Solidarity To The Cuban Socialist Project
LANKA Network
July 24, 2026
The Communist Party of Cuba has approved preliminary changes to the country’s laws that would allow the economy to be opened to the capitalist market. Among other things, the reforms would open Cuba to private real-estate investors and allow state-owned businesses to be turned into privately owned corporations. The reforms would also allow for private banks to come to Cuba. These reforms are a continuation of the aggressive blockade on Cuba, which was made even harsher in January this year. (Aljazeera 18.6.2026.)
The US has kept Cuba under a blockade since the 1960s. Almost all countries (except Israel and the US) have demanded an end to the blockade in the UN. The blockade has been deeply embedded into US law, and not even the US President has the sole authority to end it. Breaking down the blockade would require legislative change on a congressional level, which looks unlikely in a country where both parties in power are in favor of the blockade. The US has stated that the intention of the blockade is to overthrow Cuba’s socialism and its communist party.
Is the era of Cuban socialism over, and was Cuba ever really socialist? These questions have been thrown around in the international left and in Finland by some individuals.
LANKA Network sees that, taking into account its conditions, Cuban socialism has shown the world a great example of a socialist model throughout its existence, and that Cuba still fulfills our basic principles of socialism.
- Solidarity and camaraderie with the working classes of other countries and solidarity for the right to self-determination of the working classes of other countries.
- Workplace democracy that is ruled by the working class and working class ownership of the means of production.
- Leveling wealth disparities and economic inequality.
- Fighting against all oppression and exploitation, respecting the self-determination of minority groups.
- Building and preserving socialist culture and a socialist worldview.
Cuba’s reforms mirror those of the reforms that already happened in China and Vietnam. These reforms are also partly a continuum of the reforms that happened after 1991. Most of these happened in the years 1993-1994, 2010-2011, and 2021. Even during reforms, all of these three countries have managed to preserve the basic principles of socialism. For example, in China, the law requires that a communist party chapter must be established in every workplace to make sure the workers stay in power even in private corporations. These countries also teach Marxism all the way from primary school and support communist experiments internationally with solidarity and build unity in the international communist movement by facilitating international communist events and by working closely with even the communists of smaller countries like Finland.
LANKA Network has already declared in April of 2025 to stand firmly in opposition to the left communist tendencies showing up in our movement.
“We condemn left communist tendencies due to their lack of solidarity with current-day socialist experiments like Cuba, China and Vietnam as well as their autonomous tendencies that conflict with building a party that practices strong democratic centralism, sharing of responsibilities and communication.” (LANKA Network 4.4.2025)
We still stand by our stance as the left communist anti-solidarity opinions raise their heads again now that Cuba has been forced into reforms. As these “socialists” call existing socialist projects “state capitalist” and “not socialist,” they erode our movement’s solidarity with these countries that are on the front lines fighting against capitalist imperialism and show such immense solidarity and support for us, the workers of other countries.
Cuba, for example, trains the most doctors and nurses in the world and does vital solidarity work by sending health professionals all over the world, where they are most needed. Cuba has played a heroic role in the fight against the Ebola epidemic in West Africa (Time 5.11.2014). When Cuba has faced crises, it has sought to find a solution with democratic principles by getting its people involved all the way to a grassroots level through Workers’ parliaments like Pedro Ross described in his book “How the Workers’ Parliaments Saved the Cuban Revolution”.
Cuba is not a country that functions with capitalist-imperialist principles but socialist solidarity and camaraderie as well as principles of workplace democracy, and with these Cuba has its whole history to point to.
In our opinion it is arrogant Western leftism to criticise the economic policies of current socialist countries under the current conditions. These countries train Marxist communists on a much larger scale than any socialist or communist organisation is capable of, especially in Finland. In these countries workers’ democracies and workers’ power live, which actively fight against systems of oppression and exploitation.
Even the Russian revolution, led by Lenin, had to make concessions to capitalist imperialists, for example in the context of the Brest-Litovsk peace treaty in order to preserve the socialist project.
The left communists are surely ready to die rather than give any temporary concessions to the capitalist world order. We in LANKA Network wish good luck to these armchair socialists in their work that hopefully won’t cause irreparable damage to our movement or its class consciousness, unity and fighting capabilities.
Lenin, already in his time, named left communism as an infantile disorder in his work “Left-Wing Communism; an Infantile Disorder”. We in LANKA Network also see these harmful anti-solidarity stances against existing socialist experiments will vanish from our movement through impactful organizing and class struggle.
During the time of the Orpo-Purra parliament, capital’s austerity politics and fascist tendencies have raised their heads. Our welfare state has been demolished piece by piece after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The childrens’ games that revolutionary organizing has been for the last decades need to mature to truly start paving the way for workers’ power.
We have to strive to build a large-scale fighting organisation based on democratic centralism that is committed to enforcing socialist principles and to being in solidarity and camaraderie with all workers of the world. This work will be full of imperfections, and the road to progress forward will be rocky. Our job is not to forever sharpen our lines but to be brave enough to organize with the support of our already existing agendas and to train comrades in the basics of impactful organizing. We can’t be revolutionaries without first mastering the basics of political work, let alone be capable of perfect analysis before we have built a large-scale fighting organisation to analyze our material reality.
This is the work that LANKA Network has undoubtedly done continuously since the fall of 2024. We have actively and visibly been campaigning on the streets. We have visibly fought against Teemu Keskisarja’s fascist event in January of 2026, and we have livened the Palestinian liberation solidarity work in Lahti. We train comrades continuously, not just in the basics of Marxist analysis but also in the basic skills of organizing. Just in 2025 alone, we organized 18 educational events that were attended 102 times, and in 2026 we have continued training with our new and already existing materials. And this work has been so fruitful that, for example, in May 2026, 20 comrades participated in organizing our events nationally. We are a growing and impactful fighting organisation that is in no way perfect or ready, but at the very least has been able to make progress in a scene where organisations of the past have at best published statements and held meetings.
Socialism is a process towards the end goal of communism. Socialism will not look the same in all countries, but it lives and adapts to its own conditions. Thus, we stand unyieldingly with existing socialist experiments and the self-determination of all these experiments and their people, guaranteeing their freedom to progress, and we ask all workers to organize under LANKA Network so we may build a socialist revolution in Finland as well.
Comrade, will you accept armchair communism or will you organize with us to become a true threat to the rule of capital?
LANKA Network, 23.06.2026 (Translated on 23.7.2026)
Translation note: This is not the original document. This document was translated from an original Finnish document by non-professional volunteers from the English Language Working Group of LANKA Network. Any translation mistakes do not reflect our official policy or political lines. Any further translation to other languages should be done using the original Finnish version.
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