The joint attack that the US and Israel launched on Iran on February 28th went by with a month of warfare and two months of “neither war, nor peace”. For the last month or so, it has been stuck in a total purgatory condition. Everyone knows, other than the poorer sections of the American population, that Iran has won this war politically. The US and Israel lost. The murderous machine that is called Israel is doing everything it can to take the pain of defeat out on the people of Lebanon. But the foreign intelligence service of Israel, aka Mossad, has committed a second prediction mistake of scandalous proportions within three years, and without having answered for the first (the first, of course, was its oblivion on October 7th, 2023 towards the operation which the Palestinians have dubbed the al-Aqsa Flood). And therefore, the US-Israeli alliance is returning from Iran with its tail between its legs. Mossad had claimed that once the attack had begun, the people were going to rise up, and the Islamic Republic was going to collapse. However, the Islamic Republic survived, despite having lost many of its leaders (first and foremost, the former Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei). Further, as we had mentioned during the 12-Day War in June 2025 in Turkish, the forces of opposition contributed to the formation of a front of homeland defense, rather than rising up.
But just as Iran is fending off danger, our gaze now turns toward the Western hemisphere, to the workers’ state of Cuba, in the Caribbean Sea, only 150 kilometers away from the US soil of Florida, and the source of inspiration for peoples of the world. It is not clear what route the US will take to destroy Cuba - a few different methods still remain as possibilities. What concessions the Cuban bureaucracy will give to the US are also a matter of much debate. We will consider the last set of economic measures in an article dedicated to this matter. But it does look pretty clear that the US will attack the island, and attempt to destroy the workers’ state either through war or from within, with more devious methods.
They “will make a brief stopover in Cuba on their way back”
In early June, Trump claimed that the US military would “make a brief stopover” in Cuba on their way back from Iran. The regime had, according to Trump, “sort of collapsed” already. They would finish it easily, he said.
Trump and his men know all too well that Cuba is not an easy target. That is why the US, right after kidnapping the Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and establishing control over the country through the line of collaboration of the Vice-President Delcy Rodriguez, escalated the intensity of their decades-long embargo on Cuba to the level of a total siege and thus ended Cuba’s import of petroleum, induced an energy crisis, and practically made the regular flow of life impossible on the island. But they did not stop at that either. They have also been attempting to take over the country through various negotiations ever since.
First, the Trump Presidency ran negotiations with the grandson of Raúl Castro - nicknamed “Raulito” -, i.e., with the grandson of Fidel Castro’s brother, a commander of the revolution in his own right, and the man who took over the Presidency after Fidel’s retirement in 2008. But apparently, these negotiations proved insufficient for the US to reach its goals. So they initiated talks with the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister of Commerce and Foreign Capital, Oscar Pérez-Olivia. The goal of these talks, according to some claims, were to “open up the Cuban government to a market economy through reforms” and end the monopoly of the Communist Party of Cuba on politics.
The negotiations escalated to a different level in May: The CIA Chair John Ratcliffe went to the Cuban capital, Havana, on May 14th. The news sources announced that among Ratcliffe’s entourage was an expert on irregular war, who had taken part in the Venezuelan President Maduro’s kidnapping. It was clear that this meant a thinly veiled threat against Cuba. Just around the same time, a rumor circulated that Cuba had bought 300 combat drones. The claim was that Cuba was planning an attack on the US base Guantánamo on the island of Cuba, the Key West facilities in Florida, and also the entire state of Florida. Additionally, it was claimed that Iranian military consultants were in Havana. Finally, it was claimed that Russia and China were gathering sensitive intelligence from the US through the “signal intelligence” (or “Sigint” for short) facilities they had established in Cuba.
Finally, a US prosecutor filed a claim on May 20th about the former Cuban president Raúl Castro, who, despite his age (95) and retirement, still holds influence on the maneuvers of the government. According to this claim, a long time ago in 1995, Raúl Castro (then the Minister of Defense), after multiple warnings, had ordered the shooting of two airplanes that were hovering above Cuba in a way that made it possible for them to spy on the island. The similarity of this legal step with the situation of Maduro, who is still being tried in a simple court in New York, is of course uncanny.
The first possibility that comes to mind when Raúl Castro with such a claim is that the US is planning to kidnap him and put him on trial like a common criminal in its own courts, just like what they are doing to Maduro. But from another angle, the US might also be pursuing the tactic of pressuring Raúl Castro, whom they are in direct contact with primarily through his grandson, personally, and thus forcing him to consent to concessions.
Do not stay silent, for it will be you next!
The reaction of the world state system towards the US’s strangling operation has been a stronger wake-up call than all sorts of theoretical arguments against those who are wasting time on babble like the “democratic” governments or “multipolarity”. The world system has remained completely silent against the US’s policy against Cuba, which can easily enter the gallery of shamelessness of the cruel policies of the big states against the smaller, the stronger states against the relatively weaker.
