‘I am Fidel’ – the Cuban Response to US Hopes of Destabilising Cuba

Ramona WADI

Three years since Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro died at age 90 of natural causes, the Cuban Revolution has withstood ongoing destabilisation efforts to turn the island once again into an imperialist playground. Indeed, as Latin American countries grapple with the ramifications of historical and current US intervention, Cuba has steadfastly held on to the principles which Fidel imparted to the Cuban people throughout the revolutionary process. The participatory aspect of memory in Cuba has been sustained through Fidel’s emphasis on education as an integral component of the revolution.

The US might have harboured the intention that Fidel’s departure would facilitate the process for a counter-revolutionary period in Cuba and the fall of the ideals that have transformed Cuban politics and society. However, the Cuban Revolution was always bigger than Fidel. It encompassed the link between leadership and the people, built upon the historical foundations which Fidel himself articulated. Defining revolution, for Fidel, was an endorsement and affirmation of Jose Martí as the “intellectual author of the Cuban Revolution”. What Fidel achieved was a continuation which now lies in the hands of generations of Cubans who are well versed in the importance of unifying education with revolution.

This is why, despite the attempts to sabotage the Cuban Revolution, the US blockade on Cuba and its transgressions against the island – a recent USAID conspiracy involved the tarnishing of the Cuban medical contingents – have not succeeded in changing the island’s course. Indeed, as Chile and Bolivia grapple with the ramifications of neoliberalism and a military coup respectively, Cuba remains a standing bastion in the region, just as much as it did when Fidel was alive and deemed the main obstacle to US plans for the island.

The Cuban resolve to remain independent and free of colonialism necessitated a radical change – namely prioritising education within the construction of revolutionary goals. Even prior to the triumph of the revolution, Fidel exhibited awareness of implementing the continuity. As can be gleaned from the Manifesto of the Sierra Maestra (1957), as well as the First and Second Declarations of Havana (1960, 1962), Fidel’s concept of education is inclusive of Cuban independence from imperial motives in Latin America. The Manifesto declared ‘an immediate initiation of an intensive campaign against illiteracy, and civic education emphasising the duties and rights of each citizen to his society and fatherland’. Furthermore, in condemning ‘the exploitation of man by man and the exploitation of underdeveloped countries by imperialistic finance capital,’ an awareness of rights in association with education was asserted – a statement reminiscent of Fidel’s early memories concerning the link between illiteracy and exploitation. Prior to its triumph, the revolution considered education as the vehicle through which Cubans could fight for economic, social and political rights. Therefore, education as a right and duty affirmed the Cuban Revolution’s stand against imperial exploitation of people and natural resources.

Revolutionary education contrasted with the colonial and military functions of the Batista regime. Several speeches of Fidel attest to this fact. Using a metaphor of armies during a 1961 address in Havana which recapitulated the revolution’s achievements in education and a goal to eradicate illiteracy in just one year, Fidel invoked the differences between Cuba’s ‘army of educators’ and the army of ‘exploiters’. Furthermore, Fidel declared: “The resentment of imperialism is so profound, its hatred of our revolution so great, that the imperialists refuse to resign themselves.” Eradicating illiteracy was perceived as a fundamental battle against imperial and counter-revolutionary actions against Cuba, also allowing Cubans to become active participants against imperial intervention. Throughout the revolutionary phases, there is ample evidence that Cuba not only consolidated its anti-imperialist values at a national level, but also, through Fidel, managed to impart internationalism based upon education and revolutionary consciousness.

Education, therefore, has contributed to the empowerment and organisation of Cuban society. This dynamic has contributed to awareness, and termination of, the relationship between subjugation and exploitation, while striving to complete an evolution of humanity within the context of socialist revolution.

The US, which only understands the language of coercion and intervention, will not comprehend the insoluble bond not only between Fidel and the people, but also between the people and the revolution. This unity has enabled Cubans to stand principled in defense of the revolution, while also providing an internationalist example for the rest of the world to emulate.

Ramona WADI

Ramona Wadi is an independent researcher, freelance journalist, book reviewer and blogger. Her writing covers a range of themes in relation to Palestine, Chile and Latin America.

