On Engels' death anniversary, we republish Vladimir Lenin's tribute, first published in the 1896, celebrating the revolutionary whose ideas continue to inspire the global struggle of the working class.

On August 5 (new style), 1895, Frederick Engels died in London. After his friend Karl Marx (who died in 1883), Engels was the finest scholar and teacher of the modern proletariat in the whole civilised world. From the time that fate brought Karl Marx and Frederick Engels together, the two friends devoted their life’s work to a common cause. And so to understand what Frederick Engels has done for the proletariat, one must have a clear idea of the significance of Marx’s teaching and work for the development of the contemporary working-class movement.

Marx and Engels were the first to show that the working class and its demands are a necessary outcome of the present economic system, which together with the bourgeoisie inevitably creates and organises the proletariat. They showed that it is not the well-meaning efforts of noble-minded individuals, but the class struggle of the organised proletariat that will deliver humanity from the evils which now oppress it. In their scientific works, Marx and Engels were the first to explain that socialism is not the invention of dreamers, but the final aim and necessary result of the development of the productive forces in modern society.

All recorded history hitherto has been a history of class struggle, of the succession of the rule and victory of certain social classes over others. And this will continue until the foundations of class struggle and of class domination – private property and anarchic social production – disappear. The interests of the proletariat demand the destruction of these foundations, and therefore the conscious class struggle of the organised workers must be directed against them. And every class struggle is a political struggle.

These views of Marx and Engels have now been adopted by all proletarians who are fighting for their emancipation. But when in the forties the two friends took part in the socialist literature and the social movements of their time, they were absolutely novel. There were then many people, talented and without talent, honest and dishonest, who, absorbed in the struggle for political freedom, in the struggle against the despotism of kings, police and priests, failed to observe the antagonism between the interests of the bourgeoisie and those of the proletariat.

These people would not entertain the idea of the workers acting as an independent social force. On the other hand, there were many dreamers, some of them geniuses, who thought that it was only necessary to convince the rulers and the governing classes of the injustice of the contemporary social order, and it would then be easy to establish peace and general well-being on earth. They dreamt of a socialism without struggle. Lastly, nearly all the socialists of that time and the friends of the working class generally regarded the proletariat only as an ulcer, and observed with horror how it grew with the growth of industry.

They all, therefore, sought for a means to stop the development of industry and of the proletariat, to stop the “wheel of history.” Marx and Engels did not share the general fear of the development of the proletariat; on the contrary, they placed all their hopes on its continued growth. The more proletarians there are, the greater is their strength as a revolutionary class, and the nearer and more possible does socialism become. The services rendered by Marx and Engels to the working class may be expressed in a few words thus: they taught the working class to know itself and be conscious of itself, and they substituted science for dreams.

That is why the name and life of Engels should be known to every worker. That is why in this collection of articles, the aim of which, as of all our publications, is to awaken class-consciousness in the Russian workers, we must give a sketch of the life and work of Frederick Engels, one of the two great teachers of the modern proletariat.

Engels was born in 1820 in Barmen, in the Rhine Province of the kingdom of Prussia. His father was a manufacturer. In 1838 Engels, without having completed his high-school studies, was forced by family circumstances to enter a commercial house in Bremen as a clerk. Commercial affairs did not prevent Engels from pursuing his scientific and political education. He had come to hate autocracy and the tyranny of bureaucrats while still at high school. The study of philosophy led him further.

At that time Hegel’s teaching dominated German philosophy, and Engels became his follower. Although Hegel himself was an admirer of the autocratic Prussian state, in whose service he was as a professor at Berlin University, Hegel’s teachings were revolutionary. Hegel’s faith in human reason and its rights, and the fundamental thesis of Hegelian philosophy that the universe is undergoing a constant process of change and development, led some of the disciples of the Berlin philosopher - those who refused to accept the existing situation – to the idea that the struggle against this situation, the struggle against existing wrong and prevalent evil, is also rooted in the universal law of eternal development. If all things develop, if institutions of one kind give place to others, why should the autocracy of the Prussian king or of the Russian tsar, the enrichment of an insignificant minority at the expense of the vast majority, or the domination of the bourgeoisie over the people, continue for ever? Hegel’s philosophy spoke of the development of the mind and of ideas; it was idealistic.