First and foremost, we should emphasise the fact that Russia and China as capitalist states are silently watching these measures geared towards the destruction of the Cuban workers’ state. Yes, it is true, Russia sent a tanker-full shipment of petroleum to Cuba in March, that is, two months into the oil embargo. But in the intervening months, it hasn’t lifted a finger. China, on the other hand, did not even take a single initiative. These two strong states just observe the US consciously and step by step create a situation where the Cuban people take action against the workers’ state. Trump is reciprocating this with a policy that is really troubling for the liberals: by giving Russia a much freer hand in Ukraine than the US Democratic Party would do, and giving some concessions towards China about Taiwan. We suggest that those groups who line up behind China, thinking that they are still constructing socialism, should think about the possibility of a huge regret in the future, based on this example.
Within the socialist movement, other than those who place their hopes in a China- and Russia-based “multipolarity” (or “Eurasianism” as its main current in Turkey and Russia) or more broadly on BRICS, there are also those who wish to hold on to the more “democratic” wing of social democracy. These periodically find a few leaders of their liking within the imperialist camp, and repeat their name from dusk till dawn. This becomes an excuse for them, as socialists, not to take any steps towards the independent policy of the working class. This social democratic hero can be the already-obscure former female Prime Minister of Finland, who was praised so highly for establishing a government with three other female party leaders; or the former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who had attempted to mask Canada’s imperialist mining loot by appointing half of his government from among women; or New Zealand’s former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who represented a slightly more humane face than other Anglo-Saxon countries’ (the USA, Great Britain, Canada, Australia) governments; or finally, today, the Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sànchez, who is actively opposing the US’s Iran policy. (Mind you, it is no accident that all these men and women are attractive. These are also well-packaged advertisement faces.) Today, none of these social democrats take an opposing stance against the US’s plan to strangle Cuba other than a few statements and gatherings.
The last resort for those who avoid the effort of constructing a true socialism based on working class independence is to bank on the “progressive” governments in the “Third World” or the “Global South” - that is, in countries under the domination of imperialism. Today, as the Trump-copycat politicians (Milei in Argentina, Bukele in El Salvador, Kast in Chile, and now Espriella in Colombia, etc.) are rapidly spreading across Latin America, these so-called “progressives”, now in a numeric minority, do not say a word about Trump’s Cuba policy, save for a few grumbles. This is especially true for the Brazilian President Lula - that falsest hero of Latin American history - and the so-called leftist Mexican President Scheinbaum. These two countries are the giants of Latin America. The fact that the US had put Brazil at the helm of establishing a “peace corps” when a reactionary regime it set up in Latin America (for example in Haiti) needed military protection is a sign of Brazil’s prowess. But when it comes to progressive causes, Brazil goes radio-silent, including in Lula’s term. And so it was about Cuba also. Only Gustavo Petro, the President of Colombia and former guerrilla, raised his voice, but did not dare to go further, since the Left is weak even in his own country.
Whoever is placing their hopes in the interstate system of the United Nations for changing Cuba’s fate, they will be of no use either to Cuba or to themselves.
Socialists of all countries, unite for Cuba!
There are only two countries left in the world that can be called “workers’ states”, however bureaucratically degenerated: North Korea and Cuba. North Korea, which has turned “socialism in one country” into “socialism in one dynasty”, and remains a puzzle for the rest of the world, is a matter of another discussion. Cuba, on the other hand, provides the last remnants of hope that 20th-century socialism gave to billions of people for the proletarian forces and the large oppressed masses fighting for socialism around the world. It is obvious that a privileged Cuban bureaucracy has been making strides to restore capitalism for a long time, and that this bureaucracy is taking new steps in this direction in the disastrous conditions that the US is creating. But this process is not complete. It is mandatory to use this last chance to preserve the workers’ state in Cuba.
Being content with encouraging the bourgeois regimes or governments of this or that character would amount to wasting this last opportunity. The only thing to do is to unite socialists of all countries, who might differ on anything else, but could unite around protecting the workers’ state, and thus organize a defense against Trump’s attack on Cuba. It seems inevitable that this effort will reach its peak in establishing “International Brigades”, just like in the Spanish Civil War, whose 90th anniversary we are observing this year. Therefore, we had already touched upon this side of the matter in the very first article we wrote on the situation, and we called for an “International Che Guevara Brigades”. But that is not the starting point. The starting point is to organize a huge campaign to protect the workers’ state in Cuba.
Unity around Palestine is the contemporary symbol of standing up for the oppressed nations. Standing up for Cuba is the symbol for standing up for the proletarian cause, for socialism, for communism. The spokespeople of the Revolutionary Workers Party (DIP) in Turkey always say that Palestine is a “watchword”. Cuba also should become the “watchword” of socialism at the beginning of the second quarter of the 21st century.
The victory of these two peoples against imperialism (and in the case of Palestine, against Zionism also) will pave the path towards the world working class and oppressed peoples to rise again.
June 25, 2026