Hands off Venezuela!

By Christopher Helali

MASSACHUSETTS - “Leftists think a revolution is like a Disney movie,” María Fernanda Barreto explained over a drink. “There are stars, fireworks, and everyone lives happily ever after. That is not at all the case. A revolution always has failures. That does not mean that we won’t be critical, learn and keep improving.” 

Having recently returned from Venezuela after nine days in the country, I can say that the mass media, in Goebbelsian fashion, is perpetuating lies as truths as it did in the lead up to the War in Iraq. While the war criminals in Washington, along with Venezuelan elite, shed crocodile tears for those who are supposedly “starving,” the legitimately elected government of Nicolás Maduro provides food for the poorest who are disproportionately hit hard by sanctions. Taking a walk through the richest neighborhoods of Caracas shows just how disingenuous they are.

These same elites seek to return to a time before Chávez when the wealthy few had everything, impoverishing the vast majority of Venezuelans through neoliberal economic policies. A look at Instagram in Venezuela shows the opulent lifestyle the elite live, partying on beaches, traveling the world, and living in a life of luxury. It should come as no surprise then that the government is supported by the poor while the opposition is made up of middle and upper class Venezuelans who are far from starving.

Having participated in a massive demonstration in support of the government while I was in Venezuela, it became very apparent that the opposition, comprised mostly of the traditional elite and middle class, is mostly white while the government is supported and defended by the overwhelming majority of people of color.

Many may ask why the poorest people of Venezuela, those living in the shantytowns of Caracas and beyond, would support the government? The answer is that for the first time in Venezuelan history, the “wretched of the earth,” the poor black, brown and indigenous masses saw themselves represented by the government. Chávez, who identified as indigenous and Afro-Venezuelan, not only made them visible, but put them at the very forefront of the government's policies. 

Violence against Chavistas is rampant in the country. Venezuela must be one of only a few countries where the legitimate government's supporters are targeted by the opposition with little to no consequences for fear of greater international isolation. Opposition forces, which have brought far-right Colombian paramilitaries across the border as mercenaries, have harassed, tortured, and even burned to death supporters of the government. 

While attending a concert for peace, I spoke to Orlenys, one of the most famous Chavista social media journalists. While we drank juice, beer and cocuy throughout the evening, listening to amazing music and poetry, she spoke at length about the narrative promoted by the mass media outside Venezuela as well as the opposition. She and her family members have been subjected to constant threats, harassment and even physical violence. 

She illustrated this by highlighting a recently completed online survey on Twitter where participants were asked “I wish” and given four possible options which were “sex”, “kill Chavistas,” “cessation of usurpation,” and “military intervention.” Out of 28,938 votes cast, the number one was “Kill Chavistas” with 38%, followed by “military intervention” with 36%, and “cessation of usurpation” with 20%, and in last place, “sex” with 6%. For the Venezuelan opposition, “make love, not war,” has now become “make war, not love.” 

U.S. sanctions have crippled the Venezuelan economy. Since the US dollar is the international reserve currency, Venezuela, due to the sanctions, cannot use US dollars in any transactions. Therefore, it sells oil to other countries, like China, India and Russia, receiving in return essential commodities, like food, to offset domestic hoarding and speculation. This is very reminiscent of the Iraq Oil for Food program which, due to the illegal sanctions of the US, killed approximately half a million children. 

The US sent $20 million worth of humanitarian aid to Venezuela. What is rarely talked about is the fact that the sanctions cost the Venezuela more than $30 million a day. From my time on the ground in Venezuela, especially my travels to some of the poorest neighborhoods of Caracas, like Catia, I can say that there is not a humanitarian crisis but a full scale economic war that is punishing the Venezuelan people simply for electing a government that does not take orders from Washington and foreign Oil companies. 

Since Venezuela is dependent on food imports to meet its needs, private companies control the importation and transportation of food and other commodities. The result has been a catastrophic combination of hording and speculation; an internal economic war by the merchants, private companies, and wealthy elite against the legitimately elected government. 

