Rock around the Blockade, a campaign of the Revolutionary Communist Group, held its 15th solidarity brigade to Cuba from December 2023 to January 2024. While learning about the inspiring achievements of Cuban socialism, the brigadistas also witnessed the devastating impacts of the US blockade on Cuba. The US blockade is an act of war, contrived ‘to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government’ as conceived by then-US Assistant Secretary of State Lester Mallory in 1960. It is an act of genocide under the UN Genocide Convention. The blockade restricts access to resources in every sector: medical equipment for children’s intensive care units, insulin for diabetic patients, materials for schools, food and energy. The tightening of the blockade under the US Trump administration, and then under Biden, has imposed a severe economic crisis on Cuba with severe material shortages. But the Cuban people we met and spoke to, from the farmers and economists to the doctors and cleaners, and particularly the young people, remain committed to resisting the blockade and defending the gains of their socialist revolution. Ria Aibhilin and Soma Kisan report.
Brigade to Cuba 2023/24
- Cuba resists - End the US blockade
- Cuba democracy in action
- Capitalism destroys lives
- Socialist Cuba advances womens’ and LGBT rights
- Cuban socialism a model for climate action
- Socialist healthcare leads the way
Our last RCG brigade to Cuba took place in April 2019, as the Trump administration was attacking Cuba with an onslaught of new unilateral coercive measures, including enacting Title III of the 1996 Helms Burton Act which had been suspended for 23 years. The law allows US courts to sue individuals and companies, national and foreign, that do business with Cuba (see FRFI 269). In the context of Cuba’s isolation following the collapse of the socialist bloc in 1991, and the island’s need to turn to the capitalist world for trade and investment, the Helms Burton Act aimed to scare off foreign partners engaging with Cuba. FRFI has reported on the 243 sanctions, actions and coercive measures introduced under Trump – and left intact under Biden – to tighten the blockade of Cuba. One of the most damning measures has been Cuba’s baseless inclusion on the US’s list of State Sponsors of Terrorism.
The blockade’s impact on imports and foreign investment limits Cuba’s routes to accessing the hard currency necessary for buying on the international market. As a result, tourism has become one of Cuba’s central means of access. Attacks directed at the tourism industry were launched under Trump in an attempt to create an economic crisis severe enough to foster discontent and push the Cuban people to overthrow the Cuban Revolution. US citizens are not allowed to travel to Cuba for ‘tourist activities’. Attacks on the tourism industry have expanded under Biden: citizens in countries part of the US’s Visa Waiver Programme (ESTA), including Britain, who visit Cuba can no longer visit the US via the ESTA and must instead apply for a visa via the US Embassy.
Cuba’s exemplary response to the Covid-19 pandemic meant lives were protected, but it also meant borders were closed and tourism was halted. The Cuban economy contracted by up to 2% in 2023, while inflation reached up to 30%. The tightening of the blockade, exacerbated by the effects of Covid and global inflation, have forced Cuba to adopt a ‘war economy’. To weather the storm, the Cuban state has begun a process of economic reordering. Measures over the last few years have included monetary unification, expanding the non-state sector and, most recently, announcements on decreasing universal state subsidies.
Economic reordering
As a small resource-limited island which was systematically underdeveloped by colonialism and imperialism for decades, Cuba is dependent on imports. It faces a contradiction: while committed to increasing self-sufficiency and sustainability, it needs financial and material resources to undertake this task. However, the Cuban state faces enormous obstacles to importing due to the blockade. In this context, the privately owned micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) are seen as necessary vehicles to help overcome these challenges and get resources into Cuba.
Our brigade experienced an example of this. We visited an MSME, Prodanko paint production factory, employing eight workers. 80% of its production depends on raw materials which have to be imported from outside the country and which the state cannot import due to the blockade. The business is able to import the raw materials to produce a variety of different paints. Their principal clients are state-owned enterprises: schools, hospitals and institutions.
