Yossi Schwartz ISL (RCIT section in Israel/Occupied Palestine) 22.09.2026
The class nature of Cuba in this period is an important political and theoretical question. In “Defend Cuba against Imperialism without Whitewashing the Dictatorship!” Michael Pröbsting, wrote and correctly so:”Trump’s offensive to recolonize Latin America has opened a new phase in world politics. After assaulting Venezuela and kidnapping its President, Washington has imposed a total oil blockade on Cuba, hoping to push the regime into collaboration as they did already successfully with the corrupted Venezuelan government of Delcy Rodríguez”
“It is the duty of Marxists to defend Cuba as we side with all other capitalist semi-colonies facing imperialist aggression like Venezuela or Iran“[i]
“It is the duty of Marxists to defend Cuba as we side with all other capitalist semi-colonies facing imperialist aggression like Venezuela or Iran. The RCIT has published a statement along these lines and so have several other socialist organizations. However, to defend Cuba and other countries which are attacked by the U.S., one must have a clear analysis of the regimes in these countries and their role in face of imperialist aggression.”[ii]
The RCI led by Woods is calling for the defense of the Cuban revolution. In their magazine “In defense of Marxism” we find:
” Sections of the RCI from across the planet are mobilizing worldwide in October to defend the Cuban Revolution!”…” All over the world, sections of the RCI are preparing rallies, pickets outside embassies, and open meetings in defense of the Cuban Revolution.
…Since 1959, the Cuban Revolution – the overthrow of capitalism just 90 miles away from the biggest imperialist power in the world – has inspired workers and youth worldwide.”
Let us start with an obvious mistake of the RCI about when Cuba became a Stalinist regime based on workers economy from above. The petit bourgeois rebels, led by the 26th of July Movement, under the leadership of Castro’s brothers and Ernesto “Che” Guevara de la Serna toppled Batista on 31 December 1958, after which he fled the country. Soon thereafter, the 26th of July Movement established itself as the de facto government.
In 1959 Castro had expressed little by way of an economic agenda other than his commitment to land reform, greater democracy and better education. It was a bourgeois democratic program. When he took control, he even appointed a liberal president and prime minister. Six months after the revolution (July 1959), Castro could assert, “I am not a communist and neither is the revolutionary movement.”[iii]
On August 6, 1960, the revolutionary government of Cuba, led by Fidel Castro, carried out more bourgeois democratic steps that would deepen the rift between the Cuba and the United States. In a sweeping decree, Castro’s regime nationalized all American and other foreign-owned property in Cuba without compensation.
In early 1961 President John F. Kennedy concluded that Fidel Castro was a Soviet client working to subvert Latin America. Kennedy authorized a clandestine invasion of Cuba by a brigade of Cuban exiles. The brigade hit the beach at the Bay of Pigs on April 17, 1961, but the operation collapsed in spectacular failure within 2 days. Kennedy took public responsibility for the failed coup but remained determined to rid Cuba of Castro.
In November 1961 Kennedy approved Operation Mongoose, a secret plan aimed at stimulating a rebellion in Cuba that the United States could support. While the Kennedy administration planned Operation Mongoose, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev secretly introduced medium-range nuclear missiles into Cuba. The 26th of July Movement later reformed along Stalinist lines, becoming the so-called Communist Party of Cuba in October 1965. Thus, in 1959 Cuba was a capitalist state and was it at the end of 1960. The capitalist class was eliminated only in the middle of the 1960’s. And the other side of the poor analysis of when Cuba became a degenerated workers state is the failing to recognize that Cuba is a capitalist state.
Since 2021, Cuba has authorized the formation of micro, small, and medium enterprises, representing the most significant economic reform in decades. By 2025, approximately 11,000 businesses had registered primarily in food services, light manufacturing, and retail. Further reforms approved by the National Assembly at the end of July this year that shook six decades of official discourse It announced: “socialism was never the ultimate goal of the system, but rather the chosen instrument to maintain power[iv]“
The new measures include the repeal of Decree 107 and the entry into force of Decree 160. On August 4, the government eliminated 46 of the 125 activities prohibited for the private sector and relaxed 35 more, within a total package of 176 transformations grouped into 23 axes.
Among the changes are the opening of pharmaceutical services and nursing homes to small and medium enterprises and cooperatives, the liberalization of wholesale trade, and the authorization to privately import electric vehicles. Prime Minister Manuel Marrero also announced the first private currency exchange, the first mixed enterprise between foreign capital and a small and medium enterprise, and a fully foreign investment zone for health tourism”.[v]
These measures dismantled the state monopoly over the economy, which was the core of Cuban Stalinism. The state has begun transferring to private entities the cafeterias of the Family Assistance System, which means part of the support to the most vulnerable sectors.
A healthy workers state is a state that not only eliminates the capitalist class, but the working class is in power. A healthy workers’ state is not socialism as socialism can be established in a world revolution. A degenerate workers state is a state where the capitalist class has been eliminated but the power is in the hands of totalitarian bureaucracy. Unless this bureaucracy is overthrown the road to capitalism is open. When a capitalist class reappears, it means that the state is capitalist.
Cuba must be defended against American imperialism because it is a semi colony not because of an existing revolution in the imagination of the RCI. Woods for a while has pretended to be a revolutionary to recruit inexperienced pro Palestinians youth. However, in the RCI article on Cuba he returns to his confused opportunism.
Endnotes:
[i] https://elmundosocialista.blogspot.com/2026/02/defend-cuba-against-imperialism.html
[ii] Ibid
[iii] https://iea.org.uk/cuba-a-story-of-socialist-failure/
[iv] https://en.cibercuba.com/noticias/2026-08-07-u1-e209395-s27061-nid337276-analista-politico-cuba-socialismo-nunca-fue-fin-sino
[v] Ibid