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No one can picture us as acting in an irresponsible manner and creating problems that can be avoided. But between that position, the idea that this country can be intimidated with provocations of that sort, and Cuba’s position, there is a profound abyss. And actually, behind all of this there is a conspiracy between these elements of the reactionary “Mafia” within the revolutionary movement and Yankee imperialism to create a conflict between our Revolution and the States of the socialist camp. Because what they, in fact, seek, what they demand, what they urge, is that the socialist camp also join in the imperialist blockade against Cuba. This is exactly what they really want and they do not hide it. The same March 18, three days after their widely-publicized “reply,” an AP news dispatch came from Caracas—because a certain Party spokesman, who had frequent dealings with the AP, frequent conversations with the AP, became very much a figure-of-the-moment as spokesman for that rightist leadership, and the AP, overjoyed, reported: “Fidel Castro has no ideology. ‘He is a revolutionary but he is not a politician,’ a leader—now in the underground—of the Venezuelan Communist Party told the Associated Press today.” I cannot imagine what interest Leoni could have in persecuting these clandestine gentlemen, yielding, cringing denouncers of the Cuban Revolution, or why they talk of the great feat involved in the liberation of the illustrious “Tom,” “Dick” and “Harry.” In fact, the only one who profited from that was Leoni and not the people of Venezuela nor the revolutionary movement, because Leoni gained from it a pack of bloodhounds, who only fall short of asking him to provide them with rifles so that they may set out to punish those criminal, bandit, factionist and divisionism agents of Cuba. And since these “journalists,” in connection with their missions, must often play the role of journalists, and occasionally like to promote certain contradictions, the journalist added: “When asked if the CPV was not siding with the enemy by trying to have the Soviet Union withdraw its support from Castro, the spokesman replied: ‘We coincide dangerously with the Venezuelan government, but remember that we support the Cuban Revolution and the Cuban Communist Party.’” Evidently I am the bad man, the intruder, the provocateur, the revolutionary “Pasha,” etc., etc. (LAUGHTER) “‘Our attack is not against the Cuban Revolution, but against Castro, who has insulted us.’” “He made it clear,”—he made it clear!—“that the Communist Party of Venezuela wished that the Soviet Union would get Castro out of the way.” They accuse me of trying to interfere in their internal affairs. And they say that nothing arouses their fury and their revolutionary ardor and their pride more than someone who tries to meddle with them—not that imperialism or Leoni meddle, but that somebody makes a criticism with all the justified reasons that I have explained here. “... that the Communist Party of Venezuela wished that the Soviet Union would get Castro out of the way.” And they put forth the thesis that someone could get Castro or anybody else out of the way, remove or install anybody. Where did they get such farfetched theories? Although it is hardly strange, since we have a surfeit of farfetched theories. This gentleman states that the Communist Party of Venezuela would like the Soviet Union “to get Castro out of the way.” Let’s forget Castro. Really, these gentlemen are naive, they are farfetched, they are ridiculous. It is not Castro but a Revolution that they must get out of the way! A simple head cold could get Castro out of the way. (LAUGHTER) But no one can get a genuine Revolution out of the way! (APPLAUSE) Am I perhaps a slanderer? In the “Mafia” there are some who will react just as those who doubted our witnesses and questioned our evidence, and who will say: “That is a lie, a slander.” But on August 1 of this year, an AP news dispatch datelined in Washington, from Ary Moleón—and these gentlemen play a role in all of this — reports: “The highest Venezuelan diplomatic official present here advised today against loosely labeling the Havana meeting of the Latin American Organization of Solidarity as communist, saying that those who attend it are, in effect, anarcho-Castroites.” So now they borrow and exchange vocabulary among themselves! Pompeyo and his retinue saying that we intervene in the internal affairs of Venezuela. Tejera Paris and his clique saying: No, no, no. They aren’t Communists; they are anarcho-Castroites. Pure ideological exchange, ideological commerce between Tejera Paris and Pompeyo, between the State Department and the rightist leadership of the Communist Party of Venezuela. Now they borrow one another’s concepts and words. When have we ever seen imperialism treating communists with so much delicacy? When has it ever used so much sweetness, decency, finesse, if the image it has tried to create of a Communist is the worst possible: the most heartless, degenerate, depraved, cruel and savage of human beings? And suddenly: No! Be very careful! Don’t call those people Communists! Communist is a more sacred, more respectable, more venerable, more decent, friendly, conciliatory word. (APPLAUSE) Tejera Paris, the great ideologist of tropical communism! (LAUGHTER) “The Venezuelan Ambassador to the White House, Enrique Tejera Paris, said that this distinction is fundamental”—it is indeed fundamental; this theoretician knows what he is talking about!—“if we want to understand a situation that is more complex than the simple application of labels.” What care, what exquisite delicacy, what subtlety, what differentiation! What? Call these people Communists? They are anarcho-Castroites. And they are really bad! (LAUGHTER) “Tejera stressed that the present meeting in Havana is not only to protest against the other governments of the hemisphere, but against the established Communist Parties in Latin America.” What a defense lawyer we have here, saying that this meeting was called to attack the parties!
And since when have the imperialists been so exquisitely concerned about the Parties? And who appointed Tejera Paris defense counsel for the Parties? “The diplomat recalled that the Communist Party of his country has accused Castro’s regime of intolerable intervention in the internal affairs of Venezuela and of appointing himself arbiter of the Latin American Revolution.” Beware! Do not be confused; these are anarcho-Castroites; they are dangerous, they are bad; do not call these people Communists: do not forget that the Venezuelan Communist Party accused Castro of intervention in the internal affairs of Venezuela; do not forget that it accused him of trying to set himself up as an arbiter. Have we ever seen the like before? Has anyone ever used such refined language and exquisite courtesy in speaking of the Communists of this continent? I believe that what is intolerable is this, what is really painful is this: offense, diatribe and slander from imperialism are a thousand times preferable to praise from imperialism. Tell me who defends you, and I will tell you who you are! Tell me who attacks you, and I will tell you who you are! (APPLAUSE) As far as we know, no one, no oligarch, no imperialist, no imperialist henchman, ever printed one of my speeches for distribution by the thousands. Never! Not a speech, not a phrase, not a line, not a word. Leoni did not have my speech printed; he did not distribute it; if he read it, he probably made a gesture of disgust. Alpha 66, a well-known organization of counterrevolutionaries in Miami, which, in complicity with the CIA, organizes personal attacks with potassium cyanide and silencers, had thousands of copies printed of the declaration made by that leadership and distributed them all over the world. Heirs of Bolívar? What an offense to the memory of Bolívar! They would have accused Bolivar himself of being an interventionist. What accusations would they not have made against him? They call themselves sons of Bolívar, followers of Bolívar, and speak of the hundreds of dead? What right have they to speak in the name of the dead, they who betray the dead? What right have they to invoke martyrs, they who are thinking of running for office as representatives, senators and mayors, and canvass for votes with pictures of the fallen and betrayed heroes? Because that declaration against Cuba was made in March. In April they issued a long document. If you were to read it—it is long and I am not going to read it—you would see the cliché-ridden style. This was a hybrid product of three or four stock models, because it is long. It is the document in which they propose an alliance with the bourgeois parties, and which ends by saying—this is the final note: “Finally, the armed movement at this moment is unable to play a decisive role, because of the stagnation of the guerrilla fronts and the armed struggle in general, a situation made more serious by the false political ideas and operations prevailing in the anarcho-terrorist group.” Anarcho-adventurist, anarcho-terrorist, anarcho-Castroite! Any day now, Johnson will be talking about the anarcho-terrorists! “In view of this national movement, the Central Committee has resolved that the Party should take active part in the next elections, under the slogan ‘Neither continuation nor Caldera —a change’; a change favoring democratic freedom and national sovereignty, a change toward the independent development of Venezuela. “The electoral campaign is being conducted under conditions of governmental advantage and repression. The Party will struggle against this situation, to turn the elections into a baffle against the reactionary clique that leads the AD and the government.”(5) Amen. (LAUGHTER) That is, the dead will appear on campaign posters! And in this country, we know about these things, our people know about such things, and these things only produce nausea and repugnance, because we had our fill of this. The one thing that no one will ever be able to tell our people is that this is a Communist attitude, nobody; for even at the beginning of communism, in the middle of the last century, when the Communist Manifesto was written, Marx always said that Communists should support the most militant and progressive sectors of the bourgeoisie. These so-called Communists join the cheap politicians of the bourgeoisie to oppose the heroic guerrilla fighters. Our people and the Venezuelan people certainly have to know that this kind of apostasy, this trade in the blood of those who have fallen, this effrontery in sending men to die, in leading them wrongly, in order to present themselves afterwards on election posters ... our people know that history does not forgive this, that history will never forgive such a crime. These gentlemen do not have to be destroyed; they just have to be left alone, because they will destroy themselves. We know the environment we live in; the reactions, the temperaments, the characters of our peoples. And we know that the most shameful, the most abominable thing is to send men to their deaths in order, later on to solicit votes in the name of these betrayed dead. And here is the last dispatch, from yesterday, following the same line of thought, on which the “Mafia” and imperialism coincide: “The American nations are today considering a request from Venezuela to denounce the Cuban regime of Prime Minister Fidel Castro as harmful to the cause of peaceful coexistence which the Soviet Union propounds. “The question—which could explode in the rear guard of Castro’s Moscow-supported regime—would be an answer to the call of the Conference of the Latin American Organization of Solidarity to fight for the seizure of power through armed struggle.” It says that the Associated Press obtained a copy ... They’re very clever.
They’re very clever. They get copies from everywhere. This is point four of that document that they say has eleven points, which they publish in this dispatch: “To express to the extra-continental governments who actively support the present government of Cuba the serious concern of the OAS member-states, inasmuch as such support tends to encourage the interventionist and aggressive activities of the Cuban regime against the other countries of the Western Hemisphere, and, until these activities cease, the cause of peaceful and active coexistence among the nations of the world will suffer. “To this effect, it is recommended to the governments of the OAS member-states that joint or separate steps be taken concerning those States that actively support the present Government of Cuba, in order to reiterate this expression of concern.” Peaceful coexistence? And this terminology in the mouths of the OAS and its clique? This terminology in the mouths of the OAS and its clique, of sending—in a few words—groups or commissions of the OAS to visit the governments of the socialist States so that they will withdraw their aid to Cuba. It’s incredible! It’s incredible to be seeing and hearing these things! What do these gentlemen base this on? How can they be so shameless? How do they dare to do such a thing? And point five: “To ask the governments which support the Organization of Solidarity of the Peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America to withdraw their support of that organization as well as of the Second Tricontinental Conference, scheduled to be held in Cairo in January 1968; and reiterate the categorical repudiation of that organization by the member-States of the OAS; repudiation of that organization, whose purposes—as shown by the resolutions of its first Conference which took place in Havana in January 1966—are to promote the separation of the peoples into groups divided by sectarianism and violence. “To that effect, it recommends that the governments of the member-States approach the American States and the organizations supporting the Tricontinental Organization, individually or as a group, in order to insist on this proposal.” Since the governments of certain States belong and others do not belong to the organizations, it follows that these gentlemen feel inspired to approach the State organizations that have been at the Tri-continental and say to them: “They are no good; repudiate those people; leave the Tricontinental.” If this doesn’t smell of imperialism ordering the world around, then what does it mean, gentlemen? What is it? What have we come to? What nerve these gentlemen have! What illusions, and what shameless pretensions! But at any rate, the machinations of the “Mafia” and imperialism are very evidently trying to isolate Cuba completely, to proclaim the total blockade of Cuba, so that not even a grain of birdseed will enter this country. They coincide in their despair; they are dreaming, they are raving, they imagine atrocious, dreadful things. And this country is isolated, it is absolutely alone. Poor people! If that hypothesis were possible—and it isn’t—they’d have to suffer the shock of seeing that forsaken country, without a grain of birdseed, living, resisting, working and marching onward. This small country has not accumulated enough merits in the eyes of the world, has not accumulated enough merits with regard to the Revolution. And often we have imagined the conditions under which imperialism would impose a total blockade on this country, surround Cuba with its ships, and prevent everything from coming in. Would they crush the Revolution? I am asking the people: Would they crush the Revolution? (EXCLAMATIONS OF: “NO!”) That is a most solid ‘No,” coming from the heart of a revolutionary people. (PROLONGED APPLAUSE) In short: if we were not prepared for everything—for everything—we could not call ourselves revolutionaries. We do not deliberately promote conflict, problems, difficult situations. That will never be the attitude of the Revolution. They’ll never see an irresponsible, absurd attitude adopted by the Revolution, no! But neither will they see the Revolution hesitating, the Revolution giving up; they’ll never see the Revolution yielding one iota of its principles! For Patria o Muerte has many meanings. It means being revolutionaries until death, it means being a proud people until death! And the fact that we speak about Patria o Muerte does not mean that we have a sense of fatalism. It is the expression of a certain determination. When we say “death,” we mean that not only we would be dead, but many of our enemies would be dead, as well. Destroy our people? No matter how many of its soldiers Yankee imperialism sends here to die, it cannot destroy this country! (PROLONGED APPLAUSE) These incidents, these attitudes are calling us all to order; they are calling us all to reason, to clarify things. These attitudes are the result not of development, but of the deterioration of revolutionary ideas and of revolutionary conscience. The resolutions of OLAS do not mean that everything is done. They do not mean that the struggle has ceased. The Tricontinental, also, had resolutions, and there were those who signed the resolutions and forgot all about them afterwards. There must be struggle.
There must be struggle. We have to struggle. And the statement that Cuba wants to set itself up as an arbiter, a head, a leader is more than ridiculous. I am going to tell you what we really think. There is no reason why there should be leading people and much less leading men! It is leading ideas that are needed! (APPLAUSE) And revolutionary ideas will be the sole, true guide of our peoples. We tight for our ideas! We defend ideas! But to defend ideas does not mean to claim to lead anyone. They are our ideas and we defend them, these revolutionary ideas. But nothing could be more ridiculous, because the world does not need countries which lead, Parties that lead, or men who lead. The world, and above all our Latin American world, needs ideas that lead. And the ideas will arise in the process. We know the process. At the beginning, when a few of us began to think about the idea of an armed struggle in our country and we began to struggle, very few believed in this possibility—very few. And for a long time there were very few of us. And afterwards, little by little, these ideas began to gain prestige, began to catch on, and the moment came when everybody believed them and the Revolution won. How difficult it was to get the idea accepted that the struggle of the people against modern professional armies was possible in order to make a revolution! And when that was finally demonstrated, after the triumph of the Revolution, what happened? Everybody believed in this truth in such a way that the counterrevolutionaries believed that it was also a truth for them, and there followed the organization of counterrevolutionary guerrilla groups and counterrevolutionary gangs, and even the most garrulous park-bench counterrevolutionaries grasped the idea, joined a gang and took to the hills. Then it be came necessary to show them they were mistaken, that this was true for revolutionary action against the oligarchies, but that a counterrevolution of oligarchs, guerrilla warfare of oligarchs and of reactionaries against a social revolution, was impossible. And how difficult it was! Until we finally showed that this was true. We have had to point out two facts: that it is impossible for oligarchs to defend themselves against the people’s struggle; and that it is impossible for the people to be defeated by counterrevolutionary guerrilla gangs. And the CIA knows that. Do you know who are probably the most convinced of the effectiveness of armed revolutionary guerrilla warfare and of the oligarchies’ incapacity to resist the armed guerrilla struggle by the people? Do you know who? The CIA, Johnson, McNamara, Dean Rusk, Yankee imperialism. They are the most convinced. And one asks oneself: How is it possible that these counterrevolutionaries let themselves be confused and deceived and dragged into armed counterrevolutionary struggle against the Revolution, if it is impossible to win? The reason, we are forced to admit, gentlemen, is that these counterrevolutionaries are more consistent than many who call themselves superrevolutionaries. They are most consistent. They wrongly believe in that and let themselves be dragged in ... Naturally, afterwards they always say the same thing, that is a rule without exception: that they had been fooled, that they had been deceived, that they believed that the army, that the militia ... All that. We’ve heard it over and over again. We know it ... And, of course, the ideas in our country have had to develop dialectically, in struggle, in clashes. And it will be the same in every country; no country will be free from this clash of ideas. These clashes of ideas exist even in Cuba. No, the fact that we have a revolutionary people does not mean that there are no antagonisms, no contradictions. We are in contradiction here with the counterrevolution and imperialism; and there are also contradictions with those who share these ideas of the reactionary gentlemen of the Venezuelan Party. And in this country we also have our micro-faction—we can’t call it a faction because it has no volume, it has no size, it has no possibilities, it has nothing—it is a micro-faction that has existed. Where does that micro-faction come from? From the old resentful sectarians. For our Revolution has its history; our Revolution has its history. I said that at the beginning very few believed in it;
I said that at the beginning very few believed in it; afterwards many did. Our Revolution went through that process; it passed through the process of sectarianism. The sectarians created serious problems for us, with their ferocious opportunism, with their inexorable policy of persecution against many people. They brought elements of corruption into the Revolution. And naturally, the Revolution, with its methods, its patience, made criticisms; it was splendid, it was generous with that sectarianism. And not only that. We had to be careful to prevent criticism of sectarianism from creating neo-sectarianism in the ranks of the Revolution; and that was also prevented. But some sectarian elements held on, they swallowed their resentment, and each time they have had a chance they have expressed it. There are those who never believed in the Revolution except in an opportunistic way, trying to profit by the efforts of the revolutionary people, trying to climb high in a shameful way. They never believed in the Revolution, they haven’t learned in eight years, nor will they learn in ten years. They will never learn. Let this be clearly understood: I am not referring to old Communists, for the worst expression of sectarianism, of the activities of those sectarians, has been in trying to involve the concept of old Communists with their pseudo-revolutionary attitudes. It should be stated that the Revolution counts, and has always counted, on the support of the real Communists in this country. But logically, during the time of sectarianism, many cowards who had deserted the ranks of the old Party turned up again. Opportunism, sectarianism, brings on all this: isolated from the masses, it tries to gain strength through favoritism. And then followed enrollment after enrollment and privileges. Of course, afterward, when the Revolution called a halt to sectarianism, it prevented expressions of sectarianism of another kind. That has always been our stand, that has always been the stand of the revolutionary leadership, which has always tried to overcome those problems in the style characterizing our Revolution, without falling into excesses of any kind, preferring to sin by omission rather than by excess. And here we also have our micro-faction made up of old sectarians, which is not the same as old Communists. And I repeat: the greatest harm is that they have tried, although in vain, to instill their unhealthy ideas, their resentful ideas, into the old, true revolutionaries. They were the ones, for example, who thought at the time of the October Crisis that we should have let Yankee imperialism inspect us, search us from head to foot, let the planes fly over low, all of that! They have been systematically opposed to all the concepts of the Revolution, to the deepest, sincerest, purest revolutionary attitudes of our people, to our concepts of socialism, of communism, of everything. That is, no one will be exempt. And this micro-faction has the same attitudes as that “Mafia”; this splinter group constitutes a new form of counterrevolutionary activity, in that it has the same goals as Alpha, as Faria, as Pompeyo and Company, as McNamara, Johnson and that gang. Now the CIA has a new thesis: why is it interested in planning so many assassination attempts and other things? Its thesis now is that Castro has to be eliminated in order to check the Revolution. For imperialism is losing ground. At the beginning it wanted to do away with everything revolutionary; now, the more ground it loses, the more frightened it gets. Now its thesis is to make the line of the Revolution more moderate, to change that line, to move Cuba into a more moderate position —and in this, Alpha, Johnson, Faria, the CIA, the micro-faction and political “Mafia” all coincide. And they are harboring illusions. Really, I’m not interested in buying an insurance policy. I don’t care a fig what they believe! I’m not interested in being indebted to our enemies for their ceasing to consider me their true enemy. I’m not interested in being indebted to our enemies for calling their actions to a halt. They are within their rights; they are within their rights. I do not intend to buy any insurance policy. But I think it is necessary to tell you that the line of this Revolution is not the “Castro line”; it is the line of a people, it is the line of a leading group with a real revolutionary history. (LONG APPLAUSE) And it is the essential line of this Revolution! The “Mafia” groups encourage one another; the international “Mafia” has been encouraged, greatly encouraged, by the idea that insurmountable antagonisms, insurmountable conflicts, may arise between the Cuban Revolution and the socialist camp. Really, the only thing we can say is that it is an honor to our Revolution that our enemies think about it so much; likewise, all Latin American revolutionaries must regard it as an honor that imperialism has given so much attention to the problem of OLAS. They were quick with threats; they postponed the OAS conference;
they postponed the OAS conference; they said they were going to do a lot of things, they were going to “clean the place up,” that this meeting could not take place. And the OLAS Conference has been held—true representation of a genuine revolutionary movement, whose ideas are solid because they are based on reality. OLAS is the interpreter of tomorrow’s history, interpreter of the future, for OLAS is the wave of the future (Tr. N.: olas means “waves” in Spanish), symbol of the revolutionary waves sweeping a continent of 250 million. This continent is pregnant with revolution. Sooner or later, it will be born. Its birth may be more or less complicated, but it is inevitable. We do not have the slightest doubt of this. There will be victories, there will be reverses, there will be advances, there will be retreats. But the dawn of a new era, the victory of the peoples in the face of injustice, in the face of exploitation, in the face of oligarchies, in the face of imperialism—whatever the mistakes that men may make, whatever the mistaken ideas that may be obstacles on the road—is inevitable. We have spoken to you with complete and absolute frankness. We know that true revolutionaries will always feel solidarity with Cuba. We know that no true revolutionary, that no true Communist on this continent, as among our people, will ever let himself be drawn into those positions which would lead him to an alliance with imperialism, which would make him go hand in hand with the imperialist masters against the Cuban Revolution and against the Latin American Revolution. We do not condemn anyone a priori, we do not close the doors to anyone, we do not attack any persons en masse, lumped together; we express our ideas, we defend our ideas, we debate these ideas. And we have absolute confidence in the revolutionaries, in the true revolutionaries, in the true Communists. They will not fail the Revolution, just as our Revolution will never fail the revolutionary movement of Latin America. (APPLAUSE) We do not know what awaits us, what vicissitudes, what dangers, what struggles. But we are prepared; each day we try to be better prepared; we will be better and better prepared. But one thing we can say; we are calm, we are secure, this little island will always be a revolutionary wall of granite and against it all conspiracies, all intrigues, all aggressions will be smashed to splinters. (APPLAUSE) And high upon this revolutionary wall there will fly forever a banner with the legend: Patria o Muerte! Venceremos! (OVATION) Footnotes (1) “Bichinche,” according to the testimony of one of the captured CIA agents, was the code name for the missing CIA agent Castro mentions. “Chinche” is Spanish for “bed bug,” hence “bichinche” would suggest “double bed bug.” (2) Bartlett Deep is the area of ocean floor between the Caymen Islands and Jamaica off the southern coast of Cuba. (3) Julio Irabarren Borges, a Venezuelan public official, was kidnapped March 1, 1967 and found killed March 3. The event teas used as a pretext for suspending constitutional rights and attacking the Cuban government. March 4, the Venezuelan Communist Party condemned the assassination as anarchistic and terrorist. March 6, Granma, the official organ of the Cuban Communist Party central committee, carried a declaration by Venezuelan guerrilla leader Ellas Manuitt claiming responsibility for the assassination, as an “application of revolutionary justice.” Fidel Castro covered this whole history in his March 13 speech commemorating the tenth anniversary of the attack on the presidential palace, the full text of which is contained in a special issue of World Outlook, Vol.5 No.13. In the speech, Castro condemned the Venezuelan Communist Party for its opportunistic support of the government side, tantamount to demanding punishment of the guerrilla leaders. (4) Carlos Lleras Restrepo, President of Colombia. (5) Acción Democrática, the Venezuelan government party. Castro Archive Last updated on 25 July 2023
Castro Internet Archive L'Unita Interview with Fidel Castro: The Nature of Cuban Socialism By Arminio Savioli First Published: L'Unita, Rome, No. 32, 1 February 1961, pages 1-2. Source: Castro Speech Database Markup: Brian Baggins Online Version: Castro Internet Archive (marxists.org) 2000 Havana, January — "Do you really want to write that this is socialist revolution? All right, write it. We are not afraid of words. Do not say, however — as Americans do — that there is communism here, because communism cannot be found even in Russia, after forty years from the overtaking of power... National middle classes? Forget about them, my boy, forget it entirely that national middle classes can still play a revolutionary role in Latin America... Yes, I studied Marx's and Lenin's works even before launching the attack against Cuartel Moncada, in 1953... A society is divided into classes, there is a class struggle: these are unquestionable truths... No, the Americans will not attack us. Imperialism is dying, anyway. It can choose between suicide and natural death. If it attacks, it means suicide, a fast and certain death. If it does not attack, it can hope to last a little longer..." I am reporting these sentences, which are the most significant among those which were told me last night by Fidel Castro, during a conversation that started at 0200 hours and ended at 0530 this morning. The Cuban Prime Minister had promised me an interview on last 3 January during a reception at the presidential palace. However — overburdened as he is by a huge amount of political, military, and diplomatic work, and intolerant as he is of any formality and detailed planning before meetings, — he was unable, or decided not to keep his promise. Last night's conversation — which was very extensive, open-minded, and cordial — happened by change. This is how it happened. At 0100 hours I was at the El Caribe night club, located on the second floor of the Havana Libre Hotel. Fifteen jazzmen, six singers, and ten ballerinas were doing everything they could to entertain eight customers, including me. The waiters were yawning all the time. Boredom was supreme. At 0130, the night club glass door was pushed wide open. Five athletic silhouettes in uniform, with pistols on their waists and small submachine guns on their shoulders, came in in complete silence (the carpet eliminated any noise made by the boots), sat around a table and ordered Coca Cola. In spite of the darkness (all Cuban night clubs and bars are almost completely dark), I recognized the heavy and slightly round shoulders, the tall size, and the black, Renaissance-like beard of Fidel Castro. I moved closer to him, and impolitely lit up a match under his eyes. It was me. Comandante — I said — you promised me an interview. Let us set a date right away. No chico (chico means boy, and Fidel calls everybody chico, at least all those who are his friends). No, please, I hate dates. Sit down, let me/rest a while, tomorrow we'll talk about it... The bodyguards (a fat one in shirt-sleeves, a slim one with an immobile Velasquez-type Spanish face, and a Negro with a sweet melancholy lock) were smoking in silence. Another soldier watched the door. Waiters and ballerinas pretended not to see anybody. The boring performance went on. From time to time, Fidel Castro applauded politely. At 0200 o'clock he got up. Then a singer shouted "Viva el caballo!" El caballo, the horse, is Fidel Castro. This is the people's affectionate way of referring to him because of his indomitable strength. The Premier went out, thanking him with a smile. I followed him. Comandante, what about the interview? Chico, there are scores of journalists who are waiting... Comandante, I have been waiting for a month. Ah? Yes, you are the Italian Communist, the Togliattiano... [from the name, Togliatti, of the Italian Communist Party Chief]. Fidel Castro smiles, opens his arms and raises his shoulders (a usual, slightly timid gesture of his). All right, let's go. We go to the Hall of Ambassadors, and sit down at a conference table under a huge chandelier of unbelievable bad taste. In a second, ten, thirty, forty people are around us: mulatto girl singers with bit eyes pained in black and blue, waiters, casino croupiers, Latin American delegates... Q. Comandante, what is the character of the Cuban revolution? Fidel Castro laughs, lights a cigar, handles it with his small tanned hands and dark fingernails. A. You newspapermen are crazy for definitions and neat schemes... You're impossibly dogmatic. We are not dogmatic... At any rate, you wish to write that this is a socialist revolution, right? And write it, then... Yes, not only did we destroy a tyrannical system. We also destroyed the philoimperialistic bourgeois state apparatus, the bureaucracy, the police, and a mercenary army. We abolished privileges, annihilated the great landowners, threw out foreign monopolies for good, nationalized almost every industry, and collectivized the land. We are fighting now to liquidate once and for all the exploitation of man over man, and to build a completely new society, with a new class contents. The Americans (Cubans say just that, los americanos, to mean the United States) the Americans and the priests say that this is communism. We know very well that it is not. At any rates, the word does not frighten us. They can say whatever they wish.
They can say whatever they wish. There is a song, which is popular among our peasants, that goes more or less like this: "Bird of ill omen — of treason and cowardice — that are throwing at my joy — the word: communism! — I know nothing about these 'isms' — Yet, if such a great welfare conquest — which can be been by my own eyes — is communism, then — you can even call me a communist! Q. Comandante, what do you think about the Popular Socialist Party, which is the party of Castro communists? A. It is the only Cuban party which has consistently called for a radical change of social structures and relations. It is true that at the beginning the communists distrusted me and us rebels. Their distrust was justified, their position was absolutely correct, both ideologically and politically. They were right in being distrustful because we of the Sierra who were conducting the guerilla were still full of petit bourgeois prejudices and defects, in spite of our Marxist readings. Our ideas were not clear, although we wished to destroy tyranny and privileges with all out strength. Then, we met with each other, we understood one another, and started to work together. The communists have shed much blood and heroism for the Cuban cause. At present, we continue to work together in a loyal and brotherly way. Q. According to your opinion, following the latest developments of the Cuban revolution, has the historical outlook for Latin America changed? In other words, do you believe that the Cuban example can and must be followed by other peoples on the Continent? A. Yes, I think so. Q. Do you mean to say, then, that other peoples should take up arms in order to overturn governments that are either dictatorial or sold out to the United States? A. yes, we hope that others will follow our example. In conclusion, we are all one people, we speak the same language, from the Rio Grande to Petagonia, and have shared a common history, which can be summed up in a few words: exploited as colonies first by Spain, and then by the United States. All that is going to stop. There are countries — hold it, don't write this down, because I don't want to create international incidents — there are countries where revolutionary spirit, patriotism and hatred against imperialism are much stronger, livelier, and more profound than they were in Cuba three years ago. A revolution will break out simultaneously in many Latin American countries, which will destroy prejudices, regionalism and provincialism. Latin America will then become just one, great, free, civil and independent nation. The Chinese were more divided among themselves than we are, with different dialects and even languages, and a multiplicity of nationalities. And yet, the Chinese revolution is one and indivisible. Q. Much is being said on "national ways" and on alliances... Do you believe that national-minded middle classes can still play a positive role in Latin American revolutions? A. I don't believe so, I never did. It is true that there are groups of industrial bourgeoisie which are against, at times very much against, imperialism, because of competition. But these same groups hate the workers even more, for class reasons. Between U.S. monopolies and national bourgeoisies there can be temporary conflicts and skirmishes, not a true all-out struggle. There is no historical incompatibility between them. Our national bourgeoisie here at home is complacent and coward, and always ready to concede to imperialism which is conclusion keeps it alive and gives it help and arms to be used against social revolutions. National bourgeoisie sleep, just as the Cuban bourgeoisie used to sleep. Privileged classes can no longer participate in true revolutions, least of all lead them, in our century. Believe me, this is the truth. Q. What are, then, in your opinion, the forces which have the historical task of organizing revolutions in Latin America? A. The industrial and agricultural proletariat, the peasants, the small bourgeoisie, above all the intellectuals. I do not wish to encourage factionalism. Nor do I deny that some layers of the national bourgeoisie can support, in part and temporarily, certain revolutionary events. I grant that some children of the bourgeoisie can enter the ranks of the people, participate in revolutions, and even direct them, as conscious individuals, armed with a revolutionary theory (after all, even I am the son of great landowners!). Yet, I am reasoning from a class viewpoint. There is no longer anything good we can expect from the national bourgeoisie as a class. The same goes for national armies. Revolutionary and patriotic officers can be found, but professional and caste armies are like a cancer that must be uprooted from Latin America. If the armies are not destroyed, there can be no true governments of the people, and social reforms cannot be enacted. At the first smell of an even modest reform, the army intervenes and paralyzes everything. And when a corrupt government is on its way out, and a revolution is in sight, there comes the army again with a state coup and with a new government which is worse that the one that preceded it. These are the lessons of our history. Q. In some countries, however, the national bourgeoisie is very strong. It will not be easy to overturn it, together with the landowners, the generals, the oligarchic cliques, and the overlords... A. Also in Cuba, the feudal-bourgeois group way very strong. It controlled everything: the army, the press, the judiciary, the radio, schools, universities, the police, everything. Yet, we won. Armed and well organized workers, peasants and students: this is the only revolutionary force of this Continent. Q. Comandante, what is the socialist camp's contribution to the Cuban revolution: A. My boy, what would have happened to us had Khruschev not sent us oil and brought our sugar?
My boy, what would have happened to us had Khruschev not sent us oil and brought our sugar? And had the Czechs not sent weapons to defend ourselves, and machines, spare parts and technicians? We have here two or three hundred Soviet technicians, great workers, correct, kind, true brothers. The USSR is gambling on her peace, in spite of here twenty million dead of the last war, is compromising her peace and prestige in order to defend us, a small island. And it is doing this with not strings attached, without asking for anything. And you ask me what I think of the socialist camp? They are our friends. Fidel's voice is hoarse, but the indomitable caballo resists, jokes, laughs, speaks rapidly, and concisely, by using vernacular expressions which makes his eloquence more down to earth, and so different from the solemn and slow eloquence of his official speeches. Now, is it the others' turn in asking questions. They ask him personal questions. One says with a certain pomposity: "What do you fool when you awake in the morning and think that you are the great leader of all Latin America?" Fidel blushes and shrugs his shoulders. "I am a man like any other. Here, for instance, this chico right here (he points his finger at me) wakes up worrying that he will not be able to write a good article. True? So I wake up with the feat that I may not be able to do well my work as a revolutionary... And with the added pain of having to execute people... What do you think, that we like to kill? We are compelled to do it. The terrorists place bombs, and shoot out militiamen. Do you remember when they blew up the French ship? There were one hundred dead. [On March 4, 1960, the Coubre , a French freighter loaded with Belgian arms and ammunition, was blown up in Havana Harbor] Yet, it is terrible to have to execute people (suddenly, Fidel's eyes are filled with tears, and his voice is upset). Believe me, it's a death struggle. It is either us or them. We have to defend the revolution and make it go forward. We cannot show any pity. And yet it's terrible..." It is 0530 hours. Fidel gets up, shakes hand with everybody, patiently and modestly signs postcards, pictures and books, and finds again his beautiful smile. "Adios, companeros, muchas gracias!" Then, turning to me, he says: "Got your interview, Italiano? Now you won't be on the look-out for me..." On the contrary, Comandante, I still have many questions to ask of you. All right, all right, we'll see... Then he leaves, walking slowly and in a slightly bent way, with his armed escort, and in a big black car disappears in the Havana streets, silent and deserted, and swept by a cold wind from the north. Castro Internet Archive
[email protected] Home Current Issue Archives Arsenal of Marxism Subscribe Links Search Who We Are Donate Contact us Nov/Dec 2012 • Vol 12, No. 6 Click Here to Return to the Index Search the Site: Enter term and click Go! ‘Fidel Castro is Dying’ By Fidel Castro A message to the first graduating class from the Victoria de Girón Medical Sciences Institute was enough to prompt imperialist propaganda to go into overdrive and news agencies to voraciously launch themselves after the lie. Not only that but, in their cables, they attributed the most unheard of nonsense to the patient. The ABC newspaper in Spain reported that a Venezuelan doctor from an unknown location revealed that Castro had suffered a massive embolism in the right cerebral artery; “I can state that we are not going to see him again in public.” The alleged doctor who, if he is in fact a doctor would no doubt first abandon his own compatriots, described Castro’s health as “very close to a neural-vegetative state.” While many persons in the world are deceived by information agencies which publish this nonsense—almost all in the hands of the privileged and rich—people believe less and less in them. Nobody likes to be deceived; even the most incorrigible liar expects to be told the truth. In April of 1961, everyone believed the information published in the news agencies that the mercenary invaders of Girón or Bay of Pigs, whatever one wants to call it, were approaching Havana, when in fact some of them were fruitlessly trying by boat to reach the yankee warships escorting them. The peoples are learning and resistance is growing, faced with the crisis of capitalism, which is recurring with greater frequency; no lies, repression or new weapons will be able to prevent the collapse of a production system which is increasingly unequal and unjust. A few days ago, very close to the 50th anniversary of the October Crisis, news agencies pointed to three guilty parties: Kennedy, having recently become the leader of the empire, Khrushchev and Castro. Cuba did not have anything to do with nuclear weapons, nor with the unnecessary slaughter of Hiroshima and Nagasaki perpetrated by the president of the United States, Harry S. Truman, thus establishing the tyranny of nuclear weapons. Cuba was defending its right to independence and social justice. When we accepted Soviet aid in weapons, oil, foodstuffs and other resources, it was to defend ourselves from yankee plans to invade our homeland, subjected to a dirty and bloody war which that capitalist country imposed on us from the very first months, which left thousands of Cubans dead and maimed. When Khrushchev proposed the installation here of medium range missiles similar to those the United States had in Turkey—far closer to the USSR than Cuba to the United States—as a solidarity necessity, Cuba did not hesitate to agree to such a risk. Our conduct was ethically irreproachable. We will never apologize to anyone for what we did. The fact is that half-a-century has gone by, and here we still are with our heads held high. I like to write and I am writing; I like to study and I am studying. There are many tasks in the area of knowledge. For example, never before have the sciences advanced at such an astounding speed. I stopped publishing “Reflections” because it is definitely not my role to take up pages in our press, dedicated to other tasks, which the country requires. Birds of ill omen! I don’t even remember what a headache is. As evidence of what liars they are, I present them with the photos, which accompany this article. Fidel Castro Ruz October 21, 2012 —Monthly Review, October 22, 2012 http://monthlyreview.org/castro/2012/10/22/fidel-castro-is-dying-by-fidel-castro/ Home Current Archives Arsenal of Marxism Subscribe Links Search About Us Donate Contact © 2001-2012. Socialist Viewpoint Publishing
Fidel Castro Internet Archive Speech by Fidel Castro Ruz before Leaving for the Moncada Barracks on July 26, 1953 Delivered: July 26, 1953 Source: http://www.fidelcastro.cu/en Markup: David Walters, 2019 Online Version: http://www.fidelcastro.cu/en Freedom or Death! Comrades: You may be victorious or defeated in a few hours, but hear this well, comrades! This movement will triumph anyway. If you are victorious tomorrow, Martí’s aspirations will became true sooner. If not, the gesture will serve to set an example for the Cuban people to take up the flag and keep going forward. The people will support us in the Eastern region and in the entire island. We the Youth of the Centennial of the Apostle, just as in 1868 and in 1895, here in the East we cry out for the first time: FREEDOM OR DEATH! You already know the objective of the plan. Without any doubt, it is a dangerous plan and everyone coming with me tonight must do it of their own free will. You still have time to decide. Anyway some of you may have to stay behind because there are not enough weapons. Those who are determined to go, take a step forward. The slogan is not to kill, only as a last resort. (Typed version-Council of State) (Versiones Taquigráficas - Consejo de Estado) Fidel Castro Internet Archive
Home Contents Subscribe Write Us! [email protected] November 2004 • Vol 4, No. 10 • The New US Aggression Against Cuba A Speech by Fidel Castro Dear Fellow Cubans: On 10 May this year a cable from the BBC took note of a fine imposed by the U.S. Federal Reserve on a Swiss bank for an alleged violation of U.S. sanctions against Libya, Iran, Yugoslavia and Cuba. They accused the Swiss bank of accepting U.S. dollar bills from or of sending them to countries that were subject to United States government sanctions. A few days later, the NOTIMEX agency reported on statements made by that crook Otto Reich in which, in reference to the measures recently adopted by the United States government, he said that some were already being implemented and that others were about to be implemented. Concretely, he said in a threatening tone: “Many of them need regulations and some other bureaucratic things to be put in place and government lawyers and other officials are working on that and many more are on the way to being implemented.” On that same day, an article full of slanders and blatant lies appeared in the Miami El Nuevo Herald under the headline “Cuba Laundered $39 billion in Swiss Bank.” The article, not only twisted everything to do with the normal trading operation that Cuba sustains with foreign countries but also urged U.S. authorities to take new action against our country, saying that: “We know that the Federal Reserve is autonomous and evidently has no interest in applying the Helms Burton Act but the OFAC (Office for Foreign Assets Control) is part of the executive branch and it can demand a better explanation of the Cuban part of the USB’s (Union of Swiss Banks) business which was elegantly swept under the carpet by the Senate Banking Committee. Perhaps Cuban-American members of Congress can convene hearings in the relevant House of Representatives’ committees so that light may be shed on this colossal scandal.” On June 8, the Cuban government, true to its habit of keeping our people duly informed, published an explanatory note in the newspaper Granma, which gave a detailed account of the origin of our operations with foreign banks, through which the dollars in cash received in Cuba are deposited in bank accounts so that we can settle the debts derived from our foreign trade. Among other things, the Note read: “We have seen how in the last few days the ultra-right wing of the Bush administration is taking steps clearly aimed at blocking the income our country obtains from tourism and other services, at reducing to zero the possibility that Cubans living in the United States can send remittances to their relatives in Cuba by using the most evil, devious, hypocritical method imaginable: simply by preventing Cuba from making deposits in foreign banks of the dollars it obtains from sales in hard currency shops, from activities related to tourism and from other trade services. Thus, Cuba would not be able to use these dollars to buy medicines or food or to import the stock needed for the very shops where those who receive remittances from family members living in the United States buy those products.” The United States government is using this sleazy method to put pressure on foreign banks to not accept money from Cuba, the origin of which is completely legal and honest. Moreover, it is encouraging the Miami terrorist mob’s papers to publish the repulsive slander that this money could even come from activities against which our country wages a fierce battle, activities such as money laundering and drug trafficking.” The note published in Granma reads on: “These actions are even more outrageous if one takes in account the fact that the only reason tourists who visit Cuba must use cash is that the Yankee blockade does not allow them to use credit cards or travelers’ checks issued by U.S. banks and other financial institutions that control this market. Moreover, they have granted only one U.S. Company a license for processing remittances sent through banks to Cuba so that Cubans living abroad need to go through an ordeal to send economic assistance to their relatives and, in the end, most of them are forced to send remittances in cash. These same persecutions and threats, which hang permanently over those who send money from the United States to their relatives in Cuba, means that they often prefer to send cash, so there is no paper trail that could make them liable to persecution from U.S. authorities and to the violent behavior of the terrorists who live in Miami. The Granma note continues: “One cannot conceive of a more cynical, evil formula: the United States forces remittances and payment made by visitors to Cuba to be made in cash and now, with this crude pressure, is trying to prevent Cuba from using this cash to pay for its imports.” The note ends as follows: “All of these tricks are doomed to failure. With its usual steadfastness and serenity, our heroic people will struggle against and will be victorious over a powerful, but despicable, cowardly enemy which is truly contemptible for its genocidal policies and its Nazi-fascist methods.” We can add to this the fact that, in the seven-year period referred to, Cuba has imported more than $30.9 billion worth of goods, so that the $3.9 billion which they say were sent to the Swiss bank in question and transferred to other beneficiaries, make up approximately 13 per cent of the total amount of payments Cuba made in this period to meet the cost of its imports, a substantial part of which are food, fuel or medical necessities or raw material for its production, other intermediate products for its new industries, articles sold in the chain of hard currency outlets, etc. The next day, another article in El Nuevo Herald returned to the subject and, with the utmost disregard for the truth, suggested that the money deposited in the aforementioned Swiss Bank was in the name of “unknown entities or persons in banks that were not named,” when, in every single case, that money was used for normal trade transactions with internationally recognized trading and industrial companies. The Herald hysterically demanded: “We must learn what those names are. Florida congresspersons Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Lincoln Díaz-Balart must put pressure so that people learn where this money went and where it came from.” On June 10, in a campaign obviously aimed at drawing international attention to this matter, El Nuevo Herald once again said that the Miami mob, through its best-known spokespersons, congresspersons Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Lincoln Díaz-Balart, was requesting the federal government to investigate the origin and destination of the aforementioned money.
In this article El Nuevo Herald reported that: “The United States must investigate the origin and destination of some $3.9 billion that the Cuban government “laundered” through an international program of the Federal Reserve, Florida congresspersons Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Lincoln Díaz-Balart said yesterday in letters sent to the Federal Reserve and to the House’s Finance Committee. “‘We are extremely puzzled as to how such a serious violation of federal law by the USB (Union of Swiss Banks) could have taken place’, the two wrote to the Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan. `We hope that the investigations can answer the many questions we have about this matter.” In a press conference on June 22, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the big, bad she-wolf, hysterically as usual, said: “I am shocked that a bank which was given the extremely important responsibility of distributing the new American money should violate our country’s regulations concerning a state identified as a terrorist state.” And she made this demand in a most impertinent manner, saying that: “I am waiting for the result of the investigation. if the USB (Union of Swiss Banks) is found guilty of violating U.S. restrictions on transactions involving terrorist states such as Cuba, it is most important that those responsible be fined appropriately.” On June 30, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, continuing with her campaign, addressed a letter to the chairman of the House of Representatives’ International Relations Committee demanding an investigation into the matter. Obviously, the aim of intimidating any bank which might have financial relations with Cuba could clearly be seen behind this campaign and blatant pressuring, the purpose being to prevent them from accepting dollar bills which our country must send abroad at regular intervals for the reasons explained above. At this point, it began to become clearly apparent that many banks were being subject to pressure by U.S. authorities to try to block those remittances and create an extremely critical situation for our country. In these circumstances, we began to analyze all possible variants in order to prevent any further criminal action by the United States government from causing serious economic damage to our country by impeding the use of the dollars in cash collected in Cuba for trade purposes. While Cuba calmly and thoughtfully analyzed all its alternatives, the lies and slanders about this subject continued to rain down. On June 3, El Nuevo Herald launched an attack on the Inter-American Development bank and ECLAC (Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean) accusing them of inflating its estimates of family remittances from the United States to Cuba, which, according to them, would justify the legal origin of the $3.9 billion. With reference to this point they said: “This whole business is what the IDB (Inter-American Development Bank) and ECLAC are covering up with their inflated figures on remittances, which they say come from the Cuban-American community. This must be clarified. What is more, this money laundering scandal shows that Cuba is a “safe haven for money from terrorists and embezzlers.” This must be exposed. On July 23, with the crass sensationalism characteristic of the Miami riffraff, El Nuevo Herald published an article entitled “Links to Cuban Money Sought in United States” which, among other things reported that: “The United States has started a judicial investigation to see if there are possible links between ‘U.S. bodies and persons’ and the $3.9 billion that Cuba infiltrated into the international banking system using a Federal Reserve program. “The operation was carried out through the Union of Swiss Banks (USB). “‘At this time there is an investigation opened by the South East New York district attorney’s office,’ Juan Zárate, the U.S. Treasury undersecretary responsible for the fight against financing terrorism said during a visit to El Nuevo Herald made yesterday.” Apparently the lies which were published every day in Miami on this affair were so many and so outrageous that, in spite of the proverbial discretion of Swiss banks, the banking institution involved in this case felt itself obliged to publicly deny any accusation of money laundering and a cable from Agence France Press published in Zurich on July 25 said the following: L’ Union des Banques Suisses (Union of Swiss Banks, USB) the biggest Swiss bank denied having laundered money for Cuba, as three members of the House of Representatives who are demanding an investigation, have alleged. “A USB spokesperson in Zurich said that he had no knowledge of a new investigation into the bank and denied all accusations of money laundering.” “According to the USB spokesperson, the U.S. Federal Reserve (FED) and the Swiss Federal Banking Commission (FBC) have already looked into the case. Statements like these did not prevent the Miami mobsters and the newspapers from continuing with their lying campaign and on September 16 Ileana Ros-Lehtinen came out with more statements: “‘This is starting and it’s growing’, the congresswoman remarked to El Nuevo Herald. She added: ‘There are at least three persons who were involved in this money manipulation and other banks are being looked into.’” Note the overt threat when she says “others banks are being looked into.” On that day, I asked the Central Bank of Cuba to speed up work on this matter and I said that they should concentrate on analyzing the possibility of using the convertible peso instead of the dollar, so that the country would not be vulnerable to the new pressure from the mob and the United States government. Perhaps you remember that on September 28, during the second Round Table on the subject of electricity, in my comments, I alerted the public to these problems without giving many details. On this point my actual words were: “We have an enemy that has been trying to destroy us with any and every possible method for more than 45 years so that even the money paid by a tourist cannot circulate through the world because, since they are the owners of the most important currency and owners of the world, they forbid the dollar to be used in any Cuban transaction.” And with regard to the measures we were working on, I hinted in the Round Table on September 29 which was about energy that: “They are making a big effort, and we are also thinking about how we are going to defend ourselves, because we will not be helpless. We are not going to tell them anything, let them do whatever they want, let them hassle us, let them try to knock us down, but any measure they take to blockade and then accuse the country of laundering money—as if it were money earned from gambling, from smuggling, from money laundering—they will not go unanswered.
