The victory of the Cuban Revolution in 1959 and the subsequent proclamation of its socialist character in 1961, under the decisive leadership of Fidel Castro and the other revolutionaries, constitute a valuable source of inspiration and provide timeless lessons for the international revolutionary movement.
Firstly, the Cuban Revolution and Fidel's ideas and actions confirmed a fundamental conclusion in practice. The working class and the poor popular strata have the right and duty to utilise all forms and means of struggle to overthrow capitalist exploitation and imperialist oppression and seise power in order to build a new socialist society.
The Cuban Revolution triumphed through the armed struggle of the revolutionary guerrillas, combined with the multifaceted clandestine activities of other revolutionary organisations in the urban centres. This experience confirmed the Marxist–Leninist positions on the need for a decisive struggle, in all its forms, against the bourgeoisie, both domestic and foreign; it confirmed the progressive role of revolutionary violence; and it constitutes yet another refutation of the strategy of “peaceful transition” and the “parliamentary road” to socialism, which has never been validated in any country.
Very soon, Cuba found itself in the crosshairs of imperialism and resolutely defended its revolutionary path and its sovereignty by force of arms. We all know how the revolutionary armed forces at the Bay of Pigs inflicted a humiliating defeat on the US mercenaries, with Fidel himself directing the fighting from the front line.
Building on this valuable experience, Fidel and the Cuban leadership correctly understood the internationalist duty to support the armed struggle waged by other peoples for their national and social liberation.
The stance of the Communist Party of Cuba, and of Fidel Castro, has been proven correct. In contrast, the opportunist strategy formulated by the CPSU after the 20th Congress of 1956 – namely “peaceful coexistence” and “competition” between capitalism and socialism – was not vindicated. While the USSR spoke of “peaceful coexistence”, the bourgeoisie collaborated with US imperialism to unleash a wave of wars and armed interventions, bloody dictatorships, and crimes against the peoples of Asia, Africa, and Latin America – even in Europe, as in Greece.
These lessons are invaluable for the strategic choices and preparations of revolutionary forces today, at a time when the fundamental contradiction between capital and wage labour is intensifying sharply and must be resolved through the revolutionary path, by means of the socialist revolution.
Cuba has provided multifaceted internationalist support: through the training of guerrillas, supplying weapons and ammunition, providing financial aid, travel documents and facilitation of movement, and offering ideological and diplomatic support to a range of movements, primarily in Latin America, in countries such as Venezuela, Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Colombia.
Cuba made a major contribution to the struggle to shake off the colonial yoke of the peoples of Africa, such as Ethiopia, the Congo, Mozambique and Namibia. The most emblematic example was its support for the struggle of the Angolan people against local reactionary forces and the racist apartheid regime in South Africa, which enjoyed the backing of the USA, Israel and other capitalist states. Tens of thousands of Cuban soldiers served in Angola; thousands gave their lives.
Furthermore, Cuba supported, with whatever resources it could muster, the great struggle of the Vietnamese people against the brutal imperialist aggression of the US, whilst actively expressing solidarity with the struggle of the Palestinian people and their right to have their own homeland.
Secondly, the period 1959–1961 was, objectively speaking, a period of intensification of the class struggle against the bourgeois-reformist elements that remained in Cuba, with the character of the new regime and economy at stake. The Cuban revolutionary leadership, under Fidel Castro, understood that in order to free the country from US influence, to meet the people’s just demands and to tackle the major problems and hardships the people were experiencing, it had to take the decisive step forward towards socialist construction, demonstrating in practice, following the Great October Socialist Revolution, that there is no intermediate stage between capitalism and socialism, power will be either proletarian or bourgeois.
The above points, brief and illustrative as they are, underline the invaluable legacy of Fidel’s thought and action as leader of the Cuban Revolution. It is one of the key reasons why, even today, the figure of Fidel remains a symbol of the revolutionary struggle to overthrow capitalism and build socialism – communism.