Address by President Miguel Díaz-Canel to the Extraordinary Plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba, Havana, June 2026. 

Translated for Red Spark by Azdak Tierra.

Comrades, members of the Party Central Committee, guests, compatriots.

This extraordinary plenum meets in days that are decisive for Cuba. As proud heirs to the legacy of the Commander-in-Chief [Fidel Castro—RS], we Cuban revolutionaries today face challenges of enormous magnitude that demand unity, ideological firmness, courage, audacity, and creative resistance. We have the guidance of our historic leader—a distinguished member of the vanguard of the Centenary Generation and a vigilant guardian of the continuity of the socialist revolution, which he decisively helped to build from its foundations to the present day. I refer to Army General Raúl Castro Ruz, Hero of the Republic of Cuba, who has taught us every day the sacred value of unity.

The context is extraordinarily complex and challenging because of the relentless aggressiveness of the intensified economic, commercial, and financial blockade imposed by the United States government, and the criminal purpose of the current administration’s hostile actions. First among these is Cuba’s inclusion on the spurious, infamous list of countries that supposedly sponsor terrorism, along with other equally false accusations that seek to discredit the authority and management of the government while depriving the country of any source of foreign-currency income. This is a blockade made harsher by the executive orders of January 29, 2026, and May 1, which underpin the genocidal energy siege and, through secondary sanctions, internationalise the blockade and the financial, energy, and investment persecution to the extremes of maximum pressure.

In parallel, political and ideological subversion is being intensified through media poisoning on social networks to damage the credibility of the revolution among Cubans and foreigners alike, encouraging social disorientation in a national and international scenario shaken by profound transformations in the socioeconomic structure and in world geopolitics—a consequence of the unlimited powers of a hegemonic imperial policy that seeks to tear multilateralism to shreds, feeds neo-fascist currents, and sharpens global tensions, constantly threatening international peace and security and attempting to break the indispensable unity of the forces of the left.

The silent genocide being waged against Cuba causes immeasurable harm and terrible constraints in the daily life of us as a people, while its perpetrators lie shamelessly to the world, denying the energy siege and claiming that we prohibit the entry of million-dollar donations—donations they announce loudly and of which they have delivered barely a fraction of what was promised. Cuba resists heroically and creatively, but it has for far too long endured a barbaric, undeserved, unbearable punishment, to which the threat of military aggression is now added as a new weapon against our collective resistance.

Cuba faces a cruel blockade and a real, daily financial persecution that drives up the price of every drop of fuel, every medicine, every food item, every part, and every technology the country needs. Reality imposes urgent and necessary changes on us. And when the life of the people becomes this hard, the first duty of the Communist Party and of the revolutionary government is not to explain the crisis better, but to change whatever must be changed in order to get out of it.

What is required is a deep and agile economic agenda, executable in the short term, that combines macroeconomic stabilisation, incentives to stimulate and promote production, legal security, the attraction of investment, the intensive use of technology, and focused, effective social protection.

Let us recall that, at the close of the 11th Plenum, we stated that the postponement of the Congress did not limit the possibility of making the changes, modifications, and moves that are necessary, when these concern agreements adopted by the Party congresses. To this end, intensive work has been carried out on the basis of the valuable report and debate of the Congress of the ANEC (National Association of Economists and Accountants of Cuba); the popular consultation on the economic and social program for 2026; the criteria of economists and experts; the debates and contributions of the Economic Commission of the Party Central Committee; the guidelines of economic and social policy approved and updated at the 6th, 7th, and 8th Party Congresses; the proposals of the 11th Plenum of the Central Committee; and the work carried out by the commissions that have been preparing the documents for the postponed 9th Party Congress—postponed for known reasons—regarding the updating of the conceptualisation of the economic and social model, the guidelines, and the National Plan for Economic and Social Development through 2030. A study has also been made of the experiences of socialist construction in other countries, such as China and Vietnam, and we have likewise turned to artificial intelligence to deepen the search for references and to evaluate the proposals in relation to our existing laws and regulations.

What is at stake is confronting the enormous challenge of continuing to advance in the process of socialist construction, of defending the revolution and its gains, and of perfecting our society under the conditions of the cruellest, most genocidal, and most prolonged economic, financial, energy, and commercial blockade ever exercised by the most powerful nation in the world. And to overcome that, the legacy we hold is that of our Commander-in-Chief, Fidel Castro Ruz.

