Revolution, against all the odds.

This year, I had the honour of visiting Cuba with the Cuba Solidarity Campaign’s Young Trade Unionist’s 2025 May Day Brigade as UTAW’s first ever delegate. I was alongside comrades from all across the trade union movement, with members from CWU, Unite, ASLEF, RMT, TSSA, POA - more acronyms than you can shake a stick at.

Our trip lasted two weeks, and in that time we heard and saw lots of different things about Cuba and how society is organised. There was a varying level of pre-existing knowledge amongst our brigade, some had deep specialist knowledge before coming, and some knew very little. I’d put myself in the latter camp, I knew relatively little about Cuba before my visit, and a lot of what I did know was through smashing articles and documentaries in the weeks leading up to the trip. One thing I noticed a lot was the Western propaganda spin on pretty much everything, spinning everything Cuba has done into a negative - stuff like “Cuba had one of the greatest and fastest literacy campaigns ever, and this is bad because…”, that’s not a direct quote from anything in particular, but the overall vibe I got whilst reading stuff. Over the past few years, in the face of Israel’s genocide, many people have got used to the lengths that our media will go to in the name of Western propaganda (think things like “young Gazans die” instead of “Palestinian children murdered”) but it’s still always jarring to identify and read such blatant ideological propaganda from our “trusted” media sources. For a small period of time, the Western media machine began to paint Cuba in a more positive light, as a result of Obama’s effort to warm relations with Cuba. Famously, the Kardashian’s had visited in 2016, televised in the episode ‘Havana Good Day’. Their visit was met with mixed reviews, and illustrations of Kim as Che (god bless the days before AI slop, where real artists made mashups of celebrity influencers and revolutionary commanders).

During our visit to Cuba, we learned how a state so boldly manages to organise their society in an alternative way to capitalism, despite having so few resources, being so physically close to the centre of the capitalist world, and the enduring blockade intended to bring about “hunger, desperation, and overthrow of government”. It’s very easy to have an ideologically romantic image of the revolution and the society it organised in place of the previous corruption and US interference, but the trip highlighted the importance of not just holding the ideology of Cuban society in a romantic, idealised capacity, but also recognising and understanding the damage caused by decades of the US’ illegal blockade. By recognising the damage caused by the US, and understanding how longstanding US policy chokes the possibility of Cuban prosperity, we become better comrades who can advocate for practical solidarity and change. It’s vital that all comrades who attend Cuba take what they learn home and share it, advocate for the Cuban people, and fight for better. Particularly those comrades visiting from the imperialist core where the greatest opportunity for meaningful change lies.

In 2025, Cuba are experiencing massive fuel shortages and enduring rolling blackouts. The camp we stayed at was experiencing a blackout both when we arrived, when we left, and at frequent points in between. In March 2024, protests began in response to food shortages and blackouts. The blackouts peaked in intensity in 2024, when Cuba suffered a national blackout from 18-22 October. The illegal blockade has increased in intensity since 2021 when Trump added Cuba to the arbitrary ‘State Sponsors of Terrorists’ list. Many people had hoped Biden would reverse this decision but he instead completely avoided the issue until his last few days in office, when he finally removed Cuba from the list, only for Trump to immediately return Cuba to the list when he returned to office.

Despite everything the Cubans endure, we experienced nothing but hospitality and kindness from everyone we met. We were met with total kindness and willingness to answer all of our questions about life in Cuba.

When we arrived at Camp, it was almost dusk, and there was a power cut - so we were thrown into the deep end. That being said, the staff and other delegations handled the cuts so well that often you couldn’t tell there even was a power cut. The dorms we stayed in were basic but had everything we needed. It’s all very communal, you share your rooms with seven other people, and you share the toilets and showers with your delegation. The toilet doors were very low, like a full head’s height lower than an average height person, so going to the toilet became a social experience. The toilets themselves didn’t flush and so you had to flush away your own waste with a bucket of water. All of this became second nature quite quickly and in all honesty, is preferable to the average British music festival. There were often frogs in the showers and toilets, they were pretty cute and I looked forward to seeing them. I actually kind of miss them now.

