“Operation July 26” — Cuban Leaders Campaign
Against Bureaucratism in Government and Party
by W.T. Whitney Jr.
Speaking November 17at the
At issue is a plague of “vices, theft, [and]
re-routing,” at the hands of “social parasites and the new rich.”
Presently under the aegis of “Operation July 26,”
the government is responding to serious losses in its fuel distribution
program. First in Pinar del
The government has assigned 28,000 social work
students to pump fuel, monitor refinery operations, and check on gasoline
trucks deliveries. Thousands of fuel industry employees have been fired. Many
government ministries, the locus of much abuse, now face restrictions on fuel
use for their own vehicles. As a result of these measures, revenues are up by
the equivalent of $100,000 per day.
The origins of the social workers are worth
noting. They have all completed a year long course with pay at one of four
schools established in 2001 to prepare graduates both to assist people in their
own communities and to study at the university level. They were recruited from
the ranks of young people at risk for educational failure, criminal activity,
and joblessness. Many of their families were undereducated, and many are
Afro-Cuban. To pit these students against the newly rich is to demarcate the
struggle along class lines. Members of the Union of Young Communists recruit
students for the schools and support them during their year of training.
The campaign has moved into other areas. In
September, the military took over
President Castro has chided the Cuban people for
disregarding their own individual energy use and berated the newly rich for
squandering fuel and electricity. And ominously he calls upon Cubans and people
everywhere to adjust consumption to the prospect of global oil scarcity. “In 30 or more years. oil will run
out just as many of the world minerals.”
Observers predict that in the history of the
Cuban revolution, the anti-corruption campaign will take on watershed
significance. According to Fidel Castro, “we speak of a revolution that can discuss
all this and can grab the bull by the horns.Let there
be no [fall of] the
Nevertheless, the stakes are high: “Either we
defeat all these deviations and make our revolution strong, or we die.”
Speech delivered by Dr. Fidel Castro Ruz, President of the Republic of Cuba, at the
Commemoration of the 60th Anniversary of his admission to University of Havana,
in the Aula Magna of the University of Havana, on November 17, 2005
Text reviewed and shaped up by its author with
absolute respect for the integrity of the ideas expressed during his speech.
Dear students and professors of Universities from
all over
Dear comrades, leaders and guests who have
shared with us so many years of struggle:
This is the most difficult moment, when I must
say some words in this Aula Magna, where so many words have already been
spoken. A universe of ideas comes to mind, and it’s only logical, because time
has passed.
You have been very kind to remember that today
is a very special day: the 60th anniversary of my timid entry into this
University.
There is a photo somewhere, I was just looking
at it: I was wearing a jacket, and I have an angry face, or tough, or a nice,
or irritated because that photo was not taken on the first day; I think I had
already been here for several months, and I was starting to react to so many
things, that were happening then. It was not a deep-seated thought. There was
this eagerness for ideas, and also a desire to learn, and a spirit that was
perhaps rebellious. We were full of dreams that couldn’t be described as
revolutionary, but certainly full of illusions and energy, and possibly also an
anxiety to take up a struggle.
I had been active in sports, I had climbed
mountains. I had even been promoted to some kind of Boy Scout lieutenant, I’m
not exactly why, and later on they made me a general of the Boy Scout. So, when
I was in high school, I had been given more ranks than I have today (Laughter).
Because later on, I became Comandante, but nothing
more than Comandante; this thing of being Comandante en Jefe doesn’t mean
any more than being chief commander of that small troop of about 82 men, the
men who came in the Granma yacht.
That title came up after the landing, on
December 2, 1956. There had to be a chief among those 82 men. Later on, they
added the “in.” So, little by little, I went from being Chief Commander to
being the Commander in Chief when we had more commanders, because that was the
highest rank for a long time. I was remembering these things. One has to think
about what one was, what one thought about and what feelings one had.
Perhaps some special circumstances in my life
made me react. I had to face some difficulties from a very early age and, maybe
because of that, I grew up to be some kind of a professional rebel.
I’ve heard talk about rebels without a cause;
but I seem to remember, whenever I think about it, that I was a rebel with many
causes; and I thank life that I have continued being a rebel over the years,
even today, perhaps more rightly so today, because I have many more ideas and
more experience; because I have learned a lot from my own struggle, or because
I have a better understanding of this country where we were all born and of
this world where we live, this globalized world
living now a decisive time for its destiny. I wouldn’t dare say a decisive time
in its history, because its history is shorter, really brief, when compared to
the life span of a species that in recent times, perhaps 3,000 or 4,000 or
5,000 years ago, took its first steps after its long and brief evolution. I say
long and brief because it evolved to the point of becoming a homo sapiens some
hundreds of thousands of years after life came into existence on this planet,
as scholars believe it to be; if my memory doesn’t fail me, around 1 or 1.5
billion years ago a life form was born and after that came millions of species.
And we are only that, we are one of the species born on this planet. And that
is why I said, after a brief and at the same time long life,
we have come to this point, in this millennium, which is said to be the third
millennium since the beginning of the Christian era.
