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The El Maizal commune is one of the most dynamic communal experiences in the country (Photo: Comuna El Maizal/Twitter)

On 20 October 2012, during the last council of ministers of the Venezuelan government attended by Hugo Chvez Fras, the then president pronounced what went down in history as the golpe de timn, the change of direction of the Bolivarian revolutions policy towards socialism. In his speech at the Miraflores Palace, Chvez called for self-criticism and higher efficiency of state management, not simply by increasing the financial resources and institutional power of the ministries, but by strengthening peoples power through the comunas (communes).

The Bolivarian revolution was not to be limited to the seizure of the bourgeois state and the replacement of one ruling class with another. At the center of the process was always the aspiration to lead the transformation to a Communal State in which the communes form the political and economic basis of the future socialist society and in which the organized people build the conditions to meet their own needs. Chvez concluded his speech with the slogan commune or nothingeither the revolution invests in peoples self-organization and self-government, or the revolution is betrayed.

The problem Chvez posed in his last speech to the council of ministers refers to one of the central problems of any revolutionary movement, namely the relationship between the party, government, and organized people in the process of building socialism. Based on a meticulous study of revolutionary experiences in history, Chvez asked himself how to build the political process of socialism beyond the action of the state, and directly with the people.

Chvezs slogan from 10 years ago has in the meantime grown and turned into concrete projects that the organized Venezuelan people continue to protect using all means necessary as they advance along the path of the socialist revolution.

Beyond the rhetoric of the Western media, the Venezuelan people still constitute the key actors in the Bolivarian revolution. For many, the communes serve as a primary instrument for building socialism. The Ministry of Popular Power for the Communes and Social Movements, led by Jorge Arreaza, has registered 3,600 communes. However, according to ngel Prado, one of the founders of the El Maizal commune in the state of Lara and a member of the national leadership of the Union Comunera, There are only about 500 communes really active throughout the country. In 2021, Prado was also elected mayor of Simn Planas for the PSUV, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela founded by Chvez in 2007.

On March 4 and 5 of 2022, some 60 communes from the five regions of Venezuela founded the Union Comunera in a first congress held in the El Maizal commune. The Union Comunera is a kind of trade union of the communes, the result of an organizational process started years ago. Today, it occupies a decisive role in the daily life of the communes: it coordinates and acts as a multiplier of the communes experiences accumulated over the last 15 years, elaborates and disseminatesinternally and externallythe organizations political line, and builds political, ideological and technical training programs according to the needs in the territories. The Union Comunera was an important step forward in stabilizing the idea of communes in the country, Prado adds.

The El Maizal commune is one of the most dynamic communal experiences in the country. Established on March 5, 2009, it encompasses a territory of 2,300 hectares between the two states of Lara and Portugesa in the west of the country and more than 3,500 families with a total of 14,320 people. This is a territory that before the start of the Bolivarian revolution was abandoned by public institutions and where people lived in absolute poverty with precarious housing and an agricultural production that was barely enough for their own consumption. Surplus products were bought by intermediary traders who paid them a paltry price. This reproduced the subordination of direct producers to the arbitrariness of middlemen, large landowners, and multinational corporations.

With the rise of Chavismo, the situation changed radically. In 2009, the Chvez government enlarged the highway connecting Caracas with the West. The Comandante visited the construction site and stopped at the municipality of Sarare where he visited us. This meeting was decisive for the development of our communes and thus the whole territory, says Jos Luis Sifontes, one of the PSUVs provincial commune policy coordinators. From 2009, we started to occupy abandoned land and greenhouses and set up communal production units that were then regularized by the government. We have also built houses for about 300 families and school facilities for the whole territory. The funding came from the Great Housing Mission and the Ministry of Peoples Power for Education, but we did the work ourselves.

