The Cuban editorial collective Punto y Aparte interviewed the RCA about our Cuba solidarity campaign, and more generally about the work of the party in building the forces of communism in the US. We republish the interview below. The RCA held a day of action across the country on October 3, protesting the barbaric oil blockade against the Cuban people and to show our unconditional defense of the Cuban Revolution.
Washington’s energy blockade, sanctions, and aggression against Cuba are not just trivial matters of foreign policy. They are a deliberate attempt to suffocate an entire people, to isolate us from the rest of the world, and to turn our country into a pariah state. Donald Trump and Marco Rubio’s campaign aims to strangle the island: an oil blockade, economic sanctions, pressure on neighboring countries, threats of invasion—all designed to achieve the total surrender of the Cuban Revolution.
But faced with this policy of suffocation, there are those in the very heart of the empire who refuse to look the other way. The Revolutionary Communists of America (RCA), the US section of the Revolutionary Communist International, has launched a solidarity campaign with the Cuban people. This Saturday, October 3, they took to the streets of New York City, Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, St. Louis, Dallas, Phoenix, Los Angeles, and Seattle to defend the Cuban Revolution’s right to exist and to advance its vision of social justice and equality.
To learn more about this campaign, the American communists’ perspectives on the White House’s policies, and the links between workers’ struggles in the United States and Latin America, Punto y Aparte spoke with John Peterson, executive editor of The Communist, the RCA’s newspaper.
Q: Why organize solidarity actions with Cuba from the US?
A: The energy blockade and sanctions imposed by Donald Trump and Marco Rubio are a criminal and repugnant attack against the entire Cuban people, pushing Cuba toward a humanitarian catastrophe. The few news reports circulating in the mainstream US media, which are mouthpieces for imperialism, only offer a glimpse of the enormous suffering imposed by the US government. For those of us who know the history of the Cuban Revolution, the current situation represents the culmination of decades of incursions, sabotage, and blockade by US imperialism in an attempt to subjugate the island once again.
The reason for the US government’s bloodthirsty obsession is crystal clear. The workers, peasants, women, and youth of Cuba defied the interests of US imperialism more than six decades ago. They rose up to fight for their own freedom, thus beginning the revolutionary process that overthrew imperialism and its lackeys on the island and abolished capitalism. This drastically improved the working masses’ quality of life.
The heroic defense by the Cuban people of all the economic, social, and cultural gains of the Revolution is an inspiration to those of us who fight against capitalism in our own countries. Cuba’s victory demonstrated that capitalism can be overthrown and that imperialism is not invincible, and it was a humiliation for the capitalists and their government in the US, who have since tried everything to stifle the Cuban people and defeat the Revolution. However, with US imperialism in crisis and decline worldwide, the economic elites were forced to retreat to “their” hemisphere and decided that now was the time to increase the pressure on Cuba even further.
We, the Revolutionary Communists of America, unconditionally defend the Cuban Revolution. The defeat of the Revolution would be a blow to the world working class. As communists in the US, we have a duty to mobilize in defense of Cuba, here in the belly of the beast, in the most reactionary imperialist country in the history of humankind. It is up to us to confront the criminal policies of our country’s ruling class, in solidarity with our brothers and sisters throughout the continent, and to fight for socialist revolution in the United States and worldwide.
Q: What was happening on October 3?
A: As the culmination of a solidarity campaign with the Cuban people and against our common enemy, US imperialism, we organized nationwide mobilizations in several cities across the United States. Demonstrations and marches were held in New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, St. Louis, Dallas, Phoenix, Los Angeles, and Seattle, under slogans such as “Hands Off Cuba!”, “Defend the Cuban Revolution!”, and “For an immediate end to the US blockade and sanctions!” Other organizations and figures also joined the movement, including former socialist councilwoman and congressional candidate Kshama Sawant.
Besides demonstrations and social media outreach, one of our main tasks is to promote the true history of the Cuban Revolution and the violence of US imperialism. All the major media outlets blatantly lie, obscure the truth, and amplify the voices of the Miami cronies. Meanwhile, the government says that Cuba is an “extraordinary threat” to US “national security”: it’s the world turned upside down.
To counter this state propaganda, we organized preliminary meetings on the history of the Cuban Revolution and the current situation, as part of a public information and political education campaign for our members. We also published several resources, for example, an episode of our podcast, a new article dedicated to the topic, and the official statement of the Revolutionary Communist International in defense of Cuba.
Beyond October 3, we call on all those who seek to help Cuba to speak with friends, family, coworkers, and classmates about the history of the Cuban Revolution and the true reasons for Trump and Rubio’s imperialist aggression. Union members could propose resolutions in their local branches condemning the aggression of the US government against the Cuban people. And students could also help by giving talks in class about the humanitarian crisis in Cuba and the achievements of the Revolution.