It is our money earned with the sweat of our people, honorably. Then they take measures so that their dollar can’t circulate, but we shall see, we shall surely find a response to such measures, and they will fail as they have always failed.” As recently as October 9, exactly 11 days before my accidental fall, a speech given by Daniel W. Fisk, undersecretary for Western Hemispheric Affairs at the U.S. State Department to the Cuban American veterans’ Association came to our attention. There, he bragged with boundless cynicism about the alleged success of the criminal measures taken by the Bush government against our country. The things he said included: Yet another pillar in our strategy is to identify long-ignored revenue streams for the Castro regime and then move to degrade them. For example, tourism, which has replaced sugar exports as Cuba’s main foreign exchange earner.… As many of you are aware, to continue to reduce the flow of resources that enable Castro to keep the Cuban people repressed, we have tightened our policy on remittances, gift parcels and family travel to the Island. These avenues had generated an estimated $1.5 billion in funds and goods sent to Cuba from those living outside the Island…we have deprived the Castro regime of over $100 million in hard currency. That’s $100 million less Castro has to repress his people and keep his grip on power. Moreover, by projecting these numbers over a full calendar year, we estimate a net annual loss to the regime of some $375 million—and that’s just from reduced travel. When factoring in the decline in all revenue flows, we estimate we will have denied the regime at lest half a billion dollars that Castro would have used to support his security and intelligence apparatus. Among all that imperial arrogance and bragging, there was one specific paragraph which needs careful consideration. Mr. Fisk said: “We have established a Cuban Assets Targeting Group staffed by law enforcement officials from several agencies to investigate and identify new ways hard currency moves in and out of Cuba; and to stop it.” The relationship between the Miami mob’s dirty campaign on the subject of alleged money laundering and this new, criminal action by the United States government when it created a group to track down hard currency flows into and out of Cuba couldn’t be clearer. Thus the actions to protect our country’s interests against this new attack had to be taken without any more delay. I immediately instructed the Cuban Central Bank to prepare a timetable for having the convertible peso circulate instead of the U.S. dollar as soon as possible. That timetable has been drawn up and now we are in a position to officially announce, that, as from November 8 the convertible peso will begin to circulate instead of the U.S. dollar throughout Cuban national territory. The first thing we need to make clear is that this does not mean that the possession of U.S. dollars or any other freely convertible currency will be penalized. The population can hold any amount of dollars it wishes and this will not be a breach of the law. What this means is that, as from the date mentioned earlier, November 8, the U.S. dollar will not be accepted in our hard currency dealings; these will only accept convertible pesos. As from November 8, any person in possession of freely convertible currency, be that person Cuban or a visiting foreigner, will first have to obtain convertible pesos in the Exchange Bureaus (CADECAS), in bank chapters -and even in a large number of the very shops that make sales in hard currency, who will also be offering this service—in order to make purchases in the chain of outlets which use hard currency. As an additional element, it has been decided that as from that date, November 8, anyone who wishes to obtain convertible pesos for U.S. dollars in cash will have to pay a 10 percent tax. This tax will serve as compensation for the risks and costs which derive from using U.S. dollars in the Cuban economy as a result of the aforementioned United States government measures which are trying to prevent our country from using U.S. dollars in cash for normal trade purposes. So that not the slightest confusion exist, it is very important to repeat that this tax will begin on November 8, so that those with U.S. dollars have two weeks to exercise their right to exchange them for convertible pesos at par and with no tax whatsoever; or if they wish, they can also by goods in dollars before that date, as is done now.
or if they wish, they can also by goods in dollars before that date, as is done now. If anyone has a U.S.-dollar-account in the bank, they can deposit more dollars and withdraw them later in convertible pesos at par or in U.S. dollars whenever they want them—also tax exempt. If a person has no bank account, he or she can open one and deposit his or her U.S. dollars in the bank and withdraw them whenever they wish in the future as convertible pesos at par or in the same dollars, also tax exempt. Those who usually receive money from abroad have two weeks from today to coordinate, if they so wish, with their relatives so that in the future the latter do not send their cash remittances in U.S. dollars but in other currencies, such as the Euro, the Canadian dollar, the pound sterling or the Swiss franc, which will not be subject to the 10 percent tax. This means that we have looked for formulas, which ensure that no one is harmed by this measure, since enough time has been allowed for people to make the arrangements they wish with their U.S. dollars in cash in order not to have to pay the required tax. I repeat, this is not a measure aimed at obtaining dollars by imposing a tax, it is a response to a real threat posed by a criminal United States government measure and a flagrant campaign to intimidate foreign banks. I also want to stress that all U.S. dollars, convertible pesos or any other currency bank accounts are totally guaranteed, and, as I already said, no tax will be imposed on money deposited in banks, no matter when clients wish to withdraw it, there being no time limits of any kind. Perhaps, in order to make this easier to understand, Randy could read the Central Bank resolution which will make this measure effective and after that we can offer some clarification. As I already explained, the first thing the resolution establishes is that the population can posses, as they can now and with no kind of restriction, any amount of U.S. dollars or any other convertible currency. Between tomorrow and November 7, everything will be as it is now and U.S. dollars will continue to be accepted in the shops; those who wish to change their U.S. dollars for convertible pesos will not be charged the ten-percent tax and the exchange will be at par. People may open new dollar bank accounts with no restrictions of whatsoever or can make new deposits in existing accounts, and they can withdraw these funds whenever they wish in the future in convertible pesos at par or in U.S. dollars, the client may choose, without being subject to any tax. The obligation to pay in convertible pesos in all establishments that use dollars will come into effect on November 8, and the 10 percent tax will be applied to any transaction that involves exchanging physical U.S. dollars for convertible pesos. Remember, that this is not a change in the exchange rate between the U.S. dollar and the convertible peso, which continues to stand at par, but it is simply a tax on purchasing convertible pesos with U.S. dollars in cash. If you have a convertible peso, you can buy a U.S. dollar; but if you have a U.S. dollar and want to buy a convertible peso, you will have to pay the 10 percent tax, so that you will only receive 90 cents of a convertible peso for your U.S. dollar. I remind you again that there is no kind of tax for the other currencies that are accepted in the country—euros, Swiss francs, pounds sterling and Canadian dollars. The ten percent tax will be applied to U.S. dollars in cash because of the situation created by the United States government’s new measures to asphyxiate our country. In order to make it easier to exchange money, this can be done as from October 28 in the Exchange Bureaus (CADECAS), bank chapters, hotels and shops, in the ways already read from the resolution.
In order to make it easier to exchange money, this can be done as from October 28 in the Exchange Bureaus (CADECAS), bank chapters, hotels and shops, in the ways already read from the resolution. The resolution also sets forth that transactions made with credit or debit cards will have no tax applied to them, no matter in which currency they are made, including the U.S. dollar. The explanation is that, when a transaction is made with a credit or debit card, no movement of actual cash is involved, so that the costs and risks associated with handling U.S. dollar bills do not exist. Some measures have been taken affecting the banking system to make currency exchange easier. For example, banks will open on Saturday and Sunday November 6 and 7, respectively, and from October 28 to November 5 and from 12 noon onwards at that time, they will be totally dedicated to currency exchange operations and during those hours will not process any other transactions, in order to give more time to the public, so that no one who wishes to exchange U.S. dollars for convertible pesos before the 8th, [will not have to] pay the tax…. Of course, we also want to make it clear, following the same rationale, that those who wish to buy Cuban pesos at the CADECAS with U.S. dollars will also be subject to the 10 percent tax, since we would be accepting U.S. dollars in cash. I also want to make it clear that this measure will not prevent nor hinder in any way whatsoever the guarantees issued by Cuban financial institutions to foreign institutions, nor the availability of funds in freely convertible currency to honor their obligations. This measure is only domestic in scope and we are only regulating matters, which pertain to the circulation of money within Cuban territory and protecting ourselves from an external economic attack. Top Contents Home Subscribe Write us [email protected]
Castro Internet Archive May Day Celebration (1961): Cuba is a Socialist Nation Spoken: May 1, 1961 Source: Havana International Service in Spanish 0215 GMT 2 May 1961--E Markup: Brian Baggins Online Version: Castro Internet Archive (marxists.org) 2000 Distinguished visitors from Latin American and the entire world, combatants of the armed forces of the people, workers: We have had 14 and a half hours of parading. (Chanting) I think that only a people imbued with infinite enthusiasm is capable of enduring such tests. Nevertheless, I will try to be as brief as possible (Chanting) We are very happy over this attitude by the people. I believe that today we should outline the course to follow, analyze a little what we have done up to now, and see at what point in our history we are, and what we have ahead. We have all had a chance to see the parade. Maybe we who are on this platform could appreciate it better than you in the square, maybe still better than those who have paraded. This May Day tells a lot, it tells a lot about what the revolution has been so far, what it has achieved so far; but maybe it does not tell us as much as it tells our visitors. We have been witnesses, all of us Cubans, of every step taken by the revolution, so maybe we cannot realize how much we have advanced as fully as can be understood by visitors, particularly those visitors from Latin America, where today they are still living in a world very similar to the one we lived in yesterday. It is as if they were suddenly transported from the past to the present of our revolution, with all its extraordinary progress as compared to the past. We do not intend tonight to stress the merit of what we have done. We merely want to locate ourselves at the point where we are at the present. We had a chance today to see genuine results of the revolution on this May Day, so different from the May Days of the past. Formerly that date was the occasion for each sector of labor to set forth its demands, its aspirations for improvement, to men who were deaf to the working class interests, men who could not even accede to those basic demands because they did not govern for the people, for the workers, for the peasants, or for the humble; they governed solely for the privileged, the dominant economic interests. Doing anything for the people would have meant harming the interests that they represented, and so they could not accede to any just demand from the people. The May Day parades of those days marked the complaints and protest of the workers. How different today's parade has been! How different even from the first parades after the revolution triumphed. Today's parade shows us how much we have advanced. The workers (Light applause) now do not have to submit themselves to those trials; the workers now do not have to implore deaf executives; the workers now are not subject to the domination of any exploiting class; the workers no longer live in a country run by men serving exploiting interests. The workers know now that everything the revolution does, everything the government does or can do, has one goal: helping the workers, helping the people. (Applause) Otherwise, there would be no explanation for the spontaneous sentiment of support for the Revolutionary Government, that overflowing good will that every man and woman has expressed today. (Applause) Fruits of the revolution are seen everywhere. The first to parade today were the children of the Camilo Cienfuegos school center. We saw the Pioneers parade by with the smile of hope, confidence, and affection. We saw the young rebels parade by. We saw the women of the federation go by. We saw children from numberless schools created by the revolution parade. We saw 1,000 students from the 600 sugar-cane cooperatives who are studying artificial insemination here in the capital. We saw young people, humble people, parade with their uniforms of the school center where they are learning to be diplomatic representatives of the future. We saw the pupils of the schools for young peasants of the Zapata swamps parade by, the swamps that the mercenaries chose for their attack. We saw thousands and thousands of peasants who are studying in the capital and who come from distant mountain areas or from cane cooperatives or from people's farms parade. We saw the young girls studying for children's club work. And here everyone of these groups staged scenes that are worthy of praise. And we saw also what is going into the rural areas. The volunteer teachers paraded and also representatives of the 100,000 young people on their way to the interior to wipe out illiteracy. Where does this strength come from? It comes from the people, and it is devoted to the people in return. These young people are truly children of the people. When we saw them today writing Long Live Our Socialist Revolution with their formations we thought how hard it would have been to have all this without a revolution; how hard for any of these children from the mountains to have paraded here today, or any of these young people from the rural areas to have a chance to get to know the capital, or to study in any of these schools, or to parade with the joy and pride shown here today, or to march with the faith in the future shown today, because schools, university professions, art, culture, and honors were never for the children of poor families, in town or in the country. They were never for the peasant of the remote rural areas; they were never for the poor young fellow, black or white, or our countryside and cities. Art, culture, university professions, opportunities, honors, elegant clothes were only the privilege of a small minority, a minority represented today with that grace and humor shown by some worker federations in their imitations of the rich. It is astounding to think that today more than 20,000 athletes paraded, if one remembers that we are just beginning. And this, without touching on the most marvelous thing we had a chance to see today, that is, this armed nation, this united people, which came to attend these ceremonies. How would it have been possible without a revolution? How can one compare this present with the past? How can one avoid emotion on seeing endless lines of workers, athletes, and militiamen parade by?
At times all went to intermingled. After all, workers, athletes, and soldiers are the same thing. Anybody could understand why our people must emerge victorious in any battle. We noted the many women in the ranks of the federations. The men were in the artillery units, mortar units, ack-ack units, or militia battalions. The women were the wives and sisters and sweethearts of the militiamen who marched by later in the battalions and those young men of the basic secondary schools, the Pioneers who paraded by were their sons. And so one can see today the unity of the humble people who are fighting for the poor. Workers of every profession; manual laborers and intellectual workers; all were marching together, the writer, artist, actor, announcer, doctor, nurse, clinical employer. Marching together in great numbers under the flag of the national education workers union were the teachers, employees of the Education Ministry. (Applause). Today we have had a chance to see everything worthwhile in our country, everything produced in our country. We have understood better than ever that there are two classes of citizens, or rather there were two classes of citizens; the citizens who worked, produced, and created and the citizens who lived without working or producing. These latter were parasites. (Applause) In this young, fervent nation, who did not parade today, who could not parade here today? The parasites! Today the working people paraded, everybody who produces with his hands or his brain. I do not mean that workers who did not have a chance to parade were parasites, because they had to take care of their children, or were ill, or even just did not want to parade today. I am speaking only of those who were not represented here because they could not be represented by those who produce. This is the people, the true people. He who lives as a parasite does not belong to the people. Only the invalid, the sick, the old, and children are entitled to live without working and are entitled to have us work for them and to care for them, and from the work of everyone they can be benefited. For the children, the old, the invalid, and the sick, we have the duty to work, all of us. (Applause) What no moral law will be able to justify ever is for the people to work for the parasites. (Applause) Those who paraded today were the working people who will never resign themselves to work for the parasites. (Applause) In this manner our national community has understood what the revolution is, and has understood clearly what the meaning of a revolution is in which a nation gets rid of parasites from the outside and those inside. (Applause) We remember that because of the nationalization of the largest industries of the nation, and just before the U.S. factories were nationalized, some asked: Was not this factory a Cuban factory? Why should a Cuban factory be nationalized? Well, such a factory did not belong to the people, it belonged to some man. Now they belong to the nation. (Applause) New Concept of Motherland It was the custom to talk about the motherland; there were some who had a wrong idea of the motherland. There was the motherland of the privileged ones, of a man who has a large house, while the others live in hovels. What motherland did you have in mind, sir? A motherland where a small group lives from the work of others? A motherland of the barefoot child who is asking for alms on the street? What kind of motherland is this? A motherland which belonged to a small minority? Or the motherland of today? The motherland of today where we have won the right to direct our destiny, where we have learned to decide our destiny, a motherland which will be, now and forever--as Marti wanted it--for the well-being of everyone and not a motherland for few! The motherland will be a place where such injustices will be eliminated, now we can have the real concept of motherland. We are willing to die for a motherland which belongs to all Cubans. (Applause) That is why the exploiting classes could not have the real concept of motherland. For them, the motherland was a privilege by which they took advantage of the work of others. That is why when a Yankee monopolist (shouts of Out!) when a leader, or a member of the U.S. ruling circles, talks about the motherland, they refer to the motherland of monopolies, of the large banking monopolies. And when they talk about the motherland, they are thinking about sending the Negroes of the South, the workers, to be killed to defend the motherland of monopolies. (Applause) What kind of morality and what reason and what right do they have to make a Negro die to defend the monopolies, the factories, and the mines of the dominating classes? What right have they to send the Puerto Rican of Latin blood, of Latin tradition, to the battlefields to defend the policy of large capitalists and monopolies? This concept of motherland and this danger to their security to which they refer is the danger of the monopolies. You can understand what concept they have of morality, law, and rights, to send the Negroes of the South and the Puerto Ricans to the battlefields to fight for them. This is their concept of motherland. That is why the people receive the real concept of motherland only when the interests of the privileged classes are liquidated, and when a nation with its wealth becomes a nation for everyone, the wealth for everyone, and opportunity and happiness for everybody. This happiness now belongs to those youths who paraded, and the families who know that their children can have a school, receive scholarships, and go to the best universities abroad, a privilege enjoyed only by the richest families. And today any family, regardless of how poor, has the opportunity to send its children to schools in the nation and abroad. Any family knows that thanks to the revolution its children have all the opportunities which formerly belonged only to the rich. A nation which works for itself, whether it be in defense of or in achieving wealth can achieve what the minorities cannot. (Applause) The revolution can win the people with its fervor and enthusiasm. The revolution can utilize all intelligence and creative spirit and take everyone toward a path of well-being and progress.
The people who spent 15 hours here today are the same people who formerly could not spend even one hour at a public rally, or who were paid or forced to go to a public rally. These enthusiastic people are the discouraged people of yesterday. The difference is that yesterday they worked for others and today they work for themselves. (Applause) Fight Against Imperialism Think of the men who died in recent battles and decide whether a single drop of blood was worth being lost to defend the past. Consider that these workers and youths, the children of workers, fell 10 or 12 days ago to defend what we have seen today. They fell to defend this enthusiasm, this hope, and this joy of today. That is why when today we saw a happy face or a smile full of hope, we though that each smile of today was a flower over the grave of the fallen hero. It was like giving thanks to those who gave their lives in the battle against imperialism. Without them we would not have had the May Day parade. We would not have been able to see what passed in front of us today. What would have happened to our antiaircraft batteries, what would have happened to our cannons and our soldiers who marched here? What would have happened to our workers, wives, sisters, and factories? What would have happened if imperialism had established even a single beachhead on our territory? What would have happened if the imperialists succeeded in taking one part of our territory, and from there, with Yankee bombs, machineguns, and planes, would have launched an armed attack against us. Let us not talk about what would have happened if the imperialist had won. There is no sadder picture than a defeated revolution. The uprising of slaves in Rome [Spartacus uprising] and their defeat should give us an idea of what a defeated revolution is. The Commune of Paris should give us an idea of what a defeated revolution is. History tells us that a defeated revolution must pay the victors in blood. The victors not only collect the past debts but also try to collect future debts. But under certain circumstances, it is impossible to crush a revolution. It has never happened in history that a revolutionary people who have really taken over power have been defeated. What would have happened this May Day if imperialism had won its game? That is why we were thinking of all we owed those who fell. That is why we were thinking that every smile today was like a tribute to those who made possible this hopeful day. The blood that was shed was the blood of workers and peasants, the blood of humble sons of the people, not blood of land- owners, millionaires, thieves, criminals, or exploiters. The blood shed was the blood of the exploited of yesterday, the free men of today. The blood shed was humble, honest, working, creative blood--the blood of patriots not the blood of mercenaries. It was the blood of militiamen who voluntarily came to defend the revolution. It was spontaneously offered blood to defend an ideal. This ideal was not the ideal with which the Yankees inclucated their mercenaries. It was not an ideal of parrots. It was not an ideal of the tongue, but of the heart. It was not an ideal of those who came to recover their lost wealth. It was not the ideal of those who always lived at the expense of others. It was not the ideal of those who sell their soul for the gold of a powerful empire. It was the ideal of the peasant who does not want to lose his land, the Negro who does not want discrimination, the humble, those who never lived from the sweat of others, and of those who never robbed from others, an ideal that a poor man of the people can feel. The revolution is all for him because he was mistreated and humilated. He defends the revolution because the revolution is his life. Before sacrificing this he prefers to lose his life. He knows that he may fall, but never in vain, and that the cause for which he falls will serve for millions of his brothers. Humble, honest blood was shed by the fatherland in the struggle against the mercenaires of imperialism. But what blood, what men did imperialism send here to establish that beachhead, to bleed our revolution dry, to destroy our achievements, to burn our cane? It was to be a war of destruction. U.S. Planned Aggression We can tell the people right here that at the same instant that three of our airports were being bombed, the Yankee agencies were telling the world that our airports had been attacked by planes from our own airforce. They coldbloodedly bombed our nation and told the world that the bombing was done by Cuban pilots with Cuban planes. This was done with planes on which they painted our insignia. If nothing else, this deed should be enough to demonstrate how miserable are the actions of imperialism. It should be enough for us to realize what Yankee imperialism really is and what its press and its government is. It is possible that millions have heard only the report that Cuban planes piloted by defectors had attacked our airports. This was planned, because the imperialist studied the plan to bomb and the way to deceive the entire world. This should serve to keep us alert and to understand that the imperialists are capable of the most monstrous lies to cover the most monstrous deeds. U.S. leaders publicly confessed their participation--without any explanation which they owe the world for the statements made by Kennedy that they would never would participate in aggression--and save us the effort of finding proof. Who were those who fought against those workers and peasants? We will explain. Privileged Class Mercenaries Of the first mercenaries captured, we can say that, without counting ships' crews, there were nearly 1,000 prisoners. Among that thousand we have the following: About 800 came from well-to-do families. They had a total of 27,556 caballerias of land, 9,666 houses, 70 industries, 10 sugar centrals, 2 banks, and 5 mines. So 800 out of 1,000 had all that. Moreover, many belonged to exclusive clubs and many were former soldiers for Batista. Remember, during the prisoner interrogation that I asked who was a cane cutter and only one said that he had cut cane once.
That is the social composition of the invaders. We are sure that if we ask all those here how many owned sugar centrals, there would not be even one. If we asked the combatants who died, members of the milita or soldiers of the revolutionary army, if we compared the wealth of those who fell, surely there would be no land, no banks, no sugar centrals, or the like listed. And some of the shameless invaders said that they came to fight for ideals! The invaders came to fight for free enterprise! Imagine, at this time for an idiot to come here to say that he fought for free enterprise! As if this people did not know what free enterprise is! It was slums, unemployment, begging. One hundred thousand families working the land to turn over 25 percent of their production to shareholders who never saw that land. How can they come to speak about free enterprise to a country where there was unemployment, illiteracy and where one had to beg to get into a hospital? The people knew that free enterprise was social clubs, and bathing in mud for the children because the beaches were fenced. The beaches were for the wealthy. One could never dream of going to Varadero, for that was for a few wealthy families. One could never dream of having a son study law. That was only for the privileged. A worker could never dream that his son might become a teacher or lawyer. Ninety percent of the sons of workers, or at least 75 percent of those who lived in places were there were no secondary schools had no chance to send their children to study. Not even in a dream could the daughters of the peasants dance here or parade here. How can one of those who never knew labor say that he came to shed the people's blood to defend free enterprise? (Chanting, applause) And they did not stop at their fathers' mention of free enterprise; they included the United Fruit and the electrical company. Those were not free enterprises; they were monopolies. So when they came here they were not fighting for free enterprise; they came for the monopolies, for monopolies do not want free enterprise. They were defending the monopolistic interests of the Yankees here and abroad. How can they tell the Cuban people that they were coming to defend free enterprise? They also say that they came to defend the 1940 constitution. How curious! That constitution was being torn into bits with the complicity of the U.S. Embassy, the reactionary church, and the politicians. So it is cynical for this group of privileged and Batista-type tyrants, criminals, and torturers to tell the people that they were coming to defend the constitution of 1940, which has been advanced by the Revolutionary Government. Who represented you in the congress? The corrupt politicians, the rich, the big landholders. There was only a handful of workers in congress. They were always in the minority. The means of disseminating ideas were all in the hands of the rich. It was hard to learn about the horrible conditions because of that. The death of thousands of children for lack of medicine and doctors did not bother the free enterprise men. There was never an agrarian reform law because congress was in the hands of the rich. Even though the constitution said the land must be returned to the Cubans, and even though in 1959 the 1940 constitution had been in effect 19 years, no law took land from the Yankee monopolies, which had huge expanses. Up to 200,000 hectares were held by some foreign monopolies. The constitution which said that land must be returned to the Cubans and the law setting a limit on landholdings were never enforced. There were teachers without employment, while children lacked schooling. The Batista group took over through a coup sponsored by imperialism and the exploiting class; they needed such a man as Batista, so that the rural guard would serve the landowners against the peasants. (Applause) It did not matter to them that the nation was being plundered. The landowners did not give anybody modern weapons to fight that regime; they gave arms to that bloody regime itself, not caring about how it violated the constitution. The Yankees did not give arms to anybody to fight Batista. None of the fine little gentlemen fought, because they still had their Cadillacs; they had a regime that guaranteed their frivolous life. They cared nothing about politics, for they had a very good life. Now that their privileges have ended, they found a Yankee government willing to give them arms to come here and shed the blood of workers and peasants. (Applause) Those gentlemen spoke of elections. What elections did they want? The ones of the corrupt politicians who bought votes? Those elections in which a poor person had to turn over his ballot in return for work? Those fake elections that were just a means for the exploiting class to stay in power? Those elections which were not a military coup? There are many pseudo-democracies in Latin America; what laws have they passed for the peasants? Where is nationalization of industry? Where is their agarian reform? (Applause) A revolution expressing the will of the people is an election everyday, not every four years; it is a constant meeting with the people, like this meeting. The old politicians could never have gathered as many votes as there are people here tonight to support the revolution. Revolution means a thorough change. What do they want? Elections with pictures on the posts. The revolution has changed the conception of pseudo-democracy for direct government by the people. No Time for Elections There had to be a period for abolition of the privileges.
No Time for Elections There had to be a period for abolition of the privileges. Do the people have time now for elections? No! What were the political parties? Just an expression of class interests. Here there is just one class, the humble; that class is in power, and so it is not interested in the ambition of an exploiting minority to get back in power. Those people would have no chance at all in an election. The revolution has no time to waste in such foolishness. There is no chance for the exploiting class to regain power. The revolution and the people know that the revolution expressed their will; the revolution does not come to power with Yankee arms. It comes to power through the will of the people fighting against arms of all kinds, Yankee arms. The revolution keeps in power through the people. What are the people interested in? In having the revolution go ahead without losing a minute. (Applause) Can any government in America claim to have more popular support than this one? Why should democracy be the pedantic, false democracy of the others, rather than this direct expression of the will of the people? The people go to die fighting instead of going to a poll to scratch names on paper. The revolution has given every citizen a weapon, a weapon to every man who wanted to enter the militia. So some fool comes along to ask if, since we have a majority why don't we hold elections? Because the people do not care to please fools and fine little gentlemen! The people are interested in moving forward. They have no time to waste. The people must spend tremendous amounts of energy in preparing to meet aggression, when everybody knows we want to be building schools, houses, and factories. We are not warlike. The Yankees spend half of their budget on armaments; we are not warlike. We are obliged to spend that energy, because of the imperialists. We have no expansionist ambitions. We do not want to exploit any worker of another county. We are not interested in aggressive plans; we have been forced to have tanks, planes, machineguns, and a military force to defend ourselves. The recent invasion shows how right we were to arm. At Playa Giron, they came to kill peasants and workers. Imperialism forced us to arm for defense. We have been forced to put energy and material and resources into that, although we would prefer to put them into more schools, so that in future parades there can be more athletes and school children. If our people were not armed, they could not crush mercenaries coming with modern equipment. The imperialists would have hurled themselves on us long ago if we had not been armed. But we prefer to die rather than surrender the country we have now. They know that. They know they will meet resistance, and so the aggressive circles of imperialism have to stop and think. So we are forced, by the threat of aggression to proclaim to the four corners of the world: All the peoples of American should rise in indignation after the statement that a country can intervene in another just because the first is strong. Such a policy would mean that the powerful neighbor takes the right to intervene to keep a people from governing themselves according to their own choice. It is inconceivable that there should be such miserable governments; after the aggression that killed peasants and workers, it is inconceivable that they have even begun a policy of breaking with Cuba, instead of breaking with Somoza, Guatemala, or the government in Washington that pays for planes, tanks, and arms to come her and kill peasants. The Costa Rican government has said that, if mercenaries are executed, it will break with us. It has no reason at all for a break, so it seeks some pretext, and hits on the idea of if there are executions. That government, in insolent intervention, stated its disposal to break with us if any of the mercenaries are executed. It does not break with Kennedy who organized the expedition, or with Guatemala, or Nicaragua. We did not break with it; we merely answered the note. Those who promote the policy of isolating Cuba at the orders of imperialism are miserable traitors to the interests and feelings of America. (Applause) These facts show us the rotten politics that prevail in many Latin American countries, and how the Cuban revolution has turned those corrupt forms upside down to establish new forms in this country. New Socialist Constitution To those who talk to us about the 1940 constitution, we say that the 1940 constitution is already too outdated and old for us. We have advanced too far for that short section of the 1940 constitution that was good for its time but which was never carried out. That constitution has been left behind by this revolution, which, as we have said, is a socialist revolution. We must talk of a new constitution, yes, a new constitution, but not a bourgeois constitution, not a constitution corresponding to the domination of certain classes by exploiting classes, but a constitution corresponding to a new social system without the exploitation of many by man. That new social system is called socialism, and this constitution will therefore be a socialist constitution. Kennedy's Protests If Mr. Kennedy does not like socialism, well we do not like imperialism! We do not like capitalism! We have as much right to protest over the existence of an imperialist-capitalist regime 90 miles from our coast as he feels he has to protect over the existence of a socialist regime 90 miles from his coast. Now then, we would not think of protesting over that, because that is the business of the people of the United States. It would be absurd for us to try to tell the people of the United States what system of government they must have, for in that case we would be considering that the United States is not a sovereign nation and that we have rights over the domestic life of the United States. Rights do not come from size. Right does not come from one country being bigger than another. That does not matter. We have only limited territory, a small nation, but our right is as respectable as that of any country, regardless of its size. It does not occur to us to tell the people of the United States what system of government they must have. Therefore it is absurd for Mr. Kennedy to take it into his head to tell us what kind of government he wants us to have here.
Kennedy to take it into his head to tell us what kind of government he wants us to have here. That is absurd. It occurs to Mr. Kennedy to do that only because he does not have a clear concept of international law or sovereignty. Who had those notions before Kennedy? Hitler and Mussolini! They spoke the same language of force; it is the fascist language. We heard it in the years before Germany's attack on Czechoslovakia. Hitler split it up because it was governed by a reactionary government. The bourgeoisie, reactionary and profascist, afraid of the advance of a socialist system, preferred even domination by Hitler. We heard that language on the eve of the invasion of Denmark, Belgium, Poland, and so forth. It is the right of might. This is the only right Kennedy advances in claiming the right to interfere in our country. This is a socialist regime, yes! Yes, this is a socialist regime. It is here, but the fault is not ours, the blame belongs to Columbus, the English colonizers, the Spanish colonizers. The people of the U.S. will someday get tired. No Threat to U.S. The U.S. Government says that a socialist regime here threatens U.S. security. But what threatens the security of the North American people is the aggressive policy of the warmongers of the United States. What threatens the security of the North American family and people is the violence, that aggressive policy, that policy that ignores the sovereignty and the rights of other peoples. The one who is threatening the security of the United States is Kennedy, with that aggressive policy. That aggressive policy can give rise to a world war; and that world war can cost the lives of tens of millions of North Americans. Therefore, the one who threatens the security of the United States is not the Cuban Revolutionary Government but the aggressor and aggressive government of the United States. We do not endanger the security of a single North American. We do not endanger the life or security of a single North American family. We, making cooperatives, agrarian reform, people's ranches, houses, schools, literacy campaigns, and sending thousands and thousands of teachers to the interior, building hospitals, sending doctors, giving scholarships, building factories, increasing the productive capacity of our country, creating public beaches, converting fortresses into schools, and give the people the right to a better future--we do not endanger a single U.S. family or a single U.S. citizen. The ones who endangers the lives of millions of families, of tens of millions of North American are those who are playing with atomic war. It is those who, as General Cardenas said, are playing with the possibility of New York becoming a Hiroshima. The ones who are playing with atomic war, with their aggressive war, with their policy that violated the rights of people are the ones who are endangering the security of the North American nation, the security of the lives of unknown millions of North Americans. What do the monopolists fear? Why do they say that they are not secure with the socialist revolution nearby. They are, as Khrushchev says, proving that they know their system is inferior. They do not even believe in their own system. Why don't they leave us alone when all our government wants is peace. U.S. Refusal to Negotiate Recently, our government issued a statement that we were willing to negotiate. Why? Because we are afraid? No! We are convinced that they fear the revolution more than we fear them. They have a mentality that does not permit them to sleep when they know that there is a revolution nearby. Fear? No one has fear here. The people who struggle for their liberty are never frightened. The frightened ones are the wealthy. The ones who have been wealthy. We are not interested in having imperialism commit suicide at our expense. They do not care about the death of Negroes, Puerto Ricans, or Americans. But we do care about every Cuban life. We are interested in peace. We are ready to negotiate. They say that economic conditions can be discussed, but no communism. Well, where did they get the idea we would discuss that? We would discuss economic problems. But we are not even ready to admit that these talks so much as brush a petal of a rose here. The Cuban people are capable of establishing the regime they want there. We have never been thought of the possibility of discussing our regime. We will discuss only things that will not effect our sovereignty. We do want to negotiate on behalf of peace. Those who do not worry about taking American people to war are being led by emotions. We have no fear. If they think so, let them get over that idea. No Cuban is afraid. If they think we will discuss internal politics, let them forget that, for one one will do that here.
If they think we will discuss internal politics, let them forget that, for one one will do that here. Let them discuss all topics they want to discuss. We discussed things with invaders, did we not? Well, we will debate with anyone. We are willing to talk. We are willing to debate. But does that mean we are aching to negotiate? Of course not. We are just taking a sensible step. Does that mean the revolution will slow down? Of course not! We will continue, picking up speed as we can. Kill Foreign Invaders If they want to say that that they do not care about the sovereignty of countries, let them. But we are ready to defend as well as to negotiate. We are ready to fire a million shots at the first Yankee parachutist that tries to land here. From the first moment they land on our soil they can be sure that they have begun the most difficult war they ever heard of. That war would be the beginning of the end for imperialism. With the same willingness to negotiate, we will fight. Even the Pioneers will fight. Each man, woman, and child has one duty in case of foreign attack--kill! If we were attacked by foreigners there would be no prisoners. The invading foreigners must know they must kill us all! While one lives, he has an enemy! Death struggle! There is no middle ground! It would be a war without prisoners! If the invaders land on Cuban soil we will not want our lives. We will fight to the last man against whoever sets foot on our land. All men and women must know their duty. This duty will be fulfilled in simple and natural manner as peoples fight in a righteous war. It is a crime that our people are not left in peace to complete our work of justice for those who once lived in humiliation and misery. It is too bad that illegitimate interests have determined to harm our country. While they tried to cut off our supplies, they were supplying mercenaries with weapons to invade our country and shed the people's blood. And in this shameful task, who participated? I have already told you of the social composition. Well, the priests were not missing either. Three of them came. None were Cubans, they were Spanish. You remember that when we asked them they said they came on a purely spiritual mission. They said they came on a Christian mission. But reviewing their books we find this: An appeal to the people by Ismael de Lugo: Attention Cuban Catholics: Liberating forces have landed on Cuban beaches. We come in the name of God--as if Calvino came in the name of God--justice, and democracy to reestablish trampled freedom; this must be a lie. We come because of love, not hate. We come with thousands of Cubans, all of whom are Catholics and Christians-- what a lie--their spirit is the spirit of the crusades. (Editor's Notes: Castro continues reading the message written by Father de Lugo.....) And that gentlemen is not even a Cuban; he is a Falangist Spaniard. He could have saved all those appeals and warlike energy by fighting against the Moorish guard of Franco. Why should he come here with three other Falangist Spanish priests instead of going to Spain to fight for freedom against Franco, who has been oppressing Spanish people for 20 odd years and who has sold out to Yankee imperialism? The Yankees are not fighting for freedom in Spain, or Nicaragua, or Guatemala. They are great friends of Franco. And these Falangist priests came here, when it is in Spain they should fight for freedom for peasants and workers. That Falangist priest comes here instead to preach against workers and peasants who have thrown off exploitation. And there were three, not just one; and the fourth, in the Escambray, is a Spanish priest too. Foreign Priests To Be Expelled We are going to announce here to the people that in the next few days the Revolutionary Government will pass a law declaring void any permit to remain in Cuba held by any foreign priest in our country. And this law will have only one exception; do you know for whom? A foreign priest can remain with special permission, provided the government approves, if he has not been combatting the Cuban revolution; that is, if he has not displayed an attitude opposed to the revolution; that is, there will be exceptions if a priest has been honest, has not been combatting the revolution, has not been carrying out counterrevolutionary activities. He can request permission, and the government can grant it if it deems proper, because there are some foreign priests, by way of exception, that have not taken a stand against the revolution, although the general rule has been otherwise. Of course, they will say we are impious, enemies of religion. Can they say that after a leader of the ecclesiastic service, while proclaiming that he is coming to give spiritual service, also signs a manifesto like this one--of this political nature? Can the revolution go on allowing these acts to go on with impunity? And let these gentlemen come to bring hell here, to bring hell on earth here, with their war criminals, their Calvinos, their Soler Puigs, their big landowners, and their privileged sons, to bring hell on earth here to the peasants and workers? Can we let the Spanish Falange go on promoting bloodshed and conspiracy here through its priests? No, we are not disposed to allow it. The Falangist priests know now, they can begin packing. (Applause) They have been waging counterrevolutionary activities in the schools, too, poisoning the minds of pupils. They have found fertile soil in schools usually attended by children of the rich. There they have been promoting counterrevolutionary poison in the minds of the young.
There they have been promoting counterrevolutionary poison in the minds of the young. They have been forming terrorist minds. They have been teaching hatred for the country. Why should the revolution stand for that? We would be guilty if we let that go on. Nationalization of Private Schools We announce here that in the next few days the Revolutionary Government will pass a law nationalizing the private schools. This law cannot be a law for one sector; it will be general. That means the private schools will be nationalized; of course, not a little school where one teacher gives classes, but private schools with several teachers. Directors of private schools have displayed different types of conduct. Many private school directors have not been instilling counterrevolutionary poison. The revolution feels it is its duty to organize and establish the principle of free education for all citizens. The people feel they have the duty of training future generations in a spirit of love for the country, for justice, for the revolution. What shall be done in the case of private schools that have not displayed counterrevolutionary conduce? The Revolutionary Government will indemnify those directors or owners of schools whose attitude has not been counterrevolutionary, whose attitude has been favorable to the revolution; and the revolution will not indemnify any school whose directors have been waging a counterrevolutionary campaign, who have been against the revolution. That is, there will be indemnity for those schools that have displayed a patriotic, decent attitude toward the revolution. They will be indemnified, and their directors will be invited to work with the Revolutionary Government in directing that school or another school. That is to say, these directors will be called on to help in the field of education, besides being indemnified. The teachers and employees of all these schools, of a lay nature, will be given work. That is, the employees and teachers of these schools will have their work guaranteed. The pupils of these schools can go on attending them, the educational standards will be kept up and even improved, and furthermore they will have to pay absolutely nothing to attend these schools. Religion Not Restricted Villanueva is included in this nationalization, of course. They will say this impious government opposes religious instruction. No sir. What we oppose are those shameless acts they have been committing, and this crime against our country. The can teach religion, yes; in the churches they can teach religion. Religion is one thing, politics another. If those gentlemen were not against the political interests of the people, we would not care at all about their pastorals, their discussions of religious matters. The churches can remain open; religion can be taught there. Would it not be much better if they had stuck to their religious teaching? Would it not be much better to have peace? They can have peace, within strict limits of the respect due the revolutionary people and government. But they cannot make war on the people in the service of the exploiters. That has nothing to do with religion; it has to do with blood, with gold, with material interests. They can have the consideration of the people, in the limits of that mutual respect for rights. Christianity arose as a religion of the poor, the slaves, and the oppressed of Rome--the religion that flourished in the catacombs. It was the religion of the poor, and it obtained the respect of the laws. It coexisted with the Roman Empire. Then came feudalism. That church coexisted with feudalism, later with absolute monarchies, later with bourgeois republics. Here the bourgeois republic disappears; why should not that same church coexist with a system of social justice that is far superior to those previous forms of government? This system is much more like Christianity than Yankee imperialism or bourgeois republics, or the Roman Empire. We believe coexistence is perfectly possible. The revolution does not oppose religion. They have used religion as a pretext to combat the poor. They forget what Christ said about it being easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven. Small Business man Protected Those are the facts. We have spoken, as always, clearly. It means only that we are prepared to defend the revolution and continue forward, convinced of the justice of our cause. We have spoken of our socialist revolution. It does not mean the little businessman or little industrialist need worry. Mines, fuel, banking, sugar mills, export and import trade--the bulk of the economy-- is in the hands of the people. That way the people can develop our economy. The little industralist and little businessman can coesxist with the revolution. The revolution has always cared for the interests of the small owners. Urban reform is a proof. This month all little landlords will be collecting around 105,000 pesos. Formerly if the tenant did not pay his rent the landlord did not collect; now a fund has been established to insure that the little landlord will be paid. The revolution will have some 80 million pesos a year for construction from the urban reform. And when rental is the only income of these landlords, the revolution has ruled that after the house is all paid for, the landlord will receive a pension. A socialist revolution does not mean that interests of certain sectors are eliminated without consideration. The interests of the big landholders, bankers, and industrialists were eliminated. No social interest of the lesser levels of society is to be condemned. The revolution will adhere to its word: No middle interest will be affected without due consideration. Little businessmen industrialists have credit today.
Little businessmen industrialists have credit today. The revolution has no interest in nationalizing them. The revolution has enough to do with developing the sources of wealth it now has at its disposal. The revolution feels that there can be collaboration from the little businessman and little industrialist. It believes that their interest can coincide with those of the revolution. Counterrevolutionaries have claimed that barbershops would be nationalized, even food stands. The revolution does not aim at those. The solution of those problems will be the result of a long evolution. There are some problems; sometimes tomatoes and pineapples are sold in the city at far higher prices than in the country. There is still a small plague of middlemen. The revolution still has measures to take to do away with the middleman abuse, to improve consumption for the people. But I do not want anybody to be confused. I want everybody to know what to expect. Call for Collaboration Basically, the revolution has already passed its measures. Nobody need worry. Why not join in this enthusiasm, in this prowess? Why are there still Cubans bothered by this happiness? I asked myself that while watching the parade. Why are some Cubans so incapable of understanding that his happiness can also be theirs? Why do they no adapt to the revolution? Why not see their children in the schools here also? Some people cannot adopt, but the future society will be better than the old one. This is the hour in which we, far from using the moment against those who do not understand, should ask them if the time has not come for them to join us. The revolution found it necessary to be detained. Perhaps they have. The revolution does not want to use its force against a minority. The revolution wants all Cubans to understand. We do not want all this happiness and emotion all to ourselves. It is the glory of the people. We say this to those who have lied in the past and have not understood. We frankly say that our revolution should not be lessened by severe sanctions against all the mercenaries. It might serve as a weapon for our enemies. We say this because we tell the people all that will benefit the revolution. We have had a moral victory and it will be greater if we do not besmirch our victory. The lives lost hurt us as much as they do others. But we must overcome that and speak for our prestige and our cause. What is before us? The risks of imperialist aggression! Big tasks! We have reached a point in which we should realize that the time has come to make the greatest effort. The coming months are very important. They will be months in which we must make greater efforts in all fields. We all have the duty to do the utmost. no one has a right to rest. With what we have seen today we must learn that with efforts and courage we can harvest wonderful fruit. And today's fruits are nothing compared to what can be done if we apply ourselves to the maximum. Before concluding, I want to recall what I said during the Moncada trial. Here is a paragraph: The country cannot remain on its knees imploring miracles from the golden calf. No social problem is resolved spontaneously. At that time we expressed our views. The revolution has followed the revolutionary ideas of those who had an important role in this struggle. That is why when one million Cubans met to proclaim the Havana Declaration, the document expressed the essence of our revolution, our socialist revolution. It said that it condemned landed estates, starvation wages, illiteracy, absence of teachers, doctors, and hospitals, discrimination, exploitation of women, oligarchies that hold our countries back, governments that ignore the will of their people by obeying U.S. orders, monopoly of news by Yankee agencies, laws that prevent the masses from organizing, and imperialist monopolies which exploit our wealth. The general assembly of the people condemns exploitation of man by man. The general assembly proclaims the following: The right to work education, the dignity of man, civil rights for women, secure old age, artistic freedom, nationalization of monopolies, and the like. This is the program of our socialist revolution. Long live the Cuban working class! Long live the Latin American sister nations! Long live the nation! Fatherland or death! We shall win! Castro Internet Archive
[email protected] Home Current Issue Archives Arsenal of Marxism Subscribe Links Search Who We Are Donate Contact us Jul/Aug 2007 • Vol 7, No. 4 Click Here to Return to the Index Search the Site: Enter term and click Go! They Will Never Have Cuba By Fidel Castro Ruz I hope that no-one will say that I am gratuitously attacking Bush. Surely they will understand my reasons for strongly criticizing his policies. Robert Woodward is an American journalist and writer who became famous for the series of articles published byThe Washington Post, written by him and Carl Bernstein, and which eventually led to the investigation and resignation of Nixon. He is author and co-author of ten best-sellers. With his fearsome style he manages to wrench confessions from his interviewees. In his book,State of Denial, he says that on June 18, 2003, three months after the Iraq war had begun, as he was on the way out of his White House office following an important meeting, Bush slapped Jay Garner on the back and said to him: “Hey, Jay, you want to do Iran?” “Sir, the boys and I talked about that and we want to hold out for Cuba. We think the rum and the cigars are a little better.... The women are prettier.” Bush laughed. “You got it. You got Cuba.” Bush was betrayed by his subconscious. It was in his mind when he declared what scores of dark corners should be expecting to happen and Cuba occupies a special place among those dark corners. Garner, a recently retired three-star general who had been appointed Head of the Post-War Planning Office for Iraq, created by a secret National Security Presidential Directive, was considered by Bush an exceptional man to carry out his war strategy. Appointed for the post on January 20, 2003, he was replaced on May 11 of that same year at the urging of Rumsfeld. He didn’t have the nerve to explain to Bush his strong disagreements on the matter of the strategy to be pursued in Iraq. He was thinking of another one with identical purpose. In the past few weeks, thousands of marines and a number of U.S. aircraft carriers, with their naval supporting forces, have been maneuvering in the Persian Gulf, a few miles off the Iranian territory. . . . It will very soon be 50 years since our people started suffering a cruel blockade; thousands of our sons and daughters have died or have been mutilated as a result of the dirty war against Cuba, the only country in the world to which a [U.S.-imposed] Adjustment Act has been applied inciting illegal emigration, yet another cause of death for Cuban citizens, including women and children. More than 15 years ago Cuba lost her principal markets and sources of supply for foods, energy, machinery, raw materials and long-term low-interest financing. First the socialist bloc collapsed followed almost immediately by the USSR, dismantled piece by piece. The empire tightened and internationalized the blockade; the proteins and calories which were quite well distributed despite our deficiencies were reduced approximately by 40 percent; diseases such as optical neuritis and others appeared; the shortage of medicines, also a result of the blockade, became an everyday reality. Medicines were allowed to enter only as a charitable act, to demoralize us; these, in their turn, became a source of illegal business and black-market dealings. Inevitably, the “special period” struck. This was the sum total of all the consequences of the aggression and it forced us to take desperate measures whose harmful effects were bolstered by the colossal media machine of the empire. Everyone was awaiting, some with sadness and others with oligarchic glee, the crumbling of the Cuban Revolution. The access to convertible currency greatly harmed our social consciousness, to a greater or a lesser degree, due to the inequalities and ideological weaknesses it created. Throughout its lifetime, the Revolution has taught the people, training hundreds of thousands of teachers, doctors, scientists, intellectuals, artists, computer engineers and other professionals with university and post-graduate degrees in dozens of professions. This storehouse of wealth has allowed us to reduce infant mortality to low levels, unthinkable in any Third World country, and to raise life expectancy as well as the average educational level of the population up to the ninth grade. By offering Cuba oil under favorable terms of payment at a time when oil prices were escalating dramatically, the Venezuelan Bolivarian Revolution brought a significant relief and opened up new possibilities, since our country was already beginning to produce her own energy in ever-growing amounts. Concerned over its interests in that country, the empire had for years been planning to destroy that Revolution, and so it attempted to do it in April 2002, as it will attempt to do again as many times as it can. This is why the Bolivarian revolutionaries are preparing to resist. Meanwhile, Bush has intensified his plans for an occupation of Cuba, to the point of proclaiming laws and an interventionist government in order to install a direct imperial administration. Based on the privileges granted to the United States in Bretton Woods and Nixon’s swindle when he removed the gold standard which placed a limit on the issuing of paper money, the empire bought and paid with paper tens of trillions of dollars, more than twelve digit figures. This is how it preserved an unsustainable economy. A large part of the world currency reserves are in U.S. Treasury bonds and bills. For this reason, many would rather not have a dollar crisis like the one in 1929 that would turn those paper bills into thin air. Today, the value of one dollar in gold is at least eighteen times less than what it was in the Nixon years. The same happens with the value of the reserves in that currency. Those paper bills have kept their low current value because fabulous amounts of increasingly expensive and modern weapons can be purchased with them; weapons that produce nothing.
weapons that produce nothing. The United States exports more weapons than anyone else in the world. With those same paper bills, the empire has developed a most sophisticated and deadly system of weapons of mass destruction with which it sustains its world tyranny. Such power allows it to impose the idea of transforming foods into fuels and to shatter any initiative and commitment to avoid global warming, which is visibly accelerating. Hunger and thirst, more violent hurricanes and the surge of the sea is what Tyranians and Trojans stand to suffer as a result of imperial policies. It is only through drastic energy savings that humanity will have a respite and hopes of survival for the species; but the consumer societies of the wealthy nations are absolutely heedless of that. Cuba will continue to develop and improve the combative capacities of her people, including our modest but active and efficient defensive weapons industry which multiplies our capacity to face the invaders no matter where they may be, and the weapons they possess. We shall continue acquiring the necessary materials and the pertinent fire power, even though the notorious Gross Domestic Product as measured by capitalism may not be growing, for their GDP includes such things as the value of privatizations, drugs, sexual services and advertising, while it excludes many others like free educational and health services for all citizens. From one year to the next the standard of living can be improved by raising knowledge, self-esteem and the dignity of people. It will be enough to reduce wastage and the economy will grow. In spite of everything, we will keep on growing as necessary and as possible. “Freedom costs dearly, and it is necessary to either resign ourselves to live without it or to decide to buy it for its price,” said Mart�. “Whoever attempts to conquer Cuba will only gather the dust of her soil soaked in blood, if he does not perish in the fight,” exclaimed Maceo. We are not the first revolutionaries to think that way! And we shall not be the last! One man may be bought, but never a people. Fate decreed that I could survive the empire’s murderous machine. Shortly, it will be a year since I became ill and, while I hovered between life and death, I stated in the Proclamation of July 31, 2006: “I do not harbor the slightest doubt that our people and our Revolution will fight until the last drop of blood.” Mr. Bush, don’t you doubt that either! I assure you that you will never have Cuba! —Granma (Cuba), June 17, 2007 Home Current Archives Arsenal of Marxism Subscribe Links Search About Us Donate Contact 2001-2007. Socialist Viewpoint Publishing
Castro Internet Archive Fourth Anniversary of the Cuban Revolution Spoken: January 2, 1963, (1654 GMT) in the Plaza De Revolucion Jose Marti (Havana) First Published: January 2, 1963 Source: Castro Speech Database Markup: Brian Baggins Online Version: Castro Internet Archive (marxists.org) 2000 Distinguished visitors, workers, peasants, students, all citizens: Mr. Kennedy would say (applause for approximately two minutes) that I am addressing the captive people of Cuba. (Applause) According to the concepts of the imperialists, the concept in which exploitation is just and crime and aggression are right, to be mercenary is right; according to the concepts of imperialists this country is a captive country. If we start by imagining things in this vein, nothing else they do is surprising. Recently an event took place which, even if they try to ignore it, is an historic event. Imperialism agreed to pay our country the indemnity fixed by the revolutionary courts of the invaders of Playa Giron. The Government of the United States tried by all means to avoid its official responsibility, to elude the official acceptance of this fact. This is in accordance with the pharasaical mentality of the leaders of imperialism. This is in accordance with everything they do. For example, when they attacked us on 15 April they sent airplanes with Cuban insignia. And when Cuba denounced the aggression, they declared through their cable agencies to the whole world that these were not planes from abroad but Cuban planes (whose pilots — Ed.) had revolted. And they made this version known to the whole world. Fortunately, for them, a lie of that type was only one more lie. They have always acted in this manner and for that reason it was not surprising that on one side they were mobilizing to gather the funds and on the other side they pretended that it was simply a committee of families that was carrying out these negotiations. In the background, it was the Government of the United States. Now it has been learned that the brother of the President of the United States had made the main arrangements to obtain the funds to pay the indemnity. They, naturally, do not call it indemnity. They said it is rescue. This, too, is logical for them to say. To the imperialists, who jailed a Negro newspaperman for visiting Cuba and fined him 10,000 dollars for exercising a constitutional right, this is justice. On the other hand, the fact that a revolution has been generous to the criminals who attacked us while serving a foreign power, the fact that the revolutionary courts, instead of giving them a sentence which they deserved — capital punishment for all of them — let them go with a fine, is not justice. To punish those who attacked us one morning by surprise and cowardice, to punish those who came escorted by foreign battle ships, to punish those who, in serving a foreign power, committed an act of flagrant treason by all codes, that was not justice. They call is rescue. But we do not care what they call it. The fact is they that had to agree to pay indemnity and that for the first time (short applause) in history, imperialism paid a war indemnity. And why did they pay it? Because they were beaten, because in Playa Giron the imperialists suffered their first great defeat in Latin America. (Short applause) What did the President of the United States do? How has he acted? First he assumed the responsibility for the attack to our country. However, during 20 months, they avoided paying that indemnity. When at the end they decided to pay, and the revolutionary government greed the invaders, what was the conduct of the President of the United States? Was it the conduct of a statesman. Was it the conduct of a responsible man? No. It was the conduct of a pirate. It was the conduct of a chief of filibusters. Because, really, never has a President of the United States degraded the dignity of his office to such as did Mr. Kennedy on the day he met with the criminal invaders of our country. Here I have the little speech he made on that day. It is good that I have no love for him, because reading these things teaches us to understand the imperialists. He started by saying — I am going to read the most important paragraphs, as some paragraphs lack pervasiveness; the most important paragraphs — "I want to express my deepest thanks to the brigade for making the United States the custodian of this flag. I can assure you that this flag," and listen well "this flag will be returned to this brigade in a free Havana." We do not know if there is a bar in Miami called Free Havana. Then he says, and this is the height of ridiculousness and (word indistinct), as we Cubans say: "I ask Mr. Miranda, who kept this flag for 20 months, to come forward so we can know him. I wanted to know the person to whom I should return it." Perhaps that morning he had one drink too many. In the first place the story of the flag is a lie, a complete lie. Everyone knows that the mercenaries that come here dressed as "silk worms," as the people say, with camouflaged uniforms of the North American army, were totally and absolutely surprised and captured. But not only that, everyone knows that they left even their underwear. Now they have invented the story that one escaped and carried the flag in his clothes and that is the flag they delivered to Kennedy. In the first place they have swindled Kennedy because no one could escape from that cell. The best proof is that the whole brigade fell prisoner. They all said they were cooks and aidmen. Let them forget the "show" of the flag, and give this man (Kennedy — Ed.) acting life a chief of pirates, a chance to meet with these criminals, with these cowards, and there declare to the world that he can assume them that this flag will returned in a free Havana. But there are more interesting things. He says: "You members of the brigade and members of your families are following a historic path, a path followed by other Cubans in other times and by other patriots of our hemisphere in other years — Marti, Bolivar, O'Higgins — all who fought for freedom, many of whom were defeated, many of whom were exiled, and all of whom returned to their countries." To compare these mercenaries with Marti, to compare these mercenaries with the patriots of independence — all the world knows Marti's history, of that Marti with ragged clothes, of that Marti who did not receive his funds from the Yankee treasury, of that Marti who suffered this humble emigration, of proletarians, of tobacco raisers, who gathered funds to buy weapons which once acquired were taken away by the Yankee authorities.
