30-05-2026: May 20 saw US (United States of America) government prosecutors indict Raul Castro, the former President of the Republic of Cuba, for murder. The charges are supposed to be for the 1996 shooting down of two planes operated by the right-wing terror group Brothers to the Rescue. Four people died in the downing of the planes, which the US government claims was ordered by Raul Castro, who will be 95 years old on the 3rd of June. Raul served as President of Cuba after his brother Fidel, the historic leader of the Cuban Revolution, stepped aside due to age related health. Raul was President of Cuba from 2006 until 2018. Miguel Diaz Canel now holds the positions of President and First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC), but Raul retains the title of Army General.[1] Arguably, Washington is going after Raul Castro as he is the last living leader of Cuba’s socialist revolution, which triumphed in 1959, and first demonstrated to the world that US imperialism could be defied.
Bogus charges
The indictment of Raul Castro is a fatuous ploy for yet another regime change war, this time on Cuba. Between 1994 and 1996, the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cuban civil aviation authorities recorded and documented more than 25 serious and deliberate violation of Cuban airspace by aircraft associated with the counter-revolutionary Brothers to the Rescue. It was only after this point, that Raul Castro, as an Army General in 1996, ordered the shooting down of the two planes. Charging a 94-year- old former head of state for an act of territorial defence thirty years ago after Cuba had exhausted every diplomatic channel, exposes these charges as bogus. Now, the US military may well execute a lightning raid on Cuba to kidnap Raul Castro and whisk him away to the US itself, as was done to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on January 3 this year. Or, the Pentagon could simply use the indictment as a “justification” for a landing and ground invasion of Cuba, which is only 90 miles from the shores of Florida. Yet, such an invasion is likely to face fierce resistance from the Cuban people, who have bravely withstood 60 years of sanctions, economic blockades and ongoing threats from the US behemoth.
The 66-year US economic blockade of Cuba, according to a 2018 estimate by the Cuban government, has cost the island nation $933.678 billion. Imposed in 1960, it is a full commercial, economic and financial blockade, which has evolved into a comprehensive set of sanctions that restrict or block trade and financial transactions with Cuba.[2] The blockade has caused immense hardship, and yet the Cuban revolution has survived despite it, and has maintained its socialist based independence. Cuba has remained an outlier in Latin America, using the gains of its revolution to prioritise, above all, the health and well-being of its people. Cuba provides all forms of healthcare to its citizens completely free of charge, and is known for sending teams of doctors internationally to provide healthcare to fellow Global South Nations.[3] Cuba’s education system is also provided for free to all Cubans, from primary school to all tertiary studies.[4] As a result, Cuba has virtually the highest literacy rate in the world, combined with one of the lowest infant mortality rates, which was lower than that of the US itself until the first term of the Donald Trump Administration.[5]
Target BRICS and multipolarity
Yet while Cuba’s socialist defiance of capitalism has earnt the wrath of Washington since 1959, it is the rising multipolar world which is now the major concern of Western imperialism. The moves towards regime change in Cuba today must be seen in the context of the West’s war on Iran and Russia, which are key allies and raw material suppliers to China. Iran, Russia and China are the pillars of the non-imperialist BRICS financial and economic bloc, which now comprises Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa and 15 other states. Cuba is a BRICS partner state, as well as a political ally of Iran, Russia and China. Venezuela was next in line to join BRICS, and arguably this was one reason why the US military carried out the January 3 kidnapping of its President Nicolas Maduro, which slaughtered 32 Cuban security personnel in the process.[6] The political alliance of the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela and the Cuban revolution was very strong, and Venezuela, prior to January 3, was the main supplier of oil to Cuba. The cutting off of Venezuelan oil to Cuba was perhaps another reason for the mini war on Caracas.
