Interview with Vijay Prashad: Cuba, the Tricontinental, and National Liberation Socialism
Cuba AnalysisPlay episode
Show notes
Historian and Executive Director of the Tricontinental Institute for Social Research, Vijay Prashad, joins Cuba Analysis to examine Cuba’s revolutionary endurance, the legacy of the Tricontinental movement, and the ongoing global struggle against imperialism. With the 60th anniversary of the Tricontinental Conference taking place in January 2026 at the University of Havana (12–14 January), Prashad calls for renewed debate on South–South solidarity and internationalism. Prashad reflects on his first visit to Cuba during the Special Period of the 1990s, when the collapse of the Soviet Union plunged the island into severe economic crisis. He argues that Cuba’s survival under extreme pressure revealed a central political truth: socialism, when confronted by empire, becomes an essential defence of sovereignty, dignity, and collective survival. We discuss the historic 1966 Tricontinental Conference in Havana, which united revolutionary movements from Asia, Africa, and Latin America and laid the foundations for anti-imperialist internationalism. Prashad explains how the conference fused the Bandung Movement’s demand for sovereignty with Marxism’s commitment to human dignity, forging a tradition of national liberation socialism that continues to shape struggles across the Global South. Prashad delivers a sharp analysis of ongoing U.S. aggression against Cuba, identifying the blockade as the central human rights violation—an illegal and permanent siege aimed at undermining the Cuban Revolution. He situates today’s economic crisis within a “permanent Special Period” driven by sanctions, financial warfare, and political isolation, and calls for stronger international solidarity, particularly from Latin America and the BRICS countries. He stresses that defending Venezuela is inseparable from defending Cuba. The conversation also explores the continued relevance of Marxist analysis, critiques moralistic and idealist tendencies on the left, and highlights the importance of understanding history’s contradictions and reversals in the long struggle for social transformation. This episode offers a rigorous political and historical analysis of Cuba’s revolutionary project and its international significance, through the lens of one of the most influential critical thinkers of our time.
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggYOvUyNbU4