Of that Marti who did not come escorted by the Yankee fleet, nor was he preceded in his landing by Yankee bombers, of that Marti who on a stormy night landed in a rowboat almost by himself on the western shores. To compare this integral, anti-imperialist man, to compare the effort of these patriots with these miserable individuals is an affront to the memory of those men. Our liberators came to free slaves, to build a nation, a nation which imperialism has frustrated, a nation which Yankee imperialism stepped upon for 50 years. And who were these men? They were slave owners, latifundists, exploiters of game and vice, millionaires, criminals, and robbers. All exploiters are robbers. They came to enslave, to take from the country its riches, to return to Yankee monopolies our factories and our lands. And this man (Kennedy — Ed.) says that 60 years ago Marti, the first spirit of independence, lived in this land. In 1889 the first international conference took place. Cuba was not present. Comrades, this man says: "Then Cuba was the only state in the hemisphere still controlled by a foreign monarch. Then as now, Cuba was excluded from the society of free nations. And then as now, brave men in Florida and New York dedicated their lives and their energies to the liberation of their country." Kennedy's "then as now" means "now as never before" to us. We can wave the flag of the lone star with pride now more than ever. We are respected now more than ever. And the best proof of this is the respect we inspire in the imperialists themselves. It is the respect inspired by a nation that has not been cowed by its power, that has not been cowed in four years of heroic struggle. Now more than ever, Mr. Kennedy, we are free and we are the free territory of America. (Applause, chanting) This gentleman continues by saying things, some of which can cause us some laughter. He says: "The brigade comes from behind the walls of a prison, but you have left behind more than 6 million of your compatriots who are also, in a very real sense, in a prison, (crowd boos) because Cuba today is a prison surrounded by water." Which means that you are prisoners. (Crowd shouts "no") Didn't you know that? Then he continued: "Your conduct and your courage are proof that although Castro and his dictator colleagues may govern nations, they do not govern peoples." (Crowd shouts "no") I do not know what you are, then. I do not know what this impressive crowd that gathered in this plaza behind their weapons could be. He says: "Bodies may be imprisoned, but not spirits." You must be unimprisoned spirits. (Laughter) He says: "The revolution promised the Cuban people political freedom, social justice, intellectual freedom, land for the peasants, and the end of economic exploitation." He says we made a promise. He continued: "What they have received is a police state, the elimination of the dignity of owning lands, the destruction of the freedom of expression and of the press, and the total subjugation of individual human well being to the service of the state and of foreign states." We have not carried out a single social reform, nor agrarian reform. Nor have we taught a million illiterates, nor do we have nearly 100,000 scholarship students studying and creating a new intellectual generation. (Applause) The intellectual freedom of which Kennedy speaks is the intellectual freedom by virtue of which more than half a million children did not have schools in our country. The intellectual freedom of which Kennedy speaks are the 20 million Latin American children without teachers and without schools. But the curious thing is that this gentlemen says that we promised the end of economic exploitation. To what exploitation does this gentleman refer? Could it be that of the United Fruit Company? (Crowd shouts) Could it be that of the electric company and the telephone company, that same company that on the bloody day of 13 March, over the blood of the heroic students who fell there, signed an exploiting and one-sided contract against our country? Could it be that those companies are still exploiting our country? But the curious thing, could Kennedy be changing? (Crowd laughs) The curious thing is that he speaks of our offering an end to economic exploitation and then immediately says: "Under the Alliance for Progress, we support for Cuba and for all the countries of this hemisphere the right to free elections and the right to the free exercise of basic human rights. We support agrarian reform." (Crowd laughs) Could Kennedy be converting to Marxism-Leninism? (Crowd laughs) The fact is that in this country more than 100,000 peasant families paid rents, which at times were 50 percent of their products. Who finds a peasant along the length and breadth of the country paying rent now? More than 100,000 exploited peasants became owners of their lands. (Applause) But why does this gentleman think that the peasants are with the revolution? What kind of a snarl has formed in the head of Mr. Kennedy when he says that we have promised the end of economic exploitation and that we have not kept our promise? And he speaks of agrarian reform? We already know what their friends, the Latin American latifundistas, will tell them. As the Chilean latifundists said: "Listen, you speak of distributing the land. Why not talk about distributing the copper mines also?" It is very curious that we hear the chief of the Yankee empire speak of economic exploitation, agrarian reform, and such things. When, before, did he speak of such things? Never, of course, they do not speak sincerely, but how long have they been speaking this language? What taught them to speak this language? (Crowd shouts) Who were their teachers? (Crowd shouts) The Cubans. Too bad we have such bad disciples. (Applause) And this gentleman uses a strange language, a revolutionary language. This is curious. He is going to create some problems with the reactionaries because, although the reactionaries know that what he says is a story, they also know that one must not play with words.
And the Latin American latifundistas are going to say: "Well, if we will distribute our lands, you must distribute the oil, the copper, the iron, and all the monopolies you have here." Those are the irreconcilable contradictions of imperialism. How can they use this language? He then says: "We support the agrarian reform and the right of each peasant to own the land he works." That is precisely what we said, but we are the only ones who have done it. And, of course, we do not need the Alliance for Progress. But the Yankee ambassador complained about that. Mr. Bonsal protested about that every day, that we had nationalized the lands of the United Fruit and the Atlantica del Golfo and all the Yankee companies, so that the land would belong to those who work it, and all the peasants who paid rent would be freed from rent. The Yankee ambassador protested about that every day. When do you think the Playa Giron expedition was organized? After the law of agrarian reform, which was rather kind because it left them with 30 caballerias. When they left they lost that too. The United Fruit Company had 10,000 cabellerias of land, and another company had 17,000. Now they don't have it. Has the imperialist economic exploitation ended or not? In the rural areas the men were without work most of the time, desperately awaiting the sugar harvest or the harvest of coffee. The lands were uncultivated. The big land holdings where proletarian workers worked — not peasants, for the peasants were the ones who worked the land on their own — began to be exploited. The results: rural employment was eradicated. The layoff, which was the plague of our rural areas, disappeared forever. And now, who goes to harvest the peasant's coffee? The scholarship students. That means that the revolution has not just made those peasants owners of their lands and built them hospitals, roads, schools, sent them teachers, made them literate; but now, as the result of the economic development of the country, there are no more of those hungry pariahs who used to collect coffee because there was nothing else to do. The revolution sends them the youth, the students to harvest the coffee. There is no more off-season in our rural areas. There is no more unemployment in our rural areas. There is no more illiteracy. Children no longer die without medical attention. (Applause) And cultural life is developing with giant strides. How can they pretend to ignore these truths? In ignoring them they suffer those tremendous mistakes into which they fall. Then he says that he "supports the right of all free peoples to freely transform their economic institutions." That is what we have done. We have transformed as a free people our economic institutions. In words, this gentleman is changing. But it is dangerous to change in words alone, because this creates a confusion in the mind which no one can remove. He said that he supports the right freely to transform economic institutions — nothing more or less than exactly what we have done. And because we did so we have the enmity of the imperialists. Who can they deceive. Then he says: "There are principles of the Alliance for Progress, the principles which we support for Cuba. These are the principles for which men have fought and fallen." Yes, they have fallen, but on our side. Then he tells those mercenaries, sons of latifundio-owners, bankers, industrialists, usurers (garroteros), and crooked gamblers (tahures) — he tells them: "These are the principles for which you fought and for which some members of your brigade gave their lives." You might remember what those men said. They talked about free enterprise. And all of them, in their immense majority, those who were not henchmen, were sons of latifundio-owners or wealthy men. Then this man comes and tells them they came to fight for the economic change of society. But what he says next is even better. He says: "I believe that these are the principles of the great majority of the Cuban people today." Yes, principles as we understand them, not as they see them! He says, and listen well, he says: "I am certain that throughout the island of Cuba, in the government, itself." How intriguing, how intriguing this Mr. Kennedy is, because he says: "I am certain that within the government itself, in the army and the militia, there are many who hold to a faith in freedom and are filled with consternation at the destruction of freedom in their island and are determined to restore that freedom so that the Cuban people can again govern themselves." (Shouts from from the crowd) It is fitting to tell Mr. Kennedy, the intriguing Kennedy, to change sleeping positions. He speaks, but a funny thing, he speaks of the rebel army and he speaks of the militia, those militiamen who have been the terror of the imperialists, (applause) those soldiers, those heroic soldiers who in 72 hours, or I should say in less than 72 hours, crushed the pirates of the Yankee empire. (Applause) How strange that the imperialists have tested all of the weapons and have failed in all of them. They have failed because we have an armed people. Today he speaks, and today he tries to intrigue and tries to make it appear possible that those patriotic soldiers, those proletarian militiamen, can place themselves at the service of Yankee imperialism. (Applause) Mr. Kennedy, between us and you and between those revolutionary soldiers and the Yankee empire there is much blood. (Applause) And that blood began to flow many years ago. That blood began to flow in the Sierra Maestra, when we fought against an army trained by Yankee military missions, under the fire of Yankee arms, under bombardment by Yankee planes. And these soldiers saw entire families die enveloped in the napalm of Yankee incendiary bombs. They saw mutilated children assassinated by machine guns, and many comrades dying in the fighting.
They saw mutilated children assassinated by machine guns, and many comrades dying in the fighting. Mr. Kennedy, between our people and the imperialists, between our combatants and the imperialists there is much blood. There is the blood of the workers assassinated during the Le Courbre explosion, for a criminal sabotage prepared by the Yankee agency. There is the blood of the workers who died putting out the first in the sugar cane fields set aflame by small planes from the United States. There is blood such as that of Fe Del Valle who died when the Central Intelligence Agency terrorists set fire to one of our work centers. Between those combatants and imperialism there is the blood of more than 100 soldiers and militiamen who died gloriously at Playa Giron. (Applause) There is the blood of the assassinated teachers, such as Conrado Benitez. There is the blood of the cruelly assassinated brigade members such as Manuel Ascunce Domenech. There is an abyss of blood between us and you, messrs. imperialists. But there is something more than blood. There is still a deeper abyss. It is the abyss which separates the workers from the exploiters, the liberated salves from the enslavers. There is the abyss of our ideas, the abyss which separates our ideas, and there a profound abyss separating them from the dignity of our people, the dignity of each Cuban man and woman (Applause). The Cuban people are not that sort of people. They are not the group of outcasts, of exploiters and traitors, of privileged people whom the revolution deprived of their lands. The Cuban people today are very different from that group of wretched people. The dignity of these people has had an irrefutable test, and that is, that despite the imperialists, despite their gold, their crimes, their aggressions, their blockades, and despite all they have done to destroy our revolution, today we celebrate, or rather yesterday we celebrated, our fourth anniversary. Mr. Kennedy, we celebrated our fourth anniversary and started on our fifth year. (Applause) We are speaking about the five points, but I wanted to get out of the way of the matter of the little meeting in Miami. How did these men behave, these men who left? How could they behave like rates, according to a man on the street. The entire world saw it over television. There was not one single one who said he had not been shipped. There was not one single one who did not admit he had made a mistake, that they thought the militia would join them, that the army would not fight. There was not one single one who did not believe it was going to be a military parade, and then they became repentant Magdalenes before television cameras. In prison, they wrote lengthy and unending letters of repentance — their main chiefs (those who wrote the letters — Ed.), whom the people know. The revolution dealt with them generously not because they deserved it, but because those are our principles. None of them was beaten. Almost all of the lives of their wounded were saved in revolutionary hospitals. In accordance with the law and by their actions, they deserved capital punishment. However, the sentences given them were sentences that allowed them to go free if damages to our country were indemnified. What the imperialists do not say is that if they remained 20 months in prison, it was due to the Yankee pharisee-like spirit, the Yankee hypocrisy which prevented them from showing their face, which kept them from paying, because scarcely two months or less following the attack, they could have been released, if the imperialists had paid. The imperialists likewise have not disclosed that the revolutionary Government had previously released, many months ago, 60 wounded and sick, allowing them to pay indemnification later, which they paid only now, that the Revolutionary Government acceded to release the prisoners when they had paid only 20 percent. None of that have they been willing to disclose. And what have they done over there upon their arrival, all those wretched ones, those cowards whom an entire population saw pleading for clemency, trying to elude responsibility, describing themselves as cooks and nurses, saying they had not fired one single shot. When they arrived there, their first statements were to the effect they hoped to return, to come back, and so forth and so forth. This gives the people an idea of the treatment deserved by such pests (alimanas). However, if the Revolutionary Government has released them through an agreement with the U.S. Red Cross for the implementation of all of the agreements we have signed guaranteed by a Canadian banking organization — guaranteed, if the revolution released them — it is because the revolution can combat 50 expeditions such as that one, not one gang like that (applause), but 50 gangs like it that would land simultaneously on our national territory. We could destroy them even more rapidly than we destroyed that one. The security of our country is not affected in the least by the fact that the gang of pests is out of the country. The U.S. Red Cross was in charge of implementing the arrangements, and we must say that up to this moment, it has been carrying out its duties satisfactorily. It is a pity that with that botchery (chapuceria), that ridiculous attitude which is incompatible with the dignity of the position, Mr. Kennedy sounded that sour note and dropped a stain on an action which was motivated by a lofty humanitarian spirit. But then, what else can be expected from the chief of the pirates. He went there to be near his defeated army, near his pirates who left this country with their heads hanging in shame. And what a moment that was for us, the moment when at the same airport where the cowardly attack of 15 April took place, at the same airport where planes of Yankee make dropped their load of bombs on 15 April, Yankee planes also alighted later as meek peace doves leaving their cargo of medicines and baby food. Those of us who lived through those two episodes, through the aggression and the unloading of the indemnification, cannot forget it because they were not the haughty and arrogant attackers who one day dropped bombs and, as a penalty for that adventure, one day they had to come and bring other things to save lives and to benefit our people.
(Applause) With respect to the encouragement that Mr. Kennedy tried to give them, we say to him that if he wants to finance the economic development of the Cuban socialist republic, let him continue to send expeditions such as this one. (Applause) We must say that the Cuban Government demanded the entire payment imposed by the sentences; that is, 62 million, the value of the products delivered here. We hope that this is a lesson to the imperialists. What is this that Kennedy says, as it says here, that he can assure that that flag will be returned to the mercenaries in a free Havana? What does Mr. Kennedy mean by this? What threat is implied in that statement? Why does he dare say he assures such a thing? How is that compatible with a promise of nonaggression against our country, a promise not to invade Cuba? That is why we have maintained and we maintain that the guarantees offered by imperialism must not be contained simply in words? They must be accompanied by actions. We have more than good reason to mistrust the imperialists and we know that guarantees can never be contained within the mere word of the imperialists. Guarantees lie in our decision to fight, in our decision to resist historically any attack from the enemy. (Applause) Guarantees lie in those arms you say in this parade and many more weapons which were not shown in this parade. Guarantees lies in our hundreds of thousands of fighters, guarantees lie in the heroism of our people who more than proved their heroism during very difficult moments. When Mr. Kennedy threatened to turn us into a nuclear target in efforts to intimidate us, what happened then? The people shouted: fatherland or death! ((Applause followed by rhythmic applause) More men and women than ever enlisted in the militia. More men and women than ever asked to be inscribed in the mass organizations. With a smile on their lips and with an impressive calm, an entire population became determined to face the enemy, to die, if necessary (applause), because among these revolutionary people, the imperialists will never find weakness. We might die, yes, but never weaken. (Applause) We might die, yes, but we will die free and in dignity. (Rhythmic applause) We would die not because we have no regard for life, not because we have disdain for the creative work our people are carrying out, not because we have failed to love the luminous future to which we we have a right through our work, but because all of our lives are indisolubly associated with that idea and that future. Without a fatherland, we want no life. Without freedom, we want no life. Without dignity, we want no life! (Applause) Without justice, we want no life! Without bread for our children, we want no life! (Applause) Without a future, we want no life! That is why we say: Fatherland or death! (Applause) That is why the hymn of our fighters for independence left it clearly established that to live in chains is to live sunk in opprobrium and affront and to die for the homeland is to live. (Applause) This explains the attitude of our people, the wherefores of the measures we took in the face of imperialist aggression and in the face of the imperialists' threats, without hesitation, so that imperialists may know that these people do not vacillate. That is why we took measures to arm ourselves, and that is why we agreed with the Soviet Union (applause) on the weapons that were set up here, (applause) because we understood that we were fulfilling two obligations: one toward the country, fortifying its defenses in view of imperialist threats, and one obligation toward the peoples of the socialist camp; that is, an international proletarian duty. (Applause, about one minute) We were fulfilling two duties: one toward the workers of the world, our internationalist duties, in accordance with the principles of proletarian internationalism because patriotism is proletarian internationalism within socialist revolution. That was the thought that preceded the conduct of Cuba revolution. You know how the crisis started, developed, and culminated. We mean to say that our people always reserve the rights in front of their imperialist enemies to take all measures deemed pertinent and to possess the weapons deemed necessary. (Applause) The Soviet Government, in search of peace, arrived at certain agreements with the North American government, but this does not mean that we have renounced this right, the right to possess the weapons we deem proper and to take the international policy steps we deem pertinent as a sovereign country. (Applause) And for that reason we do not accept the unilateral inspection that they wanted to establish here with the only purpose, of the imperialists, to humble us. And there was no inspection and there will never be inspection. And if they want inspection let them permit us to inspect them. What do they expect from a sovereign country, a sovereign country (repeating — Ed.), we are as sovereign or more than they are. (Applause) We must know how cunning the imperialists are, what foxes they are in all their acts and deeds. Therefore, we do not trust the imperialists. The guarantees in which we have always believed, as I said, are the ones I mentioned before and the solidarity of the socialist camp. They have always been our guarantee. Without the solidarity of the socialist camp, we would have been disarmed, this is clear because when we went to buy weapons in a West European country they blew up our ship and killed about 50 workers and soldiers. The imperialists demanded that weapons not be sold to us, and while they were arming and training their mercenaries, they were preventing us from acquiring weapons, and it was the countries of the socialist camp who furnished us weapons. And thus the solidarity of the socialist camp is an efficient weapon against imperialist aggression. (Applause) In that guarantee we do believe, in this guarantee which gives us two things: our will to fight to the last man and the solidarity of the socialist camp; and not in the worlds of the imperialists. That is the reason we have presented our five demands, so just, so logical, and so consubstantial with our rights that no one could object to them.
What kind of peace are the imperialists complaining about? With their economic pressures against our country, promoting subversion, organizing piratical attacks, declaring their purpose of violating our airspace. What peace can this be? What kind of peace? Do the imperialists think by chance that we are going to accept violation of our rights. What peace would that be? A peace that could be broken any moment by a violation. In any moment an incident could occur, because of that declared policy, because it is clear that if the imperialists are permitted one of their tricks, they will then try others. And they showed with their planes; in the days of the crisis, during a truce, they started to fly over and buzz our bases and over our artillerymen until they received orders to fire; then the Americans went as high as they could, and they quit flying low. What kind of peace would that be? A peace in which we would have to accept these violations. We do not accept them. These violations could be sources for incidents. We are acquiring better antiaircraft weapons as time goes by. Today the first ground rocket training unit passed in review (Applause), units that are in training. What kind of peace would that be, a peace in which the imperialists expose us to incidents of this type through their stated policy of violating our airspace. And lastly, what are they doing in part of our territory, threatening us, making plans from there against our country? That territory is ours and we have every right to claim it. What right to the imperialists have to possess a base on our territory? These are the five points that we have presented as a just demand of our people for a true solution of the Caribbean crisis. The imperialists as yet have made no clear statements. They have spoken with reticence; they have spoken in a threatening and insidious voice saying that if Cuba does not promote subversion and such there will be no invasion. The statements they made to the mercenaries are not declarations of peace. They do not imply a guarantee for our country, because everyone knows that 50 or 100 expeditions like that one or any type of direct attack will be rapidly repelled. What do the imperialists mean with this threat? What kind of guarantees are these? They have not spoken clearly and openly. The Soviet Union has fulfilled its part. The Government of the United States has not fulfilled its promise. It is superfluous to say that our position is not a position contrary to solutions or against peaceful solutions. We agree with the policy of discussion and negotiation of problems by peaceful means. We agree with that basic principle. We agree, too, with the policy of concession for concession. Our position maintained throughout this crisis is a position strictly adjusted to principles. We refuse to accept inspection. We do so because our country cannot renounce an absolutely sovereign prerogative. And we have defended our integrity because the fact that we favor peace does not mean that they are going to land on our shores and we not fire a shot. We are for peace but if we are attacked we are going to repel them with all our means. (Applause). We know that in the present world the hands of the imperialists are not free. If they had been free, we would have had to suffer the consequences from the outset. It's a true fact that the world correlation of forces permitted them to do what they pleased — what they did in Nicaragua, Mexico, and Santo Domingo and in other small countries of Latin America. Their hands are not free now and they are not in a position to act freely as they did before. The irresponsible acts of Mr. Kennedy placed the world at the brink of war. Whom can they blame? Us? The Soviet Union? (Crowd shouts "no") Who were the aggressors? Who has been baiting our country incessantly from the first? It is they who have maintained a declared war against our country, ceaseless aggression against our country. These are the facts that cannot be hidden or denied. There was the meeting with the mercenaries he sent to invade our country. They were the aggressors. They are the only ones to blame. Let them stop their policy of aggression and the threat of war will end in the Caribbean.
Let them stop their policy of aggression and the threat of war will end in the Caribbean. Let them stop their policy of aggression and there will be peace in the Caribbean. But let them not think they can attack us and that we will not defend ourselves. Let them not think that we will fold our arms in the face of their aggressions. The harm they try to cause us we will try to cause them as well. If what the imperialists want in exchange for peace is that we stop being revolutionary we will not stop being revolutionary. We will never lower our flag. We are examples for the brother peoples of America because the captives, Mr. Kennedy, are not the Cubans. The captives are the millions of Indians and Latin Americans who are exploited by the Yankee monopolies, exploited by Yankee imperialism in Latin America. (Applause) When you, Mr. Kennedy, when you speak of captives, you say Cubans, but you do not think of us. You think of and fear the rebellion of the real captives, the rebellion of the exploited. If the workers and peasants of Latin America had weapons as our people do, we would see what would happen. We would see who are the real captives, because these, whom you call captives, are armed captives, with tanks, planes. (Applause) Give the workers and peasants of Latin America tanks and planes and you will see who are the captives. That is the irrefutable proof. But there is no hurry. We did not have cannons either. We did not have planes, but today we do. We were as disarmed as those captives of Latin America, but that did not prevent the triumph of the people, the triumph of the revolution. When the peoples decide to struggle, they can do what we did, and the millions of Latin American exploited by the imperialists can do what we did. (Applause) And the peoples are beginning to awake and struggle. Thus is the proof of solidarity with our country; the action of some peoples, like the Venezuelan people who, while Betancourt, the puppet was sending his ships, along with the puppets of Argentina and Santo Domingo to blockade us, the Venezuelan people struggled and gave extraordinary evidence of revolutionary spirit, led by the glorious Communist Party of Venezuela (applause) and by the valiant militants of the leftist revolutionary movement. The imperialists were given evidence of what revolutionary solidarity is, and active solidarity of revolutionaries who do not sit in their doorways to wait for the corpse of their enemy to pass by, of revolutionaries who understand that the duty of all revolutionaries is to create the revolution. Comrades, we begin a fifth anniversary. With what spirit should be view this new year? With an optimistic spirit, the spirit of a revolution, with faith in the future. May are the tasks ahead of us. Tasks do not end with years, but new tasks begin. Our problems today are not the same as four years ago. New problems, new obligations, and new tasks are ahead of us. Basically, it is our duty to create the riches that our country needs, to create the means of production we need to raise our standard of living, to satisfy the rising needs of our masses. Today everything belongs to the people and the fruits of work are for the people; the first duty of the people is to struggle to create all those means to satisfy all their needs. We must do that amid a bitter situation, serious problems that concern us all in the struggle against the common enemy, in the struggle against the imperialists. What are the discrepancies in the bosom of the socialist family, the public discrepancies between large forces of the socialist camp? That concerns us all. It concerns us because we see with clarity here, from this trench 90 miles from the Yankee empire, how much cause for concern these discrepancies can be, how much unity is needed, how much all the strength of the entire socialist camp is needed to face up to those enemies. We have the great historic task of bringing this revolution forward, of serving as an example for the revolution of Latin America, and within the socialist camp, which is and always will be our family. (Applause) We understand it to be our duty to struggle for unity under the principles of the socialist family, of the socialist camp. That is to be the line of our people, the line followed by the political leadership of the revolution. There are many problems and very great tasks ahead of us — first of all, to face up to imperialism. In that same situation are many peoples, the colonialized peoples subjected to imperialism. That is why that unity is so necessary. That is why it is so necessary to present a united front to the imperialists and that, I am certain, will be the clamor of the threatened peoples, the peoples who are fighting for their independence, the peoples who are struggling against the aggressions of imperialism. A guide for our people: our task is to unite inside and outside, to eliminate everything that divides us inside and outside, to struggle for everything that unites us inside and outside, the unity of all principles, that is our line, fatherland or death, we will win! This will be the year of organization. (Applause) Why? Because we must place our main effort in organization; in the first place, organization of the live party of socialist revolution, the development of the organization of our masses; that is, our mass organizations, the organization of our administrative agencies and the organization of economic agencies. This does not imply that this year will not be for education. The principal impetus will be for organization. All years are years for education and all years will be years for organization. But this year we will place emphasis on organization. And for that reason it will be called the year of organization. Castro Internet Archive
At the Closing Session of the Tricontinental Conference Spoken: January 15, 1966 in Havana's Chaplin Theater First publicly disseminated: January 16, 1966 Source: University of Texas: Fidel Castro Speech Database. Translated: US Government: Foreign Broadcast Information Service from the Havana Domestic Radio and Television Service in Spanish 0249 GMT 16 January, 1966. Transcription: U.S. Information Agency; the Department of Research of the Radio Marti Program HTML: Brian Baggins Subject Index: Vietnam, Cuban Assitance to; Guevara's Departure, Trotskyist distortions of Public Domain: Castro Internet Archive 2006. This work is completely free. Honored delegates, Cuban comrades: The importance of this event which has come to a climax tonight does not escape us. Contrary to all the auguries of imperialism, contrary to all its forecasts which revealed the great hope that this conference would not result in anything, that this conference involving the problems of the international communist movement was bound to be divided, that it was bound to be a great failure — what has happened is something that they least or perhaps never expected: that the conference has been a success; that this conference has created an organ tricontinental in nature; that it has arrived at accords which include the most heartfelt yearnings of the peoples who fight for their liberation; that a committee to aid the liberation movements has been created. And that's not all: Something which unquestionably hurts the imperialists greatly is that Cuba has been chosen as the headquarters of the executive secretariat of the organization until the next Tricontinental conference is held. (Applause) It is not that we are expressing here a feeling of national pride. Because of the peculiar circumstances surrounding the country, its geographic location, the efforts exerted by the imperialists to isolate it from the world, the measures adopted so that practically no one can visit us makes the fact that this conference has been held with such success in our country and defying all obstacles, defying all difficulties, that it has been considered an adequate location for the temporary operation of the headquarters, is something which doubtless must hurt the Yankee imperialists considerably. Therefore, this has been a great victory for the revolutionary movement. Never has there been a gathering of such dimensions and of such magnitude, a gathering in which the revolutionary representations of 82 peoples have met to discuss problems of common interest. Never has there been such a large meeting, because the peoples of three continents have been here; the revolutionary movements of the peoples of three continents who have a common anti-imperialist stance; who represent the struggle of their peoples with differing philosophical ideas or positions, or with differing religious beliefs; who on many occasions represent differing ideologies. But they have something in common. What the peoples have most in common to unite the people of three continents and of all the world today is the struggle against imperialism (applause); the struggle against colonialism and neocolonialism, the struggle against racism and, in short, all the phenomena which are the contemporary expression we call imperialism, whose center, axis, and principal support of Yankee imperialism. The meeting, agreements, and conclusions of this conference were all accomplished because the nations in this era have something in common. This was not an easy task; it may seem easy, but it was not and could not be an easy task. This is only natural, because when representatives from different nations and different movements, with special problems which express almost all current problems of the world, it was not easy... The work on theses, on agreements acceptable to all could not be achieved without hard work. During these past few days we remember how different problems were discussed. When the final statement was being discussed, we remembered how Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels had worked and written the Communist Manifesto for several months, and how afterward they revised, retouched, and perfected it several times before it was finally issued. Naturally, in our conference which took two weeks — less than two weeks — a few days were needed to work on a document which would cover the different opinions and would be issued in a manner that would fully satisfy every one of the delegations. Despite these circumstances, a document was achieved which undoubtedly is the most profound, most complete, and most radical of many which have been worked on and agreed upon at a conference of this type. For the first time the Latin American representatives participated with the African and Asian nations. Of course, in the case of Latin America, the majority or all the representatives came from the movements and nations which are fighting or will fight to free themselves. Our nation in this case represented the only nation free from Yankee domination and constituted in revolutionary power. We believe that this conference will unquestionably occupy a place in the history of the nations that struggle for their freedom in the revolutionary movement. We also believe that the contacts which have been established, the ties which have been created between the world movements fighting against imperialism, and the organizations which have been created, will play an unquestionable role in the revolutionary struggle. We have had the opportunity to become more familiar with the thinking and the concrete situation of each one of the movements which fight for their liberation at this hour. We have had the opportunity to know the concrete situation of each one of the peoples who struggle, and, above all, we have had the opportunity of seeing how the solidarity of the peoples has been growing; how the strength of the revolutionary movement grows on a world scale, and how the mutual assistance of the peoples grows and can grow in times to come;
how the strength of the revolutionary movement grows on a world scale, and how the mutual assistance of the peoples grows and can grow in times to come; the assistance of all the peoples for each one of the peoples who struggle — the mutual assistance of the peoples on a scale and on a level which mankind has never before seen. [Vietnam] (We have had the opportunity to see) how, despite the military and technical power of the imperialists, the united strength of the revolutionary peoples will be much more powerful. (Applause) Imperialism will inevitably be defeated. Who has taught us this lesson? It has been taught to us by the peoples. Who among the peoples has given us in these times the most extraordinary lesson? The people of Vietnam. (Applause) Vietnam is a small nation. The imperialists have split it in two, into North and South Vietnam. For revolutionaries, for us, there is but a single Vietnam. (Applause) Against the people of South Vietnam the Yankee imperialists have deployed a large part of their might — hundreds of thousands of regular soldiers of the imperialist armed forces, as well as hundreds of thousands of soldiers drafted by the puppet government; hundreds of planes; thousands of helicopters. Yet the Yankee imperialists have been unable to crush the people in this part of Vietnam. Trying to intimidate their brothers in the other part of Vietnam, they began bombing with hundreds of planes every day to demand their surrender, to try to bring the Vietnamese to their knees. Yet, as the imperialists themselves admit, instead of gaining ground they have lost ground. Against the ever increasingly steadfast and heroic resistance, they used more and more planes and more and more bombs. To the amazement of the world, the people of Vietnam are furnishing the most extraordinary example of heroism the history of any liberation movement has ever seen, because a liberation movement has never had to face more powerful forces. The people of Vietnam are reversing these forces and defeating the might of the Yankee imperialists. They not only bomb Vietnam but they also incessantly bomb the patriots of Laos. (Applause) They threaten to bomb and commit aggression against Cambodia. These attitudes and threats of the Yankee imperialists reveal their impotence; they reveal their despair. This is the result of a situation which is becoming more critical in that part of the world. This is due to the defeats they are suffering in that area of Asia, where a decisive battle is being waged by the people against imperialism — and not only against Yankee imperialism but against Yankee imperialism and its allies, Yankee imperialism and its daring associates in Asia — which is expressed by the formations of South Korean, Australian, and Thai soldiers — and which threatens to further involve either military or support forces of the greatest number of world governments. That struggle against the Vietnamese people and Laos and the threats to Cambodia demonstrate a need to render maximum solidarity and help to those nations. The Yankee imperialists have the support of Thailand, where there are many troops and bases and from where they carry out threats against Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia. This does not mean that this situation will continue indefinitely. We are sure that for the peoples of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia the hour will come when the Thai people will demand an accounting from the Yankee imperialists. (Applause) The hour will also come when that suppressed and exploited people, inspired by its neighboring nations, will also join the struggle against the imperialists. Meanwhile, the imperialists not only have carried out the war against Vietnam — all of Vietnam — and Laos, but also threaten Cambodia. [Cuban Assistance to Vietnam] Cambodia is a small nation which has not yet been attacked but is seriously threatened by Yankee imperialism. Therefore, it is necessary that the revolutionary states assist in the strengthening of the defenses of the small nation of Cambodia. (Applause) Talking with that country's representative, who was participating in the Tricontinental Conference, hearing from his lips about the situation in his country and the dangers that threaten it, we expressed that view to him; and we told him further that we Cubans, although we are a small nation and at an enormous distance from Cambodia, are prepared to contribute to the extent of our power to strengthening its defenses, and that all we need is to be advised, all we need is to be asked in any circumstance when it is considered advisable, for we are prepared to make our contribution. And that is also our position on Laos, and North Vietnam, and South Vietnam. (Applause) We are a small nation, not too far from the shores of the imperialist homeland. Our arms are eminently defensive. But our men, wholeheartedly, our revolutionary militants, our fighters, are prepared to fight the imperialists in any part of the world. (Applause) Our country is a small one;
(Applause) Our country is a small one; our territory could even be partially occupied by the enemy; but that would never mean a cessation of our resistance. But the world is big, and the imperialists are everywhere, and for the Cuban revolutionaries the field of battle against imperialism takes in the whole world. (Applause) Without boasting, without any kind of immodesty, that is how we Cuban revolutionaries understand our internationalist duty. That is the way our people understand their duty, because they realize that the enemy is one and indivisible; the one who attacks us along our shoes and on our land is the same who attacks the others. Hence we say and we declare that Cuban fighters can be counted on by the revolutionary movement in any corner of the earth. (Applause) Thousands and thousands of Cubans have expressed the desire and readiness to go anywhere in the world where they may be needed to help the revolutionary movement and this is logical. If the Yankee imperialist feel free to bomb anywhere they please and send their mercenary troops to put down the revolutionary movement anywhere in the world, then the revolutionary peoples feel they have the right, even with their physical presence, to help the peoples who are fighting the Yankee imperialists. And so, if each helps to the extent of his power, if each helps insofar as he can, the Yankee imperialists will be defeated, that place is Southeast Asia, for there it is impossible to establish a correlation of forces. It is possible to establish a correlation of forces incomparably superior to that of the Yankee imperialists. Thus, we have not the slightest doubt that they will be defeated, crushed, by the peoples of that region, and — if they increase their forces and the forces of their reactionary allies — by the camp and the other peoples. (Applause) This is why the Yankee imperialists launch their hypocritical peace offensives, in an attempt to confuse, to deceive. And that is why the peoples of Vietnam have said — and very rightly — that is the only peace, true peace, will be achieved only when the Yankee imperialists stop attacking, and when the Yankee imperialists stop occupying part of the territory of Vietnam, and when the Yankee imperialists take their mercenary troops and military bases out of Vietnamese territory. That is, the imperialists have been told the only thing that was proper to tell them under the circumstances: that true peace since they are the only disturbers of the peace will be achieved when they get out of Vietnam. (Applause) It is evident that the imperialists are there fighting a hopeless fight; the imperialists are there fighting a fight in which they are doomed to inevitable defeat, and as a result, they want to swap defeat for a false peace. And it is logical for the people of Vietnam to refuse; it is logical for the people of Vietnam to be unwilling to exchange their victory for that kind of false peace. If we were in a similar situation, I am fully convinced that we would say exactly the same thing, and that we would refuse to negotiate under bombs, and we would refuse to negotiate under attack, and we would refuse to negotiate while our country was occupied. And therefore our people and the conference unanimously supported the positions and points upheld by the government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the South Vietnam liberation movement. (Applause) On this question, on this topic, the most burning one currently, there were practically unanimous views. And it is very well for the Yankee imperialists to know the degree of solidarity with Vietnam felt by all peoples of the world. It is well for the Yankee imperialists to understand the degree of support enjoyed by the people of Vietnam throughout the world. Hence we consider that this solidarity conference of the peoples of the three continents has acted and spoken in such a way that the support and feelings of solidarity for Vietnam has become evident, and in addition will grow. And as in the case of Vietnam, so it is for Laos and Cambodia, which are the nations being attacked or running the risk of being attacked. [Conference Unity] On all problems of Asia, Africa, and Latin America the conference took a similar stand. The peoples and the liberation movements of Africa — and in order to avoid an oversight I wish to say that a small country, too, there in that area of Asia, is fighting for its liberation, although it is not very well known, a people fighting courageously, the people of North Kalimantan — received the warm support of the conference, as did the people of Yemen and the people of Palestine. (Applause) The African ones, I was saying, the liberation movements that were so worthily represented at this conference: the people of Portuguese-occupied Guinea and the Cape Verde Islands, represented here by one of the most serious revolutionary movements in Africa and by one of the most lucid and brilliant leaders in Africa, Comrade Am�lcar Cabral, who instilled in us tremendous confidence in the future and the success of his struggle for liberation; the liberation movement of Angola and Mozambique, two more Portuguese colonies that are an armed conflict for their liberation; the Zimbabwe people, oppressed by the racist minority in Rhodesia; the people of the Congo Leopoldville; the oppressed people of South Africa; the protectorates of Swaziland, Bechuanaland, and Basutoland, whose nomenclature reveals the imperial profile of the country that colonized them; and in sum, all the African liberation movements were worthily represented at this conference and received warm support and solidarity from all the delegates. In Africa the imperialists attempt to penetrate and divide and subjugate is increasingly manifest. During the past few weeks they have made coups fashionable. Coups in the Congo, coups in the Central African Republic, coups in Nigeria, as reported by dispatches, reveal imperialism's desperate efforts to strengthen its dominion in that part of the world. In Africa, too, a decisive battle is being fought, and the role of the revolutionary movements and the role of the new states that have not today been infected with the disease of neocolonialism will be of extraordinary importance in resisting this imperialist drive and penetration. For there, aid to the revolutionary movement, determined aid to the liberation movements, determined aid to the majorities that are oppressed by the racists will be a decisive factor.
For there, aid to the revolutionary movement, determined aid to the liberation movements, determined aid to the majorities that are oppressed by the racists will be a decisive factor. Equally decisive will be the sense of responsibility, seriousness, and union among the African revolutionary leaders. Some movements have sustained blows, some setbacks; but those setbacks must not discourage them. Those setbacks must serve as experience; those setbacks must serve as lessons, so that pertinent steps and measures may be adopted to overcome present difficulties, to overcome shortcomings and weaknesses of the revolutionary movement. The solidarity movement, which began in Africa and Asia and has now extended to the third continent of the world that is oppressed and exploited by imperialism, will by a decision of the conference have its next event in Cairo, thereby accepting the invitation extended by President Nasser, who offered the UAR capital for the next Tricontinental Conference in 1968. And we are sure — and we must bend every effort to that end — that by that date, among the peoples that have freed themselves from imperialism or colonialism we will be able to greet a few more fraternal peoples of Africa. (Applause) The problems of Latin America, beginning with the most burning and critical problem, the problem of the military occupation of Santo Domingo by regular troops of Yankee imperialism, earned the attention of this conference and the full support of the delegates representing their peoples. On the Dominican stage in the years ahead, Latin America faces one of the most serious battles of the next few years. The Dominican Republic, a small country occupied by tens of thousands of Yankee troops, faces a long, hard fight. The Dominican Republic, the Dominican people, must not be alone against the Yankee imperialists. (Applause) In many other American nations every condition exists for revolutionary armed battle. This battle has already been going on for some time too in Venezuela, Peru, Colombia, Guatemala (Applause). In Latin America there must not be even one, or two, or three peoples fighting alone against imperialism. The imperialists' correlation of forces on this continent, the nearness of their home territory, the zeal with which they will try to defend their dominions in this part of the world require, on this continent more than anywhere else, a common strategy, a joint, simultaneous struggle. (Applause) If the imperialists have to face not just the people of the Dominican Republic, or the people of Guatemala, or the people of Venezuela, or the people of Colombia, or the people of Peru, but have the fight, at the same time as in all these countries, against the other oppressed peoples, as in Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay, Ecuador, Argentina and other peoples in Central America; if the struggle is waged on a broad scale, if every revolutionary of this continent does his duty — and as the Havana Declaration says, the duty of every revolutionary is to effect the revolution, and effect it in deed not in word; not be a revolutionary in theory alone, but a revolutionary in practice — if revolutionaries spend less energy and time on theorizing and devote more energy and time to practical work; and if there is less of revolutions and possibilities and dilemmas and it is understood once and for all that sooner or later all or almost all peoples will have to take up arms to liberate themselves, then the hour of liberation for this continent will be advanced. What with the ones who theorize and the ones who criticize those who theorize while beginning to theorize themselves, much energy and time is unfortunately lost. We believe that on this continent, in the case of all or almost all peoples, the battle will take on the most violent forms. And when this is realized, the only proper thing is to prepare for the time when the battle comes. Prepare! (Applause) Of course, that battle will break out first where — as the Havana Declaration says — conditions of imperialist oppression are the most naked, where every course is absolutely closed, as is the case in most countries of this continent. And even where the bourgeoisie and imperialist exercise their class rule through constitutionalist means, as is the case in Uruguay, the force of the mass movement and the people's revolutionary spirit are more and more evident. (Applause) And we must express our people's great liking for Uruguay, because the latter is a tiny, tiny country that has no mountains and is surrounded by two reactionary colossi, and invariably, always, without exception, under every circumstance, its people have been on a par with the people of Venezuela in solidarity and support for the Cuban revolution. (Applause) We still remember how, because of the break in diplomatic relations with Cuba due to an OAS decision imposed by the United States as a penalty against Cuba, the people of Uruguay, led by their revolutionary organizations, took to the streets with incomparable vigor in protest against that servile, traitorous act against a nation of this continent. Well, gentlemen, in this problem of Latin America you delegates will allow me to extend myself in a few observations, since we are situated on this continent, and since against us not only have the Yankee imperialists established the economic blockade, made use of armed aggression, threatened us mortally on certain occasions, committed every kind of sabotage, infiltrated spies, and launched piratical attacks, but also Yankee imperialism has used more subtle weapons against our country, such as the weapons of propaganda and slander. And not that alone — Yankee imperialism and its agents have sought to destroy the prestige of the Cuban revolution; they have tried to depict the Cuban revolution as being apart from the revolutionary struggles on this continent; they have tried in the basest and most slanderous way to discredit the revolution; and they have had recourse to every method, every fact, every weapon. Of course, the imperialists would be interested in a concrete discussion of these problems. Any irresponsible person, any charlatan, any puppet cares nothing about making an irresponsible statement, a slanderous statement. It is well known that only the enemy would be interested in the manner of putting into practice the term “solidarity” with revolutionary peoples of the whole world as well as on this continent. (Applause) But what has happened? [Guevara's depature] There is a fact which I will take as an example to demonstrate how imperialism and its agents work.
