Comrades:

We extend our fraternal greetings to all the communist and workers’ parties participating in this International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties.

We thank the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba for organizing this 24th IMCWP, despite the very difficult conditions. This initiative arose within the framework of the 150th anniversary of the Communist Manifesto, at the invitation of the Communist Party of Greece. This forum has now been running for over a quarter of a century and has become a fundamental platform for the exchange of opinions and information, under the new conditions in which the international communist movement has had to operate after the predominance of market relations, incompatible with socialist construction, led to the temporary triumph of the counterrevolution in the USSR and other countries.

We have come to pay homage to Commander Fidel Castro Ruz on the centenary of his birth. From a very young age, he chose the path of Revolution and internationalism, believing it represented the emancipation and happiness of the Cuban people and workers, and the liberation of Cuba from the ominous chains of imperialism. The popular uprising against the Batista dictatorship—which was sustained by legal and illegal capital, the White House, and the mafia in holy alliance—linked the longed-for independence with socialism, in the era of the historical transition from capitalism to socialism inaugurated by the Great October Socialist Revolution of 1917. This process reaffirmed one of the general laws of revolution: that an intermediate stage between socialism and capitalism is not necessary, as Commander Ernesto Guevara aptly summarized in his maxim, “either socialist revolution or a caricature of revolution.” In fact, in addition to confronting Cuban bourgeois power, US monopolies, and imperialism; The Cuban Revolution and the thought and action of Commander Fidel Castro also brought a questioning of the opportunist line of Browderism and its aftermath, such as class conciliation and reformism within the communist movement in our continent, and also in Cuba.

While some petty-bourgeois factions, profiting from the prestige of the Cuban Revolution, sought to deny the indispensable role of the Communist Party in the revolutionary process, and even the revolutionary historical character of the working class, Fidel fought resolutely to bring together the various revolutionary forces into a new Communist Party of Cuba. This party was a continuation of the one founded by Carlos Baliño and Julio Antonio Mella, as the Cuban section of the Third International, and it placed the proletariat at the forefront of the Revolution at all levels, clearly understanding, as the Commander explained on several occasions [1],  that there would never again be power of the bourgeoisie, by the bourgeoisie, and for the bourgeoisie, but rather power of the workers, by the workers, and for the workers.

Fidel earned the respect of the international communist and revolutionary movement, and his prestige grew even more when, during the temporary defeat of socialist construction in the USSR and Eastern Europe, against all odds, he firmly maintained the socialist leadership of the Cuban revolutionary process, preserving socialist gains and guaranteeing the right to continue socialist construction in the future. This feat was an inspiration to communists in every country.

We have much to learn from Fidel, drawing on his thought and action.

We also come in this context to reiterate our solidarity with the people of Cuba and with the socialist achievements of the Revolution.

The arrival of the US fleet in the Caribbean, and the proclamation by the Trump administration of the New US National Security Doctrine, demonstrate that the fierce competition between capitalist economies led by the US/EU versus so-called multipolar economies, with their conflicts and wars, also involves Latin America. The stated objective of the US in its new doctrine is to expel Chinese capital from the region in order to regain its hegemony.

This policy of aggression immediately translated into action, and after the attack on Venezuela—which met with the heroic resistance of 32 Cuban combatants—and the imposition of an  ad hoc government , the US turned its attention to Cuba. From then on, week after week, measures were relentlessly adopted to suffocate Cuba, the main weapon being the imposition of a total energy blockade against the Cuban people, which reinforces and intensifies the economic blockade that has now lasted 64 years.

Threatening sanctions and tariffs, they have forced several states to yield to pressure, relinquishing their sovereign right to trade freely with third countries. They have attempted to break the revolution by sanctioning leaders and organizations, surgically targeting the entry of productive and financial resources; but they have encountered the wall of a people determined to defend the chosen path. They have even had the cynicism and cowardice to personally attack General Raúl Castro.

From its very beginnings in power, the Cuban Revolution faced hostility, economic warfare, and even direct military aggression, but in recent years, this new wave of aggression is the most serious. The response of the people, international solidarity, and communist parties must rise to the occasion, both politically and in concrete terms.

For example, the people of Mexico, with the labor movement and communists as their backbone, won sovereignty over this energy resource through the 1938 oil expropriation. Unfortunately, the Mexican state yielded to pressure and suspended oil agreements with Cuba. In response, the grassroots campaign, “ A Ship of Oil for Cuba“, gained prominence, a campaign to which the Mexican Communist Party (PCM) contributed, along with other Mexican organizations, and with the fraternal support of sister parties like the Communist Party of the Workers of the United Workers of Mexico (PCTE).

We consider solidarity with Cuba and the defense of its socialist achievements imperative at this time. The initiatives of the Mexican Communist Party (PCM) and the Communist Youth are countless, taking place in workplaces, working-class neighborhoods, and schools, in support of Cuba and against imperialist aggression.

Alongside the campaign against Cuba and the war of aggression against the people of Iran, Palestine, and Lebanon, it is also clear that the Trump administration is promoting a campaign against socialism and communism. The ruling classes always keep in mind who their class enemy is. It is true that the ideological mechanisms of imperialism distort history and facts, manipulating them; for example, they present as socialism what is not, such as progressive capitalist initiatives, American social democrats, and even the US Democratic Party itself. However, it is evident that, faced with these distortions and attacks, we communists have the duty to defend our theory, Marxism-Leninism, and our historical objectives: socialism-communism, socialist construction in the USSR, and the characteristics of socialism such as the socialization of the means of production, central and scientific planning of the economy, revolutionary workers’ power, and the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Historical experience has shown us the superiority of the new mode of production of socialism-communism for satisfying the needs of the people, for happiness and progress, for unleashing the full potential and creativity of humanity once the system of exploitation is abolished. It has also shown us the suffering of our people when setbacks are tolerated, when counter-revolution gains ground, for socialist construction is not an upward trajectory without a life-or-death struggle against market relations, which are the seed of capitalism, upon which the possibility of temporary regression objectively rests, since accumulation and profit give substance to the petty bourgeoisie, the remnants of the overthrown exploiting classes, mortal enemies of the socialist revolution and of workers’ and people’s power. Let us always keep this bitter lesson in mind.

 

We face difficult times, with an unfavorable correlation, but one that we can modify through action. This should not cloud the historical optimism, based on Marxism-Leninism, regarding the advent of new socialist revolutions. Objective conditions show us imperialist war and acute inter-imperialist competition; the looming signs of capitalist economic crisis; the super-profits of monopolies and the impoverishment of the working class; the devastation of natural resources and the environment; the tragic results of confronting global pandemics under capitalist management; the attacks against working women and migrant workers; the open genocide of a people before the expectant gaze of the world; the galloping development of new productive forces, such as Artificial Intelligence, subordinated to the logic of capital accumulation. But in the face of all these dangers and attacks, a class capable of transforming this situation is moving and resisting, a class that fights and organizes throughout the world. And from all this, only one conclusion can be drawn:

Let us strengthen the struggle for socialism-communism, for new socialist revolutions.

Cuba will win!

Long live Fidel!

Long live socialism-communism!

 

[1]  For example, in his speech at the Cuba Vive International Youth Festival on August 6, 1995.

 

SOURCE: El Machete – the official press organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Mexico (Partido Comunista de México).