Mission Statement

Fidel Castro was a man who transcended the limitations of his birth to embody the revolutionary possibilities for all humankind. August 13th, 2026 marks 100 years of Fidel Castro’s birth, and will be celebrated by those who love freedom all over the world. Fidel’s life is inextricably intertwined with the revolutionary aspirations of the Cuban people. Thus, a celebration of Fidel is also a celebration of the Cuban revolution and the revolutionary potential of humanity at large. In a time when the world is torn apart by war and a genocide that confronts all those with conscience, this is an opportunity to study Fidel Castro and the Cuban revolution’s moral example.

W.E.B. Du Bois had formulated that “The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color-line,—the relation of the darker to the lighter races of men in Asia and Africa, in America and the islands of the sea.” There is perhaps no nation which has battled and reshaped social relations like Cuba so as to make the color line and race obsolete. Since the European discovery of the New World and the transatlantic slave trade, Cuba had played a central role in the development of capitalism, to which the labor of slave workers was central. It was the site of extensive wealth extraction through sugar, coffee and tobacco plantations. When the Black Haitian revolution took place, the colonialists turned Cuba into their stronghold, entrenching slavery and colonial control. 

The civil war was fought in North America with the participation of Black Workers, yet the possibility of true democracy and racial reconstruction was defeated with the upturning of Black Reconstruction in 1877. The Cuban war of independence was fought for a different vision of colored democracy in which all men were Cubans irrespective of their race. Its two ideals were national independence and the abolition of slavery. It was based on the futuristic ideas of Jose Marti, who would say, “Men have no special rights because they belong to one race or another: the word man defines all rights.” Out of the struggle came the legacy of heroic figures such as the guerrilla fighter and General Antonio Maceo who was called ‘the Bronze Titan’. This history deeply affected the consciousness of the Cuban revolutionaries of the 1950s as they worked out the vision for a new society.

The Cuban revolution constitutes a unique process in the world’s history. The revolution was initiated by Fidel and his comrades in Sierra Mastra but the real process of the revolution started after the collapse of the corrupt and brutal Batista regime when Fidel and his comrades took over the Cuban state. The state had to face several challenges as affluent Cubans including doctors and professionals fled to Miami after the revolution. Cuban state and society were rebuilt after the revolution, based on values that prioritized children rather than wealth. A central event of the revolution was the literacy campaign which raised the literacy rate to 96% in the course of a year. The teachers of this campaign included young students and children between the ages of 10 and 19 who travelled to the countryside to live there for 8 months. During the course of teaching they learnt of the conditions of rural areas, and the work of farming. This process transformed human relations in Cuban society. The revolutionary government invested heavily in healthcare to produce the best healthcare system in the world. From having no doctors, Cuba went on to export doctors to other parts of the world as political aid. Since 1963, more than 600,000 Cuban health workers have provided medical services in more than 160 countries. Education and health show the progress of the Cuban state in two of the most important markers of human advancement.

These achievements were made possible because of the struggle for ideas the Cuban revolutionaries carried on throughout the process of the revolution. Fidel would give long pedagogical speeches in the early days of the revolution, speaking with the people as their friend and confidant. Fidel won the love and trust of the Cuban people by conducting himself with the highest level of honesty and always leading by example. His leadership was characteristic of our own freedom fighters. He was humble before the people and avoided any cult of personality or special privileges for himself. He knew and emphasized that it was the people who make history and every genuine revolutionary must seek to mobilize and politically educate the masses of people. In this sense, Fidel was a genuine democrat who believed in the ultimate potential of the people and fought for it to be realized.

Because of the united support of the people, he was able to lead them through the collapse of the Soviet Union into the special period. The Cuban people made severe sacrifices and lived with austerity in order to defend their revolution as Cuba lost its primary economic benefactor. This was a time when many were disillusioned with what they saw as the failure of communism. Yet, Fidel and the Cuban people heroically held on to the ideals on which they had built a new society. The Cuban people would remember Maceo, who refused to surrender before the Spanish in the face of insurmountable odds on the question of the freeing of the enslaved. Fidel would insist that the correctness of an idea was not determined by its success or failure.  He initiated a Battle of Ideas campaign, a cultural revolution against the values of consumerism and individualism to initiate new human values.