It is a very interesting fact. I refer to the campaign carried out by Yankee imperialism and its agents regarding the departure of our Comrade Ernesto Guevara. (Applause) I believe we must take this matter by the horns to clarify some things. Comrade Ernesto Guevara and a few revolutionaries from this country and a few revolutionaries outside this country know when he left and what he has been doing during this period. The imperialists are, of course, very interested in learning all the details as to his whereabouts, what he is doing and how. Apparently they do not know, and if they do, they disguise it very well. These are things, of course, that time, when circumstances so permit, will clarify. However, we revolutionaries do not need any clarifications. The enemy seizes upon these circumstances to try to conspire and to confound and to slander. Comrade Guevara joined us when we were in exile in Mexico. From the very first day he always had the idea, clearly expressed, that when the struggle ended in Cuba he would still have other duties to fulfill elsewhere. We always gave him our word that no state or national interest, no circumstances, would make us request him to remain in our country, would make us obstruct the fulfillment of this wish or this vocation. And we fulfilled thoroughly and faithfully that promise which we made to Comrade Guevara. (Applause) Naturally, if Comrade Guevara was to leave the country, it would be logical for him to do this clandestinely. It would be logical for him to move clandestinely. It is logical that he is not calling newsmen. It is logical that he has not been granting press conferences. It is logical that he would carry out the tasks he had planned in the way he did. However, how much capital have the imperialists tried to make from this situation, and how they have done it! That is why I brought some papers. Do not be afraid that I am going to read all the papers here. I am only going to read some things. Because here we have what all the imperialists and bourgeois newspapers have written with respect to the case of Major Guevara, what the U.S. newspapers, their magazines, and their wire agencies have written, the Latin American bourgeois newspapers and (newspapers) of the entire world, and we are going to see who exactly have been the main spokesmen of the imperialist campaign of intrigue and calumnies against Cuba with respect to the case of Comrade Guevara. [Trotskyist Distortions of Guevara's Disappearance] In the first place there were certain elements who during the past decades have been used constantly against the revolutionary movement. And if you will give me a little time, I am going to look among all these papers for some very interesting ones. Ah, I found it; it is a UPI dispatch dated 6 December 1965: “Ernesto Guevara was murdered by Cuban Premier Fidel Castro on orders from the USSR, declared Felipe Albaguante, chief of the Mexican Trotskyists, in statements to El Universal.” He adds that Che was liquidated for insisting on placing Cuba on the Chinese line. This, naturally, came at the same time as a campaign which the Trotskyist elements began in all places simultaneously. Likewise, dated 22 October 1965, in the weekly Marcha, an article is published in which a well-known Trotskyist theoretician, Adolfo Gilly, declares that Che left Cuba due to differences with Fidel on the Sino-Soviet conflict and that Che could not impose his opinion on the leadership. He says that Che in a confused manner proposed the extension of the revolution to the rest of Latin America in opposition to the Soviet line. He says that the Cuban leadership is divided into a conservative wing which includes former leaders of the pact, the followers of Che, and Fidel and his team in a position of swinging back and forth between conciliation and opposition. He says that Che left Cuba because he lacked means of expressing himself, and that Fidel feared to face the masses to explain the case of Che. This same Trotskyist theoretician on 31 October 1965, as a reporter for Nuovo Mondo, an Italian paper, writes an article calling the Cuban leadership “philo-Soviet” and accusing Fidel of not having politically explained what happened to Che. He says that Major Guevara was defeated by the pact and the Castro team. He criticizes Che for not having taken the struggle to impose his point of view to the masses, and he concludes that the Cuban state, paralyzed by its own policy, did not openly support the Dominican revolution. I am going to refer to this a little more extensively a little further on. In its October 1965 number, the Spanish Trotskyist newspaper Batalla declares: “The mystery which surrounds the case of Che Guevara must be cleared up. Friends of Che suppose that the letter read by Castro is false, and it is asked whether the Cuban leadership is orienting itself toward submission to the bureaucracy of the Kremlin." Around the same date, the official Trotskyist organ of Argentina publishes an article in which it avers that Che is dead or a prisoner in Cuba. It says: “He entered into conflict with Fidel Castro over the operation of the unions and the organization of the militia.” It adds that Che opposed the formation of the Central Committee with Castro's favorites, particularly army officers supporting the Moscow rightwing. However, one of the filthiest articles, the most gross, the most indecent, is that written by the leader of the Latin American political bureau of the Fourth International, in the newspaper Lutta Operaria of Italy.
However, one of the filthiest articles, the most gross, the most indecent, is that written by the leader of the Latin American political bureau of the Fourth International, in the newspaper Lutta Operaria of Italy. Of this article, a long one for sure, I am only going to read three paragraphs. It begins by saying: “One aspect of the worsening of the world crisis of bureaucracy is the expulsion of Guevara. Guevara was expelled now, not eight months ago. The discussion with Guevara has lasted eight months. These were not eight months spent drinking coffee. They have fought hard, and perhaps there have been deaths, perhaps they have argued with pistols. We cannot say whether or not they killed Guevara, but there exists the right to suppose that they killed him. “Why does Guevara not appear? They have not presented him in Havana for fear of the consequences, the reaction of the population; but after all, by hiding him they cause the same effect. The people say, 'Why does Guevara not come out, why does he not appear?' It is not a political accusation. There are political praises for him. Why have they not presented Guevara? Why has he not spoken? How can it be possible that one of the founders of the Cuban worker state, who up until a short time ago toured the world in the name of the worker state, unexpectedly says: 'I am fed up with the Cuban Revolution. I am going to make revolution somewhere else.' Somewhere else, and they do not say where he has gone, and he does not appear. If there are no differences, why does he not appear? All the Cuban people understand that there is an enormous struggle and that this struggle had not ended. “Guevara was not alone and is not alone. If they take these measures against Guevara, it is because there is great support, great support for him, and in addition to this great support the people are enormously preoccupied. A short while ago the Cuban government published a decree, very severe, saying that it was necessary to return all weapons to the state. At that time the situation was a bit confused. Now it is clear why this resolution was issued. It was against the Guevara partisans. They are afraid of an uprising.” Here is another paragraph: “Why have they silenced Guevara? The Fourth International must carry out a public campaign in this respect, demanding the appearance of Guevara, the right of Guevara to defend himself and to debate, to make an appeal to the masses not to trust the measures the Cuban state has taken because they are bureaucratic measures and perhaps those of murderers. They have eliminated Guevara to stop his struggle. They have silenced Guevara regardless of the fact that their position was not compatible with a revolutionary point of view, because it tended toward the harmonizing of their positions in the revolutionary tendency.” Further on it says: “This demonstrates not the power of Guevara, or of a Guevara group in Cuba, but the maturity of the conditions in the rest of the workers' states for the fructification of these positions within a short time. Bureaucracy is not deceived by maneuvers and measures of this type. The elimination of Guevara means for bureaucracy the attempt at the liquidation of a base for possible regrouping of revolutionary tendencies which continue to develop world revolution. This is the basis for the liquidation of Guevara. And not only is it a danger for Cuba, but it exerts influence on the rest of the Latin American revolution. Guatemala is at the side of Cuba; Guatemala is at the side of Cuba with the program of the socialist revolution. Despite its force and the speeches of its highest leader, Fidel Castro, it has not been able to prevent the 13 November Movement from turning into a socialist revolutionary movement fighting directly for socialism.” It is not by coincidence that this gentleman, a leader of the Fourth International, mentions here very haughtily the case of Guatemala and of the 13 November Movement. Because, precisely in relation to this movement, Yankee imperialism has used one of the most subtle tactics to liquidate a revolutionary movement, which consisted of infiltrating the agents of the Fourth International who, by ignorance — political ignorance — made the main political leader of that movement adopt no less than that discredited thing, that anti-historic thing, that fraudulent thing which emanated from elements who without doubt serve imperialism, as did the program of the Fourth International. How did this happen? Yon Sosa was undoubtedly a patriotic officer. Yon Sosa led the movement of a group of armed officers in the crushing of whom the mercenaries who later invaded Playa Gir�n participated. Through a businessman who took charge of the movement's political aspects, the Fourth International fixed it up so that that leader, who was ignorant of the profound problems of politics and of the history of revolutionary thought, would permit that agents of Trotskyism, about whom we do not have the slightest doubt that he is an agent of imperialism, to publish a newspaper which copies outright the program of the Fourth International.
Through a businessman who took charge of the movement's political aspects, the Fourth International fixed it up so that that leader, who was ignorant of the profound problems of politics and of the history of revolutionary thought, would permit that agents of Trotskyism, about whom we do not have the slightest doubt that he is an agent of imperialism, to publish a newspaper which copies outright the program of the Fourth International. By doing this, the Fourth International committed a real crime against the revolutionary movement to isolate it from the rest of the people, to isolate it from the masses, when it contaminated it with the stupidities, the discredit, and the repugnant thing which Trotskyism today is in the field of politics. (Applause). Even though at one time Trotskyism represented an erroneous position, but a position in the field of political ideas, Trotskyism became during the following years a vulgar instrument of imperialism and reaction. This is the way these gentlemen think. For example, in relation to South Vietnam, where a broad revolutionary front has united the overwhelming majority of the people and various sectors of the population, has united them closely around the liberation movement in the struggle against imperialism. For the Trotskyists that is absurd; that is counterrevolutionary. Yet these gentlemen who serve imperialism have the gall to do such an unusual thing in the face of the facts and realities of history and against the revolutionary movement and to express themselves in this manner. Fortunately, in Guatemala the revolutionary movement is being saved, and it is being saved thanks to the clear vision of one of the officers who along with Sosa began the revolutionary movement and who, understanding that blunder, that stupidity, divorced himself from the 13 November Movement and with other progressive and revolutionary sectors organized the Guatemalan Rebel Armed Forces. (Applause) That officer, that young officer who had such a clear vision, who represented the Guatemalan revolutionary movement at this conference, is Major Turcios. (Applause) Major Turcios has to his credit not only having been one of the standard bearers of the armed struggle for the liberation of his oppressed nation, but also having saved the Guatemalan revolutionary movement from one of the most subtle and perfidious stratagems of Yankee imperialism. He also raised the revolutionary banners of Guatemala and of his anti-imperialist movement by snatching them from the dirty hands of these mercenaries at the service of Yankee imperialism. We hope that Yon Sosa, whose patriotic intentions were questioned by no one when the struggle began and whose honesty is not questioned by anyone, even though we have strong reasons to doubt his attitudes as a revolutionary leader, will not delay in divorcing himself from these elements and will return to the Guatemalan revolutionary movement, but this time under a different leader, a different guide who demonstrated in such moments a clarity of vision and an attitude becoming a revolutionary leader. (Applause) This position of the Trotskyists is the same which all newspapers and publicity agencies of Yankee imperialism adopted in relation to the cause of Comrade Ernesto Guevara. All the imperialist press of the United States, its news agencies, the Cuban counter-revolutionaries' press, the bourgeois press throughout the continent and the rest of the world — in other words, this campaign of slanders and intrigues against revolutionary Cuba in connection with the case of Comrade Guevara — coincided with precision with all imperialist bourgeois sectors, all the slanderers and all the conspirators against the Cuban revolution, for there is no doubt that only reaction and imperialism is interested in discrediting the Cuban revolution and in destroying the confidence of the revolutionary movements in the Cuban revolution, in destroying the confidence of the Latin American peoples in the Cuban revolution, in destroying their faith. Therefore, they have not hesitated to use the dirtiest and most indecent weapons. This same man (Gilly), who once in a while poses among other North American intellectuals in the U.S. magazine (Monthly Review), had the villainy to write the following paragraph with regard to the Santo Domingo crisis which is worthy of analysis. He said: “A high point of this crisis had to be the Dominican revolution, where the Cuban worker state was left paralyzed by its own policy, without openly supporting the revolution, while in Cuba there was tremendous internal pressure for a policy of active support. If the crisis took place long before the Santo Domingo incident, then the Santo Domingo incident undoubtedly precipitated the revolution.” This man has the villainy to accuse the Cuban revolution of not having actively supported the Dominican Revolution. While the imperialists accused Cuba, while the imperialists were trying to justify their intervention, saying that leftist and communist elements trained in Cuba were there leading the uprising, while imperialism was accusing Cuba and presenting the Dominican revolution not as an internal problem, but as an external problem, this man accuses the revolution of not having actively supported the Dominican revolution. What is the interpretation of active support? Could they perhaps think that Cuba, whose forces and resources are known, could prevent and had to prevent the landing of North American troops in Santo Domingo? Cuba has weapons to defend itself in a relation infinitely inferior to the imperialists. Cuba has defensive arms. And these gentlemen are so miserable and shameless that they attempt to blame Cuba for not having prevented the landing, because, what else is the meaning of active support, because everything that Cuba could do under those circumstances, everything that Cuba could do and had to do was done. To ask Cuba to prevent the landing is tantamount to asking Cambodia in Southeast Asia to prevent the bombing of North Vietnam and to prevent the occupation of South Vietnam by the Yankee Marine Corps. (Applause) Unfortunately, Cuba's forces are limited, but to the measure of its strength and in the best manner possible, in the most determined manner and according to the circumstances, Cuba lends and will lend its maximum support to the revolution. Those who think that this country fears the imperialists, those who think with a spirit of superiority and with their insolent delirium of superiority that this country fears the imperialists, should have lived a few hours here during the October crisis, when for the first time such a small nation as ours was threatened with a massive rain of nuclear missiles over its territory, to see the attitude assumed by this nation and the revolutionary government.
(Applause) Many stupid lies and blunders are written, and above all are written by irresponsible persons when certain documents cannot be released to the public. However, one day mankind will know. One day mankind will know all the facts. That day the miserable ones will find out that Comrade Guevara was not murdered, when each of his steps will be known in full detail, and when the position assumed by Cuba during those difficult days — and how calm our people were — will also be known. When that is understood there will be no one, regardless of how insolent he is, regardless of how provocative he is, who will dare question the feeling of solidarity of this nation and the worth of this nation, worth demonstrated by its conduct even though this country is located 90 miles from the imperialist metropolis. In the coming years enormous dangers will weigh on our people's heads to see the same degree that the revolutionary movement grows, a revolutionary movement that grows above all because of the example of the Cuban revolution, a revolutionary movement that grows and becomes gigantic because of Cuba's example, because of Cuba's victories, because of Cuba's position against the enemy. It must be taken into account that when this nation defies that danger, this nation does not have millions of men under arms, this nation does not possess thermonuclear arms, because here we possess moral rockets and here.(Applause) millions do not represent the infinite, the number of men is not infinite, but the dignity and the decorum of this nation is infinite. The coming years will speak for us, and the coming years will take care of crushing the slanderers, not those who are known agents of the imperialists, but the confused, the conspirators, who allow themselves to be involved in intrigues and serve as instruments for the lies against our revolution. [Successful Conference] A fact that was demonstrated in this conference is highly gratifying, because many things were demonstrated in this conference: it was demonstrated, in the first place, how discussions can be carried on beyond everything and around the things which basically interest us, above all, around those things that interest the people who are struggling. All peoples, regardless of their strength, of their resources, of their stature have a voice and an opinion. The people are capable of having their own opinions and independent voices. This was demonstrated in this conference. We Cubans and the revolutionary movements were always in identical positions, irrespective of continents. How a united force, how the revolutionary outlook, how the most honorable positions prevailed! And in this conference, as a compensation in the face of the conspirators and slanderers, the peoples and the revolutionary liberation movements always demonstrated a great and immense trust in Cuba and in its revolutionary party, and how this country, therefore, was given the honor of carrying the office of secretary general and the temporary headquarters of the organization! And considering the task carried out by the Cuban delegation, by the Cuban Committee of Solidarity — working in favor of the conference, struggling ceaselessly to overcome all obstacles, maintaining at all times a position of principle, objective, just — which has even jeopardized Cuban relations with some countries, as was the case with Indonesia, due to the fact that it was up to the Cuban delegation to decide, and the Cuban delegation rejected the official delegation from Indonesia. Cuba risked its relations with a state which is important in that part of the world. And although for us all states are equally important and all peoples have equal rights, may this fact serve to show to what point Cuba was — or tried to be — fair, and tried to be objective, and tried to maintain a position of principle. We know how hard all of the delegations worked, because according to those who have been in several international conferences, this is one of the conferences for which more serious work was done more indefatigably. That is why, when Cuba was assigned to be its temporary headquarters — and with the headquarters, the office of the secretary general of the organization — the Political Bureau of our party agreed to appoint Comrade Osmani Cienfuegos as secretary general of the organization. (Loud applause) All delegations have had an opportunity to learn about the efforts and the sincerity with which Comrade Osmani worked in the preliminary tasks and the development of the conference. We must say that everyone cooperated, and that all contributed in one way or another to unite opinions and for the success of this conference. For as I said previously, opinions were not always in agreement, but all, in the final analysis, in a genuinely dispassionate interest, helped bring about its successes. I do not want to close without mentioning two things. One is a concern which affects us all in the face of the events in Indonesia, confronted with the reports reaching us from Indonesia that more than 100,000 revolutionary militant individuals have been savagely assassinated, with the report that Aidit and some other Communist Party leaders in Indonesia have been assassinated. We would like to register our reproach, our protest, and our solidarity with the Indonesian revolutionaries, today persecuted by militarist reaction, frightened by Yankee imperialism. Simultaneously, (we do this) as a tribute to those who had a great deal to do with the success of this conference. We would like to acknowledge that Ben Barka was a decisive factor, with his constancy, his personal work, in the organization of this first Tricontinental Conference. His effort and his work were the cause of the problem which occurred. There is a general consensus that Ben Barka has been assassinated, cruelly and cowardly. If this conference of solidarity is duty bound to take a step forward precisely in loyalty and elementary obligation toward him, who so devotedly worked for its success, then it should demand that Ben Barka's assassination be investigated and Ben Barka's assassins be penalized. Every indication points to the direct responsibility of the Moroccan minister of the interior, General Oufkir, upon whom all suspicion and all evidence rests. This conference should not rest until the facts are known clearly as to who planned and carried out Ben Barka's assassination — the assassination of the person who was the president of the preparatory committee for this Tricontinental Conference. This is a repugnant deed, monstrous! It demonstrated from the outset imperialism's interest in obstructing the conference and causing the conference to fail.
However, the results of this conference demonstrate that Ben Barka's blood will not shed in vain, and that the Ben Barka crime — his assassination, like Lumumba's assassination, like Aidit's murder, like Sandino's assassination — that with none of its barbarous acts can imperialism contain the victorious march, the final liberation of the peoples! It is but fair for us to dedicate our memories to those who have fallen as victims of imperialism in all continents. May we propose always to be loyal to that cause, always loyal in Asia, Africa, and Latin America to the cause for which some died and gave their blood for the liberation of the peoples. Our country, which, as you have been able, to see is made up of various ethnical groups, a result of the intermingling of people from the various continents — deeply linked to Latin America because of this fact, deeply linked with Africa, deeply linked to all of the people from all continents — has done its utmost to make pleasant the stay of the delegations here. It had displayed all of its enthusiasm and hospitality and all the warmth of which it is capable. Thousands of Cubans, incessantly, without rest or vacations, have worked for the success of this conference. They have worked to wait upon the representatives of the sister nations. Our entire people have lived during these days through a big feast of international solidarity. Our people have felt as their own each and every one of the problems of other people. Our people, as I said on 2 January, received them with open arms, and they bid them farewell with an embrace, as a symbol of a bond that will never break, and as a symbol of their sentiments of fraternity and solidarity toward the other people who struggle, and for whom they are ready, also, to offer their blood. Fatherland or death, we will win! Castro Archive
Home Contents Subscribe Write us! [email protected] February 2003 • Vol 3, No. 2 • An Interview With Fidel Castro By Andrea Mitchell [NBC News has made editorial insertions. These are reproduced in italics with a credit.—Socialist Viewpoint.] NBC Editor’s note: Cuba’s absolute authority is Fidel Castro, chief of the Armed Forces, head of the ruling Communist Party and president of the island nation just 90 miles from American shores. At 76, Castro is the world’s longest-serving government leader. Cubans simply know him as “Fidel” or “El Comandante”—The Commander. And, he’s just as defiant as when he first seized power in 1959. As his revolution turned 44, Castro gave a series of exclusive interviews to Andrea Mitchell, chief NBC News foreign affairs correspondent. Over the course of two days, Castro talked about his revolution, human rights, the global war on terrorism, Saddam Hussein, the U.S. embargo and much more. Here are highlights from those 20 hours of conversation. Mitchell: We’ve spoken at length during our meetings about the situation in Cuba, the economic and social changes, the educational system, your health system, and I want to return to some of those issues tonight. But first I wanted to start with some issues of great urgency to the American people: the possibility of war with Iraq. What do you think the impact of a future war with Iraq would be on your need for oil and the obvious fact that oil prices would rise? What would be the impact of a war with Iraq on Cuba? Castro: The impact is already being felt. The threat of war has already had a significant impact on many countries, including Cuba. Specifically, it has increased oil prices, very high for months now. That damages the economies of many countries around the world. It damages the world economy, except of course those countries earning huge revenues from their oil exports. Add to this the political situation in Venezuela. The conflict there has increased (oil) prices. So, everything impacts the existing situation. This is the kind of economic situation that has emerged. You asked me about possible consequences [of war with Iraq]. It seems to me that it’s quite difficult to predict, to foresee. We don’t have enough elements to judge. There are always two sides. Technically speaking, if we may do that, the outcome of any military operation doesn’t depend on just one side. It depends on both sides. Mitchell: What do you think Saddam Hussein should do? Should he make a bigger effort to open up his country and be honest about what weapons he might still have? Castro: I wouldn’t like to use any adjectives, because adjectives could make it look like I’m taking sides in any potential conflict... That’s why, if I’m going to be honest, I’ll limit myself to condemning those who have announced military operations because if I label one of the sides, and then it’s attacked, it might seem I’m justifying the aggression. We do not wish to see a war. But I am also under the impression that if there’s no political solution, if the inspections fail to avert war, expect the Iraq people to resist any attack. This is what I think they will do. I’m trying to imagine the situation based on the history of the last few years. They [the Iraqi people] are relatively used to war because they have been at war almost continuously. There have been many, many military operations, continuous air strikes. So, people have gotten use to military actions. Now, they’ll be forced to start all over again. They were at war with Iran for years. They went through the so-called Gulf War. People’s mindsets adapt very easily to using weapons, no matter how destructive they may be. It’s only logical to expect them to resist. What would be the consequences of such resistance? It all depends on their tactics, strategies, and their concept of defense... It’s like a chess game.. Mitchell: Well, in a chess game like this, is the United States justified in going to war with Iraq if there is proof that Saddam Hussein has weapons like nuclear or biological or chemical weapons? Castro: Yes. If there is any proof of that, I believe the American administration is disposed to launching an attack. It’s willing to find any sort of pretext. And I doubt that [it] can abstain from an attack even if they don’t find a pretext. It all seems very much pre-planned. Mitchell: You think that George Bush is looking for an excuse to go after Saddam Hussein? Castro: I can’t say whether or not he’s looking for an excuse. But I have the impression that he’ll be frustrated or disappointed if they don’t manage to find a bottle with some kind of liquid that could be labeled biological, chemical or nuclear product. Given his mindset, the discovery of ten ounces of enriched uranium could be enough of a pretext. It’s almost certain that among this high level group of inspectors, some would be willing to find something and some others may hold different opinions. Some people would see imminent danger; others would not. This said, if having such weapons is justification for launching war, you couldn’t forget that there are other countries in the region with nuclear weapons. One country in the Middle East has some 300 nuclear weapons. Mitchell: Israel? Castro: And all the necessary means to sell them. Yet, it’s fairly unknown. I have publicly talked about how they got those weapons. For example, we know they supplied apartheid South Africa with seven nuclear weapons... And this was known by the whole world, by the United States. The regime there was extremely cruel—a fascist regime. They carried out genocide against the population. But, nobody ever threatened South Africa. I mention this as one example. How many more countries have nuclear weapons or the capacity to develop them? Let me tell you: all nuclear weapons should have been destroyed at the end of World War II. It’s a miracle they haven’t been used in a war yet. Mitchell: Well, in this situation, whom do you trust more?
George Bush or Saddam Hussein? Castro: Why should it be a matter of confidence in one or the other? Instead of talking about individuals, I prefer talking about concepts, ideas and rights—about whether or not the right exists to launch war just because a country may possess certain kinds of weapons. One country has some 10,000 nuclear weapons and the United States has even more. I believe that both sides have enormous deposits of chemical weapons, which are not easy to destroy. However, they have tried to avoid a war. There are other countries with few weapons. Non-industrialized countries. India had them. Does this give China the right to launch war against India? Or does it give India the right to attack China? Now, Pakistan has them. This no doubt poses a danger for India’s one billion people. Would this justify India attacking Pakistan just because it poses a potential danger? And the British have nuclear weapons. Many countries might see that as a danger. Despite the fact that we’ve advocated disarmament for 40 years, the possession of these weapons is not a justification for launching an attack or war. It’s true we had the Gulf War. It’s true the U.N. intervened. Then as members of the Security Council, we strongly condemned the occupation of Kuwait. However, we opposed some sanctions. Cuba could never support an embargo of medicines and food. This was our principled position. And we opposed a military solution. Mitchell: If it were possible to avoid a war—if Saddam Hussein decided to leave his country to avoid a war—would you take him in if he’s seeking asylum? Castro: Are you trying to trap me? We have no desire to get involved in that conflict. Mitchell: This is a mere hypothesis. Castro: We do not want to see war nor become a country that grants asylum to any of the sides in this conflict. I know only too well what would happen if we were to welcome someone out of humanitarian concerns. For example, the U.S. occupies the Guantánamo naval base. Without prior consultation with Cuba, the U.S. decided unilaterally to bring in hundreds of prisoners from Afghanistan—the Taliban, members of Al Qaida, an organization with which we have never had any links or contacts. The United States made that decision and only told us about it later. This is the second time this has happened. During the Balkans war, they informed us they were bringing in Albanians. It didn’t matter what position we took on that issue. They were bringing them in anyway. So, we said “Okay, send in the refugees.” We are eager to cooperate, provide medical services or help in controlling hygiene. We are willing to provide humanitarian assistance to anyone who needs it. If asked, we would send medical teams to help the injured. If asked, we would send our vaccines against meningitis. Mitchell: If the United States wants to launch war, nobody can stop the United States from doing that. Everybody knows how powerful it is and the weapons it has. But, on principle, we are against that war. Castro: What did we do last time? Every time the issue came up at the U.N., we condemned Iraq. Nobody knows who led the Iraqi government to believe that the U.S. would tolerate that occupation. But, on the eve of war, I will refrain from voicing opinions that could be used as grist for somebody else’s mill. There are many people who think that it’s not fear for their own security but rather an attempt to control the world’s third-largest oil reserve—at a time when many people are becoming aware that the oil problem and hydro-carbons is far more serious than what’s being admitted... At some point, [Iraq] must have had weapons because Europe helped them obtain missiles. They were supplied with the technology to be able to attack Israel. The Soviets sold them missiles. We know they had chemical weapons. I don’t know a lot about chemical weapons. And I don’t know if chemical weapons can be destroyed. But analyzing this from a political angle, Iraq should have had the sense not to possess nuclear, chemical or biological weapons after invading Kuwait. It’s not enough just to have the weapons. You have to know how to use them and against whom. Logic indicates they should have destroyed those weapons.. It would be a huge mistake to use those weapons against someone who has 10 times your power. Mitchell: Mr. President, you were talking about how it would make no sense for Saddam Hussein to use these weapons against such a powerful adversary, the United States? Castro: It would be insane. After Kuwait, they should have destroyed all of those weapons. I don’t doubt they have tried to destroy them. I have no proof. But it’s elementary logic. But men make mistakes. Saddam Hussein may be making a mistake or the United States government may be making a mistake. Even the American government cannot say for sure what the backlash may be—what cultural or religious conflicts may be unleashed. The United States has said that they will launch the war on their own even without Security Council approval. All of this by virtue of the power of the United States. So, I’d like to think about old problems—what risks the United States may be facing. For example, I know the U.S. is greatly concerned about terrorism. Mitchell: I was going to ask you about this.... Castro: We have been subjected to terrorism for almost 44 years. No other country in the world has been harassed or subjected to the sabotage or terrorist actions that have befallen Cuba for over 40 years. The price of all these actions is well known. Without making an estimate, I can say that we’ve lost thousands of lives and billions of dollars in economic damages. Many have suffered. Thousands handicapped.
Thousands handicapped. Much destruction. Much damage. However, I can say that not one single American lost their life as a consequence of Cuban actions against the United States... Never has a single brick in the United States been destroyed as a consequence of Cuban “terrorist” actions. Not only is it a lie but also it’s cynical to include Cuba on the (State Department) list of terrorist countries because we are the Olympic champions in having endured more than 40 years of terrorism without ever having engaged in terrorist actions. Nor will we ever. It would have been stupid for us to take revenge against any American. Tens of thousands of Americans know that Cuba is the country where they are respectfully welcomed. We have not sowed any hatred against the American people…. Mitchell: I wanted to ask you about the war on terror. Does the attack on 9/11 justify the way the United States is pursuing the war on terror? Is there anything Cuba can do or has been able to do in terms of developing information that might be helpful to the United States about the spread of Al-Qaida? Castro: You have asked me three questions in one. The right to defend itself—each country has the right to defend itself against terrorism. But, in practice, it seems that only the most powerful country has this right. I once read a wire story saying that the U.S. Congress had suggested invading the Netherlands if the International Court of Justice (in the Hague) ruled against an American soldier. And I said, “Oh, good heavens, even a European industrialized country and a NATO member and U.S. ally isn’t safe from a U.S. preemptive attack.” All countries have the right to defend themselves, including Cuba. But how can they defend themselves if the powerful countries can overrule every code, every rule. A small country like Cuba has to defend itself within its own territory, and to exercise every possible measure to neutralize (the enemy). A Cuban airliner was blown up in mid air, killing more than 70 young people aboard including Cuba’s junior fencing team. Everybody knows this story. But Orlando Bosch, the mastermind of that terrorist action, lives very happily in Miami making public statements about that action. Cuba has protected itself by developing sources of information. This was all Cuba could do. Cuba didn’t commit the stupidity of responding to those terrorist actions that were launched from U.S. territory. At this moment, the situation is very complicated. The right to defend ourselves cannot be questioned. But, from an ethical point of view, you could question how to go about it. Also from a political, practical and realistic points of view. I have my own views on how an anti-terrorism policy should have been implemented. There was never a better occasion to create a real crusade against terrorism at every level. And this was not through war. As soon as we learned about the attacks on New York, we condemned those actions; we offered our airports for the thousands of planes in the air and forbidden to land at any U.S. airport. We offered medical aid, blood donations. Mitchell: But the United States didn’t accept any of your offers. Did that surprise you? Castro: No. Look, I can tell you the following. When California had that big earthquake, we made our usual offer of support. We don’t have search and rescue robots or dogs but we do have physicians and nurses. That was an act of good will and not new. We made the same offer to Nicaragua [after the 1972 earthquake] during Somoza’s rule—even though he lent his territory for the launching of the Bay of Pigs invasion. More than 30,000 Cubans have volunteered their services in Third World countries even at a time when we had a shortage of physicians. Now, we have the highest ratio per-capita of physicians—one physician for every 164 inhabitants. That’s double what the second best country has. This goes for education and other fields too. We sent teachers into Nicaragua’s mountains. Some were assassinated by the contras during the dirty war. If you understand our philosophy on this, Andrea, it will help you understand Cuba. You may agree or not with our philosophy, just as you may or may not agree with a certain type of religion. But this doesn’t mean that people from one religion should be at war with people from a different religion. Europe spent centuries waging wars since the time of the Crusades—which had been condemned by the pope, including the inquisition of Galileo who said the earth moved around the sun. But, Christianity, for the first time, offered a kind of ethical code. For me, the Old Testament differs from the New Testament in that the Old Testament recalls the history of man, the wars and everything that has happened while the New Testament preaches a generous code of behavior based on love for your neighbor, solidarity with the poor, and the miracle of fish and bread. We have tried to have enough fish and bread. And, a powerful country like yours with its abundant resources, should think about how to repeat the miracle of the fish and the bread instead of spending fabulous amounts of weapons…. You asked me about the right to defend ourselves against terrorism. What else did you want to know? Mitchell: I was asking about Osama bin Laden? Castro: You asked whether or not we had intelligence. All these questions are very delicate. But since day one, we declared publicly that our country would do its best to prevent our territory from being used against the U.S. people. And I can add that we will also do our best to prevent any harm to the American people from anywhere else. If we were to learn that someone planned to destroy an American city or commit an act of terrorism against the American people, we would do our best to prevent that…. Terrorism is a complex problem. We have to fight it first from an ethical point of view. What sparked those actions? We carried out an armed struggle [against the Batista dictatorship in 1959] but we never used terrorist methods. We never resorted to methods that cost the lives of innocent people. Look at the newspapers of the time. Read the history of the revolution.
We attacked a military fortress. We fought in the mountains. We fought against an army that outnumbered us. We won through a combination of armed struggle and of gaining popular support. Batista helped in that by committing crimes against the population, by torturing people. We used explosives against soldiers and enemy tanks. We used mines against troops during combat. No one can deny this. Sometimes we destroyed a bridge used by enemy soldiers but never at the cost of any human life. So, we have authority to speak on this topic. Honestly, we are opposed to any action that jeopardizes the lives of innocent people—whomever they may be. Much has been said whether or not it was right to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Ask the Japanese... That bomb was dropped on the eve of Soviet march through Manchuria. From the military point of view, there was no need to bomb those two cities. They could have bombed military bases. It would have been more than enough. There were many other targets. I would call the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki colossal acts of terrorism. How many things have been done in history? How many Vietnamese died in air raids? Millions, Andrea. And they used chemicals that still cause damage. There’s a generation of Vietnamese affected by Agent Orange that has caused many problems. Such events have happened in history. I don’t believe there’s any other way in this global world but to abide by ethical standards. There must be ethical reasons to struggle against terrorism. And I have said this to everybody including the revolutionary movement: We should condemn the use of methods that harm innocent people. Terrorism breeds hatred and rejection. No revolutionary movement will ever triumph by using terrorism and killing innocent people. I say this with the authority of having waged war. Not a big war, but a rather complicated war. And we were at a disadvantage. Our enemies outnumbered us. We had medical problems. But, we never resorted to such methods. If we had planted bombs, we never would have earned the support of over 90 percent of the people—not even 80 percent—not even 20 percent. People reject crime. People reject such acts by their very nature. Many reject the death penalty because this touches them. They are affected by seeing people put to death in the electric chair or by being shot. Politically, no revolutionary movement will triumph by resorting to terrorism. But you also need to struggle against terrorism from the religious point of view. Religion motivates or rules some people. Certain religious beliefs lead people to sacrifice their own lives. Some Iranians sacrificed their own lives to detonate land mines in Iraq. We have to realize that certain religions carry their own code of ethics, rational or not. We have to struggle against all factors that may influence people. We suggest launching a major campaign against terrorism—creating a universal awareness against terrorism. It seems to me that this is the right way. That’s the path I would have taken if I were in America’s shoes. How can you get people to universally reject terrorism? Not through war. You can be absolutely sure of that. It creates hatred. José Martí (Cuba’s national independence hero) wrote: “Those who sow hatred, reap storms….” Look, I will give you an example. Terrorist, operating from central America, considered blowing up some planes flying to Cuba. That was under Clinton. We spoke about this years later when Clinton was no longer president. I sent Clinton a letter through common friends. We never exchanged correspondence but I explained everything through a common friend. He responded in kind—taking it very seriously. He suggested we make the information public. I suggested that we should adopt other measures to discover what the terrorists were planning. (The Castro government sent Cuban security agents to infiltrate anti-Castro exile groups and gather intelligence on planned actions against the regime.). We passed on the information they gathered to U.S. authorities. Do you know what happened? A few weeks later a group of Cuban patriots were arrested. Their main activities had been to obtain information about terrorist actions being plotted from inside the U.S. They have been condemned to life imprisonment. I wonder if the information we provided U.S. authorities was used to arrest and convict those who gathered the intelligence. Do you realize how strange all this is? And, these terrorist actions were carried out very recently. (Luis) Posada Carilles [one of Castro’s arch foes] attempted to assassinate me during the Ibero American summit with 40 kilograms of explosive. Once we learned that someone was ploting to kill (President Ronald) Reagan. Within hours, we relayed that information to the U.S. government. I doubt very much if any American administration sent us a message warning of the danger of any of the hundreds of attempts against my life. Where’s the ethics Andrea? Where’s the morals? This is not right. Mitchell: I’m wondering Mr. President, do you think there could ever be an improvement in relations between our two countries with George Bush as President? Castro: Yes.
Castro: Yes. Mitchell: How so? Castro: Look, I believe that it’s too soon to reach a definite conclusion. He certainly took power as all the others—lacking information about Cuba, filled with biases against Cuba. There have been no exceptions since Kennedy came to office. I remember when Carter was elected. Carter, to me, has been the most noble and most ethical of all the Presidents that I have met. Mitchell: And you’ve met nine of them? You’ve met nine presidents. You’ve outlasted nine presidents. Castro: Are there nine? The present president is the 10th. Mitchell: Since Eisenhower. Castro: Yes. Eisenhower was in power when the Revolution triumphed. We have stood up against every campaign. First, of course, there was massive misinformation in the United States. But, we won’t look at the history of why. Mitchell: But in the current time. Castro: All of them when elected held many biases against Cuba—massive misinformation and underestimation, Andrea. Girón, (Bay of Pigs) for example, was a huge mistake, based on underestimation—believing the Cuban people would go and join an uprising. It seemed they really believed that. But this was not the plan. The real plan was to seize a piece of land as a beachhead in order to set up the government of Miro Cardona who would fly in and then be recognized as a “democratic patriotic government” with the recognition of the OAS (Organization of American States). But you, as such a keen observer for so many years of American politics, do you think this president is unable or unwilling to reach out to the Cuban people because of Florida politics? There was a time when Florida had nothing to do with U.S. policy towards Cuba. It was the Cold War. But I wonder why they launched the Bay of Pigs expedition—just because we started agrarian reform. I’m not blaming Kennedy. Do you know who advised organizing the expedition? Nixon, who was then Eisenhower’s Vice President. The former administration organized the expedition. Kennedy took office and he was a man of certain qualities that I recognized and appreciated. Mitchell: Why don’t you blame Kennedy? He tried to kill you. He tried to have you assassinated. He approved the invasion. Castro: First, let me say that Kennedy already showed bias [against Cuba’s revolution] during his electoral campaign. Huge numbers of Americans thought as he did. Attacking Cuba was the political thing to do. Although there were two different mindsets: Eisenhower’s and Kennedy’s. Look, we have to consider something when analyzing what happened. People who fought for the revolution were not imbeciles but the Americans underestimated them. I’m not talking about myself but a whole group of popular leaders who emerged during the struggle and passed laws that benefited the average person. They won the overwhelming support of the Cuban people. A support they’ve never lost. Still, some people believe or convince others to believe that most people oppose the Revolution. They ignore the fact that there’s more support for the Revolution now than ever. There are many who do know and understand this. If Nixon had been president instead of Kennedy, the U.S. military would have been deployed to rescue the (exile) brigade during the Bay of Pigs invasion. But Kennedy behaved differently. Nixon would have sent support for the invasion. And in our country over 300,000 people took up arms. I can assure you even they (the U.S. military) could not have crushed the resistance. Of course, we’re talking about 1961 when most of today’s weapons didn’t exist. Then, we had no surveillance satellites, or sensors capable of gathering intelligence. Even today, and I believe that this was always the case, men are capable of going beyond technology. You might need to change your tactics, strategies, and modes of transportation but a country that resists can never be crushed. The Sahrawi people live in the desert and after 20 years they’ve not been crushed. They are a small country. The Russians, with all their power, have been unable to crush the resistance in Chechnya. That’s a real fact—which doesn’t mean to say we agree with the terrorism committed by the Chechens. We issued a very clear statement supporting the Soviet people and condemning the terrorist takeover of a Russian theater. We urged they do everything possible to avoid a massacre. But, in the end, there was a massacre when the decision-makers made a mistake. Andrea, they make mistakes more often than not. But the reality is that there’s a religion, culture and nationality that rejects Russia’s occupation. They are very close and this country is very powerful. But I can tell you this: you cannot crush the resistance of a country with one million inhabitants. But, it’s all the more difficult when the country has 10 or 11 or 12 million. We’re not looking for a fight. We weren’t looking for one back then. And Kennedy, newly elected and, as he put it, belonging to a new generation of Americans, did not want to begin his mandate by attacking a Latin American country. He wanted good relations with Latin America. He rejected the other and never gave the order to save the brigade because it would have meant engaging in war. Kennedy took full responsibility for that decision. “Victory has a hundred fathers but defeat is an orphan.” That was a very courageous act... And there was also a bias against Socialism, against communism. He said that the best communist was a dead communist. That was a political slogan—that the best communist was a dead communist. But, I don’ t think that the best capitalist is a dead capitalist. I wouldn’t even say that the best neo-capitalist or neo-liberalist is a dead one. I wouldn’t even say that the best imperialist is a dead imperialist.
I wouldn’t even say that the best imperialist is a dead imperialist. We don’t think this way. But Kennedy had that style. And there’s something else. The Soviets made a huge error around the events leading up to the October Crisis—even if they based their actions on solid information that [the Americans] had approved an invasion of Cuba. All the recently declassified documents prove this. So, the Soviets were right. During the discussion we had here, [this past October Cuba hosted a conference marking the 40th anniversary of the missile crisis], it was revealed that [the Soviets] had been very concerned about Cuba’s security. At the time of Girón [the Bay of Pigs invasion] they (the Soviets) raised the issue of missiles, because when the British and the French occupied Port Said at the Suez Canal, Khrushchev stopped the aggression by threatening to use his missiles. Khrushchev argued that Berlin was a powder keg. Remember that American troops and tanks faced-off with Soviet tanks and troops. That’s when they put up the Berlin Wall. So Khrushchev didn’t want a war. I knew Khrushchev well—an intelligent and clever farmer, a very bold person but susceptible to mistakes. He had a great sense of humor. But then we noticed many things—political and even military errors. But we were new to politics and the USSR was one of the two big superpowers, which lost tens of millions fighting Fascism. Just as the French, British, and American lives lost. They (Soviets in WWII) carried out the counter attack, assuming the burden of the whole war. They occupied Berlin, the rest of that region. They had a vast military experience—all veterans while we could be considered newborns. They devised the defense of Cuba, based on their certainty that the U.S. would attack Cuba.... All of us made political mistakes as well as military mistakes. This almost triggered war. Khrushchev tricked Kennedy, playing word games. He said they would not send offensive weapons to Cuba. To Kennedy this meant medium range missiles that could reach American targets. But Khrushchev was being simplistic, defining “offensive” according to the intention of the user. He couldn’t imagine Kennedy’s concern, why Kennedy would feel tricked by the Cubans. I argued that the agreement (Havana-Moscow military accord) be made public. Why hide something when right is on your side? After all, the U.S. had agreements with many countries stating that an aggression against any of those countries would be considered an aggression against the United States. I believed a similar announcement between Moscow and Havana would have been sufficient. The problem is that Kennedy took Khrushchev at his word while Khrushchev deployed surface to air missiles. Meanwhile the U-2 (American spy plane) flew freely (over Cuban territory) and we ended up on the brink of a war. The country faced real danger, because the U.S. could have launched a surprise attack to destroy the missiles. The Americans were very sensitive because they had nuclear missiles in Turkey. They made the political mistake of suggesting to swap (remove) those missiles for the ones in Cuba. But we didn’t want any Soviet troops or nuclear weapons here. We were more concerned about Latin America and our image and prestige; we didn’t want to appear to be a Soviet base. Mitchell: But you wanted to keep the battlefield, the tactical nuclear weapons that the United States states it didn’t even know you had. I think you wrote to Khrushchev saying you wanted to keep those weapons, the smaller nuclear weapons? Castro: You want to stay here talking until six in the morning? You want me to take all of the papers I have to prove to you this is nothing but conjecture? We could spend days talking about this. We just had a two-day discussion with McNamara [Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense under Kennedy] Kennedy advisors, and a key CIA player as well as the Soviet military officers who had been based here in Cuba and some of the Cuban leaders. My memory is still good. I remember the facts. In fact, we discussed this very issue in detail with a group of American historians who managed to have many of the documents declassified. Cuba behaved quite honestly through the entire crisis. But ultimately I had to be harsh with Khrushchev because he went ahead and reached a unilateral agreement (with Kennedy) for the withdrawal of missiles from Turkey and Cuba. We issued a very strong statement expressing our indignation and presenting 5 demands (to resolve the crisis). We never opposed peace but we never imagined the Soviets would make concessions…. Mitchell: Let me bring you back to today. We have George Bush as President. Castro: Choosing peace or choosing war. I explained which one I favor. This was a golden opportunity for the U.S. to strike a blow against terrorism. Instead, they are breeding hatred and more hatred. For over a year, images shown on TV are evoking indignation, hatred and fanaticism. Mitchell: Well, but …. Castro: They are creating bigotry. You will never be able to defeat terrorist violence with bigotry. Mitchell: What are your thoughts about George Bush’s brother Jeb? A lot of people say he’s possibly the next President after Bush. How would that affect U.S./Cuban relations? Castro: You mean his brother? First of all, let me say I don’t believe there’s any chance this will happen. Americans are very smart. They may be misinformed but they are smart people. You had his father; now you have the son; and then you have the brother? And later on, the grandson? and finally the great grandson? That would be an absolute monarchy. Can Americans imagine that? I don’t know him. He has a very noble face. Jeb reminds me of a boy from school who came from a family of coffee planters. He has the face of a good-natured man.
He has the face of a good-natured man. I have nothing against him. I have no antipathy toward him. I don’t know what he knows about politics. He’s recently been concerned about a scandal. The Haitian problem. After more than 200 Haitian men, women and children landed, many of the black residents (of Florida) questioned why they were being sent back to Haiti when there are Cubans, even those with criminal records, who automatically are granted residency and work permits. Even those who enter the U.S. with fake documents. The moment they set foot on U.S. soil, they can claim the right to reside and work there. How can it be said that the United States is protected against terrorism when any Cuban with a criminal record or a history of mental illness is welcome with open arms? Andrea, don’t you think this is a contradiction? We’re the only country in the world treated this way. Makes me wonder if we’re the worset? I believe you even trade with North Korea. Is any other country in the same boat? We won’t be jealous if some other country shares this dubious honor! Mitchell: Since your country is treated uniquely under American law, you’re the only country treated this way with this particular kind of embargo, a country that we’re not at war with, at least. What do you think the impact would be on your country if the embargo ended—if Americans could come here, if American products could be sold here—without any limits? What would be the impact on Cuba? Castro: Well, sometimes joking around, I’ve said to let me know in advance so I can move. An invasion of hundreds of thousands of American is enough to make us move. I’ve said this as a joke. But, to answer your question: we’re not afraid. It’s good to say this because there may be some people who think we want a blockade. Clinton himself said that we shot down the planes that often violated our air space because we feared the end to the blockade. (In 1996, the Cuban military shot down two small planes, killing four Miami exiles. In retaliation, the White House signed the “Helms-Burton Act” that beefed up the trade embargo.) No one knows what would happen if a Cuban plane even just once violated America’s 12-mile sea limit. We have never feared the end to the blockade. We may have to set a quota limiting American visitors to 10,000 a week. That’s our right! Mitchell: Couldn’t it threaten the revolution’s ideals, if the United States with a very different economic system all of a sudden flooded Cuba with products and ideas and ideas and people? Castro: Andrea, nothing jeopardizes the destiny of this revolution. The Cuban people now possess a certain level of knowledge and education that surpasses the average of other countries. These are people who base their actions on values. Our people are very patriotic, very progressive and socialist. Andrea, our people have learned that the revolution turned them into real human beings. We can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that we weren’t human before. A small group held all the privilege and power. What is an illiterate person, Andrea? What about the 15-year-old who has to pay a child to write a letter to his girlfriend. Can you imagine their lack of self-esteem? Thirty percent of our people were absolute illiterates and, added to that, functional illiterates, the figure rose to about 90 percent. And that’s being conservative. Only 422,000 of the island’s 7 million inhabitants (in 1959) had reached 6th grade. Today, we have 20 to 30 university graduates for every one we had at the beginning of the revolution. Mitchell: Mr. President, as I’ve seen with my own eyes, you have the most literate country. You have a country that is immunized with 13 different vaccines. You have universal healthcare, education. Yet because of the embargo, some people say there has been a lot of suffering. Do you believe that the embargo is the only reason? Because you have made changes in your economic system. You have adopted some free market practices, the dollar economy. Why have you made these changes? Are you changing your views about the revolution? Or about socialism? Castro: The revolution turned millions of people into real persons. Gave them self-esteem. And the revolution is that much stronger because of this. Now, we have done some things we didn’t like because of the unique situation we faced. No country has had to live with a double blockade: the U.S. trade sanctions, and the overnight disappearance of its major suppliers and markets. Mitchell: And the Soviet Union collapsed which is... Castro: Fuel. That’s vital. Nobody believed Cuba would survive the demise of the Soviet Union. I wonder why? And I wonder why. Mitchell: You joked earlier today that the Soviet Union was the good old days because you had the economic support, of course, from the Soviet Union. Do you think the world would be better off if the Soviet Union had not collapsed? Castro: First of all, we’d be better off. Ultimately, we would be much better, much better. If we had suffered through the “Special Period” [Castro’s euphemism for the post-Soviet economic crisis] during 1961, ‘62 and ‘63, we would never have survived. We would have died honorably, draped in our national flag. But we never would have survived economically. Society then was marked by illiteracy and less political awareness. There have been 30 years of revolution, more than 30 years. I would say that from 1959 to 1992—33 years of revolution—we passed laws and measures benefiting the millions of Cuba’s sons and daughters who were sub-human, treated worse than animals. We were lucky, we trusted people. We trusted our history, the examples of our independence fighters and patriots. Everybody thought Cuba would collapse.
