U.S. Hands Off Cuba!

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"As I see it it's two down, and one to go-Cuba."

These were the words of Senator Robert Dole (RKansas) as he spoke to the U.S. Senate a couple of days after the defeat of the Sandinistas in the Nicaraguan elections.

The U.S. rulers are rubbing their palms in eager anticipation of dealing a blow to a revolution they consider—in the words of Vice President Dan Quayle—to be "the last serious problem on the continent." But Cuba is not Nicaragua or Panama-or Grenada.

Furthermore, unlike the decaying Stalinist regimes in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and China, the Castro leadership enjoys immense popular support from the vast majority of Cuban workers and peasants.

Castro, and the team around him, were leaders of the first non-Stalinist socialist revolution since the 1917 Russian Revolution (led by the Bolsheviks under Lenin and Trotsky). And ever since 1961, when Castro openly declared the socialist character of the Cuban Revolution, Cuba's struggle against U.S. imperialism has been intimately linked to the struggle for democracy and national independence.

Cuba is a problem for the U.S. capitalist class. For 30 years the Cuban Revolution has been a beacon for the underdeveloped countries of the world which are still super-exploited and dominated by world imperialism.

While the workers and peasants in the rest of Latin America are wracked with poverty, disease, starvation and repression, Cuba has built a society where these evils are virtually extinct-and has done so in the face of a U.S. imposed 30-year trade embargo. 18 SOCIALIST ACTION In Revolutionary Cuba, which has nowhere near the resources and riches of a Brazil or an Argentina, life is hard but much more equitable. All Cubans have access to free medical care, education and housing. Everyone has the right to a job, and anyone who tries to practice racial discrimination goes to jail. In a country that once had a 70 percent illiteracy rate, this scourge of ignorance has been virtually wiped out.

These are the conquests-the social gains— that are a "problem" for U.S. imperialism.

Cuba's international prestige is also a "problem" for U.S. imperialism While the U.S. has more soldiers stationed around the world than any other country, Cuba has more doctors stationed around the world than any other country. While the U.S. lends support to the apartheid regime in South Africa, Cuba sent fighters to beat back the South African army in Namibia and Angola.

But today Cuba is in mortal danger. And as the U.S. capitalists wax euphoric over their recent victory in Nicaragua, the antiwar movement in this country must gear up to organize demonstrations and rallies to defend the Cuban Revolution.

One important example-which should be emulated around the country—is a march and rally organized for April 7 in New York City around the demand: "U.S. Hands Off Cuba!"

Sponsored by the U.S. Hands Off Cuba Coalition, this demonstration is the first response to the American ruling class campaign to isolate and threaten the Cuban Revolution. In cities all across the country, similar coalitions should be organized by solidarity, antiwar, and labor activists. Now is the time to intensify efforts to defend the first socialist revolution in the Western Hemisphere. PRIL 1990