Cuba

On February 19 and 20, Alan Woods spoke to students at the International School of Cinema and TV (EICTV) in San Antonio de los Baños, the Raul Roa Higher Institute of International Relations, to the national and Havana provincial secretariats of the Federation of University Students (FEU). In all the meetings there was keen interest in the genuine ideas of Marxism, highlighting the fact that among the youth there is a determination to discover the real essence of Marxism and defend the Cuban revolution.

At 3.30pm on Saturday, February 21, more than 50 people gathered at the F. Engels Foundation stand at the Havana Book Fair to participate in a brief but moving homage to Celia Hart. The tragic death of comrade Celia Hart and her brother Abel, in a car accident last September was a great shock to her many friends and comrades all over the world.

In this article Jorge Martin looks at how the Cuban revolution, starting out as a bourgeois democratic revolution, was forced to move against capitalism in order to achieve its aims, a brilliant confirmation of Trotsky’s theory of the Permanent Revolution. He also looks at the contradictory tendencies within Cuba in the early years after the revolution. He goes on to discuss how Cuba resisted the pressures to follow the capitalist road as happened in the Soviet Union and China, undergoing a serious crisis in the process. Now, however, there are growing pressures also inside Cuba to adopt the so-called “Chinese model”, i.e. changes that would eventually lead to the re-establishment of

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On Monday, January 16, sixty people packed the Carlos J Finlay meeting room in the Cabaña fortress to hear Alan Woods launch his latest book "Reformism or Revolution. Marxism and socialism of the 21st century, a reply to Heinz Dieterich". The previous day he also spoke to an enthusiastic group of university students.

We have met on September 10th, 2008 in the Bolívar Hall in London, for the screening of The Battle of Chile - The Coup d'État, a documentary on the US-backed terrorism in Chile in 1973. The meeting voted in favour of sending a message of internationalist solidarity to Gerardo, Antionio, Ramón, Fernando and René, for the 10th anniversary of their arrest.

We have just heard the tragic news of the death in a traffic accident, of Celia Hart Santamaría, 45, and Abel Santamaría Hart, 48, the daughter and son of Armando Hart Davalos and Haydee Santamaría. Celia came from a family of veteran Cuban revolutionaries who fought against the Batista dictatorship together with Fidel Castro. She has been an outspoken defender of the political and revolutionary heritage of Leon Trotsky.

The International Marxist Tendency considers that the Cuban Five are in the front ranks of the fight for world socialism. They were fighting against the reactionary attacks of the extreme right against the Cuban Revolution. The struggle to bring about their release is the duty not only of the Cuban people, but of all those who believe in the socialist future of humanity.

Jordi Rosich, who recently took part in the Havana Book Fair, looks at the different pressures that Cuba is facing. He highlights the danger of capitalist restoration, particularly the so-called Chinese model,and what this would mean for the Cuban revolution. But the future of Cuba has not yet been decided. It also depends on the spread of the revolution internationally.

Last November 6 in the evening, on the eve of another anniversary of the October Revolution, around five hundred young Cubans gathered to celebrate the occasion. Still, those who find this piece of news unlikely or perplexing, regardless of what side they’re on, should make an extra reading for good measure: that’s right, Cuban youths hailed the Revolution.

This was the fourth time that the F. Engels Foundation was present on the Havana International Book Fair. The results could not have been better, with a marked increase in the sale of books and documents from last year.