The massive May Day parades across the country will be a resounding slap in the face to the enemies both within and without who are shouting themselves hoarse claiming that the Cuban people don't want a revolution, and a clear warning to U.S. imperialism of what awaits it if it decides to invade us.
Organizing these massive parades nationwide, given the enormous difficulties we face today due to fuel shortages for public transportation and the extreme tightening of the blockade, is a demonstration of confidence in the revolutionary people and a call for unity in action to find our own solutions to the problems that overwhelm us. The millions of people who will support the parades for this workers' holiday with their presence and enthusiasm could not have been better accompanied by the call made 26 years ago by the Commander-in-Chief of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro Ruz, to "change everything that needs to be changed."
The concept of Revolution, proposed by Fidel Castro in 2000 in Havana's historic Plaza de Armas, remains fully relevant today. This has been invoked by the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and President of the Republic, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, to resolve the problems hindering the country's economic development, production, and services.
Among these is the seamless harmonization of all factors that can alleviate the current crisis through the joint efforts of state-owned, mixed, and private sector enterprises, including micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) and self-employed workers, as well as cooperatives. It also requires eliminating bureaucratic obstacles to facilitate essential foreign investment and guarantee its profitability.
However, it also demands immediate attention to the hardships that weigh heavily on the population and that do not depend directly on the rigid restrictions intended to subdue the people through hunger and deprivation.
Of course, there can be no economic efficiency if manifestations of corruption, bribery, poor service, inadequate quality and inventory controls, and tax evasion are not eradicated and punished. Nor will there be any improvement or a way out of the current crisis without responsible, exemplary, austere, demanding, and creative administrations that seek solutions to difficulties and promote innovations based on science and technology. By participating in the parades, the people will defend the continuity of the Revolution and demand, once again, an end to the genocidal blockade imposed by the United States for 64 years, and intensified to the extreme by the current US administration with the same purpose of suffocating the Cuban people and attempting to force them to surrender through hunger and deprivation.
Every US president has maintained the economic, commercial, and financial blockade against Cuba since 1962, pressuring countries, companies, shipping companies, and banks, and ignoring 33 annual votes of condemnation by the United Nations General Assembly and the rejection by the international community and solidarity movements.
This, coupled with Washington's sponsorship of terrorist attacks, invasions, assassination attempts against leaders, sabotage, the release of plagues and epidemics, obstruction of oxygen purchases from other countries to save lives during the pandemic, and other actions, has never been able, nor will it be able now, to break the resistance of the Cuban people in defense of their Socialist Revolution.