Of great concern to many is the issue of the flight of Venezuelans from the country due to the ongoing crisis over the past few years. Figures range from less than one million to upwards of three million people have fled the country. However, this number is highly disputed not only by the government but by ordinary people that I spoke to. Lack of infrastructure, monitoring capabilities, and border crossing registries have contributed to inaccurate data. 

It is important to note that Venezuela and Colombia have a fairly porous border with families on both sides of the border. Many of those who leave Venezuela are workers who go back and forth between the countries for seasonal or temporary work, or people going to see their relatives. Additionally, statistics fail to show the nearly five million Colombians who have emigrated to Venezuela over the past few decades. 

Even if we take the three million figure to be accurate, for a country of over thirty million, this is not catastrophic. Greece, for example, has had nearly half a million citizens emigrate since 2008 due to the financial crisis and it has a population of nearly eleven million. It is important to understand that the emigration is voluntary and not forced. There is no dictatorship in Venezuela. 

While thanking me for coming to see the reality and defend the people, Luis Salazar, a community communicator, asked me if I knew John Reed's classic Ten Days That Shook the World which he had just finished reading. “Of course,” I responded. He spoke of the importance of internationalist solidarity and the necessity of defending people beyond our borders in their struggles against imperialism. 

There are many readers who might continue to think that Venezuela is unfree. Who are you kidding? This country has tremendous freedom, so much so that approximately 50 countries have recognized another person as the president, given him access to billions of dollars, aid, and weapons, and this person is still freely goes around the country campaigning for regime change against the legitimately elected government. If this were any other country, he would be called a traitor, arrested and might even face the death penalty. Not in Venezuela. 

Following the theories of Mao, Che, and Ho Chi Minh, the military is of the people, having an officer corps no longer made up of the Venezuelan ruling class. Preparations have been made since Chávez was first elected that the military and the people should be united in preparation for a protracted people's war should the United States or its proxies attack. Thus, when Maduro says a war with Venezuela will be another Vietnam, the military, militias, and people have readied, trained and prepared themselves for this scenario. 

Throughout my trip, I repeatedly heard words like dignity, independence, sovereignty, and respect. This land, liberated by Simon Bolivar, will resist until the end. The words “patria, independencia, socialismo,” or “homeland, independence, socialism,” were rallying cries, the very source of unity for the people. The people would rather have their dignity and freedom, than grovel at the feet of the United States empire, fulfilling what the Greek revolutionary Rigas Feraios once wrote that it is “better to live one hour free than forty years in slavery and prison.”

US-Led Economic War, Not Socialism, Is Tearing Venezuela Apart

Americans have been trained by decades of Cold War propaganda to look for any confirmation that ‘socialism means poverty.’ But in the case of Venezuela and other states not governed by the free market, this cliche simply doesn’t ring true.

by Caleb T. Maupin

A pro-government supporter wears a T-Shirt with image of Venezuela’s late President Hugo Chavez, as he waits for results during congressional elections in Caracas, Venezuela, Sunday, Dec. 6, 2015.

WASHINGTON — (ANALYSIS) The political and economic crisis facing Venezuela is being endlessly pointed to as proof of the superiority of the free market.

Images and portrayals of Venezuelans rioting in the streets over high food costs, empty grocery stores, medicine shortages, and overflowing garbage bins are the headlines, and the reporting points to socialism as the cause.  

The Chicago Tribune published a Commentary piece titled: “A socialist revolution can ruin almost any country.” A headline on Reason’s Hit and Run blog proclaims: “Venezuelan socialism still a complete disaster.” The Week’s U.S. edition says: “Authoritarian socialism caused Venezuela’s collapse.” 

Indeed, corporate-owned, mainstream media advises Americans to look at the inflation and food lines in Venezuela, and then repeat to themselves clichés they heard in elementary school about how “Communism just doesn’t work.”

In reality, millions of Venezuelans have seen their living conditions vastly improved through the Bolivarian process. The problems plaguing the Venezuelan economy are not due to some inherent fault in socialism, but to artificially low oil prices and sabotage by forces hostile to the revolution.