We didn’t. Ten years have elapsed. We will not collapse. People in Miami packed their bags to return to their houses that we had turned into schools. These people had not been thrown out of the country but left voluntarily for the United States with the authorization of the Cuban government. In fact, everyone who has left Cuba—with the exception of those who leave illegally—since the signing of the Migration Accords (1991) have done so because the Cuban government allows them to do. Mitchell: But why do you think so many other socialist countries and communist countries have moved toward free markets? Why has China evolved the way it has? And Vietnam? There’s been, as American Presidents say, a march of democracy across the world and a free market. But not here in Cuba. Castro: Well, that’s the opinion of the President of the United States. I respect that opinion but feel sorry if he wants to be wrong his whole life. But it’s not my problem. But seriously, I don’t want to say things that could hurt anyone’s feeling. You know I’m joking. And besides, there’s no arguments to justify these statements. Although some people may disagree, I believe we have the most humane system in the world. I don’t like to say this, but I must because people say the world is moving towards democracy. I say the world is moving towards subordination to a single power. The world is moving towards submission to the hegemonic power of the United States. Look, the world has a single boss and it’s not the people. I’m speaking about the whole world. They have only one boss. There’s a man who decides the fate of every country without prior consultation—not even about launching war. Take the United Nations today. It’s a beautiful memory of good intentions. And a good idea that some day may take hold. Today, there’s a world government that hasn’t been adopted or approved by any of the more than 100 existing States. That’s the truth. It’s a joke to say the world’s moving towards democracy. It’s like saying Americans are moving towards a society with greater civil rights and more respect. The United States has lived through different times. They lived through McCarthyism; don’t forget the witch-hunts. Afterwards, they got passed that and the U.S. went through a period of tremendous ethnic and racial problems; there were struggles, progressive laws passed and then setbacks. Everything that could have been achieved wasn’t. Now, the terrorism committed against the American people has created a favorable climate to impose considerable restrictions on individual rights and liberties. A world in which a country can be victim of a surprise preemptive attack is not a world moving towards democracy. A world in which the bombers, aircraft carriers, nuclear weapons, the smart bombs have the last word, is not a world moving towards democracy. A world in which the president of a single country without even consulting his own Congress has the last word is not a world moving towards democracy. It would be like saying democracy ruled with the Caesars in Rome. It would be like saying that the empire was moving towards democracy…. The world is moving towards universal dictatorship. And, something else: we could affirm that the world is living under universal dictatorship—not an absolute dictatorship. The United States dictates to the rest of the world. Who says no? China has not submitted to the United States. It’s too big and they have their own dignity. I respect the Chinese very much. Nor will I say that Vietnam has submitted to the United States. But, all of Europe has submitted, almost without exception—including the former socialist countries and the newly formed States. I wouldn’t say they are happy about this but it’s the result of having one country dominate the world. What’s the use of having the United Nations if every year 173 countries vote against that infamous embargo and the U.S. government just laughs at that vote? They ignore world public opinion. Is that democratic? Show me Andrea where democracy exists in the world. How can you say that the world is moving towards democracy? We should say quite the opposite. So, they say the world is moving towards democracy because the Chinese introduced some reforms. The Chinese have a political system very similar to Cuba’s. They admit capitalists into the (Communist) Party. Our Party admits farmers earning a lot of money and religious people. Bush could just as well say that, based on what we’ve done here in Cuba, that we’re moving towards democracy. And that the world is moving towards democracy. I believe we’re doing that. We’re moving more and more to a regime of equal opportunity and even greater equality. People need to go beyond their professional knowledge and gain a general comprehensive education. Those who don’t are functional illiterates. Without certain knowledge of history, you cannot understand the world. Without a basic knowledge of geography, you can ‘t understand how nearly 60 countries have come to independence in recent history. You need to know basic political economy to understand globalization and the international monetary crisis. Without a minimum knowledge of the arts, people won’t be able to understand newspapers. People need to know two to three languages, including English. That’s why we are teaching English in a massive way. Mitchell: How do you see this country years from now? You have personified the social system and the revolution for millions of people. How do you see this living on? Who will you have lead this government? Castro: I will not speak to you now about the system. But we want our people to have convictions. We want our people to possess knowledge and culture. You cannot speak about freedom without knowledge.
You cannot speak about freedom without knowledge. You cannot speak about freedom without culture. In a world with billions of illiterates, you cannot talk about freedom. It’s a lie to think you can be free without an education. You can’t let others think for you. You can’t allow specialists to bombard you with messages from the mass media and do your thinking for you. You can’t afford to let others to think on behalf of those around you. No wonder millions are influenced by commercials that convince people to smoke one brand of cigarettes over another, to drink one kind of soda or wear a certain type of shoe. If people were not at the mercy of others, commercials would not exist. Herbert Marcuse said, “To be cultured is the only way to be free….” Through education, our people will become ever freer and live more humane lives. This doesn’t depend on the abundance of a consumer society. The consumption promoted by the developed world is unsustainable. Just imagine if China had the same amount of cars per capita as the U.S.? We should ask Bush what would happen in the world the day that China—with all its progress towards democracy, free markets and development—could have as many cars per capita as the U.S. Mitchell: Mr. President, with George Bush and America, do you see better relations as possible between our two countries? Castro: Quite often unexpected things happen. I remember when relations between the United States and China were not that good. Nobody could think that they would improve the way they did. Apparently nothing is impossible. Of course, I don’t have to be a pessimist, although I don’t have a lot to base my optimism on. Mitchell: There are people in the United States, including this President, who say that things cannot improve until Cuba changes it’s system regarding human rights, the way elections are held, the ability to move from one place to the other without government permission? Castro: First, what if we said that in order to improve relations with the U.S., you had to change your constitution. What if we said that the United States needed to change its political system? What if we said that the United States needed to change its economic system to improve relations with us? We’ve never said anything like that. It’s not logical to put those kinds of conditions on anyone else. Much less when you take into account that the United States does not put conditions on relations with other countries. The United States has relations with other countries without setting conditions. Mitchell: There are international standards and the UN declaration of human rights, which you respect, says that people should have the right to free media without government involvement, the right to move from one place to another without government permission. Is the UN wrong, or is the rest of the world wrong? Castro: I have my views about that... I think that our country has proven over a course of four decades that it has a very high conception of human rights. How do other countries in the world conceive of human rights? If there was a real understanding about human rights, 11 million children would not starve in the world every year. So many others would not die for lack of medicines and health care. And, practically one billion people in the world would not be illiterate. These things would not happen if there were real human rights in the world. And millions of people around the world have no access to schools or to an education; they lack the most basic elements of security. So, we respect human rights not only for the people of our country, but also for those in other countries around the world. And this is nothing new. Even during the harshest years of the special period, thousands of students from other countries, poorer countries, came to study in Cuba on full scholarships. At the moment three thousand Cuban doctors are working for free in scores of countries around the world. We’ve also sent our teachers abroad. We have a universal concern for human rights. Mitchell: That is universally acknowledged, and we have reported it, and many people have praised your educational system, your healthcare system, but still say, that dissidents should not be put in jail, that people should have more freedom of assembly, that there should be more freedom of speech here. Castro: I should say here that I didn’t understand what you said earlier about freedom of movement. I don’t know where that comes from—the claim that we’ve taken measures to prevent what happens in other Latin American countries. The mega cities, shantytowns springing up around the big cities. Proof that there are few restrictions in Cuba is the fact that the city of Havana has doubled in size and population. People come and go freely in the country. There are no restrictions on travel inside the country. I think, Andrea, that is a simple fabrication. People move around freely. I told you only yesterday that hundreds of thousands of people have left this country and a minority of them for political problems. Most are economic migrants—just as you find in Central America and Mexico. They are seeking a better standard of living. We’ll never be able to offer the same salaries that a wealthy nation can. Cuba has set no restrictions. Mitchell: But if someone wants to move from one province to anther province, don’t they have to get government permission? Castro: Andrea, of course, they are free to move about. You should travel around the country and ask people themselves. Ask them if they are free to move around the Island. It’s so absurd. Mitchell: If I’m Cubana and I want to buy a car—a normal average Cuban without a special job or special status—don’t I have to get permission to buy and sell it at government rates? Many people can’t buy cars. Castro: There are tens of thousands of cars in the country. Those people who have cars can sell it to each other. We don’t import cars, to commercialize them in the county. Over the past 40 years, we’ve imported very few cars because of gasoline and spare parts. That’s why there’s so many old cars and the Soviet-made Ladas. But, we don’t want to become a consumer society. We’ve opened bicycle factories. In addition to public transit, bicycles are one of our main forms of transportation. Now the shops do not sell cars. There are things they don’t sell. Who here has the money to buy a car?
Well, maybe the farmers because they make lots of money. It’s a question of economics. Cars cost convertible currency. And we have to consider very carefully what we spend our money on. Large fuel demands and spare parts are not easy for us to justify. Mitchell: Can you see a time when you would move towards private property rights? There has been talk of this. Perhaps after the 6th party congress, you might move toward more property rights? Castro: I don’t see that on the horizon. Maybe there’s some talk about it but I haven’t heard it. We have implemented a number of reforms but we’re not headed towards capitalism. Speaking honestly, we’ve implemented measures that have created inequality. There are now people who earn lots of money as compared to others. There’s some who have very little compared to others who own a car and earn lots of money or someone who owns a truck and can earn much more money than a doctor, including top surgeons. We cannot pay a surgeon as much as someone might earn by being self-employed. You also run into people getting fleeced by the private sector. Movers charge 1,000 pesos to move you in a day. That’s what the truck owner charges. So, we have these inequalities. Self-employment is allowed but it creates inequalities. Education and culture are the most important properties people can own. If you want to ask me if we are headed towards capitalism, Andrea, I will tell you in all honesty that we are not. We are not marching towards capitalism. We are trying to have a more educated society, and to create better opportunities for everyone in order to narrow the gap between people who have lots of money and those who don’t. The workers, the ones who earn less money, are the backbone of the economy. We do not encourage parasites in this society. Mitchell: You said this morning that one of the super- powers melted away. People around the world think it melted away because of the socialist or communist economic system. Castro: Why haven’t we melted away—despite being blockaded during the “Special Period” and surrounded by all kinds of hostility? We’ve been threatened for 43 years with economic warfare. So, why didn’t we melt away? Our critics should know better. I have my own ideas about what happened (in the socialist world). Those revolutions were important revolutions but imposed from the outside. In some cases, they lost the ideological battle. We haven’t. Rather, we’ve won it. Here, people live in socialism with the advantages socialism has brought them. Recently eight million people signed (a petition) making their socialist system untouchable. Eight million people support socialism in this country. And that’s our people’s reaction. Mitchell: That’s because you are here. We see the way you are respected by the people who we visited. But, what happens as the future unfolds? What happens here in Cuba with the system to make sure your legacy continues? You told me once that your brother would succeed in the interim. Do you see a transition? Do you see a collective leadership? Castro: Yes, my brother has seniority but we should talk about the next generation. Even my brother is not that young. We, the generation that made the revolution, hold the greatest authority and have the most influence because of our history and years of struggle. But when you talk to me about the future, I think of other generations, younger people. There will be no problem if I die here tomorrow because we have lots of young people who are well trained, who know what to do, and we have comrades with great authority in this country. Yes, it’s true as you said. I have this prestige and authority but there are other comrades, too, younger people who have already won their stripes. But my brother and others are not so much younger than I am. We need to think about the future, when these key leaders are not here anymore—when the old leaders are gone. I am thinking about the younger generation and how they are prepared to preserve the future. Look, we have not had the conflicts other countries experience. In China and the former Soviet Union, they’ve had major conflicts between the generations. That’s not been the case here. Here, the younger generations are better prepared than the old generation, than my generation. Wherever we go, we see lots of well-trained young people—tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands capable of leading. We have over 600 deputies to the National Assembly (Parliament) from all over the country. Lots are young people who experienced the collapse of the Soviet Union. I’m not a fortuneteller but I’m confident they are better trained, better prepared, and better educated than we ever were. And they have sounder ideas to defend. Mitchell: When you got out of jail, or when you were arrested for fighting Batista, your defense was, I think, was that “history would absolve me.” Do you have any regrets about the revolution you’ve led, the way you’ve governed? How will history judge Fidel Castro? Castro: My one regret: that we should have done many more things before now. We could have done things better, and many more things if we had realized earlier all that we could do, and if we had all the experience that we have today. We could have done much more. The most important thing is that we have not changed our ideas, our principles, our values. As for history, Andrea, that is really relative. It seems to me that it would be vain for an individual to think about his legacy. I feel that it is not fair that leaders take credit for everything that happens around them. Millions of people accomplish things. It hurts me because there are millions of people who build, who teach. You saw the teachers in that school yesterday. There are millions of people doing things. We take some credit in the sense that we laid the groundwork for millions of people to accomplish things. But, that’s very different from taking credit for everything. Second, we’ve studied the biographies of many politicians. They have illusions about themselves. I read a phrase when I was a boy. Someone said: “All the glory of the world fits in a kernel of corn.” Believe me!
Someone said: “All the glory of the world fits in a kernel of corn.” Believe me! That’s one of those phrases that stuck in my mind. Some people tend to be vain. We try to avoid that. Over the course of history, humanity has made many mistakes. If humanity can finally survive its own mistakes, if humanity is capable of stopping the systematic devastation of nature, if within 100 or 200 years humanity is still around—and that’s only possible if values, education, knowledge and culture prevail—then those living in the future will look back at us the way we regard the primitive clans and tribes that began the evolution of society. We’ll be relics for those people 100 years from now. So, I don’t waste my time worrying about “my legacy.” People are just specks in the universe. We live for a very short time in this world. I do not share the concerns of many other politicians. What you in America call the legacy. I try to be realistic and rational. People pass away and things pass away. Earning merits is relative, depending on being in the right place at the right time. Many of my comrades died along the way and did not live to see our victory. It pains me to think about them. But, they did not die in vain. Others took their places, and more will follow. Like Che Guevara, for example. He was such an outstanding person. I knew him well. From our first meeting in Mexico in the wee hours one morning, he became a part of our movement. And he was a doctor by training but he was also a great military strategist. Tremendously generous and selfless. I’ve said that by the time practically every politician has been forgotten, people will still be talking about artists—Michelangelo, Raphael, da Vinci. The same people who love these artists couldn’t provide the name of even one of their contemporary politicians. You talk about the Seven Wonders of the World. The artist outlives the statesman or politician. Philosophers too, like Aristotle. People still discuss the Odyssey and the Iliad. Poets and artists. Anyone who really wants to be remembered should avoid the thorny grounds of politics and instead go into the arts. Cervantes, Shakespeare. Even Julius Caesar is remembered for the book he wrote about the battles he fought and won in the early days of Rome. Mitchell: I think you have answered everything. Thank you, Mr. President. I think history will not forget a man who led Cuba for more than four decades. NBC Editor’s Note: During their formal interview, Castro wore a business suit. But he chose his traditional olive green army fatigues when he escorted Mitchell to some of his government’s most secret sites. One of their first stops: Cuban biological laboratories—the perfect setting for him to angrily deny U.S. charges he may be secretly producing germ weapons: Castro: The problem here is not whether the equipment can be used to create one thing or another. But it totally lacks common sense. Absolutely. It makes no sense to use all these resources to theoretically produce biological weapons. And the scientists would not be willing to do that. Our people have been trained to discover vaccines and medicines. So it is absolutely ridiculous. I don’t care about such charges, because it’s stupid to think we would spend our resources on that. Those accusations have been made in bad faith. The ones making those charges know they are lying. They should be ignored and I ignore them. Mitchell: They say the same technology could be use for evil purposes. Castro: We are producing vaccines to protect our people. We don’t have to account to anyone. The fact that we let the Center for Disease Control and other scientists come here was to see for themselves. For dozens of years, we have been the victim of all kinds of biological attacks. Of course, we defend ourselves—with our doctors and our health care system. It makes no sense for us to begin producing the same weapons. That would even present a danger to our own people. A risk. It makes no sense to try and create a useless weapon against an enemy that is a thousand times more powerful. Saying we produce those weapons really insults our people’s intelligence. When they made those charges, we protested in a statement. We ridiculed them. We are too old, Andrea, to fear slander, lies and threats. Mitchell: Does it concern you, Mr. President, that you could export to Iran, which is one of the contracts, and Iran could use what they receive from you, the technology, for bad purposes? Castro: When you export a product, you cannot extract just anything from that product. We have some joint ventures to produce vaccines. Specific vaccines. Vaccines against Hepatitis B, interferon. These are very specific products, so it’s a ridiculous charge. Mitchell: The Cuban economy is still communist—under state control. But, perhaps nothing better symbolizes the potential for economic change in Cuba than a grain mill now grinding Kansas wheat—the first to be imported under a humanitarian waiver to the U.S. embargo in four decades. Do you want this to be the beginning of more with America? Castro: There’s a growing number of Americans who want to trade with Cuba. The U.S. Congress passed quite a rational bill. But, in the end, the enemies of that bill began adding amendments and more amendments until they whittled it down to practically nothing. They set very difficult trade conditions. For example, we had to apply for a license for every product every time. That made it nearly impossible to import anything from the U.S. On the other hand, it was humiliating. And, on top of that, too many strings attached.
And, on top of that, too many strings attached. But, after the tragedy of 9-11, we offered our help to the American people. We offered our airports. Then in November, we were hit by a devastating hurricane that destroyed thousands of homes. Many people suffered. The U.S. Administration offered us this humanitarian assistance. And, our policy is to reciprocate to every positive gesture with one of our own. The hurricane depleted our grain reserves. We needed to replenish them. We agreed to buy food. We did not want to receive it as charity. Almost 870 thousand tons of products will arrive from the United States this year. We have contracted more than one million tons next year. We’ve been paying in cash. Some people said we wouldn’t pay. We have paid without a second’s delay. Of course we need to tread slowly along this path. We need to be cautious because we cannot be tied to only one source of supplies. It would be too risky so we continue purchasing commodities from our traditional suppliers. Mitchell: Mr. President, I wanted to ask you, while we are talking about the economy, you have had to restructure the sugar industry. And one out of five workers are losing their jobs. You’ve cut 156 to 71 mills. What can you do for the unemployed? Castro: None of them have been laid off. We continue to pay their full wages. And we send them to school. Mitchell: How can Cuba afford to support these people? Castro: With part of the money we save by not producing sugar due to sugar’s very low prices and the very high cost of the fuel. Our sugar harvest is completely mechanized, demanding a lot of fuel. And those mills were anything but efficient. It cost us more to produce sugar than what we could sell it for. That’s why we had to close those sugar mills. This restructuring meant closing 70 sugar mills that were unprofitable. We have left 71 that are cost efficient. Mitchell: What will happen to those workers? Castro: The workers are very happy because they continue to receive their full salaries and are being re-trained to work in industries that pay more. They are not receiving unemployment benefits. People on unemployment can be quite miserable. It undermines their self-esteem. In this case, it’s quite the opposite. People are being paid to study and be retrained. So, the sugar industry was so unproductive, that we can continue to pay these workers and still save money. That’s the secret. NBC Editor’s Note: During the two days in Cuba, one visit overshadowed the rest. Castro showed NBC News a new computer college—built on the ruins of a top secret Russian spy station that eavesdropped on America until this past August. In a classroom once used by the KGB, Mitchell asks Castro about his spy at the Pentagon for 18 years—Ana Montes, who pleaded guilty to espionage and is now serving a 25-year prison sentence. Mitchell: You had a famous spy at the Pentagon? Castro: No. I heard that she disagreed with the aggressions against Cuba, the blockade (embargo) and she spontaneously cooperated without being paid. It was a matter of conscience. She passed on some information, not strategic information. Just information of interest to Cuba. What could we do? I think it was brave on her part, deciding to cooperate because she opposed U.S. policy. How many people in America might feel like that? Not all of them do the same. Their reactions are different. That’s what I’ve read in the newspapers. Mitchell: But to you she is not a spy. She is a patriot. Castro: I think she’s a noble, kind American opposed to a blockade that’s lasted over 40 years, plus all the terrorist actions committed against Cuba. Somebody who is capable of reacting that way is an exceptional person. I have not met her, nor have I been updated on the situation. This is what I have read about her. These are the statements she made at the trial and afterwards. She deserves to be respected and admired. —MSNBC, January 23, 2003 Top Contents Home Subscribe Write us [email protected]
[email protected] Home Current Issue Archives Arsenal of Marxism Subscribe Links Search Who We Are Donate Contact us Sep/Oct 2007 • Vol 7, No. 5 Click Here to Return to the Index Search the Site: Enter term and click Go! Hard and Obvious Realities By Fidel Castro Ruz Because of its importance, I am prioritizing this subject, among others. I am not going to deny that the prerogatives of power, whether real, relative or fictitious, have an influence on human beings, because they were all educated this way, right from the remotest of times of the species. I did not arrive in just a minute at what I am thinking today about power, but I consider that this is a matter of consistent thinking. I attribute the modest contribution of our Revolution to the fact that our responses to questions have never regressed, despite the harsh reality imposed upon us by the empire’s brutal blockade. In the reflection published on July 31st, I explained what it meant for me to have spent a year gathering information and meditating in depth on the vital problems which today threaten our species as never before. On July 24th, the Russian news agency Ria Novosti published the following information: “Colonel General Leonid Ivashov, a defense expert, stated that the main instrument of the U.S. policy is the economic, financial, technological and military dictate. “By implementing this, the U.S. is trying to secure the world’s hegemony for itself. Its national security strategy explicitly indicates the necessity of guaranteeing sustainable access, in other words, controlled access, to the key regions of the planet, strategic communications and global resources. It is a strategy that has been turned into a law, and this brings us to the conclusion that in the future the United States will face even tougher conflicts with Russia, China and India. “Washington insists on building a system capable of neutralizing the nuclear potential of Moscow and Peking, its strategic rivals, in order to achieve military superiority. The United States wants to deploy its anti-missile shield not just in Europe but also in other parts of the world, to see what is going on in Russia and China. Likewise, it is seeking to increase its offensive arsenal at a pace that surpasses even that which was followed during the Cold War. “After the collapse of the Soviet Union, NATO lost the status it had as a defensive organization when it was founded in 1949, and was transformed into a powerful and aggressive instrument at the service of the world oligarchy, eager to dominate the world. The new strategic concept of the Alliance, approved on April 1999 as a result of the efforts made by the United States, comprises new functions and expands its sphere of responsibilities to include the entire world, not just the North Atlantic. The current Secretary General of NATO, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, frequently visits Australia, New Zealand and Japan. The Alliance has started to ignore International Law and the UN Security Council. Meanwhile, the United States promotes the expansion of NATO and refuses to ratify the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE), taking on the right to act outside of any limitations and disposing of troops as it wishes. “The United States would do anything in its power to prevent Russia from being an autonomous player. The debates on anti-missile defense, Iran and Kosovo, have not generated any formulas for compromise. “It is important for Russia to consolidate its positions and recover its geopolitical potential. Early in the 1970’s, when Moscow had achieved nuclear parity with Washington, the latter became aware of the fact that it could not beat Moscow militarily and accepted to negotiate on equal terms. Consequently, in 1972, the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABMT) as well as all other subsequent Strategic Arms Limitations Treaties (SALT) were signed. Strength is the only thing that the United States cares about. If it feels to be in a stronger position, it will never make concessions to anyone. “In order to neutralize the plans for world hegemony it is necessary to build an alternative pole, and we already have the foundations to do so: the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). “In fact, it appears to be rather incorrect to speak about the United States strength. The United States has military power, a vigorous economy and an enormous amount of hard currency, which it can mint in unlimited quantities, but the geopolitical level of the country is extremely low. The United States inspires very little political confidence in the rest of the world. “In 1999, China and Russia stated before the UN General Assembly the need to preserve the Anti Missile Defense Treaty of 1972. All nations voted in favor of the proposal except for four: the United States, Israel, Albania and Micronesia. The result bears witness to the United States’ total international isolation. “Without the participation of Russia, it would be impossible to resolve the situation that has taken shape in the Middle East, the Balkans, the Korean Peninsula and other regions of this planet. This also holds true for China, which is able to [counter] the pressures exerted by the United States. China enjoys great prestige in the world; it has a powerful economy and a strong currency. “The SCO ought to recruit new allies and combine the potential of those countries, which want to and are capable of implementing an autonomous policy. First, it is necessary to officially proclaim the rejection [of U.S.] world hegemony. Second, China and Russia must denounce the deployment of the U.S. anti-missile defense system before the UN Security Council, as an action altering the architecture of global security and threatening the entire international community. China, India and Russia could form a united front in the face of the United States’ dictates. It is also possible to propose the stabilization of the global financial system as a task. Within the SCO framework, a novel philosophy could be formulated, based on the harmony among civilizations and on the rational use of natural resources. The majority of States will surely support such measures, of that I am convinced. Thus, a new political pole will come into being, the pole of peace.
Thus, a new political pole will come into being, the pole of peace. The SCO mission is to create a new model of development for human civilization. “Only an alliance of civilizations could oppose the United States’ empire: the Russian civilization whose orbit includes the Community of Independent States (CIS); the Chinese, the Indian, the Islamic and the Latin American civilizations. It is an immense space where we could create more equitable markets, our own stable financial system, our collective security mechanisms and our philosophy, giving priority to the intellectual development of man in the face of modern western civilization, which emphasizes material goods, and measures success by the amounts of mansions, yachts and restaurants people have. Our mission is to reorient the world towards justice and intellectual and spiritual growth.” So much for Ivashov’s essential thoughts, as published by Ria Novosti. We have been able to find out that General Leonid Ivashov is Vice President of the Academy on Geopolitical Affairs; he was Secretary of the Council of Defense Ministers of the Community of Independent States (CIS) and Chief of the Military Cooperation Department at the Russian Federation Ministry of Defense. On September 11, 2001, the day when the tragic events in New York occurred, which served as a pretext to define the basis of the genocidal policy of the United States almost 6 years ago, General Ivashov was the Chief of Staff of the Russian Armed Forces. He is a truly well informed man. It is worthwhile that our people know about his views. The concern, which the Cuban Revolution has always had about the education of the people, is obvious. Judging by my own experience, I soon came across the idea that only conscience could prevail over the instincts that govern us. Technological advances today speak of the possibility of manipulating the functions of the cells in the human brain. What good would all this do in a world ruled by the commercial value of goods and services? Who will have the final say in this regard? By this means and through the shameless brain drain, a phenomenon we should adamantly continue to discuss, the most valuable part of the human being could be destroyed: a human being’s education via its conscience. Laboratories can produce medicines to save lives, which could be something of great social value provided such products are available to all. But laboratories are also manufacturing all kinds of weapons that could put an end to human life. Commercial advertising and consumerism are incompatible with the survival of the species. After all possible calculations, you will realize that natural resources, space, climate, weather, and the system cannot yield any other outcome, given their pace and the direction in which they are moving. —Znet, August 3, 2007 Home Current Archives Arsenal of Marxism Subscribe Links Search About Us Donate Contact 2001-2007. Socialist Viewpoint Publishing
[email protected] Home Current Issue Archives Arsenal of Marxism Subscribe Links Search Who We Are Donate Contact us May/Jun 2008 • Vol 8, No. 4 Click Here to Return to the Index Search the Site: Enter term and click Go! The Empire’s Hypocritical Politics By Fidel Castro Ruz It would be dishonest of me to remain silent after hearing the speech Obama delivered on the afternoon of May 23 at the Cuban American National Foundation created by Ronald Reagan. I listened to his speech, as I did McCain’s and Bush’s. I feel no resentment towards him, for he is not responsible for the crimes perpetrated against Cuba and humanity. Were I to defend him, I would do his adversaries an enormous favor. I have therefore no reservations about criticizing him and about expressing my points of view on his words frankly. What were Obama’s statements? “Throughout my entire life, there has been injustice and repression in Cuba. Never, in my lifetime, have the people of Cuba known freedom. Never, in the lives of two generations of Cubans, have the people of Cuba known democracy… This is the terrible and tragic status quo that we have known for half a century—of elections that are anything but free or fair… I won’t stand for this injustice, you won’t stand for this injustice, and together we will stand up for freedom in Cuba,” he told annexationists, adding: “It’s time to let Cuban American money make their families less dependent upon the Castro regime… I will maintain the embargo.” The content of these declarations by this strong candidate to the U.S. presidency spares me the work of having to explain the reason for this reflection. José Hernandez, one of the Cuban American National Foundation directives who Obama praises in his speech, was none other than the owner of the 50-calibre automatic rifle, equipped with telescopic and infrared sights, which was confiscated, by chance, along with other deadly weapons while being transported by sea to Venezuela, where the Foundation had planned to assassinate the writer of these lines at an international meeting held in Margarita, in the Venezuelan state of Nueva Esparta. Pepe Hernández’ group wanted to renegotiate a former pact with Clinton, betrayed by Mas Canosa’s clan, who secured Bush’s electoral victory in 2000 through fraud, because the latter had promised to assassinate Castro, something they all happily embraced. These are the kinds of political tricks inherent to the United States’ decadent and contradictory system. Presidential candidate Obama’s speech may be formulated as follows: hunger for the nation, remittances as charitable hand-outs and visits to Cuba as propaganda for consumerism and the unsustainable way of life behind it. How does he plan to address the extremely serious problem of the food crisis? The world’s grains must be distributed among human beings, pets and fish—which become smaller every year and more scarce in the seas that have been over-exploited by the large trawlers which no international organization could get in the way of. Producing meat from gas and oil is no easy feat. Even Obama overestimates technology’s potential in the fight against climate change, though he is more conscious of the risks and the limited margin of time than Bush. He could seek the advice of Gore, who is also a Democrat and is no longer a candidate, as he is aware of the accelerated pace at which global warming is advancing. His close political rival Bill Clinton, who is not running for the presidency, an expert on extra-territorial laws like the Helms-Burton and Torricelli Acts, can advice him on an issue like the blockade, which he promised to lift and never did. What did he say in his speech in Miami, this man who is doubtless, from the social and human points of view, the most progressive candidate to the U.S. presidency? “For two hundred years,” he said, “the United States has made it clear that we won’t stand for foreign intervention in our hemisphere. But every day, all across the Americas, there is a different kind of struggle—not against foreign armies, but against the deadly threat of hunger and thirst, disease and despair. That is not a future that we have to accept—not for the child in Port au Prince or the family in the highlands of Peru. We can do better. We must do better… We cannot ignore suffering to our south, nor stand for the globalization of the empty stomach.” A magnificent description of imperialist globalization: the globalization of empty stomachs! We ought to thank him for it. But, 200 years ago, Bolivar fought for Latin American unity and, more than 100 years ago, Martí gave his life in the struggle against the annexation of Cuba by the United States. What is the difference between what Monroe proclaimed and what Obama proclaims and resuscitates in his speech two centuries later? “I will reinstate a Special Envoy for the Americas in my White House who will work with my full support. But we’ll also expand the Foreign Service, and open more consulates in the neglected regions of the Americas. We’ll expand the Peace Corps, and ask more young Americans to go abroad to deepen the trust and the ties among our people,” he said near the end, adding: “Together, we can choose the future over the past.” A beautiful phrase, for it attests to the idea, or at least the fear, that history makes figures what they are and not the other way around. Today, the United States have nothing of the spirit behind the Philadelphia declaration of principles formulated by the 13 colonies that rebelled against English colonialism. Today, they are a gigantic empire undreamed of by the country’s founders at the time. Nothing, however, was to change for the natives and the slaves. The former were exterminated as the nation expanded; the latter continued to be auctioned at the marketplace—men, women and children—for nearly a century, despite the fact that “all men are born free and equal,” as the Declaration of Independence, affirms. The world’s objective conditions favored the development of that system.
In his speech, Obama portrays the Cuban revolution as anti-democratic and lacking in respect for freedom and human rights. It is the exact same argument, which, almost without exception, U.S. administrations have used again and again to justify their crimes against our country. The blockade, in and of itself, is an act of genocide. I don’t want to see U.S. children inculcated with those shameful values. An armed revolution in our country might not have been needed without the military interventions, Platt Amendment and economic colonialism visited upon Cuba. The revolution was the result of imperial domination. We cannot be accused of having imposed it upon the country. The true changes could have and ought to have been brought about in the United States. Its own workers, more than a century ago, voiced the demand for an eight-hour work shift, which stemmed from the development of productive forces. The first thing the leaders of the Cuban revolution learned from Martí was to believe in and act on behalf of an organization founded for the purposes of bringing about a revolution. We were always bound by previous forms of power and, following the institutionalization of this organization, we were elected by more than 90 percent of voters, as has become customary in Cuba, a process which does not in the least resemble the ridiculous levels of electoral participation which, many a time, as in the case of the United States, stay short of 50 percent of the voters. No small and blockaded country like ours would have been able to hold its ground for so long on the basis of ambition, vanity, deceit or the abuse of power, the kind of power its neighbor has. To state otherwise is an insult to the intelligence of our heroic people. I am not questioning Obama’s great intelligence, his debate skills or his work ethic. He is a talented orator and is ahead of his rivals in the electoral race. I feel sympathy for his wife and little girls, who accompany him and give him encouragement every Tuesday. It is indeed a touching human spectacle. Nevertheless, I am obliged to raise a number of delicate questions. I do not expect answers; I wish only to raise them for the record. 1. Is it right for the president of the United States to order the assassination of any one person in the world, whatever the pretext may be? 2. Is it ethical for the president of the United States to order the torture of other human beings? 3. Should state terrorism be used by a country as powerful as the United States as an instrument to bring about peace on the planet? 4. Is an Adjustment Act, applied as punishment on only one country, Cuba, in order to destabilize it, good and honorable, even when it costs innocent children and mothers their lives? If it is good, why is this right not automatically granted to Haitians, Dominicans, and other peoples of the Caribbean, and why isn’t the same Act applied to Mexicans and people from Central and South America, who die like flies against the Mexican border wall or in the waters of the Atlantic and the Pacific? 5. Can the United States do without immigrants, who grow vegetables, fruits, almonds and other delicacies for U.S. citizens? Who would sweep their streets, work as servants in their homes or do the worst and lowest-paid jobs? 6. Are crackdowns on illegal residents fair, even as they affect children born in the United States? 7. Are the brain-drain and the continuous theft of the best scientific and intellectual minds in poor countries moral and justifiable? 8. You state, as I pointed out at the beginning of this reflection, that your country had long ago warned European powers that it would not tolerate any intervention in the hemisphere, reiterating that this right be respected while demanding the right to intervene anywhere in the world with the aid of hundreds of military bases and naval, aerial and spatial forces distributed across the planet. I ask: is that the way in which the United States expresses its respect for freedom, democracy and human rights? 9. Is it fair to stage pre-emptive attacks on sixty or more dark corners of the world, as Bush calls them, whatever the pretext may be? 10. Is it honorable and sound to invest millions and millions of dollars in the military industrial complex, to produce weapons that can destroy life on earth several times over? Before judging our country, you should know that Cuba, with its education, health, sports, culture and sciences programs, implemented not only in its own territory but also in other poor countries around the world, and the blood that has been shed in acts of solidarity towards other peoples, in spite of the economic and financial blockade and the aggression of your powerful country, is proof that much can be done with very little. Not even our closest ally, the Soviet Union, was able to achieve what we have. The only form of cooperation the United States can offer other nations consist in the sending of military professionals to those countries.
The only form of cooperation the United States can offer other nations consist in the sending of military professionals to those countries. It cannot offer anything else, for it lacks a sufficient number of people willing to sacrifice themselves for others and offer substantial aid to a country in need (though Cuba has known and relied on the cooperation of excellent U.S. doctors.) They are not to blame for this, for society does not inculcate such values in them on a massive scale. We have never subordinated cooperation with other countries to ideological requirements. We offered the United States our help when hurricane Katrina lashed the city of New Orleans. Our internationalist medical brigade bears the glorious name of Henry Reeve, a young man, born in the United States, who fought and died for Cuba’s sovereignty in our first war of independence. Our revolution can mobilize tens of thousands of doctors and health technicians. It can mobilize an equally vast number of teachers and citizens, who are willing to travel to any corner of the world to fulfill any noble purpose, not to usurp people’s rights or take possession of raw materials. The good will and determination of people constitute limitless resources that cannot be kept and would not fit in a bank’s vault. They cannot spring from the hypocritical politics of an empire. —Granma, May 25, 2008 Home Current Archives Arsenal of Marxism Subscribe Links Search About Us Donate Contact 2001-2008. Socialist Viewpoint Publishing
Fidel Castro Internet Archive First Speech by Commander in Chief Fidel Castro Ruz on Radio Rebelde, April 14, 1958 Delivered: April 14, 1958 Source: http://www.fidelcastro.cu/en and Versiones Taquigráficas - Consejo de Estado Markup: David Walters, 2019 Online Version: http://www.fidelcastro.cu/en To public opinion in Cuba and to the free people in Latin America. I have been marching day and night without rest from the Column No. 1area of operations under my command, to be present at this appointment with the rebel radio station. It’s hard for me to leave my men at this time, even for just a few days. But speaking to the people is also a duty and a need that I could not fail to fulfill. As hateful as tyranny is in all its aspects, none of them is so irritating and crudely cynical as the absolute control that it has imposed on all the media for disseminating printed, radio and television news. Censure is so disgusting in itself, and it becomes much more disgusting when it’s used not only to try but also to hope to hide the truth from the people about what has happened, through the partial and exclusive use of all common means of communication, to make the people believe whatever better suits the safety of their executioners. While they are concealing the truth at all costs, they report lies by all means. The people do not hear news other than the dispatch by the Staff of the Dictatorship. The outrage of censorship is imposed on the press together with the outrage of lies. And those same newspapers and broadcasters, upon which a severe and vigilant inquisitor prevents the publication of any real news, are obliged to inform and issue all that the dictatorship reports. The organs of opinion are snatching the people to turn them into vehicles of oppression. Tyranny constantly tries to deceive the people, as if the mere fact of denying any information, which does not go to the people from official sources, were sufficient to invalidate all their information. And whom will the people believe? The criminals who tyrannize the people, the traitors who snatched the Constitution and the people’s liberties, those who censure the press and prevent the free publication of the most insignificant news? Clumsy folks, if you think about it, because you can force a people to everything, but never to believe! When the real history of this struggle will be written and every event that took place with the official dispatches of the regime will be confronted, then it will be understood to what extent tyranny is capable of corrupting and debasing the institutions of the Republic, to what extent the forces at the service of evil are capable of reaching the extremes of criminality and barbarism, to what extent a mercenary soldiery without ideology can be deceived by its own chiefs. What does it matter after all to the despots and executioners of the people to deny history? What worries them is to get out of the way and postpone the inevitable fall. I do not think that the General Staff lies in shame. The General Staff of the Cuban Army has shown it has no shame whatsoever. The General Staff lies by interest; it lies to the people and to the army; it lies to avoid demoralization in the army’s ranks; the General Staff lies because it refuses to recognize before the world its military incapacity, its condition of mercenary chiefs, sold out to the most dishonorable cause that can be defended; it lies because it has been unable, despite its tens of thousands of soldiers and the immense material resources, to defeat a handful of men who rose up to defend the rights of the people. The mercenary rifles of the tyranny crashed against the idealistic rifles that do not collect any salary. Neither military technique, nor the academy, nor the most modern weapons were of any use to them. The fact is that the military, when they do not defend the country but attack it instead, when they do not defend their people but instead they enslave the people, they cease to be an institution and they become an armed gang; they cease to be soldiers and become delinquents. And they stop deserving not only the salary they wrest from the sweat of the people, but even the sun that covers the earth they have bloodied with dishonor and cowardice. These same military men who have never defended the Homeland from a foreign enemy, who have never won a medal on the battlefield, who owe their rank to treason, nepotism and crime, issue war dispatches announcing 10, 20, 30 and up to 50 compatriots killed by their homicidal weapons as if they were victories of the Homeland, as if every Cuban killed, because those are the casualties they announce, did not have brothers or children, a wife or parents. There would be enough people to wage a victorious war just with the relatives of those killed compatriots. We have never murdered any enemy prisoners. We have never abandoned a wounded adversary on the battlefield; that is and always will be for us an honor and a mark of glory; we feel with pain the death of every adversary, even though our war is the fairest of wars because it is the war for freedom. However, the Cuban people know that the struggle has been waged victoriously; the people of Cuba know that over seventeen months, since we disembarked with a handful of men who knew how to face up to the initial defeat without ceasing their patriotic enterprise, the Revolution has been growing incessantly; what was just a spark only one year ago is today an invincible blaze; the Cuban people know that we’re no longer fighting alone in the Sierra Maestra from Cabo Cruz to Santiago de Cuba, but that there are people also in the Sierra Cristal from Mayarí to Baracoa, in the plain of the Cauto from Bayamo to Victoria de las Tunas, in the province of Las Villas from the Escambray Mountains to the Trinidad Mountains and in the mountains of Pinar del Río; in the very streets of cities and towns the people are fighting heroically; but above all, the people of Cuba know that the will and determination with which we began this fight remains unshakeable, they know that we are an army which emerged from nothing, that adversity does not discourage us, that after each setback the Revolution has reemerged with more strength;
they know that the destruction of the Granma expeditionary detachment would not be the end of the fight but the beginning. They know that the spontaneous strike that followed the assassination of our Comrade Frank País did not wipe out the tyranny but it marked the way for the organized strike; that no government can stay in power supported by the pile of corpses with whose blood the dictatorship drowns the new strike, because the hundreds of young people and workers who were killed during these days and the unprecedented repression unleashed against the people does not weaken the Revolution; it makes it stronger, more necessary, more invincible; that the blood spilled makes courage and indignation greater; that every comrade falling in the streets of the cities and on the battlefield awakens in their idealistic brothers an irresistible desire to also give their lives; every comrade who falls awakens the desire to fight in the indolent, it awakens the feeling of the Motherland bleeding for its dignity in the persons who are ambivalent and it awakens sympathy and the adhesion of all the peoples of the Americas. No, those dispatches by the General Staff announcing clusters of corpses with tones of jubilation do not discourage anyone; they outrage the nation and stimulate it to fight. They cannot discourage the people, not even when it’s known that they are undertaking the worst of the fight, that enemy troops are being beaten along the line, that the latest victorious battles of our forces were fought four kilometers from Manzanillo in full daylight and in plain sight, imposing enormous casualties on the dictatorship. Let’s not lie to ourselves; our worship of freedom and the decorum of man is the worship of truth as an additional right of the people, something that the despots do not know how to respect or fulfill. Enemy casualties are in proportion of ten to one with respect to ours since this fight began. When the General Staff announces the deaths of thirty, forty or even fifty rebels, they are invariably talking about defenseless peasants, arrested in their homes and mercilessly murdered. Many officers who command the dictatorship’s troops in the Sierra Maestra have received their ranks this way. Promoting these assassins because of massacres perpetrated against defenseless compatriots has been put into practice and it has stimulated one of the most repugnant and inhuman procedures that can be conceived of in a war. There are other heroic deeds of the dictatorship that have nothing to do with courage and military honor. Desperate and impotent, they have put into practice the criminal tactics of systematically bombing and machine-gunning family homes. This measure, unexpected because of its absurdity, surprised the population living in the north of the Sierra without anti-aircraft shelters, and it has caused many victims. Last Thursday on April 10th, after the combat at Pozón where a detachment of the dictatorship was completely destroyed as it was leaving Yara to pursue a rebel patrol that had attacked a convoy on the Manzanillo-Bayamo highway, three B-26 aircrafts, a jet and two light aircraft mercilessly attacked the village of Cayo Espino for two hours; there was no military objective there. Not one single house escaped being hit by the shrapnel. An improvised blood bank and hospital in the rearguard with three doctors from the July 26th Moment provided medical care to the wounded who had to wait for night to be transferred. A five-year-old boy bled to death on the way lying on a crudely improvised surgical table, his legs ripped off by a 50-caliber bullet which had also wounded his two little sisters. No spectacle has impressed us so much as that of the dying boy who, without crying, barely was able to call out to his grandmother to tell her that he had loved her very much, but "I could not love her anymore because I am going to die." It was as if this little child was aware of his sacrifice, as if he understood that he too was dying for detesting those barbarians who attack humble family homes with machine-guns. Journalists from four countries witnessed, listened to and filmed that scene. Even though they were familiar with the toughness of this fight that event nevertheless infuriated them with indignation. Perhaps they were reminded of their own children. It was difficult to understand how Cuban hands were capable of perpetrating such a crime. What need was there for committing such barbarity? What military purpose could be achieved by attacking that defenseless hamlet many miles away from the scene of combat with machine-guns? What strange design guides the minds of barbarians who use the resources of the nation to carry out those horrors against their own people? How much cowardice and cruelty of those pilots who, sitting comfortably in their aircraft, without any risk to their lives, murder innocent women and children! But we have taken note of the day and the hour to demand the punishment they deserve when the moment comes to render accounts, and we mark their names and surnames with indelible stigma so that even their own children are ashamed of them. The pilots who machine-gunned Cayo Espino on April 10 at 3:40 p.m. are war criminals who dishonor the Cuban nation, but not the army which was shameless enough to be responsible for the crime of genocide it is committing against Cuba. The defeats suffered aren’t revenged in such a way! A revolution is not crushed in such a way! The memory of the dying child will never be erased from the minds of the peasants or those of our men when they go to battle. When the tyranny falls, there in Cayo Espino, we will erect a monument to the child Orestes Gutiérrez Peña, symbol of the innocents who have fallen; it will be a tribute of tender remembrance from our Liberating Army to the heroism of the children in whose minds affection and devotion for our combatants are unanimously present. And next to the name of the innocent who was murdered, posterity will read the names of the pilots who murdered him. The peasant population has been instructed to construct anti-aircraft shelters urgently against the shrapnel and "napalm" bombs being used by the dictatorship.
If these events can be perpetrated by an armed government against its own citizens and people, it is necessary to understand that mankind has advanced very little in the efforts of protecting people from barbarism. There are the United States, with the weapons for Continental Defense used by its friends, the dictators of America. These dictators will not tire of repeating the lie that we are "communists" to justify sending weapons as if they were the representatives of democracy, dignity and the most sacred rights of the men. With the word democracy on the lips of tyrants, what a sad and shameless campaign they are carrying out against the oppressed peoples. It is said that the sale of weapons to the Batista government has been canceled by the US State Department. But the results have not been changed in the least: the United States is selling arms to Somoza and Trujillo; Somoza and Trujillo sell arms to Batista. What does the Organization of American States do? Do the dictators have a right to conspire for massacring the Cuban people? And the democratic governments of America, the leaders and the democratic parties of the Continent, what are they doing with their arms crossed? If dictators help each other, why shouldn’t the people help each other? Are we not obliged to help the sincere democrats in all the Americas? Have we not paid dearly enough for the sin of our indifference to the concert of tyrants who promote the destruction of our democracies? Is it not clear that Cuba is fighting a battle for the democratic ideal of our continent? Do you not realize that the last dictators have turned Cuba into one of their last trenches? In Cuba one does not fight for the redemption of a single people but for the defense of a principle that concerns America. If the dictators help Batista, it is fair that the peoples of America help Cuba. On behalf of the people of Cuba who are fighting against the weapons of Batista, Trujillo and Somoza, we demand help from the democratic governments of America. A huge territory on the southern coast of Oriente (Eastern) Province, between Cabo Cruz and Santiago de Cuba, is in the hands of our forces. Weapons that are parachuted in ten kilometers from the coast along that wide area will inevitably fall into our hands without the dictatorship intercepting them. We need automatic rifles, heavy machine guns, bazookas and mortars to advance to the capital. The Provisional Revolutionary Government will defray all the expenses that these shipments cause and the people of Cuba will be eternally grateful. We the Cuban rebels do not ask for food, we do not even ask for medicines; we ask for weapons to fight, to firmly establish in America that the will of a people is more powerful than the consortium of the dictatorship and its mercenary armies. The revolutionary forces of the July 26th Movement will continue the offensive that began several weeks ago. Communications will be kept interrupted by our forces on the highways and railways of Oriente. The militias of the July 26th Movement must extend this measure to the rest of national territory prohibiting civilian traffic and constantly inflicting casualties on military elements that will inevitably be forced to move through them or leave the island. The war against transportation must be total and permanent; food supplies must be cut off altogether. The people should not travel on roads or railways to avoid the risks of being shot. To be effective the order to shoot must be against any vehicle that travels day or night, since the dictatorship uses the procedure of transporting soldiers dressed as civilians and any prior identification is impossible. All forces and resources of the July 26th Revolutionary Movement must concentrate on that goal. The repressive forces of the regime, not even its legion of confidants and traitors will be able to counter this progressive and total standstill in the country. Tyranny will have to suffer from the standstill, suffocation and hunger. With this slogan I say goodbye to return to my men. To all the columns operating in Oriente Province and to their commanders, our warm congratulations for the successes obtained. To the militias of the July 26th Revolutionary Movement, our recognition and admiration for the heroism with which they are fighting in towns and cities. To the rebels in Las Villas and the other nuclei in the rest of the island, our fraternal and encouraging greeting. To the people of Cuba, the security that this fortress will never be defeated, and our oath that the country will be free or even the last combatant will die. Fidel Castro Ruz Commander in Chief of the July 26th Revolutionary Forces Versiones Taquigráficas - Consejo de Estado Fidel Castro Internet Archive
Fidel Castro Internet Archive Speech delivered by Commander in Chief Fidel Castro Ruz during the funeral rites honoring the victims from the explosion of La Coubre Vessel, held in Colon cemetery on the 5th day of March 1960 Delivered: March 5, 1960 Source: http://www.fidelcastro.cu/en from a short hand version. Translation of the stenographic version, Stenographic Versions – Council of State. Markup: David Walters, 2019 Online Version: http://www.fidelcastro.cu/en Comrades: There are moments of great importance in the history of nations; there are extraordinary minutes, such as this tragic and bitter moment we are going through today. Foremost, so that we are not thought of as carried away by emotion, so that it can be clearly seen that there is a people capable of standing with our head held high, with courage, a nation that knows to calmly analyze situations without resorting to lies or pretexts or base on absurd suppositions, but on obvious truths, the first thing we have to do to analyze the facts. Yesterday afternoon, when we were all devoted to work – workers, State employees, Government officials, members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces, students –, I mean, devoted to the most decent task a people can undertake, devoted to work in order to carry out the bigger jobs we have ahead, a huge explosion made our capital shudder. Motivated by that instinct of getting inside the root of the problems, the comrades and I who were working at that time got immediately worried about a serious situation that may be occurring in the power plants, or in San Ambrosio police station, or in a vessel that had entered the capital port with ammunition and explosives very early that morning. And as a sort of premonition, we imagined that something serious had happened; that that explosion, no matter the place it had occurred, had had to cause catastrophic consequences and lots of victims, as it had indeed unfortunately happened. About the subsequent event, everyone knows perfectly those next minutes of profound sorrow and anguish – though not fear – we lived in the city. In the first place, what was the reaction of the people? The people were not terrified by the explosion; they went to the place of the explosion. The people were not overwhelmed by fear, but by courage and, even though they did not know what had happened, they went there and found workers, the militia, solders and other members of the public force, all of them offering whatever help was in their power. Events could not be more tragic: the vessel was anchored in the wharf, its cargo was being unloaded at the time of the explosion and half of it virtually disappeared, sweeping the workers and soldiers who were carrying out that operation. People would wonder what the reason of that explosion was. Was it an accident? It is possible for those lacking of experience or knowledge on explosives to think of it as an accident. Explosives are known to explode and it is possible to imagine they can easily explode. However, that is not the case. It is not actually easy for explosives to explode; for them to explode they must be set off. Then, what had happened? The other answer was that it might have been sabotage, but how and where can this happen? Can sabotage be carried out in the presence of many people? Can sabotage be carried out in the presence of rebel soldiers and dock workers, at high noon? If it was sabotage, how could this sabotage be carried out? And in the first place, why sabotage and not an accident? What was the vessel carrying? That vessel was carrying bullets and also anti-tank and anti-personnel FAL rifle grenades. Bullets were already on the dock, there were no more bullets left in the ship. They had been carried in the hold of the stern, in the last division of the hold, that is, at the bottom of the hold, and workers had taken them out. There was an upper compartment that was the icebox of that hold, one of them had been turned in into the compartment holding the rifle grenades. The explosion did not occur while the bullets were being unloaded; the explosion occurred while the 30 tons of rifle grenades boxes were being uploaded. If there was no fire on that ship – because an explosion can be caused by a fire on board –, if there was no fire on that ship, could the explosion occur because one the boxes fell off, for example? In the first place, it was unlikely a box would be dropped because the dock workers knew what they were carrying, and it wasn’t the first time they handled that type of cargo. For years, explosives and supplies have been handled in the port of Havana, and we do not remember any explosion. The workers had had years of experience with this type of cargo and knew how to handle it and took precautions, such as placing a mesh on the board to avoid the possibility of a box falling; they were especially careful because they knew it was ammunition to defend the revolution. Moreover, it was not the first time they had done so, since on previous occasions they had even done it voluntarily for free, without charging a penny, as a contribution to the defense of the country. That is to say, those workers knew what they were carrying. It was unlikely a box would fall, but even if that slim possibility had occurred, even if one box had been dropped, does this mean that a box of grenades explodes when dropped, that it can explode if it falls? And all the less when they come from one of the best factories in the world manufacturing weapons and equipment that men have to manipulate in combat, and therefore they have to be covered with the greatest security, therefore it is practically impossible for them to explode when loaded, handled or preparing for shooting. As far as I recall, during all the war the worst that could happen was that a grenade did not explode when hitting the target, but we never knew of a grenade exploding in the rifle, since that grenade, when being propelled, receives the impact of the propelling charge, which is a strong impact, an impact that receives already without the safety catch, an impact the grenade receives already without the safety catch, and yet it does not explode. The worst that can happen is that, because it is defective, a grenade does not explode when hitting the target.