While Brazil is a founding BRICS member, Bolivia is also a BRICS partner state, the same as Cuba. And, as if on cue, Bolivia in the last several weeks appears to have been the target of a destabilisation attempt, which, for the moment, seems to have been derailed by accompanying mobilisations.[7] So, just in the last five months, Venezuela, Bolivia and Cuba have been targeted by Washington in different formats, as each of them seek to build multipolarity in Latin America alongside the much larger Brazil. Declining capitalism in the US would have suffered a major setback if Venezuela had have joined Brazil in BRICS, as then the two largest Latin American states would have forged a pathway forward for other Latin American nations to jump on the expanding multipolar bandwagon. Washington still regards Central and South America as its “backyard” and will resort to any manoeuvre to avoid losing its grip altogether.
For class struggle
While Cuba’s revolution has heroically defied US imperialism for six decades, the Republic of Cuba remains a bureaucratically deformed workers’ state. It is saddled with an ultimately conservative PCC bureaucracy which rigidly adheres to the twin Stalinist axioms of socialism in one country and peaceful coexistence with imperialism. It has demonstrated exemplary humanist internationalism but has fallen short of extending working class internationalism even to the neighbouring Caribbean, let alone the US mainland. The PCC leadership does not seek to foster or foment working class struggle, a critical component of socialism. Rather, it endlessly seeks diplomatic deals even with its greatest enemy.
This leads to genuflections to imperialist rule at the same time as defending its revolutionary gains. For example, the PCC capitulated to the Covid operation, a fraudulent “pandemic” which was in practice perhaps the largest attack on the working class in history. Western governments used “Covid” to impose severe political and economic repression in unprecedented methods, from lockdowns to facemask and vaccine mandates, the banning of free speech, the banning of protest and the blocking of travel. The PCC facilitated Covid propaganda by promoting it as good coin and even assisted its biotech industry in producing not one but five Covid vaccines (!).[8] To say the least, one cannot be revolutionary at the same time as imbibing imperialist Kool-Aid wholesale. Yet such are the contradictions inherent in Stalinism, which can often act as a transmission belt for capitalist ideology within “its own” working class. What is required in Cuba is a proletarian political revolution, which sweeps away inward-looking political leadership, and injects genuine and living Marxism into a revolution which remains intact.
World War III is decaying imperialism versus the rising multipolar world. Despite the vacillations of the PCC, working people must defend Cuba and its BRICS and Global South allies. The Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) should also be defended if they intervene to prevent Washington from waging a regime change war on the Cuban island, or even if they move to kidnap Raul Castro. This may come about sooner rather than later as the US empire appears to have been fought to a standstill by fierce and principled Iranian resistance in the Persian Gulf. A wounded US imperialism is lashing out in all directions and is being driven to a frenzy the more the global majority stand firm. In 1959, the Cubans boosted the stocks of socialism in the 20th century. Workers of the world must ensure that it can once again fortify a much-needed socialism of the 21st century, with a victory for advancing humanity. No War on Cuba! No to Regime Change!
Workers League
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[1] www.workers.org/2026/05/92792/ (27-05-2026)
[2] www.historytools.org/stories/the-us-embargo-against-cuba-a-historical-perspective (27-05-2026)
[3] www.globalresearch.ca/healthcare-system-cuba/5881980?pdf=5881980 (27-05-2026)
[4] www.scholaro.com/db/Countries/Cuba/Education-System (27-05-2026)
[5] www.greenleft.org.au/2026/1453/world/new-report-details-how-us-sanctions-are-causing-severe-rise-cubas-infant-mortality (27-05-2026)
[6] www.peoplesdispatch.org/2026/01/03/the-united-states-attacks-venezuela-and-kidnaps-its-president-in-an-illegal-operation/ (27-05-2026)
[7] www.straitstimes.com/world/explainer-what-is-behind-bolivias-widening-protests (27-05-2026)
[8] www.sciencefriday.com/segments/cuban-vaccines/ (27-05-2026)
Image: A billboard in Cuba featuring former President Fidel Castro, his brother Raul Castro, and current Presidnet Miguel Diaz-Canel http://www.usatoday.com
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