Cuba

It is clear that Castro is now very ill. The fact that he has not appeared in public for some time would seem to confirm this. The capitalists of the world are now looking eagerly to the post-Castro era where they hope to make deals with some sections of the Cuban state bureaucracy to introduce measures favourable to the return of capitalism. But the swing to the left in the whole of Latin America and especially in Venezuela is working against this.

On 12th September 1998, Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero, Ramón Labañino, Fernando González and René González, were arrested in Miami. They were combating reactionary exile Cuban terrorist networks. The US authorities ignored this and later the 5 received severe prison sentences. Only international solidarity and continuous and unrelenting action can end their imprisonment.

Yesterday's Morning Star published an interview with Celia Hart. "If revolutionaries manage to capitalise on this [revolutionary] process to our advantage, a new era of socialist revolutions will begin worldwide. But history won't wait for us and we in the organised left-wing ranks must grasp the rich and splendid process now open to us."

We received this report on the activities in the Ukraine in support of the Cuban “Miami Five”, which we are making available to our readers. It underlines the hypocrisy and double standards of the US Administration, which in words condemns “terrorism” but in practice keeps five Cubans in prison who were actually combating terrorism.

The bourgeois internationally are hoping that when Castro dies their plans to reintroduce capitalism on the island can be concretised. The imperialists have different opinions about how this is to be achieved, but the real threat to the Cuban Revolution comes from within.

The following resolution in support of the Miami 5 was passed unanimously at the recent World Congress of the International Marxist Tendency.

We publish an article from Morning Star by Ron Ridenour, in which he examines the kind of books being published in today's Cuba and comments on the changing intellectual climate in which the ideas of Trotsky are more and more discussed.

Fidel Castro’s illness has posed what will come once he departs this world. The capitalist are looking at different ways of restoring capitalism. Within the state and party in Cuba there are clearly pro-capitalist elements. It is the duty of the workers and youth of the world to defend the Cuban revolution.

This is the foreword written by Alan Woods for Ariel Dacal and Francisco Brown Infante's book recently published in Cuba by Editorial Ciencias Sociales. Already launched in Havana, their book "Russia: from real socialism to real capitalism" is an interesting analysis of the reasons for and consequences of the fall of the USSR.

Today marks the 53rd anniversary of that day when a handful of courageous young Cuban revolutionaries attempted to overthrow the tyrannical regime by attacking the Moncada barracks. Although they failed, they prepared the ground for victory a few years later. More than ever the Cuban revolution requires the support of the international labour movement.