No one in the history of humanity has faced the challenge of building socialism under the conditions in which this country, this nation, and this people must do so today. That challenge, without doubt, we will overcome—with unity, with courage, with popular participation, and with full conviction in our capacity to achieve victory.

Without wealth, there is no social justice

The transformations we are presenting are meant to advance the defence of socialism, to support and broaden social justice, to create economic wealth, and to distribute it with equity. If there is no wealth, there is nothing to distribute; we would be speaking of social justice in the abstract. Social justice, as the revolution has conceived it—with its humanist vocation—helping those who are most disadvantaged, generally through welfare-based, free-of-charge programs and projects, does not cost individuals, but it costs the state. And to do it, to deepen it, to sustain and maintain it, the state needs wealth, and that wealth we ourselves have to produce. If there is no wealth, there is no social justice. Either we produce under these conditions, create wealth, and then distribute with social justice, with equity—not with egalitarianism. That is the challenge. That is the challenge.

The principles of the reform

We need to unleash the productive forces, so that there is more production instead of more restriction, because it is proven that control without supply merely displaces operations into the informal market.

We need equality and the integration of the economic actors in service of the National Plan for Economic and Social Development 2030 and of the territorial and local development strategies—on the part of the state enterprise, the MSMEs [Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises], the cooperatives, the agricultural producers, and foreign and Cuban investors, whether resident or non-resident. All must act and contribute, under clear rules, to the country’s socioeconomic development.

We must export and produce in order to capture and bring in hard currency, and to make productive use of it. Every unit of hard currency that comes in must have channels to finance production, imports, investment, wages, and infrastructure.

Legal security must be guaranteed—contracts, usufructs, leases, concessions, [land use] surface rights, and licenses with temporal stability and protection against arbitrary changes. If there is no legal security, no one invests, no one takes risks.

We must drive digitisation forward—with traceability, electronic invoicing, digital payments, public registries, and interoperable data—as a basis for reducing evasion, corruption, and arbitrariness.

Social protection must be prioritised, replacing inefficient generalised subsidies with direct support to vulnerable people, always watchful that each action does not increase social inequalities.

We must act with a selective and intelligent opening, attracting technology, finance, markets, and external knowledge, while protecting strategic sectors through regulation, not through immobility.

Gradualness and experimentation are necessary—reforming in phases and through verifiable pilots, preserving state direction and correcting course with evidence, in order to manage and minimise the possible economic and social costs.

Also indispensable are political unity, to guarantee the consistency and credibility of the measures; clear and precise communication of the decisions to be applied, in order to win support for the transformations; and the adoption of compensatory mechanisms to mitigate economic and social impacts. We must work with agility, with coherence and quality, and above all with control—so that what is approved actually gets implemented.

In this scenario, it is necessary to advance on at least five fronts simultaneously: macroeconomic stabilisation and the recovery of external income; the transformation of the economic and social model; the stimulation and recovery of the agricultural productive sector; the strengthening of accounting and cost management; and the anticipation and mitigation of the social costs associated with the necessary transformations of the economic and social model. And these five aspects are very well developed in the report that the ANEC presented at its last congress.

The Commander-in-Chief taught us that, in times of crisis, we could renounce neither development nor critical thought; that no obstacle is insurmountable, and that there is always an opportunity to grow. And along that road, the Army General [Raúl Castro—RS] showed us that yes, it can be done; yes, it was done; and it always will be possible.

What depends on us

The Cuban people know the causes of many of the difficulties we live through, but they also need concrete answers, timely decisions, and results that are felt in daily life. There are obstacles that do not come from outside, nor from blockades. There is sluggishness, bureaucracy, norms that hold back those who want to produce, and decisions we have postponed. What depends on us, we ourselves must change—and we must change it now. To resistance we owe the homeland, but today resistance on its own is not enough. This time demands that we transform, produce more, unblock, listen more, decide better, and render accounts.

An emergency agenda, with named responsibility

What we intend to set in motion is an emergency economic and social agenda—with measures that form part of our government program and of policies approved by the Party, together with decisions that can no longer wait. Some will not command absolute consensus, but they cannot be postponed; and every one of them will have a person responsible, by name and surname, a defined deadline, an indicator to measure its fulfilment, and a public rendering of accounts before the country. What works will be expanded; what does not work will be corrected without delay. Whoever holds a responsibility will have to render accounts for it, and when someone cannot deliver what this moment demands, they must make way—responsibly—for whoever can do it better. We will face this process as the challenge of the generations that today share the defence of the homeland, the revolution, and socialism.

