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The article below was first published on July 28, 2026, on the website of cubaperiodistas.cu. The author, Enrique Ubieta Gómez, is the editor of Cuba Socialista, the theoretical magazine of the Communist Party of Cuba.

Ubieta Gómez discusses the current economic and social crisis in Cuba, the recent measures the Cuban government adopted in an attempt to confront this dire situation, and the international conjuncture.

We publish this article for the information of our readers. The headline, subhead, and text that follow are from the original. Translation from the Spanish-language original, breakers, photos, and notes are by World-Outlook.

Due to its length, we are publishing the article in two parts, the second of which follows.

— World-Outlook editors.

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(This is the second of two parts. The first can be found in Part I.)

Cuba at the Crossroads of the ‘New Trumpist/Fascist Order’.

Dialogue as a media operation.

July 28, 2026.

By Enrique Ubieta Gómez.

The economic and social crisis that Cuba is going through cannot be understood without the international context.

International context in summary

Ever since the abrupt collapse or “implosion” of the so-called socialist camp, forces on the left have been adrift.

I am not referring to those who renounced their beliefs and felt ashamed of having ever fought for the dispossessed, as if with the fall of the Soviet Union and the publication of their defects (no one talked about their successes), poverty and the exploitation of men by other men and of nations by other nations had disappeared.

Cuba was the exception in the Western Hemisphere. “It is not that we are the only progressive, democratic, and revolutionary country,” Fidel said in 1992, “it is that we are the only country converted into a tiny island of Revolution in a practically unipolar world, a few miles from hegemonic imperialism, and surrounded by capitalism on all sides; a tiny island of Revolution between the Atlantic and the Pacific.”

I am talking about those who continue to hold the ideal of social justice. The unipolarity of the 1990s led Fidel to the conviction that armed struggle was no longer possible as the way to seize power.

Medical internationalism (reduced in later years to the semantic symbolism of the word  “cooperation,” more in line with the language of the United Nations) revitalized by Fidel in Central America and Haiti shortly before Chávez’s electoral triumph as a way of building socialist ideology internally as well, with deeds, not words, was part of the new strategy. “An army of white coats,” he called it.^[1]

Chávez’s sudden entry in Venezuela by the ballot box opened a new path and a new hope.

Bourgeois democracy, finely woven to keep the initially revolutionary bourgeoisie in power and to prevent the arrival of anti-system groups (reactionaries and new revolutionaries), showed great wear and tear and many unknown factors, and popular will began to avenge years of neoliberalism at the ballot box. That democracy became useless to the class that had created it.

Little by little, a progressive continental front (Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Argentina, Brazil, El Salvador, Uruguay, Paraguay, Honduras, plus some Caribbean islands) emerged, characterized above all by its greater or lesser opposition to U.S. imperialism and by its Latin Americanism.

For a moment anything seemed possible: the near death of the OAS and the birth of CELAC^[2] without the presence of the United States and Canada.

I have always held the idea that every link that is broken or cracked in the chain that keeps us subservient to imperialism, even when the blow comes from a nationalist bourgeoisie (which will not cease to be exploitative domestically), is a step towards breaking with the international order that sustains capitalism in its current phase.

Cuba, of course, had made a much deeper Revolution, but the new formula was immediately adopted, not only by the Latin American left, but also by the European left.

A contradictory situation then emerged: imperialism (not just the U.S.) and its subjects began to disengage from a bourgeois democracy that was no longer functional, while accusing the progressive states of having broken with it. If that democracy failed to remove the intruding left from government in four or five years, as expected, then it obviously did not work.

Left defends functioning of bourgeois democracy

Conversely, the left then began to defend the functioning of bourgeois democracy (without mentioning the adjective, as if it were the only form of democracy possible) and did not go beyond this narrow framework during those years.

From time to time, [the left] subjected itself to bourgeois elections, where bourgeois/imperialist money naturally flowed in favor of the sell-out opposition. Despite this, these leftist movements won election after election (although never recognized by imperialism, naturally), but they increasingly wore themselves out in the vicious cycle of economic and media wars.

The Venezuelan Revolution was the most radical in its transformations, with the double impact of social missions and the organization of popular communes. The alliance of Chávez and Fidel raised the focus on internationalism to higher levels, with Operation Miracle, and the formation of the ALBA-TPC.^[3]

Disregarding the very norms that it demanded, imperialism organized assassinations; fraud; judicial, media and military coups; economic wars; the demonization of states and of key figures of progressivism; and, when possible, their legal prosecution.

