The State Department published an extensive report on Monday detailing how the Communist Party of Cuba has invested over half a century in the infiltration and destruction of American politics, accusing the communists of setting the infiltration of campuses as a “priority.”
The 100-page report, titled “Cuba: The Capital of 21st Century Communism,” accused the Cuban regime of waging a “sustained campaign of subversion against the United States” since a violent coup d’etat led by mass murderer Fidel Castro took over the island nation in 1959. While the vast majority of Cubans at home were subject to malnutrition, severe political and religious persecution, and regime-led slavery for decades, the Castro regime focused its finances and resources on “espionage, infiltration, sabotage, proxy networks, and a revolutionary infrastructure designed to turn America against itself.”
The communist regime is one of three nations on the State Department’s State Sponsor of Terrorism list – alongside Iran, North Korea, and soon-to-be-delisted Syria – for its sustained support of a variety of terrorist organizations including but not limited to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Hamas, Hezbollah, and American terror networks such as the Weather Underground. The release of the State Department report comes about a week before one of the biggest holidays imposed by the Castro regime, the anniversary of the July 16 terrorist attack on the Moncada barracks by Fidel Castro and his henchmen in 1953, considered the defining event of his bloody “revolution.”
While much of the report focuses on the historic nefarious influence of the Cuban regime on American terrorism and Marxist activism in the 1960s and 1970s, the report also details how the Cuban Communist Party today, under 95-year-old dictator Raúl Castro, continues to fuel chaos, violence, and division within America.
“The Cuban regime functions less as a vehicle for the interests of ordinary Cubans … than a one-stop shop political service for the rotating cast of foreign left-wing activists,” the report asserted.
Recruiting these left-wing activists and fostering anti-American sentiment on American college campuses is a significant branch of these destabilizing activities, according to the report.
“U.S. universities are one of the premier targets of Cuba’s subversive activities, serving as fertile ground for recruiting ideologically sympathetic young Americans who will ascend to positions of influence, power, and access,” the report explained. “U.S. intelligence analysis and DI [Dirección de Inteligencia, Cuba’s main foreign intelligence agency] defector testimony have both established that Cuban intelligence treats infiltrating American universities as a top priority.”
The State Department observed that the communist government has invested heavily in building academic ties between American universities and its own institutions, whose prior educational purpose has been subverted for decades to advance the communist agenda. Cuba’s intelligence arms are “exploiting ideological affinity among left-wing students and faculty to both expand its ‘fellow travelers’ nexus and recruit active agents,” it observed.
“Cuban organizations and academic institutions maintain scholarships, exchange programs and other partnerships with a striking number of elite universities in the United States” the report shared. “As of 2023, the University of Havana – a key node in the Cuban intelligence network – purportedly held educational exchange agreements with nearly 80 U.S. universities.”
The communist regime, according to the report, works with a global network of Marxist agitator groups to attract new “talent” to its indoctrination programs, such as the notorious “Venceremos Brigade” attended by Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, and foster unrest within the United States. Highlighted as one of the more prominent arms working to organize communist activities in the United States is the People’s Forum, led by Manolo de los Santos. The group prominently participated in the storming of Columbia University’s Hamilton Hall in late April 2024 and organizes pro-Hamas campus activity.
“[De Los Santos] has been traveling to Cuba since at least 2009 and has been prominently featured in the Cuban-regime press for almost a decade,” the news organization ADN America reported in 2024. “Reports indicate that, back in the U.S., he organized rallies in the U.S. to support the Cuban regime and that he is a staunch admirer of Fidel Castro.”
The State Department noted that the group experienced “skyrocketing financial backing” beginning in 2021, largely thanks to China-based billionaire Neville Roy Singham.
“The group’s rapid rise to prominence tracks with skyrocketing financial backing: At the end of fiscal year 2021, the People’s Forum reported $486,926 in revenue,” the State Department noted. “By the end of fiscal year 2022, that number was $4,428,869 – a more than 800 percent increase in a single year. …The overwhelming bulk of that funding has come from the political network of Neville Roy Singham.”
The People’s Forum is “intimately linked to the Cuban regime,” the State Department observed. “Since 2024, the Forum has served as the fiscal sponsor for the Venceremos Brigade.”
The State Department first broke the news of the upcoming report on Cuba’s history of destabilizing activities against America in a statement to Breitbart News last week, explaining that it would detail Cuba’s unique and outsized commitment to violent revolution in America.
“The report finds that for nearly seven decades, the Cuban regime has played an indispensable role in nearly every notable far-left insurgency, revolution, and militant movement across the Western Hemisphere and beyond,” the State Department said in a statement.