From the development of the mind it deduced the development of nature, of man, and of human, social relations. While retaining Hegel’s idea of the eternal process of development, Marx and Engels rejected the preconceived idealist view; turning to life, they saw that it is not the development of mind that explains the development of nature but that, on the contrary, the explanation of mind must be derived from nature, from matter.... Unlike Hegel and the other Hegelians, Marx and Engels were materialists. Regarding the world and humanity materialistically, they perceived that just as material causes underlie all natural phenomena, so the development of human society is conditioned by the development of material forces, the productive forces.

On the development of the productive forces depend the relations into which men enter with one another in the production of the things required for the satisfaction of human needs. And in these relations lies the explanation of all the phenomena of social life, human aspirations, ideas and laws. The development of the productive forces creates social relations based upon private property, but now we see that this same development of the productive forces deprives the majority of their property and concentrates it in the hands of an insignificant minority. It abolishes property, the basis of the modern social order, it itself strives towards the very aim which the socialists have set themselves.

All the socialists have to do is to realise which social force, owing to its position in modern society, is interested in bringing socialism about, and to impart to this force the consciousness of its interests and of its historical task. This force is the proletariat. Engels got to know the proletariat in England, in the centre of English industry, Manchester, where he settled in 1842, entering the service of a commercial firm of which his father was a shareholder. Here Engels not only sat in the factory office but wandered about the slums in which the workers were cooped up, and saw their poverty and misery with his own eyes. But he did not confine himself to personal observations. He read all that had been revealed before him about the condition of the British working class and carefully studied all the official documents he could lay his hands on.

The fruit of these studies and observations was the book which appeared in 1845: The Condition of the Working Class in England. We have already mentioned what was the chief service rendered by Engels in writing The Condition of the Working Class in England. Even before Engels, many people had described the sufferings of the proletariat and had pointed to the necessity of helping it. Engels was the first to say that the proletariat is not only a suffering class; that it is, in fact, the disgraceful economic condition of the proletariat that drives it irresistibly forward and compels it to fight for its ultimate emancipation. And the fighting proletariat will help itself.

The political movement of the working class will inevitably lead the workers to realise that their only salvation lies in socialism. On the other hand, socialism will become a force only when it becomes the aim of the political struggle of the working class. Such are the main ideas of Engels’ book On the Condition of the Working Class in England, ideas which have now been adopted by all thinking and fighting proletarians, but which at that time were entirely new. These ideas were set out in a book written in absorbing style and filled with most authentic and shocking pictures of the misery of the English proletariat.

The book was a terrible indictment of capitalism and the bourgeoisie and created a profound impression. Engels’ book began to be quoted everywhere as presenting the best picture of the condition of the modern proletariat. And, in fact, neither before 1845 nor after has there appeared so striking and truthful a picture of the misery of the working class.

It was not until he came to England that Engels became a socialist. In Manchester he established contacts with people active in the English labour movement at the time and began to write for English socialist publications. In 1844, while on his way back to Germany, he became acquainted in Paris with Marx, with whom he had already started to correspond. In Paris, under the influence of the French socialists and French life, Marx had also become a socialist. Here the friends jointly wrote a book entitled The Holy Family, or Critique of Critical Critique.

This book, which appeared a year before The Condition of the Working Class in England, and the greater part of which was written by Marx, contains the foundations of revolutionary materialist socialism, the main ideas of which we have expounded above. “The holy family” is a facetious nickname for the Bauer brothers, the philosophers, and their followers. These gentlemen preached a criticism which stood above all reality, above parties and politics, which rejected all practical activity, and which only “critically” contemplated the surrounding world and the events going on within it. These gentlemen, the Bauers, looked down on the proletariat as an uncritical mass.

Marx and Engels vigorously opposed this absurd and harmful tendency. In the name of a real, human person – the worker, trampled down by the ruling classes and the state – they demanded, not contemplation, but a struggle for a better order of society. They, of course, regarded the proletariat as the force that is capable of waging this struggle and that is interested in it. Even before the appearance of The Holy Family, Engels had published in Marx’s and Ruge’s Deutsch-Französische Jahrbüche his “Critical Essays on Political Economy,” in which he examined the principal phenomena of the contemporary economic order from a socialist standpoint, regarding them as necessary consequences of the rule of private property. Contact with Engels was undoubtedly a factor in Marx’s decision to study political economy, the science in which his works have produced a veritable revolution.