We have never known of a grenade exploding at the end of a rifle barrel. Then, what chance is there of grenades exploding when a box of them is dropped? Do grenades come without their safety catch? Are grenades loose inside the boxes? Are they transported without safety for the people who manipulate, load and upload them? Because it is necessary to calculate how many times these boxes are handled from the factory to the holds. Could it be considered logical in some sense that, even if unlikely events happened – the very unlikely event such as the fall of a box – an explosion could happen, that is, an explosion by accident? We can assure you that it is totally impossible! But since theoretical interpretation was not enough, we arranged for the relevant tests to be made, and this morning we ordered army officers to take two boxes containing two different types of grenades, load them in an aircraft and launch them from 400 and 600 feet, respectively. And here there are the grenades launched from the aircraft at 400 and 600 feet high, grenades exactly the same as those on that vessel. (He shows the grenades to the public.) Does it make any sense to suppose that grenades could explode when falling from 400 and 600 feet at eight feet high, taking into consideration all their safety conditions and the containers that are barely damaged with some dent, if any, at that height, plus the speed of the plane? To such an extent, that the boxes penetrated several feet into the ground as a result of the impact, and the wooden boxes were destroyed without the explosion of a single grenade out of the 50 grenades inside a box. I am sure that this test can be repeated a hundred or a thousand times, and the grenades will not explode, because for the explosives to explode, they must be set off. Many times during war bombs fell without exploding, and they served to supply us with explosives with which we made the mines, and we remember not a single case of accidental explosion by any of those weapons. They always had to be exploded. So it could not have been an accident, not by accident, it had to be intentional. It was necessary to dismiss all possibility of accident to accept the only reasonable explanation: an intentional explosion. But how could an intentional explosion happen? Could there have been sabotage in the presence of rebel soldiers, veteran rebel soldiers who were watching the uploading? Could there have been sabotage in the presence of the workers who were working there? If all precautionary measures were taken when conducting these operations, how can anyone think that sabotage could be committed in broad daylight in the presence of workers and soldiers? That person would have had to be a worker but it is illogical for us to expect sabotage from a worker. No doubt workers are determined and ardent supporters of our Revolution. But so as not to go only on theory, let us analyze the possibility of that sabotage. First of all, workers are searched to prevent them from carrying matches or cigarettes. They are searched to prevent them from being imprudent, and they have a delegate who observes the work they are doing. So they are not only searched, but watched out by soldiers and by their own delegates and comrades. Then sabotage in these conditions is practically impossible. Furthermore, these workers are very well known by their comrades, because they are not so many, they may be around 12 or 18, and in such case they are a small group and know each other very well. And another even more relevant factor is that the workers there did not know they were going to work on this ship. The vessel arrived in the morning. The first shift was from 11:00 a.m. to 1 p.m. and the persons in charge of it did not work in the compartment where the grenades were, but in a lower compartment in which the bullets were. They worked from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. When workers went to work, arrived the dock and there they were given their shifts without knowing in advance what ship they would work on, because more than 1,000 stevedores rotate on them and they can work in whatever ship. The second shift of workers gets the tickets at 12:30, to begin working at 1:00. That group of workers, a small group out of more than 1,000, did not know they would unload the explosives. So premeditation, plan, or preparation in those difficult conditions is not reasonable to believe. That is to say that sabotage would have to be done by a fortune teller, a person who knew that on that precise day he would be selected among 1,000 workers to upload explosives. In order to carry out such acts of sabotage, he would have to have everything ready; he would have to evade the register and the vigilance of soldiers and the delegate. These are impossible conditions because it would be like supposing that the group of revolutionary workers, who for a few minutes undertake the task of unloading those weapons which are to be used to defend their interests and rights, might arouse the slightest suspicion. Then, not by questions of moral conviction, but from a careful analysis, a thorough investigation and a detailed conversation with all workers, temporary workers and stevedores, we reached the conclusion that the sabotage could not possibly have been prepared in Cuba. The explosives went off in Cuba, but the mechanism that detonated them was not installed in Cuba; the mechanism that exploded the ship could not by any means have been installed in Cuba. This is why other possibilities had to be analyzed.
This is why other possibilities had to be analyzed. Could it have been the workers, the crew of the ship? Very difficult, very unlikely, because we have questioned them one by one, and we were very careful with those whose work was somehow related to the holds, the cargo and the keys, in the first place, those who had keys that day and opened the holds for the unloading to begin perished in the explosion. The ship officers were on board when the explosion occurred and one cannot imagine that anybody would think it is possible to set off 30 tons of dynamite in a ship and escape unharmed. Many of the crewmembers were saved, but that does not mean that anybody could ensure that anyone could get out alive after setting off 30 tons of explosives in a ship. Only four out of the 36 members of the crew were absent: three waiters, after they had served the food to the crew, and an oiler who was not on duty. This means that only four people were absent at that moment for absolutely logical reasons, the others were on board, including the two passengers. Then, it was unlikely the operation was perpetrated by any crewmember of the ship. As we went further in the investigation, we reached the conclusion that the sabotage was perpetrated from far away; that it was not prepared and it could not have been prepared by no means in Cuba; that it was unlikely that it could have been perpetrated by any of the crewmembers; and that, nevertheless, the possibilities increased as we analyzed the ship cargo. The unloading was watched very carefully because the weapons were of the interest of those soldiers and workers. We know our enemies and we take all possible pains. But thousands of miles away and far from knowing our problems, in countries that are not threatened by sabotage, explosions, stirred by revolutionary upheavals, or by the efforts of the counterrevolution, in a country like Belgium, the point of departure, how could an action like this be expected to be as difficult as here, where we are in permanent vigilance to avoid any act of sabotage? From questioning the ship's officer responsible for the cargo, we found out that the merchandise had been loaded in the presence of this officer, or when he was away, in the presence of another crewmember that he was unable to identify. Those loading conditions made much more easy and feasible the possibility of introducing some detonator to make the explosives go off. Therefore, we concluded that we should not look for the perpetrator of that sabotage here, but abroad, where conditions were much easier to prepare such an act. This means that there was an indisputable and proven fact: after 20 boxes had been taken out, the explosion occurred at the moment one of the remaining boxes was moved, it means, when that specific box was carried. When workers were to handle some new box – since they already had more than 20 boxes outside –, when they were going to carry some of the remaining boxes, the explosion occurred. That explosion could not have been an accident, that explosion had to be intentional. That is to say, the movement of a particular box activated the mechanism of some detonator, causing the explosion. We all know, with more or less details, that there are infinite procedures for making such explosive traps that are used a lot in war, that when moving a cap, a pencil or a chair, an explosion occurs, since it is extremely easy for a technician to set up any of those mechanisms between two boxes or under one box, so that moving the box will set it off. How did the boxes come along the way? The boxes came in compact rows, unable to shift, because boxes are placed very tight one against the other inside the hold or the icebox, so that they cannot move, meaning that they had no spare space to move. Such sabotage could be arranged without worry over an explosion before unloading. That is what happened. Workers had already removed the first boxed and when moving approximately box number 30 the explosion takes place, which could not be by accident, as we have shown. The explosion must have been prepared because those boxes were not in the first rows where any object could be seen, but in the second or third row. Thus, when moving a particular box in one of the rows the explosion occurs. That is the conclusion we reached, which is not based on emotion or a whim, but on the analysis, the evidence, the research we have done, and even on the experiments we have conducted, in order to first draw the conclusion that we were dealing with sabotage rather than an accident. And I am sure that there is no doubt about it, because what else could it be expected? Millions of tons of explosives are transported around the world every year and yet we do not hear of ships exploding. In our own country, for many years explosives have been transported and handled but we know of no explosion of this nature. And let us remember the Maine explosion, whose mysteries have not been perfectly explained by anyone. It even became the cause of a war because the nation to which the ship belonged – although it is supposed that it did not have a chance to investigate, it could not do as we did, to begin immediately with interrogations: talk to workers, crewmembers, everyone, although they did not have the chance to investigate – reached the conclusion that the ship had been blown up by an external mine, and declared war on Spain. Because the United States reached the conclusion that it had been an action perpetrated by Spain’s supporters moved by their hostility towards the United States, and based on no evidence or arguments and on mere suppositions, it went so far as to the transcendental act of declaring war on Spain. We have not had to abuse our imagination that much. We have not had to draw conclusions with such little foundation, because it seems rather unrealistic to imagine Spain, with its difficult situation and hard struggle, blowing up the U.S. battleship. That did not seem logical. Instead, we have more than enough reasons to believe that ours was a case of sabotage and that we know what international forces are encouraging the enemies or our people and our Revolution. We do have reasons to think that there were interests trying to keep us from receiving weapons. We do have reasons to suppose, or think, that those who promoted this sabotage could not be others than those interested in avoiding us from getting such supplies. Because, what would be the interest of the authors of such an act, if not avoiding us from receiving those explosives?
And we have to talk about that. Those interested in us not receiving the explosives are the enemies of our Revolution, those who do not want our country to defend itself; those who do not want our country to be able to defend its sovereignty. We know the efforts were made to keep us from buying those weapons. U.S. government officials were among the most interested ones in us not receiving those weapons. We can affirm it without this being a secret, because if it is a secret, it would be like those secrets that everyone knows. We are not the only ones to say this. The British Government said and stated that the U.S. Government did not want us to buy planes in Britain. U.S. authorities and spokespersons themselves have expressed their efforts to prevent Cuba from buying weapons. We have been fighting against such pressure. We have been fighting these obstacles. So, a country, a government, makes use of its own powerful international influence and moves itself in diplomatic circles to prevent a small country from arming itself; a country that needs to defend its territory from its enemies, a nation that needs to defend itself against the criminals who want to return, or against colonizers who want to keep us under slavery and starvation. We must continue fighting the pressure of a powerful and influential government in order to buy weapons. We can affirm that up to now we had achieved that a government and a European weapons factory, acting independently and firmly, opposed the pressure and sell us weapons. The Belgian weapons factory and the government of that country had opposed to pressures. Not once, but several times, the U.S. consul, a U.S. military attaché in Belgium and a military attaché working at the U.S. embassy in Belgium, had tried to prevent the factory and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from selling us these weapons. That is to say that officials of the U.S. government had made repeated efforts to prevent our country from buying these weapons, and they cannot deny this reality. And this reality means that they did not want us to acquire those weapons and that one must look for the guilty ones among those interested in preventing us from buying those weapons. We have the right to think that those trying to prevent us from purchasing that equipment by diplomatic means, could do so by other means too. We are not affirming they have done so, because we do not have conclusive evidence, and if we had them, we would be presenting them to the people and the world. I do say that we have the right to think that those who had not achieved their purposes by certain means, they could have tried by another. We have the right to think that we must look for the criminals among the interested ones. We do have the right to think that we must look for those responsible for the loss of the Cuban lives yesterday afternoon! In the first place, what right does any government have to interfere with the efforts of another government in defense of its sovereignty? What right does any government have to assume the tutelage of any part of the world? What right does any government have to prevent Cubans from buying the weapons that all nations acquire to defend their sovereignty and integrity? What nation would we try to prevent from buying weapons? What weapons purchase do we interfere? What obstacles would we place in the way of any nation seeking to arm itself? Who would think that a government living in peace, whose people live in peace with the other people, maintaining diplomatic and friendly relations – which must be friendly -, has the right to interfere in a way that that nation cannot acquire weapons? All the more if one considers that that country, represented by that government, is buying, in our territory, strategic materials it needs for its defense, without our interference in this acquisition of equipment, without our interference in their efforts to defend itself, without our interference in its affairs. Why can’t we acquire the means to defend ourselves? Why this interest on preventing us from buying means to defend ourselves? Do they expect our people to fall again under the boots of the bunch of criminals who subjugated us for seven years? Are they instigating the return of the big criminals? Or even worst, are they perhaps planning to seize our land? They do not want our people to have the means to defend themselves. Our country is not a danger to any country. Our country is not and never will be a military danger to any other country. Our country will never be able to develop an offensive power against any other country, because the strength of our Revolution in the world lies not in the military power, but in our tremendous moral force, in our tremendous example for the brotherly nations, for our brethren of the race, enslaved and exploited throughout the Spanish speaking America.
Our country will never be able to develop an offensive power against any other country, because the strength of our Revolution in the world lies not in the military power, but in our tremendous moral force, in our tremendous example for the brotherly nations, for our brethren of the race, enslaved and exploited throughout the Spanish speaking America. Our force will never be based on the military power. We are militarily strong to defend ourselves, but we are not, nor do we ever want to be militarily strong to attack anyone, because we do not aspire to submit or subjugate anyone. We are strong to defend ourselves. To defend one’s nation is another thing: it is a right, one of those rights the people know to defend against whatever power and force. We would never be strong to attack anyone, not only because we would not have the necessary weapons, men or resources, but because we would not have the right to attack anyone. That is why we would never be strong, even if we had resources and weapons, simply because we would never have the right to do so. And instead, we feel strong enough to defend ourselves. We are sure that we are strong to defend ourselves because we would be defending a right and we would know how to defend it. So, why shouldn’t we have the necessary means? Simply because they do not want us to defend ourselves, they want us to be defenseless. Why do they want us to be defenseless? Because they want to humble us, to subjugate us, so we do not resist the pressure, so we do not resist the aggressions. And do they have the right to hamper our efforts to acquire the means to defend ourselves against the authorities of a nation that has been unable to prevent its territory from being systematically used to bombard us? Perhaps tomorrow, the newspapers of that country will say that analyzing these truths and reasons is an insult to the people of the United States. It is worth clarifying that we are not insulting the people of the United States. We never have. What happens is that they say the truths are insults, and they say so to the people in order to portrait our people as the enemy of the United States’ people. The reasons we discuss with the rulers – who are responsible for the policy of that country – are not insults to the people, because, on the contrary, we consider that those who harm the U.S. people are those making such mistakes. Those offending the U.S. people are those making such mistakes. They say that reasoning, calling things by their names and clarifying those truths to the people, are insults, because they want difficult relations between nations, and there are no difficult relations between nations here, because Cuba will never have difficult relations with any other nation of the world. Nations are good, and they cannot be judged based on their rulers. It would not be fair to judge the Cubans, this magnificent people, based on the rulers the Revolution overthrew. The people are not to blame. But it seems that the truths cannot even be insinuated in this continent where we, Cubans, have learned to tell the truth, fearless of anyone. And these are the truths: planes enemies of our people, planes piloted by criminal mercenaries depart the United States, and the government of that country, so worried about us buying weapons, has not been able to prevent those flights. It has been seven years of bloody struggle and immense sacrifice since we achieved the triumph of the people. During those past days any citizen could be tortured or murdered in the streets of the cities or in the countryside. The most atrocious tyranny prevailed in our country. But all that was not an obstacle for ships loaded with bombs and ships loaded with shrapnel came from the United States, which did not explode in the port of Havana. However, we do not murder anyone, we do not torture anyone, and we do not hit a single human being. We have established respect for the human dignity and human sensitivity. Our Revolutionary government is characterized by that atmosphere of security, that feeling of peace, security and respect for the citizen. We do not torture and we do not murder, and yet the weapons that come to defend this regime explode upon reaching the port. On the other hand, the torturers of our people, the executioners of our people, those who ripped the lives of 20,000 compatriots, those who murdered students, peasants, workers, those who murdered men and women, those who murdered professionals, those who murdered any citizen, were directly receiving weapons and supplies that did not explode. When it is about a just revolutionary regime – a human revolutionary regime, a regime that has striven so hard to defend the interests of the people, the interests of our suffered and exploited people, exploited by the monopolies, exploited by the latifundia, exploited by the privileged ones, a regime that has freed the people from these injustices, a regime most of the people support, a human regime – they fight it. When it is about a criminal and inhuman regime, a regime of monopolies and privileges, they support it. What kind of democracy is that which helps criminals and exploiters? Democracy is the one we have, where human being is appreciated and always will be more than money! Because we will never shed a single drop of blood for money; we will never sacrifice a single drop of human blood for money or selfish interests. These facts are not isolated. Because who would be surprised that a ship explodes at the port while workers are working? Who would be surprised at a sabotage causing the death of workers? Who would be surprised if only a month ago – if it has been already a month – a U.S. aircraft coming from the U.S.
aircraft coming from the U.S. territory with a U.S. bomb and piloted by a U.S. pilot, tried to drop a bomb on a workplace where with more than 200 workers in it? And on that occasion I said: “What would have been the pain of our people today and what would have been the tragedy of our people today if we would be burring dozens of workers instead of these two corpses of mercenaries?” And as if those words were a premonition, we have had to come here to burry some dozens of workers and rebel soldiers. Who would be surprised that the perpetrators of that sabotage did not worry about the amount of victims they would cause, about the people they would kill? Who would be surprised about it if only a month ago they were going to drop a 100-pound bomb on a factory with over 200 workers in it? Who would be surprised if, when that event occurred, we calmly spoke to the people with proof in our hands, explaining what had happened, showing them the evidence, and even told them to send the technicians so that they verify the strict veracity of everything said. A month has passed and yet no one has been arrested in the United States, not a single person responsible for such acts has been found and no one has been bothered. On the contrary, few days after the incidents the light aircrafts came back and hardly a week later the town in which the Prime Minister of the Revolutionary Government lives was bombed. What is so strange about the explosion of a ship loaded with workers if they were going to drop a bomb over a sugar factory and they did not worry about bombing an area with children, dropping 100-pound bombs in that region? What is so strange if yesterday the Bohemia magazine published photographs of the air fleet that peacefully rests in the U.S. airports without being disturbed by anyone? What is so strange if yesterday we received the news that José Eleuterio Pedraza was in Washington? What is so strange about all those things that have been happening? The only difference is that on this occasion the blow has been hard and bloody. It was logical. Some months ago we had to go to the hospitals full of victims as a result of that incursion whose author still strolls through the U.S. towns and cities without anyone bothering him. What is so strange if a series of acts demonstrate the group of powerful interests conspiring against our Revolution; If only a few days ago large quantities of corn were released to replace Cuban honey in the manufacture of alcohol; If only a few days ago inspectors who observed the cultivation of fruits and vegetables we export to that country were retired; If everyone knows the law by which the sovereignty of our country is being subjected to the threat of not buying our sugar? I mean, if shortly the a law is going to be submitted to the Congress, by virtue of which the President of the Republic reserves the right at any time to remove, reduce or buy the sugar quote, if so considers. What does that mean? It means that our country has a very weak economic structure. But, why does our country has a weak economic structure? Because that was the structure the foreign masters gave to our economy; a one-crop economy, an economy of latifundia, an economy of an underdeveloped nation, a weak economy as a consequence of the policy implemented by the foreign masters of our economy for 50 years. And now, taking advantage of this dependence, this situation which we are trying to get rid of – that is what economic independence means –, taking advantage of this dependence, they want to adopt systems which try to subjugate our rights and our sovereignty. It means that if we make laws here, if we take action for the benefit of our people, they arrogate the right to starve our people. It means that, taking advantage of the economic situation they enjoy as a result of the policy of one-crop, latifundia and underdevelopment they applied here, and by threatening us with starvation, they try to restrict the rights of our people to be independent and sovereign. What does this mean if not an economic Platt Amendment? What does this mean if not to warn that if we take measures against the latifundia, against monopolies – measures for the benefit of our people –, reprisals will be taken against us, because we are a small country with a weak economy? Does it mean that if we make efforts to become a strong economy, to have our own economy, we are threatened with starvation? What is this if not an attempt to undermine the sovereignty of a country, an attempt to restrict the independence of a country? What is this if not that a government arrogates the right to decide on the destinies of another country by means of retaliatory measures? These are not measures that are taken to defend national interests. These are not measures that are taken to defend the interests of the U.S. people. These are not measures that are taken to guarantee the supply. No, these measures, contrary to ours – which are to defend the people, to defend the national interests, not as reprisal –, are retaliatory measures. These are not measures to defend national interests, but retaliatory measures against another country, while our measures are taken to defend the national interests and for the benefit of the people. Because none of the measures we take are aimed at starving the U.S. people. On the contrary, the measures we take restrict the voracious pocket of a few U.S. monopolies, but we do not restrict the means of subsistence or work of the U.S. people.
people. Our measures are against monopolies, against interests, not against the U.S. people. Their measures are not to defend the U.S. people, but measures of reprisal against the Cuban people. And, of course, it was needed a Revolutionary Government to proclaim that, it was needed a government of the people to proclaim that, it was needed a government fearless to proclaim it, fearless of threats or reprisals; fearless of the military maneuvers. And we could say: What is the purpose of military maneuvers in the Caribbean? What is the purpose of using landing maneuvers against positions occupied by guerrillas? What is the purpose of using maneuvers of troops transported on planes, in offensive operations? Because, as far as we know, the problems of the world are discussed at the summits, as they call it. The problems of the world are understood to be problems of directed projectiles, advanced science and technology, but we have not heard that the problems of the world are problems of guerrillas, nor have we heard that the problems of the world are problems here in the Caribbean and that there are international difficulties in the Caribbean. As far as we know the big nations do not think they can solve their military issues with guerrillas. We were the ones who had to use the guerrillas to fight the professional army of tyranny. We had to use such tactics against an army larger and better prepared than ours. But I have not heard that military issues are solved with guerrillas in the world. And when we see Marine Corps, landing maneuvers against guerrillas, we wonder why? Do they plan to land – I wonder myself – or just intimidate? Do they want to frighten us? Do they want to show us that we can be invaded at any time? Landings here are among the things being discussed by some spokesmen as possible. Who said that anyone can land here? Who said anyone can simply land here? For the time being, among the probable things – it is good to say that a day like today, because in fact we are already quite experienced in terms of patriotism and civism so that those insinuations could be used against us – and among the possible things being discussed, allow me to say that we feel simply amazed when they calmly say they would send here, among the possible things, the Marine Corps, as if we did not count at all. As if the Cubans would just stand by in case of any contingency! As if Cubans would not resist any troops landing here to try to subjugate our people! And it would be good to say, to say once and for all here, at this time when we come to deposit a considerable number of soldiers, workers and citizens in their tombs – who knows how many times we met them in our workplaces, in public gatherings or military facilities, or we met them in zones of operations; who knows how many times they were applauding and living, as you do now, full of noble hopes the Revolution has aroused in every humble Cuban, at a time when we come on a mournful pilgrimage to deposit their remains in the tombs, quietly and calmly, discharging a painful duty that we know well how to perform in a selfless manner, that we know how to comply knowing that tomorrow we can be others, as they were yesterday and as others were before them; because we, Cubans, have learned to look at death serenely and undisturbed; because Cubans have acquire a real sense of life, which begins by considering it unworthy when not living with freedom, when not living with decorum, when not living with justice, when not living for something great as it happens to Cubans at this moment –, before these dead people who were yesterday as we are today, the victims of who knows what murderous hands, we say that we are not afraid of any troop landings here. We would not delay for a single second in picking up our guns and taking up our positions, without even blinking or hesitating, to face any foreign troops landing in this country. We, I mean the Cuban people, its workers, peasants, students, women, young and old, even its children, will not hesitate to simply occupy their positions the day any foreign troops try to land in our beaches, either by ship, by plane or in parachutes, no matter how they come or how many they are. And it is good that we say all these without fanfare, as those who are really determined to fulfill what has been promised. If anyone doubted this, yesterday furnished proof to the most skeptical. Whoever had seen the people yesterday, whoever had seen that episode both wonderful and horrific, whoever had seen the crowds advancing towards the fire, how soldiers, workers, policemen, sailors, firemen, the militia, went to that center of danger, how they advanced to that place of death, without hesitating; whoever had seen what Cubans saw yesterday, whoever had seen the soldiers and the people advancing toward danger to rescue the wounded, to rescue the victims in that burning ship, in an area that was on fire, when it was unknown how many more explosions might occur; whoever had seen that waves, swept by the explosions, those who died not in the first explosion, but in the second one; anyone observing the people’s conduct yesterday; whoever had seen the people controlling traffic; anyone observing the people establishing order; whoever had seen the people advancing towards that explosion that left behind like a fungus, reminiscent of the fungus of nuclear explosions; whoever had seen the people advancing towards that fungus without knowing what was actually happening, can be sure that our people are capable of defending themselves, a people capable of advancing against the fungi left by nuclear bombs. And those were yesterday’s events. They were not an invention of our fantasy, but a reality that everyone could see. It is a reality we had to pay with dozens of valuable lives, of men who died when trying to save their comrades, who died quietly and calmly to save the lives trapped between the bend wreckage of that ship and among the buildings’ ruble, of firemen who were advancing without bothering to extinguishing the fire on buildings full of explosives. Whoever had seen scenes like those of yesterday, anyone who knows a people as dignified, forceful, generous and honest as ours, has the right to know that this is a people that will defend itself against any aggression.
May those who are disturbed in the most elementary common sense and dare to consider as possible any kind of invasion against our soil understand the monstrosity of their mistake, because this will save us many sacrifices. But unfortunately, had this happened, mostly to the dismay of those who attack us, let there be no doubt that here in this land called Cuba, here in the middle of this people called Cuban, they will have to fight against us as long as there is one drop of blood left in our veins. They will have to fight against us as long as there is an atom of life in us. We will never attack anyone and no one will ever need to be afraid of us, but anyone attacking us must know without fearing to be wrong that Cubans today – we are not anymore in the years 1898 or 1899, we are not living at the beginning of the century, or in the 1910s, 1920s or 1930s –, Cubans of this decade, Cubans of this generation, Cubans of this era – we are not better today, we are fortunate to have a better vision for the future, because we had the fortune to receive the example and lesson from the history, the lesson that cost so many sacrifices to our ancestors, the lesson that cost so much humiliation and pain to the past generations, because we have had the fortune of receiving that lesson –, this generation will fight in case of aggression until its last drop of blood, with the rifles we have, with the rifles we buy from those who want to sell them to us, plain and simple, with the bullets and weapons we buy where we seem best and with the weapons we know how to take off from our enemies during fight. And without worrying about the threats, without worrying about the maneuvers, bearing in mind that one day we were only 12 men and that, comparing our force at the time with the one of the tyranny, our strength was so tiny and so insignificant that no one would have ever believed possible to resist. However, we believed that we were resisting at that moment, as we today believe that we can resist any aggression. We believe not only that we will know how to resist any aggression, but that we will know how to overcome any aggression, and that again we would have no other dilemma than that with which we began the revolutionary struggle: that of freedom or death. Only that freedom now means something else: freedom means homeland. And our dilemma now would be homeland or death. On a day like today, sorrowful and tragic, painful for the people, painful for the government, painful for the families of the workers, soldiers and the citizens who died, in a moment so important like this, it would be good if we take these things for granted, and that our willingness to resist is not only the willingness to resist militarily. Maybe they think that we have the courage to die, that we have no courage to resist privations, but men have the courage to resist even the hardship they least imagine. If those men who began the struggle in the mountains had had no courage to resist privations, they would have been defeated. However, that was not the case because they were strong enough to resist privations. Weak men are the ones who do not have the determination to resist privations. Strong men and women are the ones who have the determination to resist privations. If during combat a nation has the courage to make any sacrifice, it should have also the courage to resist any privation. They are also mistaken when thinking that they will defeat us by means of economic reprisals. And at this point one could say that it is better to starve in freedom than to live enslaved in opulence; that it is better to be poor but free, even though the development of our richness might have a high price and imply a long road. Much more when we were poor and enslaved here, but at least now we are poor, but free. Someday we will be free and rich. No one can buy us with economic advantages, much less when economic benefits were never seen by anyone anywhere, because what everyone here saw was misery, injustice and exploitation. Those are the words that can be used to call the hundreds of thousands of children who have no school, or had no school, and that is what the miserable huts are called, that is what the months of dead time are called, that is what unemployment is called, and that is what the agony in which we live is called. And Cuba, our people, has done nothing but fight against these evils, has done nothing but strive to overcome those evils, we have done nothing but claim what is ours. We have done nothing but defend our possessions and ourselves. And that is, in the eyes of the international plutocracy, the wrongful act that Cuba has committed: to defend its possessions and its people against exploitation, against colonization. This is why the planes come, that is the reason for the ever-growing audacity of the criminals protected by that plutocracy. That is the reason why – while planes do not explode in other parts of the world, while planes do not launch bombs in other parts of the world –, in our homeland, workers are threatened in their workplaces by 100-pound bombs, or threatened in their workplaces by an apocalyptic explosion. That is the cause of the hatred of the powerful oligarchy that fight us; that is the reason of the conspiracy against our homeland. We understand it well because it is necessary that we know how to understand our problems. We must know how to understand these truths, and we must proclaim them. Just as it is necessary that those interests and conspirators know what to expect and know that it is not about making plans from abroad on the problems of the country, its solutions, or the counterrevolutionary acts. They must know that in order to make plans on our country, in the first place, they have to count on us, because if they don’t, as if we do not exist, then they will face the consequences. Today we have come to conclude one of our saddest days, but indeed one of the most firm and symbolic days of our homeland. Who would have guessed only 14 months ago – when we meet rebel soldiers on the streets of Oriente province, amidst the overflowing joy of that people –, that, one day like today, we would have to walk the same streets in the midst of the sadness and pain of that same people, to bury, among a group of workers, a group of those soldiers who passed by here carrying the national liberation banners?
Who would have guessed that the perpetrators and accomplices of the murderers of so many thousands and thousands of Cubans would force us once more – and who knows how many times more – to come and weep beside the tombs of other victims, other citizens annihilated by the same criminals and the same allies? But however bitter it may be, it is true. And here we are fulfilling this painful duty, which we will fulfill as many times as necessary. We will fulfill it, one day as part of the procession and another day inside the coffin, if necessary. We will know to fulfill it because behind those who fell there will come others, behind those who fell there are others still standing! Great has been the loss in these 14 months; dear and unforgettable comrades who are no longer among those who walked behind the coffins; comrades who have disappeared from our ranks while fulfilling their duty. However. The ranks continue to march. The people are still standing, and that is what matters! What an imposing spectacle of a standing people! What a wonderful and impressive spectacle of a standing people! What a spectacle like this one today! Some years ago it would have seemed a dream to watch them march together as they do today. Who could have dreamed some years ago that workers’ militias would be marching side by side with the university brigades, side by side with the soldiers of the Rebel Army, side by side with the navy and the police, side by side with a column of peasants forming their martial and compact ranks wearing their mambí hats and carrying a rifle on their shoulders; guajiros from the mountains who are accompanying us today in this moment of pain, so that no one be unrepresented, so that there, where ministers and citizens stand together, the whole nation stands together showing its generosity, fighting spirit and heroism. Who could have dreamed that one day soldiers and workers would not be enemies; that one day soldiers, workers, students, peasants and the people would not be enemies; that one day intellectuals would walk arm in arm with the soldiers; that one day the thought, the labor force and the guns would march together as it happened today! They used to march separated, they used to be enemies, the homeland used to be divided into dissimilar interests, dissimilar groups, dissimilar institutions. Today the nation is a single feeling, the nation is a single force, the nation is a single group. Today, peasants and soldiers, students and the police, or the people and the armed forces do not fight between them. Today, we all emerge from the same yearning and aspiration. People and soldiers are identical. They used to fight each other, but today they fight together. They used to walk in different directions, but today the walk together. Today workers and soldiers march together, die together, help one each other, give their lives to save others, as dear brothers. That is the reason why today I see our homeland stronger than ever, I see our Revolution more solid and invincible than ever, our people more gallant and heroic than ever. Today it is as if that blood, which was the blood of soldiers and workers, the blood of Cuban workers and French workers… French workers died fulfilling their duty while transporting those goods that will serve to defend our sovereignty, which is why we have not forgotten them when it comes to help our own people. When it comes to help the families of the Cubans who died, we have not forgotten those French workers who fell in that act of vandalism perpetrated by the murderous enemy hands. We have not forgotten workers here and from other parts of the world, who yesterday united their blood with the French blood, the same blood of those who cried out for freedom in the first great revolution of the modern history of humankind. The blood of Cuban workers was united to the blood of French workers. That is why we, who see them as brothers, have shown the same generosity when providing help for their families, because they also have wives, mothers and children. To us, a generous people as ours, this meant an act of elementary solidarity that we all feel for all peoples of the world. As I said, today I see that our nation is more glorious, more heroic, that our people is more admirable, a people worthy of admiration as one admires a column coming back from battle, worthy of identity and solidarity as solders showing their solidarity after a battle. What matters is not the reduction in the number of soldiers; what matters is the presence of mind of those who are still standing. More than once we experience a reduction in our ranks, in the ranks of our army. We saw painful reductions, as we see today in the ranks of the people, but what matters most is the determination of the people still standing. And today, as we say farewell to the fallen, to those soldiers and workers, I have no other way to say goodbye, but with the idea which symbolizes this struggle and the essence of our people today: may they rest together in peace! Together, workers and soldiers, together in their graves, as they fought together, as they died together and as we are willing to die together. And as we say goodbye in the threshold of the cemetery, we make this promise which, more like today’s promise, is a promise of yesterday and always: Cuba will not be intimidated!, Cuba will not recede!, the Revolution will not stop!, the Revolution will continue its unshakable path! That is our promise, not to those who died, because to die for the homeland is to live, but to the comrades who will always remain in our memories. They will always remain, not in the memory of a man, or men, but in the only memory that can never be erased: the memory in the heart of a people. Stenographic Versions – Council of State Fidel Castro Internet Archive
Home Contents Subscribe Write us! [email protected] September 2003 • Vol 3, No. 8 • Cuba’s Revolution ‘In Permanence’1 By Fidel Castro “For decades, our people have confronted powers much greater than those possessed by the European Union; new forces are emerging everywhere, with tremendous vigor. The peoples are tired of guardians, interference and plunder, imposed through mechanisms that benefit the most developed and wealthy at the cost of the growing poverty and ruin of others. Some of these peoples are already advancing with unrestrainable force, and others will join them. Among them there are giants awakening. The future belongs to these peoples.” It seems almost unreal to be here in this same place 50 years after the events we are commemorating today, which took place that morning of July 26, 1953. I was 26 years old back then; today, 50 more years of struggle have been added to my life. Way back then, I could not have imagined for even a second that this evening, the few participants in that action who are still alive would be gathered here, together with those, gathered here or listening to us all around the country, who were influenced by, or participated directly in the Revolution; together with those who were children or teenagers back then; with those who were not even born yet and today are parents or even grandparents; with whole contingents of fully fledged men and women, full of revolutionary and internationalist glory and history, soldiers and officers in active duty or the reserves, civilians who have accomplished veritable feats; with a seemingly infinite number of young combatants; with dedicated workers or enthusiastic students, as well as some who are both at the same time; and with millions of children who fill our imagination of eternal dreamers. And once again, life has given me the unique privilege of addressing all of you. I am not speaking here on my own behalf. I am doing it in the name of the heroic efforts of our people and the thousands of combatants who have given their lives throughout half a century. I am doing it too, with pride for the great work they have succeeded in carrying out, the obstacles they have overcome, and the impossible things they have made possible. In the terribly sad days that followed the action, I explained to the court where I was tried the reasons that led us to undertake this struggle. At that time, Cuba had a population of less than six million people. Based on the information available back then, I gave a harsh description, with approximate statistics, of the situation facing our people 55 years after the U.S. intervention. That intervention came when Spain had already been militarily defeated by the tenacity and heroism of the Cuban patriots, and [the U.S.] frustrated the goals of our long war of independence when in 1902 it established a complete political and economic control over Cuba. The forceful imposition on our first Constitution of the right of the U.S. government to intervene in Cuba and the occupation of national territory by U.S. military bases, together with the total domination of our economy and natural resources, reduced our national sovereignty to practically nil. I will quote just a few brief paragraphs from my statements at that trial on October 16, 1953: “Six hundred thousand Cubans without work. Five hundred thousand farm laborers who work four months of the year and starve the rest…. “Four hundred thousand industrial workers and laborers whose retirement funds have been embezzled, whose homes are wretched quarters, whose salaries pass from the hands of the boss to those of the moneylender, whose life is endless work and whose only rest is the tomb…. “Ten thousand young professionals: medical doctors, engineers, lawyers, veterinarians, school teachers, dentists, pharmacists, journalists, painters, sculptors, etc., who finish school with their degrees anxious to work and full of hopes, only to find themselves at a dead end, with all doors closed to them…. “Eighty-five percent of the small farmers in Cuba pay a rent and live under constant threat of being evicted from the land they till. There are two hundred thousand peasant families who do not have a single acre of land to till to provide food for their starving children. More than half of our most productive land is in foreign hands. Nearly three hundred thousand caballerías (over three million hectares) of arable land owned by powerful interests remain idle. Two million two hundred thousand of our urban population pay rents that take between one fifth and one third of their incomes. Two million eight hundred thousand of our rural and suburban population lack electricity…. “The little rural schoolhouses are attended by a mere half of the school age children who go barefoot, half-naked and undernourished.
“The little rural schoolhouses are attended by a mere half of the school age children who go barefoot, half-naked and undernourished. Ninety per cent of the children in the countryside are sick with parasites…. “Society is indifferent to the mass murder of so many thousands of children who die every year from lack of resources. From May to December over a million people are jobless in Cuba, with a population of five and a half million. When the head of a family works only four months a year, how can he purchase clothing and medicine for his children? They will grow up with rickets, with not a single good tooth in their mouths by the time they reach thirty; they will have heard ten million speeches and will finally die of poverty and disillusion. Public hospitals, which are always full, accept only patients recommended by some powerful politician who, in return, demands the votes of the unfortunate one and his family so that Cuba may continue forever in the same or worse condition.” Perhaps the most important statement I made about the economic and social situation was the following: “The nation’s future, the solutions to its problems, cannot continue to depend on the selfish interests of a dozen big businessmen nor on the cold calculations of profits that ten or twelve magnates draw up in their air-conditioned offices. The country cannot continue begging on its knees for miracles from a golden fleece, like the one mentioned in the Old Testament, destroyed by the prophet’s fury. Golden fleece cannot perform miracles of any kind. [...] Statesmen whose statesmanship consists of preserving the status quo and mouthing phrases like ‘absolute freedom of enterprise,’ ‘guarantees to investment capital’ and ‘law of supply and demand,’ will not solve these problems.’ In this present-day world, social problems are not solved by spontaneous generation.” These statements and ideas described a whole underlying thinking regarding the capitalist economic and social system that simply had to be eliminated. They expressed, in essence, the idea of a new political and social system for Cuba, although it may have been dangerous to propose such a thing in the midst of the sea of prejudices and ideological venom spread by the ruling classes, allied to the empire and imposed on a population where 90 percent of the people were illiterate or semi-literate, without even a sixth-grade education; discontent, combative and rebellious, yet unable to discern such an acute and profound problem. Since then, I have held the most solid and firm conviction that ignorance has been the most powerful and fearsome weapon of the exploiters throughout all of history. Educating the people about the truth, with words and irrefutable facts, has perhaps been the fundamental factor in the grandiose feat that our people have achieved. Those humiliating realities have been crushed, despite blockades, threats, aggressions, massive terrorism and the unrestrained use of the most powerful media in history against our Revolution. The statistics leave no room for doubt. It has since been possible to more precisely determine that the real population of Cuba in 1953, according to the census taken that year, was 5,820,000. The current population, according to the census of September 2002, now in the final phase of data processing, is 11,177,743. The statistics tell us that in 1953, a total of 807,700 people were illiterate, meaning an illiteracy rate of 22.3 percent, a figure that undoubtedly grew later during the seven years of Batista’s tyranny. In the year 2002, the number was a mere 38,183, or 0.5 percent of the population. The Ministry of Education estimates that the real figure is even lower, because in their thorough search for people who have not been given literacy training, […] in their sectors or neighborhoods, it has been very difficult to locate them. Their estimates, based on investigative methods even more precise than a census, reveal a total of 18,000, for a rate of 0.2 percent. Of course, neither figure includes those who cannot learn to read or write because of mental or physical disabilities. In 1953, the number of people with junior or senior high school education was 139,984, or 3.2 percent of the population aged 10 and over. In 2002, the number had risen to 5,733,243, which is 41 times greater, equivalent to 58.9 percent of the population in the same age group. The number of university graduates grew from 53,490 in 1953 to 712,672 in 2002. Unemployment, despite the fact that the 1953 census was taken in the middle of the sugar harvest—that is, the time of the highest demand for labor—was 8.4 percent of the economically active population. The 2002 census, taken in September, revealed that the unemployment rate in Cuba today is a mere 3.1 percent. And this was the case in spite of the fact that the active labor force in 1953 was only 2,059,659 people, whereas in 2002 it had reached 4,427,028. What is most striking is that next year, when unemployment is reduced to less than 3 percent, Cuba will enter the category of countries with full employment, something that is inconceivable in any other country of Latin America or even the so-called economically developed nations in the midst of the current worldwide economic situation. Without going into other areas of noteworthy social advances, I will simply add that between 1953 and 2002, the population almost doubled, the number of homes tripled, and the number of persons per home was reduced from 4.46 in 1953 to 3.16 in 2002; 75.4 percent of these homes were built after the triumph of the Revolution. Eighty five percent of the people own the houses they dwell in and they do not pay taxes; the remaining 15 percent pays a rather symbolic rent. Of the total number of homes in the country, the percentage of huts fell from 33.3 percent in 1953 to 5.7 percent in 2002, while the percentage of homes with electrical power service rose from 55.6 percent in 1953 to 95.5 percent in 2002.
These statistics, however, do not tell the full story. Cold figures cannot express quality, and it is in terms of quality that the most truly spectacular advances have been achieved by Cuba. Today, by a wide margin, our country occupies first place worldwide in the number of teachers, professors and educators per capita. The country’s active teaching staff accounts for the incredible figure of 290,574. According to studies analyzing a group of the main educational indicators, Cuba also occupies first place, above the developed countries. The maximum of 20 students per teacher in primary schools already attained, and the ratio of one teacher per 15 students in junior high school grades seven, eight and nine, that will be achieved this coming school year, are things that could not even be dreamed of in the world’s wealthiest, most developed countries. The number of doctors is 67,079, of which 45,599 are specialists and 8,858 are in training. The number of nurses is 81,459, while that of healthcare technicians is 66,339, for a total of 214,877 doctors, nurses and technicians in the healthcare sector. Life expectancy is 76.15 years; infant mortality is 6.5 for 1000 live births during the first year of life, lower than any other Third World country and even some of the developed nations. There are 35,902 physical education, sports and recreation instructors, a great many more than the total number of teachers and professors in all areas of education before the Revolution. Cuba is now fully engaged in the transformation of its own systems of education, culture and healthcare, through which it has attained so many achievements, in order to reach new levels of excellence never even imagined, based on the accumulated experience and new technological possibilities. These programs are now fully underway, and it is estimated that the knowledge currently acquired by children, teenagers and young people will be tripled with each school year. At the same time, within five years at most, average life expectancy should rise to 80 years. The most developed and wealthy countries will never attain a ratio of 20 students in a classroom in primary school, or one teacher to 15 students in high school, or succeed in taking university education to every municipality throughout the country to place it within reach of the whole population, or in offering the highest quality educational and healthcare services to all of their citizens free of charge. Their economic and political systems are not designed for this. In Cuba, the social and human nightmare denounced in 1953, which gave rise to our struggle, had been left behind just a few years after the triumph of the Revolution in 1959. Soon, there were no longer peasants, sharecroppers or tenant farmers without land; all of them became the owners of the land they farmed. There were no longer undernourished, barefoot, parasite-ridden children, without schools or teachers, even if their schooling took place beneath the shade of a tree. They no longer died in massive numbers from hunger, disease, from lack of resources or medical care. No longer were the rural areas filled with unemployed men and women. A new stage began in the creation and construction of educational, healthcare, residential, sports and other public facilities, as well as thousands of kilometers of highways, dams, irrigation channels, agricultural facilities, electrical power plants and power lines, agricultural, mechanical and construction material industries, and everything essential for the sustained development of the country. The labor demand was so great that for many years, large contingents of men and women from the cities were mobilized to work in agriculture, construction and industrial production, which laid the foundations for the extraordinary social development achieved by our country, which I mentioned earlier. I am talking as if the country were an idyllic haven of peace, as if there had not been over four decades of a rigorous blockade and economic war, aggressions of all kinds, countless acts of sabotage and terrorism, assassination plots and an endless list of hostile actions against our country, which I do not wish to emphasize in this speech, so as to focus on essential ideas of the present. Suffice it to say that defense-related tasks alone required the permanent mobilization of hundreds of thousands of men and women and large material resources. This hard-fought battle served to toughen our people, and taught them to fight simultaneously on many different fronts, to do a lot with very little, and to never be discouraged by obstacles. Decisive proof of this was their heroic conduct, their tenacity and unshakably firm stance when the socialist bloc disappeared and the USSR splintered. The feat they accomplished then, when no one in the world would have bet a penny on the survival of the Revolution, will go down in history as one of the greatest ever achieved. They did it without violating a single one of the ethical and humanitarian principles of the Revolution, despite the shrieking and slander of our enemies. The Moncada Program was fulfilled, and over-fulfilled. For some time now, we have been pursuing even greater and previously unimaginable dreams. Today, great battles are being waged in the area of ideas, while confronting problems associated with the world situation, perhaps the most critical to ever face humanity. I am obliged to devote a part of my speech to this. Several weeks ago, in early June, the European Union adopted an infamous resolution, drafted by a small group of bureaucrats, without prior analysis by the Ministers of Foreign Affairs themselves, and promoted by an individual of markedly fascist lineage and ideology: José María Aznar. The adoption of this resolution constituted a cowardly and repugnant action that added to the hostility, threats and dangers posed for Cuba by the aggressive policy of the hegemonic superpower. They decided to eliminate or reduce to a minimum what they define as “humanitarian aid” to Cuba. How much of this aid has been provided in the past few years, which have been so very difficult for the economy of our country? In 2000 the so-called humanitarian aid received from the European Union was 3.6 million dollars; in 2001 it was 8.5 million;
in 2001 it was 8.5 million; in 2002, 0.6 million. And this was before the application of the just measures that Cuba adopted, on fully legal grounds, to defend the security of our people against the serious threats of imperialist aggression, something that no one ignores. As can be seen, the average was 4.2 million dollars annually, which was reduced to less than a million in 2002. What does this amount really mean for a country that suffered the impact of three hurricanes between November of 2001 and October of 2002, resulting in 2.5 billion dollars in damages for our country, combined with the devastating effect on our revenues of the drop in tourism after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks against the United States, the drop in sugar and nickel prices due to the international economic crisis, and the considerable rise in oil prices owing to various factors? What does it mean in comparison with the 72 billion dollars in losses and damages resulting from the economic blockade imposed by the U.S. government for more than four decades, and with regards to which, as a result of the extraterritorial and brutal Helms-Burton Act, which threatened the economic interests of the European Union itself, the latter reached a shameful “understanding” where it pledged not to support its business people in their dealings with Cuba, in exchange for vague promises that the Act would not be applied to its investments in the United States? Through its sugar subsidies, the countries of the European Union have caused billions of dollars in losses for the Cuban economy throughout the entire duration of the U.S. blockade. Cuba’s payments to the countries of the European Union for goods imported over the last five years totaled some 7.5 billion dollars, or an approximate average of 1.5 billion dollars annually. On the other hand, over the last five years, these countries only purchased an average of 571 million dollars worth of imports from Cuba annually. Who is actually helping whom? Moreover, this much-touted humanitarian aid usually comes with bureaucratic delays and unacceptable conditions, such as creating funds of an equal value in national currency, at the exchange rate of our currency exchange bureaus, to provide funding in national currency for other projects where decisions were to be adopted with the participation of third parties. This means that if the European Commission were to hand over a million dollars, they want the Cuban side to put up 27 million Cuban pesos in exchange, to fund other projects in national currency for the same amount, and the execution of the projects would involve the participation of European non-governmental organizations in all decision-making processes. This absurd condition, which was never accepted, practically paralyzed the flow of aid for a number of projects for three years, and subsequently limited it considerably. Between October 2000 and December 2002, the European Commission officially approved four projects for an approximate total amount of 10.6 million U.S. dollars (almost all of it for technical assistance in administrative, legal and economic matters) and only 1.9 million dollars for food security. None of this has been executed, due to the delays caused by the bureaucratic mechanisms of this institution. Nevertheless, in all European Union reports, these amounts appear as “approved for Cuba,” although the truth remains that until now not a penny of this funding has reached our country. It should be remembered that additionally, in all of their reports on aid to Cuba, the European Commission and member countries include so-called indirect costs, such as airfares on their own airlines, accommodation, travel expenses, salaries and First World-standard luxuries. The portion of the supposed aid money that actually directly benefits the projects is whittled away through these expenditures, which do not help the country in any way, but are nonetheless calculated as part of their “generosity” for public relations purposes. It is truly outrageous to attempt to pressure and intimidate Cuba with these measures. Cuba, a small country, besieged and blockaded, has not only been able to survive, but also to help many countries of the Third World, exploited throughout centuries by the European colonial powers. In the course of 40 years, over 40,000 youths from more than 100 Third World countries, including 30,000 from Africa, have graduated in Cuba as university-educated professionals and qualified technical workers, at no cost to them whatsoever, and our country has not attempted to steal a single one of them, as the countries of the European Union do with many of the brightest minds. Throughout this time, on the other hand, over 52,000 Cuban doctors and health care workers, who have saved millions of lives, have provided their services voluntarily and free of charge in 93 countries. Even though the country has still not completely left behind the special period, last year, 2002, there were already more than 16,000 youths from throughout the Third World undertaking higher studies in our country, free of charge, including over 8,000 being trained as doctors. If we were to calculate what they would have to pay for this education in the United States and Europe, the result would be the equivalent of a donation of more than 450 million dollars every year. If you include the 3,700 doctors providing their services abroad in the most far-flung and inhospitable locales, you would have to add almost 200 million U.S. dollars more, based on the annual salary paid to doctors by the WHO. All in all approximately 700 million dollars. These things that our country can do, not on the basis of its financial resources, but rather the extraordinary human capital created by the Revolution, should serve as an example to the European Union, and make it feel ashamed of the measly and ineffective aid it offers these countries. While Cuban soldiers were shedding their blood fighting the forces of apartheid, the countries of the European Union exchanged billions of dollars worth of trade every year with the South African racists, and through their investments, reaped the benefits of the cheap, semi-slave labor of the South African natives. This past July 20, less than a week ago, the European Union, in a much-trumpeted meeting to review its shameful common position on Cuba, ratified the infamous measures adopted against Cuba on June 5 and declared that political dialogue should continue “in order to more efficiently pursue the goals of the common position.” The government of Cuba, out of a basic sense of dignity, relinquishes any aid or remnant of humanitarian aid that may be offered by the European Commission and the governments of the European Union.
