classconscious.org joins the calls of other Marxists and leftists from around the world for the release Marxist historian Frank Garcia Hernadez. After participating in a protest in Havana, Hernadez was arrested along with a number of other socialist comrades. Hernadez, made links with many international Marxists when he organised the first International Academic Conference on Trotsky in Cuba.
It should be stated upfront that our solidarity for Hernadez has nothing in common with despicable and predictable phoney outrage from the far right Cuban exile community in the US and the Biden Administration at the crackdown on the protests in Cuba. To hear the blood drenched US President Biden mouth concern over the use of force on protestors should only arouse contempt. The protests were an expression of social pressures in Cuba, exacerbated by the covid crisis, that of course US Imperialism bares overwhelming responsibility for with its six decade long blockade.
However, as Trotskyists we defend the right of Cuban workers to organize politically to defend the gains of the revolution from imperialism and against moves by the ruling bureaucratic caste to restore capitalist property rights. Whilst the current protests are politically heterogenous in character we defend the pro-socialist elements such as Frank Garcia Hernandez. The arrest of Hernandez and other pro-revolutionary socialists amongst the protestors no doubt reflects the awareness of the Cuban authorities that criticism from the left poses a greater political threat to their rule than the orchestrated campaign of the counter-revolutionary rabble seeking to exploit legitimate grievances.
Free Frank Garcia Hernadez and other socialist prisoners in Cuba!
Defend the gains of the Cuban Revolution!
Down with US Imperialism and the blockade against the Cuban people!