The beginnings of the El Maizal commune are exemplary for the dialectic between the socialist government and the peoples power of the communes. Driven by Chvezs electoral victory and the democratization of the countrys political and economic structures, the self-organized people acted on the territory, creating the conditions to meet their needs autonomously. The Chavista government, in turn, provides support where the communes need it, respecting the forms of territorial self-government. This is also the framework that can help one understand the regularization of occupied land, the financing of housing and schools and many other government projects in the territories. The government therefore does not simply control its citizens with policies from above, but provides the framework in which the people expand their participation from below. The commune activists insist, however, that building self-government is not simply a (precarious) balancing act between public institutions and popular power, but the permanent quest for total autonomy in the territories through communes.

Today, 14 years after the foundation of El Maizal commune, around 120 direct producers run 14 food production units: white and yellow maize, beef and pork, eggs, milk and cheese, coffee and various vegetables. In addition, a company created in 2011 manages the distribution of gas throughout the commune. Thanks to this collective management of the production and distribution of basic necessities, the commune largely succeeds in guaranteeing food sovereignty, which the activists describe as a fundamental weapon against the sanctions imposed by the United States, which, especially during the years 2015 and 2021, caused severe consequences among the Venezuelan population.

A second fundamental weapon against the political and economic isolation produced by US imperialism is international solidarity. The Landless Rural Workers Movement of Brazil (MST) has sent its members to be part of its internationalist brigade in Venezuela since 2005. Their function is summed up in their slogan technicalize knowledge, elevate consciousness. In the different areas of agricultural production in the country, the MST supports producers thanks to the experience and knowledge accumulated over the last 40 years of occupying land, building camps all over Brazil, and developing sustainable agriculture against agribusiness that exploits workers and destroys territories.

In the El Maizal commune, specifically, the internationalist brigade has helped run the Che Guevara Agricultural School for three years. Thanks to the permanent presence of the MST, the school offers technical, but also political and ideological courses in which several dozen young people from the area can perfect their learning of agricultural techniques and elaborate the deeper meaning of territorial production in the construction of socialism. This school does not replace the public school, but adds to it.

If El Maizal represents the ideal example of an agricultural commune, the Eternal Commander March 5 socialist commune is one of the most advanced urban communes in terms of territorial rootedness. Located in the El Valle neighborhood, it covers a hill of over 11 hectares of the city, brings together some 6,000 inhabitants and has 19 socially-owned production units. This is an area where problems existed before the revolution and continue to exist today: many homes do not have running water, electricity is precarious, to reach the highest homes one has to climb hundreds of stairs without the possibility of using public transport.

The young militants active in the barrio are mostly organized in the Left Cultural Front (FCI). In the neighborhood that approaches the main street Av. Intercomunal de El Valle, two militants, Gabriela and Ericsson, welcome me and tell me about their journey. The FCI was born in 2010/2011 as a student movement. We came into contact with the world of communes initially thanks to El Maizal began to work on political-ideological training. Then, in the years 2017/2018, we built brigades that went across the country to bring together the experiences of the communes. From there the idea of the Union Comunera was born.

Communes are not only political-organizational structures in a given territory, but they should create their own economic-productive base. In the urban context, socially-owned enterprises cannot produce food like in rural communes, but they are active in the service and distribution sector, often from shops, which play a fundamental role in the neighborhood. Gabriela explains: Here we sell products from the other communes, such as coffee, panela, cocoa, products from the Andean areas. This economic exchange constitutes the financial base of the communes. But that is not all, because the construction of a network of producers and territories has a political and educational purpose. By doing this, we strengthen the role of the communes and insist on the centrality of organization in the revolutionary process.

At least two other projects of the March 5 Commune deserve attention. The first is a recycling system that on the one hand helps to build sustainable garbage collection, and on the other provides jobs for people living in the area. Together with the Peoples Power Ministry for Ecosocialism, a recycling training school has also been opened where people can learn work techniques another example of the government-peoples power dialectic with the aim of strengthening the peoples way to socialism. This moral economy is an essential element in the formation of a workers consciousness that is not simply based on exchange value, but on concepts such as self-organization, mutualism, and sustainability.

