not been restored because there are still many state-owned enterprises in Cuba.

This is a theoretical error and a misreading of reality. According to Lenin and Trotsky, the class character of the state is determined by its relationship to the means of production, by the forms of ownership that the state defends and preserves. How should we define a state that defends and preserves companies associated with European capital? In our view, it is a bourgeois state.

There is a temporal discrepancy between the change in the character of the Cuban state, which occurred in the 1990s, and that of the economy as a whole, which became essentially capitalist a few years later.

This also occurred in the USSR. Gorbachev changed the character of the state in 1985, when he came to power and began the restoration of capitalism. But the restoration was only completed in the 1990s. In China, Deng Xiaoping changed the character of the state in 1979, when the restoration began, which was also only completed many years later.

How can a state be defined as a workers’ state if the three pillars that characterize it no longer exist? That is, without central planning of the economy, without a monopoly on foreign trade, without state-owned enterprises at the center of the economy? It is a bourgeois state that promotes and advances the restoration of capitalism.

The existence of many state-owned enterprises in Cuba is not a Marxist criterion for defining the character of the state. In many, many capitalist countries, there are state-owned enterprises, in varying numbers. It is essential to determine whether these state-owned enterprises are governed by economic planning, or whether they serve capitalist accumulation, as in other capitalist countries.

In China, for example, there are still many state-owned enterprises. Even the major Chinese banks are state-owned and directly serve the process of capitalist accumulation by large private Chinese companies. And China is an imperialist country.

One cannot use a linear, quantitative, and mechanical definition to define an economy solely based on the number of state-owned enterprises.

The Marxist criterion that defines the economy as a whole is that if the economy is governed by the law of value, by the market, and by supply and demand, it is a capitalist economy. If the economy is governed by the planning of a state-controlled economy, it is a non-capitalist economy at some stage of its evolution.

Today, Cuba is a market-driven economy, with its evolution determined by the law of value. The decision to focus on tourism was determined by the “market,” by the law of value.

During the 1929 depression, the economy of the USSR—a workers’ state, albeit led by the Stalinist bureaucracy—grew at rates exceeding 10% annually. In 2020, during the global recession, Cuba suffered an 11% drop in GDP. Why? Because it has a market-driven economy, in this case by the global decline in tourism, which severely impacted the island’s main economic sector.

Third, these sectors argue that there are still achievements in education, healthcare, sports, etc. But that no longer exists.

There is a brutal crisis in the country’s public healthcare and education systems. Cuban activists denounce a brutal form of privatization through corruption. You cannot get any decent medical care in Cuba without paying “under the table” for anything, from a consultation to basic medication.

An example of the Cuban healthcare crisis was the terrible collapse of medical care in Cuba as the pandemic intensified, very similar to what happened in Latin American countries.

The programmatic consequence of this theoretical discussion is enormous. Those who characterize Cuba as still being a workers’ state have as their program a political revolution that merely modifies the political regime. Those of us who characterize Cuba as capitalist defend a new socialist revolution that expropriates the privatized enterprises in the hands of foreign capital, restores economic planning and the monopoly on foreign trade, and breaks with the Stalinist dictatorship to build a new workers’ democracy.

We want to ask those sectors that continue to defend Cuba as a workers’ state: What do you think should be done with the most important sector of the Cuban economy, the tourism sector, with the large private hotels? Should they be expropriated or not? Should the other multinational companies that control the country be nationalized or not? Should economic planning be reinstated or not? Is it essential to return to a monopoly on foreign trade? If they answer these questions in the affirmative, it means they are proposing a new socialist revolution in Cuba. If they reject this program, they are aiming to perpetuate the misery of Cuban workers.

The former bureaucratized Cuban workers’ state has disappeared, leaving only its appearance, with the Communist Party at the helm, as in China.

What exists in Cuba is a bourgeois dictatorship

The most terrible consequence of the restoration of capitalism is the misery of the Cuban people. The material basis for July 11 or for the explosion brewing in Cuba would not exist without the economic and social consequences of the restoration of capitalism.

Contrary to what Stalinist propaganda claims, the Cuban people live in misery and hate the Castro dictatorship.

