Every May Day, Cuba hosts a march that spills into the streets across the country. As a powerful expression of resistance and collective will. In 2025, the commemoration of International Workers’ Day becomes an act of reaffirmation at a particularly complex time. When the Cuban people continue to face serious economic, political, and social pressures.
This parade is held on the 25th anniversary of the well-known Concept of Revolution formulated by Fidel Castro on May 1, 2000. An ethical and political guideline that remains extraordinarily relevant today.
In that historic speech, Fidel called for a struggle with a “sense of the historical moment,” to “emancipate ourselves through our own efforts,” and not to expect miracles, but to build justice through collective efforts.
That legacy, which is also a commitment, guides the march of Cuban workers on this May Day. Celebrating the Cuban worker also means celebrating the capacity to resist without giving up, to create without surrendering.
More than three decades ago, after the demise of the European socialist bloc. Massive May Day celebrations dwindled in much of the world.
But in Cuba, they remained strong and combative.
It can be said that, even in the times of greatest scarcity, the flags of socialism never ceased to be raised.This perseverance has been recognized and admired by friends and peoples of the world who come each year to share this date.
Delegations from multiple countries have wanted to share this experience. To witness the joy, strength, and political clarity with which a small country faces enormous challenges.
They do not come to see a performance, but to share a lived truth: a people who celebrate their hard-won rights, even in the midst of the worst crises.
A people who do not hide their mistakes, but who also vigorously demand that they be corrected, in a process of constant transformation.
The Revolution empowered the working class since 1959, and that empowerment became doctrine when Cuba was declared the first Socialist State in the Western Hemisphere.
This is not just about history; it is about the present and the future.
Today, as then, we march to celebrate that power remains in the hands of the people, and that neither the blockade nor internal difficulties have managed to extinguish that conviction.
We are living through difficult times, without a doubt.
As President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez affirms, the hurricane-force winds of imperial power rage more strongly than ever. But we are not standing because our enemies allow it. We are standing because the Cuban people have decided so. Because we continue to resist, to create, to dream. Because May First is not just another date: it is an act of trust and hope.
Let us march, then, with a special inspiration.
Let us march with Fidel in memory and in action. For our unity, for our independence, for our dreams of justice. Against the blockade, against the fascism that threatens many peoples, against the genocide in Gaza and all the silent genocides caused by global inequality. Let us march for the better possible world that Cuba defends and deserves.
With information from Cubasí
Translated by Aliani Rojas Fernández
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