Attended by more than 1 million workers and students, this year’s International Workers’ Day march in Havana’s Plaza de la Revolución was marked with an atmosphere of extreme jubilation and excitement as the massive crowds had an additional and huge reason to celebrate: the victory of the return of the Cuban Five heroes.
Millions more marched in the rest of the country: All 15 provinces and the Isle of Youth also held May Day rallies. In Artemisa alone, over 207,000 people celebrated.
At the front of the Havana parade behind a huge banner, “United in the construction of socialism,” were the Cuban Five. For the first time and after 16 years of false imprisonment, they marched with their families as national heroes.
Great cheers arose from the crowd as they saw Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s president, join Cuba’s President Raúl Castro on the dais. Maduro flew home afterwards for his country’s May Day celebrations. The two leaders stood side by side in solidarity, representing the close relations of the countries standing up to U.S. imperialism together.
May Day, or International Workers Day, is commemorated every year around the world on May 1. While in many capitalist countries, the day is marked by protests and police repression, in revolutionary Cuba it is a festive event to celebrate workers’ power and Cuba’s resistance to imperialism. The people there enjoy rights and respect not possible under capitalism.
At one point, a huge crowd of high school students rushed into the march moving under a heavy rain, singing and dancing and spraying water bottles into the crowd.
There were huge contingents of teachers, soldiers, laborers and their unions, students and the medical workers who had just returned from Africa valiantly fighting Ebola. The entire society was represented. Of particular note were thousands of “cuenta propistas,” the new sector of non-state workers, either self-employed or in new cooperatives. They now have a new union for the non-state workers.
The largest foreign delegation of supporters in years attended as well, with over 2,000 delegates from 70 different countries representing unions, communist and socialist parties, social movements, and Cuban solidarity groups, which participated with signs and banners.
From among those from the U.S. was the National Committee to Free the Cuban Five, which had struggled for years to liberate the five Cuban political prisoners held by the U.S. The Party for Socialism and Liberation also marched in solidarity with the Cuban Revolution carrying a banner that read in Spanish, “Long live the power of the workers.”
The march was opened by a speech by Ulises Guilarte de Nacimiento, secretary general of the Cuba Workers Federation (CTC). Emphasizing the efforts led by Cuba for the process of integration in Latin America and the Caribbean and the failure of U.S. policies of aggression against Cuba, Nacimiento said:
“Cuba shined in its own light at the Seventh Summit of the Americas and the Summit of the Peoples in Panama. … Within a political context characterized by the U.S. government’s recognition that their policy of harassment, aggression and blockade toward our country has failed, some steps have been taken toward the re-establishment of diplomatic relations between Cuba and the United States.”
Nacimiento noted that the normalization of bilateral ties with U.S. can happen only on the basis of respect for Cuba’s sovereignty and independence, including the lifting of the blockade and the return of the illegally occupied Guantanamo Naval Base.
He added, “We are full of pride on a day such as this, as we honor Lázaro Peña, Jesús Menéndez, Aracelio Iglesias and other working-class leaders, with the Five decorated Heroes of the Republic—Gerardo, Ramón, Antonio, Fernando and René—accompanying us, along with health care workers—including representatives of those who confronted the Ebola epidemic in Africa—eloquent examples, among others, of what conviction, determination, will and loyalty to the homeland mean.”
The massive show of people in support of socialism speaks volumes on the continued and growing leftist movements in Latin America.
We felt honored and excited to be among the exuberant crowd of hundreds of thousands of Cubans and international delegates, and we resolved to keep fighting to defend Cuba’s Revolution and to end the U.S. blockade.
Long live the Cuban Revolution!
Long live the Bolivarian Revolution of Venezuela!
Long live socialism!
