标签： Cuba

On Monday, ahead of the official opening of the first ever International Colloquium titled \”Fidel: Legacy and Future\” at Havana’s Convention Palace, Cuba’s top leader Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez — who serves simultaneously as First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and President of the Republic of Cuba — convened a full day of productive meetings with high-profile delegates from across the globe who gathered in the Cuban capital to honor the legacy of iconic Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro.

On August 10, 2026, at the opening of the first international colloquium *”Fidel: Legacy and Future”* held at Havana’s Convention Center, Miguel Mario Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and President of the Republic of Cuba, delivered a landmark keynote address marking the centennial of the birth of iconic Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro Ruz.

Díaz-Canel opened by extending a warm welcome to hundreds of delegates, scholars, activists, and artists who traveled from across the globe to attend the event, defying geographic distance, coordinated Western disinformation campaigns, and official pressure from their home governments. He emphasized that their presence in Cuba, at a time of heightened U.S. economic aggression and diplomatic hostility, constitutes an act of courageous militant solidarity that embodies the core of Fidel’s enduring legacy. *”There is no better or more enduring monument than the one you have erected with your courageous presence here, in Fidel’s Cuba, on its Centennial,”* he told attendees.

The Cuban leader framed the centennial celebration not as a ceremonial tribute to a historical figure, but as a critical moment to draw on Fidel’s ideas to confront the most severe challenge the Cuban Revolution has faced in its 67-year history: breaking the decades-long U.S. siege that seeks to annihilate Cuba’s socialist project as collective punishment for the nation’s commitment to sovereignty and dignity. He traced Fidel’s revolutionary trajectory from his early days as a rebellious student activist protesting Cuba’s neocolonial inequality, through the 1953 attack on the Moncada Barracks, the founding of the 26th of July Movement, the guerrilla campaign in the Sierra Maestra, and the 1959 triumph of the revolution that ended a pro-imperial dictatorship.

Díaz-Canel reminded the audience that before the revolution, Cuba was defined by extreme systemic inequality: 600,000 Cubans were unemployed, 37.5% of the population was illiterate, 1.5% of landowners controlled 46% of the nation’s arable land, and nearly all key strategic industries were owned by U.S. corporate monopolies. Even amid the crippling constraints of 66 years of economic, commercial, and financial blockade and a recent seven-month energy embargo, Díaz-Canel noted, Cuba’s revolutionary gains — rooted in Fidel’s vision — have left the country with social indicators that outperform most middle-income nations. Cuba boasts the highest number of doctors per capita in the world (more than 9 per 1,000 inhabitants), ranks among the top 10 countries in the Americas for life expectancy at 77.7 years, and remains a global leader in international medical and educational solidarity, per data from the World Health Organization and UNESCO.

Díaz-Canel outlined the core pillars of Fidel’s ideological and practical legacy for current and future generations. Fidel bequeathed not rigid dogma, but a living method of revolutionary practice rooted in rigorous analysis of concrete conditions, popular mobilization, and decisive action. Key tenets of this legacy include: unwavering commitment to anti-imperialism and sovereignty; the certainty that dreams of justice are achievable through militant struggle; internationalism as a core defining value of revolution; the conviction that socialism is the only path to save humanity from capitalist exploitation and climate collapse; and the principle that economics and politics are inseparable, with all economic decisions serving collective social good. He also highlighted Fidel’s legacies of ethical leadership, intellectual audacity, revolutionary optimism, and innovative strategy under constraint, noting that Fidel transformed scarcity into a catalyst for national creativity rather than a barrier to progress.

Against the backdrop of a deeply unstable global order marked by escalating imperial aggression, widening inequality, catastrophic climate change, and rising great power competition, Díaz-Canel emphasized that Cuba remains a primary target of U.S. hostility, with the Biden administration ramping up sanctions and extraterritorial blockade measures in this centennial year. He detailed the devastating human cost of the intensified blockade, which has created unprecedented hardship for the Cuban people: more than 1,400 megawatts of idle electricity generation capacity due to fuel shortages, leaving much of the country coping with 20+ hour daily blackouts; 98,500 patients waiting for urgently needed surgeries, including 12,000 children, due to lack of medical supplies and energy to power operating rooms; 67,000 infants under the age of one missing up-to-date routine vaccinations; 118,200 cancer patients unable to access adequate primary treatment; and only 30% of essential medicines available in the national health system, all as a direct result of U.S. sanctions. The infant mortality rate, once comparable to developed nations at 4-5 per 1,000 live births, has more than doubled to over 9.8 due to blockade-related shortages, he confirmed.