The second area of political work is called La Ruta de las Flores. It is a feminist communal policy that offers answers to the needs of women, children and adolescents in the area. I met Emily, 24 years old and also a militant of the FCI, in the Communal Technical House Tejiendonos Mujeres, a feminist meeting center of the March 5 Commune. She explains to me that their organization does not simply stop at the practical issues of feminist intervention such as sex education, campaigns against gender violence, network of psychologists supporting women and children, etc. They are working on drafting a text of theoretical orientation that seeks to establish a communal feminist line that combines gender and class contradictions. We are not against men, we dont want half the cake or to overturn gender relations, we dont want to be either leaders or oppressed. What we want is to change the recipe of the cake, we want another way of relating on all levels, Emily told me.

Capital is not simply an economic relationship between workers and bosses, but a relationship that touches every social sphere, even outside the world of work. Socialism therefore cannot be limited to changing economic property relations, socialism is also a cultural and moral issue. The Ruta de las Flores is an example that highlights the moral significance of the communes as organizational instruments that aim to permanently create new social relations. Started in the March 5 Commune, this feminist project now exists in four other communes in the states of Sucre, Lara, Miranda and Tchira.

Ten years after the death of Hugo Chvez, political participation of the people, self-organization, and self-government from below continue to constitute the soul, body and heart of Chavismo. The construction of socialism, however, cannot be limited to local activism. Jos Luis Sinfontis recalls how Chvez also insisted on this: Before his death, Comandante Chvez explained it precisely in one of his speeches: those who stop at the local cannot build socialism; localism is counter-revolutionary.

The other slogan of the communes, independence, commune and socialism, sums up this internationalist perspective. Independence: from foreign interference, especially US imperialism, but also from multinationals and the national bourgeoisie with special interests (large landowners, private investors etc.). This independence also means food, political, and economic sovereignty. Commune: commune or nothing, a revolutionary process that is not top-down, with the belief that the communes can serve as a tool against the bureaucratization of the party and government. Socialism: acting local is not enough, communes without clear structures, without a government, and without socialist policies are reduced to petty-bourgeois localism.

The militants in the different territories of the country fight for the communes, as they attempt to transform Venezuela into a communal, socialist state.

See more here:
The advance of the commune in Venezuela - Peoples Dispatch

The gravesite at the Germiston Cemetery where Hani's mortal remains are buried was declared a national heritage site in 2017.

JOHANNESBURG - The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) President Zingiswa Losi said while a lot had been achieved since the dawn of democracy, questions needed to be raised on whether the African National Congress (ANC)-led government had realised Chris Hani's dream of socialism.

Losi was speaking at the 30th anniversary of Hani's death in Boksburg on Monday afternoon.

She said those in positions of power must introspect on whether they had neglected the poor and marginalised.

Hani, who was shot and killed at his Boksburg home on this day in 1993, was an advocate for an equal, non-racial South Africa that would prioritise the needs of the poor.

Losi said the tripartite alliance - comprising the ANC, Cosatu and the South African Communist Party - should continue on the same path.

She wondered: "In just over two weeks, we will have achieved 29 years of our liberation. The question is: have we honoured the vision of socialism and justice that comrade Chris set for ourselves? Have we fully utilised levers of state power handed to us by the people, or have we become distracted by the trappings of power?"

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Cosatu asks: has the ANC realised Chris Hani's dream of a socialist state? - EWN

COMMONWEALTH Games fever came to town as a North Yorkshire community celebrated Jack Laughers triple gold achievement in the 2018 games.

Jack completed his Commonwealth gold medal hat-trick on Friday, April 13, 2018 after triumphing in the mens synchronised 3m springboard with Chris Mears in Australias Gold Coast.

Back in his Ripon hometown, his parents Jackie and Dave were watching the action from the comfort of their living room before being whisked away to a surprise celebration party at the Ripon Spa Hotel.

Read more: Metal detectorists reunite WWI soldier's badge with amazed North Yorkshire family

Mr and Mrs Laugher were escorted to the bash by one of the most successful British swimmers of all time, Mark Foster, and were greeted by rapturous applause and a sea of England flags and Jack Laugher masks as they entered the hotel.

