These capitalists aren't willing to sacrifice trade status with the United States for relatively small business ventures in a tiny workers state, however, and the Helms- Burton law is taking a toll on the Cuban economy. And these regimes will never reconcile with a state in which the working class holds power and has a communist leadership. EU trade commissioner Leon Brittan left no room for question when he declared the EU will never go "soft" on the Cuban revolution. The Spanish government also made it clear, by appointing an ambassador to Cuba who openly declared his intent to collaborate with counterrevolutionaries on the island.

The demonstration by more than 100,000 people in the streets of Havana celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Cuba -the very the day the EU issued its attack - illustrated the Cuban people's confidence in the correctness of their revolution. Generation after generation of Cuban fighters were represented in the march - from the 19th century anticolonial Mambis, to the Rebel Army that ousted the Batista dictatorship in 1959, to the 300,000-plus volunteers who shed their blood to fight in Angola against the racist South African apartheid regime in the 1970s and '80s.

What a contrast to the bloody trail left by imperialist armies, from Vietnam and Nicaragua to Yugoslavia and Zaire. That's why the capitalists worldwide will continue to attack the Cuban revolution, and why working people internationally must defend it. Protests can call for an immediate response to the Cuban government's appeal for aid to repair the damage from Hurricane Lili, and the cancellation of debts such as the 60 million [US$99 million] Havana "owes" to London as a result of the unequal terms of trade on the capitalist world market. And working people around the globe should demand, "End the economic war against Cuba!"  
 
 
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