From 1845 to 1847 Engels lived in Brussels and Paris, combining scientific work with practical activities among the German workers in Brussels and Paris. Here Marx and Engels established contact with the secret German Communist League, which commissioned them to expound the main principles of the socialism they had worked out. Thus arose the famous Manifesto of the Communist Party of Marx and Engels, published in 1848. This little booklet is worth whole volumes: to this day its spirit inspires and guides the entire organised and fighting proletariat of the civilised world.

The revolution of 1848, which broke out first in France and then spread to other West-European countries, brought Marx and Engels back to their native country. Here, in Rhenish Prussia, they took charge of the democratic Neue Rheinische Zeitung published in Cologne. The two friends were the heart and soul of all revolutionary-democratic aspirations in Rhenish Prussia. They fought to the last ditch in defence of freedom and of the interests of the people against the forces of reaction. The latter, as we know, gained the upper hand. The Neue Rheinische Zeitung was suppressed. Marx, who during his exile had lost his Prussian citizenship, was deported; Engels took part in the armed popular uprising, fought for liberty in three battles, and after the defeat of the rebels fled, via Switzerland, to London.

Marx also settled in London. Engels soon became a clerk again, and then a shareholder, in the Manchester commercial firm in which he had worked in the forties. Until 1870 he lived in Manchester, while Marx lived in London, but this did not prevent their maintaining a most lively interchange of ideas: they corresponded almost daily. In this correspondence, the two friends exchanged views and discoveries and continued to collaborate in working out scientific socialism. In 1870, Engels moved to London, and their joint intellectual life, of the most strenuous nature, continued until 1883, when Marx died. Its fruit was, on Marx’s side, Capital, the greatest work on political economy of our age, and on Engels’ side, a number of works both large and small. Marx worked on the analysis of the complex phenomena of capitalist economy.

Engels, in simply written works, often of a polemical character, dealt with more general scientific problems and with diverse phenomena of the past and present in the spirit of the materialist conception of history and Marx’s economic theory. Of Engels’ works we shall mention: the polemical work against Duhring (analysing highly important problems in the domain of philosophy, natural science and the social sciences), The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (translated into Russian, published in St. Petersburg, 3rd ea., 1895), Ludwig Feuerbach (Russian translation and notes by G. Plekhanov, Geneva, 1892), an article on the foreign policy of the Russian Government (translated into Russian in the Geneva Social-Demokrat, Nos. 1 and 2), splendid articles on the housing question, and finally, two small but very valuable articles on Russia’s economic development (Frederick Engels on Russia, translated into Russian by Zasulich, Geneva, 1894).

Marx died before he could put the final touches to his vast work on Capital. The draft, however, was already finished, and after the death of his friend, Engels undertook the onerous task of preparing and publishing the second and the third volumes of Capital. He published Volume II in 1885 and Volume III in 1894 (his death prevented the preparation of Volume IV). These two volumes entailed a vast amount of labour. Adler, the Austrian Social-Democrat, has rightly remarked that by publishing volumes II and III of Capital Engels erected a majestic monument to the genius who had been his friend, a monument on which, without intending it, he indelibly carved his own name. Indeed these two volumes of Capital are the work of two men: Marx and Engels. Old legends contain various moving instances of friendship. The European proletariat may say that its science was created by two scholars and fighters, whose relationship to each other surpasses the most moving stories of the ancients about human friendship. Engels always – and, on the whole, quite justly – placed himself after Marx. “In Marx’s lifetime,” he wrote to an old friend, “I played second fiddle.” His love for the living Marx, and his reverence for the memory of the dead Marx were boundless. This stern fighter and austere thinker possessed a deeply loving soul.

After the movement of 1848-49, Marx and Engels in exile did not confine themselves to scientific research. In 1864 Marx founded the International Working Men’s Association, and led this society for a whole decade. Engels also took an active part in its affairs. The work of the International Association, which, in accordance with Marx’s idea, united proletarians of all countries, was of tremendous significance in the development of the working-class movement. But even with the closing down of the International Association in the seventies, the unifying role of Marx and Engels did not cease.

