Cuba is not a failed state, but a besieged state, facing a multidimensional aggression: economic warfare, intensified blockade and energy blockade, President Miguel Díaz-Canel stated today at the event marking the 65th anniversary of the proclamation of the socialist character of the Cuban Revolution.

Before more than 50,000 people at the emblematic corner of 23rd and 12th Streets in Havana’s Vedado district, Díaz-Canel declared: «Cuba is a threatened state that does not surrender, and despite everything, and thanks to socialism, Cuba is a state that resists, creates and, make no mistake, a state that will overcome!»

Due to its importance, the Cuban News Agency transmits below, in full, the speech given by Miguel Díaz-Canel, First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba Central Committee and President of the Republic, at the event for the 65th Anniversary of the proclamation of the socialist character of the Cuban Revolution, at 23rd and 12th, Revolution Square, on 16 April 2026, «Year of the Centenary of Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro Ruz».

(Shorthand Versions – Presidency of the Republic)

Long live free Cuba! (Exclamations of: «Long live!»)

Down with the blockade! (Exclamations of: «Down!»)

Heroic Girón combatants present here;

Dear friends of solidarity with Cuba, participants of the 5th International Patria Colloquium;

Dear and heroic Cuban people;

Compatriots (Applause):

Sixty-five years ago, women and men who were as young or younger than all of us who fill these streets today – possibly many grandmothers, grandfathers, mothers or fathers of some of us – gathered here to write a truly epic chapter of the contemporary world.

That day changed history, and not only for Cuba. With an invasion off our coasts, without yet certainty 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 the effort of hours of insomnia and tension, rose above the crowd that overflowed 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 transcendent in the history of Cuba, marking the definitive course of the revolutionary process begun with the triumph of 1959 and which by 1961 had become profoundly radicalised in favour of the ever-dispossessed.

The mercenaries were about to launch themselves against the nation that had given them birth, convinced that nothing could overcome the protection the empire guaranteed them. But history would be implacable with them.

They expected fear and found courage. They gambled on betrayal and were faced with a united people. They believed their lies and were met by the truth, with rifles at the ready and singing the notes of the Bayamo Anthem.

The Cuban people marched from here to battle, and from battle to victory! A small nation, barely out of war, would inflict, less than 72 hours later, the first major defeat of imperialism in the Americas (Applause).

From that April of militiamen onwards, 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 by then already begun their cultural transformation with a Literacy Campaign that raised the dreams of the humble to university classrooms.

Human development would reach levels 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 under capitalism would become Latin America’s first cosmonaut; that young people from Africa and across the Third World would become professionals in Cuban schools; that we would share our blood and our fate with the ever-forgotten and ever-vilified (Applause).

And we defeated apartheid, illiteracy and curable diseases in other lands of the world to which we would take doctors, not bombs, teachers, not bombs. That is socialism: the society where man is brother to man, not wolf! (Applause.)

When in the dire 1990s socialist practice self-destructed in Europe, through vile conspiracies by its imperialist adversaries, Cuba resisted and transformed itself, rising on its own strength and the support of international solidarity.

Chávez had not yet triumphed in Venezuela, and the decade of integration that the Bolivarian Revolution awakened was yet to begin.

Fidel, Fidel again, as he had done at Girón, leading the fighting and advancing on a tank at the forefront, led that superhuman struggle to preserve Cuban socialism in an era of febrile neoliberal and unipolar advance.

While others privatised even cemeteries and parks, blindly believing the tale of the market as the omnipotent regent of a wealth that never materialised, this country built a monumental work, with the science and the human labour and scientific potential formed by the Revolution, and with the heroism and creative resistance of the Cuban people (Applause).

And our people’s army went out to sow and to build, to demonstrate, as Raúl said, that it is possible, that it is always possible! And we did it! That is socialism! (Applause)

Many times over those years, while the country was striving to correct, perfect and adapt the battered economy besieged by the blockade, countless silent invasions occurred: laws to codify the blockade, terrorist attacks, smear campaigns, constant sabotage of all integration, solidarity and cooperation projects.

Every silent bomb that fell on development projects has left a wound on Cuban society. One very painful wound has been the migration of promising young people, educated for free in our schools and universities, from whom capitalism steals capacity and talent in which they did not invest, while accusing the society that formed them of not guaranteeing them what the predatory market offers.

Let the truth be told: that impressive human potential, which gains space and relevance in any country it reaches, was formed by socialism! (Applause.) Only socialism turned the children of workers and peasants into frontline professionals, and not as an exception as under capitalism, but en masse. (Applause)

To hide the genocidal and multidimensional nature of the six-decade blockade that suffocates the entire people and can only be called an embargo in the paperwork of those who apply it, a mendacious and highly cynical narrative has been constructed: Cuba as a failed state.

The impacts of decades of blockade and financial persecution on our homes, our industries, on the lack of goods, even essential ones, on the scarcity of almost everything, even the most basic and indispensable for life, are highly visible.

Our own mistakes in this process of social construction with peculiar and very Cuban characteristics, in which we strive against the current, navigating endless obstacles, are also visible; but as long as the blockade remains a noose tightened around the economy’s neck, no one can deny – and I repeat, no one can deny – its absolute guilt in the pain of Cuban families! The principal cause of our problems is the genocidal blockade of the United States Government against our people! (Applause and exclamations of: «Down with the blockade!»)