As well as their role in importing goods which aid the state sector, economist Valentin Sosa Nuñez explained that MSMEs are used to increase productivity and efficiency in the state sector: ‘these new economic actors emerging in the economy are very important for improving the economy of the whole country. We have to sustain these, but our principal priority is to maintain the state enterprises. State enterprises provide more social benefits for the means of production. But not all enterprises are efficient. In this case, the micro enterprises have been created to link with the state enterprises to improve the level of efficiency in production’.
Addressing contradictions
The existence of MSMEs is viewed as crucial for Cuba’s survival; at the same time, they introduce new contradictions to Cuba’s socialist society. At Prodanko factory, each worker earns 20,000 CUP per month, while a state worker earns around 3,500 CUP monthly. The relatively low state salaries, alongside soaring inflation, have resulted in emigration of doctors and teachers. But as Manuel Raices of the Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology pointed out: ‘what started to happen after Trump’s measures, with the economic crisis, is that doctors started to emigrate. But we have to make choices: we cannot educate people and pay a high salary. We cannot pay a European salary when we have no money. We have to prioritise our money so our country survives.’ Those doctors leaving the country receive education in Cuba that is completely free and paid for by the state.
Critics of socialist Cuba have hailed economic reordering policies as an abandonment of socialism, but the Communist Party of Cuba (CPC)is clear that they are necessary to address the severe conditions Cuba faces as it attempts to build socialism in a world dominated by global monopoly capitalism and while trying to survive under a genocidal blockade. Our brigade met with Belkys Lay Rodriguez from the CPC, who told us in relation to the economic reordering: ‘we took measures which were correct and right at the time. They haven’t all had the intended consequences. One example is that certain groups are able to have higher incomes than the rest of the population. But the policy of the Communist Party is to investigate and to produce better results. We are undertaking studies because the new actors in the economy must be regulated so they don’t advance what the socialist state rejects, which is capitalist social relations.’
MSMEs are permitted a maximum of 100 employees. From 1 January 2024, new measures extend sales and service taxes on MSMEs to all marketing operations. By the end of November 2023, non-state economic actors had imported over $1bn of primarily finished products, imports that do not add value in production or productivity to the Cuban economy. In this context, another measure that has been introduced is a 50% reduction in the customs tariff on imports of raw materials or other inputs to Cuba’s productive sector for both state and non-state economic actors. This will incentivise domestic production which can replace imported finished goods. This measure is supplemented by increased tariff rates from 5% to up to 30% on imports of goods that are already produced in Cuba domestically like cigarettes, rum and tobacco. These measures aim to promote and protect national production, exports and the proportion of Cuban products in the national market.
Further measures are being discussed to address inequalities. The ration book guarantees basic food supplies to all Cubans. It costs the state $1.6bn annually. Cubans with higher salaries are not dependent on this guarantee and can afford to purchase basic supplies at market rate. The Cuban Prime Minister Manuel Marrero stated that the ration book will be maintained, but prices and subsidies adjusted to prioritise the most vulnerable groups. On 10 January the state announced an up to fivefold increase in the retail price of fuel. This substantial increase is necessary for the state to decrease its subsidy, which it simply cannot afford given soaring international prices. At the same time, the salaries of healthcare professionals and teachers will be increased and paid maternity/paternity leave extended from 12 to 15 months.
The challenges and contradictions Cuba faces are complex, requiring not just creative measures that balance the need for hard currency and increased productivity with socialist construction but also the organised and successful implementation of those measures. With its participatory democracy and commitment to economic planning, socialist Cuba remains committed to maintaining the triumphs of its socialist revolution. This was highlighted by Rodriguez when she told our brigade: ‘As Raul stated in his speech on 1 January, the capacity of resistance is based on unity and revolutionary ideology. The idea is to resolve these issues in an open and honest way to ensure Cuban socialism survives. It is essential that the struggle is increased through a spirit of trust among the new generations.’
