Economic sanctions against Cuba were discussed in April 1960 by the U.S. government. If the U.S. found it impossible to counter the Cuban Revolution, a memorandum with the subject “The Decline and Fall of Castro” stated, economic hardships should be imposed on the island. “If such a policy as adopted, it should be the result of a positive decision which would call forth a line of action which, while as adroit and inconspicuous as possible, makes the greatest inroads in denying money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government.”

The memorandum noted that the lowest estimate of support for Fidel Castro in 1960 was 50%, and that the majority of Cubans supported their leader.

On February 3, 1962, ignoring the Cuban popular support for the revolution and influenced by the defeat the U.S. and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) suffered at the Bay of Pigs invasion in April 1961, U.S. President John F. Kennedy proclaimed the trade embargo between the United States and Cuba, stressing that the U.S. “is prepared to take all the necessary actions to promote national and hemispheric security by isolating the present Government of Cuba and thereby reducing the threat posed by its alignment with the communist powers.”

The U.S. loss of influence in Cuba and later in the region is one major reason why the blockade was imposed. Grassroots support for the Cuban revolution long before it triumphed existed, as the July 26 Movement took up the fight against the U.S.-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista.

Sixty years later, U.S. President Joe Biden shows no sign of revoking even the restrictions imposed by the Trump administration, let alone broach the subject of the illegal U.S. blockade on the island. The international community fares no better. As long as the majority of UN member states vote annually against the illegal blockade, passing non-binding resolutions that have failed to dent U.S. policy towards Cuba.

On the 60^th anniversary of the blockade, the National Security Archive (NSA) has published a selection of declassified documents, among them a CIA document which states, “In our judgment, the U.S. and OAS economic sanctions, by themselves or in conjunction with other measures, have not met any of their objectives. We also believe that western economic sanctions have almost no chance of compelling the present Cuban leadership – mostly guerrilla warfare veterans in power since the late 1970s – to abandon its policy of exporting revolution.”

Indeed, the Cuban revolution remained a reference to emulate in the region, later eclipsed by then U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s concern that Chile’s example – socialist revolution through democratic elections – would pave the way forward in Latin America.

In 1992, the U.S. Congress passed the Cuban Democracy Act, which outlined U.S. plans for Cuba and specifically stipulated that the illegal blockade would only be lifted once Cuba holds democratic elections and moves towards a free market system. It also made a provision for U.S. interference in Cuban affairs through a so-called “assistance, through appropriate nongovernmental organizations, for the support and organizations to promote nonviolent democratic change in Cuba.”

Two years ago, in the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, the world lauded Cuba and temporarily called for a lifting to the blockade. Briefly, the world hailed Cuba for thriving under such restrictions, its medical interventions became mainstream news, while the medical brigades brought much needed help to severely impacted countries, including in Europe. When the vaccine race commenced, Cuba was left in the margins even as it developed its own vaccines under difficult circumstances and secured provision for its citizens and countries in the region. The cry to end the blockade was forgotten, diplomacy once again followed the Western model of capitulating to U.S. interests, and Cuba was left once again to fend on its own, as it also did when the U.S. once again attempted to destabilize Cuba through protests and the world ignored the blockade in its haste to appease the U.S.

Is the U.S. in a position to maintain the embargo upon the pretext of bringing democracy to Cuba with its record in destabilising secure states, even those upholding democracy, such as Chile under Salvador Allende for example, and more recently, Bolivia? Proclaiming human rights through atrocious acts constitutes subversion and it is unlikely that Cubans, with or without Fidel Castro, will forget the U.S. treachery in a hurry.

Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic and the contribution of Cuban medical contingents abroad, international attention shifted towards the illegal U.S. blockade on the island. Cuban-U.S. relations took a turn for the better under former U.S. President Barack Obama, under whose tenure the release of the Cuban Five was negotiated in 2014. In return, Cuba agreed to the release of USAID contractor Alan Gross, who had been detained since 2009.

Under the normalisation of relations agreement between Cuba under former President Raul Castro, and the U.S., Obama had announced Cuba’s removal from the U.S. State Sponsors of terrorism list – a relic of the Reagan era when Cuba was lending its supports to revolutionary movements in Latin America.

