Defend Cuba against Imperialism without Whitewashing the Dictatorship!
On the opportunist adaptation of PTS/CPR-FI to the Stalinist-Capitalist regime of Castro/Diaz-Canel
By Michael Pröbsting, Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT), 4 February 2026
Trump’s offensive to recolonise Latin America has opened a new phase in world politics. After assaulting Venezuela and kidnapping its President, Washington has imposed a total oil blockade on Cuba, hoping to push the regime into collaboration – as they did already successfully with the corrupted Venezuelan government of Delcy Rodríguez. 1
It is the duty of Marxists to defend Cuba as we side with all other capitalist semi-colonies facing imperialist aggression like Venezuela or Iran. The RCIT has published a statement along these lines and so have a number of other socialist organisations. 2 However, in order to defend Cuba and other countries which are attacked by the U.S., one must have a clear analysis of the regimes in these countries and their role in face of imperialist aggression.
The Trotskyist Faction (recently renamed in Current for Permanent Revolution - Fourth International), with the Argentinean PTS as the leading party, recently published a statement on this issue. While it correctly denounces the imperialist aggression and calls for the defence of Cuba, the statement also shows the opportunist adaptation of this organisation to the Stalinist-Capitalist regime of Castro/Diaz-Canel. 3
The PTS/CPR-FI considers Cuba still as a “deformed workers state”. In its statement it accuses Trump to strive for a “complete restoration of capitalism”. It criticises that “the Diaz-Canel government has been passing reforms that strengthen pro-capitalist tendencies.” It speaks of “increasing measures to restore capitalism.” All these formulations suggest that capitalist restoration would only be a tendency and that Cuba still would be a “deformed workers state”, i.e. a post-capitalist state defending a planned economy based on proletarian property relations.
Indeed, this is the analysis of the PTS/CPR-FI as one can see in an article published in 2021. Here it speaks about the Stalinist regime as one which “is undermining the foundations of the workers’ state.” It characterizes the pro-market reforms since 2010/11 as “a further step toward capitalist restoration. If completed, this restoration will be a severe defeat. (…) Capitalist restoration would entail the loss of historic gains like the nationalized economy with its centralized planning…“ 4
All this suggests that the restoration of capitalism would only be a possibility which lies in the future and that Cuba remains a “deformed workers state”. However, as a matter of fact, the regime has been committed to restore capitalism since more than 15 years as the PTS/CPR-FI comrades themselves suggest when they speak about “pro-market reforms initiated by Raúl Castro in 2010–11”. As we did show in our book “Cuba‘s Revolution Sold Out?”, published in 2013, the regime has undertaken a series of reforms which all advance the restoration of capitalism. At the same time, the regime keeps its political institutions in place, i.e. the Stalinist dictatorship. This is why the RCIT characterises it as a Stalinist-Capitalist regime. 5
In this we follow the approach of Leon Trotsky, one of the greatest Marxist thinkers of the 20th century, who elaborated a profound analysis of Stalinism. Such he wrote: “The class nature of the state is, consequently, determined not by its political forms but by its social content; i.e., by the character of the forms of property and productive relations which the given state guards and defends.“ 6
Hence, the decisive question is which social relations does a given regime defend? In the case of Cuba, we see that it is imposing austerity measures and market reforms since a number of years, i.e. that it is advancing capitalist property relations. Furthermore, it is a regime which has aligned itself with Chinese and Russian imperialism. 7
The PTS/CPR-FI comrades ignore these developments in order to claim that defending Cuba would mean to defend a “deformed workers state”.
Reform or revolution in Cuba?
However, even if Cuba would still be “deformed workers state”, the position outlined in the PTS/CPR-FI is shameful. Not a single time does it characterize the regime as a dictatorship, not a single time does it call for political revolution – as Trotskyists always did in Stalinist states – and not a single time does it advocate the replacement of the regime by an authentic workers and popular government!
It only speaks about the “bureaucratic Cuban regime”. It denounces that “the government continues to restrict the independent organization of workers and youth and represses demonstrations by the popular masses in response to the worsening social crises” and demands that “the Cuban government must stop repressing, persecuting, and imprisoning those who denounce the inequalities and political oppression.”