Clearly moved by the occasion and their sons incredible achievement, Mrs Laugher said they would never get used to seeing Jack winning gold medals.

She said: We were very nervous for him, he was so wanting the hat-trick of golds and we went through every emotion with him.

Ken Loach has always worn his heart on his sleeve, his cannon of provocative films carrying at its centre the socialist spirit that has driven him throughout a career that has lasted more than half a century.

That unflinching spirit was evident to all who gathered at The Forum to hear the award-winning director share his thoughts on issues ranging from the NHS to Jeremy Corbyn, media manipulation and the political climate in the North-East, on April 11, 2018.

The director of Kes, The Wind that Shakes the Barley and I, Daniel Blake travelled to Darlington to introduce his documentary, Spirit of 45, and to support an evening organised by activist Louise Graham and Darlington Film Club in opposition to growing privatisation of the NHS.

A piece of history was uncovered as a major programme of refurbishment was carried out on the Saltburn Cliff Tramway, in April 2018.

Original features were being restored and Victorian designs followed as much as possible as part of the overhaul of the 1884-built cliff lift.

Work had been carried out to strip the mechanical workings of the lift back into component pieces.

Numerous items had to be repaired or replaced following detailed investigation due to the age of the lift.

Components from the time Britains oldest water balanced tramway was first built had to be found and restored whenever possible, including original cast iron fittings.

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Damaged parts particularly a number of cast iron fittings such as wedges, rollers, baseplates and axle boxes were melted down and recast in the original style.

Councillor Carl Quartermain, Redcar and Cleveland Borough Councils cabinet member for tourism, culture and communications, said: The tramway is simply iconic and a wonderful part of our tourism offer. Its fantastic to see this refurbishment coming together so well so it can be enjoyed for many generations to come.

Contractors, Rapid Consulting Engineers, focused on using local specialist companies with the restoration works, including William Lane Foundry in Middlesbrough.

See the article here:
When socialism was on fire as Ken Loach visited Darlington - The Northern Echo

Since the emergence of the Gazte Koordinadora Sozialista (GKS), [click here to read more about the emergence of the communist youth movement, GKS] the official leadership of the Nationalist left (EH Bildu) in the Basque Country has treated them as a nuisance; maintaining an official appearance of ignoring them. Last year, Arkaitz Rodrguez, the general secretary of Sortu (the largest party in the EH Bildu coalition) described the group as reactionary. But in the next breath, he claimed that GKS is a mere fly in the ointment, and that the leadership had not dedicated even half a minute to their developments.

While this boastful claim seems rather unlikely, it is now clear that the Nationalist left are paying full attention. In February, Sortu sent a circular to their members in which they aimed to politically clarify their position regarding GKS. This amounted to peddling the lies that the Basque media have propagated (depicting GKS militants as thuggish and violent); and most strikingly, using identity politics to tar the communist youth.

Sortus clarification was a thinly veiled attack; a conscious acknowledgement that their approach so far has failed. Though claiming that GKS weaken transformative projects, the timing of Sortu publicly breaking its silence is rather telling.

Indeed, the circular followed another magnificent mobilisation of 7,000 people organised by GKS in Bilbao and Irua on 28 January. The demonstration rang with militancy with slogans including lets face the bourgeois offensive and the workers revenge: socialist revolution. Though the size was the same as last year, it was clear that the bold, communist messaging is garnering support from swathes of the Basque youth.

The circular states that behind GKSs revolutionary and radical rhetoric we find an inability to influence society and change things. But far from a flash in the pan, GKS and the wider Socialist Movement is a force the Nationalist left must reckon with.

They counterpose the reformism and paltry offerings of the Nationalist left with revolutionary agitation and propaganda. It is no surprise that they have become a reference point in the Basque country and beyond.

As we have explained before, GKS emerged from a debate within the Nationalist left, with the explicit aim of exposing the historic failure of the strategy used to bring about Basque independence, as well as criticising their subordinate role to the government in Madrid. This is something Sortu cannot tolerate, especially with their pitiful record in parliament.