The illegal blockade against Cuba, however, remained in place. After initial efforts by Fidel Castro to maintain good relations with the U.S. were rebuffed, President Dwight Eisenhower initiated the first prohibitions on trade with Cuba in 1960 and the U.S. embarked upon CIA-backed plans aimed at destabilising Cuba and the revolution – the most prominent being the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961. Following the Cuban Missile Crisis, which saw Cuba aligned with the Soviet Union, U.S. President John Kennedy imposed a series of restrictions through executive orders in 1962, until the embargo expanded to restrict all Cuban trade.

In 1992 and 1996, the Bush and Clinton administrations respectively signed acts that would see the blockade remain in place until Cuba is no longer ruled by either Fidel or Raul Castro. Reforms spearheaded by Raul Castro saw a change in the Cuban presidency, with Miguel Diaz Canel becoming president in October 2019. The Cuban presidency is now limited to two consecutive five year terms, yet there has been no change in U.S. policy regarding the blockade.

Under former U.S. President Donald Trump, most of Obama’s approaches towards Cuba were overturned, igniting a semblance of the decades-long hostility towards Cuba. The parting shot was former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo designating Cuba a state sponsor of terrorism mere days before U.S. President Joe Biden took office. The list in itself is farcical and used as a diplomatic weapon to bestow favours or curtail political freedom – Sudan was recently removed from the list on account of normalising relations with Israel – a major U.S. ally.

Between 2019 and 2020, it has been estimated that Cuba lost $5billion as a result of the blockade, exacerbated by Trump’s restrictions on the island. According to Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parilla, the Trump administration enacted over 200 “coercive measures” against Cuba in 2020. The UN has consistently voted in favour of lifting the illegal Cuban embargo against Cuba since 1992 – the constant opposition to the resolutions come from the U.S. and Israel – yet Cubans are still punished, even as the internationalist solidarity promoted by the Cuban revolution was at the pinnacle of helping to save lives in the start of the pandemic in 2020.

While the drive to award Cuban doctors the Nobel Prize continues to gain ground, the illegal blockade is risking oblivion once again. It is understandable that the more visible contribution of the Henry Reeves Brigade attracts international attention, yet governments and diplomats are obliged to consider the wider picture here. Cuba was able to offer its support internationally, despite decades of isolation due to U.S. policy against the island in retribution of its chosen political path.

The Biden administration has indicated it will pursue a different approach with Cuba, yet the illegal blockade is far from making the top of the list in terms of U.S. priorities. When the U.S. speaks of democracy, it speaks of its own brand, which includes covert and overt interference in matters of sovereign states. Voting against the blockade is just symbolic action – it is time to unify and take a collective diplomatic route to calling out the U.S. illegalities against Cuba.

October marks the 44^th anniversary since the explosion of a Cubana Airlines flight off the West Coast of Barbados, in which 73 people from Cuba, North Korea and Guyana lost their lives. Only the terrorists who planted the bombs, Freddy Lugo and Hernan Ricardo Lozano who were both Venezuelan, were arrested and prosecuted in Trinidad, implicating both Bosch and Carriles in their testimony.

The Venezuelan government was aware of Bosch’s activities in Venezuela and allowed him to fundraise for terror activities, on condition that such activities would not take place in the country. While in Venezuela, Bosch also alluded to his involvement in the killing of Chilean economist and diplomat Orlando Letelier in Washington – a crime which forced the U.S. to rethink its overt support for Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet.

Protected by the CIA, Bosch and Carriles savoured their impunity. The terror attack was communicated to Bosch by Lozano, who telephoned the former, saying, “A bus with 73 dogs went off a cliff.”

Declassified CIA documents reveal the CIA had knowledge of the plan to blow up a Cubana aircraft as early as June 1976, and that despite knowledge of the plan, the agency did not alert the Cuban government. Carriles had joined the CIA in 1961 and was trained by the agency in demolitions, while also becoming a paramilitary trainer in the same decade. By 1974, the CIA had terminated Carriles’s recruitment, although he retained a role as informant until 1976.

U.S. double standards when it comes to terrorism has much to do with its interpretation of democracy, and how the concept can be used to facilitate exploitation and power. A country deemed undemocratic merely for following a different system of politics and governance, such as Cuba, is subject to U.S.-backed terror in the name of democracy. In this way, the U.S. government exempts itself and its actions from the terror classification.