However, anyone who truly wants to end US imperialism can help by building the Revolutionary Communist International with us, a party to spread the Revolution and overthrow the capitalists in each of our countries.
Q: It would be interesting to learn a little more about the party behind these solidarity actions.
A: The Revolutionary Communists of America is the US section of the Revolutionary Communist International, which our comrades are building in more than 70 countries.
Our goal is to help carry out the revolution, to end capitalism, and establish a working-class government and a truly democratic, socialist society where the majority of the population can participate and decide their future. The two main American political institutions, the Democratic and Republican parties, are tools of imperialism and the capitalist class—two sides of the same coin. Our mission is to build an independent mass party capable of leading the working class to political and economic power, so that the wealth all workers produce serves the majority of society.
Many think this is impossible in the United States, an anti-communist and counterrevolutionary bastion. The country’s ruling class certainly holds and propagates such ideology, as we can see with Trump’s latest attempt to launch an anti-communist campaign against the supposed “red menace.” But the reality is very different for the working class. The crisis of the capitalist system is also affecting the population of this country, which suffers from grotesque inequality: the richest 1% of the population owns the same wealth as the poorest 90%.
In this context, increasingly broad segments of the population are seeking radical solutions and gravitating toward socialism and communism. According to the latest Cato Institute surveys, 38% of young people under 30 have a favorable view of communism, and 53% of socialism. If we add up the population of all ages, some 60 million people in the US have a positive view of communism. That is the segment we seek to organize into a combative, ideologically cohesive party that truly represents the interests of the working class.
Our current task is to build communist cells in every workplace, industry, union, college campus, and neighborhood. This entails training in revolutionary history and Marxist ideas, and participating in youth and workers’ movements: the movement in defense of Palestine, the general strike against ICE, the Black Lives Matter movement, and other strikes and struggles of the working class. These recent mass movements in the US are only the beginning of even greater social upheavals to come.
We seek to build the necessary political structure, the Marxist cadres, the network of revolutionary agitators, with roots in the main cities and companies, so that the next popular uprising in the United States can be victorious.
Q: What are the links between the class struggle in the United States and that of Latin America?
A: The working class and the poor of the US and Latin America have a common enemy: American capitalists. The same class of capitalists who exploit and oppress workers in the US are the ones who oppress, exploit, and bomb men, women, and children in Latin America and other countries around the world. From that perspective, the US working class has much more in common with workers and the poor in other parts of the world than with the ruling class in its own country.
All capitalist governments try to obscure this reality. They try to divert attention from the economic and social problems that also exist in the US: inflation, unemployment, homelessness, the cost of private healthcare, college tuition, and many more. They tell us that everyone born and living in the United States has a common interest against people from other countries. They blame immigration for all our ills, or try to stir up nationalist and xenophobic vitriol. Meanwhile, we are all exploited and oppressed to a greater or lesser degree, and the wealth that the imperialist government squanders on funding wars, coups, and bombings is not invested in healthcare, education, or infrastructure.
They do this not only out of pure cruelty, but also to maximize their profits through the extraction of natural resources and the subjugation of poor countries’ economies. Imperialism is not a moral failing nor simply the result of perverse policies; it is the necessary expression of capitalism in its most advanced stage.
The production chains across the continent are deeply integrated for the imperialists’ benefit: from the maquiladoras in Mexican border cities, where workers suffer tremendous exploitation at the hands of US companies, to the mines in Brazil, Chile, and Peru. The US economy would grind to a halt were it not for the sweat and blood of the Latin American working class.
On the other hand, brutal imperialist exploitation forces millions of workers and peasants to migrate to North America to survive. One in ten employees in the US comes from Latin America, and about a fifth of the current population has Latin American roots. A victory for our class anywhere on the continent is also a victory for US workers, and vice versa. Revolutions, after all, do not respect borders.
It is crucial that the exploited class in the US understands this link it has with the workers of Latin America. Above all, the defeats of US imperialism worldwide will also foster class struggle within the US. This is already happening, as we saw, for example, with the massive movement of the working class in Minneapolis against the brutal ICE raids.
Despite all the propaganda, the vast majority of the population, 64%, opposes a military attack against Cuba. Ordinary people in the United States feel hatred and repulsion for their country’s ruling class, which many even call the “Epstein class.” All that is lacking is a conscious and independent organization to focus this anger against the imperialist US government.
Q: What message would you like to convey to the Cuban people?
A: We are deeply grateful to the Cuban people for their example of struggle and resistance. The Cuban Revolution is a tremendous source of inspiration for all of us who dedicate our lives to fighting for a better world. From the United States, we are firmly committed to confronting the imperialist monster, to publicizing the reality of the situation in Cuba, and to building a revolutionary party that will overthrow capitalism, break the isolation of the Cuban Revolution, and allow all the peoples of Latin America to be masters of their own destiny.