On Wednesday 20th May, an upstairs room at LSE was packed to hear from the brigadistas - six young people who had travelled to revolutionary Cuba on a trip organsied by Rock Around The Blockade, an organisation working in solidarity with Cuba and to dispel some of the myths surrounding life in a socialist society. For all but one of the brigadistas it had been their first visit to Cuba, and they returned keen to give their testimonies.

The young speakers were hugely inspirational, and I definitely left the meeting wanting to fly out there myself. But their focus was on the political system in Cuba, and the effect it has on people's everyday lives; there is a lot said in the media about a lack of freedom of speech in the country. According to the brigadistas, this is simply not true. From their experiences in Cuba, they said they personally witnessed the opposite. For example reggaeton, probably the most pro-capitalist money-worshipping music you could find, is extremely popular on the island. Similarly, state-controlled media is not "checked" by the government as our so-called "free" media tries to make out. The brigadistas actually visited the national newspaper during their stay in Cuba, and asked the editor about this very issue. His reply? "We publish a national newspaper, with a large number of articles, every single day. How would the government ever have time to "check" every one? No, we have complete freedom over what we write."

Another myth surrounding revolutionary Cuba, again whipped up by the Western media, is a percieved lack of democracy in their one-party system.  However, the brigadistas explained that this would only be true if you think along the lines of our own primitive democracy, where candidates are elected along party lines. The difference being, candidates in Cuba are elected purely on their policies. In addition, if politicians fail to fulfil pre-election promises, the public can vote to have him/her removed from the role immediately. Also, all elected politicians in Cuba are required to keep their normal jobs and their parliamentary work, which they are not paid for (but regarded as voluntary). In the wake of the MPs' expenses fiasco, it seems that we could learn a lot from the socialist blueprint. In the last Cuban election, 97% of the country turned out to vote. Here, Labour won the last election with votes from 20% of the country - so 8 out of 10 cats would rather see them out of office.

The brigadistas also expressed their admiration of the schooling system in Cuba - a country which now boasts the best education rate in South America, and sends highly skilled doctors and nurses to save lives around the globe. This includes a scheme for international students, in which students from third world countries are invited to enjoy a fully-funded degree in Cuba, with tuition, food, accommodation and spending money covered by the state, providing they can find the money for a flight over. In Britain, we cannot even afford the "privelige" of free education to our own students, let alone those coming from overseas. Cuba also boast the best healthcare system in South America, a luxury forcibly sampled by the brigadistas when they fell ill on their travels. Medication that cost only a few dollars, one brigadista estimated, would have cost her over £70 in Britain. Video clips of the Mayday parade marching through Havana, the only march I have witnessed in recent weeks that hasn't been terrorised by police, only reaffirmed the audience's growing admiration for this revolutionary society in action.

The brigadistas also told us about a conference they attended on the "Free the Cuban Five!" campaign, which aims to get justice to free five political prisoners, falsely accused of committing espionage conspiracy against the United States when they were in fact monitoring Miami-based terrorist organisations threatening to attack their country; yet another example of the West's double-standards in our preposterous 'War on Terror'.

But above all, the brigadistas recognised that the most effective way to support socialist Cuba is to build a socialist movement here in Britain.  So let's get started.

I exited LSE with the words "Viva Cuba" etched on my heart.

Words: Jody McIntyre. 

The next RATB meeting, "Revolution and Reaction in Bolivia", will be held on Wednesday 3rd June, 7pm, at Bolivar Hall, 58 Grafton Way, W1T. See you there!