The Cubana Airlines explosion took place within a context of perpetual U.S. sabotage against Cuba. Since 1959, the U.S. applied different tactics to defeat the Cuban Revolution – 5,780 terror actions against Cuba were carried out by the imperialist power between 1959 and 1997, which include bombings, biological warfare, economic sanctions, and support for paramilitary groups. While the Bay of Pigs invasion will remain known as the most overt CIA-backed operation to bring down Fidel Castro, the U.S. is embroiled in a process of destroying a revolution in a country which has also revolutionised education and which will not willingly subjugate itself to external pressure.

Noam Chomsky once observed that Cuba has a target of U.S. terror more than any other country. Argentine revolutionary Ernesto Che Guevara, who participated in the Cuban Revolution alongside Fidel, made it clear that Cuba would not give in to U.S. exploitation, as other countries in the region did. The U.S. chose the sabotage route, allowing the CIA to participate in covert activities aimed at destabilising Cuba, including permission to assassinate Fidel, given the agency’s constructed impunity and unaccountability through plausible deniability; the latter protecting the U.S. government from any future disclosure of the CIA’s actions.

Bosch and Carriles died without facing justice for their terror activity against Cuba. Meanwhile earlier this year, the U.S. mulled placing Cuba on the list of state sponsors of terrorism primarily for diplomatically supporting Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro against U.S. subversion in the country. Since the revolution, Cuba has maintained its internationalist, non-violent approach to politics, unlike the U.S., which only understands power in terms of force and subjugation. The Cubana airliner terror attack must be remembered in terms of lives lost and bereaved families. Politically, like other CIA-backed actions against the island, the anniversary is also a reminder of how Cuba’s revolution has withstood in the face of U.S. violence.

“Colonies do not speak. Colonies are not known until they have the opportunity to express themselves. That is why our colony and its problems were unknown to the rest of the world,” Fidel asserted. The Cuban struggle for independence was perceived as an opportunity for the U.S. to intervene and exploit the island, through a clause included in the Cuban constitution in 1901 which ensured U.S. dominance. Before the Cuban Revolution, the country had merely transitioned from a Spanish colony to a U.S. colony. The latter’s expectations were of a failed revolution, but Fidel’s strategy involved both revolutionary consciousness and mobilisation.

Within the context of Latin American history, Fidel’s UN speech exposed the monopoly of U.S.-backed dictators in the region and how these were also exploited in turn once the U.S. determined that backing them would no longer suit imperialist interests. The regional experience was an important comparison, for Cuba’s social inequalities as a result of Fulgencio Batista’s dictatorship were a common experience throughout Latin America.

During his speech, Fidel exhibited a document – a military pact – in which Batista’s government and the U.S. had agreed upon “efficient use of assistance” to prevent the advancing of the Cuban Revolution. Protecting Batista’s government also translated to protecting U.S. interests in the country; the pacts were described by Fidel as “defence pacts for the protection of United States monopolies.”

Perhaps most explicitly, Fidel’s detailed descriptions of Cuba’s challenges, including agrarian reform, provided Latin American governments with insights as to how imperialism exploited colonised territory, including the wilful U.S. destruction of Cuba’s sugar cane fields during harvest time, in a bid to sabotage Cuba’s economy under revolutionary governance. Latin American dependence upon the U.S., after all, was what allowed imperialism to retain a foothold in the region. An economy which failed to prosper would provide the U.S. with the chance to recolonise Cuba – a chance that Fidel was not allowing and which was thwarted through the revolution’s insistence upon education and revolutionary participation in rebuilding Cuba.

One important point made in Fidel’s speech is the acknowledgement that Cuba was not alone in facing such aggression, thus communicating the Cuban revolution’s region and international approach. Another façade of U.S. interference in the region was the sudden U.S. proposals for social development, at a time when the Cuban Revolution had mobilised its citizens and within its means to rebuild the country’s social structure. These interventions were later effected in the region through USAID, planned during the presidency of Dwight Eisenhower and carried out by J F Kennedy. To put it briefly, the U.S. intended humanitarian intervention as a veneer to maintain control over Cuba and Latin America through purported social and economic development and incentives. Subsequently, this paradigm was expanded to legitimise the Cuban counter-revolutionary activities as purported “forces in exile that are struggling for freedom”, in complete dissociation from the fact that these dissident groups worked closely with the CIA and were funded by the U.S. government.