Far from a flash in the pan, GKS and the wider Socialist Movement is a force the Nationalist left must reckon with / Image: Gazte Koordinadora Sozialista, Twitter

EH Bildu is part of the government majority whose vote is necessary for the PSOE-UP coalition to stay in power in Madrid. There have been many written agreements between Bildu and PSOE. And so the track record of this government one which has defended the interests of the ruling class on all decisive questions reflects back onto themselves.

For example, there have been a handful of instances of backtracking on election promises since the shaky coalition came to power. There was a written agreement between PSOE and Bildu about the repeal of the right-wing Popular Partys labour counter-reform. When it came to putting this agreement in practice, the PSOE refused to implement it, passing only a partial reform of the PP legislation, whilst leaving intact the most reactionary elements. Bildu protested, presenting its own alternative proposal but in the end, stayed as a loyal partner to the PSOE-UP government.

The same was the case with the reactionary Ley Mordaza (Gag Law), also introduced by the PP government in order to limit democratic rights. The PSOE-UP government had promised to repeal it. Then they settled for amending it slightly. Bildu protested, refused to vote for it but continued its support for the government.

Moreover, it would be wrong to think that EH Bildu simply protests against the government, and then falls silent. They have voted in favour of the reform of the penal code (Codigo Penal), which increases the repression on those who struggle against injustice.

Just to give another example of the kind of government the Nationalist left is supporting in Madrid: recently, an officer involved in the torture and extra-judicial killing of Mikel Zabalza in 1985, a Basque bus driver, has been promoted in the Spanish state to the leadership of the Civil Guard. This is the reality of playing second fiddle to the regime in Madrid.

With elections approaching, they are falling over themselves to promise the world in order to secure their seats. But just like the rest of their resistance, this amounts to nothing more than words, words, words.

Though EH Bildu feigns a mixture of shock and disappointment at the government, it continues to give crucial support to that very same government. Moreover, their constitutional path to independence is a mirage. National liberation in the Basque country is not one centimetre closer since EH Bildu ingratiated themselves with PSOE in Madrid and in the Navarre parliament.

The facts speak clearly, the PSOE-UP government in Madrid, despite its pretence of being the most progressive government in history, is firmly committed to managing the crisis of capitalism in the interest of the bosses. They are loyally servile to US imperialism when it comes to foreign policy, including support for NATO in its war with Russia in Ukraine.

EH Bildus support shows the Basque youth where their allegiances lie. They are a completely pacified and politically bankrupt force. In truth, these petty-bourgeois nationalists were only ever concerned with having a seat at the table.

Socialist Movement stands against capitalism and for socialism, while the leaders of Sortu stand firmly for a reformist strategy / Image: Gazte Koordinadora Sozialista, Twitter

Their record at home is no better. In the Basque country, they engage in the Stalinist tactics of smear campaigns, chiming in with the attacks mounting daily in the bourgeois press against the Socialist Movement. They have attempted financial strangulation of GKS; expelling the communists from the txosnas, which is an instrumental way of raising money for their projects. We might ask: with comrades like these, who needs enemies?

In their circular, Sortu lambasts the reactionary GKS for the most harmful practices that have been seen on the left. Irony is perhaps lost on them. The leadership of the Nationalist left should hold up a mirror to themselves.

With nothing to offer the workers and youth but more of the status quo, Sortu has dressed itself up in the language of identity politics. As they write:

On the road to a unified, independent, socialist, feminist and Basque-speaking Basque Country, GKS does not contribute anything. On the contrary. In addition, there is no possibility of collaboration, because we have different projects and strategies, because they reject that possibility and, above all, because they act in an exclusive and aggressive way.

One part of that paragraph is actually true: there can be no collaboration between the opposing projects and strategies, but that is precisely because the Socialist Movement stands against capitalism and for socialism, while the leaders of Sortu stand firmly for a reformist strategy of managing the crisis of the system within the narrow limits of capitalism.