Díaz-Canel called the intensified blockade an undeclared act of genocidal aggression, noting that United Nations human rights experts have repeatedly confirmed that U.S. unilateral coercive measures against Cuba violate the UN Charter and constitute a crime against humanity. He rejected U.S. claims that Cuba is a “state sponsor of terrorism” or a hub for subversion, pointing out that Cuba has been the victim of decades of U.S.-sponsored state terrorism and covert regime change operations, with recent confirmed increases in CIA subversion activity on the island.

Despite the unprecedented hardship, Díaz-Canel stressed that Cuba has followed Fidel’s teaching of creative, not passive, resistance. In recent years, Cuba has developed sovereign COVID-19 vaccines, expanded urban and agroecological agriculture to offset fertilizer and fuel shortages, maintained its longstanding commitment to international solidarity, and continues to train thousands of medical professionals from low-income countries at no cost. Just weeks before the colloquium, 30,185 young professionals graduated from Cuban universities, including 735 from 62 foreign nations — among them 20 new Palestinian doctors and five U.S. doctors trained in Cuban institutions.

Díaz-Canel outlined that Cuba’s ongoing economic and social transformation process is rooted in Fidel’s principles, aimed at building prosperous, sustainable socialism without abandoning core commitments: the fundamental means of production remain under collective ownership, no widespread privatization will be implemented, and national sovereignty and independence will remain non-negotiable. The Communist Party of Cuba retains its role as the leading force guiding the process and safeguarding the social gains won by the revolution over decades.

Fidel’s legacy, Díaz-Canel argued, belongs not only to Cuba but to all people fighting for justice and sovereignty across the globe. He called on international delegates to take up three core tasks: countering the massive disinformation campaign about Cuba by spreading factual accounts of the nation’s reality — a reality of hardship, but also of resilience, solidarity, and unwavering hope; building concrete solidarity networks to campaign for an end to the blockade, advance scientific and cultural cooperation, and hold imperial powers accountable at international bodies; and deepening critical thinking about 21st-century socialism to answer open questions left by Fidel, from building popular power in the digital age to confronting climate change from a socialist perspective.

Díaz-Canel closed by reaffirming Cuba’s unwavering commitment to carrying forward Fidel’s vision, emphasizing that the centennial is a starting point, not a conclusion. *”It is not enough to remember him; we must study him! It is not enough to admire him; we must emulate him!”* he declared. Echoing Fidel’s iconic words, he concluded: *”If others compromise, if others allow themselves to be bribed, if others betray, Cuba will know how to remain an example of a revolution that does not surrender… Fidel is a country, Fidel is Cuba! For Cuba, with Fidel, until victory, always! Long live Fidel forever! Socialism or Death! Homeland or Death! We shall overcome!”*

Against the backdrop of the centennial celebration of Fidel Castro Ruz’s birth, Cuban President and First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba Central Committee Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez delivered a searing, urgent address to delegates at the closing ceremony of the 24th International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties in Havana this August 8. Opening by welcoming delegates who braved global pressure, disinformation, and blackmail to attend the gathering in what he called Cuba, “an island of dignity and lifelong resistance to imperialism”, Díaz-Canel framed the current global moment as one of unprecedented peril, echoing warnings issued by parties at the 2022 Havana meeting that have only grown more acute in the intervening years.

Díaz-Canel grounded this crisis in core Marxist-Leninist analysis, arguing that today’s cascading global crises—from widening wealth inequality and accelerating ecological collapse to open wars of aggression over resources and influence—are not random misfortunes, but inevitable outcomes of the structural contradictions of monopoly imperialist capitalism. He pointed to the ongoing war in Eastern Europe, the unimpeded genocide in Gaza, the unmitigated climate catastrophe, systemic global hunger, and the crippling, systemically exploitative external debt burden of the Global South as a “perfect storm” unleashed by capitalism’s unaddressed internal tensions. He further warned of the resurgent global rise of fascism, which has adapted its public face while retaining its core violent essence, a development Fidel Castro presciently warned of decades ago.

Turning to Cuba’s own experience, Díaz-Canel directly tied the island’s current crisis to a decades-long, increasingly aggressive U.S. policy of economic suffocation designed to destroy the Cuban socialist project. He emphasized that the ongoing blockade, which he described as a deliberate act of collective punishment, deprives Cubans of life-sustaining basic resources and services to stoke public exhaustion, political disillusionment, and social division—all to advance long-standing U.S. regime change goals. “Those who sadistically devise an energy blockade against an entire nation, leaving a humanitarian toll of alarming proportions that deprives Cuban children of their lives at birth, reduces the life expectancy of cancer patients, and denies our people access to medicine, food, electricity, water, transportation, and many other resources for a full life, can be called nothing less than criminals and fascists,” he told delegates.