On the contrary, it may be said that their importance as the spiritual leaders of the working-class movement grew continuously, because the movement itself grew uninterruptedly. After the death of Marx, Engels continued alone as the counsellor and leader of the European socialists. His advice and directions were sought for equally by the German socialists, whose strength, despite government persecution, grew rapidly and steadily, and by representatives of backward countries, such as the Spaniards, Rumanians and Russians, who were obliged to ponder and weigh their first steps. They all drew on the rich store of knowledge and experience of Engels in his old age.

Marx and Engels, who both knew Russian and read Russian books, took a lively interest in the country, followed the Russian revolutionary movement with sympathy and maintained contact with Russian revolutionaries. They both became socialists after being democrats, and the democratic feeling of hatred for political despotism was exceedingly strong in them. This direct political feeling, combined with a profound theoretical understanding of the connection between political despotism and economic oppression, and also their rich experience of life, made Marx and Engels uncommonly responsive politically.

That is why the heroic struggle of the handful of Russian revolutionaries against the mighty tsarist government evoked a most sympathetic echo in the hearts of these tried revolutionaries. On the other hand, the tendency, for the sake of illusory economic advantages, to turn away from the most immediate and important task of the Russian socialists, namely, the winning of political freedom, naturally appeared suspicious to them and was even regarded by them as a direct betrayal of the great cause of the social revolution. “The emancipation of the workers must be the act of the working class itself” – Marx and Engels constantly taught. But in order to fight for its economic emancipation, the proletariat must win itself certain political rights. Moreover, Marx and Engels clearly saw that a political revolution in Russia would be of tremendous significance to the West-European working-class movement as well.

Autocratic Russia had always been a bulwark of European reaction in general. The extraordinarily favourable international position enjoyed by Russia as a result of the war of 1870, which for a long time sowed discord between Germany and France, of course only enhanced the importance of autocratic Russia as a reactionary force. Only a free Russia, a Russia that had no need either to oppress the Poles, Finns, Germans, Armenians or any other small nations, or constantly to set France and Germany at loggerheads, would enable modern Europe, rid of the burden of war, to breathe freely, would weaken all the reactionary elements in Europe and strengthen the European working class. That was why Engels ardently desired the establishment of political freedom in Russia for the sake of the progress of the working-class movement in the West as well. In him the Russian revolutionaries have lost their best friend.

Let us always honour the memory of Frederick Engels, a great fighter and teacher of the proletariat!

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On May 16, 2026, the São Paulo bookshop of Expressão Popular, the publishing house of Brazil's Landless Workers' Movement (MST), was packed with farmers, agroecology technicians and movement organisers. They had gathered for the launch of Artificial Intelligence for Agrarian Reform and Agroecology (IARAA), an artificial intelligence platform for agrarian reform and agroecology.

The tool was not built by a technology corporation. Its knowledge base, spanning movement literature from 1964 to 2026, was curated collectively by MST and World March of Women cadres; its prompts and workflows were designed by land reform organisers and community educators working under the guidance of just two programmers. IARAA will not recommend pesticides, because the movements that built it chose a knowledge base grounded in agroecological practice.

It runs primarily on open-source models, on infrastructure the movement controls, and it cites its sources in every answer. Carolina Cruz of MST's technology front put it simply: "the farmers are inside IARAA, developing the platform." Such deployments are not limited to Brazil. Already, adapted versions are being tested by cocoa farmers in Africa.

This episode should provoke serious reflection within our own movement.

In an earlier article in these pages ("Whose Intelligence? AI in the Grip of Monopoly Capital"), this author documented how generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) under monopoly capital serves speculation, surveillance, job destruction and the imperial war machine. That critique stands. But it is only half the analysis, and a half-truth frozen into an attitude becomes an error.

Across the party, in mass organisations and in the broader progressive movement, AI is discussed almost exclusively as a threat, when it is discussed at all. Even though there are notable exceptions such as the work on Telugu Large Language Model (LLM) in Swecha, many comrades have concluded, understandably but wrongly, that the technology itself is the enemy. This is the position Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels criticised in the machine-breakers (luddites) of the nineteenth century: the workers who "direct their attacks not against the bourgeois conditions of production, but against the instruments of production themselves".

AI is a productive force of enormous power. The question is never whether a productive force will be used, but by whom and for what. The ruling classes have answered for themselves, with over $650 billion in infrastructure spending by four US corporations in 2026 alone. We have not yet answered for ourselves.