In contrast to the U.S., the Cuban Revolution expressed a staunch position against war and exploitation. Had the UN not been monopolised by the greater political powers, Fidel’s speech could have been a turning point in international history. Without resorting to useless resolutions, as is the UN’s alternative to political solutions, Cuba’s revolutionary philosophy was succinctly outlined by Fidel: “Do away with the philosophy of plunder and you will have done away forever with the philosophy of war.”

Just one year later, Fidel Castro would lead the attack on the Moncada Barracks in Santiago de Cuba on July 26, 1953. It was a failed military attempt and 70 comrades taking part in the action were kidnapped, tortured and murdered, yet the action would mobilise Cubans against the tyranny of the right-wing, U.S.-backed dictator, Fulgencio Batista. Faced with a choice – to surrender or retreat to the mountains to continue planning the revolution – Fidel chose the latter. However, Batista’s patrols caught up with the revolutionary group. Fidel and his comrades were taken prisoners; Fidel’s life spared by the intervention of Lieutenant Pedro Sarria who warned the soldiers, “You can’t kill ideas.”

The importance of Moncada has been illustrated several times by Fidel in his commemorative speeches. In 1960, Fidel described Moncada thus: “And so, that 26 of July was just a minute for U.S., when the fight seemed to end, when the effort to be in the battle for the liberation of our people seemed to end, it was not the end, but the beginning.”

It is through Fidel’s prison letters written from the Isles of Pines, as well as through his defence speech, History Will Absolve Me, that the significance of Moncada and the revolutionary intent are placed at the helm. Of the crimes committed by Batista’s soldiers, Fidel wrote, “History has not seen a similar massacre, neither in the colony nor in the Republic.” The first revolutionary victim was Dr Mario Muñoz, who was killed by a shot to the head from the back, despite being unarmed and just carrying medical supplies in his bag, while also wearing medical attire. Abel Santamaría, one of the Moncada revolutionaries, was brutally tortured. His eyes were gouged out by Batista’s soldiers and presented to his sister, Haydee Santamaría, who was also arrested for participating in the attack. The brutality was not so much as deterrent as revenge by the Batista dictatorship, which ordered the killing of ten revolutionaries for every soldier.

In his defence speech, Fidel emphasised colonial liberation. Batista’s dictatorship thrived on terror; the Cuban Revolution planned for revolutionary education. The Moncada Barracks attack, therefore, in inscribed within the Cuban historical narrative as the launch of the Cuban Revolution. It is a collective revolutionary consciousness which continues to recognise the memory of Moncada as the first step in an ongoing revolutionary process, as Fidel meant it to be. For Fidel, the subsequent revolutionary triumph on January 1, 1959 also marked the beginning of a process in which an educated society would participate.

Similar sentiments were expressed by Cuban President Miguel Diaz Canel on this year’s commemoration of Moncada. July 26 is not just an annual commemoration but a reflection of revolutionary commitment. At present, and with U.S. hostility and diplomatic aggression against Cuba becoming more prominent, Moncada regenerates its significance in terms of the revolutionary process. The current Cuban commitment to internationalism as seen throughout the coronavirus pandemic may be far removed from Moncada in terms of action. Yet it is precisely what Fidel determined the revolution would be. The Cuban revolution created the space for education and internationalism to thrive. From changing Cuba to being an inspiration in Latin America and beyond, remembering the first visible revolutionary action by Fidel and his comrades must transcend the historical confines, in order to emulate the lasting vision determined prior to Moncada.

On February 4 1962 in Plaza de la Revolucion, Fidel proclaimed the document in response to the decision by the Organisation of American states, influenced by the U.S., to expel Cuba from its ranks. The Cuban response was a pledge of resistance against U.S. interference in their country – a stance which Diaz Canel recently described as “resistance, struggle and emancipation.”

The U.S. illegal blockade against Cuba since February 7 1962 was a consolidation of previous restrictions placed by the imperialist power since the early days of the revolution. Targeting Cuba’s economy was one of the measures through which the U.S. sought to end the Cuban Revolution. What the U.S. failed to comprehend was that the revolution’s emphasis on education ensured a revolutionary process as opposed to a short-lived triumph. The Second Declaration of Havana is a magnificent representation of the revolutionary dynamic imparted and acted upon by Fidel.