Our country would only accept this kind of aid, no matter how modest, from regional or local autonomous governments, non-governmental organizations, and solidarity movements, which do not impose political conditions on Cuba. The European Union is fooling itself when it states that political dialogue should continue. The sovereignty and dignity of this people are not open to discussion with anyone, much less with a group of former colonial powers historically responsible for the slave trade, the plunder and even extermination of entire peoples, and the underdevelopment and poverty suffered today by billions of human beings whom they continue to plunder through unequal trade, the exploitation and exhaustion of their natural resources, an unpayable foreign debt, the brain drain, and other means. The European Union lacks the necessary freedom to take part in a fully independent dialogue. Its commitments to NATO and the United States, and its conduct in Geneva, where it acts in league with those who want to destroy Cuba, render it incapable of engaging in a constructive exchange. Countries from the former socialist community will soon join the European Union, albeit the opportunistic leaders who govern them, more loyal to the interests of the United States than to those of Europe, will serve as Trojan horses of the superpower within the EU. These are full of hatred towards Cuba, which they left on its own and cannot forgive for having endured and proven that socialism is capable of achieving a society a thousand times more just and humane than the rotten system they have adopted. When the European Union was created, we applauded it, because it was the only intelligent and useful thing they could do to counterbalance the hegemony of their powerful military ally and economic competitor. We also applauded the euro as something beneficial for the worldwide economy in the face of the suffocating and almost absolute power of the U.S. dollar. But now, when the European Union adopts this arrogant and calculated attitude, in hope of reconciliation with the masters of the world, it insults Cuba, then, it does not deserve the slightest consideration and respect from our people. Any dialogue should take place in public, in international forums, and should address the grave problems threatening the world. We shall not attempt to discuss the principles of the European Union or Disunion. In Cuba they will find a country that neither obeys masters, nor accepts threats, nor begs for charity, nor lacks the courage to speak out the truth. They need someone to tell them a few truths, because there are many who flatter them out of self-interest, or are simply spellbound by the splendor of Europe’s past glories. Why do they not criticize or help Spain to improve the disastrous state of its educational system, which brings shame to Europe with its banana republic levels? Why do they not come to the aid of the United Kingdom, to prevent drugs from wiping out this proud nation? Why do they not analyze and help themselves, when they so obviously need it? The European Union would do well to speak less and do more for the genuine human rights of the immense majority of the peoples of the world; to act with intelligence and dignity in the face of those who do not want to leave it with even the crumbs of the resources of the planet they aspire to conquer; to defend its cultural identity against the invasion and penetration of the powerful trans-nationals of the U.S. entertainment industry; to take care of its unemployed, who number in the tens of millions; to educate its functionally illiterate; to give humane treatment to immigrants; to guarantee true social security and medical care for all of its citizens, as Cuba does; to moderate its consumerist and wasteful habits; to guarantee that all of its members contribute 1 percent of their GDP, as some already do, to support development in the Third World or at least alleviate, without bureaucracy or demagoguery, the terrible situation of poverty, poor health and illiteracy; to compensate Africa and other regions for the damage wreaked throughout centuries by slavery and colonialism; to grant independence to the colonial enclaves still maintained in this hemisphere, from the Caribbean to the Falkland Islands, without denying them the economic aid they deserve for the historical damage and colonial exploitation they have suffered. To a list that would be endless, I could add: To undertake a genuine policy supporting human rights with actual deeds and not just hollow words; to investigate what really happened with the Basques murdered by GAL and demand that responsibility be taken; to tell the world how scientist Dr. David Kelly was brutally murdered, or how he was led to commit suicide; to respond at some point to the questions I posed to them in Rio de Janeiro regarding the new strategic conception of NATO as it relates to the countries of Latin America; to firmly and resolutely oppose the doctrine of preemptive strikes against any country in the world, proclaimed by the most formidable military power in all of history, for you know where the consequences for humanity will lead. To slander and impose sanctions on Cuba is not only unfair and cowardly but ridiculous. Thanks to the great and selfless human capital it has created, which they lack, Cuba does not need the aid of the European Union to survive, develop and achieve what they will never achieve. The European Union should temper its arrogance and prepotency. For decades, our people have confronted powers much greater than those possessed by the European Union;
For decades, our people have confronted powers much greater than those possessed by the European Union; new forces are emerging everywhere, with tremendous vigor. The peoples are tired of guardians, interference and plunder, imposed through mechanisms that benefit the most developed and wealthy at the cost of the growing poverty and ruin of others. Some of these peoples are already advancing with unrestrainable force, and others will join them. Among them there are giants awakening. The future belongs to these peoples. In the name of 50 years of resistance and relentless struggle in the face of a force many times greater than theirs, and of the social and human achievements attained by Cuba without any help whatsoever from the countries of the European Union, I invite them to reflect calmly on their errors, and to avoid being carried away by outbursts of anger or Euro-narcissistic inebriation. Neither Europe nor the United States will have the last word on the future of Humanity! I could repeat here something similar to what I said in the spurious court where I was tried and sentenced for the struggle we initiated five decades ago today, but this time it will not be me who says it; it will be declared and foretold by a people that has carried out a profound, transcendental and historic Revolution, and has succeeded in defending it: Condemn me. It does not matter. The peoples will have the last word! Eternal glory to those who have fallen during 50 years of struggle! Eternal glory to the people that turned its dreams into a reality! Venceremos! Speech commemorating the 50th anniversary of the attack on the Moncada and Carlos Manuel de Cespedes garrisons, held in Santiago de Cuba, July 26, 2003. 1 An allusion to “Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League,” by Karl Marx, London, March 1850. Top Contents Home Subscribe Write us [email protected]
Castro Internet Archive Comments on Czechoslovakia Spoken: 1968. Publisher: Havana Domestic Television and Radio Services in Spanish 0102 GMT 24 Aug 68. Translated: US Government, Foreign Broadcast Information Service. Transcription/Markup: US Government/Steve Palmer. Source: Castro Speech Database. Proofread Alvaro Miranda (April 2021). [Speech by Cuban Prime Minister Maj Fidel Castro on the Czechoslovak situation – live] [Text] As was announced today, my appearance here is to analyze the situation in Czechoslovakia. I am going to make this analysis in the light of revolutionary positions and of the international policy which our revolution and our party has sustained. Some of the things I am going to say here will in some cases run counter to the feelings of many people. In other cases, they will run counter to our own interests, and they will constitute serious risks to our country. Even so, this is a moment of utmost importance to the revolutionary movement all over the world. It is our duty to analyze the facts objectively and to voice the opinion of our political leadership. It is the opinion of our Central Committee, of the leaders of our mass organizations, and of the members of our government, and I am sure that this opinion is deeply rooted in the tradition and sentiments of our people. I think it is necessary in the first place to make at least a brief analysis of our position with regard to the events which have been taking place in Czechoslovakia. Our people have received sufficiently broad information on all these events. Although our party’s position with regard to these events has never been aired officially so to speak, because among other things, these events were in the process of development, and I am not obliged to analyze each one of the things happening every day in the world, I was keeping track of the development of the political process in that country. Analysis of Czech Crisis It was approximately at the beginning of this year that a number of changes began to occur in Czechoslovakia. There was talk, or rather, Mr Novotny did in fact resign as secretary of the party, although he remained as President of the Republic. Subsequently, an important military officer deserted to the United States. Then there were a number of demands for the President of the Republic to resign too, and a number of events and phenomena began to occur. A process began which they called a democratization process. The imperialist press invented another word, the word liberalization. They even began to label people progressives and conservatives. They called the supporters of a number of political reforms progressives, and the followers of the older leadership conservatives. It was obvious over there – and I must give my opinion about both, the conservatives and the liberals; this reminds us a little of Cuba’s old history – that division existed between conservatives and liberals. A thing which of course was not supposed to happen in the political process of the socialist revolution. This had a number of implications in the world. Some began to sympathize with the so-called liberals or democratized persons. We observed what was happening. For example, on 24 April 1968 the newspaper Rude Pravo – organ of the Czechoslovak Communist Party – with the headline of favorable reaction by the U.S. press to events in Czechoslovakia, pointed out that the United States (?was following) a foreign policy more understanding of the new direction taken by Prague. Possible Western Economic Aid Here, [he loses his place] it seems that there is something missing, but in that dispatch it was told with some glee what had been the reaction of the U.S. press to the changes in Czechoslovakia, and in fact the U.S. press reaction – the capitalist press, the imperialist press – was very favorable to the changes in Czechoslovakia. Now everything that begins to receive the praise, support, enthusiasm, and applause of the imperialist press naturally begins to raise our suspicions. Later, on 2 May 1968, the press reiterates that Czechoslovakia and the United States are in a period when the return of Czechoslovak gold is requested. The Prague government repeated to Washington its request for the quick return of Czech gold held by the United States. In a note sent on that date to the U.S. Embassy, the Czech Government describes the U.S. attitude as flippant, and pressed Washington to quickly remit a down payment of the 18,433 kilograms of gold that Washington was holding and that belonged indisputably to Czechoslovakia. It was gold stolen by the Nazis from the Czechs and confiscated by the United States as a guarantee of a settlement of affairs between the two countries. Then on 11 June 1968, there was a possible loan by the United States to Czechoslovakia. That is, the possibility for Czechoslovakia.
That is, the possibility for Czechoslovakia. That is, the possibility for Czechoslovakia to receive a loan from the United States was planned on that date, according to reliable sources, by the vice president of the National Bank in New York in a conversation with Czech banking leaders. The vice president of the American [as heard] Bank, Miroslava (Kry) maintained that Poland and Yugoslavia had both received large loans from U.S. banks without changing the socialist principles of their societies. Here the argument advanced in favor of the loan was that other countries such as Poland, one of the countries that sent its troops to Czechoslovakia, had received large loans from U.S. banks. Something strange, don’t you think? [chuckles] Hers is one dated 18 June 1968, a German magazine says that Czechoslovakia sought credits from the German Federal Republic. It says: The weekly Der Spiegel reveals today that Prague, fearing economic reprisals from Moscow, recently sought a loan from Bonn. The federal government however, according to the weekly, so as not to increase the existing tension with the Soviet Union, preferred to get off the hook with Czechoslovakia in a direct manner, and the Council of Ministers approved an idea of Minister of Economics Schiller to give Prague a guarantee for a World Bank loan. Der Spiegel writes that in exchange, Czechoslovakia has promised to give the GFR trade mission a wider scope in Prague and has also alluded to the possibility of normalizing diplomatic relations between both nations at the beginning of next year. An economic conference between Czechoslovak and West German representatives began on 27 June – a 2-day conference began here today between Czechoslovakia and West German group is headed by the president of the above Bonn society, Ambassador Gebhardt von Walther, who was GFR ambassador in Moscow until the end of last year. Von Walther said that the West German representatives should know the needs and possibilities of the Czechoslovak economy. He let it be understood that West Germany is ready to substantially increase economic relations with Czechoslovakia. Dr (Sejarik) said that the conference should serve to shed light on possibilities and be highly instrumental to the future development of economic relations between both nations, and so forth. All of you may remember how, in the wake of the recognition of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), the GFR drastically broke relations with us and this situation has continued all this time. In other words, I know how all these governments act, above all, how the GFR acts like Yankee imperialism’s principal pawn. Liberals and Imperialism Here we see a number of things, the beginning of a honeymoon in the relation between the liberals and imperialism. I have brought up some of this economic information on various dates simply because a number of political events transpired throughout this process. A veritable liberal hysteria began to develop over there. A number of political slogans began to be aired in favor of the creation of opposition parties, in favor of ideas which were frankly anti-Marxist and anti-Leninist, such as the idea that the party should cease to exercise the function which a party should exercise within a socialist society and that it should play the role of guide, reviewer, and the like – above all, a sort of spiritual director. In short, that power should cease to be a function of the Communist Party. [This was] revision of some alleged fundamentals on which a socialist regime, a transitional regime on the road to socialism and communism, that is to say, the so-called government of the dictatorship of the proletariat – in other words, a government in which power is exercised in the name of a class and against the old exploiting classes, which means that in a revolutionary process, political rights cannot be given away – the right to exercise political activities cannot be given to the old exploiters whose aim is to struggle precisely against the very essence and reason for the being of socialism. A number of slogans and events began to appear and norms were adopted, such as (those pertaining) to bourgeois freedom of the press – in other words, the right of the counter-revolution and of the exploiters, and of the enemies of socialism themselves, to talk and write freely against socialism. Indeed, a process began in which key communications media were taken over and fell into the hands of reactionary elements. There were a number of slogans used in foreign policy which amounted to a frank rapprochement with capitalist ideas and theses, and to a rapprochement with the West. Of course, all this linked to a number of slogans which were unquestionably correct. Some of these slogans won some sympathy for the liberalization or democratization movement. Even some European communist parties which were confronting their tragedy and their contradictions began to say that they were starting to look favorably upon the liberalization movement. It was a phenomenon is which everybody was trying to get a piece of the pie. Then there were the problems in connection with incorrect methods of government, the bureaucratic policy, the alienation of the masses. In short, a number of errors for which they blamed the old leadership. There was also talk about the necessity of giving revolutionary orthodoxy to the development of the socialist revolution and the socialist system in Czechoslovakia. Move Toward Capitalism Thus did these undercurrents develop in tandem, one in justification of the change, another which transformed this change into a frankly reactionary policy. This caused a division of opinion. For our part, I did not have any doubt – and this is a very important thing – I did not have any doubt that the Czechoslovak regime was developing dangerously toward a substantial change in the system. In short, the Czechoslovak regime was moving toward capitalism and it was inexorably marching toward imperialism. About this we did not have the slightest doubt. I want to start by discussing this because I also want to cover some other matters with regard to what was going on there. There are some in the world who do not have this opinion. Many thought this danger did not exist. Many looked favorably upon a certain freedom of artistic expression and some of these things because, naturally, there are many people in the world who are sensitive regarding these problems. Many errors have been committed concerning these problems and many blunders have been made. Logically, certain sectors, above all the intellectuals, are very sensitive about certain means for coping with this.
Logically, certain sectors, above all the intellectuals, are very sensitive about certain means for coping with this. The intellectuals are also concerned about other problems. They have been very sensitive to Vietnam problems and all these matters, although it must be said that a part of the progressive thought of the world, which lives with their own problems – the general problems of Europe, the problems of the developed world, the problems of the developed society – places more emphasis on problems which are of less concern to a large part of the world. The problems of a world which lives under imperialist oppression, neocolonialism, capitalist exploitation in the underdeveloped areas of the world, and billions of human beings who practically live under conditions of hunger and misery and without hope, are not the problems of intellectuals. They are more interested in questions such as whether they ought to let their grow long or not. It may well be a very debatable issue, but [Castro chuckles] it certainly is not an issue which is of concern to people who want to know whether they have a possibility or hope of eating. And thus, some emphasized the positive aspects which that evolution may have had and others emphasized negative aspects. Some favored new methods and placed their hopes in them and some did not have any hope. I reached that conclusion at the outset. I had no doubt that the Czechoslovak political situation was deteriorating and Czechoslovakia was sliding downhill to a return to capitalism and would inexorably fall into the hands of imperialism. Western Imperialists’ Campaign It is very important because I think that this opinion of mine, which I honestly held and still hold, is very important in order to determine what our position is in connection with these events. Of course, the imperialist world welcomed this situation with great satisfaction and abetted it in every way and without any question whatsoever. They rubbed their hands with satisfaction at the thought of the debacle which this would mean to the socialist world in one way or another. The imperialists have abetted it and have publicly said many times what their policy is toward the East European socialist nations. They have always talked in Congress and the newspapers about fanning the flames of liberalism, going so far as promoting and making viable selected types of economic aid and using as many forces as they could over there to create an opposition to socialism. The imperialists are waging this campaign not only in Czechoslovakia but in all East European nations including the Soviet Union. They try by every means to mount publicity campaigns in favor of the way of life of the developed industrial society and in favor of the tastes and the consumer goods of the developed bourgeois societies. They do this on the radio and through what they call cultural exchange programs. They very subtly try to awaken in the masses admiration and an appetite for such tastes, for such consumer habits. They know full well that the development of these feelings run counter to the revolutionary sentiments of the masses and to the spirit of sacrifice of the masses. The imperialists make much use of the entire bourgeois facade, the utter luxury of a class society which has greatly developed the art and refinement of consumer tastes and luxury, which cannot ever be the aspirations of the socialist societies or of the peoples who seek to march toward communism. They have a policy called the East European policy, through which they manage their resources, their commerce, with this in mind. They do not do this with Cuba. To Cuba they apply a policy of incessant persecution in all the markets so that we cannot buy, well, or acquire even a little seed, so that we cannot acquire anything. They are relentlessly executing this policy against Cuba. Why? We must ask why. They know that they have not the slightest possibility of penetrating our country with such maneuvers. The imperialists know this and they know it full well. They have no chance of applying these maneuvers, to come here to crack or soften up the revolutionary spirit of the Cuban people. Therefore, they carry out an implacable war incessantly, always trying to place us in the worst position. This has been its policy all this time. Everyone knows that there is not trade of any kind between Cuba and the United States, because even though they always had a policy to sell us medicines – it was always academic – what medicine can we by? They have prohibited even the sale of medicines to our country. The imperialists have forced us to spend much more money for many things. Their blockade puts us in a difficult situation to obtain essential products which cost us a fortune, and all those things we have mentioned on other occasions. Opinion on Intervention I wish to quickly make the first important statement that we considered Czechoslovakia to be heading toward a counter-revolutionary situation, toward capitalism and into the arms of imperialism. This is the operative concept in our first position toward the specific fact of the action taken by a group of socialist countries. That is, we consider that it was unavoidable to prevent this from happening – at any cost, in one way or another. Of course, let us not become impatient, because we propose to analyze this in line with our ideas. Discussing the form is not really the most fundamental thing. The essential thing, whether we accept it or not, is whether the socialist bloc could permit the development of a political situation which lead to the breakdown of a socialist country and its fall into the arms of imperialism. From our viewpoint, it is not permissible and the socialist bloc has the right to prevent it in one way or another. We first wish to begin by establishing what our opinion is about this essential matter.
We first wish to begin by establishing what our opinion is about this essential matter. Now, it is not enough to explain simply that Czechoslovakia was heading toward a counterevolutionary situation and that it had to be stopped. It is not enough to conclude simply that the only alternative was to prevent it and nothing more. We must analyze the causes and determine the factors which made possible and necessary such a dramatic, drastic, and painful remedy. What are the factors which required a step unquestionably involving a violation of legal principles and of international standards, which have often served as shields for peoples against injustices and are so highly regarded in the world? What is not appropriate here is to say that the sovereignty of the Czechoslovak state was not violated. That would be fiction and a lie. The violation was flagrant, and on this we are going to talk about the effect on sovereignty, and on legal and political principles. From the legal viewpoint, it cannot be justified. This is quite clear. In our judgment, the decision on Czechoslovakia can be explained only from the political viewpoint and not from a legal viewpoint. Frankly, it has absolutely no legality. What are the circumstances that have permitted a remedy of this nature, a remedy which places in a difficult situation the entire world revolutionary movement, a remedy which constitutes a really traumatic situation for an entire people – as is the present case in Czechoslovakia – a remedy which implies that an entire nation has to pass through the most unpleasant circumstances of seeing the country occupied by armies of other countries, although they are armies of the socialist countries. A situation in which millions of beings of a country have to see themselves today in the tragic circumstance of electing and choosing either to be passive toward these circumstances and this event – which so much brings to mind previous episodes – or to struggle in comradeship with pro-Yankee agents and spies, the enemies of socialism, the agents of West Germany, and all that fascist and reactionary rabble that in the heat of these circumstances will try to present itself as champions of the sovereignty, patriotism, and freedom of Czechoslovakia? Logically, for the Czechoslovak people this experience and this fact constitute a better and tragic situation. Therefore, it is not enough simply to conclude that it has arisen as an inexorable necessity and even, if you wish, as an unquestionable obligation of the socialist countries to prevent such events from happening. [One must inquire] what are the cases, the factors, and the circumstances that brought forth – after 20 years of communism in Czechoslovakia – a group of persons whose names do not even appear anywhere, and this petition directed to other countries of the socialist camp, asking them to send their armies to prevent the triumph of the counterrevolution in Czechoslovakia and the triumph of the intrigues and conspiracies of the imperialist countries interested in breaking Czechoslovakia from the community of socialist countries? Could it be imagined, gentlemen, that at the end of 20 years of communism in our country – of communist revolution, of socialist revolution – that under any circumstances it could happen that a group of honest revolutionaries in this country, terrified at the prospects of an advance or, better said, of a retrogression toward counter-revolutionary positions and imperialism, would see the need of asking the aid of friendly armies to prevent such a situation from occurring? What would have remained of the communist consciousness of this people? What would have remained of the revolutionary consciousness of this people, of the dignity of this people, of the revolutionary morale of this people? What would have remained of all those things that mean for us essentially the revolution if such circumstances should one day arise? But no circumstances of that kind will ever occur in our country. First, because we believe that it is a duty and fundamental responsibility of those who direct a revolution to prevent deformations of such a nature that might make possible such circumstances. Secondly, gentlemen, for an unquestionably practical reason and not only a moral elemental reason, because we could ask if it would be worth the trouble if, after 20 years, to survive a revolution one had to resort to such procedures. And also, for a very simple practical reason: who would false personalities of this country ask to send armies? The only armies that we have in our vicinity are the Yankee army and the armies of the puppets allied with the Yankee imperialists, the because we are too alone in this part of the world for there ever to exist the most remote possibility of saving this revolution by asking aid of allied armies. And it must be said that I do not know anyone capable of having enough shame to do such a thing if they had the need and opportunity to do it, because what kind of communists would we be and what kind of communist revolution would this be if at the end of 20 years we found ourselves having to do such a thing to save it? Always, when we have thought about foreign aid, we have never had the idea of foreign aid to fight against the imperialist soldiers and against the imperialist armies. I simply analyze these facts because I know that, legally, our people are concerned with an explanation of these concepts. Such things are not in our idea of the revolution. I do not think that a person can justify the appeal of high-ranking persons, because the justification can only be the political fact in itself – that Czechoslovakia was marching toward a counterrevolutionary situation and this was seriously affecting the entire socialist community. And besides, there is no lack of figleaves of any kind. It is the political fact in itself, with all its consequences and all its importance. (?As) we were saying, recognizing that and nothing else is simply enough. Or if it is obligatory, it is elementary to draw from this most bitter experience all the political conclusions. And as it is possible, we repeat: In these circumstances, an analysis must be made of all the factors. For the communist movement, there is the unavoidable duty of investigating deeply the causes leading to such a situation, a situation inconceivable for us, the Cuban revolutionaries. If such action is impossible for us Cuban revolutionaries – we who saw the necessity for carrying out this revolution 90 miles from imperialism – we also know that we cannot fall into these circumstances because it would mean the very end of the revolution and falling into the worst situation, [word indistinct] by our enemies, full of hatred.
But this is not the reason for making or trying to make this profound analysis. Communist Ideals We can enunciate some of the facts and concepts, such as the bureaucratic methods for the direction of the country; the lack of contact with the masses, an essential question of all really revolutionary movements; and the forgetting of communist ideals, and what is meant by the forgetting of the communist ideals – forgetting that men is class societies, that the exploited ones in the society of classes, the enslaved ones, fight for a whole series of ideals. When they talk of socialism, when they talk of communism, they talk not only of a society in which exploitation disappears de facto, and poverty resulting from this exploitation disappears, and underdevelopment resulting from this exploitation disappears, but also of all those beautiful aspirations which constitute the communist ideal and a classless society. They speak of a society without selfishness, of a society in which man ceases being a miserable slave of poverty, in which society ceases to work for profits and all society begins to work for necessities and to establish among men the reign of justice, fraternity, equality, and all the ideals of human society and peoples who have always aspired to attain these possible objectives as we have explained on other occasions, as we were fully explaining precisely on 26 July. If in later stages it were necessary for our revolutionary people to go deeply into these concepts of what is meant by the communist society, [it would be found that] the ideal of the communist society cannot be the ideal of the industrialized bourgeois society. It can in no way be the ideal of the society of capitalist bourgeois consumption. The communist ideal cannot for a single instant omit internationalism. Those who struggle for communism in any country of the world can never forget the rest of the world and the situation of misery, underdevelopment, poverty, ignorance, exploitation in the rest of the world. What misery has accumulated, what poverty! Not for an instant can one forget the needs and realities of this world. We understand that the masses of the people cannot be educated in a really internationalist awareness, in a really communist awareness, if one is permitted to forget these realities of the world, the threats these realities involve – realities of confrontation with imperialism, of the dangers of softening up involved in the drawing away from the mind of the people all these real problems so as to try to move the masses only through incentives and only through aspirations of consumption. European Socialism We can say – and today it is necessary to speak sincerely and frankly – that we have observed to what point these ideals and these internationalist sentiments, and that state of alert, that awareness of world problems have disappeared or have been manifested only in a very subtle manner in some socialist countries of Europe. We are not going to say that these have manifested themselves in all socialist countries, but [simply] in more than one socialist country of Europe. Cuban visitors and scholarship students have many times returned saturated with dissatisfaction and disgust, and have said: The youth there are not being educated in the ideals of communism; the youth there are not educated in the principles of internationalism; the youth there are highly influenced by all the ideas and by all tastes of the Western European countries; in many places there they speak only about money; in many places all they talk about is incentives, about material incentives of all sorts, about profits, and wages; and really an internationalist, a communist awareness is not being developed. Some have told us with astonishment: Well, volunteer work does not exist; people are paid for performing volunteer work; payment for volunteer work is [word indistinct]; it is almost a heresy from the Marxist viewpoint on simple volunteer work. All sorts of practices are followed, including: if a plane makes a good landing or another plane does not land well; if a man makes a good or poor parachute jump – there goes an incentive or something else. Many of our people, many of our men have more than once suffered trauma because of this vulgarization of material incentives of that making of men’s awareness vulgarly materialistic. Peace Advocates In addition to all this, there has been the preaching which advocates peace. Within the socialist countries there has been a constant and widespread preaching. And we ask ourselves: What is behind all these campaigns? Do we say this because we are advocates of war? Do we say this because we consider ourselves enemies of peace? We are not advocates of war; we are not advocates of universal holocausts. We have to say this because the analysis of these matters leads to clinches, schemes, charges of warmongering, of being incendiaries of war and of irresponsibility, and so forth and so on. On this matter we hold a position. The dangers posed to the world by the existence and aggressiveness of imperialism are unquestionable. The threat handing over the world because of the tremendous contradiction existing between the fact of a great part of the world being dominated by imperialism and the people’s desire and need to liberate themselves from the imperialist yoke is unquestionable. Those who are incendiaries of war are the imperialists; the imperialists are the adventurers. Very well, these threats are realities – realities – and these realities are not erased simply by preaching in our own homes, by an excessive desire for peace. In any event, they can preach peace in the enemy camp, but never in their own camp, because this will only bring about the disappearance of combat spirit, a weakening of the people’s readiness to face risk, sacrifices, and all the consequences that the international reality entails. That international reality imposes all sorts of sacrifices, not only the danger of sacrificing our blood but also sacrifices of a material nature.
That international reality imposes all sorts of sacrifices, not only the danger of sacrificing our blood but also sacrifices of a material nature. When the peoples know that the realities of the world, the independence of the country, and their internationalist duties, demand making investments and sacrifices to strengthen the country’s defenses, the masses will be much better prepared to work enthusiastically in this direction – to make sacrifices and to understand this need, being aware of the dangers caused by their unwillingness to make these sacrifices when their minds have been influenced and softened by an incessant, senseless, and unexplainable campaign for peace. That is a very strange way to defend peace. It was for that reason that at the outset we committed so many blunders – either through ignorance or ingenuousness. It has been a long time since we have painted signs saying: “Long live peace! Long live this or that!” At the beginning, either to mimic or to imitate, everything that came here was repeated, until the time came when we said: What sense does the sign “Long live peace” make? Let us place this sign in New York: “Long live peace in New York! Long live peace in Washington!” Let us preach peace there in the midst of the only ones responsible for the fact that peace is not secure, in the midst of the only ones who are really belicose, in the midst of the only ones responsible for war, the only ones among whom the preaching of peace could at least help to weaken the tremendous taxes imposed upon the people to finance adventuresome, aggressive, colonizing, imperialist, and exploiting war – and not here in our camp. Softening of Revolutionary Spirit A series of opinions, ideas, and practices which we do not understand has really contributed to the relaxation and softening up of revolutionary spirit in the socialist countries, to ignoring the problems facing the underdeveloped world, to ignoring the ghastly poverty which exists; to a tendency to maintain with the underdeveloped world trade practices that are the same trade practices followed by the capitalist, bourgeois, and developed world. This does not prevail in all countries, but it does in several countries. Technical aid – gentlemen, as you know, our country has great need for technicians, great need for technicians. However, when we render some technical assistance, we do not think of sending anyone a bill. We think that the least that an underdeveloped country, a socialist and revolutionary country can do, the least way in which it can help the underdeveloped world is with technology. It does not enter our mind to send anyone a bill for arms that we give or to send anyone a bill for technical assistance. It does not even enter our minds to mention it. If we are going to give aid and we are going to mention it every day, what we are going to do is constantly humiliate those to whom we are giving aid. I believe that one should not talk about it too much. But that is the way we are, and it is no virtue. One cannot claim it as a virtue. It is a basic thing. The day we have thousands and thousands of technicians, surely, gentlemen, the most basic of our duties is to contribute at least technical aid to the countries that achieve their liberation after us or that need our assistance. All these ideas have never been brought up. All these problems that have a great bearing on communist awareness, internationalist awareness, and which are not given the place they should have in the education of the masses in the socialist camp – have much to do with the terrible softening up which explains these situations. We all know that the leadership that Czechoslovakia generally had for 20 years was a leadership saturated with many vices of dogmatism, bureaucracy, and in sum, many things which cannot be considered a model of a truly revolutionary leadership. When we here present our views on the pseudoliberal nature of this group, which has been praised so much by imperialism, it does not at all mean that we are expressing our support for that [former] leadership. We must keep in mind that that leadership, with which we maintained relations from the beginning, sold us many arms that were war booty captured from the Nazis and we have been paying and are still paying for weapons that belonged to the Hitlerite troops that occupied Czechoslovakia. Naturally, I am not referring to the weapons which a country has to manufacture as an industrial and commercial product, especially if it is a country with a limited economy. We do not pretend to say: Give away the arms you manufacture in your industry as part of the social production and trade exchange to a country with relatively few resources. But they sold to us many weapons that belonged to the Nazi armies, and we have to pay for them and we are still paying for them. That is a reality. It is the same as if any country that liberated itself from imperialism needed the rifles that we took from Batista, and we were not rushing to given them away, and then were to charge it – a country ridden with poverty, with many needs, an underdeveloped country – for the rifles. It is as if any country liberated itself tomorrow and we sent it some weapons – the San Cristobal carbines, the Springfield rifles and all such things belonging to Batista’s army – and we charged for them as if it were a great trade transaction. Does there exist doubt that this deviates from the most basic concept regarding the duty of a revolutionary country toward other countries? On many occasions they sold us industries whose technology was very backward. We have seen the results of many of the economic ideas about trade transactions carried out in desperation to sell old weapons. There is no need to say that such practices led to circumstances under which a country that has carried out a revolution and needs to develop was sold old and obsolete weapons. I am not going to say that this was always the case. However, all the concepts about financing, benefits, profits, and material incentives that were applied to foreign trade organizations led to desperation to sell an underdeveloped country any old weapon, and this naturally leads to discontent, disgust, misunderstandings, and a deterioration of relations with the underdeveloped world. These are truths, and today we have to say bitter truths and to admit some bitter truths. We are going to take advantage of the occasion, not as an opportunity, but as a need to explain to ourselves some of things that otherwise would be inexplicable.
It would be very unfair if I did not say that we have known, and our country has known, many technicians from various countries, many Czechoslovak technicians, many good men, who have worked in this country loyally and enthusiastically. I am not referring to men but to institutions, and especially the institutions that deform men. even though there are institutions that deform men, many times we have seen men who have not been deformed by institutions. Before learning this experience that we are analyzing today, we learned other experiences that explain how one phenomena led to another, another, and another, and at a given time in a society, revolutionary and communist awareness were far from developing; individualism, egoism, and indifference of the masses developed; the cooling of enthusiasm increased. For that reason, some as, if in Cuba enthusiasm is going to decrease or increase – if it is going to increase now, decrease later, and then increase. This has never worried us because experience has taught us that as one goes deeper into the revolution, enthusiasm becomes more conscious, and conscious enthusiasm increases and does not decrease. Spirit of Sacrifice, Suffering The spirit of sacrifice of the people increases – the discipline, the work capacity, the willingness – everything increases. That is what our own revolutionary experience has shown us, and we cannot imagine it diminishing. And we think that as we advance it will have to become greater and greater, and that when our country arrives a a higher stage, becomes a communist society, that enthusiasm, that awareness will reach incomparably higher degrees that any we have ever known. We have seen the attitude of the workers, the willingness to work, to accomplish difficult tasks, the willingness to do voluntary labor, the giving up of overtime, and a whole series of all kinds of activities; and there are no longer activities of 10 or 50 or 1,000 persons, but rather there are activities of hundreds of thousands of persons in this country – dozens of thousands of workers that go off to effect the harvests, leaving their families behind; dozens of thousands of young people who go wherever they are sent – Isle of Pines, Pinar del Rio, Camaguey – anywhere – to live under difficult conditions, under difficult housing conditions; and we have seen that this has increased in our country year by year, as awareness grows. Thousands of youth always willing to go anywhere as technicians, as anything; thousands of youths always saying that they are ready to go struggle where they are needed. Our constant problem here is that everybody wants, everybody dreams of one day being permitted to leave the country so they can help the revolutionary movement anywhere. Our country has an internationalist awareness. Our country’s communist awareness has been growing – it has been growing day by day. And this is a real unquestionable asset of this revolution – for this revolution deals with and lives in world realities. Perhaps, too, the fact of having the enemy only too close is favorable for us. Perhaps the fact that we are not protected by great armies favors us, the fact that we know that here we depend on our ability to resist, on our people’s willingness to fight and to make sacrifices, on our people’s willingness to give their lives; and because not only was the revolution effected through the effort of this people, not only was this revolution not imported in any way, not only is it a very autochthonous revolution, but also it has had to defend itself in tight spots with an enemy that is very near, and a very powerful enemy. Our people have been developing that spirit of struggle, that spirit of combat, that willingness to challenge any danger that they have always had. And naturally, all those factors have contributed to the development of our revolutionary awareness. For surely – from the point of view of socialist ideas, from the point of view of revolutionary ideas – not a justification, but rather an explanation, an analysis of why such circumstances might arise in a country like Czechoslovakia is required. And they did indeed occur, and the need did indeed arise, the undeniable need – it is undeniable that there was only one alternative – to prevent it. But to prevent it, of course, the price that has to be paid is a very high price. For a people such as ours, with such a historical revolutionary tradition, who for many years had to face the problems of intervention and struggled against all of Yankee imperialism’s policies, it is logical that there be an emotional reaction. Many people, in the face of that fact that armies from outside the country’s borders have had to enter in order to prevent a catastrophe, and since logically, for different reasons, awareness, concepts, and repudiation of those actions have been formed, only the development of our people’s political awareness can given the ability to analyze when analysis becomes necessary. And even when this – it is necessary to admit it – even when it violates rights such as the right of sovereignty, our judgment considers as the more important interest the rights of the world revolutionary movement and of the people’s struggle against imperialism, which is in our judgment the fundamental question, and without any doubt, the tearing away of Czechoslovakia and its fall into the arms of imperialism would have constituted a very hard blow – harder still – to the interests of the world revolutionary movement. Bourgeois Liberal Economic Reforms And we must learn to analyze these realities, and [to learn] when one interest must give way to another interest in order that romantic and idealistic positions that do not in with these realities may be avoided. We are against all those bourgeois liberal reforms within Czechoslovakia, but we are also against the liberal economic reforms that wee taking place in Czechoslovakia and that have also been taking place in other socialist camp countries. Of course, we have the criterion that we should not tell them how they should realize the building of socialism. But in the face of the occurrences: analysis. A whole series of reforms were tending more and more to accentuate mercantile relations within the socialist society – profits, benefits, and all those things. In an article – there is an article around here somewhere, or maybe, with so many papers, the article has been misplaced – let’s look for it, well – Ah! Here it is; it hasn’t been lost – an article published in the newspaper Pravda regarding Czechoslovakia, the fact that – the following fact is pointed out: It says if the CPSU is constantly perfecting the style, the form and the method of the building of the party of the state – stresses Pravda – this same task is being effected in other socialist countries.
It is being effected with tranquility, based on the fundamentals of the socialist system. But this observation is very interesting: Pravda says – unfortunately, it was on another basis that discussion of the matter of economic reform in Czechoslovakia developed. During that discussion, on one hand overall criticism of the entire earlier development of the socialist economy was presented, and on the other hand replacement of the principles of planning with spontaneous mercantile relations, leaving a wide margin for action (?by) private capital, was proposed. Does this mean that they are also going to brake certain trends in the field of economy in the Soviet Union, too? Do they advocate putting the accent more and more on mercantile relations and on the effects of spontaneity on those relations – on those criteria that have been defending even the existence of the market and the beneficial effect of that market’s prices? This means that the Soviet Union is becoming aware of the need to brake that trend, for more than one imperialist press article speaks jubilantly of those trends, that have also appeared within the Soviet Union. On reading these statements, we ask ourselves if this means that an awareness of the problem has been reached. In any case, we find it very interesting that this was noted in the Pravda editorial. There is a series of matters worrying us. We are concerned that up to now, in the statements of the countries that sent their divisions to Czechoslovakia and in the explanation of the occurrences, no direct accusation of Yankee imperialism has been made. There has been exhaustive talk about all the antecedents, of all the occurrences, of all the deviations, of all the rightist group, of all that liberal group – there has been talk about everything they did. The activities of the imperialists, they intrigues of the imperialists are known, and we are nevertheless worried that neither the Communist Party nor the Soviet Government, nor the governments of the other countries that sent their troops to Czechoslovakia, have made any direct accusation of Yankee imperialism for its responsibility in the occurrences in Czechoslovakia. Certain vague references to world imperialism, to imperialist circles of the world, have been made, and certain more concrete references to West German imperialists circles. But who can fail to know that West Germany is simply a pawn of Yankee imperialism in Europe – the most aggressive, the most notorious? It is the CIA’s pawn, the Pentagon’s pawn, and the pawn of the imperialist government of the United States, and we certainly wish to express our concern that none of the statements has made a direct accusation of Yankee imperialism, the main cause of the machinations and the worldwide conspiracy against the imperialist [as heard] camp – against the socialist camp. And it is only elementary that we express this concern. Yugoslav Problem The occurrences in Czechoslovakia only serve to confirm to us the correctness of the positions and the theses that our revolution and our party have been maintaining – our position at the Tricontinental Conference, our positions in the Latin American Solidarity Organization, and our positions regarding all the international problems – there is a series of facts that confirm this point of view. It is known, for example, that one of the factors that we have explained – which explains – which has been a constant element of irritation in our relations with many countries of the socialist camp and with many communist parties is the problem of Yugoslavia. Some people must have asked themselves the reason for that attitude – why Cuba is always emphasizing the role that the Yugoslav League of Communists Party plays in the world. What is the role of an instrument of imperialism that that party plays in the world? Now, in relation to the occurrences in Czechoslovakia, the main promoter of all that bourgeois liberal policy – the main defender, the main promoter – was the organization of the so-called Yugoslav communists. They applauded with both hands all those liberal reforms, that whole concept of the party ceasing to be the instrument of revolutionary power, of power ceasing to be a function of the party – because this is very closely linked to the entire outlook of the Yugoslav League of Communists. All those criteria of political nature that completely deviate from Marxism, those criteria of an economic nature, are intimately linked with the Yugoslav League of Communists’ ideology. However, (?it has happened) recently in many countries that the communist parties, including the communist parties of the Warsaw Pact, have begun quite to forget the role and nature of the Yugoslav League of Communists. They began to call Yugoslavia a communist country, they began to call it a communist party, to invite the Yugoslav League of Communists to meetings of the socialist countries, to meetings of base organizations of the communist parties; and this evoked our constant opposition, our constant disagreement, our constant taking or exception, expressed on various occasions. And here we have the facts. It was this organization that was one of the principal promoters of the deformations of the political process in Czechoslovakia as the agent – that is what this organization is – of the imperialists. Some will say that (?I err, but) I am going to show at least some facts. Tito was received as a hero in Prague a few weeks ago. This was the result of what? Of the ideological weakening, of the political weakness in the consciousness of the masses. And were we not saying, how this can be? And to what extremes we are going, when this element – known to be revisionist, condemned historically by the revolutionary movement, which has taken the role of an agent of imperialism – was received by a nation practically as a hero? Now, of course, Tito is one of those most scandalized by this event of the participation of Warsaw Pact countries in Czechoslovakia. Cuban Purchase of Yugoslav Arms I was saying that some will ask why have we been so tenacious in our attitude toward the Yugoslav League of Communists. We want to point out a fact, a very important fact from the beginning of the revolution regarding our relations with Yugoslavia. It was in the year 1959, when our country had already made the first laws, when not only had we begun in our country the agrarian reform that brought us into confrontation with imperialism, but also, in the United States, the first plot against us was already being hatched.
At that time we did not have relations as yet with the USSR or with other countries of the socialist camp. And we had to buy our arms in some capitalist countries. We made our first purchases of arms in Belgium and Italy. Because of pressure by the imperialists, and first not by pressure but by CIA conspiracy, there was an explosion on one of the ships coming from Belgium with arms, which resulted in around 80 victims. Later, the Belgian Government, under pressure from the U.S. Government, stopped selling arms. Meanwhile, the United States was preparing its mercenaries against us and on the other hand was carrying out its policy of blockading our purchase of arms. The Italian Government at that time was under such pressures. We recall that we were trying to buy 16 mortars – 16 mortars from Italy, and they had already sold us four and (?some parts) of the other 12. But under pressure of the Yankee imperialists, they stopped the sale of the 12 pieces. That left us practically with four pieces and (?parts) of the others, but without the cannon. In this situation, we turned to the Yugoslav Government to try to buy some arms, including the 12 cannon and some 120 mortars and some other pieces. And here we have a report by the comrade in charge of that mission, Maj. Jose M. Fernandez Alvarez. And here is it in synthesis; I am going to read this information. It says: In 1959, as the Batista tyranny was defeated, after the defeat of the tyranny, military equipment had to be acquired. This equipment was needed urgently and immediately to defend the revolution, whose laws and measures in process of being promulgated would surely cause hate among its logical enemies, who would try to destroy it. On a tip that was given us, we got in touch with the ambassador of the Yugoslav republic at the end of 1959 and at the beginning of 1960, in a very superficial manner. Later, we went to visit him in the Yugoslav Embassy on 42nd Street and (Tercera) Miramar, accompanies by Maj Raul Castro. On this visit, the minister of the armed forces informed the ambassador of Cuba’s interest in buying arms and equipment, especially light infantry arms, rifles, machineguns, rocket launchers, mortars, and ammunition. The ambassador was evasive in general, and when the minister said something about payments, he said that the matter of arms was a different matter in regard to payments and that many details (?were involved). The minister indicated to the ambassador that I should stay in contact with him to learn about prices and the arms available, and to carry forward negotiations in this regard. It as extraordinarily difficult to carry out this task since the lists were delayed. Evasive answers were constantly given us. It was said that there were no arms available and that they had to be manufactured, that the prices had not arrived; and when the prices were finally in our possession, they dealt especially with small caliber arms at extraordinarily high prices, even on the international market. Before this and afterward, when we tried to get arms in Yugoslavia, some comrades went to Yugoslavia and also tried to arrange for the purchase of arms with the same results, with the presentation of other obstacles. We can say that in no operation could we make progress, despite our negotiations and great interest, since the Yugoslav representation here in Cuba did not make it feasible. As a conclusion to the foregoing, we can say that Yugoslavia’s attitude was markedly opportunistic, since it wanted to be paid in dollars and at black market prices for the few lines that it offered, and said that the total amount of the operation did not justify the difficulties that they would have with the United States over selling us arms. And they were reluctant to give us the lists and prices. They proposed that discussions be carried out through a private Yugoslav commercial company as a screen, in order that the operation should not appear under that country’s name, and in general little cooperation was shown. But it appeared that Yugoslavia did not want to make the sale to us, and on the other hand it appeared opportunist or at least intended to dissuade us from the conditions stipulated. This was the attitude of that socialist, communist, revolutionary country when our country, in the face of the first dangers of imperialist aggression, wanted to buy arms from it, and that is why there is not one Yugoslav bullet here. Imagine our surprise some months later when, one day, poking around in the archives, in the archives of the Batista government, we found the text of this document: “From the military attache to the Cuban Embassy in Mexico, Mexico, D.F., 13 December 1958; Gen. Francisco Tabernilla Dolz, (?MP), Military City, Marianoa. “My dear friend, I enclose various photographs which have been given me by the Yugoslav ambassador in this country – a great friend of mine. On a certain occasion I talked to him when I had been told that private negotiations were taking place about the possibility of acquiring armaments. He tells me that in fact he can supply us with various types of armaments that we might need, such as .30 06 rifles and so forth, and he talked about a type of boat like those in the photographs that could be of great use to us. “He explains that he has an ample quantity of these torpedo boats, which would be very economical, since they produce with very cheap labor and have the best naval shipyards today, after the English. These boats have a speed of over 40 kilometers an hour. They have two antiaircraft machineguns, an antiaircraft gun, and torpedo launchers.