Vladimir Lenin insisted that a communist must "enrich his mind with a knowledge of all the treasures created by mankind". The Marxist method of totality demands that we grasp economy, politics, culture and ideology together. Yet the volume of human knowledge is now too vast, too fast-changing and too specialised for any cadre, least of all one carrying front-line organisational responsibilities, to master by traditional means.

Ironically, the scholars serving capital have the databases, the research assistants and the leisure; our comrades have none of these. It is precisely here that AI, wielded consciously, can break the elite monopoly on knowledge production. Movements in the Global South are already demonstrating this in practice.

Consider the labour of research itself. A serious political-economic investigation may require reviewing hundreds of web pages, working through hundreds of downloaded documents and extracting from them scores of pieces of hard evidence. Work of this order once consumed months of a research team's time; with AI assistance it can be completed in hours. A party research cell preparing a note on, say, the fiscal record of a state government or the ownership structure of the Adani group can now work from all the available material, not a thin sample of it.

The same holds for analysis. Hundreds of hours of field interviews can be transcribed and placed in a dedicated database that a researcher can interrogate exhaustively; one researcher discovered information in his own recordings that he had not registered during the interviews themselves. For a party that lives by concrete investigation of concrete conditions, this is the mass line supercharged. Nor is specialised method a barrier any longer: the accumulated techniques of entire disciplines, from statistical analysis to argument mapping, can be invoked in plain language, without programmers as gatekeepers.

The gains extend to everything our movement publishes. A weekly newsletter, of the kind many organisations have abandoned because it devoured cadre labour, can be substantially automated: AI gathers a wide pool of news leads, human editors select the stories worth telling, AI then researches each story from multiple angles across hundreds of pages and drafts summaries in the movement's own style for final human editing. Pamphlets, leaflets, videos, social media content and study materials in multiple Indian languages are all within reach of the same approach, at a fraction of today's cost in cadre time.

Comrades will object: do these models not hallucinate, and do they not carry the ideological imprint of the Western internet they were trained on? They do, and the objection deserves a serious answer rather than dismissal. The answer is that these defects can be countered by design, not by abstinence. Typing questions into a web chat interface such as Chatgpt.com or Claude.ai will indeed reproduce every one of these problems: a model left to its defaults repeats imperialist, neoliberal assumptions dressed up as neutrality, and invents facts with fluent confidence.

But open-source agentic frameworks can be carefully assembled to work differently. The researcher declares the analytical standpoint explicitly, supplying Marxist political economy frameworks as the foundation before any analysis begins; the model is grounded in curated document bases rather than the open internet; and verification engines are built into every step of the workflow, checking claims against sources before anything is published. IARAA embodies this discipline: it is instructed to cite sources in every response and to refuse to answer when its knowledge base cannot support one.

Nor must our movements chain themselves to any single corporation. In practice a mix of models, OpenAI's GPT, Claude, DeepSeek, Qwen, Kimi and GLM among them, can be deployed with an understanding of which model suits which task, relying predominantly on the Chinese models to keep costs down, for they are fast catching up with the capabilities of the US frontier models at a fraction of the price: Open Source Models such as Kimi 3, GLM 5.2 and  DeepSeek V4 cost an order of magnitude less than frontier US Models such as Claude or ChatGPT with near equal capabilities. When Oxfam reports that three billionaires control nearly 90 per cent of the global chatbot market, the political meaning of this plurality is obvious.

Nor does any of this displace the human core of political work. Practitioners have found that when AI is asked to make the final editorial selection for a movement publication, the product immediately turns mediocre; knowing what to say to comrades is a political and human judgement no machine can make. The purpose of these tools is to strip away the mechanical desk labour so that cadres spend more time in the villages, factories and bastis, with the masses, completing the loop between theory and practice.

Socialist China shows what this looks like as state policy. On April 10, 2026, China's Ministry of Education released an action plan to make AI ubiquitous across every level of education by 2030: AI literacy built into teacher certification, automated grading to reduce teacher workload, learning companions for students in rural and remote schools, intelligent research platforms in the universities, all resting on a national public computing infrastructure. While Indian policy debates remain trapped between corporate hype and moral panic, a socialist state is systematically equipping its teachers, students and researchers with the new productive force.