Planning, the state, and the enterprise

Regarding the system of economic management, I want to stress that the most important point is this: if we adopt these transformations, central planning will not have the function of administering the economy, but of creating an institutional and regulatory environment suitable for enterprises and workers to be stimulated to produce goods and provide services of quality and efficiency, and to introduce innovations into their management to those ends. And we must definitely ensure that the plan is built from below, with the participation of the workers.

We will continue the restructuring of the apparatus of government—of the state, the Party, and the institutions. We are going to integrate structures where necessary, review duplicated functions, reduce unnecessary steps, and permanently optimise the way the country is directed and served—structures that are more dynamic, more proactive, and less bureaucratic.

One of the most important and urgent tasks lies in strengthening the development of the country from the base, from the municipalities. It is impossible to defer any longer the unleashing of management at the municipal level, so that they finally hold and apply all possible powers to develop.

No economic change will be sufficient if the socialist state enterprise—which will remain the fundamental pillar of the economy—does not have a genuine capacity to manage, to innovate, and to answer for its results. We will reform the management of the state enterprise on the basis of real autonomy, economic-financial evaluation, the separation of state and business functions, and the application of the “comply or explain” principle, so as to prevent a norm from becoming a brake when a more beneficial and demonstrable solution exists. To that end, we will advance in two directions: more real autonomy for enterprises, and a more professional management of the state’s assets through the National Institute of Enterprise Assets, charged with representing the owner of the means of production, evaluating results, demanding efficiency, and better separating the business function from the regulatory function of the ministries.

Autonomy does not mean the absence of control; it implies a framework of accountability. It means being able to make timely decisions, form better partnerships, to invest more effectively, to offer better pay, and to be held accountable for results. The state enterprise needs to be strengthened, not replaced by administrative mechanisms that immobilise it. For that, the separation between state and business functions must be completed, performance must be evaluated with economic-financial tools, and real autonomy must be granted to manage material, financial, and human resources—with control, transparency, and accountability.

Land and food

There can be no sovereignty with an empty plate. Feeding the Cuban people will be treated for what it is: a matter of national security. The era of idle land in Cuba must come to an end. Every parcel of land overgrown with marabú [an invasive shrub—RS] that should be producing food must have a clear answer; either it is put into production, or it is transferred to those who are willing and able to make it productive. We are going to expand the granting of land in usufruct [legal right to use land for profit without ownership—RS] to those who are willing and able to cultivate it—producers, cooperatives, MSMEs, and associative forms—without ever renouncing national sovereignty, nor retreating toward the dependent country we left behind with the revolution.

We are going to recognise the right of those who work the land to invest in what they need to make it productive. But one principle must be clear: that land will continue to belong to the Cuban people, and if it’s not productive, if it does not serve the country, it does not fulfil its social function, it will have to pass into the hands of whoever can put it into production. And whoever commits to real results may import directly the seed, the fertiliser, the spare part, the equipment they need.

The Cuban farmer cannot continue to be asked to produce more food with fewer tools, while being paid prices below their production costs. They must have working mechanisms of direct access to hard currency—such as selling to exporters, as in the case of tourism, or on the foreign-exchange market. We have to make the land an opportunity and not a burden—so that whoever works it always sees the fruit of their effort, so that whoever produces can live better, and so that whoever invests in the countryside finds security, backing, and a future. Cuba needs its farmers, their labour, and their trust. When the Cuban countryside becomes a path of prosperity for those who work it, the country will be stronger, more just, and more sovereign.

Foreign trade, investment, and the private sector

As for foreign trade, exports, logistics, and value chains, we must authorise direct importing and exporting for state and non-state enterprises that are productive, that export, or that substitute imports—maintaining technical and fiscal requirements but eliminating obligatory intermediation. 

We must carry out a process of debt-for-assets swaps, focused fundamentally on exchanging national assets for debt, without alienating the ownership of those assets in perpetuity; with this mechanism, financing and other benefits can be obtained without losing the right of ownership over the assets. We must also use other mechanisms that can be explored—such as debt-for-nature swaps, debt-for-social-development swaps, the issuance of bonds tied to the Sustainable Development Goals, and others. We will undertake a comprehensive review of the list of activities prohibited to the private sector, guided by one clear principle: wherever possible, prohibition should be replaced with responsible regulation. The country needs to create open legal pathways for these activities, with clear rules and adequate controls. We will also broaden the scope of the permitted business activities of MSMEs and other economic actors, while significantly reducing the bureaucratic burden that many entrepreneurs face today. And we must also speed up the creation of economic associations between state and non-state forms of management.

