Noam Chomsky, Gilbert Achcar, Paul Le Blanc, Suzi Weissman, Tithi Bhattacharya, Charlie Post, Robert Brenner, Gayatri Spivak, Alex Callinicos, Ashley Smith, Eric Toussaint, Marc Cooper, Etienne Balibar. These are a handful of the over 500 signatories on an open letter directed to the blockaded Cuban government on July 12 demanding “respect for the democratic rights of all Cuban people” and the release of “dissident Marxist” Frank García Hernández and his comrades from jail after the protests of July 11.

These signatories are high-profile academic socialists in the U.S. and Europe, featured prominently in the publication catalogue of Verso and Haymarket Books, or on the editorial boards of online journals like New Politics, Tempest, Spectre, Socialist Worker, and other ex-International Socialist Organization (ISO)-now-Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), Socialist Equality Party, or UK Socialist workers Party related outlets. Their work also frequently appears in more mainstream left outlets, such as Jacobin and the Nation. Their opinions on the left reach a wide audience and, in some cases, carry significant weight.

Western left intellectuals and their love affair with the attempted ‘color revolution’ in Cuba