Starting in 2014, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia flooded the market with cheap oil. This is not a mere business decision, but a calculated move coordinated with U.S. and Israeli foreign policy goals. Despite not just losing money, but even falling deep into debt, the Saudi monarchy continues to expand its oil production apparatus. The result has been driving the price of oil down from $110 per barrel, to $28 in the early months of this year. The goal is to weaken these opponents of Wall Street, London, and Tel Aviv, whose economies are centered around oil and natural gas exports.

And Venezuela is one of those countries. Saudi efforts to drive down oil prices have drastically reduced Venezuela’s state budget and led to enormous consequences for the Venezuelan economy.

At the same time, private food processing and importing corporations have launched a coordinated campaign of sabotage. This, coupled with the weakening of a vitally important state sector of the economy, has resulted in inflation and food shortages. The artificially low oil prices have left the Venezuelan state cash-starved, prompting a crisis in the funding of the social programs that were key to strengthening the United Socialist Party.

Corruption is a big problem in Venezuela and many third-world countries. This was true prior to the Bolivarian process, as well as after Hugo Chavez launched his massive economic reforms. In situations of extreme poverty, people learn to take care of each other. People who work in government are almost expected to use their position to take care of their friends and family. Corruption is a big problem under any system, but it is much easier to tolerate in conditions of greater abundance. The problem has been magnified in Venezuela due to the drop in state revenue caused by the low oil prices and sabotage from food importers.

The Bolivarian experience in Venezuela

Americans have been trained by decades of Cold War propaganda to look for any confirmation that “socialism means poverty.” A quick, simplistic portrait of the problems currently facing Venezuela, coupled with the fact that President Nicolas Maduro describes himself as a Marxist, can certainly give them such a confirmation. However, the actual, undisputed history of socialist construction around the world, including recent decades in Venezuela, tells a completely different story.

Hugo Chavez was elected president of Venezuela in 1999. His election was viewed as a referendum on the extreme free market policies enacted in Venezuela during the 1990s. In December, when I walked through the neighborhoods of central Caracas, Venezuelans spoke of these times with horror.

Demonstrators gather in Bolivar Square to show their support of Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro, in Caracas, Venezuela. The demonstrators gathered as the Organization of American States is meeting to discuss a report from Secretary General Luis Almagro denouncing violations of the Venezuela’s constitution.

Venezuelans told of how the privatizations mandated by the International Monetary Fund made life in Venezuela almost unlivable during the 1990s. Garbage wouldn’t be collected. Electricity would go off for weeks. Haido Ortega, a member of a local governing body in Venezuela, said: “Under previous governments we had to burn tires and go on strike just to get electricity, have the streets fixed, or get any investment.”

Chavez took office on a platform advocating a path between capitalism and socialism. He restructured the government-owned oil company so that the profits would go into the Venezuelan state, not the pockets of Wall Street corporations. With the proceeds of Venezuela’s oil exports, Chavez funded a huge apparatus of social programs.

After defeating an attempted coup against him in 2002, Chavez announced the goal of bringing Venezuela toward “21st Century Socialism.” Chavez quoted Marx and Lenin in his many TV addresses to the country, and mobilized the country around the goal of creating a prosperous, non-capitalist society.

In 1998, Venezuela had only 12 public universities, today it has 32. Cuban doctors were brought to Venezuela to provide free health care in community clinics. The government provides cooking and heating gas to low-income neighborhoods, and it’s launched a literacy campaign for uneducated adults.

During the George W. Bush administration, oil prices were the highest they had ever been. The destruction of Iraq, sanctions on Iran and Russia, strikes and turmoil in Nigeria — these events created a shortage on the international markets, driving prices up.

Big oil revenues enabled Chavez and the United Socialist Party to bring millions of Venezuelans out of poverty. Between 1995 and 2009, poverty and unemployment in Venezuela were both cut in half.

After the death of Chavez, Nicolas Maduro has continued the Bolivarian program. “Housing Missions” have been built across the country, providing low-income families in Venezuela with places to live. The Venezuelan government reports that over 1 million modern apartment buildings had been constructed by the end of 2015.

