One word is repeated and rightly repudiated: violence. Some "right-thinking" individuals contrast revolutionary socialism, accused of being violent to another, which is supposedly "democratic," peaceful, conciliatory, reformist. Cubans who are living today in this unredeemed island did not experience the daily violence of capitalism (represented in the figure of Batista). The vast majority were born after the triumph of the Revolution, or just a few years before. Let's put it graphically: only Cubans over 70 years old knew the meaning of that word in the 1950s.

But the proposed conciliation, that covenant of peace, is the embrace between exploited and exploiters, between pro-independence and neocolonialists (with their local expressions: neo-autonomists and neo-annexationists) in exchange for small concessions; that is, not the suppression of the exploitation or submission to foreign interests, but its comprehensive acceptance by the exploited, as if both alternatives were not forms of violence, as if the reward for those ruling would be the one longed by those ruled. "We don't understand each other," Maceo replied in 1878. Was he then praising the violence or reacting to it?

For this reason, in the Montecristi Manifesto (1895), José Martí spoke of "the necessary war" and wrote, together with Gómez: "War (is) the disciplined product of the resolution of men who, in the calm of experience, they have decided to face once again the threats they know, and of the cordial legacy of Cubans of more diverse origins, convinced that in the conquest of freedom, the necessary virtues are better achieved than in abject despondency.” Let us not forget that the Revolution in Cuba was simultaneously socialist and of national liberation.

Revolutionary socialism is essentially democratic because it faces the violence of domination in all its expressions —economic, political, cultural, ethnic, gender, on nature, on minorities. It actually insubordinates against the multidimensional violence of capitalism and declares the "necessary war." Although the defense of minorities has a limit, it is worth admitting: it does not include those who do not quit on exploitation. Those who champion it ideologically or as "cannon fodder" are vaccinated and treated free of charge in our hospitals, and we open schools for them without distinction. All Cubans enjoy equal rights and duties.

This act of rebellion is systemic: it not only affects the classes most closely linked to domination, and not only the powers that enjoy that domination; it affects the entire international system of imperialist relations, because it removes a link from the chain. This explains why transnational capital is subordinated to U.S. imperialism in the war against the rebel island.

A war that boasts the U.S. economic, commercial and financial blockade against Cuba at its finest —rejected, but nonetheless abided by other powers— an act of criminal violence whose goal is revealed in a 1960 document, declassified by the U.S. State Department: “

has its maximum and constant expression in the economic, commercial and financial blockade - repulsed, but slavishly abided by other powers - an act of criminal violence, the purpose of which is revealed in a 1960 document, declassified by the State Department: “Most Cubans support Castro. The only possible means of alienating internal support is through discontent and discouragement based on dissatisfaction and financial difficulties. (…) For this it is necessary that in the most skillful and discreet way possible, we could make major steps by denying money and supplies to Cuba, to reduce the money salary and the real salary, with the aim of causing hunger, despair and overthrow to the government".

Hundreds of our citizens (including children) have died due to lack of the right medicine, input, or the necessary technology for their disease. While Cuban doctors and nurses saved lives in 40 countries of the world, rich and poor, during the COVID-19 pandemic, ours was deprived, for example, of ventilators and oxygen, and oil, unable to carry out transactions to buy food. The system —it is not about a "bad" cop, an isolated entity—put his knee on the neck of an African American until he was suffocated in Minneapolis; and tried to suffocate Venezuela and Cuba, for insubordination.

Terrorism has been organized from the U.S.: 3 478 Cubans have been murdered and 2 099 have been seriously injured, resulting in permanent disability. We can number a lot of concrete actions, which still endure in the popular memory; namely, the burning of El Encanto mall, the sabotage against La Coubre, or the bombing of the Cubana de Aviación civil flight with 73 passengers inside, including young athletes returning home. These are not isolated actions. Recently, Molotov cocktails were thrown to the embassy of Cuba in France —where families in diplomatic service are— and an automatic gun was shot against the Cuban embassy in Washington.

Violence is imposed on the world. The system cannot sustain itself without it and hence, it uses violence in the most obvious way, without any subtlety. The system puts in jail popular contenders under fake accusations if it is understood they would win elections, or that system deposes elected presidents with legal arguments (impeachment). The system sponsors electoral fraud and encourages and supports coups d'état with the approval and collaboration of institutions at its service, such as the OAS. That system transforms elections into market fairs, where the important thing is the image —that is, the money spent on it— and not the government program. Bourgeois democracy is either a mechanism for the reproduction of the bourgeoisie will, or it is no longer regarded as a democracy. The yellow vests in France know something about this, those in Chile who are sick and tired of fascist neoliberalism, those in Colombia who denounce extrajudicial killings, or those who state in the United States that "black lives matter." In Cuba, there are no disappeared or murdered, nor is torture practiced.

But a widely promoted video shows a Cuban bragging and insulting the revolutionary police in the street with impunity; when he is arrested, the networks make him a victim. There are those who do not believe in the people and join the strong man of the neighborhood (the United States). They think that they will take advantage when the exploiters return. "Those who have no faith in their land are seven-month-old men," José Martí wrote. As they lack courage, they deny it to others. The difficult tree cannot be reached with the scrawny arm, the arm with painted nails and a bracelet, the arm from Madrid or Paris, and they say that the tree cannot be reached. The ships must be loaded with these harmful insects, which gnaw at the bone of the homeland that nourishes them. Those “premature” men openly call for the armed intervention of the United States in Cuba.

The “social” networks bullies revolutionary people, and also those who distance themselves from national discussions. Repudiation rallies are made against artists who do not speak out against the Homeland. Some break, others not. They threat those living across the sea: they may lose their properties, their stay permits and contracts. What a shame for Gente de Zona and Descemer Bueno, because they have to abandon their dignity to preserve their privileges. They were broken by the violence of Miami's acts of repudiation. But the transnational media speaks of repudiation rallies in Cuba. They are alarmed when the Cuban revolutionaries take the streets.

We reject violence and any act that is harmful to dignity. The reason, the truth, in a world that despises each of them, are our strength. But there are those who want us to hand over power peacefully, so that imperialism can regain control of our lives and resources. Will we allow the return of capitalist violence? Will we surrender, after so much blood, so much sacrifice? You must know: counterrevolutionary violence generates revolutionary violence. We, the Cuban revolutionaries, are against violence, but we will defend the peace that has been achieved.

Translated by Sergio A. Paneque Díaz / CubaSí Translation Staff