December 2, 2025 Gregory E. Williams
April 17, 1961 – Fidel Castro, lower right, is seated inside a tank at Playa Girón during the Bay of Pigs invasion, in which Washington-backed forces attempted to topple the revolutionary government.
Fidel Castro was born on Aug. 13, 1926. If he were alive today, he’d be turning 100 next year. In Cuba, preparations are already underway to celebrate his centennial. But even without the anniversary, current events – the dangerous world situation right now – warrant a reappraisal of Fidel’s life and the Cuban revolution. They have a lot to teach us.
Right now, the U.S. government is intensifying its attacks on Venezuela and other countries of Latin America. This imperialist government, run for the billionaires, has already been illegally assassinating people in the Caribbean who are just trying to make a living, offering zero proof that they are smuggling drugs.
War is a real danger. This would not only be a disaster for Latin America, but also for working-class and oppressed people here in the U.S. itself. (We always seem to get poorer as the war profiteers get richer.)
But Washington’s attempts to subjugate Latin America to Wall Street are nothing new. Fidel Castro spent his life fighting against the murder machine that is U.S. imperialism. And with his leadership, the Cuban revolution first threw off the U.S.-backed Batista dictatorship and then spent decades fighting off U.S. attempts to resubjugate Cuba. Sixty-six years later and they haven’t beaten the Cuban revolution.
Fidel understood that there really was no making peace with imperialism. The leaders of the global capitalist system might soften their tone from time to time, pretend that they will start playing fair. Trump exemplifies this pattern. But the unrelenting profit motive that drives the whole system can never allow peace, and the imperialists can never accept it when people of formerly colonized countries of the Global South, like Cuba, start to run their own affairs.
The problem, from the oligarchs’ point of view, is that if Global South countries are independent, the working-class and oppressed majority there could get hold of the reins of power and actually help the people. When that happens, it threatens corporate profits (the same corporations keeping us down here).
That’s why the U.S. and Britain backed a coup in Iran in 1953, inaugurating decades of bloody dictatorship. The Iranian government had nationalized the oil industry and wanted to use the country’s resources to raise living standards. That meant stopping U.S. and British capitalists from stealing everything.
Venezuela’s crime
There are similarities between Iran and Venezuela, which happens to have the largest proven oil reserves in the world. Venezuela nationalized its oil in 1976, and when Hugo Chávez was elected in 1998, bringing the Bolivarian revolution to power in 1999, the government used the country’s wealth to undertake massive efforts to uplift the people, expanding access to housing, education, health care, etc. Washington has been trying to destroy Venezuela’s Bolivarian government, essentially from day one, long before the bogus narco-state accusations.
Venezuela’s crime is threatening foreign capitalist profits. That was the crime of Iran, and it’s the crime of Cuba. The imperialists can’t accept anything that looks like self-determination. That’s why the Palestinian people’s resolve makes them crazy. That’s why Trump vilifies the Black majority government of South Africa.
There are many things we can learn from Fidel Castro’s life as we contemplate his centennial. But one is that the imperialist system will never accommodate itself to us – to oppressed people, to workers. So, we should not accommodate ourselves to it. Instead, we have to fight it.
https://www.struggle-la-lucha.org/2025/ ... el-castro/
******
Massive Blackout Affects Western Cuba
Cuban people walk in the dark. Photo: El Estornudo.
December 3, 2025 Hour: 10:38 am
The U.S. blockade makes it difficult to supply spare parts, and increases repair costs.
On Wednesday, a massive blackout left 3.5 million people without electricity in Havana and western Cuba. The Ministry of Energy and Mines (MINEM) informed that the outage of the National Electric System (SEN) occurred at 5:00 a.m. local time.
The Electric Union (UNE) confirmed that the entire capital and the provinces of Pinar del Rio, Artemisa, and Mayabeque were without power. It also informed that the process of energizing substations in the West has already begun and urged the public to follow official information.
The blackout occurred after national demand exceeded 3,300 megawatts, with a 50% generation deficit. Two baseload generating units went out of service: Unit 2 of the Felton Thermoelectric Power Plant (CTE) in Holguin and Unit 3 of the Rente CTE in Santiago province.
On Monday, 59% of the country also experienced simultaneous blackouts due to generation deficits, the highest rate on record. Cuba has suffered five total energy blackouts in the last year, some of which took days to restore.
The UNE has reported partial outages due to frequency fluctuations, with daily blackouts exceeding 20 hours in several areas of the country. At the moment, units are undergoing maintenance: Unit 5 of the Mariel CTE in Artemisa, Unit 2 of the Santa Cruz CTE in Mayabeque, and Unit 4 of the Carlos Manuel de Cespedes CTE in Cienfuegos.
The text reads, “Around 5:00 a.m., a failure occurred on a transmission line linking Santa Cruz del Norte with Guiteras, causing an overload on the other line and consequently the division of the SEN.”
The distributed generation system, based on diesel and fuel oil generators, is affected by a lack of fuel and lubricants. Lazaro Guerra, the MINEM electricity director, explained that the outage occurred on the transmission line between the Santa Cruz del Norte and Guiteras power plants.
Guerra indicated that restoration protocols are being implemented in the western region and that with power stabilized in Matanzas province, substations are being energized to restore service. The energy system is “progressing” while operations remain stable in the eastern region.
On Tuesday, the UNE reported that two units were reconnected: Unit 6 of the Diez de Octubre CTE in Camaguey and Unit 3 of the Rente CTE in Santiago, but it did not cover the deficit. The Antonio Guiteras thermoelectric plant in Matanzas also remained operational.
The MINEM indicated that the crisis stems from aging infrastructure, lack of maintenance, weather damage, and the U.S. embargo, which hinders spare parts, increases repair costs, limits fuel, prevents foreign contracts, and delays renewable energy projects.
https://www.telesurenglish.net/massive- ... tern-cuba/