The liars also count on the anaesthesia induced in the minds of a world contaminated by prejudice and poisoned by anti-communism ever since the October Revolution elevated the creators of wealth to power. Against all socialist experiences, brutal aggressions and blockades have been raised, and yet it will be impossible to deny all they contributed in balance and well-being to humanity. Nor can the colossal contribution of the USSR to the defeat of fascism and the conquest of the cosmos be erased from history; nor can the dazzling development of a giant nation, which emerged from famine and widespread poverty, like the People’s Republic of China, and of a small but brave country that endured three wars and today wins the admiration of the world for its dynamic growth, the heroic and sister Vietnam, be ignored. (Applause)

Socialism is the only guarantee of social justice, the only path to the real emancipation of all people, and in our case it has been and is, moreover, the real possibility of a collective response to the collective punishment that has been imposed upon us throughout all these years.

No, gentlemen of manipulation and lies, Cuba is not a failed state; Cuba is a besieged state, Cuba is a state facing a multidimensional aggression: economic warfare, intensified blockade and energy blockade. Cuba is a threatened state that does not surrender! (Applause.) And despite everything, and thanks to socialism, Cuba is a state that resists, creates and, make no mistake, a state that will overcome! (Applause.)

Comrades:

Today, 16 April, we commemorate fundamental milestones of our recent history: the heroic and massive popular response to the prelude to the mercenary invasion, with the criminal bombings of the 15th, and the declaration of the socialist character of the Revolution, made by Fidel at the burial of the first victims of the ongoing aggression, and that same day, although many did not know it then, our Communist Party was born, as has been explained here.

Fidel said it: «At Girón the socialist character of our Revolution was proclaimed, at Girón our Party was practically forged.» That is why we consider 16 April as the founding date of the Party, the Party of unity, the Party of the Cuban nation, the Party of organising and directing everyone’s efforts towards the good of all (From the crowd: Long live the Communist Party of Cuba!) (Exclamations of: «Long live!») But history would be worth little if we did not heed its lessons, if we did not take note of its regularities and turn them into definitive learning.

The attacks on the airports of Ciudad Libertad, Santiago de Cuba and San Antonio de los Baños in the prelude to the invasion, with surgical strikes, using planes with false Cuban insignia; the sustained use of disinformation and deception through media outlets aimed at confusing the population, alongside economic warfare, diplomatic pressures to isolate the Revolution, and constant threats, show treacherous practices and methods never abandoned by those who attack, and which today they continue to repeat around the world.

They have repeated the aggressive and interventionist formula so many times, so many are the nations and processes threatened and attacked over these years that, despite the technological, military and media squandering they unleash left and right, a wave of solidarity with Cuba continues to rise as evidence of the isolation of the imperial policy that seeks to bring us to our knees through suffocation.

From this historic platform, where Fidel’s words still echo, summoning the people to find their place for the coming battle, and where today we pay deserved tribute and homage to the heroes and martyrs of that day when the Homeland decisively donned the militia uniform, we summon a national and international solidarity movement to take to every corner of the planet the truth of Cuba, the suffering of the people from blockade actions and multidimensional economic warfare, aggravated by the energy blockade, which qualifies as genocide due to the extreme levels of deprivation to which all Cuban women and all Cuban men are subjected.

Everyday life in Cuba hurts, from vital rest interrupted first by the blackout and then by the return of power after long hours, which has shifted housework to the early hours; to the paralysis of industries, transport, vital services and production because fuel is lacking for absolutely almost everything.

The list is very long, and all this derived from a single executive order that declared us an «unusual and extraordinary threat», exactly what we are not.

Compatriots:

The moment is extremely challenging and summons us again, as on that 16 April 1961, to be ready to face serious threats, including military aggression. We do not want it, but it is our duty to prepare to avoid it and, if it were inevitable, to win it! (Applause.) We have the faith in victory that Fidel instilled in us.

We believe in dialogue and in the extraordinary power of peace to sustain life on the planet. The history of the dispute between Cuba and the United States has shown that it is possible to achieve it. We must consider all that it would cost in human lives to both our peoples if they were dragged into a senseless, illogical conflict, for which there are neither pretexts nor justifications when there is so much we can do together.

To Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro Ruz, whose centenary we celebrate this 2026, we pay the greatest homage on this 65th Anniversary of the great epic (Applause). (From the crowd, shouts: Long live Fidel!) (Exclamations of: «Long live!»)

Fidel not only directed the battle of Playa Girón. Fidel was and is Girón!! (Applause.) Fidel is that conviction that a united people can defeat an empire! (Applause.)

Resisting the onslaughts of daily invasions is the epic we write today, the best legacy to the fallen, to those who offered their lives in that April of 1961 for independence and for socialism. As long as there is a woman and a man willing to give their lives for the Revolution, we will be overcoming! (Applause.)

The socialist character of our Revolution is not a phrase from the past, it is the shield of the present and the guarantee of the future! (Applause.)

Girón is today and is forever!

Cuba does not surrender! (Applause.)

No one surrenders here! (Applause.)

Here we will fight!

Here, as the song says: We will give fire! (Applause.)

Long live the rebellious dignity of our people! (Exclamations of: «Long live!»)

Long live Socialism! (Exclamations of: «Long live!»)

Homeland or Death!

We will overcome!

(Ovation.)