In Cuba we were attentive to every bourgeois electoral triumph or defeat of progressive candidates, and Cuban national television jubilantly declared a “victory of democracy” when one of them was re-elected, as if that were actually democracy.

The revolutionary parties, immersed in the electoral arena, stopped searching for another type of truly popular democracy and rejected, at least in practice, the possibility of defeating and overcoming the capitalist system. In many cases, the progressive policies of these governments were welfare-oriented; others applied almost the same neoliberal measures they had fought.

While imperialism injected into social consciousness the idea that a good government depended solely on “a good person,” and made all politicians equal, on the left and on the right, defining them as corrupt or not, the candidates of the “new” left used the same mechanisms of electoral presentation as the old right, and their proposals were not far from those of their adversaries. Some, fearful and obedient, respected the limits of “political correctness,” and tried to distance themselves from their bolder or vilified counterparts, such as Chávez or Fidel, but despite that, they were accused of being Chavistas or Fidelistas. We, however, were accused of not being like them.

Capitalism emptied the discourse of the left of its revolutionary content, its slogans and banners, and gave it a different meaning.… And the people stopped believing in politicians, in politics, and in parties of any color.

It is said that the rise of fascist sentiments and apathy toward elections reflect the people’s lack of belief in democracy. It is true, but only if we use the adjective bourgeois. The people have rightly ceased to believe in that democracy. They must know that another democracy exists, that of the people, and that we must fight for it.

Effect of the pandemic

Meanwhile, a pandemic occurred that affected both rich and poor countries, and that demonstrated the failure of capitalism, even in the most economically developed countries. The system faltered, and the big magnates, left naked, were horrified by the public exposure and possible consequences.

Cuba sent medical brigades to more than 40 countries — including in Europe, such as Italy and Andorra — and created three very effective vaccine candidates that were blocked by the big pharmaceutical transnationals.^[4]

However, nothing happened; that is, nothing was done by the left. Immersed in the democratic mechanisms of the bourgeoisie, it had internalized the impossibility of defeating it. For a moment, it seemed possible that a new, more just world would emerge from that disaster. But faced with the paralysis of the revolutionary left, the right returned by adjusting its mechanisms of control, and further restricting workers’ rights.

The economic war between the great powers was intensifying. China emerged as a powerful alternative center capable of disputing global hegemony with the United States. Even during the pandemic, it was the only economy that grew steadily.

In 2010, an economic and trade association was formally constituted as an alternative to the G-7, comprising emerging economies with enormous potential: the BRICS (the initials of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, plus another group of countries that have joined since). This association began to use their respective national currencies in their trade transactions, dispensing with the U.S. dollar. The hegemony of Western imperialism was seriously threatened.

The Covid-19 pandemic that emerged in 2020 lasted until 2023. By its final months, imperialism, led by the United States, began a counteroffensive.

The fire of war spread rapidly: in Ukraine, with the unachieved purpose of weakening Russia (2022), encouraged and sponsored by NATO; in Gaza (2023), where the Zionist government of Israel perpetrates genocide against its civilian population with impunity, and with European and American support, claiming the lives of more than 73,000 human beings, including incursions into Lebanon and Syria; and most recently in Iran (2026), by joint Israeli and U.S. forces.

But the return of the convict Donald Trump to the U.S. presidency in 2025 marked a turning point in international political relations. While bourgeois democracy has been on its deathbed for decades, the arrival of Trump dealt the final blow to the old international order established by the triumphant powers of World War II.

Imperialism has understood that it can only sustain its hegemony through brute force, blackmail, and extortion, methods that are not new, but that today are applied without disguise or convenient excuses. The United States has declared that it will no longer be subject to the United Nations’ rules of coexistence, and that it will assert its imperial interests at all costs.

Carney’s response

Canadian prime minister Mark J. Carney was brutally honest and cynical in describing the situation created:

“For decades, countries like Canada prospered under what we call the rules-based international order.… We knew the story of the rules-based international order was partially false, that the strongest would exempt themselves when convenient, that trade rules were enforced asymmetrically. And we knew that international law applied with varying rigor depending on the identity of the accused or the victim.

“This fiction was useful, and American hegemony, in particular, helped provide public goods, open sea lanes, a stable financial system, collective security, and support for frameworks for resolving disputes.”

And he decreed:

“The strong can do what they can, and the weak must suffer what they must. And this aphorism of Thucydides^[5] is presented as inevitable, as the natural logic of international relations reasserting itself.”

Apparently, the more just New Order that we, the countries of the South, asked for has been definitively replaced by the absence of any order. Countries are getting to the shameful point of “behaving well.”

