HAVANA, June 12: Hundreds of thousands of Cubans led by President Fidel Castro marched along Havana’s waterfront on Wednesday in a show of revolutionary fervor against US pressure for political change in the communist-run island.

Similar anti-American marches were held in 800 towns and villages across Cuba in one of the largest mass demonstrations since Castro’s 1959 revolution.

Officials said more than 1 million people, most of them wearing red T-shirts and waving Cuban flags, marched by the American mission shouting slogans against the United States and in defense of Cuba’s socialist state.

The march lasted more than four hours.

“Long live socialism, down with the lies,” the crowd shouted at the bunker-like building, which is surrounded by iron railings and is the US presence in Cuba despite the absence of formal diplomatic relations for four decades.

Factories and schools shut down, bringing Cuba’s tattered economy to a halt. Even the Central Bank closed for the day.

The marches were the climax of three weeks of rallies led by Castro to reject demands made by US President George W. Bush that the island’s one-party state open up to elections and a free market.

Backed by anti-Castro exiles in Florida, Bush vowed recently to maintain trade sanctions against Havana until it permit reforms, despite mounting pressure from big business to lift the embargo and allow Americans to travel freely to Cuba.

“We are here to tell Bush to stop interfering in Cuba. Leave us alone,” said Juan Antonio Gonzalez, an employee in Cuba’s dollar-earning tourism industry.

“This is a delicate moment for Cuba. Bush is crazy and he could attack us like he has done elsewhere,” said Teresita Arafet, a worker who cycled 5 miles (8 km) to the waterfront from her suburb of La Vibora with her husband.

“An immense majority of Cubans support Fidel and the revolution,” she said, adding: “It’s voluntary. We are here of our own will.”—Reuters