State Department Report Reveals How Cuba Equipped The American Radical Left For 60 Years

In its latest escalatory move, on July 20 the State Department released a 100-page report titled “Cuba: The Capital of 21st Century Communism.” The report compiles historical evidence to show Americans how Cuba has long “served as the beating heart of a new and distinct kind of Marxism, forged around an overriding resentment and fundamental hatred of the United States and the broader West.” The New Left and ‘Tercermundismo‘ As the report explains very competently, the revolutionary emergence of Fidel Castro’s Cuban regime in 1959 marked the shift from the classical Marxism-Leninism of the Soviet Union to the tercermundismo (“Third Worldism”) of the New Left. Traditional Marxism-Leninism had focused on class conflict between bourgeoisie and proletariat, the inevitable revolutionary uprising of the proletariat in industrialized nations to seize the means of production, and the spreading of transnational communist revolution. The Third Worldism of Castro’s Cuba was a “global revolutionary project” which applied the Marxist ideological paradigm in new ways, incorporating the “colonized nations and peoples of the Global South” into the traditional understanding of oppressed proletariat. As the report summarizes: Castro, Che Guevara, and the other evangelists of Havana declared that the Third World was united by a single struggle for liberation, and that this struggle extended into the imperial metropoles themselves, to the racially oppressed peoples living within the Western powers … Havana was telling a new story — one that was both more romantic and more radical than its Soviet predecessor. It was a story in which the Black Panther, the Puerto Rican militant, and the anti-war student radical were part of the same global drama as the Cuban Revolutionary, the Algerian insurgent, and the Colombian guerilla. In the wake of the Second World War, the growing movements for decolonization almost universally aligned with communist ideology against the European colonial powers and the U.S., to the extent it was fighting the Soviet Union and its proxies. ‘Two, Three, or Many Vietnams‘ In 1966, Castro convened the Tricontinental Conference to bring together Marxist, liberationist movements from across the Third World (Africa, Asia, and Latin America) in opposition to America and the European colonial powers. Castro wanted to foment global revolution, calling for “two, three, or many Vietnams.” Since 1959, communist Cuba has done as much as they could to export revolution through training and equipping revolutionaries. The report explains all this in much more detail, but the Cubans trained communist guerrillas, revolutionaries, and terrorists from all across the Third World, as well as sending Cuban military advisers to other countries like Venezuela, El Salvador, Yemen, and more. More recently, Cuba assisted in bringing Hugo Chavez’s socialist regime to power in Venezuela in 1999, which gave Cuba access to the riches of Venezuela’s oil. The report also details the insidious activities of Cuban espionage, especially its chief intelligence agency, the Dirección de Inteligencia (DI). Over the decades, Cuban intelligence succeeded in infiltrating the American government with highly placed spies in the National Security Council, State Department, and CIA. Americans should especially be incensed that Cuba worked for decades to foment leftist domestic violence within the U.S. by assisting, training, and advocating for the radical left in America. Weather Underground, the leftist student terrorist group infamous for serial bombings in the 1970s, including the Capitol and the Pentagon, built close ties to the Cuban government, traveled to Cuba to meet with the Cubans and North Vietnamese, and organized the Venceremos Brigade trips. The Venceremos Brigade trips are opportunities for Americans to travel to communist Cuba where they receive training and resources to help them further destabilize and decolonize the U.S. from within. Karen Bass, presently the mayor of Los Angeles, infamous for opposing Trump’s immigration enforcement and for accelerating Los Angeles’ decline into a third-world slum, was herself an active member of the Venceremos Brigades and traveled frequently to Cuba in her younger days. The Cuban government and intelligence operations also have worked to stoke racial conflict in the U.S., supporting the Black Power movements and more recently “Black Lives Matter.” Cuba sought to instill a “militant Third Worldist consciousness among Black radicals,” courting and assisting figures like Stokely Carmichael, Robert Williams, Eldridge Cleaver, the Black Panthers, and the Black Liberation Army. Cuba even provided refuge to Black criminals fleeing the U.S. to avoid justice. Perhaps the most famous example is Assata Shakur, who was involved with the violent Black Liberation Army, convicted for her role in killing a police officer, fled to Cuba in 1984 where she was welcomed as a “martyr,” and lived there until her death in 2025. For decades, Cuba has stoked violent Black Power movements in the U.S., including the destructive and deadly George Floyd riots in 2020. The report also details how contemporary actors like Antifa, the People’s Forum, and the National Lawyers Guild share the regime’s goals of subverting America and remain closely tied to Havana. Sanctioning Cuban entities as state sponsors of terrorism creates new avenues to investigate and shut down their U.S. affiliates. Lastly, as the report details, Cuba has been a means for American enemies like Russia, China, and Iran to get an economic, intelligence, and even military foothold in our hemisphere. One important benefit of the Venezuela operation toppling Maduro in January 2026 was to stop the intrusion of Russian, Chinese, Iranian, and potentially other foreign military and intelligence actors which had safe haven to operate in Cuba and (until just recently) Venezuela. Toppling Venezuela and perhaps Cuba is a way to push back incursions of hostile great powers into our hemisphere. Where From Here? The report is a long overdue reset of the historical record. Cuba’s fall to a Soviet-backed, Marxist revolution under Fidel Castro was a marked failure of American foreign policy and national defense. As a result, Cuba has flourished for decades as an epicenter of militant global leftism, and we continue to feel the effects of that subversion as leftist domestic violence against law enforcement, ICE, and the Trump administration continue at record levels. We should be encouraged that the Trump administration is seeking to correct the record publicly and spearhead a political movement against communist activity in the American hemisphere. For far too long, the actions of the radical left in America have been intentionally downplayed or even praised. While the radical left is clearly a domestic problem, it has received critical life support and encouragement from the Cuban regime. Arguably, there has been legitimate casus belli against Cuba since 1959. It will require prudence to determine the best steps to proceed, and the Trump administration has currently adopted a strategy of maximal pressure through increased sanctions and a naval blockade to stop Cuba importing any oil. A clear-headed American foreign policy should focus on vindicating American interests and defeating Cuba’s revolutionary activities against us, rather than a progressive project focused on “liberating” Cubans. There remains a range of options by which President Trump can counter and defeat the Cuban hostility. Stopping communist Cuba need not mean nation-building or quagmire. Even as we await to see what the outcome will be, we should be encouraged by the positive steps the Trump administration is taking to correct the failures of the last decades. Putting America First means crushing the radical left in America and their enablers in communist Cuba. Samuel Kimzey is a doctoral student at Hillsdale College and a 2025 Publius Fellow at the Claremont Institute. He holds a B.A. in History and Christian Studies from Bluefield College and an M.A. in Humanities from the University of Dallas, and previously taught at Valley Classical School in Blacksburg, Virginia. Find him on X @SamuelMKimzey CommunismCubaDepartment of DefenseForeign Affairsnational securityState Department