Naturally, we always demand from a government that it stops repression. Such socialists in the U.S. raise the demand that the Trump Administration stops sending the ICE thugs to terrorise migrants and, likewise, that it ends it plan to recolonise Latin America. But we also make clear that we want to bring down the Trump Administration and that we want to smash U.S. imperialism.
But as the PTS/CPR-FI comrades are silent about the dictatorial character of the regime, about the necessity to overthrow and to replace it, their approach becomes a reformist one, i.e. they are calling the regime to make some reforms. To make this look realistic they are minimising the repressive character of the Stalinist regime. For example, the formulation “the government continues to restrict the independent organization of workers and youth” can be called the understatement of the year. The Castroite regime does not only “restrict” independent workers and mass organisations. It brutally represses them since more than six decades and does not allow any other party or trade union which is independent of the regime to exist! When the masses demonstrate for democratic rights, they face brutal repression as we saw in 2021. 8
This is not a “bureaucratic government” making mistakes which need to be corrected – this is a dictatorship which stays in power through brutal repression. Effectively, the PTS/CPR-FI statement is whitewashing the Stalinist Regime!
The disappearance of dialectics
Finally, it is also worth noting that the PTS/CPR-FI does not mention at all the close relations of the Castroite regime with Chinese and Russian imperialism. Again, this is not surprising not only because the comrades have a soft approach to the regime but also because they refuse to recognise the imperialist character of China and Russia, as we discussed somewhere else. 9
Both in the case of the Stalinist-Capitalist character of the Cuban regime as well as the imperialist nature of China and Russia, the PTS/CPR-FI repeats the same mistake of ignoring fundamental laws of materialist dialectic – the necessity of identifying the essence behind appearance and the transformation of quantity into quality. In his Notebooks on Philosophy Lenin approvingly quoted Hegel’s dictum that „the truth of being is essence“ 10 and emphasised that “the endless process of the deepening of man’s knowledge of the thing, of phenomena, processes, etc., [is] from appearance to essence and from less profound to more profound essence.“ 11
Unfortunately, due to its strong orientation to universities, the PTS/CPR-FI is too much influenced by neo-Gramscian and post-modernist ideas dominating the progressive academic milieu. Hence, they repeat since many years that China and Russia only “have imperialist tendencies” but are not imperialist yet and that the Cuban regime introduces pro-market reforms but has not become capitalist yet. Everything is lost in an endless process without essence and clear characterisation. Such vagueness is not only confusing but also useful to justify an opportunist policy of adaptation to Castro-Chavismo!
Authentic Marxists must make a clear rupture with such undialectical and opportunist methods and take a clear stance in defence of Cuba against imperialist aggression but also in clear denunciation of the Stalinist-Capitalist regime of Castro/Diaz-Canel!
1 See e.g. RCIT: The Yankee Attack against Venezuela has Begun! Defeat U.S. imperialism and its local allies! Defend Venezuela! No political support for the Maduro Regime! 3 January 2026, https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/latin-america/the-yankee-attack-against-venezuela-has-begun/; Michael Pröbsting: Trump’s Donroe Doctrine and its Consequences for Venezuela, Latin America and the World (Part 1: https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/latin-america/trump-s-assault-on-venezuela-and-his-plan-to-recolonise-latin-america/ and Part 2 https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/latin-america/trump-s-assault-on-venezuela-and-his-plan-to-recolonise-latin-america/#anker_3); Ernesto Buenaventura: El chavismo se maquilla la cara, bajo las órdenes de Trump, para garantizar el negocio de las petroleras yanquis, https://convergenciadecombate.blogspot.com/2026/01/el-chavismo-se-maquilla-la-cara-bajo.html
2 See the following RCIT documents: Stop the Imperialist Aggression against Cuba! Down with Trump’s plan to recolonise Latin America! No political support for the Stalinist-Capitalist regime of Castro/Diaz-Canel! 3 February 2026, https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/latin-america/stop-the-imperialist-aggression-against-cuba/; Jorge Arboleda: Por una campaña de solidaridad con el pueblo cubano sin apoyo a la dictadura castrista, 3 de febrero de 2026, https://ccrimexico.blogspot.com/2026/02/por-una-campana-de-solidaridad-con-el.html
3 CPR-FI: Down with the Imperialist Siege on Cuba, 31 January 2026, https://www.leftvoice.org/down-with-the-imperialist-siege-on-cuba/. All quotes are from this statement if not indicated otherwise.
