The US president has said he expects the Cuban government to be gone “by the end of the year”. His administration has indicted Raúl Castro, killed nearly 200 people in extrajudicial strikes in the Caribbean and Pacific, and tightened a blockade now in its 64th year. So it’s worth asking, seriously: what is the actual alternative to socialist Cuba that’s being proposed by the imperialists?
In this video, Carlos Martinez takes up the late Michael Parenti’s concept of “siege socialism” from his 1997 book Blackshirts and Reds, and argues that Cuba is the canonical example of it today. The video looks at what Cuba has held onto under siege – life expectancy higher than the US, infant mortality lower than the US, world-leading literacy and medical training – and compares it with the countries in the region that took the path Washington wanted them to take, such as Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and pre-revolutionary Cuba itself.
Carlos also looks at why the trajectory may be turning: Chinese investment in 92 solar parks, the rise of multipolarity, and the prospect of energy sovereignty as the way out of the siege.
Rosa Luxemburg’s “socialism or barbarism” was a philosophical statement in 1916. In the Caribbean in 2026, it is a concrete choice.
Note an article version of the video has been published in the Morning Star.
Sources and further reading:
Michael Parenti, Blackshirts and Reds (1997)
Cuban government statement on the indictment of Raúl Castro
China stands with Cuba against illegal indictment of Raúl Castro
Transcript
Hello and welcome.
A few weeks ago, Donald Trump told reporters that he expects the Cuban government to be gone by the end of this year. He called Cuba a failed country and added, “Other presidents have looked at this for 50, 60 years doing something and it looks like I’ll be the one that does it.” His Secretary of State, Marco Rubio – more commonly referred to as Narco Rubio – has declared that Cuba has consistently posed a threat to the national security of the United States, which is essentially the standard preamble for regime change operations.
Last week, the Department of Justice unsealed a federal indictment against Raúl Castro for events that took place 30 years ago and in which Cuba acted in a completely just, completely legal manner.
Continue reading Cuba: siege socialism or barbarism