Díaz-Canel shared on-the-ground data detailing the catastrophic human cost of the blockade: 1,400 megawatts of recovered electricity generation capacity currently sits idle due to a lack of imported diesel and fuel oil, extending daily blackouts from the projected 3 hours to 20+ hours that Cuban families currently endure. In the country’s world-renowned universal public healthcare system, the blockade has created life-threatening shortages: more than 98,500 patients, including 12,000 children, wait for necessary procedures Cuba’s surgeons are fully qualified to perform, but lack the fuel and supplies to operate; 34,000 pregnant people cannot access consistent prenatal ultrasound care; 67,000 infants have not received complete, up-to-date vaccination schedules; more than 118,000 cancer patients (117,000 adults and 1,200 children) are forced to rely on less effective secondary and tertiary treatments; only 30% of the country’s essential medicines are available, even though Cuba has the capacity to produce all domestically; just 22% of the national ambulance fleet is operational; and U.S. pressure has blocked the import of cobalt-60 for cancer treatment and delayed shipments of critical medical supplies at ports worldwide. Once a point of national pride comparable to high-income nations, with an infant mortality rate held between 4 and 5 per 1,000 live births, the blockade has pushed Cuba’s rate to more than double that, at 9.8.

Díaz-Canel emphasized that this carefully calibrated campaign of suffering is no accident: it has been a core plank of U.S. policy for more than 60 years, designed to force the Cuban people to turn against their revolution and surrender to imperial control. He noted that the blockade, a clear violation of international law and fundamental human rights, has been repeatedly condemned by the global community, most recently when 136 United Nations member states supported Cuba’s condemnation of the policy. Despite this global consensus, he argued, a rules-based international order has collapsed, replaced by the raw domination of powerful states that prioritize their own geopolitical interests over the survival of poor nations. He warned that Cuba is currently facing the most dangerous period since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, with the economic blockade complemented by a full-scale unconventional war: digital subversion, funding for domestic mercenary groups, coordinated media smear campaigns, and disguised intervention framed as “humanitarian aid”. Recent revelations of expanded CIA operations to destabilize Cuba in major U.S. media are not accidental leaks, he said, but a deliberate component of a U.S. psychological warfare campaign against the island.

He called out recent comments by U.S. Secretary of State that sanctions would be tightened to close all “escape valves” for Cuba as an open admission of the country’s self-inflicted humanitarian crisis, and an unapologetic threat of extermination against the entire Cuban people for refusing to submit to U.S. dictates. Beyond economic pressure, the U.S. has ramped up military threats, updated its formal regime change doctrine, kept Cuba on a fraudulent list of state sponsors of terrorism, and manufactured baseless accusations of Cuba being a hub of “subversive espionage” to justify additional aggression. Independent UN experts have repeatedly confirmed that the U.S.’s illegal unilateral coercive measures violate Article 2 of the UN Charter and form a core component of decades of regime change efforts, and have called for the UN Security Council and General Assembly to urgently address the threat to international peace and security the measures pose.

Díaz-Canel rejected U.S. claims of moral authority to judge Cuba, noting that Cuba is the most heavily surveilled country in the world by the U.S., and the target of more funding for ideological and economic subversion than any other nation. He condemned the complicity of global actors who remain silent in the face of U.S. aggression, arguing that every act of silence weakens international law, every acceptance of illegitimate U.S. sanctions erodes the principle of national non-intervention, and every corporate retreat under U.S. pressure strengthens a global economic dictatorship dominated by a single superpower. “The world cannot become complicit in another genocide,” he stressed.

Despite the unprecedented pressure, Díaz-Canel stressed that Cuba has not surrendered. The Cuban people have continued to deliver innovative progress: self-developed COVID-19 vaccines, expanded agroecological food production to offset scarcity, growth in renewable energy generation, deep grassroots community participation, and a whole population mobilized to defend the country’s right to self-determination. While the country openly faces severe challenges, including extended blackouts, water scarcity, inflation, and long supply lines, Díaz-Canel said no material scarcity has extinguished the culture of solidarity Fidel Castro cultivated, nor has the country renounced José Martí’s core principle that “homeland is humanity”. He pointed to the recent graduation of more than 30,000 new young professionals from Cuban universities, including 735 students from 62 countries—among them 23 new Palestinian doctors and 5 new American doctors—as proof of Cuba’s ongoing commitment to international solidarity even amid crisis.