In December 2020, the Díaz-Canel government, now expressing the interests of the new Cuban bourgeoisie, imposed the “Tarea Ordenamiento” plan, very similar to neoliberal plans around the world.

The plan’s stated objective was the unification of the currencies in circulation in Cuba. But the result for workers was disastrous. What followed was a massive increase in gas and electricity prices, hyperinflation, and terrible shortages. All of this in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic.

But it is not true that everyone lost out. The real beneficiaries of this plan were the large multinational corporations operating in Cuba and the new Cuban bourgeoisie associated with them.

The real explanation for the popular uprising of July 11, 2021, was that plan. “11J” was a historic event that expressed the deep discontent of the Cuban masses with the dictatorship.

In the streets were poor Cubans from working-class neighborhoods. It was all very similar to the popular mobilizations of 2019–2020 in Chile, Colombia, and Ecuador.

It had nothing to do with the mobilizations of the right-wing middle class from the wealthiest neighborhoods, which sometimes occur in our countries in support of the proposals of the bourgeoisie and imperialism.

The regime was hit hard by this spontaneous mass popular mobilization and reacted violently with nearly 1,500 arrests. The repression against workers and youth was supported by global Stalinism, with the slander that it was a mobilization organized by imperialism.

To this day, there are around 600 political prisoners from July 11, including many teenagers sentenced to 15 to 20 years in prison. We

support the workers’ struggles against neoliberal plans in Colombia and Chile and denounce the harsh repression by the governments. We support July 11 and denounce the Cuban government’s repression.

Cuba’s “people’s democracy,” touted by the Stalinists, is a farce. This dictatorship knows it is hated and therefore fears its own people. It allows no form of democracy, neither workers’ nor bourgeois. The so-called “people’s democracy” is neither democracy nor, much less, popular.

The population suffers persecution and police surveillance all the time. Those who dissent lose their jobs, are monitored, and persecuted.

Cuba’s minimum wage today is equivalent to $3. And that’s with food—when you can get it—costing a price similar to that in Brazil. We paid $2.40 during our stay in Cuba for a dozen eggs—the cheapest source of protein we found. In other words, a dozen eggs costs almost as much as a monthly minimum wage.

The ration book—the subsidized food supply guaranteed by the Cuban government in the past—was reduced to just one small loaf of bread per person per day. There were long lines in front of the official bakeries in Havana to get that bread.

Constant repression is how this dictatorship prevents strikes and opposing demonstrations.

In the “elections,” only government-endorsed candidates are allowed, and the Communist Party is the only legal party.

Why don’t they allow any left-wing party that doesn’t support the government? Why are there no free trade unions in Cuba? The CSP Conlutas, a trade union and popular organization supported by the PSTU, would not be legal in Cuba.

The regime represses any form of opposition. It cracked down on the July 11 protests, as well as the May 2019 LGBTI march, independent artistic demonstrations, and all acts that challenge it. The harsh repression drives those who oppose it into exile or prison.

Since July 11, the crisis has deepened further, as has discontent with poverty and repression.

The current crisis is setting the stage for a new popular uprising

All of this has been greatly exacerbated by the oil embargo imposed by Trump following Maduro’s ouster. With the supply of Venezuelan oil cut off and a ban on any other country sending oil, Cuba is collapsing.

During the week we were there, there were two nationwide blackouts and several local ones. Despite staying in a central neighborhood of Havana, we spent more time without power than with it.

The rift between the masses and the government is enormous. We spoke at length with the activists we are in contact with. They speak of the Cuban people’s hatred toward the dictatorship, both because of the poverty and the constant repression. The Cuban people contrast their poverty with the privileges of the ruling elite, known as those of Raúl Castro’s family.

This anti-dictatorial consciousness is largely capitalized on by the right. There is significant political support for Trump among the Cuban masses. Among activists, there are differing estimates regarding this phenomenon: some speak of 60% support for Trump, others of 80%. This harsh reality is important for understanding the decline of anti-imperialist consciousness, once the majority view in Cuba, due to the dictatorship.

