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The Militant (logo)
Vol. 80/No. 46 December 12, 2016
(front page)
Millions turn out in Cuba for Freedom Caravan
BY MAGGIE TROWE
Millions of working people and youth across Cuba, organized by the
leadership of their government and Communist Party, are mobilizing to
support and defend the socialist revolution there. Massive outpourings
are saluting the life and decisive political contributions of the Cuban
revolutionary movement’s founding leader, Fidel Castro, who died Nov. 25.
“Fidel dedicated his life to solidarity. He led a socialist revolution
‘of the humble, by the humble, for the humble’ — a revolution that
became a symbol of the anti-colonial, anti-apartheid and
anti-imperialist struggle, for the emancipation and dignity of the
people,” said Raúl Castro, first secretary of the Central Committee of
the Cuban Communist Party and president of Cuba, at a rally of hundreds
of thousands at the Plaza of the Revolution in Havana Nov. 29. (Printed
in full in this issue.)
Millions of Cubans — from all generations that have participated in the
revolution for six decades — have turned out for rallies and lined roads
in rural areas, towns and cities to cheer the contingent carrying
Fidel’s ashes on a four-day journey to Santiago de Cuba at the eastern
end of island. The itinerary follows in reverse the route taken by the
Freedom Caravan of January 1959.
After a two-year revolutionary war culminating in the triumph of the
Rebel Army and flight of U.S.-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista Jan. 1,
1959, Castro led the victorious forces in a weeklong caravan of jeeps,
tanks, trucks and other vehicles to Havana, stopping in every town along
the way to explain the goals of the revolution and mobilize broader
participation by workers and farmers.
Among the millions who’ve come into the streets since Castro’s death are
internationalist volunteers of all ages who have served as combatants,
teachers, medical personnel, and in other ways at the request of leaders
of national liberation struggles and governments in the Americas,
Africa, Asia and beyond.
Cuban leaders are encouraging those who wish to, to sign a pledge to
uphold Cuba’s revolutionary course as expressed by Fidel Castro in a
well-known May Day speech in 2000. (See below.) Amid widespread
discussions about the significance of the Cuban Revolution, its history
and future, and the revolutionary guidance and leadership that Fidel
Castro provided, the Cuban masses have come out to schools, hospitals
and public buildings to make that affirmation.
In face of a relentless campaign to vilify Fidel Castro and the Cuban
Revolution by the propertied rulers in Washington and their media,
Socialist Workers Party members in the U.S. find interest in the
revolution and the political actions of its leaders. To aid these
political discussions while introducing the party to workers on their
doorsteps, socialist workers make use of the Militant and dozens of
books by leaders of the Cuban Revolution and of the SWP telling the
truth about Cuba and the world.
“Despite those who celebrated Castro’s death — which is disgusting — his
legacy and achievements in Cuba and the world can’t be erased,” Jairo
Rodriguez, a Cuban-born office worker in Royal Palm Beach, Florida, told
SWP member Anthony Dutrow Nov. 29.
Another sign of the Cuban Revolution’s intransigent working-class course
was the refusal of Washington or its imperialist allies to send any high
level representative to events in Cuba marking Castro’s death.
In December 2014 President Barack Obama and Raúl Castro announced talks
to restore diplomatic relations, which Washington had broken off in
1961. This move reflected that Obama and a substantial majority of the
ruling class he represents had decided it was necessary to try different
means to overthrow the Cuban Revolution.
Decades of attempts to assassinate Fidel, to back violent assaults on
the island by paramilitary bands organized from inside the U.S., to
punish the Cuban people through a brutal economic embargo had left
Washington isolated in Latin America and the Caribbean with diminishing
capacity to influence class relations in Cuba.
The actions by the Cuban leadership and response of Cuban working people
in the wake of Fidel Castro’s death have increased the capacity of Cuban
workers and farmers to advance and strengthen the revolution that Fidel
devoted his life to — to deepen and spread its working-class
internationalism and its moral values of human solidarity, to continue
to show the way forward for the oppressed and exploited the world over.
Related articles:
Cubans mobilize to back their socialist revolution
Remarks by Raúl Castro at massive tribute to Cuban revolutionary leader
Fidel Castro
Cuban leaders speak at Chicago ‘Solidarity Evening’
Fidel’s life work: ‘Cuba’s socialist revolution, its example & ongoing
march’
Workers, youth affirm commitment to revolution
Sign the petition to free Oscar López!
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