Under the leadership of the Communist Party of Cuba, Díaz-Canel said the national response has been one of firm, creative resistance, unity, defense of revolutionary gains, and iterative updating of Cuba’s economic and social model—never abandoning core socialist principles, never yielding to external pressure. He clarified that ongoing economic reforms are not a transition to capitalism: there will be no mass privatization, core means of production will remain under public ownership, and national sovereignty will always be protected as the country builds a prosperous, sustainable socialism that meets the needs of the Cuban people. The Communist Party, he said, remains the supreme leading force of the Cuban state and society, and a vigilant guardian of working class and popular interests, never a party of elites or special interests.
“In a world where global power structures try to convince people there is no alternative to capitalism, our shared task is to prove with concrete action that another path exists: socialism remains the only realistic, humane way out of capitalist barbarism, as scientific Marxism has long taught,” Díaz-Canel said.

Marking the centennial of Fidel Castro’s birth, Díaz-Canel said the revolutionary leader’s legacy remains a guiding light for global left and progressive forces: he taught that dreams are won through unapologetic defense of principle, that internationalism is not a slogan but a core practice, and that socialism is the only path to pull humanity back from the brink of catastrophe. Fidel was the first world leader to denounce neoliberal globalization as an empire of death, he noted, and the first to raise a clear call for a more just world for all. He taught that the fight for climate and environmental protection is a core socialist struggle, that science must serve people not profit, and that revolutionary unity matters more than tactical differences.

Díaz-Canel called on global communist and workers’ parties to turn the momentum of the Havana meeting into coordinated, concrete action rather than just symbolic declarations. He urged parties to break the coordinated media blockade to spread the truth about Cuba, Palestine, and all peoples facing imperial aggression; to mobilize parliaments, unions, and social movements in solidarity with Cuba’s fight to end the blockade; to expand economic and technological cooperation between progressive states and organizations; and to advance theoretical work to adapt Marxist-Leninist principles to 21st century challenges, including the digital revolution and the climate crisis, with the core goal of advancing full human dignity for all.

He also called for collective self-criticism, noting that condemning imperialism is not enough: parties must build popular power from the grassroots, organize in streets, neighborhoods, factories, and schools, and build broad, flexible unity with all progressive sectors. “Unity is not uniformity; unity is the shared will to fight and win together,” he said. Díaz-Canel stressed that in the face of rising imperial aggression and capitalism’s structural crisis, communist parties have a historic vanguard role to play—not just in electoral or institutional politics, but in organizing, politicizing, and mobilizing the working class under the new conditions of 21st century exploitation, shaped by digitalization, automation, and the platform economy.
“Despite the overwhelming military power of the United States, the international communist movement does not back down. It resists, and it stands firm,” he told cheering delegates. “We cannot predict how long this imperial offensive will last. We may face more aggression, more blockades, but we carry the certainty from our own history: the future belongs to those who dream and build, not those who destroy and lie.”

Closing, Díaz-Canel framed the defense of Cuba as a global struggle: defending Cuba means stopping the advance of white supremacist, xenophobic, elitist, exclusionary ideology that is the enemy of true freedom and human emancipation; defending Cuba means fighting 21st century colonialism and opposing the idea that one nation has the right to dictate the destiny of the entire world. He called on delegates to redouble their efforts in the year of Fidel’s centennial, to build a world where solidarity is not just a decorative slogan, but the core driving force of global politics: a world where no child dies of hunger while food is destroyed to prop up prices, where science heals rather than generates profit, and where politics, as Che Guevara taught, is the art of serving others.
The closing address concluded with three resounding cheers: “Always onward to victory, always! Long live Fidel on his Centennial and forever! Long live the unity of the communists! Long live the struggle of our peoples!”

As Cuba prepares to mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of its iconic revolutionary leader Fidel Castro, the island nation’s capital is set to welcome global participants for the opening of the inaugural international colloquium titled *Fidel: Legacy and Future* this Monday at the Havana Convention Center. Organized by the Fidel Castro Ruz Center in partnership with leading Cuban academic and cultural institutions, the four-day gathering will run through August 13, bringing together a diverse cross-section of global stakeholders to examine the lasting impact of Castro’s life work and ideological framework.

