The Militant (logo)  

Vol. 79/No. 39      November 2, 2015

 
(feature article)
End 55-year US embargo
against Cuban Revolution!

Fidel Castro: ‘Imperialists worry about our example’
 
BY SETH GALINSKY  
Oct. 19 marked the 55th anniversary of the imposition of Washington’s embargo against Cuba and full-fledged economic war aimed at overturning the revolution.

Totally misreading the revolutionary mettle of Fidel Castro and the cadres of the July 26 Movement who led the Jan. 1, 1959, revolution that overthrew the U.S.-backed dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, the U.S. rulers hoped that with a little pressure and financial inducement, Castro and company would see the light. New faces would be in power, but the island would remain under U.S. imperialist domination.

Washington’s hopes were dashed as Cuban revolutionaries implemented the revolutionary program they had promised during the fight against Batista and continued to mobilize and lead Cuban workers and farmers in taking control of their country. In May 1959 the first agrarian reform law was passed, expropriating large plantations, including many owned by U.S. capitalists, eliminating the system of rents and mortgages and granting land to those who worked it.

By the end of 1959 Washington was not-so-secretly backing armed counterrevolutionaries seeking to overthrow the new government.

At the beginning of June 1960, three companies that dominated the importing, refining and distribution of oil in Cuba — U.S.-based Esso and Texaco and British-Dutch Shell — refused to refine oil that Cuba obtained from the Soviet Union. Large working-class mobilizations accompanied the revolutionary government’s seizure of the refineries.

In retaliation, President Dwight Eisenhower canceled that year’s quota for Cuban sugar exports to the U.S.

A month later Castro announced the expropriation of 26 U.S.-owned companies at a rally of thousands of cheering workers. Early in the morning of Aug. 17, large numbers of workers gathered in front of the Cuban Telephone Company and the Cuban Electric Company, both U.S.-owned, tore down the old signs and took over.

An article in the Oct. 15 Granma notes that the first steps taken by the revolutionary government to expropriate U.S.- and other foreign-owned companies “had little impact on private industrial interests” owned by Cuban capitalists.

But by the end of 1959 and the beginning of 1960 “the majority of large proprietors increasingly sabotaged production,” Granma said. “After withdrawing huge sums of cash from operating funds, many left the country, abandoning their businesses … other proprietors made common cause with enemies of the Revolution, financing subversive groups which proliferated in support of U.S. plans to attack Cuba.”

On Oct. 13, 1960, the Cuban Council of Ministers approved laws that nationalized 382 Cuban-owned companies, including 105 sugar mills, 60 textile and garment companies, 18 distilleries, 16 rice processors, 13 department stores and eight rail companies, as well as most banks.

These measures were popular with working people in Cuba, but not with Washington, which tried to weaken support for the revolutionary mobilizations by calling the Cuban leaders communists.

Castro took on the red-baiting charge during a “Meet the Press”-style nationwide TV program Oct. 15. He described having talked with a group of people who had been put on trial after joining counterrevolutionary actions in Santa Clara, saying they had been disoriented by Washington’s propaganda.

“I said to them, ‘Do you want the land to be taken away from the peasants and given once again to the big landowners?’ ‘No, No!’ ‘Then do you want us to take the teachers away from you?’ ‘No.’ ‘Do you want us to raise rents back up again?’ ‘No.’ ‘Do you want us to close the beaches and return them to private ownership?’ And so they agreed with everything.” To the laughter of the TV audience, Castro told them, “If you say we are communists, then you are communists too.”

Imperialist governments “are not so much interested in the amount they lost because of the revolutionary measures,” Castro noted. “They are much more worried about the significance of this example to the other peoples” of Latin America and the world.

On Oct. 19, 1960, Eisenhower officially imposed a punishing trade embargo, prohibiting all exports to Cuba except food, medicine and medical supplies.

That embargo remains in place today, despite the re-establishment of diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Cuba. But it has failed to bring revolutionary Cuba to its knees and the example of working people in power and their internationalist solidarity inspire working people around the world.

On Oct. 27 the United Nations General Assembly is scheduled to vote on a motion demanding Washington end the embargo. The motion will pass overwhelmingly as it has for the past 23 years. Washington has said it hasn’t yet decided how it will vote.
 
 
Related articles:
‘To be a revolutionary doctor, there must first be a revolution’
 
 
 
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