The circular continues by arguing that GKS feels uncomfortable with struggles of the LGBT community, feminism, etc. For example, they slander Itaia, the womens coordinating group of GKS. In a customarily patronising manner, they claim this group corrupts the minds of young women militants. With these broad strokes, Sortu aims to paint GKS as a single-minded group that is against social justice; completely aloof from anything other than communism.

The leaders of Sortu claim that the GKS women's coordinating group corrupts the minds of young women militants / Image Itaia, Twitter

This is a red herring. The struggle of genuine communists aims to connect all the various struggles. Revolutionaries must seek to unite the oppressed and exploited strata in society and channel the collective energies into building a revolutionary party capable of overthrowing capitalism. Paying close attention to all the injustices of capitalism and agitating against them is a prerequisite to building. And only on this basis, can we uproot all discrimination and prejudice that plagues society.

After all, it is the system that Sortu defends through their reformism that relies on these divisions to rule. And so it is little surprise that they fall back on the arguments of identity politics.

Identity politics claims that the main division in society is one of subjective identity. It separates the struggle for womens liberation from the struggle against the capitalist system, pandering to trendy ideas that serve to confuse and disorientate the youth. It is no surprise that this emaciated reformist party speaks in such language; being the torchbearer of social justice in mere words is the cheapest of all reforms!

These attacks are cynical and self-serving. Once again, we see the genuine oppression faced by women weaponised by a party that has no serious interest in fighting against it in the first place. GKS have rebuffed this nonsense.

Sortu stands in a long line of reformist parties that fall back on radical-sounding language to keep up appearances. We see this in Scotland also, where the SNP has profited from being more progressive than the rabid Tory party in Britain, while still standing firmly within the limits of the capitalist system.

In all cases, if you scratch the surface, you will find reformist politics that offer no route forward for the masses.

In truth, the focus on identity, nationality, etc. and the relegation of the importance of class independence and methods has spelled disastrous consequences. Lenin once commented that the national question is at root a question of bread. That is absolutely correct. In a period characterised by cuts and counter-reforms, the problems of housing, security, jobs will continue to fester. There is no way of solving the national question on the basis of capitalism.

We note that it is from a position of weakness, not strength, that Sortu has attacked GKS militants. This will serve a dual purpose. With elections later this year, Sortu is aiming to deflect attention away from its failures. They will also be aiming to firm up their youth group, Ernai, who have been left behind in the wake of this explosion of militancy.

For all of the bombast of GKS being against Basque national liberation in their circular, it has not dawned on the leadership that the youth are pushing beyond the limits of nationalism with resounding success. This is occurring not just in the Basque country. There are other such promising developments in Catalonia with the formation of Socialist Horizon (Horitz Socialista).

The youth are pushing beyond the limits of nationalism. This is occurring not just in the Basque country. There are other such promising developments in Catalonia with the formation of Socialist Horizon / Image Horitz Socialista, Twitter

Across the world we see a layer of working-class youth, radicalised by the experience of capitalist crisis, the threat to the climate, war and destruction, turning towards the ideas of radical change, rejecting this rotten system and turning towards the ideas of communism. GKS is undoubtedly the most advanced example of this to date. But the potential for developments like this exist all across the globe. Internationalism must be the lifeblood of the communist movement in order for us to succeed in the tasks we set ourselves.

GKS have shown the way forward for the youth disillusioned with reformism and nationalism. The path forward is class struggle and communism. We commend the efforts of GKS in the example they have set. And we stand in full solidarity with them against the attacks and slanders which they continue to face.

The sterile politics and strategies of the reformist parties have been put to the test. They have been found wanting. The role of communists is to expose the weaknesses of these woolly, institutional politics, and to educate ourselves in the ideas of scientific socialism. Marxism is our sharpest weapon in understanding the world in order to transform it. With further crises impending, we havent a minute to waste.

Excerpt from:
Basque country: nationalist left bare their teeth as communist youth ... - In Defence of Marxism

The relationship between the U.S. and Cuba since the victory of the revolution in 1959 has been like that of a bully who breaks his victims legs and then mocks them for being unable to sprint.