Attendees will include historians, social science researchers, university academics, current and former political and social leaders, diplomatic representatives, international journalists, university students, and longstanding allies of Cuba from every region of the world. Over the course of the event, participants will engage in structured discussions focused on unpacking the enduring relevance of Castro’s legacy, and exploring how his core ideas can be applied to the most pressing social, political and economic challenges facing the world today and in the years ahead.

The event’s full programming covers a wide range of structured engagements beyond plenary discussions. A dedicated convening of Fidel Castro Ruz Chairs will bring together leading scholars who hold academic positions focused on Castro’s work, while a standalone symposium will examine the broader historical legacy of the Cuban Revolution. Targeted sectoral forums have also been organized to center the perspectives of youth, women, parliamentary representatives, artists, intellectuals, and global social movements that advocate for human-centered progress.

Key thematic topics on the colloquium’s agenda span multiple dimensions of Castro’s ideological contributions. Sessions will dive into his political, social, internationalist, and humanistic thought; trace his far-reaching influence on 20th and 21st century global geopolitics, national liberation movements, and the development of collective identity across the Global South; and assess how his ideas remain a critical framework for confronting modern challenges including imperial aggression, systemic global inequality, accelerating climate change, and the ongoing fight to defend global peace and national sovereignty for all nations.

Unlike traditional historical conferences that focus solely on retrospective analysis, this inaugural colloquium is designed to create a deliberate dialogue between Castro’s century-old ideas and 21st century global struggles. Organizers emphasize that the event’s core goal is to preserve Castro’s thinking as a living, actionable reference point for contemporary movements advancing social justice, national self-determination, international solidarity, and universal peace through open cross-border exchange.

HAVANA, Aug. 10 – A high-level delegation from the Communist Party of China (CPC), led by Liu Haixing, head of the CPC Central Committee’s International Department, has arrived in Havana to take part in a landmark international colloquium honoring the legacy of Cuban revolutionary icon Fidel Castro Ruz. The visiting delegation was formally received Sunday at the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) Central Committee headquarters by Dr. Roberto Morales Ojeda, a member of the PCC Political Bureau and Secretary of Organization of the PCC Central Committee.

During the opening meeting, Morales Ojeda extended a cordial, warm welcome to Liu and the entire Chinese delegation, passing along sincere well-wishes and warm regards from Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, First Secretary of the PCC Central Committee and President of the Republic of Cuba, to China’s top party leadership and all visiting delegation members. He expressed profound gratitude for the Chinese party’s decision to send a high-level delegation to the First International Colloquium “Fidel: Legacy and Future,” a core event marking 100 years since the birth of the historic Commander-in-Chief of the Cuban Revolution.

Morales Ojeda went on to underscore that relations between the two communist parties are currently in an excellent state, with both sides deeply committed to advancing deeper political coordination and expanding bilateral economic and commercial cooperation through the solid foundation of inter-party ties. He also drew attention to two landmark anniversaries for the CPC – the 105th founding anniversary of the Party and the 90th anniversary of the Long March – noting that the historical significance of these events extends far beyond China’s borders, carrying profound meaning for Cuba and all nations working to build socialism and a more just global order.

The PCC leader also framed the visit against a challenging backdrop for Cuba, pointing to the ongoing intensification of the U.S. economic, commercial and financial blockade, new unilateral sanctions targeting Cuban state entities, institutions and organizational leaders, and persistent energy sector difficulties that have strained the country’s development efforts. In this context, Morales Ojeda reaffirmed Cuba’s deep gratitude for the consistent support extended by China to the Cuban people, government and PCC, and stressed that Cuban party and state leadership remains determined to overcome these challenges with the solidarity and friendship of sister nations like China.

For his part, Liu Haixing thanked the PCC for the warm invitation, expressing sincere satisfaction with his first visit to the Cuban island. The CPC delegation head conveyed warm greetings and sincere best wishes from China’s party leadership to the Cuban side, and thanked Díaz-Canel for his message of greeting to the Chinese delegation.

The meeting served as a clear reaffirmation of the strong, special relationship between the two communist parties, and their shared commitment to advancing the full implementation of agreements reached between top leaders of the two nations, Díaz-Canel and Chinese President Xi Jinping. The PCC also reiterated its longstanding, unwavering commitment to the One China principle, and firm opposition to all forms of external interference in China’s internal affairs.

Prior to the formal reception at PCC headquarters, the Chinese delegation held a working meeting with Emilio Lozada García, head of the International Relations Department of the PCC Central Committee, as part of its official program in Cuba. The reception was also attended by other members of the PCC Central Committee Secretariat, heads of central party departments and offices, and diplomatic and party officials from both nations.