The problems currently facing Venezuela started in 2014. The already growing abundance of oil due to hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, was compounded by Saudi Arabia flooding the markets with cheap oil. The result: massive price drops. Despite facing a domestic fiscal crisis, Saudi Arabia continues to expand its oil production apparatus.

The price of oil remains low, as negotiations among OPEC states are taking place in the hopes that prices can be driven back up. While American media insists the low oil prices are just the natural cycle of the market at work, it’s rather convenient for U.S. foreign policy. Russia, Venezuela, Ecuador, and the Islamic Republic of Iran all have economies centered around state-owned oil companies and oil exports, and each of these countries has suffered the sting of low oil prices.

The leftist president of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff, has already been deposed due to scandal surrounding Petrobras, the state-owned oil company which is experiencing economic problems due to the falling price of oil. Although much of Brazil’s oil is for domestic consumption, it has been revealed that those who deposed her coordinated with the CIA and other forces in Washington and Wall Street, utilizing the economic fallout of low oil prices to bring down the Brazilian president.

The son of President Ronald Reagan has argued that Obama is intentionally driving down oil prices not just to weaken the Venezuelan economy, but also to tamper the influence of Russia and Iran. Writing for Townhall in 2014, Michael Reagan bragged that his father did the same thing to hurt the Soviet Union during the 1980s:

“Since selling oil was the source of the Kremlin’s wealth, my father got the Saudis to flood the market with cheap oil.

Lower oil prices devalued the ruble, causing the USSR to go bankrupt, which led to perestroika and Mikhail Gorbachev and the collapse of the Soviet Empire.”

The history of socialist construction

Prior to the 1917 revolution, Russia was a primitive, agrarian country. By 1936, after the completion of the Five-Year Plan, it was a world industrial power, surpassing every other country on the globe in terms of steel and tractor production. The barren Soviet countryside was lit up with electricity. The children of illiterate peasants across the Soviet Union grew up to be the scientists and engineers who first conquered outer space. The planned economy of the Soviet Union drastically improved the living standards of millions of people, bringing them running water, modern housing, guaranteed employment, and free education.

There is no contradiction between central planning and economic growth. In 1949, China had no steel industry. Today, more than half of all the world’s steel is produced in China’s government-controlled steel industry.

Cuba has wiped out illiteracy, and Cubans enjoy one of the highest life expectancies in Latin America.

People hold up images showing Fidel Castro, second from right, Venezuela’s late President Hugo Chavez, center, and Cuba’s revolutionary hero Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara, bottom left and right, during a May Day march in Revolution Square in Havana, Cuba, Wednesday, May 1, 2013. The image of Chavez carries the words in Spanish “Chavez : Our best friend.” (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

When the Marxist-Leninist governments of Eastern Europe collapsed in the early 1990s, economists like Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University, who can be counted among capitalism’s “true believers,” predicted rapid economic growth. Since the 1990s, conditions in what George W. Bush called the “New Europe” have become far worse than under socialism. The life expectancy has decreased and infant mortality has risen. Human and drug traffickers have set up shop. In endless polls, the people of Eastern Europe repeatedly say life was better before the defeat of Communism.

Russia’s recovery from the disaster of the 1990s has come about with the reorientation of the economy to one centered around public control of its oil and natural gas resources — much like Venezuela. The Putin government has also waged a crackdown on the small number of “oligarchs” who became wealthy after the demise of the Soviet Union. Once strong state to control the economy was re-established, Russia’s gross domestic product increased by 70 percent during the first eight years of Putin’s administration. From 2000 to 2008, poverty was cut in half, and incomes doubled.

Neoliberal capitalism has failed

It is only because these facts are simply off-limits in the American media and its discussions of socialism and capitalism that the distorted narrative about Venezuela’s current hardships are believed.

American media has perpetuated a cold-war induced false narrative on the nature of socialism.

When discussing the merits of capitalism and socialism, American media usually restricts the conversation to pointing out that socialist countries in the third world have lower living standards than the United States, a country widely identified with capitalism. Without any context or fair comparison, this alone is supposed to prove the inherent superiority of U.S.-style capitalism.

