Undoubtedly, what happened in our country on July 11 of this year surprised us all and not for lack of evidence and indications. The social networks in the Olympic marathon spread to the "four winds" slogans, guidelines, false news, doctored photos, etc., aimed at manipulating, confusing, and deceiving national and international public opinion about the Cuban socio-political situation.

The objective was clear, to take advantage of the dramatic circumstances of hardship and needs produced by the suffocation of the multilateral blockade decreed by the United States, added to circumstantial events, such as the exponential increase in the Covid pandemic and the breakdown of the main electricity factory ( Guiteras, from Matanzas), which not only affected the energy but also the water supply.

To this should be added the difficulties in supplying food and medicine with the usual long queues, a "black market" "mafia" born as a result, and the mistakes made in the late implementation of economic measures already approved. some years, including food production.

The subversive operation of coup magnitudes, at least as far as is publicly known, was not discovered and unmasked, nor - at least - the population was warned by all available means. A lonely and excellent documentary, «The dictatorship of the algorithm» exposed by Cuban TV , consisted of the most outstanding alert of these weeks, which, however, as it was not conceived with a well-organized media campaign, aimed at exploiting the information provided, did not reach the psychological, political and influence effects on social conscience, which were necessary and should be projected, given the imminence of the ongoing aggression.

Today's Cuba - and the world - is different from yesterday, and even more different from that of the first years of the Revolution, reasons that make it impossible to use the same methods of analysis or crisis management used before. There is a young, depoliticized sector of the population (due to our inefficient political and patriotic work) that does not understand the need for resistance to imperial policies and wants to improve their living conditions and does not find an immediate solution to their expectations.

The days have elapsed since the reported events and as it happens, many interpretations come to light, while campaigning media in the United States and its allies contin u a n insistently accusing Cuba of violation of human rights and other atrocities, open intention to create the conditions for a US military intervention.

We revolutionaries have to meditate and get experiences about the events that have taken place. The United States and its fascist government are the main responsible, but - and this but it is important -, we also have responsibilities for the mistakes made, which require a self-critical analysis , not only marginal references, it is necessary to delve into the why of them, which ones were its causes and how we are going to solve them. That was what Fidel taught us and warned us in November 2005 when he affirmed in a speech at the Havana University that only the Revolution could self-destruct.

The call to revolutionaries and communists must be to go on the offensive, to the front line: combat counterrevolutionary elements from within and without, combat corruption, bureaucracy, laziness: combat wrongdoing, combat disappointment and mistrust, lack or absence of administrative and political control, combat hollow, formal orientations, in short, generate ideas, defend concepts and achievements.

Fighting against the enemy and the bureaucracy would be the duty and responsibility of this historic moment. To use political, social and mass organizations, based on the duties and rights that our socialist Constitution provides us , not to shy away from direct confrontation and not to fear facing conflicts, because, as Fidel told us on many occasions: the best way to defend oneself is taking the offensive.

The combat and confrontation of ideas is taking place today at the base of society, on the block, in the neighborhood, in the community and it is there that the Party and the social and mass organizations must and must fight. not to oppress, but to convince, to explain and, where appropriate, to transfer the difficulties, misunderstandings and shortcomings to the leadership of the Party and the government.

Passivity makes us complicit in the errors and negative tendencies that Fidel had already warned about.

Enemy campaigns carried out by social networks, by mercenaries of Cuban origin living in Florida, as well as by the media operations of the traditional bourgeois news media, must be confronted without hesitation. It is necessary to denounce them, alert our population, dismantle them from within, taking advantage of the enemy's need to publicize their slogans, guidelines and contact their internal promoters, activities that can be prevented and neutralized, without unnecessary mobilizations, which could wear down and exhaust our forces. in the prospect of a long fight.

External solidarity, as it has been called, must be promoted to its maximum expression, both in Miami and other North American cities where honest Cubans live, as well as in other cities of the world, where the Cuban attitude of solidarity is well known.

Once again, Fidel summons us to the battle of ideas, which consists of debate and not imposition, convincing, listening and understanding arguments, and accepting those that are fair, because this does not imply concessions of principles, on the contrary. In any case, it reinforces our concept of Revolution , the one that Fidel bequeathed to us.

"Trenches of ideas are worth more than trenches of stones."

Taken from The Insomniac Pupil