Fidel would emphasize the power of revolutionary ideas and ideological struggle, “we are sustained by the deepest conviction that ideas are worth more than weapons, no matter how sophisticated and powerful those weapons may be.” Much of his time would be spent in ceaseless study and the working out of ideas that could clarify world events and chart out paths for the Cuban people and humanity. Fidel was non-dogmatist par excellence, he never relied on stale slogans but sought to work out a thought that could synthesize the ideas of scientific dialectical materialism with the civilizational heritage of Cuba and of Latin America. Cuba inherited the history of the Haitian and the Bolivarian revolution. Fidel saw his own efforts in this revolutionary heritage of figures like Antonio Maceo, Simon Bolivar and Jose Marti as much as in the legacy of Marx and Lenin.

Like Mahatma Gandhi, Fidel would insist on the unity of means and ends. He was moved by the ethics of Jose Marti, and all who participated in the Cuban revolution were trained in the highest moral code. It is for this reason that despite repeated terrorist attacks sponsored by the US, no prisoner has ever been tortured or mistreated in Cuban prisons. Cuban fighters were taught always to defend, never to exact retribution, even in the early days of guerrilla war. 

Because of this emphasis on morality, the Cubans would go on to demonstrate the most beautiful examples of human solidarity in history. Cuban soldiers and doctors voluntarily went to assist liberation struggles all over the world, risking their own lives. The most striking of these was the solidarity mission in Angola to defend the gains of the Angolan anticolonial struggle against an invasion by the racist apartheid South African army. South African leader Ronnie Kasrils would say of the Cuban mission in Angola, "the Cubans took nothing home except the bones of their fallen and our gratitude." Fidel and the Cuban people saw the solidarity missions as part of Cuba’s revolutionary duty and part of the reshaping of their own society. Their work in Angola would have reverberations for all anticolonial movements in Africa. Nelson Mandela would say of Cuba’s victory at the historic battle of Cuito Canvale, “The decisive defeat of the racist army in Cuito Cuanavale was a victory for all Africa.” The operation in Angola would be named after Carlota, an enslaved woman who led a historic anti-slavery revolt at a Cuban sugar mill in 1843. Through these missions those who had never seen pre-revolutionary Cuba were exposed to the conditions of colonial exploitation, helping to continue the building of revolutionary consciousness in new generations. Fidel would say “And from Africa, as slaves, many of our ancestors came to this land. We are brothers of Africans, and we are ready to fight on behalf of Africans!” 

The high moral character of those who undertook these missions cannot be overemphasized. To die for another’s freedom is the greatest act of human solidarity possible, and represents where humanity must go in its future. Fidel Castro and the Cuban revolution thus chiseled through sacrifice, new and futuristic human beings and a truly internationalist identity.

Fidel was a leader of the darker nations and the non-aligned movement. He was close to freedom fighters the world over including Indira Gandhi, Amilcar Cabral, Nelson Mandela, Yasser Arafat. He was relentless in fighting for Palestinian self determination. Fidel and Cuba have always been a great friend of India. Nehru had been the first head of state to visit him in a Harlem hotel when he was isolated in the UN gathering in 1960 and all the big hotels of New York boycotted the Cuban delegation. Nehru would say to a young Fidel, “I wanted to meet you for many reasons, above all, because you are a very brave man.” Fidel would reply, “You are a man of peace. You are doing the work of all of us.” Fidel and Indira Gandhi would go on to become two pillars of the non-aligned movement which sought to create a more equitable world. Gandhi and Tagore continue to be studied in Cuba, and Tagore’s birthday is celebrated each year in Havana. In turn, many in our society love and respect Cuba and Fidel.

Fidel had a total commitment to opposing all forms of racism, colonialism, neo-colonialism, imperialism and Zionism. He played an important role in the peace movement. He warned against a unipolar order led by the U.S. and fought for the unity of darker nations. Today, we see his warnings come true. The Western ruling class has been driven mad on war and greed, commiting genocide and killing children. They would rather see the end of human civilization rather than accept the decline of their empire. In turn, too many political forces have abandoned the principles of their freedom struggles and accepted Western values. Fidel’s approach which centered the human being and his insistence on revolutionary values is essential for the world today.

When viewed in the broad arc of its development, the Cuban revolution can be seen as an achievement of non-violent struggle for its contributions to human progress and freedom through the moulding of human moral character. This process was exemplified in the generous, many sided, and large personality of Fidel Castro. He saw himself both as one of the people and one who was responsible for them: first among equals. We remember Fidel today for his commitment to the truth, his dedication to learning, his love for human beings, and his self-effacing sacrifice in the struggle to make a new world. We believe with Jose Marti and Fidel, With the poor of the Earth, I would like to cast my lot.