Foreign investment, too, remains trapped in a web of restrictions that is preventing the growth the country urgently needs. We must not only tell foreign investors where they are allowed to invest; they should also have the freedom to initiate investments in the sectors that interest them and to recruit their own employees directly, without state intermediaries. We must authorise direct foreign investment in the domestic private sector, including MSMEs, under clear rules governing ownership, the repatriation of profits, reinvestment, and resolution of disputes. We must facilitate investment models in a variety of forms involving all economic actors, on behalf of Cubans living in Cuba. And to the Cuban resident abroad who wishes to invest, donate, import technology, open a market, or raise a project in their homeland. We are going to offer a clear, stable, and respectful framework—without their being looked upon with suspicion for wanting to help their families or to contribute to the development of the country that gave them life. To whoever wishes to build with Cuba without seeking to impose anything on it, we say, with our hand on our heart; here is your home, and here the door is open to you. Because at this moment in our nation’s history, Cuba cannot afford to lose a single good Cuban.

Energy: the blackout and the solar transition

The blackout is not merely a problem of megawatts or a shortfall in generation capacity. The blackout is the child who could not study for an exam, the food that is spoiled in a refrigerator, and the elderly person who spends the night sleepless in the heat. It is the hospital working at its limit, the clinic that cannot keep medicine cold, the worker who loses their working day, and the establishment that has to close. That is why energy is not a technical matter; it is a human, economic, and national one.

We are going to accelerate the incorporation of solar energy into the national economy, building on the progress we have already made. To achieve this, we will facilitate the direct entry of foreign companies that supply solar panels, batteries, inverters, and associated solutions, reducing the intermediaries that raise costs for the population and for the country. Tariffs on the import of solar technologies, storage systems, and energy-saving equipment have already been eliminated. Now we will also move to eliminate taxes on their sale and on the services linked to their installation and maintenance. Furthermore, we will create credit and financing mechanisms so that these solutions are accessible not only to a few, but can reach—progressively—households, MSMEs, schools, medical clinics, educational centres, homes for the elderly, and other services essential to the population. And in this, our enterprises and our Cuban technicians, state and private, will be at the centre—installing, maintaining, repairing, integrating, and creating jobs. Cuban enterprises can specialise in the installation, integration, operation, and support of these technologies.

We will promote electric transport linked to renewable sources. Every electric vehicle intended for public transport, private transport, or light freight that demonstrates it operates wholly or mainly on solar energy will be able to benefit from special incentives: exemption from tariffs, elimination of taxes on its sale, and facilities to import chargers, batteries, parts, and associated solutions. We will also promote the installation of solar charging stations throughout the country—with foreign, private, cooperative, and state investment—prioritising urban routes, tourist hubs, productive zones, and essential services. Alongside this, we will establish an expedited route to grant licenses for carriers, electric taxis, or associated mobility services under clear rules, technical inspection, road safety, and transparent prices.

Protecting those who cannot wait

The first priority, before any other, is the people who cannot wait for the economy to improve—because there are hardships that cannot be put on hold.  True social justice cannot rest on artificially controlled prices that later end up turning into scarcity, queues, low wages, and an illegal market. Social justice is built on real foundations: incomes with purchasing power, direct protection for those who need it most, and a national economy capable of producing more. There are no shortcuts.

These are not new ideas; they are decisions the country discussed, debated, and approved years ago. The error was not in proposing them, but in having postponed them—and that stage of postponement has to end. The basic food basket program will be guaranteed to pensioners, to families with chronically ill children, and to the vulnerable. Focused programs will be developed for social transformation in the poorest neighbourhoods. We must give the business sector—state and private—greater prominence and incentive to involve itself in solving prioritised local problems, such as community canteens, sanitation, centres for children without parental care, and others. They will have new, concrete tasks under these decisions: to bring the payment to the pensioner near their home, so they do not have to queue for hours under the sun; to sponsor the community canteens, the homes for the elderly, the day centres for grandparents, and the children’s centres; to create solidarity quotas and cost-price provision for those who truly need it; and to digitalise it all, so that it is known who contributes, who receives, and what result it yields.

For years, we operated under a system of contained wages, regulated prices, and a state that subsidised an enormous part of the country’s economic life. That formula had its reason, its context, its results, and its moment—but today it no longer responds to the complex realities we face. The prices a family faces have diverged too far from what a worker or a pensioner earns, and we cannot go on acting as though that gap did not exist. We are also going to open new channels for safe access to medicines.

