Constitution

Cuba 2019 Constitution

Preamble

WE, THE PEOPLE OF CUBA,

inspired by the heroism and patriotism of those that fought for a free, independent, sovereign, and democratic homeland of social justice and human solidarity, forged through the sacrifice of our ancestors;

by the indigenous peoples who resisted submission;

by the slaves that rebelled against their masters;

by those that awoke the national conscience and Cuban desire for our liberty and homeland;

by the patriots that started and participated in our struggles for independence against Spanish colonization beginning in 1868 as well as those whose final efforts of 1895 were denied victory with the beginning of the military intervention and occupation of Yankee imperialism in 1898;

by those that fought for over fifty years against imperialist domination, political corruption, the lack of rights and liberties, unemployment, the exploitation imposed by capitalists, landowners, and other social evils;

by those who promoted, participated in, and developed the first organizations of laborers, farm workers, and students; disseminated socialist ideas; and founded the first revolutionary, Marxist, and Leninist movements;

by the members of the vanguard of the generation of the 100th anniversary of Martí’s birth, who, nourished by his teaching, led us to the victorious popular revolution in January of 1959;

by those that, in sacrificing their lives, defended the Revolution and contributed to its definitive consolidation;

by those that completed heroic international missions together;

by the epic resistance and unity of our people;

GUIDED

by the most advanced revolutionary, anti-imperialist, Cuban-Marxist, Latin American, and universal thought, in particular by the ideal and example of Martí and Fidel, as well as the social emancipation ideas of Marx, Engels, and Lenin;

SUPPORTED

in proletariat internationalism, fraternal friendship, the help, cooperation, and solidarity of the peoples of the world, particularly those of Latin America and the Caribbean;

DETERMINED

to carry forward the triumphant Revolutions of Moncada and Granma, of the Sierra, of the underground struggle, and of Girón that, sustained in the contribution and unity of the principal revolutionary forces and the people, conquered full national independence, established revolutionary power, realized the democratic transformations and initiated the construction of Socialism;

COMMITTED

to Cuba never returning to capitalism as a regime sustained by the exploitation of man by man, and that it is only in socialism and communism that a human being can achieve his or her full dignity;

CONSCIOUS

that national unity and the leadership of the Communist Party of Cuba, born through the unitary will of the organizations that decisively contributed to the triumph of the Revolution and legitimized by the people, constitute fundamental pillars and guarantees of our economic, social and political order;

IDENTIFIED

with the tenets displayed in the concept of Revolution, as expressed by the Commander in Chief Fidel Castro on the 1st of May of the year 2000;

WE DECLARE

our will that the law of the laws of the Republic be presided over by this profound yearning, finally achieved by José Martí,

“I wish that the first law of our Republic be the devotion of the Cubans to the full dignity of man;”

WE ADOPT

by our free and secret vote, through a popular referendum, one hundred and fifty years after our first Mambí Constitution, approved in Guáimaro on April 10, 1869, the following: