Among those attending were members of the Association of Combatants of the Cuban Revolution, Chinese-Cuban residents of Santiago, cadets at the José Maceo Military School, municipal workers, and members of several mass organizations in the city, from the Federation of University Students to the Cuban Women's Federation. Misael Enamorado, first secretary of the Cuban Communist Party in Santiago province, and Rolando Yero, president of the provincial People's Power, were among the numerous party and government leaders present.

It was from the balcony of the municipal government building here that Fidel Castro, on Jan. 2, 1959, addressed the jubilant people of Santiago after the Batista dictatorship's forces had surrendered the city to the Rebel Army, sealing the final victory of the revolutionary war.

In addition to Sío Wong, speakers at the presentation included Iraida Aguirrechu of Editora Política, the publishing house of the Cuban Communist Party's Central Committee, and Mary-Alice Waters, editor of the book and president of Pathfinder Press.

Earlier in the week Sío Wong, Aguirrechu, and Waters had spoken at meetings in the cities of Ciego de ávila, Holguín, and Bayamo. Gen. Armando Choy will speak at two similar events in Quemado de Güines and Corralillo, both in Villa Clara province. And all three authors—Choy, Sío Wong, and Gen. Gustavo Chui—will speak along with Aguirrechu and Waters at a meeting in Havana.

The initiative for the presentations came from the Association of Combatants of the Cuban Revolution. The seven-city tour was hosted in each area by the municipal government and the Cuban Communist Party in the province. In addition to Santiago, in Holguín and Bayamo as well the first secretaries of the party, Miguel Díaz Canel and Lázaro Expósito, were introduced along with the presidents of the municipal assemblies and other government and party officials.

The Ciego de ávila presentation was highlighted by the participation of more than 60 members of Min Chih Tang, the local Chinese-Cuban association. They opened the program with a performance of the Lion Dance and demonstrations of tai chi and martial arts. After the meeting, leaders of Min Chih Tang invited the speakers and other guests to their hall for a Chinese banquet they had prepared. The Holguín meeting also took place in the local Chinese cultural center, and Chinese-Cuban residents participated in the book presentations in every city.

In Bayamo, in the eastern province of Granma, the meeting was held in the patio of the Carlos Manuel de Céspedes Museum—the house where the leader of the 1868 independence war against Spain, known in Cuba as "the father of the country," was born. Afterward the speakers and other guests joined hundreds of city residents as honored guests at an outdoor cultural gala held as part of the nationwide celebration of Cuban Culture Day.

The Socialist Workers Party is fielding 53 candidates in 13 U.S. states and the District of Columbia this fall. These candidates offer a working-class alternative to the twin parties of U.S. imperialism—the Democrats and Republicans—and other capitalist parties.

The socialists are presenting a revolutionary working-class program in the U.S. to reach out to our sisters and brothers around the world in order to strengthen the struggle against our common enemies—the imperialist aggressors and capitalist exploiters the world over.

The socialists have been calling for the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of U.S. and other “coalition” troops from Iraq, Afghanistan, the Balkans, Colombia, and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. They have been saying: “U.S. hands off Korea! Lift the sanctions! All U.S. troops and weapons out of the Korean peninsula! Reunification of Korea!” They have been campaigning to oppose U.S. threats against Iran and to demand an end to Washington’s economic war on Cuba and to its course of aggression against Venezuela. They have championed independence for Puerto Rico from U.S. colonial rule.

These assaults, including the bloody Israeli war on Lebanon that Washington openly backed, are part of the U.S. rulers’ “long war.” This decades-long conflict has barely begun. The imperialist rulers will attack with particular ferocity those who refuse to bow to their dictates, like the working people of Cuba targeted for making the first socialist revolution in the Americas.

The imperialist wars abroad are an extension of the attacks by the bosses at home on the wages, pensions, health care, safety, and dignity of working people.

The SWP platform starts by extending support to struggles by workers to organize unions and mobilize union power to defend working people from the bosses’ assaults. It calls for fighting for legislation to legalize all immigrants now. It says workers need a union to enforce safety. In order to defend the labor movement from the offensive by the employers and their twin parties, it calls for building a labor party, based on the unions, that fights in the interests of workers and farmers.

The SWP candidates have also campaigned for the political rights of all. The SWP campaign in Pennsylvania set an outstanding example, successfully challenging the state’s “loyalty oath,” which required candidates for public office to swear they are not “subversives.” That victory for labor removed an obstacle to political activity by candidates like those on the SWP ticket who advocate revolutionary change: taking power from the handful of capitalist families in the United States and establishing a workers and farmers government.