Youth delegates in Cuba commit to dismantling imperialism

“The crisis unfolding is multidimensional and it impacts all of us on this planet. The global crisis has brought many inequalities for youth: 50 million youth are starving and 57 million youth are unemployed.” — Maria, member of the Unión de Jóvenes Comunistas

On May 2, 2023, youth delegates from different trade unions, student organizations, and young communist leagues from different countries convened in a plenum session as part of the programming of international solidarity with Cuba and the world at Havana’s Convention Centre. Members from Cuba’s Unión de Jóvenes Comunistas (UJC) chaired the meeting. Students and workers in Cuba’s biotechnology sector asked delegates to share common problems and solutions being seen in spaces where youth are living, where they are working, and where they are organizing.

Maria started the conversation off by stating, “The struggles mounting in our respective countries are very diverse, but we have a common enemy. We often see our issues as separated — the struggle against fascism, for labour rights, for women’s rights, but if we look at history it shows we are struggling against a common enemy: foreign international capital and the environmental struggle.”

Expressions of all our struggles have these two issues at their origin, the root of our problems that erodes peace and security for all life on the planet. As the conversation at the plenum progressed, delegates expanded on these sentiments to talk about problems that separate us and solutions that unite us in these struggles, the role of youth in making their voices heard in places where decisions are made, and the role that communist parties have had and will have in bringing these struggles together. 

The role that youth took on in the research and production of the medicine Abdala, a treatment that mitigated the effects of COVID-19, is a case study of how young people in Cuba are taking charge of their future despite adversity. Cuba’s biotech sector started in 1980 with the innovations Cuban scientists made. The political leadership of the Communist Party and Fidel Castro set a precedent for Cuba to develop its own medication for its own people and also for all of South America. 34 biotechnology facilities now exist in Cuba while 15 operate abroad. Each biotech facility cooperates with each other for the purpose of research and innovation, addressing some of Cuba’s hardest problems such as food production, medicine, and extreme weather.

When COVID-19 became a global pandemic, research into finding treatment and a vaccine for this disease began immediately. Five vaccines were developed, three being effective in the treatment and prevention of the disease. Young people working and studying in biotech contributed greatly to the research of the medication Abdala, a medication designed to mitigate symptoms. Youth were the first to volunteer for clinical trials, and took the lead in exploring different modalities of the research to determine the efficacy of the trials. From the result of this work, as Cuba experienced surges of COVID-19 cases, with some hospitals seeing 300 new cases a day, the entire country only experienced 8,530 deaths to their 1,113,830 cases. In addition, the research done and the unity exemplified within the biotech sector demonstrated what a socialist application of scientific research and innovation can do for its people, despite the impacts of the blockade and a global pandemic. Socialism does not avoid problems, but rather offers the Cuban people the ability for a thorough analysis and treatment of the problems that arise, which leads to effective solutions that promote human life. 

A delegate from a trade union in India talked about the global migration crisis youth are going through, specifically migration due to lack of opportunities. The pursuit of a façade of convenience and allure of wealth is a lie youth are told — that a better opportunity exists elsewhere. “Wealth is created at the expense of another person’s poverty” and the desire to leave keeps youth from being rooted in their own community, where they could contribute more in speaking to their own issues from what they know.

Delegates from the electrical trade union in Uganda and another trade unionists in the Democratic Republic of the Congo echoed calls for a renewed anti-imperialist agenda for central Africa, sharing how these countries have been left out of global development altogether through wars supported by developed nations and the UN, which have suppressed their rights to their own resources and their own labour. Speakers from Europe and America raised the question of how communist parties are perceived in their role in uniting the different struggles together within the younger generation, especially among students, and how we are defining socialism and capitalism in our present context compared to how our enemies are re-defining these political projects.

The general atmosphere of the room showed a determination to draw nearer to the struggles students are enduring and to the inequalities youth are living through, as well as a commitment for youth to assume their role in dismantling imperialism. This work requires a lasting commitment from young people to work towards unity, to mobilize others into this fight, and act on our commitments. For people to know how to fight in this landscape, they need to be trained first, and to be trained our movements need clear political programs that show our priorities. Our terminal disease is not a pandemic, it is how capitalism has harmed this planet and how imperialism is going through its final death rattle. For the survival of the planet, youth need to take their future into their own hands by being able to create the solutions that our present-day and future problems demand us to solve. Our present times are filled with much uncertainty and disunity. We need to focus on uniting against our common enemy, profit and environmental destruction. These are the core issues for our fight ahead.