this post was submitted on 09 Feb 2026
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Image is of thousands of Cubans gathering in 2026 to honor José Martí.
After the Soviet Union fell, in the 1990s, Cuba entered a period (known as the Special Period) of extreme economic pressure, losing almost all of its international trade and fuel imports. Caloric intake almost halved, and electricity was mostly unavailable for much of the day. In response, Cuba undertook Option Zero, in which the country prioritized distributing resources to the most vulnerable, and rationed what little was available as fairly as possible. During this time, the threat of total collapse led to experiments and innovations, and, paradoxically to those on the outside, Cuba's population came together under pressure, rather than shattering. The collective understanding that their suffering resulted from abroad rather than from internal inefficiencies and corruption meant that Cuba's government, and thus their sovereignty, survived.
As the American Empire contracts in the wake of multipolarity and can now no longer tolerate sovereignty in the Western Hemisphere, we are seeing a return to the time of the Special Period, with the illegal blockade being dramatically worsened - among other measures, the US is preventing all fuel from entering the island, a strategy made more viable with Venezuela's fuel exports now restricted. Imperialist supporters are predicting an imminent collapse, after which American mining corporations would descend on Cuba's massive nickel and cobalt reserves.
While it's absolutely possible that this time Cuba's government could collapse, it's important to note four things: 1) as noted, Cuba has been in a situation like this before and survived; 2) the geopolitical situation is quite different to how it was in the 1990s, with China and other powers increasing in power and influence compared to the USSR's incompetent final leaders leaving the lane wide open to American exploitation; 3) there has been a concerted effort to transition to renewable energy sources recently, with solar panels being imported from China and making up an increasing amount of the energy supply; and 4) Cuba's government is taking this threat very seriously, and beginning rationing efforts immediately.
Last week's thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
Please check out the RedAtlas!
The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.
The Zionist Entity's Genocide of Palestine
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against the temporary Zionist entity. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on Israel's destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
Mirrors of Telegram channels that have been erased by Zionist censorship.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it's just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a 'propaganda tax', if you don't believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
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Breaking news: Cuba has just reported a record-setting 900 MW of sustained energy generated by solar farms, even though it’s far from achieving the total electricity demand needed for the country. You can’t blockade the sun!
It’s funny to me because America is so hellbent on keeping the world reliant on oil with force, but every single thing they do just drives countries towards renewables and therefore Chinese solar panels (not sure if that’s what Cuba is using this is more a general speculation). Everyone will see Cuba as an example of how vulnerable you are to energy blockades if you don’t switch.
Yes the farms are Chinese. China ships in the supplies (including all the fuel needed to take the supplies to the build site) and then builds the solar farm. By 2028 Chinese solar farms are meant to supply 2/3 of Cuban energy demand (50 farms so far, 37 more to come)
Edit: https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/china-is-quietly-supplanting-russia-cubas-main-benefactor-2025-06-30/
Fantastic. There’s been a lot of complaining on here recently that China does nothing to help but I think most of the time we just don’t hear about what they do, since it’s more prudent to keep it on the down low.
I think people just yearn for the days of the USSR shipping AKs and explosives around the world. As opposed to China's focus more on breaking imperialisms grip through rising as a new economic pole.
USSR did both though, Cuba gained a ton from the "petróleo por azúcar" program. China could afford to be this economic pole because the "divide and conquer" strategy of the US during the Sino-Soviet split opened China to be a major exporter without sanctions.
Yes the USSR attempted both, but thanks to some realpolitik and the material conditions aligning China has properly situated itself in a position to hugely help develop the periphery through initiatives like the BRI as well as just generally being a stable partner and a means for countries to bypass imperialist sanctions.
I've made this point before if the United States gets to wage hybrid warfare across the world, using law, trade and finance to achieve their objects then so does China. China might not have troops and ships posted to the Caribbean right now but what they are doing in South America, SEA and Africa aren't just self serving economics, they all give countries more room for maneuver.
The dialectic keeps spinning
https://www.netzerocircle.org/articles/cuba-secures-resources-for-the-construction-of-92-photovoltaic-parks
https://socialistchina.org/2025/11/24/chinas-cooperation-with-cuba-in-energy-sector-remains-strong-and-steady/
https://algeriainvest.com/premium-news/sonelgaz-lance-un-projet-de-centrale-solaire-a-cuba
initiate operation darkstorm /s i kid, but the american anti communist rhetoric is pretty feverish
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Maybe 1/4 of the way there considering needing storage/alternate generation? It’s a good start. Just vaguely basing that off of learning a gigawatt could support about 2.5m Americans 20 years ago though.
Not really because that 900MW is their maximum installed capacity at peak generation. Leaked documents revealed that Cuba had 902MW of available solar generation available out of 1015MW installed as of December 2025. So that's probably where the 900MW figure comes from. But that's peak generation, throughout the day it fluctuates depending on how much sunlight there is and its intensity. The average generation throughout the day will be a lot lower, probably by a factor of 3 or 4, and it obviously does not work at night without batteries and inverters (which is a big issue for a national energy grid). And even with batteries and inverters, nothing is generated at night. And even before the blockade, Cuba was suffering from bad rolling electricity blackouts. So even getting to pre blockade levels would still leave Cuba in an energy crisis.
To supply a gigawatt (1000MW) of electricity constantly 24/7, you'd probably need 6000-8000MW of installed solar capacity + batteries to store the excess energy during peak hours and inverters to supply the grid. And that's just for 1GW. Cuba has between 6-7GW of installed total generation capacity depending on the source, but a lot of it is offline, even before the blockade. Hence rolling blackouts.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/11/21/stardust-geoengineering-janos-pasztor-regulations-00646414 ("The Strange and Totally Real Plan to Blot Out the Sun and Reverse Global Warming")
This Israeli company disagrees
Everytime you think a cartoon or movie villain is just too ridiculously evil to be realistic, there is already someone in Israel working hard to surpass their evilness.
lmao this is real? i was just joking about operation darkstorm from the matrix/animatrix
They probably think the matrix is aspirational. The AI-run virtual reality human cattle farming immortal-led enclave of Greater Israhell is their end goal after all.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
context: operation darkstorm