Prices, taxes, and the fiscal deficit

As for fiscal, tax, monetary, and financial-consolidation policy, let me state that the principal objective for reducing the fiscal deficit lies in increasing production—which is the base of tax revenue—and in decreasing unnecessary budget expenditures. That is why we are also going to correct a policy that did not yield the expected results; price caps, in practice, did not manage to contain inflation. They often provoked the disappearance of products, diversion into illegality, higher prices, lower tax collection, and an impossible race between real prices and administrative decisions that always arrived late—or that stayed fixed in ignorance of a changing economic reality, restricting all those who wish to develop their economic activity within the bounds of legality and transparency. That is why we are not going to go on capping prices in a general way, as the Prime Minister explained.

We must correct distortions of the tax system that today raise the cost of productive linkages and end up passing into the final price. We will move toward a creditable value-added tax (VAT), supported progressively by electronic invoicing, in order to avoid cascading fiscal imposition. But these decisions can only be applied together with a more direct, more effective social protection—with the transition from subsidising products to subsidising people, and with the effort to recover the purchasing power of wages and pensions. It is not about leaving anyone alone before the market. It is about protecting better, producing more, regulating intelligently, and ordering with realism.

Modernising banking and finance

We need a financial system that accompanies the economy, that is functional for the different economic actors, that reduces queues, facilitates payments, makes operations transparent, and turns saving, credit, and investment into concrete tools of development. We will profoundly modernise the country’s banking and financial system. For that, Cuba needs banks that are more agile, more digital, closer to the people, and more useful to those who produce, export, import, invest, or to start enterprises. We are going to open space—under strict regulation—to private and foreign financial institutions, new credit mechanisms, productive financing, the development of financial markets, and payment services, in which state, cooperative, and private actors can take part. The aim is that collecting a pension, receiving a remittance from abroad, paying for a service, requesting a credit, financing a harvest, buying a piece of equipment, or moving money to produce should not be an obstacle course.

We will permit accounts abroad, payments in hard currency, and auditable international operations for actors who import, export, or provide global services. This is not about weakening the role of the state, but about broadening and modernising the country’s capacities to finance production, support those who generate goods and services, order the flows of money, and provide a better service to our people.

Digitisation and the knowledge economy

We will turn digital transformation, software, and artificial intelligence into cross-cutting tools to develop agriculture, the energy sector, health, education, foreign trade, banking, digital commerce, logistics, tourism, and oversight. The specific proposals on software, artificial intelligence, the knowledge economy, and the digital economy must be presented as a cross-cutting infrastructure to raise national productivity. It is not only about exporting software, but about digitalising payments, taxes, foreign trade, agriculture, health, energy, logistics, government, and statistics.

Tourism and real estate

As for tourism and real-estate business, we must apply new business modalities with the participation of all economic actors—developing a regulated, productive real-estate market that encompasses the leasing of idle state premises; the rental of buildings, premises, warehouses, storehouses, offices, tourist facilities, workshops, and industrial spaces; concessions; rights of use over real estate; and transparent tenders, with state, private, cooperative, or mixed actors.

Wages, dollarisation, and everyday supply

We have spoken of fuel imports and of everything that has been opened to the private sector—but now it is a matter of achieving it with reasonable, transparent, and non-abusive profit margins. As for the import of vehicles, eliminate all obstacles to importation, give priority to importing vehicles, and, of course, develop solar charging stations. I know that the partial dollarisation of the economy, inflation, and the absence of many products in national currency are a concern—and rightly so. We are not going to ignore that problem. The business models we are authorising in hard currency must contribute directly and verifiably to an increase in hard-currency income that allows the sustaining of supply in national currency.

We must be more demanding about the use of digital payment platforms. We must expand wholesale and retail trade approvals, eliminating intermediaries, and we must definitively apply electronic invoicing. We must eliminate wage obstacles that prevent the retention of highly qualified talent and labour in productive, exporting, technological, energy, and agro-industrial sectors, and we must permit variable remuneration in Cuban pesos (CUP) and hard currency, linked to verifiable results in exports, in import savings, in increased productivity, in innovation, in energy availability, or in external sales.