Support for Cuban “socialism” is very much in the minority, though it still has a significant presence among older sectors of the population who experienced better times under the former workers’ state. The younger the population, the greater the support for Trump.

A few days before our arrival, people in a small town—Morón—attacked and set fire to a headquarters of the Communist Party of Cuba.

During the time we were there, there were local pot-banging protests every night, though they lacked national reach or continuity.

A massive anger is building against the bourgeois dictatorship that could erupt into a new popular mobilization, similar to or even larger than that of July 11, 2021.

The Problem of Campism

Stalinism, as a global apparatus, was greatly weakened by the fall of the Eastern European dictatorships. But it remains very strong to this day. It has communist parties in many countries, some of them with significant popular influence. Many non-Stalinist reformist parties, such as the PT and the PSOL in Brazil, support the Castro dictatorship.

But Stalinism is much more than the well-known and repudiated authoritarianism. It has a reformist ideology that extends far beyond the communist parties themselves. They replace the Marxist method of analyzing social classes with that of “progressive camps.”

On one side are the “progressive camps,” which include “left-wing governments” and the “progressive bourgeoisie.” On the other is the enemy: U.S. imperialism. They recognize only the U.S. as imperialist, ignoring European, Chinese, and Russian imperialism.

Thus, all who oppose these progressive governments are “agents of U.S. imperialism.” In these countries led by these “left-wing governments,” there are no real social classes, nor is there a class struggle. There are only progressive governments and their enemies, the agents of U.S. imperialism.

According to the propaganda of many Stalinist parties, Cuba and China, in addition to having “left-wing governments,” remain “socialist” countries to this day. On that basis, many Communist Parties supported the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989. Even in the face of thousands of young people killed in a peaceful demonstration in Beijing, the Stalinist apparatus continued to speak of “agents of imperialism.”

China, contrary to what Stalinist propaganda claims, is an imperialist power. With extremely low wages and a dictatorship that suppresses any threat of a strike, the Chinese model was imposed and propagated by global imperialism as an example, creating a new wage paradigm that contributed to lowering the standard of living for workers worldwide.

Using this method of analyzing “progressive governments,” the Communist Parties and their followers supported Assad, the Syrian dictator, who killed 500,000 people to stay in power. They support the Ortega dictatorships in Nicaragua. But, contrary to what Stalinist propaganda claims, those governing these countries are the new bourgeoisies that have emerged from the state apparatus. And in those countries, there are workers fighting against the capitalist misery imposed by those governments.

In Cuba, the same campist method of Stalinism serves to justify the entire policy of the Cuban government as “progressive” and even as the “last bastion of socialism.” That is why they also supported the Cuban government’s repression against the July 11th protests.

Thus, we have two dominant ideologies in the world regarding Cuba. One from U.S. imperialism, which claims that socialism exists in Cuba and that this proves socialism is synonymous with dictatorship and misery. The other, from the Stalinist apparatus, which claims that Cuba is “the last bastion of socialism” and that activists must defend the Cuban government, not only against U.S. imperialism but also against its own people.

But these two ideologies clash with reality. There is no socialism of any kind in Cuba. There is a bourgeois dictatorship, which is maintained through constant repression.

And the “campist” ideology of Stalinism, which was the basis for countless defeats of the workers, is preparing yet another one for Cuba.

We fight against imperialism. And we also fight against Stalinism. To do so, we use the Marxist method, which does not replace classes in struggle with “camps.” We evaluate the relations between nations within the world system of states. And we analyze the concrete situations of the class struggle.

That is why we fight the imperialist blockade against Cuba. That is also why we can fight against the bourgeois dictatorship in Cuba, independently of imperialism.

It is undeniable that Trump wants to take advantage of the current crisis in the Cuban government, and that he is vying for the consciousness of the Cuban masses.

This affected part of the former anti-dictatorial vanguard on the island, such as some of the leadership of the San Isidro Movement, present in Cuban culture, who moved to the right.

On the other hand, the Stalinist apparatus is also working to break this vanguard, through arrests, trials, and smear campaigns. Furthermore, it exerts ideological pressure with the farce that all the mobilizations that arise “have imperialism behind them.”