Referring first to Cuban poet and revolutionary José Martí, Fidel juxtaposes two processes – imperialist intervention in Cuba and Latin America, and the importance of sustaining the revolution. One insight from Fidel which was later proved by U.S. intervention in Chile to depose President Salvador Allende is the following: “What unites them [the U.S.] and stirs them up in fear? What explains it is fear. Not fear of the Cuban Revolution but fear of the Latin American revolution.”

The Cuban Revolution was the first stage that represented a possibility for the rest of the region to follow suit and dissociate from U.S. imperialism. In 1962, Fidel asserted, “Today in many countries of Latin America revolution is inevitable.” The trail of U.S. interference in the region to this day has ensured a perpetual need for regional revolution. Indeed, the tactics employed by the U.S. as described by Fidel in the Second Declaration of Havana have not altered. The links between Latin American governments and the U.S. military, the CIA, as well as other forms of more covert interference to influence the rise of new dictatorships and the preservation of neoliberal legacies are what have prompted countries in the region to clamour for change.

In Fidel’s words, “North American imperialism’s declared policy of sending soldiers to fight against the revolutionary movement of any country in Latin America, that is, to kill workers, students, peasants, Latin American men and women, has no other objective than the continued maintenance of its monopolistic interests and the privileges of the traitorous oligarchies which support it.”

Cuba has protected its revolution at a cost. It is this cost that makes the Cuban Revolution relevant to other regional and international struggles. The U.S. blockade, which violates human rights and which the UN General Assembly has regularly voted against, is one lengthy example of U.S. diktats in a world that purportedly abides by international law.

The Cuban Revolution moved away from this dynamic. Its respect for international law is not determined by the international community, but rather the revolutionary values that are part of the Cuban people’s historical and current narratives. For Fidel, the UN provided a platform to articulate Cuba’s demands. The revolution, therefore, was never subjugated to external influence – a condition that is enshrined in UN Resolution 2625: “Every State has an inalienable right to choose its political, economic, social and cultural systems, without interference in any form by another State.”

The Cuban Revolution works within the parameters of international law, yet the same law has been corrupted by imperialist interests in furthering foreign intervention. While the current interference in Latin America may be constructed as a strategy to isolate Cuba further, imperialism is missing the point – revolutions are made by the people and the U.S. has triggered all the conditions for change in the region.

Sabotaging the Cuban Revolution, even after 61 years, remains a U.S. priority. Latin America is once again in the grips of political changes; Chile and Bolivia currently represent the spectrum of neoliberal and imperialist interference. In Chile, the people are no longer subservient to a state that prioritises the legacy of dictator Augusto Pinochet. Ongoing revolts point towards the building of a new Chile, as the late President Salvador Allende once predicted. Bolivia, on the other hand, is experiencing the early stages of ruthless violence unleashed by the U.S.-backed coup.

Despite the illegal blockade, the attempts at U.S. infiltration and interference in its regional and internationalist programmes, Cuba is both resisting U.S. imperialism and remaining consistent in building upon Fidel’s legacy.

In his 1960 speech to the UN General Assembly, Fidel declared, “Colonies do not speak. Colonies are not known until they have the opportunity to express themselves. That is why our colony and its problems were unknown to the rest of the world.” U.S. exploitation and the absence of Cuban political independence before the revolutionary triumph ensured the deterioration of a nation by fostering inequality as regards access to basic services and necessities. Meanwhile, Cuban poverty and illiteracy prior to the revolution provided the foundations for the U.S. to thrive partly upon Cuba’s economic and social deterioration.

Fidel’s consistency in achieving the revolutionary goals thwarted U.S. plans. Internationalism was the next step in consolidating the revolution, which Cuba accomplished by its rejection of militarism, focusing instead of supporting anti-colonial struggle and the building of societal foundations. Cuba exported its revolution while the U.S. was busy promoting an interventionist agenda. Decades later, U.S. tactics have not changed. Cuba, on the other hand, has become conscious of the importance of preserving its revolutionary heritage while defending the revolution’s accomplishments to date, both nationally and internationally.

