An Anti-imperialist Dynamo in the Caribbean
Cuba was colonised by the kingdom of Spain over 500 years ago. The Spanish conquest of Latin America was achieved at great cost for the indigenous people there. Between warfare and introduced epidemics of smallpox, measles, syphilis, bubonic plague, and typhus over 100 million people died.
The vast harbour in Havana Cuba, with its massive fortifications, was a safe transit port for the precious gold and silver looted from other Spanish Latin American colonies. In time, Cuban sugar and tobacco crops cultivated by slave labour until 1886, provided enormous wealth for Spanish overlords.
There were many attempts for independence by the Cuban people. Yet in 1895, an armed insurrection led by national patriot Jose Marti * and the Revolutionary Party of Cuba eventually broke Spain’s hold from its remaining Latin American colonies, Cuba and Puerto Rico.
Cienfuegos Cuba
Unfortunately, these two nations were captured by the USA following a a short war with Spain in 1898 under forms of subjugation known as imperialism as described by V.I Lenin. Cuba became a notionally independent neo-colonial republic whose economic levers became firmly under the control of Wall St. and mafia financers. Puerto Rico became an unincorporated territory of the USA where Washington and Wall St. ran affairs directly. The struggle for independence by the Puerto Rican people continues.
Inspired by the ideas and efforts of Jose Marti; Fidel Castro and the 26 July Movement with the Cuban people chased out the last puppet president of US imperialism in Cuba, Fulgencio Battista, in 1958.
Cuba’s revolution was driven by the impoverished peasants who worked on sugar or tobacco farms, with the workers in the cities all led and organized by Fidel, the 26 July Movement and the Communist Party of Cuba. Their lives contrasted strongly with those of the rich, white, comprador classes who were the bankers and agents for US companies in Cuba.
Fidel and the 26 of July Movement proclaimed a new revolutionary system for Cuba’s people. The focus was on eliminating landless poverty, malnutrition, poor health and literacy. The new government confiscated (without compensation) sugar, tobacco and commercial interests, mostly U.S. owned. In time, land and buildings were given to tenants. The people were gaining control of the means of production. When the Cuban cash till was slammed on U.S. imperialism ‘s fingers; Washington became alarmed and vindictive.
The US sought to recover its neo-colony by punishing the Cuban people with internationally enforced economic embargoes (now they are in their 65th year). These prevent the free flow of trade and the provision of finance between other Cubans and the world. Despite U.S rhetoric of “the international rules-based order”, their military vessels enforce a blockade against Cuba.
From 1959 until 1976, there were numerous attempted military invasions, sabotage attacks and at least 634 assassination attempts on the late Cuban President, Fidel Castro.
The U.S. maintains a military base at Guantanamo, a legacy of the Spanish – American War, from 130 years ago but never returned to Cuba.
*Jose Marti who was jailed at 16, by the Spanish for his anti-colonial activities spent most of his life in exile working for the independence of Cuba. He analysed the conditions and mobilized forces opposed to Spanish colonialism in Cuba, the peasants and workers and the middle class and some patriotic rich. He read Marx and developed works on colonialism and imperialism in Latin America. Marti has been characterized as an anti-imperialist. While he admired aspects of U.S constitution and its prosperity, he recognized that it posed a danger to Latin America