Digital government and public services

As for digital government, public data, and intelligent oversight, we must implement mandatory, phased electronic invoicing, beginning with medium and large taxpayers, and then extending it to MSMEs and self-employed workers with simple tools adapted to real connectivity. We must modernise the national statistical system through the digital capture of data from enterprises and entities, with publication through public-service applications, artificial intelligence, and the protection of sensitive data. We must use artificial intelligence to simplify procedures, process scanned documents, detect errors, validate case files, authenticate documents, and reduce administrative burdens.

We must improve the quality of services to the population, designing new approaches to each issue—and we must confront with seriousness a problem that affects the daily life of millions of Cubans; the collection of solid waste. We will set in motion projects at the local level to improve the collection, treatment, and disposal of solid waste, in which—responsibly—those who impose the greatest load on the system must also contribute more to sustaining it. But this solution will not be a state-only one; it will incorporate foreign investment into the non-state sector, into the enterprise system, into the communities, and into creative initiatives that help return cleanliness, order, and health to our cities and communities.

Comrades, Cuba does not need more delays; it needs solutions. This is not about creating more offices or multiplying meetings but about achieving concrete results. To govern is to resolve, to unblock, to accompany, and to make decisions become real improvements. Because creating in Cuba, investing in Cuba, working in Cuba, and staying in Cuba also depend on the country’s being capable of opening paths, ordering intelligently, and supporting those who wish to contribute.

A place for young people

Alongside the economic opportunities, we are also going to drive forward concrete spaces for young people to act from within their communities. The community youth network must be a channel through which a young person finds where to train, where to be employed, where to serve their community, and where to turn an idea into a real project. This network must articulate useful initiatives in the neighbourhoods; the recovery of public spaces, support for vulnerable people, cultural and sporting activities, training in trades and technologies, community communication, productive projects, local employment, and support for young people in situations of risk. It is not about creating one more structure, nor about summoning young people only to receive instructions. It is about giving them capacities, tools, knowledge, responsibilities, and real spaces to transform the place where they live—because staying in Cuba must also mean having a place to be useful, to grow, to learn, to lead, and to build a future from the block, the school, the workplace, and the municipality.

We know our country. We know where the obstacle is, where corruption hides, where slowness is in excess, and where shame and dignity are lacking. Every measure we announce will have those responsible, deadlines, and indicators. We will report on what advances, what is unfulfilled, and what must be corrected. There will be things that—to protect them from those who wish to sabotage them—we will have to treat with discretion. Martí already taught us that there are things that, in order to be achieved, must go hidden, but discretion will never be a permit to hide anything from the people. As a people, we are not going to summon ourselves only to resist; we are going to summon ourselves to create, to produce, to decide, to oversee, to prosper, and to transform.

Either we all do this, or we do not do it

Because what we begin today cannot be accomplished by a government alone. Because either we all do it together, or it will not be done at all. It will be achieved with the farmer who returns to the field to sow, with the MSME that dares to take the initiative, with the technician who installs the first panel, with the teacher, with the doctor, with the young person who decides to stay and invest in their homeland, with the Cuban resident living abroad who reaches out to help, with you, with me, with everyone. We are not going to deny the problems. We are not going to defend bureaucracy. We are not going to close the door to talent. We are not going to abandon the vulnerable. And we are never going to allow the suffering of our people—caused by the perverse imperialist blockade—to be used against the sovereignty of the homeland. 

Nothing will be impossible if we take up the challenge as an opportunity and draw inspiration from our history. Céspedes, Agramonte, Maceo, Gómez, Martí, Mella, Villena, Guiteras, Che, Camilo, Almeida, Fidel, and Raúl—all our heroes faced moments as difficult as, or more difficult than, those confronting today’s new revolutionary generation. And all emerged from those trials with honour and glory, even those who fell in combat without living to see victory, because they bequeathed to us lessons of courage that will endure—as was verified on the third of January of this year, when 32 Cuban combatants fell confronting elite troops far superior in number and in means.

No revolution has ever had an easy path—and ours has had the audacity to survive six decades of blockade, genocidal laws, hybrid war, and an escalating series of unilateral coercive measures that no other nation has endured, nor would endure, for so long. In the centenary of the birth of the Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro, and the 95th birthday of Army General Raúl Castro Ruz, the best homage we can pay to the admirable work of our two historic leaders is to defend it and to preserve its essence of social justice—amid wars of plunder, threats of invasion, and processes of neo-colonisation that, like the giant with seven-league boots, stride across the world devouring nations in these times.

We are all summoned, and together we will triumph!
Long live free Cuba!
Long live the heroic Cuban people!
Long live the sovereignty of the Cuban nation!
Socialism or death—homeland or death — we will win!