Cuba’s health programme, which includes the services offered by Cuban doctors abroad, has recently been targeted by the US, resulting in the withdrawal of medical personnel from Bolivia, Brazil and Ecuador. Cuba’s medical internationalism is the latest U.S. target; however, this also happened under former U.S. President Barack Obama when Cuban aid to the victims of Hurricane Katrina was flatly rejected. The greatest contrast, however, can be gleaned from the U.S. and Cuban responses to Haiti’s humanitarian needs following the earthquake in 2010. In contrast to the deployment of U.S. troops, which Fidel attributed to imperialist designs against the nation, Cuba sent hundreds of doctors and healthcare workers to provide medical and humanitarian aid as required. In such moments, it is possible to decipher Fidel’s perception regarding the politicisation of humanitarian aid and how the U.S. has regularly attempted to leverage its power against Cuba and the nations it has helped.

Remembering the revolutionary triumph goes beyond the anniversary celebration and Fidel. The revolution’s political power and its advances in terms of agrarian reform, health and education now need to be sustained in terms of ongoing implementation as well as collective memory. Cuba has offered a political alternative that rejects U.S. dominance; hence the ongoing attempts to break down the island’s defences, particularly at such times of regional upheaval. For Cuba, neoliberal policies are not the answer. As long as it can sustain a collective agreement between the government and the people to reject U.S. and international interference, the revolution, and Fidel’s example, will continue providing the foundations for resistance and progress.

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 defence of the revolution, while also providing an internationalist example for the rest of the world to emulate.

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007), Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge and Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).  His latest book is Empire of Chaos

Donald Trump, commenting on the passing of Fidel Castro, branded him a mere “dictator”. Whatever the long-lasting results (and mistakes) of the Cuban experiment, History has already de facto recognized Fidel as one of the great revolutionary leaders of the modern – and postmodern – era.

Trump – historical irony obliges – also has all but christened the groundswell of anger that delivered him the White House as a “revolution” – led by, and in the name of, white, non-college educated, blue collar US masses.

Yet old habits die hard. A self-appointed “leader of the free world”, true to conventional script, could never pay tribute in public to a “communist” who escaped over 600 CIA assassination cum regime change attempts – which is quite a heavy load to bear for so-called US “intel”. In the end, it was nature’s clock – not a magic bullet – that took Fidel away.

With the Cuban revolution now history, the focus switches to the current American “revolution” – which might turn out to be quite the regime change special the CIA dreams of (for others). If Fidel was The Prince as well as Machiavelli rolled into one, in gringoland the storyline may be largely about Steve Bannon, the blue collar-meets-Goldman Sachs Machiavelli to Prince Trump.

White House chief strategist Bannon has been vilified, over the top, all across the spectrum, as neo-fascist, white nationalist, racist, sexist and anti-Semite. So far, this has been the most detailed explanation of the Bannon agenda – in his own words. One underestimates him at one’s own peril.

State and revolution

Bannon in the past billed himself as a Leninist. What a shame Fidel was not paying attention.

In his highly complex and immensely engaging Apres Nous, Le Deluge (French translation recently published by Payot), master German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk explores how Lenin, in a few months in a cabin in Finland, laid out the theoretical premises of what should happen after the revolution; how the former State, under Marxist analysis, was just an instrument allowing economic exploitation and the misleading resolution of “irreconcilable” oppositions between classes (sounds quite like the current Washington set up).

For the revolutionary apparatus, it was not enough to take over the apparatus of the Ancien Regime – as social democrats would have it. That would have to be totally smashed, the ruins reassembled in new combinations until the long-term communist goal – the agony of the State – would be achieved.

Now imagine Leninist Bannon trying to package this agenda to viscerally indoctrinated “communists eat babies for breakfast” US public opinion. So he resorted to pop culture – stressing the inspirational models as Darth Vader, his incarnation Dick Cheney, and the dark side as a whole.

Smashing the State (or the establishment) was rephrased as “drain the swamp”. And to polish it all up, when talking to the establishment, Bannon added the indispensable English credibility touch as his top role model; Thomas Cromwell, the dark side behind Henry VIII, instead of Lenin. No wonder the deep state is totally freaking out.

Lenin, in trying to accomplish his revolution, as Sloterdijk observes, relied on “a double psycho-political strategy”; massive intimidation of the non-convinced (something Bannon obviously cannot deploy in contemporary America), as well as mobilization of the impoverished and enthusiastic masses attracted by the promises of the new power (Trump’s overwhelming twitter machine and Breitbart News will be in charge of this department).