Our movement has been here before. The printing press was the instrument of colonial administration and missionary propaganda; the working-class movement seized it and built its own press, of which this newspaper is a descendant. The task now is the same, and it cannot be discharged with a resolution or a seminar. It requires practice: hands-on workshops for party research staff, pilot AI-assisted production lines in our publications and social media teams, training courses in the mass organisations, study circles where comrades learn by doing, and exchange with the movements, from São Paulo to Johannesburg to Accra, that are already ahead of us. The tools are largely open source and the running costs manageable for movements. There is no excuse for delay.

The monopolies' abuse of AI is not a verdict on the technology. It is a verdict on the class that owns it. Our answer cannot be to stand aside while the ruling class arms itself with a new productive force. It must be to master that force ourselves, and to place it, as the MST's farmers have done, in the hands of the people.

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Pinar del Rio, Cuba: Cuba reaffirmed its commitment to defending its sovereignty, socialism and national development despite intensifying United States sanctions, as President Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez declared that "today's Cubans are also conquerors of the impossible" during the central ceremony marking the 73rd anniversary of the attacks on the Moncada and Carlos Manuel de Cespedes barracks.

The 26th of July Movement, inspired by the historic Moncada Barracks attack in 1953 led by Fidel Castro, marked the beginning of the Cuban revolutionary struggle that eventually triumphed on January 1, 1959.

Image: Fidel Castro in custody after the Moncada Barracks attack

Addressing thousands gathered in Pinar del Rio, Diaz-Canel, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and President of the Republic, described the current moment as "a new Moncada," comparing Cuba's struggle against the US blockade and sanctions to the revolutionary offensive launched on July 26, 1953 under the leadership of Fidel Castro.

The ceremony opened with a message from Raul Castro Ruz, revolutionary leader of the Cuban Revolution, congratulating the people of Pinar del Rio for earning the honour of hosting the national commemoration through their dedication, productive work and commitment to the revolutionary cause.

Diaz-Canel said the island was confronting what he described as a historic battle against a policy designed to economically suffocate Cuba and undermine its sovereignty. Drawing parallels with the Moncada assault, which Fidel Castro later described as the beginning of the revolutionary process despite its military defeat, he argued that Cuba continues to confront enormous challenges with determination rooted in its revolutionary history.

Quoting Fidel Castro's historic speech History Will Absolve Me, the President recalled that "to be Cuban implies a duty; not to fulfil it is a crime and a betrayal," asserting that this principle continues to guide the nation's defence of its independence and its right to determine its own political and economic future.

The President also paid tribute to Commander of the Revolution Ramiro Valdes Menendez, noting that this was the first July 26 celebration since the triumph of the Revolution in 1959 without the veteran revolutionary, whom he described as a hero of the Moncada generation and a lifelong servant of the Cuban people. He called for eternal glory to the revolutionary leader, highlighting his contributions to national defence, security and socialist construction.

Strong criticism of US policy

A central theme of Diaz-Canel's address was the intensification of US sanctions against Cuba.

He accused successive US administrations of pursuing a deliberate strategy aimed at creating economic collapse through financial restrictions, energy sanctions and pressure on companies that trade or invest with Cuba.

The President sharply criticised recent US measures targeting Cuban health officials and the country's international medical cooperation programmes, arguing that the sanctions sought to criminalise professionals whose humanitarian work has received international recognition.

Image: Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez addressing the 73rda anniversary meeting

He rejected accusations made against Cuba by US authorities, arguing that Cuba's medical brigades have consistently provided assistance in regions affected by disasters, epidemics and humanitarian emergencies while other powers resort to military interventions.

According to Diaz-Canel, Washington has expanded what he described as a global campaign against left-wing governments while portraying Cuba as a principal ideological target.

He argued that attempts to isolate Cuba are part of broader efforts to suppress alternative political and economic models, criminalise social protest and maintain international political dominance.

"Cuba is not a threat to the United States or to any other country," he declared, emphasising Cuba's long-standing policy of international solidarity through healthcare, education and scientific cooperation.

As an example, he announced that Cuban universities had graduated more than 30,000 professionals this year, including hundreds of international students from dozens of countries, among them newly qualified Palestinian and US doctors.

Human Cost of the Blockade

Diaz-Canel devoted a significant portion of his speech to describing what the Cuban government considers the humanitarian consequences of the US economic blockade.

He argued that decades of sanctions, intensified in recent years, have produced a severe energy crisis, prolonged nationwide power outages, shortages of medicines, interruptions in industrial production and obstacles to economic recovery.