Young Cubans committed to socialism
Living under the blockade produces severe material shortages which leads to daily struggle and frustrations. Yet our brigade found a high level of political consciousness and a deep commitment to continuing the process of building socialism in Cuba. Despite the best efforts of US regime change programmes, and contrary to the false narratives spun by imperialist media such as The Guardian, the young people we met in the Union of Young Communists (UJC), the University Students Federation (FEU) and the Federation of High School Students were some of the most conscious and committed.
‘The youth is playing a leading role in Cuba today,’ Ricardo Rodriguez Gonzalez, Vice President of the FEU, told our brigade. On the role of the UJC, he added ‘The UJC is a vanguard of revolutionary consciousness amongst the youth, promoting the ideological tasks of the revolution, but this must be done with the entirety of the youth in Cuba, working alongside the masses.’ Mirthia Brossard, head of International Relations of the UJC, stressed that this means relating to, working with, and representing all young people, including those who may express discontent with policies.
There is a clear understanding of the revolutionary process, expressed by Ivan Ernesto Barreto Lopez of the UJC: ‘socialism is a process where there are still ongoing struggles, backwards and forwards. It is a process still in construction where certain elements of the previous stage, capitalism, and other characteristics of the new model we aspire to build, communism, are interacting and generating new challenges and opportunities… the economic situation in Cuba is an example of those challenges in a socialist country with the particularities of our nation: structural underdevelopment from a legacy of colonialism; the biggest global economic power imposing the longest system of unilateral sanctions ever against us; natural disasters… [but socialist Cuba continues] not only providing assistance to Cubans for free during all this, but also keeping its firm will to continue helping people around the world. Our national hero Jose Marti said: “Homeland is Humanity”. That has always been one of the pillars of the Cuban Revolution. That is why we have sent doctors to nearly 200 countries around the world, why we train people from all over the world in Cuba to be doctors, engineers and many other professional and technical professions, that’s why we supported Vietnam and fought against apartheid South Africa’s invasion of Angola, that’s why Cuba supports Palestine.’
With its planned economy and revolutionary democracy, socialist Cuba is withstanding extremely adverse conditions. In a world of intensifying inter-imperialist rivalry, socialist Cuba continues to exist as an example of international solidarity. In Britain we must provide political and material solidarity to defend it.
End the US blockade! Viva Cuba socialista!
Thousands of Cubans have attended protests in support of Palestine across Cuba, including President Miguel Diaz-Canel. Laura, a second-year student at the Higher Institute of International Relations told the brigade ‘the strong ties and solidarity between Cuba and Palestine are historic ties on the basis of justice. The Palestinian cause is a just cause that must be recognised by all states around the world.’
The brigade delivered over £2,500 worth of cannulas, catheters, stethoscopes and pulse oximeters to the Havana Paediatric Hospital. The hospital experiences enormous difficulties accessing this vital equipment due to the blockade. Thank you to all who contributed to this material aid
The Solidarity with Panama school was opened by Fidel Castro to take care of children with special needs. Today the majority of its 219 pupils aged five to 18 have muscular dystrophy. They are looked after by 130 staff, including 72 specialists. There is an on-site dentist and gym and the school organises operations for pupils that need it: this is all completely free. Headteacher Esther Maria La Ochoa told us: ‘Children are the most important part of life in Cuba’.
RATB would like to thank Elizabeth Ribalta Rubiera from ICAP for coordinating our brigade, to Javier and Candy for translating at our meetings and to Pedro for driving the bus. With thanks to Belkys Lay Rodriguez, Valentin Sosa Nuñez, Manuel Raices, to our comrades in the Union of Young Communists: Ivan Ernesto Barreto Lopez, Mirthia Brossard and Ricardo Rodriguez Gonzalez; FLACSO and the University of Havana and to all the institutions, workplaces and centres we visited.
First published in FIGHT RACISM! FIGHT IMPERIALISM! 298 February/March 2024