America has tried and failed to destroy Cuba in countless ways, from the Bay of Pigs Invasion in 1961 to the over-600 unsuccessful assassination attempts against former Cuban leader Fidel Castro (one of these included the C.I.A. hiring Castros former mistress to poison him his charms got the better of her though, and the two ended up sleeping together instead).

The most enduring of these destructive policies against Cuba, however, is the trade embargo against the island nation which has endured since 1962. It is the longest sanctions regime in modern history.

According to declassified documents, U.S. policy toward Cuba has been crafted with the specific intention of producing hunger, desperation and the overthrow of government.

The trade embargo is supposed to be the means for bringing about such an upheaval, and though the overthrow of the Cuban government has not happened, its not for a lack of trying. The embargo has certainly made life more of a burden for ordinary Cubans.

[Related: OPINION: The United States of hypocrisy]

Because of the embargo, it is difficult for Cuba to obtain essential medical technologies and equipment; third countries can be punished by the U.S. for doing business with Cuba. It has blocked the country from communication services like Zoom and Microsoft Teams and it has cost Cuba more than $130 billion over six decades, according to the United Nations.

The U.N. General Assembly has condemned the American embargo of Cuba 30 years in a row the most recent condemnation passed with 185 votes to two, with the U.S. and Israel voting against the resolution. The entire world continues to look with disgust at our treatment of the Cuban people.

Under the Obama administration, relations between the U.S. and Cuba improved and the sanctions were somewhat softened.

But the Trump administration reversed this progress and then some, issuing over 240 new sanctions against Cuba which included travel and financial restrictions. The Biden administration, though it has reversed some Trump-era sanctions, is still deeply reactionary toward Cuba. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said last month that there were no plans to remove Cuba from the U.S.s ridiculous list of state sponsors of terrorism, for example.

The bourgeois theoreticians have always said that socialism could not and does not work socialism is an impossibility.

But these theoreticians have never been trusted by governments. The truth of this claim is evident by the policies of the liberal democracies of the world toward socialist countries. If the bourgeois theories about socialism are correct, then socialism should fail all on its own what need is there for intervention?

The U.S. government wants the Cuban government to fail, so why not allow it to fail on its own? There has not been a single socialist country that has been allowed to succeed or fail free of outside meddling from capitalist countries. One can only conclude that the capitalists fear a socialist success story.

And these fears are not unfounded. Though Cuba lies beneath the belly of a hostile beast, they have made incredible strides in several areas. For example, Cubans have a higher life expectancy than Americans, largely due to Cubas impressive healthcare system. Isolated from global trade, Cuba developed its own highly effective coronavirus vaccines.

Socially, Cuba has made inspiring progress as well, passing one of the most progressive family codes in the world in 2022, massively expanding the rights of the LGBTQ community. America, on this front, is clearly regressing.

[Related: OPINION: The western press should stop lying about North Korea]

The resilience of the Cuban people is inspiring, but such resilience should not be required of them, or any other people. The American government, if it was worth anything, would do the right thing and lift the embargo which has brought so much misery to Cuba.

And why not, one might wonder. After all, the world has called on us to do so, and the purpose of the embargo regime change has clearly failed. But the Democrats probably wont lift the embargo, and that has a lot to do with Americas worst state: Florida.

Florida has a high population of Cuban Americans, and polling indicates that the majority hate the Cuban government and overwhelmingly support Republicans. Democrats are still living under the delusion that Florida is a swing state,and Biden will likely do nothing about Cubas current predicament until at least his second term.

The Democrats need to give up on Florida. Its an electoral lost cause. If Florida sank into the sea tomorrow, Democrats would probably rejoice.

Democrats should stop trying to cater to the reactionary members of the Cuban diaspora and do the right thing instead. If Cuban socialism will fail, let it fail but at least remove the knife from Cubas back.

Jared Quigg (he/him) is a junior studying journalism and political science.

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OPINION: The Cuban embargo must be lifted - Indiana Daily Student