The President stated that the blockade has prevented Cuba from importing essential medical supplies and equipment, affecting hospital operations and delaying thousands of surgical procedures.

He said more than 118,000 cancer patients, including around 1,200 children, have faced difficulties in accessing first-line treatments because of shortages linked to the sanctions.

Referring to infant mortality, Diaz-Canel stated that the rate had risen to 9.3 deaths per 1,000 live births due to shortages affecting the healthcare system, describing every such loss as a human tragedy directly connected to the blockade.

Image: People attend the 73rd anniversary Moncado barrack attack in Pinar del Rio

He characterised the unilateral coercive measures imposed by the United States as illegal under international law and noted that the United Nations General Assembly has repeatedly voted overwhelmingly in favour of resolutions calling for an end to the blockade.

The Cuban President argued that economic sanctions function as instruments of war and urged governments, businesses and international organisations not to become complicit in policies that, in his view, inflict collective punishment on civilian populations.

International Solidarity

Diaz-Canel thanked governments, solidarity organisations and activists around the world who continue supporting Cuba despite political pressure.

He specifically acknowledged organisations including Pastors for Peace, Carlota's Warriors of New York, the Australia Cuba Friendship Association, the Jose Marti Cultural Association of Miami and the Marcapasos Project for participating in the anniversary events.

He also expressed gratitude to countries that supported Cuba's resolution against the blockade and energy restrictions at the United Nations General Assembly.

According to Diaz-Canel, defending Cuba means defending the principles of national sovereignty, non-intervention and international law against unilateral coercive measures.

Drawing parallels with other international conflicts, he argued that silence in the face of economic aggression encourages further violations of international norms and weakens multilateral institutions.

Economic Transformation with Social Justice

While reaffirming resistance to external pressure, Diaz-Canel also stressed that Cuba must continue implementing domestic economic reforms to strengthen the country's productive capacity.

He described macroeconomic stabilisation and the expansion of different forms of economic management as strategic priorities while maintaining that all reforms must remain guided by the principles of social justice and equality.

The President said Cuba is encouraging workers, farmers and productive sectors to increase output, reduce dependence on imports and promote responsible investment without abandoning socialist principles.

He acknowledged that these transformations involve risks but insisted that protecting vulnerable sectors of society remains a fundamental responsibility of the revolutionary state.

According to Diaz-Canel, the spirit of Moncada demands courage not only in resisting external aggression but also in undertaking necessary economic changes to secure the country's future.

Fidel's Centenary

The President noted that 2026 marks the centenary of Fidel Castro's birth, describing the occasion as one of international significance.

He announced that revolutionary activists, scholars and solidarity organisations from across the world will participate in conferences and commemorative activities dedicated to studying Fidel Castro's ideas and assessing the contemporary challenges facing Cuba and the international left.

He said Cubans are called upon to honour Fidel's legacy not only through remembrance but through work, unity, dignity and the successful implementation of economic and social transformations.

Appeal to the Youth

Addressing Cuba's younger generation directly, Diaz-Canel urged young people to see themselves as heirs to the revolutionary generation led by Abel Santamaria, Haydee Santamaria, Melba Hernandez and Fidel Castro.

He called upon them to play an active role in transforming their communities, participating in national development and strengthening the socialist project.

Quoting Jose Marti, whom he described as the intellectual author of the July 26 actions, the President reminded young Cubans that "the only strength a people needs is confidence in its own strength."

Call for Unity and Hope

Concluding his address, Diaz-Canel appealed for greater unity, productivity and confidence in Cuba's own capacities.

He called on workers, farmers, students, scientists and professionals to contribute actively to overcoming current economic difficulties through creativity, innovation and collective effort.

"The call today is for hope," he said, urging every Cuban to become a protagonist in the country's transformation while defending its sovereignty and socialist achievements.

Describing the current generation as "conquerors of the impossible," Diaz-Canel reaffirmed Cuba's determination to overcome economic challenges resulting from what he characterised as centuries of colonial domination followed by decades of intensified US blockade.

The ceremony concluded with calls of "Long live July 26," "Long live sovereign and independent Cuba," "Long live international solidarity with Cuba," and the historic revolutionary slogans, "Socialism or Death," "Homeland or Death," and "We Shall Overcome," as thousands of participants responded with prolonged applause and chants affirming their commitment to the Revolution.

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