In Lenin’s revolution, the faculty of political judgment was exercised by an elite that Lenin conceived as the proletariat; they became the elite via the dictatorship of the Party. All other strata, especially the rural categories, were no more than a reactionary plebe – to become useful only long term via revolutionary education.

One century after Lenin, Bannon’s proletariat “elite” will be supplied by blue collar alienation spread out across Virginia, Florida, Ohio, the Rust Belt. A special place is reserved for Reagan Democrats and Reagan Democrats 2.0 (working class minorities) as well as for all and sundry rejectionists of that good ol’ Marxist bogeyman – rigged-to-the-hilt “bourgeois democracy”.

Bannon’s early incarnation of his ideal Leninist Prince was obnoxious Mamma Grizly Sarah Palin. She could see Russia from her house – but that was about it. Trump, on the other hand, is the perfect vessel; billionaire builder/doer; a product of reality TV; the “New York New York” factor; vetted by the Masters of the Universe; no need to court donors; and a natural foe of an uppity East Coast establishment which does despise his glitter and his brashness.

Fascism and global war

To describe Trump’s “deplorables” (their definition by the establishment, via Hillary) as a fascist army, as US corporate media shills insist, totally misses the point. Marxist theory, during the 1920s and 1930s, turned fascism upside down, conceptualizing how fascism essentially crystallizes the power of finance capital (that’s something Bannon can easily sell at home). Fascism also terrorizes the working class as well as the revolutionary peasantry – thus the popular appeal of “drain the swamp”.

Mussolini defined fascism as “the horror inspired by a comfortable life”, thus leading Sloterdijk to characterize fascism as a militant-ism of street politics; total mobilization. Let’s rewind to a century ago; after 1917 and 1918, to the Left as well as to the Right, the zeitgeist dictated there was no “post-war”; in fact, the sentiment was that a global war was going on, and that had been so since times immemorial (today, under neoliberalism, global war is even more radicalized, pitting the 0.0001% against the rest.)

Under Lenin in Russia a century ago, the conflict took the form of civil war of an active minority against an impotent majority. Under the Leninist White House, the conflict may take the form of war by a very active minority (those roughly 25% of the US electorate who voted Trump) against another, infinitesimal – but very powerful – minority (the East Coast establishment, the incarnation of the Ancien Regime), with the whole saga watched ringside by a transfixed, passive majority.

“America First”; but for whom? The key question is who will end up defining America’s real national interest; true nationalists embedded in Team Trump, plus the proletariat “elite”, or the usual – globalist – suspects able to infect and corrupt any notion of nationalism.

Goodbye Fidel Castro, welcome Prince Trump (with Leninist Machiavelli attached). Brace for impact. Politics is war – what else? And “revolution” is still the biggest show in town.

One measure of his historical significance is expressed in the fact that he outlasted 10 US presidents by the time of his official retirement from politics in 2008 due to declining health. Counting incumbent Barack Obama, Fidel’s political life spanned 11 US presidencies. All of them oversaw a barbarous policy to economically strangle Cuba with a trade blockade on the tiny Caribbean island nation. Several of these US leaders sanctioned criminal plots to assassinate Fidel and incite regime change. They all failed. Castro beat them all and died peacefully in his bed having lived his life to the full.

As news of his death reverberated around the world, even Western countries which had conspired to varying degrees to thwart the Cuban revolution were compelled to acknowledge Fidel’s towering legacy. News channels were interrupted with «breaking news» of his death. America’s CNN and Britain’s BBC immediately ran biographical portraits of the man and his revolutionary past. Among the predictable slights referring to an «authoritarian figure», even the Western propagandists had to admit that Fidel liberated his people from squalor and poverty, bequeathing Cuba with immense social development, and, probably more importantly, giving the world’s people monumental inspiration to continually strive in order to make this world a place of justice for everyone. To the end, he championed socialism, while denouncing capitalist exploitation, destruction and its imperialist warmongering.

Two early headlines about his passing stood out. The Washington Post couldn’t refrain from denigration with this: «Former Cuban dictator Fidel Castro has died». The use of the word «dictator» was gratuitous and doubtless intended to slur the man’s greatness even at his moment of death.

The New York Times appeared to be a little more magnanimous with its headline: «Fidel Castro has died at 90. The Cuban revolutionary was a nemesis for 11 American presidents».

