Long live the Cuban Revolution!

Workers World Party extends our deepest congratulations and solidarity to the Communist Party of Cuba and the Cuban people, who are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the heroic triumph of the Cuban Revolution.

It is indeed a glorious occasion, and not only for Cuba. Workers and the oppressed around the world share the deepest respect and pride for all that the Cuban people have accomplished over this last half-century—despite tremendous aggression from imperialist countries, and from the U.S. in particular.

Once a country firmly under the boot of the U.S. military and multinational corporations, Cuba has now lived freely for five decades. This small island nation managed to throw off the chains of hundreds of years of foreign domination to forge a fiercely independent path, in full and open solidarity with virtually every progressive struggle around the world.

Cuba, a geographically isolated country with a small population, could have just declared their revolution a struggle for national liberation. Such an achievement alone would have been most impressive. But soon after Fidel Castro and the Cuban people declared victory over puppet dictator Fulgencio Batista, Fidel declared that theirs was a socialist revolution.

With that declaration, the leaders of the Cuban Revolution tied their fate to that of millions around the world struggling to throw off their own oppression. The tremendous success of their revolution remains an inspiration to all who want to end capitalism and imperialism and form a society based on cooperation and meeting human needs.

What Cuba has been able to achieve since 1959 is simply astonishing. Prior to the Revolution, the average life expectancy in Cuba was 58.8 years. Disease was rampant, as was illiteracy. Now the average Cuban lives to be more than 77 years old! Today education and health care are free at every level for all Cubans. The Cuban education and health care systems are generally regarded as among the best in the world.

There has also been tremendous social progress. One of the first acts of the revolutionary government was to declare racism illegal and to end discriminatory laws against Afro-Cubans. Women, previously employed almost exclusively as domestic servants or forced into prostitution, now make up 40 percent of the Cuban workforce and 60 percent of Cuba’s technical and professional workers.

Cuba’s achievements for its people since the Revolution in every measure of human development and progress are staggering. Workers the world over look to Cuba and thirst for the material and social progress socialism can achieve.

But not content just to lead by example, the Cuban people jumped with both feet into the global anti-imperialist struggle, sending troops to Angola, Namibia and South Africa to fight against colonialism and the racist apartheid states. They declared open solidarity and support for the national liberation movements in Africa, Asia and Latin America, despite condemnation and threats from the imperialist countries.

They have sent thousands of doctors, engineers, teachers and other skilled workers to oppressed countries to help the poorest people, even as they have been economically devastated by the criminal U.S. blockade which they have endured almost from the very inception of the Revolution.

Cuba has, time and again, extended a level of international solidarity to the oppressed people of the world that is incredibly far beyond what anyone could have asked or expected of them. And for these tremendous gifts of solidarity that they have given to the world’s people, Cuba has asked for nothing in return.

But they have received the love, respect and gratitude of millions of workers and oppressed the world over, no matter how Cuba is demonized by the U.S. and other imperialist countries.

And Cuba has been thoroughly vilified and attacked by the U.S., both militarily and politically, since the very beginning of the Revolution. From the Bay of Pigs invasion; the illegal and immoral U.S. blockade; the countless assassination attempts on Comrade Fidel Castro’s life; the acts of terrorism against the Cuban people by U.S. backed militias in Miami; and the unjust and heartbreaking imprisonment of the five Cuban heroes who tried to defend Cuba from these terrorist attacks, the Cuban people have shown remarkable resilience and strength throughout these past 50 years.

Workers World Party is also celebrating our 50th anniversary this year. We are tremendously proud to say that our 50 years of struggle here in “the belly of the beast” have included 50 years of total solidarity and support for the Cuban Revolution.

We congratulate Cuba on all of your achievements and extend our deepest revolutionary love to all the Cuban people, who are an inspiration to every member of our Party. We look forward to someday achieving here in the U.S. what you have achieved and to break the chains of capitalism and imperialism once and for all!

Long live the Cuban Revolution!

Free the Cuban Five!

End the blockade now!