On 27 July 2024, Cuba’s ambassador to the UK spoke at a packed meeting in west London, where she was one of the guests of honour at our regular international summer barbecue, which this year also celebrated the 20th anniversary of our party’s founding.
We hold this event at the end of July because it coincides with the anniversary of two historic international events; two great victories of the working class and of socialism. These are the storming of the Moncada and Bayamo Barracks on 26 July 1953, which kicked off the Cuban Revolution, and the Korean people’s victory in the Fatherland Liberation War on 27 July 1953, which was the first major defeat for US imperialism.
Following the speech of party chair Ella Rule, our Cuban comrade, Her Excellency Ismara Mercedes Vargas Walter, shared her thoughts on the anniversary of the Cuban Revolution and on the problems faced by the Cuban people today. It is clear that those problems stem from the ongoing attempt to destabilise Cuba by her enemies, chiefly the USA. Cuba is endlessly punished – like Haiti before her – for being in the vanguard of the liberation struggle in Latin America. The more so in Cuba’s case since she is in the vanguard not only of the national-liberation forces but also of the global struggle for socialism.
Cuba, of course, is situated a mere 70 miles from the coast of Florida, from where the reactionary emigre ‘Gusano’ Cubans still plot with their US masters to recolonise their former homeland. Cuba’s small territory and population make it exceptionally hard to develop a self-sufficient economy, so the genocidal imperialist economic blockade is able to do huge damage to Cuban people’s everyday lives. And these problems are compounded by having to live in such close proximity to the US imperialist giant — right in the jaws of the crocodile!
The US regime remains hell-bent on destroying the Socialist Republic of Cuba, precisely because it is such an outstanding example to the US, Latin-American and wider world proletariat of just what can be achieved when the people have thrown off their exploiters.
The economic blockade of Cuba, which has been in place since the ‘Cuban missile crisis’ of 1953, not only remains in force but has been intensified over the last four years. In January 2021, during the dying days of his administration, US president Donald Trump placed Cuba – without any ‘justification’, of course — back on its list of ‘state sponsors of terrorism’, together with the DPRK, Syria and Iran.
This ‘unilateral coercive measure’ effectively ‘de-banks’ the entire country. Yet there is far less coverage of the consequences of these economic methods of mass destruction than there was when Reform leader Nigel Farage was kicked out of the Royals’ bank Coutts!
Having been literally expelled from the international banking system, Cuba lost the services of 40 international banks overnight. It is precisely their monopoly over the financial system, and consequent enormous economic power, that led VI Lenin to observe that, in the era of imperialism, banks had been transformed from the ‘humble middlemen’ of the 14th century into lords of finance capital. Through the process of concentration and centralisation of capital, through the merging of industrial capital with bank capital, a new financial oligarchy was formed – the modern imperialist financier class that dominates the planet and stands above society, running and controlling all aspects of our lives.
These finance capitalists – the owners of monopoly capital – are behind the unilateral coercive measures that are weilded against states who have the temerity to stand up to their power. There is no single president (Joe Biden, Donald Trump, Barack Obama, George W Bush, Bill Clinton, George Bush, Ronald Ragan …) who can be held responsible for these acts, which are not the result of an individual’s policy but the will of the ruling oligarchs as expressed through the entire state apparatus of US imperialism. The monopolists use the regime of financial sanctions to destabilise countries for the crime of choosing to remain sovereign and resisting exploitation, political control and and financial penetration by Anglo-American capital.
This is the real enemy of all humanity. These are its methods.
Comrade Ismara brought greetings to comrades and supporters of the CPGB-ML on our 20th anniversary, observing that ours is a truly internationalist party, and that we stand, despite all differences in culture and national origin, united by principles.
We have an important task: of upholding, teaching and spreading the liberation ideology of Marxism-Leninism to the working class, and ushering in a future world of equality, peace and prosperity.
¡Hasta la victoria siempre!
