Farewell Comrade Fidel Castro, your revolution will endure

One more star has fallen from the sky of the poor in the world battling against the Unites States imperial hegemony. Fidel Castro, Che Guevara and many others were the architect of the Cuban Revolution. It crushed the old capitalist tyranny that was driven by US-supported dictator Fulgencio Batista.

Prior to the transformation, Cuba was a hotbed of betting, gambling, prostitution, and drug markets. It was also the playground for rich Cubans and US imperialists. After the revolution, political power was put under the control of workers and farmers through mass mobilisation.

Fidel Castro's vision for a communist nation was so focused and well planned that even the capitalist US (which is just 50 miles away from the Cuban border) couldn't spread its venom of imperialism in the last 57 years. Fidel was not a born leader. The exploitation, injustice and poverty witnessed by him resulted in his transition from a son of a wealthy landowner to a communist revolutionary.

"Capitalism has neither the capacity, nor the morality, nor the ethics to solve the problem of poverty."

The US government spent more than $1billion (6900 plus crores in present day) attempting to murder, undermine or generally drive Castro away from power, yet he survived more than 600 plus assassination attempts before old age and illness took him on November 26, 2016. His death marks the end of an era for many. Castro was the last surviving leader from the group of charismatic communist leaders including Chinese Mao Zedong, Korean Kim Il-sung and Soviets Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev.

After the demise of the USSR and the socialist bloc, nobody would have even bet a penny on the survival of the Cuban revolution. The United States further tightened the blockade. Even in these conditions, the work undertaken and the consciousness built throughout the years succeeded in working miracles because the revolution has always had, as it still does and always will to an ever-greater degree, the support of the people - an intelligent people, increasingly united, educated and combative. Castro undertook a series of tentative economic reforms to get through the crisis, including opening up to foreign tourism.

Fidel and Cuba inspired an successful decolonisation movement all through the world, one which Fidel effectively bolstered by making systems of common guide all through Latin America, Africa, and rest of the Global South. He changed the nation from one terrorised by torture, killings and dispossession to one fundamentally dedicated to wealth redistribution, education and universal healthcare.

Before 1959, the official literacy rate for Cuba was between 60 and 76 per cent, largely because of lack of education access in rural areas and a lack of instructors. As a result, Fidel Castro, at Che Guevara's behest, dubbed 1961 the "year of education" and sent "literacy brigades" out into the countryside to construct schools, train new educators, and teach the predominantly illiterate peasants to read and write. The campaign was "a remarkable success". By its completion, 7,07,212 adults were taught to read and write.

It is estimated that 2,68,000 Cubans worked to eliminate illiteracy and by 1962, the country's literacy rate was 96 per cent, one of the highest in the world.

Dictator or national legend, Castro was called numerous things along his path, as he rose from being an student activist challenging abusive administrations to becoming the president of Cuba.

Loved by numerous and loathed by others, the Cuban leader stayed persuasive and was profoundly viewed as a sharp examiner of world issues.

Today Venezuela is experiencing a monetary emergency - not at all like what it has seen since the times before the Bolivarian Revolution. The crisis is settled around food and the access to it. Note that the emergency is not an emergency of need, but one of monetary harm by the Right wing and its cronies, who are hoarding food and cutting down production to encourage an emergency that is felt primarily by the country's poor and regular workers, especially those of African race.

Since the Bolivarian Revolution that started with the election of Hugo Chavez on December 6, 1998, Cuba has amplified a turn in solidarity with fellow Latin Americans and comrades in the battle against US imperialism and neocolonialism.

With the help of Cuban doctors sent to Venezuela under the Mission Barrio Adentro , which provides free healthcare to all Venezuelans, the government has been able to save 2,26,334 lives and provide other services, in addition to the diagnostic centres that have carried out 237 million blood tests and 100 million electrocardiograms. Mission Barrio Adentro, which was launched in 2003, is divided into various stages, all of which are free. Since its inception, it has treated 19 million individuals, as indicated by official statistics.

In 1998, Haiti was struck by hurricane Georges bringing upon more than 230 deaths, devastating 80 per cent of the nation's crops, and leaving more than 160,000 Haitians without homes. Despite the fact that Cuba and Haiti didn't have conciliatory connections around then and for as far back as 36 years, the progressive administration of Cuba expressed solidarity with the ailing country through medical aid.

By 2010, at no cost to medical students, Cuba had trained some 550 Haitian doctors. Since 1998 some 6,094 Cuban medical personnel have worked in Haiti. They had given over 14.6 million consultations, carried out 2,07,000 surgical operations, including 45,000 vision restoration operations through their Operation Miracle program, attended 1,03,000 births, and taught literacy to 165,000.

"I'll be 90 years old soon," Fidel said at an April 2016 Communist Party congress where he made his most extensive public appearance in years. "Soon I'll be like all the others. The time will come for all of us, but the ideas of the Cuban Communists will remain as proof that on this planet, if one works with fervour and dignity, they can produce the material and cultural goods that human beings need and that need to be fought for without ever giving up."

Revolutions are not moments in time, they are progressing forms that change the people who make them and world around them. The Cuban Revolution of 1959 lives on today and it proceeds notwithstanding the misfortunes created by the falling of the USSR and Socialist Camp states. Since its beginning, progressive Cuba has looked to help every freedom struggle against colonialist control, and racial oppression within its bounds and once in a while even more.

I'd start lacking words if I went on highlighting what comrade Fidel has given to the world. Today, we confront a world with escalated competition and inconsistencies among the capitalists. The capitalist camp is in a condition of decadence. This makes the camp more egoistic, more careless. The pretends it's idea to be based on democracy and liberation. The same democracy and liberation which USA has established in Syria, Libya, Iraq, and Yemen in the past few years. North Korea would have met the same fate had it not gained control of nuclear weapons.

For most Cubans, Fidel Castro has been the pervasive figure of their whole life and they share his faith in a communist future. On an average, Cubans earn the equivalent of $20 a month, even in an economy where education and healthcare are free and many basic goods and services are heavily subsidised.

Dear Comrade Fidel, with your life and battle, you have honoured the whole human culture as you have never acknowledged insult and disrespect and exploitation of any form. We will never overlook your perseverance and determination to support the people striving in nations like Africas and Latin Americas. We will never forget that the Cuban ambassadors were the last negotiators to leave Baghdad amid the US invasion of Iraq.

The victories in the field of healthcare, medical research, education, ecological farming Cuba accomplished was under your direction. Along these lines, human society might always remember you. Or maybe, you will stay in every one of our battles and struggles. Your presence will become stronger and stronger the more our struggles spread wide and intensify.

The red flag of struggle will forever be laid for the cause of humanity, for the oppressed, for the exploited, and for the deprived.

"The ideas of Cuban Communists will remain as proof that on this planet, if you work hard and with dignity, you can produce the material and cultural goods human beings need." - Fidel Castro