Communist Cuba, the Epicenter of ‘Third Worldism’

In its 100-page report on the threat Havana represents to U.S. interests and the safety of its people, the State Department deemed Cuba the “capital of 21st-century communism.” The agency might as well have labeled communist Cuba the epicenter of “third worldism.” That is, after all, what the report alleges. And the modern manifestations of that ideology are as menacing for the United States as Marxism-Leninism ever was.

Cuban communism, the report contends with all requisite evidence, long ago departed from the Soviet model. The “revolutionary leftism” Havana promotes is less focused on fomenting “economic class conflict” and more committed to exacerbating “racial, social, and even civilizational grievances.” It seeks to mobilize not the disaffected international proletariat but “the colonized nations and peoples of the Global South.” The report quotes the far-left magazine Jacobin’s approving summary of communist Cuba’s mission statement: Havana presents itself to the “Third World as the ideal site for radically rethinking anti-colonialism, anti-imperialism, and decolonization.”

About the Author

Noah Rothman

Noah Rothman is a senior writer at National Review. His third book, Blood and Progress: A Century of Left-Wing Violence, was published by Hachette in May 2026.

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In its 100-page report on the threat Havana represents to U.S. interests and the safety of its people, the State Department deemed Cuba the “capital of 21st-century communism.” The agency might as well have labeled communist Cuba the epicenter of “third worldism.” That is, after all, what the report alleges. And the modern manifestations of that ideology are as menacing for the United States as Marxism-Leninism ever was.

Cuban communism, the report contends with all requisite evidence, long ago departed from the Soviet model. The “revolutionary leftism” Havana promotes is less focused on fomenting “economic class conflict” and more committed to exacerbating “racial, social, and even civilizational grievances.” It seeks to mobilize not the disaffected international proletariat but “the colonized nations and peoples of the Global South.” The report quotes the far-left magazine Jacobin’s approving summary of communist Cuba’s mission statement: Havana presents itself to the “Third World as the ideal site for radically rethinking anti-colonialism, anti-imperialism, and decolonization.”

About the Author

Noah Rothman

Noah Rothman is a senior writer at National Review. His third book, Blood and Progress: A Century of Left-Wing Violence, was published by Hachette in May 2026.