The peoples are demanding profound change, but they have no horizon to cling to, and they do not trust the politicians and parties that think only of survival.

Fascism, on the other hand, proposes “profound” changes in the worst sense, and attracts a desperate layer of the population.

But Carney himself warns: “Faced with this logic, there is a strong tendency for countries to go along to get along, to accommodate, to avoid trouble, to hope that compliance will buy safety. Well, it won’t.”

If Europe is lying prostrate, what can we say about the Latin American countries where announced fraud and economic pressure have imposed puppet rulers?

On the other hand, the BRICS — which need the anti-imperialist movement as an ally, not out of ideological conviction but because it is an important tool of pressure — have not shown themselves to be united. The absence of a common ideology or an attitude that is not limited to the immediate benefit of each individual member has produced costly inconsistencies within that bloc and may end up frustrating its ability to impose a multilateral order.

Cuba is an island more than ever (a tiny little island, as Fidel said in 1992). It has received significant support from China and Vietnam, as well as from Russia, but it will have to fend for itself.

On January 3, 2026, Latin America’s resistance was shattered in Caracas. Thirty-two Cubans gave their lives for the Bolivarian and Latin American Revolution, but above all for Cuba.^[6] We will not betray those heroic fighters.

Imperialism continues to advance, and the world seems to be going backwards, lowering its head, staying silent. It is building an international fascist Falange, supposedly to combat left-wing terrorism. It has positioned Cuba as the capital of world communism, describing it as terrorist.^[7]

There won’t be much time for reforms nor many candidates to pursue them. While armed struggle was no longer the way, as Fidel noted, it is possible that imperialism will force us to take it up again. The history of Cuba summons us, demands this from us. In the Centennial of Fidel,^[8] his cry resonates louder than ever: Socialism or Death! Because death is not always a defeat — sometimes it is the only way to win.

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(This was the second of two parts. The first can be found in Part I.)

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NOTES

[1] For more information on Barrio Adentro (Inside the Barrio), the name of Cuba’s internationalist medical missions in Venezuela, see Cuban doctors in Venezuela operate free neighborhood clinics and Competent neighborhood clinics operated by Cuban doctors spread across Venezuela, first published in the November 3, 2003, and May 11, 2004, issues of the Militant newsweekly, respectively.

[2] OAS is the acronym of the Organization of American States. The OAS was founded on April 30, 1948, in Bogotá, Colombia, but it is headquartered in Washington, D.C. It was created on the U.S. government’s initiative as an alliance allegedly to defend bourgeois democracy. But it has not shied away from welcoming many dictatorships as member states. At the same time, the OAS expelled Cuba after that country’s 1959 revolution.

CELAC is the Spanish-language acronym of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States. CELAC is a regional bloc created on December 3, 2011, in Caracas, Venezuela. It comprises 33 member nations representing roughly 650 million people in Central and South America and the Caribbean, serving as a political dialogue forum distinct from the OAS because it excludes the United States and Canada.

[3] For more information on Venezuela’s “Bolivarian Revolution” see Venezuela’s Elections: Fraud Foretold?

Operation Miracle (Misión Milagro in Spanish) was a joint international humanitarian healthcare program launched in July 2004 by the governments of Cuba (led by Fidel Castro) and Venezuela (led by Hugo Chávez) to provide free eye surgeries and medical treatment for people suffering from preventable blindness or other visual impairments such as cataracts.

ALBA-TPC is the Spanish-language acronym of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America – Peoples’ Trade Treaty. It is a political and economic bloc founded in 2004 by Venezuela and Cuba to promote social, political, and economic integration in Latin America and the Caribbean, focused on social welfare and mutual aid rather than “free market” capitalism. The 10 current full member nations are Antigua and Barbuda, Bolivia, Cuba, Dominica, Grenada, Nicaragua, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Venezuela.

[4] For more information see Cuba Sets Example in Confronting Pandemic.

[5] Thucydides (c. 460 – c. 400 BC) was an ancient Greek historian and military commander. He wrote the History of the Peloponnesian War, which describes the bitter 5th-century BC struggle between the Greek city states of Athens and Sparta. He is famous for rejecting myths and divine intervention, earning him the title “father of scientific history.”

[6] The 32 Cubans is a reference to the Cuban combatants killed during the January 3, 2026, U.S. assault on Venezuela. They died attempting to protect Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and his wife Celia Flores.

[7] For more information see Rubio’s Anti-Cuba Diatribe: A McCarthyite Assault on Democratic Rights.

[8] August 13, 2026, marked the centennial of Fidel Castro’s birth.

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