Fortunately, there are not only these two camps. A sector of the Cuban vanguard is against imperialist maneuvers and against the Castro dictatorship, as is the case with the group Socialistas en Lucha, which shares with us the struggle against imperialism, against the dictatorship, and the defense of socialism.

The Cuban government’s negotiations with Trump

For several months now, there have been reports of direct negotiations between the Trump administration and the Cuban regime. The press speaks openly about the proposal under discussion: a “Venezuelan-style” solution for Cuba.

Trump said in February of that year: “The Cuban government is talking to us. They have a lot of problems and no money. They have absolutely nothing right now, but they’re talking to us, and maybe we’ll have a friendly takeover. We could end up having a friendly takeover of Cuba.”

On the Cuban side, the person negotiating with Marco Rubio (Trump’s Secretary of State) is Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, Raúl Castro’s grandson, nicknamed “El Cangrejo.” In other words, these are direct negotiations from the centers of power on both the Trump side and the Cuban side.

Trump’s release of a Russian oil tanker bound for Cuba must have been part of those negotiations. Trump’s spokesperson later noted that the U.S. government will review the possibility of other shipments on a “case-by-case” basis. One way or another, this means less than ten days’ worth of the oil Cuba needs.

Exactly on the day we arrived in Cuba, March 16, Díaz-Canel appeared on state television to announce the negotiations with Trump, “with responsibility and great sensitivity.” Seated in front of him was Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro.

The lifting of restrictions on investments in Cuba by “Cubans residing in the United States”—that is, the Cuban bourgeoisie based in Miami—was announced, specifically in the energy, general infrastructure, and financial sectors.

These investments may be made without any oversight by the Cuban state. In other words, the handover of the Cuban economy to U.S. imperialism was announced through negotiations with Trump.

It was at that moment that Trump declared that “it would be a great honor to take Cuba.”

However, shortly thereafter, Marco Rubio, responding to Díaz-Canel, asserted that these measures were insufficient and demanded the opening of all trade and Díaz-Canel’s resignation.

Subsequently, Díaz-Canel responded to Trump, both on social media and at the closed-door event with the naval fleet, stating that a military attack on Cuba was possible and that “the country has launched a defense preparedness plan based on the concept of a war of the entire people.”

Along with this, he carried out a media operation. Singer Silvio Rodríguez, who supports the regime but openly criticizes the repression, demanded a rifle from the government to defend Cuba against Trump. Díaz-Canel then handed him a rifle.

It was all a farce. The weapon handed over to Silvio Rodríguez, as he himself later stated, was a replica, not a real weapon. There are no preparations for a popular defense operation in Cuba. During the time we were on the island, there was no mass mobilization nor any real preparations for popular arming. The activists we spoke with are unanimous in characterizing this proposal for popular mobilization as a farce.

However, there is a possibility of an impasse in the ongoing negotiations. It is necessary to bear in mind that the Cuban bourgeoisie in Miami is part of the imperialist bourgeoisie. It carries much more economic and political weight than the Venezuelan bourgeois opposition led by María Corina Machado.

It may be opposed to a “Venezuelan-style” outcome in Cuba. This is, therefore, an open-ended process that could lead either to an imperialist military invasion or to genuine negotiations to maintain part of the regime, but one subordinate to Trump (in the Venezuelan style). Or even another scenario might unfold.

How can we truly defend Cuba against imperialism?

In Cuba, brutal imperialist pressure is being exerted against a small semi-colonial country. That is the central reality at this moment.

On the other hand, a major uprising against the Cuban bourgeois dictatorship is brewing.

We do not know how these uneven processes will unfold or how they will combine.

Trump’s negotiations with the Cuban government could lead to a new alternative similar to that of Venezuela. Or the negotiations could reach an impasse and end in an imperialist military invasion.

It is also possible that a popular uprising could end up being co-opted by pro-imperialist leaderships linked to Trump. Or other scenarios—more or less combined—could unfold, with different outcomes.

The Cuban government, so far, maintains a strategy of negotiating with imperialism, repressing its own people, and not resorting to mass mobilization against Trump. The reasoning is almost always based on the same argument: the unfavorable balance of power.