4 Diego Dalai: 62 Years after the Revolution: What Are the Perspectives for Cuba? 9 January 2021 https://www.leftvoice.org/62-years-after-the-revolution-what-are-the-perspectives-for-cuba/
5 For our analysis of the process of capitalist restoration in Cuba we refer readers to the book by Michael Pröbsting: Cuba‘s Revolution Sold Out? The Road from Revolution to the Restoration of Capitalism, August 2013, https://www.thecommunists.net/theory/cuba-s-revolution-sold-out/; see also Juan Giglio y Damián Vekelo: Cuba tiene un gobierno stalinista, que aplica un ajuste capitalista, julio 13, 2021, https://convergenciadecombate.blogspot.com/2021/07/cuba-tiene-un-gobierno-stalinista-que.html
6 Leon Trotsky: Not a Workers' and not a Bourgeois State? (1937); in: Trotsky Writings, 1937-38, p. 61
7 For our theoretical analysis of the relationship of Stalinism, workers state and capitalist restoration we refer, in addition to the above-mentioned book, to an essay by Michael Pröbsting: China: On Stalinism, Capitalist Restoration and the Marxist State Theory. Notes on the transformation of social property relations under one and the same party regime, 15 September 2024, https://www.thecommunists.net/theory/china-on-stalinism-capitalist-restoration-and-marxist-state-theory/
8 For a compilation of RCIT articles on the mass protests in Cuba in 2021 see https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/latin-america/cuba-solidarity-with-mass-protests-against-the-stalinist-capitalist-regime/.
9 For our debate with the PTS/CPR-FI comrades see e.g. the exchange between Esteban Mercatante and Michael Pröbsting published by both organisations at https://www.laizquierdadiario.com/El-caracter-de-China-y-sus-consecuencias-para-la-politica-revolucionaria respectively https://www.thecommunists.net/theory/debate-on-capitalism-in-china/). A debate was also recorded on video in spring 2022 (https://www.thecommunists.net/rcit/debate-between-pts-ft-and-rcit-cs-on-china/). Furthermore, another debate took place in autumn 2023 at a public meeting in Buenos Aires which included Medina Avdagić and Michael Pröbsting for the RCIT and José Castillo, a professor at the University of Buenos Aires and a well-known theoretician and leader of UIT-CI as well as Matías Maiello, a leading theoretician of the PTS/CPR-FI (https://www.thecommunists.net/rcit/rcit-interventions-at-rallies-in-2023-part-2/#anker_2); see also the pamphlet by Michael Pröbsting: China: An Imperialist Power … Or Not Yet? 22 January 2022, https://www.thecommunists.net/theory/china-imperialist-power-or-not-yet/; Unable to See the Wood for the Trees. Eclectic empiricism and the failure of the PTS/FT to recognize the imperialist character of China, 13 August 2020, https://www.thecommunists.net/theory/pts-ft-and-chinese-imperialism/; How is it possible that some Marxists still Doubt that China has Become Capitalist? (A Critique of the PTS/FT), An analysis of the capitalist character of China’s State-Owned Enterprises and its political consequences, 18 September 2020, https://www.thecommunists.net/theory/pts-ft-and-chinese-imperialism-2/; for a compilation of RCIT documents dealing with China as a Great Powers see https://www.thecommunists.net/theory/china-russia-as-imperialist-powers/.
10 Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel: The Science of Logic, (Translated by A.V. Miller; Foreword by J.N. Findlay), Allen & Unwin, London 1969, p. 389
11 V.I.Lenin: Conspectus of Hegel’s Science of Logic (1914); in: Collected Works Vol. 38, p. 221


