The regime threatens a “sea of blood” if the revolution falls in Cuba, quoting Fidel Castro

In the midst of the countdown to the centenary of the dictator Fidel Castro, the Cuban regime resorted this Friday to one of its most violent phrases to reinforce its narrative.

“If the Revolution is thwarted, the counter-revolution triumphs, and the counter-revolution could only triumph here on the basis of a sea of blood, a true sea of blood,” published the official newspaper Granma on its official account on X.

The phrase, taken from a speech on February 3, 1959, in the city of Guantánamo, is now being circulated by the official organ of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC), the only one permitted in the country, as part of the campaign to exalt the 100th anniversary of Castro's birth, which will be in 2026.

Far from being limited to a historical commemoration, the government has made it clear that it will use the figure of the deceased dictator as an active political tool.

“It’s not about remembering it, it’s about bringing it to this moment,” declared the president and first secretary of the PCC Miguel Díaz-Canel when closing the X Plenary of the Central Committee in July and presenting the commemorative program for the centenary.

According to his words, “it is not about remembering him, it is about bringing him to this moment” and projecting Castro as a “living symbol of the Revolution.”

The official strategy, however, is set against the backdrop of a multisystemic crisis whose most striking manifestations are daily power outages lasting 20 hours or more, uncontrolled inflation, widespread shortages, stagnant salaries, and the mass impoverishment of a majority of the population that can no longer find relief in memory or rhetoric.

This contrasts with the recent revelations from the newspaper El Nuevo Herald, which highlighted how the monopolistic conditions under which the Business Administration Group S.A. (GAESA), the conglomerate of the Cuban military elite, operates—considered a state within a state—have allowed it to accumulate billions of dollars, enabling it to amass capital of at least 18 billion dollars, which could address many of the current issues on the island.

The figure of Castro, born on August 13, 1926, in Birán, Holguín, and who passed away on November 25, 2016, in Havana at the age of 90, is used to reinforce the hardline stance: propaganda in schools, children's workshops at his museum, and speeches that validate the use of violence to maintain power.

Although Castro expressed during his lifetime his desire that no monuments be erected in his honor, the regime has turned his image into an object of worship, dedicating an expensive museum to him in the capital, inaugurated in November 2021 in an opulent mansion in Vedado.

The center has been criticized for its focus on child indoctrination. Since July 2024, children aged 6 to 14 have been participating in museography workshops, where they act as museum guides, repeating official narratives about the figure of Castro.

These activities, presented as educational, have been pointed out for their propagandistic nature and their intention to perpetuate the Castroist ideology among new generations.

The reference to the "sea of blood" is not a warning about the past; it is a signal aimed at the present.

On July 11, 2021, when thousands of Cubans took to the streets demanding freedom and food, the regime responded as it had already suggested in that old speech: repression, mass arrests, and unprecedented militarization.

The combat order given by Díaz-Canel on 11J was not just a tactical response; it was a political stance that remains relevant.

It is ironic that, in the same speech in 1959, Castro asserted that the revolution had not come to power "for a group of men to rule," but that the people were the ones in charge, and that the revolutionary triumph had meant, "first and foremost, the disappearance of all that political maneuvering and all that hypocrisy that has characterized the public life of our country."

In this regard, he emphasized that the revolution meant "not only that the people are free, not only that crime has ended, not only that abuses, torture, beatings, and humiliations that any citizen was constantly suffering have ceased (…) but that the men who are in power today bear no resemblance at all to the men who have always been in power, whether under a dictatorship or even under constitutional governments."

He drew attention to how in "a country as rich as this, with a hardworking people like the Cuban people, and also an intelligent people, a nation that could support 25 or 30 million inhabitants, it turns out that the six million of us are practically dying of hunger here."

A phrase that, 66 years later, resonates with more starkness, not because of its relevance, but due to the obvious failure of all that was promised.

While the ruling elite insists on resurrecting the "historic leader" as an ideological shield, the population endures a present of misery, without electricity, without food, and without a future. And if there is one thing the regime has demonstrated over these years, it is that it is willing to literally apply the threat of a sea of blood in order to cling to power.

Frequently Asked Questions about the Current Situation in Cuba and the Centennial of Fidel Castro