Speech delivered by Miguel Mario Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and President of the Republic, at the ceremony commemorating the 65th Anniversary of the Proclamation of the Socialist Character of the Cuban Revolution, at 23rd and 12th Streets, Plaza de la Revolución, on April 16, 2026, “Year of the Centenary of Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro Ruz.” (Stenographic Transcripts – Presidency of the Republic) Long live free Cuba! (Exclamations of: “Long live!”) Down with the blockade! (Exclamations of: “Down with!”) Heroic combatants of Girón present here; Esteemed friends of solidarity with Cuba, participants in the 5th International Colloquium on the Homeland; Dear and heroic Cuban people; Fellow citizens (Applause): Sixty-five years ago, women and men who were as young as, or even younger than, all of us filling these streets today — possibly many grandmothers, grandfathers, mothers, or fathers of some of us — gathered here to write a truly epic chapter in the history of the modern world.
That day changed history, and not only for Cuba.
With an invasion looming on our shores, still uncertain of where they would land, but aware that behind the invaders was the full backing of the powerful United States government, the voice of Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro Ruz, almost broken by hours of sleepless nights and tension, rose above the crowd overflowing this historic corner to declare that we were what we continue to be: a socialist revolution right under the nose of the empire! (Applause.) That declaration is pivotal in Cuban history, marking the definitive course of the revolutionary process that began with the triumph of 1959 and which, by 1961, had become profoundly radicalized in favor of the perpetually dispossessed.
The mercenaries were preparing to attack the nation that had given them birth, convinced that nothing could prevail against the protection guaranteed by the empire.
But history would be merciless with them.
They expected fear and found courage.
They gambled on betrayal and were confronted by a united people.
They believed their lies and were met with truth, rifles ready and singing the notes of the Bayamo Anthem.
The Cuban people marched from here to the fight, and from the fight to victory! A small nation, fresh from war, would inflict, less than 72 hours later, the first great defeat on imperialism in the Americas.
(Applause.) From that April of militia action onward, all the peoples of the region would be a little freer.
Cuba changed forever.
The people who fought on the sands of Girón for socialism had already begun their cultural transformation with a Literacy Campaign that elevated the dreams of the humble to university classrooms.
Human development would reach heights that only a just society can guarantee.
This Revolution of the humble, with the humble, and for the humble would go so far that a shoeshine boy in capitalism would become Latin America’s first cosmonaut; that young people from Africa and throughout the Third World would become professionals in Cuban schools; that we would share our blood and our fate with the forgotten and the vilified of all time (Applause).
And we defeated apartheid, illiteracy, and curable diseases in other parts of the world, to which we would bring doctors, not bombs; teachers, not bombs.
That is socialism: a society where man is brother, not wolf to man! (Applause.) When, in the fateful 1990s, socialist practice self-destructed in Europe through the vile conspiracies of its imperialist adversaries, Cuba resisted and transformed itself, rising up on its own strength and with the support of international solidarity.
Chávez had not yet triumphed in Venezuela, and the decade of integration, which the Bolivarian Revolution had awakened, was about to begin.
Fidel, once again Fidel, as he had done at the Bay of Pigs, leading the battles and advancing on a tank at the forefront, spearheaded that superhuman struggle to preserve Cuban socialism in an era of feverish neoliberal advance and unipolarity.
While others privatized even cemeteries and parks, blindly believing in the myth of the market as the omnipotent ruler of a wealth that never materialized, this country erected a monumental work, with the science and the human labor and scientific potential forged in the Revolution, and with the heroism and creative resistance of the Cuban people (Applause).
And our people’s army went out to sow and build, to demonstrate, as Raúl said, that yes, it can be done! That it can always be done! And we did it! That is socialism! (Applause.) Many times throughout those years, while the country strove to correct, perfect, and adapt its battered economy, besieged by the blockade, countless silent invasions occurred: laws to codify the blockade, terrorist attacks, smear campaigns, and constant sabotage of all integration, solidarity, and cooperation projects.
Each silent bomb that fell on development projects has left a wound in Cuban society.
One particularly painful wound has been the migration of promising young people, educated free of charge in our schools and universities, whose capacity and talent are stolen by capitalism, which failed to invest in them, while they accuse the society that shaped them of not guaranteeing them what the predatory market offers.
Truth be told: That human potential that impresses and gains ground and relevance in any country it reaches was created by socialism! (Applause.) Only socialism transformed the children of workers and peasants into top-tier professionals, not exceptionally as in capitalism, but massively.
(Applause.) To conceal the genocidal and multidimensional nature of the six-decade-long blockade that suffocates the entire Cuban people — a blockade that can only be called an embargo on paper by those who impose it — a deceitful and cynical narrative has been constructed: Cuba as a failed state.
The impacts of decades of blockade and financial persecution are very visible in our homes, industries, and in the lack of goods, even essential ones, in the scarcity of almost everything, even the most....