If the kind of neoliberal “free trade” advocated by U.S. corporations was the solution to global poverty, Mexico, a country long ago penetrated with the North American Free Trade Agreement, would be a shining example of development, not a mess of drug cartels and poverty. The same can be said for oil-rich countries like Nigeria, where exports are massive but the population remains in dire conditions.

The governments of Bangladesh, Honduras, Guatemala, Indonesia, and the Philippines have done everything they can to deregulate the market and accommodate Western ”investment.” Despite the promises of neoliberal theoreticians, their populations have not seen their lives substantially improve.

If one compares the more market-oriented economy of the U.S., not to countries in the global south attempting to develop with a planned economy, but to other Western countries with more social-democratic governments, the inferiority of the “free market” can also be revealed.

The U.S. is rated 43 in the world in terms of life expectancy, according to the CIA World Factbook. People live longer in Germany, Britain, Spain, France, Sweden, Australia, Italy, Iceland — basically, almost every other Western country. Statistics on the rate of infant mortalitysay approximately the same thing. National health care services along with greater job security and economic protections render much healthier populations.

Even as the social-democratic welfare states of Europe drift closer to the U.S. economic model with “austerity cuts,” the U.S. still lags behind them in terms of basic societal health. Western European countries with powerful unions, strong socialist and labor parties, and less punitive criminal justice systems tend to have healthier societies.

The American perception that socialism or government intervention automatically create poverty, while a laissez faire approach unleashes limitless prosperity, is simply incorrect. Despite the current hardships, this reality is reflected in the last two decades of Venezuela’s history.

A punishment vote, not a vote for capitalism

The artificially low oil prices have left the Venezuelan state cash-starved, prompting a crisis in the funding of the social programs that were key to strengthening the United Socialist Party.

It is odd that the mainstream press blames “socialism” for the food problems in Venezuela, when the food distributors remain in the hands of private corporations. As Venezuelan political analyst Jesus Silva told me recently: “Most food in Venezuela is imported by private companies, they ask for dollars subsidized by the government oil sales to do that; they rarely produce anything or invest their own money.”

According to Silva, the economic sanctions imposed on Venezuela by the U.S., in addition to the oil crisis, have made it more difficult for the Venezuelan government to pay the private food importing companies in U.S. dollars. In response, the food companies are “running general sabotage.”

“Venezuela’s economy depends on oil sales. Now that oil prices are dropping down, the challenge is to get other sources of economic income,” he explained. “Meanwhile, the opposition is garnering electoral support due to the current economic crisis.”

When the United Socialist Party and its aligned Patriotic Pole lost control of Parliament in December, many predicted the imminent collapse of the Bolivarian government. However, months have passed and this clearly has not taken place.

While a clear majority cast a voto castigo (“punishment vote”) in December, punishing the government for mismanaging the crisis, the Maduro administration has a solid core of socialist activists who remain loyal to the Bolivarian project. Across Venezuela, communes have been established. Leftist activists live together and work in cooperatives. Many of them are armed and organized in “Bolivarian Militias” to defend the revolution.

Even some of the loudest critics of the Venezuelan government admit that it has greatly improved the situation in the country, despite the current hardships.

In December, I spoke to Glen Martinez, a radio host in Caracas who voted for the opposition. He dismissed the notion that free market capitalism would ever return to Venezuela. As he explained, most of the people who voted against the United Socialist Party — himself included — are frustrated with the way the current crisis is being handled, but do not want a return to the neoliberal economic model of the 1999s.

He said the economic reforms established during the Chavez administration would never be reversed. “We are not the same people we were before 1999,” Martinez insisted.

The United Socialist Party is currently engaging in a massive re-orientation, hoping to sharpen its response to economic sabotage and strengthen the socialist direction of the revolution. There is also talk of massive reform in the way the government operates, in order to prevent the extreme examples of corruption and mismanagement that are causing frustration among the population.

The climate is being intensified by a number of recent political assassinations. Tensions continue to exist on Venezuela’s border with the U.S.-aligned government of Colombia. The solid base of socialist activists is not going to let revolution be overturned, and tensions continue to rise. The Maduro and the United Socialist Party’s main task is to hold Venezuela together, and not let the country escalate into a state of civil war.