But its florid words of apparent tribute contained the poison of defamation. The NY Times went on to ascribe the «fiery apostle of revolution» as having «brought the Cold War to the Western Hemisphere in 1959… and briefly pushing the world to the brink of nuclear war [in 1962]».

It wasn’t Castro who brought the Cold War to the Western Hemisphere, nor was it he who nearly incited nuclear war. On both counts, it was US governments. Yet, insidiously, the US media impute Fidel with the evil of their own governments.

In 1960, months after Fidel overthrew the corrupt US-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista, the leader of the revolution made an official visit to the US in a gesture of regional friendship. But he was snubbed by then President Eisenhower who refused to meet him.

Eisenhower then enacted diplomatic and trade embargoes on Cuba in revenge for Fidel’s economic policies aimed at lifting the majority of Cubans out of decades of US-induced poverty.

In April 1961, under the new presidency of John F Kennedy, the CIA and Pentagon launched the Bay of Pigs invasion with a private mercenary army made up of Batista loyalists. JFK backed down on a full-scale military assault and Fidel’s forces eventually routed the attackers. The CIA and Cuban exiles never forgave JFK for this «betrayal» and exacted retribution by blowing the president’s head off as his motorcade drove through Dallas on November 22, 1963.

Contrary to the above portrait in the NY Times, it was the US under Eisenhower and subsequently Kennedy that brought the Cold War to the Western Hemisphere. Not Fidel Castro.

If Castro responded to US aggression by embracing the Soviet Union and its nuclear missiles, it was evidently a policy of self-defense. The Cuban missile crisis during October 1962, when JFK and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev faced off in a dramatic nuclear showdown, was the outcome of the US having already embarked on a war policy against Cuba. The installation of Soviet nuclear weapons on Cuban territory 90 miles from the US mainland was first of all a legitimate act of sovereignty by the Cuban government, and, secondly, a reasonable act of self-defense given the US criminal aggression the year before at the Bay of Pigs.

Again, it was not Fidel Castro who «brought the world to the brink of nuclear war». It was US aggressive policy towards a newly independent impoverished nation whose people exercised their right to self-determination by supporting a socialist government.

US official vanity likes to recount that JFK forced the Soviets to withdraw their nuclear missiles from Cuba. But an important overlooked fact is that the deal to avert nuclear war worked out by Kennedy and Khrushchev relied on a commitment from the US to abandon its covert war plans against Cuba.

The US never fully lived up to its promise to leave Cuba in peace. Assassination plots against Castro and other Cuban leaders continued during subsequent US administrations, as did other acts of state-sponsored sabotage and terrorism such as the downing of a Cuban civilian airliner in 1976. The US-imposed trade embargo on the island nation of 11 million people that began in 1961 continues to this day under Barack Obama, albeit with a slight – some would say «cosmetic» – loosening.

However, one small mercy that came out of the «brink of nuclear war» in 1962 was that the US desisted from repeating the kind of overt aggression that was seen in the Bay of Pigs.

Fidel Castro was a giant who strode across two centuries. He was a giant of intellect and humanity, whose compassion for the oppressed and their liberation from under man-made exploitation and hegemony was as luminous as in the days of his youth. Fidel was a light for the world, and even in death his light for social justice shines on. Not even formidable political enemies can diminish this radiant revolutionary.

The NY Times said he «bedeviled 11 US presidents». That’s another contemptible attempt to slander. Fidel didn’t bedevil them; he transcended all of them and their malfeasant schemes with a humanity that outshines their corruption.

Of his splendid legacy, perhaps one attribute is that Fidel’s life and struggle demonstrates with eloquent clarity the aggressive, destructive, warmongering nature of the US political system. In his lifetime, the world can clearly see that, despite the attempts to slander, it was the US governments that unleashed Cold War hostility and that were criminally reckless enough to push the world to nuclear war. This is an historical lesson bequeathed by Fidel that is as important now as it was then.

The aggression that the US inflicted on Cuba is extant today in its belligerence towards Russia, China or any other country that defies its hegemonic conduct. Understanding the history of Cuba and Fidel Castro’s defiant revolution empowers us to understand the real cause and culprits of aggression in the world today.

Even in death, Fidel’s revolutionary spirit lives, teaches, inspires.