We were fed well, especially given the context of the US’ illegal blockade making it hard to import food, and fuel shortages making it harder to grow food. Lots of modern farm equipment runs on fuel, so a lack of fuel means moving back to older forms of farming, like manual tools, and using Oxen instead of vehicles to plough. All of this is slower, and leads to a lower yield, therefore making it harder to feed everyone. Despite this, we ate three solid meals, three times a day. We ate rice, meat, potatoes, and eggs largely. There was always tomatoes and cucumber available with lunch and dinner, and the tomatoes in Cuba had much more flavour than any of the tomatoes in the UK. The delegation had been briefed to bring condiments and seasoning for the food, and while having the condiments did add to the meals, there was no time that the additional condiments were absolutely necessary. And there were many meals I ate without using the condiments I’d brought (particularly when we’d had a long day and I didn’t want to walk back to my room and search through my bag.) My condiment of choice was Laoganma Crispy Chilli Oil - which makes everything taste better, especially rice (which you can expect to eat twice a day).

Throughout the trip we had a packed agenda that helped us to see many aspects of Cuban life, we visited primary care facilities (polyclinics) and listened to the importance of free healthcare to the Cuban approach to healthcare. For example, every town has a GP and every family has a family doctor. The polyclinics also have small wards and ICUs, they seemed to operate most comparably to a walk-in centre. As we toured the polyclinic though, we saw that the facilities were dated and resources were scarce. It’s no secret that particularly right now, Cuba is struggling with even the most basic of medical supplies. As an act of practical solidarity, the entire brigade brought medical supplies (painkillers, sterilisation equipment, contraception etc.) to be distributed to healthcare and community facilities. These gifts were appreciated but we were under no illusions that our gifts were a drop in the ocean compared to what the Cuban people need and deserve.

We also heard about the importance of healthcare in Cuba’s internationalism. For example, how they sponsor Palestinian students to attend the Latin American School of Medicine, and how they’ve sent brigades of Doctors to other countries, like to Italy during COVID when it became the centre of the pandemic. Healthcare is a huge point of pride for the Cuban people, and we saw that there’s a big focus on primary care and preventative approaches. For example, Cuban healthcare professionals take a community and primary care based approach to treating HIV.

Cuba also has the most progressive policies in Latin America for Trans and gender affirming healthcare which is fully provided by the state free of charge. A person must have lived in their ‘new’ gender for two years before they can access some types of gender affirming healthcare. Reform of the family code, and introducing incredibly progressive policies on LGBT+ issues like healthcare and marriage are a recent development in Cuba society. It wasn’t lost on me throughout the trip that this wasn’t always the case, and that during the early stages of the revolution - gays weren’t treated well, often being placed in labour camps and being labelled as counter-revolutionaries. In his later years, Castro acknowledged this as a mistake and took the blame.

The centrepiece of the trip was undoubtedly the May Day parade, an annual parade of workers through the heart of Plaza de la Revolución in Havana in celebration of International Workers’ Day. Hundreds of thousands of workers march along the street in support and celebration of the revolution. Traditionally, Fidel would’ve attended. Raúl and Miguel Díaz-Canel now typically attend. I’d never seen such a large march in my life before, and definitely not to celebrate something.

On farms, we saw the impacts of reduced access to fertiliser, tractors, and other important farm equipment, because of the blockade. In response to this, Cuba has adopted largely organic and manual farming techniques, largely through necessity - but also because Cuba understands its place in the environment and considers their existence in relation to the environment. There’s a conscious effort to farm in an ecological way. Cuba is acutely aware that as an island in the Caribbean, the impacts of the ongoing climate crisis will not be kind to them.

Our visit to Cuba was nothing short of life-changing. It challenged everything we thought we knew about Cuba, and about the world by extension. It showed us that it is indeed possible to fight back, even in the most challenging conditions, and that it’s possible to win. Each one of us must continue to fight for a Cuba free from the pressures of imperialism, we must fight to end the illegal blockade. We must defend the right of a state to exist freely and without US influence.