“Vive Fidel! Vive Cuba!”
(Long live Fidel! Long live Cuba!)
– voices during Workers Day in Havana, Cuba
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On the morning of May 1, 2025, the Cuban population celebrated International Workers Day as faithfully and forcefully as any nation on the planet it seems. [1]
This was also the first major demonstration of the traditional march on the Jose Marti Revolutionary square since before the COVID pandemic. And it had a unique attribute: It was the date of the 25th anniversary of a powerful speech delivered by the Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro Ruz to the people on the concept of Revolution. A concept not only revelatory for the working lives of people at home, but with an indivisible connection to the lives of people abroad and everywhere fighting to escape fascism, racism, and capitalism. [2]
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In the island country, this was indeed the biggest event of the year. International Workers Day, in which they both stood up for the proper rights of the working class against the capitalist parasites, like the United States for example, but also expressed pride and gratitude for the heroes that had led the charge to their salvation and directed them toward a future of change for the better. One of their most profound messages of course was to end the US Blockade. [3]
There is a troubling omission, however.
The Cuban people have been delivered a massive blow economically. As well, the COVID “Pandemic” also took a toll on the people.
According to the 6th Report on the State of Social Rights in Cuba, presented in the fall of 2023 Miami by the Cuban Observatory of Human Rights (OCDH), 88% of Cubans live in extreme poverty, 13% more than in 2022. The study also showed that concern for the food crisis (70%) was increasing. This was followed by salaries (50%), inflation (34%), and public healthcare (22%) as among the population’s main concerns. [4]
And let us not forget the massive protests against the Cuban government itself. In July of 2021, thousands of people demonstrated peacefully against longstanding restrictions on rights, food and medicine scarcity, and the government’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic. These protests were reportedly brutally repressed by the government, security forces urged on by President Diaz-Canel. [5]
For a united working class Cuban public, a very significant percentage of the work-age young people, are finding work abroad, particularly in America, which would have ramifications for the long term health of the masses under the banner of Caribbean socialism. Ir is therefore imperative, as a radio program that has supported the Revolutionary struggle, to ask some difficult questions about what is happening to Cuba and where the nation may be headed given these developments. The Workers’ Struggle in 2025 is our focus on the Global Research News Hour. [6]
This week’s show featured its producer and host Michael Welch in the streets of Havana doing his own reporting over a two week period. He managed to interview a journalist and writer, Luis Toledo Sande who defended the Revolution and provided an explanation of the above stated currents running through Cubuan society. But first, I replayed portions of interviews from the last visit in December of last year with Iran, a member of the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the People (ICAP), and with Maykel Espinoza, an owner of a small business in Cuba who was critical of the government.
A follow-up of these interviews follows next week.
Iran is an official of the North American Division of the Cuban Institute of Friendship of the Peoples (ICAP) working with the Solidarity movement in the United States and Canada.
Maykel Espinoza owns a Bed and Breakfast in Santa Clara, Cuba.
Luis Toledo Sande is a Cuban writer, researcher and journalist. PhD in Philological Sciences from the University of Havana. Author of several books of different genres. He has taught at the university and has been director of the Center for Martí Studies and deputy director of the magazine Casa de las Américas. In diplomacy, he has served as cultural counselor of the Cuban Embassy in Spain. Among other recognitions, he has received the Distinction for National Culture and the Social Sciences Critics Award, the latter for his book Cesto de llamas. Biography of José Martí. (Velasco, Holguín, 1950).
Many thanks to Cuban translator Sahili Amaro Cartaya.
(Global Research News Hour Episode 473)
LISTEN TO THE SHOW
The Global Research News Hour airs every Friday at 1pm CT on CKUW 95.9FM out of the University of Winnipeg.
The programme is also broadcast weekly (Monday, 1-2pm ET) by the Progressive Radio Network in the US.
The programme is also podcast at globalresearch.ca
Notes:
1. https://liberationnews.org/millions-of-cubans-march-for-international-workers-day/
2. Abel Aguilera Vega (May 1, 2025), ‘Fidel Castro and the concept of Revolution, a look 25 years later’, Granma; https://en.granma.cu/cuba/2025-05-01/fidel-castro-and-the-concept-of-revolution-a-look-25-years-later
3. https://www.cubagrouptour.com/information/events-in-cuba/may-day-parade
4. Katheryn Felipe (El Toque) (October 21, 2023), ‘What the Government Doesn’t Say about Poverty in Cuba’, Havana Times; https://havanatimes.org/features/what-the-government-doesnt-say-about-poverty-in-cuba/#:~:text=Currently%2C%2088%25%20of%20Cubans%20live%20in%20extreme%20poverty%2C,by%20the%20Cuban%20Observatory%20of%20Human%20Rights%20%28OCDH%29.
5. https://www.hrw.org/report/2022/07/11/prison-or-exile/cubas-systematic-repression-july-2021-demonstrators
6. Carla Gloria Colomé (July 23, 2024), ‘From a population of 11 million to little more than 8.5 million: The real toll of Cuba’s migratory crisis’, El Pais; https://english.elpais.com/international/2024-07-23/from-a-population-of-11-million-to-little-more-than-85-million-the-real-toll-of-cubas-migratory-crisis.html
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