In military terms, there truly is an absolutely unfavorable balance of power for Cuba. But Cuban history has already demonstrated that it is possible to defeat U.S. imperialism. In 1961, there was a U.S. invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. A popular and military mobilization defeated the imperialist invasion in 72 hours, securing a victory that consolidated the revolution in Cuba.

Extending these examples to the Latin American context, in 2002 a popular mobilization defeated the coup attempt carried out by the Venezuelan armed forces against Chávez. And, the best-known example of all, in 1975 a combination of the heroic military resistance of the Vietnamese and the mass mobilization against the war in the United States led to the greatest political and military defeat of U.S. imperialism to date.

At this moment, the combination of Iranian military resistance and mobilizations in the United States could lead to a new and major defeat of imperialism in the war in Iran.

There is no possibility of changing this unfavorable balance of forces without the combination of military resistance and mass mobilization, both inside and outside Cuba. Only by genuinely preparing a popular armed resistance in Cuba and uniting the mobilizations with those in the United States—such as the “No Kings” demonstrations on March 28 and the upcoming ones on May 1—is it possible to change the unfavorable balance of forces.

To do this, the Cuban regime would need to release political prisoners, call for mobilization, and hand out weapons to the workers. Enough already with farces like the one involving singer Silvio Rodríguez. It is necessary to seriously prepare a popular military resistance against a possible imperialist invasion.

We understand that 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. A repressive stance is maintained toward the Cuban people, while dialogue and negotiations take place with Trump.

As the mother of one of the teenage political prisoners from the July 11th incident in Cuba said, it is striking that Díaz-Canel is engaging in dialogue with imperialism and not with the Cuban people. Among the 2,000 prisoners released by the Cuban government through negotiations with imperialism mediated by the Vatican, there were none of the July 11th prisoners.

The Cuban government wants an end to the blockade so that U.S. imperialist companies can come to Cuba, just as Spanish, French, and Italian companies do today. The Cuban government wants an end to the blockade to advance the semi-colonization of the island. And now, it is negotiating with Trump, which may or may not mean the possibility of a “Venezuelan-style” outcome for Cuba.

In addition to organizing genuine resistance against U.S. imperialism, we propose fighting against the Cuban dictatorship as part of a democratic struggle, part of a socialist and anti-imperialist strategy.

We advocate for independent mobilization and organization of the workers and the Cuban people. We demand freedom for political prisoners and the free organization of unions and political organizations in Cuba, so that we can better combat imperialism.

This democratic struggle is part of our strategy for a new socialist revolution in Cuba, renationalizing privatized enterprises—including those in the hands of European imperialism—through economic planning and direct, genuine worker control. We want a workers’ democracy in Cuba, opposed to the Stalinist dictatorship, which in fact finds its essence in workers’ participation in all fundamental and strategic decisions on the island.

Left-wing activists who defend the Cuban dictatorship, believing that, despite its mistakes, Stalinism defends what remains of the Cuban revolution, must reflect.

The Castro dictatorship is not defending the bureaucratized workers’ state—which has long since ceased to exist—but rather its alliance with big European corporations, their profits, and their privileges. That is why it is hated by the Cuban people. The Cuban dictatorship is not confronting Trump—at least not yet—but is negotiating with the United States.

To uncritically support the Stalinist dictatorship is to reinforce that vision of “progressive camps a

longside the bourgeoisie,” which ignores social classes and Marxism. And it paves the way for a new defeat in Cuba, this time at the hands of the U.S. government.

We, in the IWL, not only defend Cuba against U.S. imperialism, but we are committed to the defeat of imperialism alongside mass mobilization within Cuba and in the United States. We are prepared to support any genuine measure by the Cuban government to defend the island and confront Trump. What we do not agree with is its strategy of negotiating with the U.S. government.

We stand with the workers and youth in Cuba. We consider their struggle to be legitimate, just, and necessary. The reality of deep economic inequality and the repression of democratic freedoms cannot be denied. The true way to fight imperialism is, as history teaches us, by relying on the Cuban masses and the masses worldwide, not against them.