They have two antiaircraft machineguns, an antiaircraft gun, and torpedo launchers. There is also a great abundance of these torpedoes, which are very cheap. Although I explained to him that at this time the negotiations for any kind of armaments were suspended because we had acquired enough in other places, he told me that at any rate he would give me a list with exact specifications, cost, date of delivery, and freight charge to our ports. As soon as he gives me these data, I shall send them to you immediately.” After talking about other matters, he signs it “Col. Chief A. P. Chaumon, military attache.” Those who have read the history of Moncada know that this Chaumon was precisely the officer who perpetrated tens of assassinations in the Moncada garrison after the attack. He was the most criminal of all the officers, who assassinated tens of prisoners, and he was later sent to Mexico and was a “great friend” of the Yugoslav ambassador, to whom, 18 days before the triumph of the revolution in December 1958, when thousands of Cubans had been here – we had been fighting for 2 years – this ambassador, in the name of Yugoslavia, and after consulting, was offering all kinds of arms – cheap, economical, launches, everything. How great, I say, was our indignation and surprise when we found this document in the archives, signed by the person who signed it, especially when we needed arms to defend ourselves from the imperialists, and they had put all kinds of obstacles in our way and did not sell us a single weapon, and they were offering arms to Batista just as the war was ending. As we are not going to hold the worst opinion, we are not going to have the worst concept of the role that this party played, when even the imperialists would not sell arms to Batista, when not even the Yankees would sell them arms, these gentlemen were offering good and cheap arms. The communist movement for a long time – with much justification – kept that party ostracized. An infinity of articles written by all the parties appeared in publication against that movement, denouncing it, pointing a finger at it. Afterward, naturally, some parties forgot this, and the friends, followers, the unconditionals, began also to forget this in the face of all the political preaching about the ideological resurgence of the revolutionary movement, which has led to these most dolorous situations. And we wonder whether, perhaps, this bitter experience with Czechoslovakia will not lead to a rectification of these errors, and whether the party of the League of Yugoslav Communists will cease to be accepted as a communist party, as a revolutionary party, and will cease to be invited to mass meetings and the political organizations of the socialist camp. We are seeing many interesting things as a result of these events. It is explained that the countries of the Warsaw Pact sent armies to put down on imperialist plot and the development of counterrevolution in Czechoslovakia. However, it has caused us to disagree and be discontented and to protest over the fact that these same countries have been fomenting relations and a rapprochement of an economic, cultural, and political nature with the oligarchical governments of Latin America, which are not simply reactionary governments, exploiters of their peoples, but are shameful accomplices in the imperialist aggressions against Cuba and shameful accomplices in the economic blockage against Cuba. And these countries have seen themselves stimulated and encouraged by the fact that our friends, our natural allies, have forgotten this cavalier role, this traitorous role, that these governments carry out against a socialist country, the blockage policy which those countries carry out against a socialist country. Communist Relations With Latin America And when we see that they explain the necessity for an internationalist spirit and for giving aid with troops to a brother country against the intrigues of the imperialists, we ask ourselves whether perhaps this policy of economic, political, and cultural rapprochement with these oligarchical governments, these accomplices of the imperialist blockade against Cuba, is not going to cease. It is well to see now how those countries react to this situation. They say that all the Latin American bloc expressed, in the forum of the nations of the world, their unanimous repudiation of this Russian intervention in Czechoslovakia. A spokesman for the group said that “we all receive this intervention with sadness and we feel sympathy with the Czechs. “The political result that this Soviet intrusion into Czechoslovak internal affairs will strengthen the anti-Soviet tendency in Latin America,” said the informant, and so on. Then they said, “The source said that this Soviet attitude, the theory about areas influence that they have criticized so much, would enable the United States to claim the right to invade Cuba, inasmuch as it falls within its area of security.” These puppet governments have already begun to draw up the theory that Cuba should be invaded because it falls within an area of security. All these countries – there is a single exception, Mexico, which has been the only government that has not participated in plans for the blockade, aggressions, and imperialist actions against Cuba – all these same oligarchic governments that have received great consideration, delicate treatment, are the standardbearers in the United Nations of scandals and attacks against the socialist countries in connection with events in Czechoslovakia; these countries belonging to the Latin American bloc are even proposing a meeting of the General Assembly and are the most rabid accusers and critics of the Soviet Union and socialist countries because of these events. These countries have been accomplices in the aggressions against Cuba; they are countries that have no right to speak of sovereignty or anything of that nature, countries that have no right to speak of intervention because they have been accomplices in all the wicked actions committed by imperialism against the people; the savage counterrevolutionary action executed in Santo Domingo, the aggressions against Cuba and many other Latin American nations. Such oligarchic governments as Brazil, Paraguay, and others sent troops there to Santo Domingo and are now the standardbearers of attacks and condemnation of the socialist camp because of the Czechoslovak events. What magnificent justification! How well this shows the fairness of the positions that the Cuban Revolution has held regarding these events! And we also ask ourselves if this policy will be rectified or if the path of political, economic, and cultural rapprochement toward these countries will continue to be followed.
Some of them, such as Argentina, even shelled a Soviet fishing vessel – yes, shelled. I believe that they even wounded a crew member and then awaited the other vessels like fierce beasts. They have carried out gross and indecent actions against everyone, and yet this soft policy has been followed, a policy has been followed, a policy which in our judgment only encourages their attitude as accomplices in the aggressions against Cuba. I have a very interesting press dispatch which says that Venezuela decided [does not finish sentence]: Caracas, 21 August – Venezuela has decided to suspend its talks with the Soviet Union and the communist bloc aimed at the resumption of diplomatic relations, in protest over the invasion of Czechoslovakia. The announcement was made by Foreign Minister Ignacio Irribaren Borges. The declaration says: “In view of reports about the invasion of Czechoslovakia by troops of the Soviet Union and other East European countries, the Venezuelan Government declares that this act against the sovereignty and the territorial integrity of that country represents an open violation of the principles of nonaggression and of free determination of peoples included in the United Nations Charter and the principle of nonintervention set forth in Resolution 2131 of the General Assembly and invariably defended by Venezuela. “The events that have occurred are a source of serious concern to the Venezuelan Government because they constitute a disturbance of international juridical order, an open employment of superior force, and a serious setback to the people’s aspirations for peaceful coexistence. “The Venezuelan Government considers that the invading troops must withdraw immediately and unconditionally. “The Venezuelan Government interprets the sentiments of the Venezuelan people by expressing its profound support for and solidarity with the Czechoslovak people.” The Venezuelan Government did not assume such an attitude, did not make such a statement, did none of these things when the Yankee troops landed in Santo Domingo. There was no break of relations, no interruption of trade or economic activities – absolutely nothing. And now it takes the luxury of throwing in the face of the socialist countries that type of relations which they have been begging, in reality, that type of relations which they have been begging from that government, which is among the most reactionary and one of the best accomplices of Yankee imperialism; and now it insults [restriega] the socialist countries. These are the results of such a policy when the hour of events, the hour of truth arrives. The same occurs with the communist parties of Europe that at this time have fallen prey to vacillation. We ask if perhaps in the future the relations with communist parties will be based on their principles or will continue to be governed by their degree of submissiveness, satellitism, and lackeyism, and if only those who unconditionally accept everything and are unable to express absolutely no disagreement with anything will be considered friends. Observe those who have criticized us many times, how under these circumstances they have now fallen confused in the midst of the great hesitations. Our party did not hesitate to help the Venezuelan guerrillas when a rightist and traitorous leadership, deviating from the revolutionary line, abandoned the guerrillas and entered into shameful connivance with the regime. At that time we analyzed who was right – the group committed to maneuvering and political chicanery, which betrayed the fighters, which betrayed the dead, or those who continued to uphold the banner of rebelliousness. We did not take into account the numbers involved in the rightist group; we took into consideration who was right. We did not take into account how many members of the Central Committee or Politburo were involved, because right has nothing to do with numbers. At that time the revolutionaries remained in the minority, keeping the banner of guerrilla warfare flying. We were loyal to the same positions that we hold today when we supported guerrillas over and above the rightist leadership in Venezuela, when for the same reason we supported the Guatemalan guerrillas over and above the maneuvers and betrayals of the rightist leadership in Guatemala, and when we supported the Bolivian guerrillas over and above the maneuvers and betrayal of the rightist leadership in Bolivia. However, we were accused of being adventurers, of intervening in the affairs of other countries and in the affairs of other parties. I ask, in the light of the facts and in the light of the bitter reality which led the Warsaw Pact countries to send their forces to crush a counterrevolution in Czechoslovakia and to support a minority there – so it is said – against a majority with rightist positions; I ask if they will cease supporting also in Latin America those rightist, reformist, submissive, and conciliatory leaderships, enemies of revolutionary armed struggle who oppose the people’s liberation struggle. In the face of this example, in the face of this bitter experience, I ask if the parties of those countries which support the decision made in Czechoslovakia will cease supporting those rightist groups which are betraying the revolutionary movement in Latin America. Surely we do not believe in the possibilities of improvement [of relations] by the socialist camp with imperialism under present conditions, and really under no conditions so long as such imperialism exists. We do not and cannot believe in the possibilities of improvement between the socialist camp and the imperialist U.S. Government so long as that country represents the role of international gendarme, an enemy of the revolution throughout the world, an aggressor against the people and a systematic opponent of revolution throughout the entire world. And much less do we believe in that improvement in the midst of such a criminal and cowardly aggression as the aggression against Vietnam. Position on East-West Relation Certainly our position on this is very clear: Either one faces the reality of the world – either one is really internationalist and really and resolutely supports the revolutionary movement in the world, and relations then with the imperialist U.S. Government cannot be improved; or relations with the imperialist U.S. Government are improved, but only at the expense of ceasing to loyally support the world revolutionary movement. This is our thesis, this is our position Here is a press dispatch from Washington – 22 August – “The Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia hinders any rapprochement between East and West, U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk stated here publicly today.
The situation created can compromise ratification of the nonproliferation treaty by the U.S. Senate, the chief U.S. diplomatic official added. He issued this press statement upon leaving a cabinet meeting at the White House, a meeting devoted to the Czechoslovak problem and the Vietnam situation.” We can only express our happiness over this. Our people are aware of the position assumed by the Cuban delegation toward this famous nonproliferation treaty, a treaty which amounted to a permanent concession of monopoly of a technology of a power source which will be essential to the future of mankind. We were especially concerned over the fact that this meant that many countries of the world would accept an imperialist U.S. Government monopoly over those weapons, which could be used at any time against any nation, since, in addition, that draft treaty was accompanied by an astounding declaration in defense of the countries signing the treaty which were threatened by nuclear arms. Such countries as Vietnam and Cuba, if they desired to differ and not agree with that type of treaty and even less to sign it under circumstances in which the aggression against Vietnam was being carried out in the sharpest manner, were deprived of any protection. Theoretically the imperialists could even have the right to attack us with nuclear weapons. Of course, all are aware of our position. In the light of events, in the fact of an imperialism that is always plotting, always conspiring against the socialist camp, we ask if we should continue maintaining idyllic hopes of an improvement in relations with the imperialist government of the United States. We ask, in line with the events in Czechoslovakia – in the relations with Yankee imperialism – a position will not be adopted that will imply the renunciation of such idyllic hopes. And it is said here that this will make rapprochement more difficult, and that the new ratification is endangered. In our opinion, the best thing that can happen is for it not be ratified. The statement by TASS explaining the decision of the governments of the Warsaw Pact says in its final paragraph: “The brother nations firmly and resolutely oppose their unbreakable solidarity against any threat from abroad. They will never permit anyone to snatch away even a single link of the socialist community.” We ask: Does this statement include Vietnam? Does this statement include Korea? Does this statement include Cuba? Does it consider Vietnam, Korea, and Cuba as links in the socialist camp that cannot be snatched away by the imperialists? On the basis of this declaration, Warsaw Pact divisions were sent to Czechoslovakia, and we ask: Will Warsaw Pact divisions be sent to Vietnam also if the imperialists increase their aggression against that country and the people of Vietnam ask for this aid? Will Warsaw Pact divisions be sent the the Korean Democratic Republic if the Yankee imperialists attach that country? Will Warsaw Pact divisions be sent to Cuba if the Yankee imperialists attack our country, or simply if, in the face of the threat of an attack by the Yankee imperialists, our country requests it? [long applause] We accept the bitter necessity which demanded the sending of troops to Czechoslovakia. We do not condemn the socialist countries that adopted this decision; but we, as revolutionaries, and on the basis of principles, have the right to demand that a consistent policy of adopted in all the other questions that affect the revolutionary movement in the world. Defense of Cuban Revolution Regarding our country, why hide [the fact] that many dangers will arise? The partisans of armed military attack on Cuba almost rub their hands with joy. Even today we have a cable to this effect. We must say how we see things. It is perhaps the principle of sovereignty, is it perhaps the law, that has protected and continues to protect our country in the fact of Yankee invasion? No one believes this. If it were the law, if it were the principle of sovereignty that was protecting our country, it is certain that this revolution would have disappeared from the face of the earth. What has protected this revolution, what made it possible, was the blood of the sons of this country, the bloody fighting against the bailiffs and against the armies of Batista, the bloody fighting against the mercenaries, the willingness here to fight to the last man in defense of the revolution – as shown in the October crisis – and the conviction of the imperialists that here they will never be able to execute a maneuver or military parade. What defends this revolution is not a simple abstract legal principle that is recognized internationally. What defends this revolution is the unity of our people, their revolutionary consciousness, their combative spirit, and their decision to die to the last man in defense of the revolution and the country. I do not believe that even our enemies have any doubts about the mettle and the spirit of this people. What defends the sovereignty of a country or a just cause is a people who are capable of feeling this cause as its own, capable of having a profound conviction about the justice of this cause, and the decision to defend it at any price. This is precisely what protects our revolution and what protects the sovereignty of our country in the face of the imperialist threat that has always existed here. Cuban-U.S. Relations Now, the imperialist have not ceased for a single instant to dream of the destruction of our country. These dangers will now naturally increase. Well, now, precisely now – because we must talk of things at the necessary moment – once again we are going to set forth our position – the position of our revolutionary government – in regard to the United States. To say it now, precisely when to say things has a real and not simply a declamatory or theoretical significance. It is all the more necessary to express our position, because some speculations have been made about possible improvement of relations between Cuba and the United States.
It is all the more necessary to express our position, because some speculations have been made about possible improvement of relations between Cuba and the United States. The revolutionary government has at no time expressed the slightest interest in improving its relations with the imperialist U.S. Government. It has not shown, nor will it show, nor will it pay the least attention or express directly or indirectly, tacitly or expressly, any kind of consent to discuss with that government as long as it is a government which represents the bulwark, of reaction in the world, the international gendarme, enemy of revolutionary movements, aggressor in Vietnam, aggressor in Santo Domingo, and interventionist in revolutionary movement. This has been, is, and will be unquestionably the position of the Revolutionary Government of Cuba. Never, under no circumstances – the comrades of our Central Committee know this, they know that this is the line adopted by our committee – that never, under no circumstances, even in the most difficult circumstances, will this country approach the imperialist government of the United States, even if one day it puts us in the position of having to choose between keeping the revolution alive or taking such a step. Because gentlemen, beginning at that movement, no revolution would continue living. If one day this revolution, in order to survive, has to pay for its security and survival the price of concession to Yankee imperialists, we would prefer – as our Central Committee unanimously prefers and as our people prefer – that this people sink with out revolution rather than survive at such a price. [applause] In the United States there are honest and progressive people, people who oppose blockades, aggressions, and all those things. Naturally, we have always maintained a friendly attitude toward those who honestly have held such a position, toward those who oppose the Vietnam war and the imperialist policies of the United States. Well, regarding the government of that country, our position is clear, absolutely unmistakable. We are not interested in economic relations and we are not yet interested in diplomatic relations of any kind. Their criminal blockade has been in effect for 10 years. They have taught us to defend ourselves and to form a revolutionary conscience. They know that it will not be easy to sink us. They know that they will not be able to scare us with their threats or to subdue us. They know it will not be easy to starve us to death under any circumstances. We have struggled these 10 years, making enormous efforts. The time is not far when we shall begin to reap the fruits of our efforts. We are prepared to live 20 years – a whole lifetime – without relations of any sort with them. We repeat, regardless of the circumstances, we will wait until Yankee imperialism ceases to be Yankee imperialism, and we will have enough patience and courage to persevere for as long as is necessary. This is our position. This is the only revolutionary position. We know that they will start trying th threaten us. They will not be successful in this. It is difficult for them to instill fear or dread in this country because this country has learned to live for 10 years in the face of this enemy and its threats. Let us say sincerely that we prefer this clear situation. We prefer this position of risk to those indefinite positions that can lead to a weakening of our spirit of defense. We have not had a war alarm for a long time. We have not had any tense situation for a long time. Now, because of these incidents, several cables have reported that our armed forces have been placed partially on the alert. Yes, immediately; our forces will never be taken by surprise. Our philosophy of struggle includes the basic concept that we will never be taken by surprise. We prefer to be excessively on the alert than to be surprised. Under all circumstances we have always been on the alert and ready, and never have been surprised. The following is our philosophy; we shall never have to give the order to fight, because that order has been permanently given. It is unnecessary to give the order. One will never be able to enter this country against our will. The circumstances will never exist, no one will ever enter here without at the very start encountering a closed and implacable battle. It is not necessary to sound the alarm for battle. Neither will the order to stop firing ever be given in the face of an aggression. Never will a surrender be accepted.
Never will a surrender be accepted. These are three basic concepts of our philosophy against the Yankee imperialist forces. This philosophy has been drilled into our people who are prepared to fight to the very last man. This also is part of our philosophy. Man has to die one way or another. The only sad way to die is to die shamefully with one’s back to the enemy. We are not warmongers, but revolutionaries prefer to die fighting rather than from natural death. This does not mean that we shall provoke wars to avoid a natural death. Not even revolutionaries can always do what they prefer. Duty will always come first. This – and everybody knows this – is what really defends our sovereignty. A phase of threats will begin. We will be more occupied in the future than we have been in the past. We will not abandon our work or our development plans; not even this will they achieve. Our present organizational level will go forward. We will carry out our plans and we will strengthen our defense and increase our fighting ability. Well, here already is the cable from Brazil. A paper that serves as one of the greatest spokesman of the oligarchy there says: “The Soviet interference in an internal matter of Czechoslovakia reopens the Cuban question, which had appeared to be healed, and of which no more was being said.” Thus begins an extensive editorial of Jornal do Brazil in its yesterday’s edition. In a story entitled, Here and There, the paper says textually: “With the entrance of Soviet troops into Czechoslovakia, several points of equilibrium in the world balance of power need to be automatically reappraised. We cannot fail to recognize that the Cuban presence now takes on a new meaning in the light of the cold and brutal realism that led the Soviet Union to feel insecure simply because one country of the communist orbit decided to debate the need for freedom. “Moscow intolerance was obvious in its hushing all the words of order so that it could give the floor to brute force. If the USSR can soil the principle of selfdetermination of the peoples simply because it considers that Czechoslovakia is a territory under its ideological jurisdiction, then there is no way of invoking the same doctrine to prevent the Cuba case from being studied in the light of the specific interest of continental unity. “There are notorious differences in the two cases. First, Czechoslovakia has not broken with socialist principles, nor has it opposed politically the bloc to which it belongs. Only in the internal plane did it eliminate the rigidity of the suffocating dictatorship and permit itself to be led to a discussion in which the word freedom came to be considered a dimension without which socialism is a farce. Cuba’s situation is very different. The Havana government is out of step with the ensemble of the continental countries, whose commitments are to democracy and freedom. The Havana communist regime, besides being an exception, is assuming the mission of exporting subversion to the point of financing groups that perturb democratic order in Latin America. “As long as the Soviet Union was capable of permitting the breeze of freedom that blew in Czechoslovakia, the world had the impression that finally the large nations, the captains of the blocs, were playing in a more tolerant manner than with the automatism of military interventions. But the panorama brutally and unexpectedly changed. The brunt of Soviet violence was brought to bear against the Czechoslovak attempt to practice freedom. “The situation automatically changes as far as Cuba is concerned. Not because of the effect of any compensation, but rather because of the simple fact that it is necessary to reevaluate the balance of power on the world scale. The Cuban problem will be reopened, and Brazil, which rose to the defense of the principle of nonintervention, will have to keep in mind that the Rio de Janeiro Treaty is the appropriate legal document for reexamination of the problem. “The Cuban question is thus converted, since the early hours of yesterday morning, into a current matter, and should be reconsidered without the wrong connotations which reported it in a rather unrealistic manner. The Soviet aggression on Cuba is exposing its flank in Latin America to inevitable investigation.” So concludes the editorial in Jornal do Brasil in its edition of yesterday, 22 August. And it pretends to say that this is a realistic examination. There is a wee difference, gentlemen of Jornal do Brasil and of Brazil and other oligarchs; and this is that we Cuban revolutionaries would drive Brazil’s best divisions out of Cuba in a matter of hours with kicks in the ass. [prolonged applause] And the same goes for the best divisions of the imperialist Government of the United States. We are ready, like the Vietnamese, to struggle for 100 years if necessary [applause]. That is the only slight difference, imperialist and oligarchic gentlemen. We willingly maintain our positions and will always maintain them without being frightened by any kind of threat.
We willingly maintain our positions and will always maintain them without being frightened by any kind of threat. Fatherland or death! We will win! Castro Archive Last updated: 10 April 2021
Fidel Castro Internet Archive Speech delivered by Commander in Chief Fidel Castro Ruz during the presentation of the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party, at the “Chaplin” theater October 3, 1965. Delivered: October 3, 1965 Source: http://www.fidelcastro.cu/en from a short hand version, Stenographic Versions – Council of State. Markup: David Walters, 2019 Online Version & translation: http://www.fidelcastro.cu/en Distinguished guests; Comrades of the Central Committee. Comrades of the provincial, regional and sectional committees. Comrade Secretaries of the cells of our party. I am compelled to begin with a topic which has not direct relation with the purpose of this meeting but since it is a topical question and one of a political interest, I cannot refrain from referring to it. It is the outcome of the proposal made on September 28, with regard to events that had been taking place for the last three years, and which has been treacherously manipulated by the enemy to wage a campaign against our Revolution. It is the case of people who, upon the suspension of flights between Cuba and Miami, were left with one foot here and the other one there. In order to unmask Yankee imperialism once and for all in this regard, we made the statement on September 28, which you know about. And when they later said that the statement was somewhat vague and ambiguous, and that it had not been delivered through diplomatic channels, we made a second and very clear and very concrete statement so we could settle the dispute once and for all. Today, the cables carry the news regarding the final reply by the United States Government in this respect. I am going to read the news brought by these cables. In short, it reads: “President Johnson”–this is an AP cable–“President Johnson announced today that he will strive for a diplomatic understanding with Cuba so Cubans who want to leave their country can take asylum in the United States.” This thing about “diplomatic understandings” means an agreement through diplomatic channels with regard to this problem. It reads: “I have requested the State Department to seek through the Swiss Embassy, entrusted with U.S. affairs, the consent of the Government of Cuba in a request to the president of the International Red Cross.” It also says: “I have given instructions to the Departments of State, Justice, Health, Education, and Welfare, to make the necessary arrangements to enable those who seek freedom in Cuba to enter the United States in an orderly manner.” In another cable with more news, it adds: Mr. Johnson also stated: “`Once more this has revealed the mark of defeat of a regime. When many of its citizens freely elect to leave the nation where they were born to go to a home of hope, the future harbors little hope for any government when the present does not permit hopes for its people.'” He said that “the refugees would be welcome with the thought that someday they can return to their country to find it rid of terror and free from fear.” In other words, they apparently did not have any other alternative, nor any other way out. It means, in the first place, that we have won a battle for freedom. (APPLAUSE) Mr. Johnson, would not be Johnson, nor would he be President of the United States, nor would he be a Yankee, if he did not use this proverbial pharisaic discourse to accompany this statement with all this condiment regarding the hopes of those who will leave for the United States in search of freedom and which can offer nothing to their future when at the present time they only offer the prospect for the citizens of a country of having to abandon their nation of origin. He also talks about the Red Cross. Therefore, we consider it necessary to reply to Mr. Johnson on these matters which have nothing to do with the matter itself which we proposed. And we should make some pertinent remarks on all this. First of all, the Yankee news agencies and many of that country’s officials as well as some news agencies which are not Yankee, but which apparently through hearing these arguments over and over, such as Reuters and France Press, have echoed the statement that this meant a change in the policy with regard to those who wanted to leave the nation–and this is absolutely false. Since its outset of the Revolution, there has been only one policy in regard to this. From the beginning of the Revolution, until the Missile crisis, all who wished to leave this country and who had received permission from the United States were leaving without being stopped. And when as a result of the Missile crisis they stopped the flights to Cuba there was not a change in the policy of the Revolutionary Government, because through the other routes, that is the route of Spain and the route of Mexico, nearly 300 persons continued to leave monthly, in other words, more than 3,000 persons per year. There has not been the slightest change in the policy about those who wish to leave the country. What we have done is to unmask the bad faith and the hypocrisy of Yankee imperialism, the only responsible for the routes to leave normally being closed in order to promote a certain type of clandestine and risky departures with the only purpose of making propaganda. Mr. Johnson probably ignores that during the in the United States war of independence to break free from English colonial rule, thousands upon thousands of North Americans left their country after the independence and went to Canada. In all Revolutions whether it be the French Revolution or the Russian Revolution or the Cuban Revolution, this occurrence of departure or migration of the privileged classes is a historical fact. If the departure from a country, if the departure of men and women who are born in a country to another country could be an indication of the characteristics of a social regime, the best example is the case would be Puerto Rico, an island which the Yankee imperialism took over and which it has maintained under an exploiting, colonial regime and therefore the reason for which more than one million of the men and women born in that country have had to migrate to the United States. And Mr. Johnson forgot about Puerto Rico and the more than one million Puerto Ricans who live in New York under the hardest living conditions in the poorest neighborhoods and doing the most humiliating jobs. Naturally, this talk about the Red Cross is a trick of Mr. Johnson in order to dramatize the matter. Now, who really has said that to process passports and grant permission for some planes to land in Miami, the Red Cross must intervene?
What does the Red Cross have to do with this? This does not have anything to do with an earthquake, a catastrophe or a war, but simple proceedings to authorize the arrival to the United States, authorizing the landing of the planes or the arrival of the ships. We do not need the Red Cross at all for this. The Red Cross in any case, could intervene to propose to the United States the lift of the criminal measure through which the sale of medications to Cuba is banned. For that the International Red Cross would be really useful. (APPLAUSE) In any case, the Red Cross could do a better job in South Vietnam (APPLAUSE) where the Yankee soldiers murder thousands, murder and torture the citizens of that nation by the thousands, or in North Vietnam where the criminal Yankee bombings do not distinguish one thing from another. They bomb cities just like they bomb villages, schools, and hospitals. The Red Cross could have to do something in Santo Domingo where the invading soldiers commit all kinds of outrages against the people while occupy the students’ schools. (APPLAUSE) The Red Cross could intervene in the United States to prevent the massacres of Negro citizens like the one that took place recently in Los Angeles, California. (APPLAUSE) However, for this matter, Mr. Johnson, the Red Cross need not be present. It is enough for us to hold discussions with the representatives of the Swiss Embassy, who are the representatives for the U.S. interests in Cuba, and we can perfectly make agreements with them on any proceeding. No one else need be present; we accept the sincerity and responsibility of the Swiss officials. Now, if the U.S. Government does not have confidence or does not believe in the ability of the Swiss Embassy, that is the problem of the U.S. Government. (APPLAUSE) Now, speaking very seriously, on these questions of freedom, I would like to know if Mr. Johnson would like to answer a couple of questions. Since we have permitted all those who wish to leave Cuba since the beginning of the Revolution to do so, inasmuch as we have never denied permission to those who have wanted to leave to visit their relatives and return, also if there are Cubans who have relatives in the United States and wish to be reunited with them, there are also Cubans who have relatives in the United States and they do not wish to abandon their country. (APPLAUSE) And inasmuch as Mr. Johnson stood by the Statue of Liberty and took the trouble to sprinkle his statements with this nonsense about liberty, I ask him if the United States will allow Cubans in the United States to visit their relatives in Cuba and then return to the United States. (APPLAUSE) If the United States is willing to permit Cubans who do not wish to live in the United States to visit their relatives in the United States and return to Cuba, and finally if the United States is disposed to allow U.S. citizens to visit Cuba. (APPLAUSE) Because that same government which says that a country travels the wrong path if its citizens leave that nation, we can tell them that a nation could travel a worse path, despite the fact that it is a nation which publicizes a great deal and thinks itself as a nation of liberties. Despite the fact that it has been able to attain the standard of economic development they have reached, they are afraid to grant permission for U.S. citizens to visit this country, which is so slandered about fear and terror–as they call it. (APPLAUSE) Therefore, here is the second question to the U.S. Government: We call upon you also to permit those Cubans who live in the United States to come to Cuba to visit their relatives who do not wish to go live in the United States, and to permit those relative who live in Cuba and do not want to leave Cuba, to go to the United States and return. Finally, we ask that they permit the students or any U.S. citizens to come to visit Cuba in the same manner that we permit any Cuban citizen to leave or return (APPLAUSE); that the U.S. Government permit the Negro representatives of the U.S. Negro organizations to visit Cuba, or the organizations of the defenders of civil rights to see how, with the disappearance of the exploitation of man, to see how racial discrimination had ended for good in our nation. (APPLAUSE) And let us see if Mr. Johnson, before the world and the U.S. people has an answer to this call which is not gibberish. We compel him to respond. We maintain our position, we maintain our declaration and we wait for the relevant meeting on this matter to be requested by the Swiss representatives from the Swiss Embassy when they receive the pertinent instructions from the U.S. Government. But we hope to see whether Mr. Johnson has a way of reply to this call. And since they talk so much, since they brag so much about freedom, enough of this talk about false freedoms; enough of this talk about abstract freedoms. The facts have shown that it is here where we are creating a world of freedom, not there. (APPLAUSE) It is such a free world that we do not want to force anyone to live in this society against his will, because our socialist society, our communist society, must be eminently a truly free association of citizens. (APPLAUSE) And although it is true that certain citizens educated in those ideas of the past and in that way of life of the past prefer to go to the United States, it is also true that this country has become the sanctuary of the Revolutionaries of this continent.
(APPLAUSE) And although it is true that certain citizens educated in those ideas of the past and in that way of life of the past prefer to go to the United States, it is also true that this country has become the sanctuary of the Revolutionaries of this continent. (APPLAUSE) It is also true that we consider worthy of the hospitality of this people and this land, not only those born here but also all men and women who share our own tongue and of our own culture–and even when they do m not share our own tongue, of similar historical and ethnic origins, or similar history of exploitation. And they have a right to come to this country and, all those who have wanted to, have made use of this right–those pursued by bloody and imperialist oligarchies. Many man and women who were born in other sister nations of this continent have come to this country to live permanently or temporarily. Many technicians and many professional from various parts of America have come to live and work in this country for many years. This is not just a country of Cubans–this is a country of revolutionaries. (APPLAUSE) The Revolutionaries of the continent have a right to consider themselves our brothers, and they are worthy of this right. This includes North American Revolutionaries (APPLAUSE), because some leaders, like Robert Williams, fiercely persecuted there, found asylum in this land. Thus, just as he, so can those being persecuted by reactionaries and exploiters find asylum here. It does not matter if they speak English and are born in the United States. This is the motherland of the revolutionaries of this continent, just as the United States is the inevitable asylum of all the henchman, of all the embezzlers (APPLAUSE), of all the exploiters (APPLAUSE), of all the reactionaries of this continent. Because there is not a thief, there is not an exploiter, there is not a reactionary, and there is not a criminal, for whom the United States does not keep its gates open. And with this, we have replied to Mr. Johnson’s words spoken under his discolored Statue of Liberty), which no one knows what it represents, that hodgepodge of stone and hypocrisy, unless it is what Yankee imperialism means to the world today. Now we are going to turn to our business, to matters of our party. Because I think that the news reports coming from here, those regarding our social successes, our economic successes, and our political successes, are very bad news for the Yankee imperialists. Naturally, anything which strengthens and advances the Revolution, anything that allows us to make the best progress, is of very high concern to them. Because of this, they will return–yes, some day they will long to come back, repentant, a large portion of the ones that left. But when Johnson talks about returning here as liberators we could tell him that this is an “autumn night’s dream.” (laughs) All the nation has received with joy and enthusiasm the news of the constitution of our Central Committee. The names of the comrades which make up this committee as well as their history are well known. If all of them are not known by all our people, all are known by a large and important part of the nation. We have committed ourselves to choosing those who in our judgment represent in the most complete manner the history of our Revolution. Those who in addition to the struggle for the Revolution, as well as the struggle for the consolidation, defense, and development of the Revolution have worked and have fought with determination and tirelessly. There is no heroic episode in the history of our country during the last years where they have not been present. There is no sacrifice, there is no fight, there is no prowess, civilian or military, heroic or creative, in which they are not represented. There is no social revolutionary sector which is not represented. I do not speak about organizations. There are men who for a long time were bearers of the socialist ideas, just like founder of the first communist party, Comrade Fabio Grobart. (APPLAUSE) Cases like that of Comrade Helena Gil, (APPLAUSE) whose extraordinary work leading the schools, were more than 40,000 peasant women from the mountain have studied, and where thousands of teachers have been trained, where today more than 50,000 youths and children study, and which we consider a truly exemplary job. Or the case of comrade Arteaga (APPLAUSE), who besides his history of struggle, has worked for seven years in the agriculture sector and has developed successful plans, in some cases successful plans like the Escambray agricultural plan. (APPLAUSE) Cases of comrades like Lieutenant Tarrao, whom many have not heard of, but who is a comrade the Ministry of Interior placed at the head of the rehabilitation plans at the Isle of Pines (APPLAUSE) where he has developed with an exemplary and unselfish attitude, a brilliant job about which a lot will be said and written someday. I have mentioned cases of comrades, some well-known and other less known. The list of the comrades from the Revolutionary Armed Forces would be endless. (APPLAUSE) For their history before and after the triumph, as an example of model revolutionaries, of tireless workers, as an example of excellent students, in the development of culture, in improving the standards in education and general culture and of the political preparedness, comrades of extraordinary modesty, in whose hands the defense of the motherland has fundamentally been placed during the last seven years of dangers and of threats. It is not necessary to talk about the best known comrades. This does not mean that the only valuable people of the nation are here, far from that. Our nation has many outstanding people, and above all, a promotion of new comrades in full progress, which one day without a doubt will come to hold that responsibility and that honor. It we ask ourselves who is missing, without a doubt we would say that there are some comrades missing. It would be impossible to constitute a Central Committee with 100 revolutionary comrades without many cadres who are not included. However, what matters is not those who are missing–they will come later. What matters is those who are here and what they represent. We know that the party and the people have welcomed with satisfaction the Central Committee which has been constituted.
(APPLAUSE) This committee, meeting yesterday, adopted several agreements. Firstly, it ratified the measures adopted by the former national leadership, ratified the politburo, the secretariat, and the working commissions, as well as the comrade elected to the office of organization secretary. (APPLAUSE) Moreover, it adapted to important agreements, which had also been suggested by the former national leadership. One of them relates to our official newspaper: instead of two newspapers or a political nature, as were being published, we will concentrate the human resources, concentrate machinery and paper, in order to publish a new, single morning newspaper of a political nature, in addition to the newspaper EL MUNDO, which is not precisely a political orientation newspaper; to combine all these resources and to make a new daily newspaper which will bear the name of GRANMA, (APPLAUSE) the symbol of our Revolutionary concept and of our path. The other agreement is even more important, dealing with the name of our party. First we were the ORI (Spanish language acronym for Integrated Revolutionary Organizations), during the first stages in the unification of the Revolutionary forces, with its positive and negative aspects. Then we were the United Party of the Socialist Revolution, which represented extraordinary progress, an extraordinary advance in the creation of our political apparatus, an effort of three years in which, from the unlimited pool militants from our people, countless new party members coming from within the ranks of our workers, enabling us to become today what we represent in numbers, but, above all, what we represent in terms of quality. The name United Party of the Socialist Revolution says much, but is does not say it all. The name still gives the idea of something that had to be united, that still recalls the origins of each one. Since we fell that we have already reached a stage in which all types of labels and things that distinguish some Revolutionaries from others must disappear once and for all and forever and that we have already reached the fortunate point in the history of our Revolution in which we can say that there is only one kind of Revolutionary, and since it is necessary that the name of or party say, not what we were yesterday, but what we are today and what we will be tomorrow, what, in your opinion, is the name our party should have? (Crows makes tumultuous indistinct response of Communist) What is it, what is, comrades? what is it a comrade from here, ? The comrades from there, the comrades over there, the comrades over there? The Cuban Communist Party! (APPLAUSE) Well, that is the name which, by interpreting the development of our Party, the revolutionary conscience of its members, and the objectives of our Revolution, our first Central Committee adopted yesterday. And that is quite proper, as we explained to the comrades of the committee yesterday; the word “communist” has been much slued and much denigrated throughout centuries. There have been communists throughout history, men of communist ideas, men who conceived a way of living different from the society in which they were born. Those who thought in a communist manner in other times were considered, for example, utopian communists who 500 years ago because in their idealistic approach aspired for a type of society which was not possible at that time given the very poor stage of development of productive forces. Of course man could not return to the communist from which primitive man originated, to live in a primitive form of communism, unless there was such a degree of development of his productive forces and such a method for the utilization of those forces, a social mode of using those forces, so that material goods and services could be produced in more than sufficient quantities to satisfy the needs of man. All the exploiters, all the privileged always hated the word “communist” as if it were a crime. They anathematized the word “communist” and that is why when Marx and Engels wrote their Communist Manifesto which gave origin to a new Revolutionary theory, to a scientific interpretation of human society, human history, they said “a phantom is sweeping Europe, and that is the phantom of communism,” because privileged classes viewed those ideas as a phantom, with true fear. Moreover the privileged classes in any era of history always viewed new ideas with extraordinary fear. Roman society was also terrorized in its era by the Christian ideas when these ideas rose in the world. And they were at one time the ideas of the poor and the slaves of those times. It was as a result of their hatred against these new ideas the Roman society casted countless numbers of human beings into the flames, and into the circus. In like fashion, during the Middle Ages, in the era of feudalism, new ideas were persecuted and their originators slandered and treated in the worst possible manner. The new ideas that came to exist with the emergence of bourgeoisie during feudalism, whether those ideas adopted political, philosophical, or religious positions, they were cruelly anathematized and persecuted. The reactionary classes have used all means to anathematize and slander new ideas. Thus all the power and all the means at their disposal are not enough for their purposes of slandering communist ideas, as if the desire for a society where man will not be an exploiter of man but a true brother of man, as if the dream of a society in which all human beings are equal in fact and in law, not just a simple constitutional clause such as those contained in the bourgeois constitutions where they say that all men are born free and equal, as if that could be said equally of a child born in a slum, in a poor cradle, and of a child born in a golden cradle, as if it could ever be said in a society of exploiters and exploited, or rich and poor, that all men are born free and equal, as if all those men were called upon in life to have the same opportunity. The perennial dream of men, a dream possible today, of a society-without exploiters or exploited, has drawn the hate and the acrimony of all the exploiters. The imperialists, as if they were offending us, as if it were an offense, speak of the communist Government of Cuba just as the work “Mambi”(as the Cuban independence fighters were called) was used against our liberators as an offense, in like fashion they attempt to use the work “communist” as an offense.
And the work “communist” is not an offense for us but an honor. (APPLAUSE) It is the word which symbolizes the aspiration of a large party of humanity and hundreds and hundreds of millions of human beings are concretely working for it today, within 100-years, there will be no greater honor nor will there by anything more natural and logical than to be called “communists.” (APPLAUSE) We are headed toward a communist society and if the imperialists were asking for it, well now they got it. (APPLAUSE) From now on, gentlemen of the UP and AP, when you call us “communists” you know you are calling us the most honorable thing you can call us. (APPLAUSE) There is an absence in our Central Committee of one who possess all the merits and all the virtues in the highest degree to belong to it and who, however, is not among the members of the Central Committee. Around this the enemy had weave a thousand conjectures. The enemy has tried to confuse and to instill discord and doubt. And patiently, because it was necessary to wait, we have waited. That is the difference between the Revolutionary and the counterrevolutionary, between the Revolutionary and the imperialist. We Revolutionaries know how to wait. We know how to be patient. We never despair and the reactionaries, the counterrevolutionaries, the imperialists continue in perennial desperation. They live in perennial anguish, in a perennial lying of the most ridiculous, of the most childish manner. When we read some of the things said by those officials, some of those Yankee Senators, one wanders: “How is it possible that this gentlemen is not in a stable instead of being a member of what is called “Congress.” (APPLAUSE) Some of them speak real nonsense. Any they have an incredible appetite for lying. They cannot live without lying. They live in anguish. If the Revolutionary government states something, which is what it has always been doing, such as that to which I referred at the beginning, they see truculent things, terrible things, and a plan behind all that. How ludicrous. How can they live in such fear? One asks oneself: “Do they believe that? “Do they believe that other thing?: “Could they believe all they say?” “Or is it that they have a need to believe all they say? Or is it that they cannot live without believing all they say or is it that they say all that they do not believe?” It is difficult to understand. It would be a question for doctors and psychologists. What do they have in this minds? What anguish is that? They see a maneuver in everything, a truculent, dark, terrible plan. It seems they do not know that there is not better tactic, nor a better strategy than to fight with clean weapons, than to fight with the truth, because those are the only weapons which inspire trust. These are the only weapons which inspire faith. These are the only weapons which inspire safety, moral dignity. And it has been with those weapons that we Revolutionaries have been vanquishing and crushing our enemies. You will never here a lie from the mouth of a Revolutionary. There are weapons which do not benefit any revolutionary, and no serious Revolutionary needs to resort to lies–ever. His weapon is reason, the truth, and the ability to have an idea, a purpose, and a position. In short, the moral spectacle of our adversaries in truly lamentable. And thus, the diviners, the interpreters, the specialists on Cuban affairs, and the electronic brains have been working incessantly to solve this mystery, whether Ernesto Guevara has been purges, (APPLAUSE) whether Ernesto Guevara was ill, whether Ernesto Guevara had had differences, and other questions of the same ilk. Naturally, the people have confidence. The people have faith, but enemies will say these things, especially abroad, to slander him. Behold, the communist regime, dark, terrible things, men disappear, they do not leave a trace; they do not leave prints; there is no explanation; and we told the people at this time, when the people began to notice this absence, that in due time we would talk. We would have some reasons to wait, We are living surrounded by imperialist forces. The world is not operating in normal conditions. As long as the criminal bombs of Yankee imperialists are falling on the people of Vietnam, we cannot say that we are living under normal circumstances. When more than 100,000 Yankee soldiers land there to try to smash the liberation movement, when the soldiers of imperialism land in a republic which has equality of rights, just as legally, as do all the rest of the republics of the world, as is the case in Santo Domingo, when imperialism intervenes to trample its sovereignty, (APPLAUSE) the world if not living under normal conditions. When around our country, the imperialists are training mercenaries and organizing vandalistic attacks, in the most unpunished manner, as in the case of Sierra Aránzazu, when the imperialists threatens to intervene in any country of Latin America or the world, we are not living under normal circumstances. And when we were fighting in clandestine conditions against the Batista tyranny, we Revolutionaries did not live in normal conditions. We had to adjust to the struggle.
We had to adjust to the struggle. In the same way, although the Revolutionary power exists in our country, in regard to the realities of the world, we do not live in normal conditions, and we shall have to adjust to this situation. And to explain this, we are going to read a letter here, it is handwritten, here copied by typewriter, from Comrade Ernesto Guevara, (APPLAUSE) which is self-explanatory. I was trying to decide whether to tell the story of our friendship and our comradeship, how it began and under what conditions it began and how it developed, but it is not necessary. I am going to limit myself to reading the letter. It says: Havana–The date was not written down because this letter was to be read at the moment we felt it most convenient, but keeping to strict reality, it was delivered on April 1st this year, exactly six months and two days ago, and it reads: HAVANA Year of Agriculture Fidel: I remember many things in this hour—how I met you in the house of Maria Antonia, and how you proposed that I come along with you, and all the tensions involved in the preparations. One day they came by and asked who should be notified in case of death, and the real possibility of it struck us all. Later we learned that it was true, that in a Revolution one triumphs or dies (if it be a true one). Many comrades fell along the road to victory. Today everything has a less dramatic tone, for we are more mature, but the event is repeats itself. I feel that I have fulfilled the part of my duty that bound me to the Cuban Revolution on its territory, and I say farewell to you, my comrades and your people who are now my people. I formally renounce my posts in the leadership of the Party, my post as Minister, my rank as Major, my status as a Cuban citizen. Nothing legal binds me to Cuba, only ties of another kind that cannot be broken, as can official appointments. Looking back over my past life, I believe that I have worked with sufficient faithfulness and dedication in order to consolidate the revolutionary triumph. My only deficiency of any importance is not to have trusted you more from those first moments in the Sierra Maestra and in not having understood soon enough your qualities of leader and revolutionary. I have lived through magnificent days and at your side I felt the pride of belonging to our people in the luminous and sad days of the Caribbean Crisis. Rarely has any statesman shone more brilliantly than you did in those days. I feel pride, too, in having followed you without hesitation, identifying myself with your way of thinking and seeing and of judging dangers and motives. Other regions of the world claim the support of my modest efforts. I can do what is forbidden to you because of your responsibility to Cuba, and the time has come for us to separate. Let it be known that I do it with a mixture of joy and sorrow: I am leaving here the purest of my hopes as a builder and the most loved among my beloved creatures, and I leave a people who accepted me as a son; this rends a part of my spirit. On new battlefields I will carry with me the faith that you inculcated in me, the revolutionary spirit of my people, the feeling of having fulfilled the most sacred of duties: to fight against imperialism wherever it may be; this comforts and heals any wound to a great extent. I say once more that I free Cuba of any responsibility save that which stems from its example: that if the final hour comes upon me under other skies, my last thought will be for this people and especially for you, that I am thankful to you for your teachings and your example, and that I will try to be faithful up to the final consequences of my acts; that I have at all times been identified with the foreign policy of our Revolution, and I continue to be so; that wherever I may end up I will feel the responsibility of being a Cuban revolutionary, and I will act as one; that I leave nothing material to my children and my wife, and this does not grieve me: I am glad that it be so; that I ask nothing for them, since the State will give them sufficient to live and will educate them. I would have many things to say to you and to our people, but I feel that they are unnecessary; words cannot express what I would want them to, and it isn’t worthwhile wasting more sheets of paper with my scribbling. To victory forever. Homeland or Death! I embrace you with all my revolutionary fervor! Che” Those who talk about the revolutionaries, those who consider revolutionaries as cold men, men without feelings, or men without a heart, will have in this letter the example of all the sentiment, of all the feeling, of all the purity a revolutionary heart can hold, And we could answer, all of us: Comrade Guevara, it is not responsibility wheat we are concerned about. We have a responsibility to the Revolution and we are responsible for assisting the revolutionary movement to the best of our strength (APPLAUSE) and we assume the responsibility and the consequences and the risks. For almost seven years it has been that way and we know that as long as imperialism exists and while there are exploited and colonized peoples, we shall continue running these risks, and we shall continue serenely assuming these responsibilities. And we had the duty to conform; we had the duty to respect this sentiment of this comrade, that freedom and that right, and this is indeed freedom, not that of those who are going to take on chains but that of those who are going to take up a rifle against the chains of slavery. (APPLAUSE) And that is another of the freedom, Mr. Johnson, which our Revolution proclaims. And if those who want to leave to go live with the imperialists are at times recruited by the imperialists to fight in Vietnam and the Congo, let it be known also that all the citizens of this country, when they ask for permission, not to go fight alongside the imperialists, but to fight alongside the Revolutionaries will not be denied permission by this Revolution. (APPLAUSE) This country is free, Mr. Johnson; really free for everybody! And this was not the only letter. Along with this letter, and for the occasion when this letter should be used, various other letters were left with us, of greetings to various comrades, and in addition, as it says here, “to my children, to my parents, and other comrades,” a letter written by him for his children, and for his parents.
We will pass these letters on to the comrades and family; and we ask them to donate than to the Revolution, for we consider them to be documents worthy of a place in history. And we feel that this explains everything. As for the rest, let the enemies worry. We have enough tasks, enough things to do, in our country and in connection with the world; enough duties to fulfill and we will fulfill them. We will carry on our path, we will develop our ideas, we will develop our methods, and we will develop our system. We will utilize all experiences that may prove useful to us, and we will develop fresh experiences. A completely new era is arising in the history of our country, a different form of society, a different system of government, the government of a party, the party of the workers, made up of the best workers, formed with the full participation of the masses, so it can justly and rightly be said that it is the vanguard of the workers and represent the workers, in our workers’ Revolutionary democracy. And it will be a thousand time more democratic than bourgeois democracy, for we will progress toward administrative and political forms that will imply the masses’ constant involvement in solving the problems of society through the suitable organizations, through the party, at all levels. And we will go on developing these new forms as only a Revolution can. We will continue creating the conscience and habits of these new forms. And we will not stop, our people will not stop until they have attained their ultimate goals. This step means a great deal. It represents one of the most vitally significant steps in the history of our country. It is a historic moment when the unifying forces were superior to the forces that diffuse and divide. It represents the historic moment when a whole revolutionary nation united strongly, when the sense of duty prevailed over everything else, when the collective spirit triumphed over all individualisms, when the interests of the motherland prevailed fully and definitively over all individual or group interest. It means having attained the highest degree of union and organization, with the most modern, most scientific, and most Revolutionary and human of political concepts. And we are the first country of this continent, in addition to being, in the view of the imperialist U.S. Government, the only independent country. For if the House of Representatives proclaims a right to intervene in any country to avert the danger of a communist Revolution. Well, here there is a communist Revolution in power. (APPLAUSE) So we are considered the only independent country. To be sure, when the monopolies’ representatives gave that slap in the face to all the republics in America by issuing the declaration of non-independence, a few– or rather, many–persons reddened with shame. Many were scandalized when the United States declared its right to intervene unilaterally. They should be reminded of the agreements they entered into against Cuba; they should be reminded of their complicity in the evil deeds concocted against our country by imperialism. At that time we were the only ones; we stood firm, ready to die, and we said we were defending not just Cuba’s rights, but the independence of the other peoples of Latin America. (APPLAUSE) They who sow the wind reap the whirlwind, and they who sowed interventionism against Cuba, collective breaks with Cuba, blockades of Cuba, are reaping the whirlwind of interventionism and threats directed at them. They are astonished, they are panic-stricken, and the parliaments meet, and the bourgeois parties cry to the heavens. There they have the results of complicity with the imperialists. There they see what imperialism is. And so, with every passing day, the people will see more clearly who is right, who during these historic years defended true independence, true freedom, true sovereignty, defended it with her blood, and defended it against imperialism and all its accomplices. The imperialists themselves are teaching the peoples. The scarecrow of communism was constantly brandished, and in the name of the battle against that scarecrow the Yankee imperialists have declared their right to land in any country of this continent, except Cuba. (APPLAUSE) The progress we have made, but above all the progress we will make in the years to come, utilizing all our country’s potential, utilizing the tremendous forces we have organized and created, utilizing them in organized, efficient fashion–that is our party’s task. We will forge ahead tremendously. We will move at dazzling speed toward the future with a party that must lead, that must see to every front, because our party must attend to all fronts, all problems must be studied; and for this purpose we have created the committees, and new ones will be created. And there will not be a single problem that fails to get thorough study and analysis by the party, so that each analysis may provide guidance, the proper guidance, the best guidance. I was saying we will make our way toward communism, and we will attain communism. We are as sure of that as of having come this far. And amid the difficulties of every kind that accompany this moment in the history of the world, faced with an ever-mightier enemy, faced with the sad fact of the split in world revolutionary ranks, our policy will be one of the closer unity. Our policy will be that of a small but free and independent nation. Our party will educate the masses; our party will educate its militants. Let it be well understood;

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