Let the lumberjack wake up!

A protester holds an ICE Out! sign during the Ice Out of MN march in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Photograph by Lorie Shaull.

The following is an article republished from El Sol de Mexico, written by Ángel Chávez, director of El Machete, the organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Mexico (PCM). The workers and people of the United States will awaken to settle our score, once-and-for-all, with the parties of the ruling class.

The strengthening of imperialist aggression against Cuba, starting with Donald Trump 's executive order , signed on January 29, which sanctions with tariffs the countries that send oil to the people of José Martí, requires a joint response from the workers of the world.

This new measure, which aims to have genocidal repercussions, responds to the interests of the counter-revolutionary sectors of which Marco Rubio , the US Secretary of State, is a part.

In defending Cuba, we must have both determination and clarity. We Mexican workers must not forget that the enemy is the U.S. monopolies and the government that represents them; and that the American people are brothers to the Cuban and Mexican people. The Chilean poet Pablo Neruda already warned of this when he dedicated the beginning of section IX of his Canto General to praising the workers of Detroit, the farmers, and all the workers of North America, whom he invited to look to the example of the Soviet Union and open their doors to let the air of the Urals enter their country.

But alongside his praise of the people, Neruda issued a warning against the new slaveholders and exploiters of North America, pointing out that if they dared to arm their armies to destroy borders and spread violence, the people would respond: “We will rise from the stones and the air / to bite you / we will rise from the last window / to pour fire upon you / we will rise from the deepest waves / to pierce you with thorns…”. In the same vein, Neruda crafted a statement that resonates even more strongly today: “Do not enter Cuba, for from the marine gleam / from the sweating sugarcane fields / there is only one dark gaze that awaits you / and only one cry until it is kill or be killed.”

The Cuban people are determined to confront and defeat this new imperialist onslaught, and they know they are not alone in this task, for they have the solidarity of the world's peoples. However, the voice of the American people themselves still needs to be heard loud and clear, demanding that their exploiters cease the aggression and the blockade against Fidel's people, just as in the 1960s the outcry rose up against the war that the imperialists imposed on Ho Chi Minh's people.

This is why Neruda's plea to the American working people to continue their anti-slavery democratic tradition, their history of struggle against exploitation, and to become the guarantor of peace, remains relevant: "Let the woodcutter awaken... and raise the axe in his town, against the new slaveholders, against the slave's whip, against the poison of the printing press, against the bloody merchandise they want to sell."

In defense of Cuba , today it is necessary for the woodcutter to awaken, for the workers of Lincoln's people to raise their axes against the modern slaveholders that are the monopolies, against the slave whip that are the anti-Castro groups in Miami, and against the poisoned press that launches media campaigns to impose the lie that the Cuban Revolution is lost.

The lumberjack is already showing signs of abandoning the dream; proof of this lies in the protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) , which acts criminally against immigrant and American workers. But the connection between the protests against ICE, racism, police brutality, and other affronts against the American people and solidarity with Cuba remains to be made.

The woodcutter must fully awaken to wield his axe and settle accounts with Democrats and Republicans, and all other forces that wish to attack the Cuban people, persecute immigrants, repress workers, and drag the world into war. But for the woodcutter to rise, the other peoples must also rise up and demonstrate that Neruda was not wrong when he said that Zapata's rifles are not asleep, that Sandino sleeps in the jungle until the day of aggression, and that the slingers, sons of Amaru, are ready for battle.

Now that Venezuela and Cuba have been attacked by imperialism, and war looms over other countries, there is no doubt that the people of Abraham Lincoln , the woodcutter , will awaken, because they have done so before, having had among their most outstanding representatives William Foster and John Reed, Gus Hall and Henry Winston, Albert Maltz and Howard Fast, Elizabeth Gurley and Angela Davis. They will awaken again and stand with Cuba.