No Permission for Defeat

By Rafael Montejo Véliz on August 9, 2022

more socialism, photo: Bill Hackwell

There are people, few, a who are already defeated, and it is true that the tragedy caused by the accident at the supertanker base is great and the scenes are Dantesque.

Matanzas hurts as it hurt and hurts at the Saratoga Hotel in May, as it hurt and hurts with the Hurricane Flora with more than a thousand dead, and it hurts like the more than 3000 killed by mercenary attacks and bombings and the more than 100 children killed by the criminal introduction of dengue fever in Cuba in the early 80s, and the combatants killed in the Bay of Pigs and in the previous bombings, the lives cut short in the bombing of the plane in Barbados in 1976, and the two thousand combatants who died in Angola in the fight against apartheid and so many lives given up, the friends, colleagues, relatives and thousands of Cubans that Covid took away from us.

I reiterate, Matanzas hurts, and I understand that there are those who faint, but from there to ask that this be a turning point and ask, as a culmination to so much sacrifice and so much heroism, a miraculous change of rudder in the economy, as if we were not in permanent transformation, as if by a miracle the economy would change and spontaneously generate the desired prosperity that is not the product of creative work and instead they look to concessions that lead to the loss of political power. Lenin reminds us: “Politics is the concentrated expression of the economy. Politics cannot cease to have supremacy over economics. To think otherwise is to fail to understand the ABC of Marxism.”

Hope and courage arise from the people, from consensus, unity and socialism. More socialism is needed to turn this land around once and for all, to build an economy that defies all internal and external obstacles, that lifts us up from our inadequacies, we need more intelligent, collective and participatory planning.

Matanzas, and Cuba with it, rise brighter than the explosion that momentarily blinded us yesterday. And with it, our economy which is on its way to the most socialist and fair way possible, with that sacred formula of “With all and for the good of all” without permission for defeat and so called doomsayers.

And as my reflection is in a personal capacity and more than once I have volunteered to whatever the sacrifice may be, I keep my throat ready for the optimistic chant, my life on tenterhooks to fight, my flag unfurled and my dream and intelligence hopeful to change what must be changed in our Revolution.

Source: La Pupilia Insomne, translation Resumen Latinoamericano – US