Why am I circling around this idea? Because I
would dare say that today this species is facing a very real and true danger of
extinction, and no one can be sure, listen to this well, no one can be sure
that it will survive this danger.
Well, the fact that the species would not
survive was discussed about 2,000 years ago. I remember that when I was a
student I heard of the Apocalypse, a book of prophecy in the Bible. Apparently,
2000 years ago someone realized that this weak species could one day disappear.
Of course, so did the Marxists. I remember Engel’s
book, Dialectics, very well. He said there that one day the light of the
Sun would go out, that the fuel feeding the fires of that star which
illuminates our world would run out and the light of the Sun would cease to
exist. So, a question remains in my mind: a question that maybe you, or your
professors, or hundreds of thousands of you have also asked yourselves, and
that is if there is any possibility that this species can emigrate to another
solar system.
Have you never asked yourselves that question?
Well, at some point you will, because many questions come to our minds during
our lifetime, particularly these questions, which are asked mostly when there
is a reason to do so. I believe that mankind never had more reasons than it
does now to wonder about this, because if that Marxist considered the problem
of solar heat and light disappearing, and if that scientist considered that one
day the solar system would cease to exist, we too, as revolutionaries, giving
wings to our imaginations, must ask ourselves what will happen and if there is
any hope for this species to escape to another solar system where life already
exists or could exist. All that we know today is that there is one Sun four
light years away, among the billions of suns that exist in that enormous outer
space of which we still don’t know whether it is finite or infinite.
For the little we know of physics and
mathematics, of light and the speed of light, and those traveling to the
closest planets, nothing has been found, and those who travel to Venus -I
believe that Venus was the Roman goddess of love — those that have the
privilege of reaching that planet will find hurricanes that are many hundreds
of times worse that Katrina or Rita or Michelle or Mitch, or any of the others
that hit us with ever increasing fury as it has been said that the temperature
on Venus is 400 degrees, and that there are masses of air or heavy atmosphere
constantly blowing around.
Those that have been to Mars, a place where they
said life could exist — Chávez jokes about the likely
existence of life there in the past— and it disappeared, everything vanished.
They keep searching for some particle of oxygen or some sign of life. Well,
anything could have happened, but the most probable is that no developed life
form ever existed on any of these planets. The combination of factors that made
life possible occurred after billions of years on planet Earth, this very
fragile life form that can only survive between a few limited degrees of
temperature, between a few degrees below zero and a few degrees above zero,
since nobody can survive in a water temperature of 60 degrees; just 20 seconds
without any protection and no human being would survive; a few scores degrees
below zero, with no source of artificial heat, would be enough to cause anyone’s
death. It was in that limited margin of temperature that life came into being.
We are speaking of life, because whenever we
speak of universities, we speak of life.
What are you? If I were asked that question
right now, I would have to say that you are life, you are symbols of life.
We have been speaking of events in our lives, in
our university, in our Alma Mater, about those of us who came here a few
decades ago and who are present here today, those who are in their fresh year or
are about to graduate, or those who have already graduated and are engaged in
tasks that others with less experience would not be able to do.
I was trying to recall how those universities
were, what we did, what our concerns were. We were concerned about this island,
this tiny island. There was no talk then of globalization; there was no
television or Internet; instant communication were not possible from one end of
the planet to the other; the telephone had just been invented and there were a
few propeller driven airplanes. In my time, back in 1945, our passenger planes
could hardly make it to
There had been a terrible war that took the
lives of some 50 million people. I am speaking of the time in 1945 when I
entered the university, on September. Well, I started on that date, and you, of
course, have taken the liberty to celebrate the anniversary that day; it could
be the 4th or the 17th, it could be in November, it could be today, the day
that you choose as the date. There are so many events to commemorate, and I
certainly could not attend that many, and the greatest sorrow of my life would
have been not being able to attend, especially at this time, this event in the
Aula Magna, as your guest.
I have many events to attend everyday and I am
speaking with large groups for hours and hours on end, especially with groups
of young people, students, with medical brigades who go out to work in glorious
missions that almost nobody else in this world would discharge, because no
other country could send 1000 medical doctors to a sister nation in Central
America. We have sent just such a group that is now confronting pain and death,
in the aftermath of the greatest natural tragedy that anyone in that country
can remember.
One after another, I have been speaking to these
brigades, and I’ve been seeing them off; the same with those who are leaving
for the other side of the world, flying for 18 hours to where almost
simultaneously another of the greatest human tragedies struck. I remember no
other catastrophe of such dimensions, because of the place where it hit, and
the humble people who were affected. These people are shepherds living on very
high mountains and the tragedy struck on the eve of winter where the cold is
most intense, where there is great poverty while the insensitive world that
wastes a trillion dollars each year on advertising to bamboozle the immense
majority of humanity that pays for the lies that are spread depriving the human
being of the capacity to think for himself, as he is forced to buy a soap that
is the same soap with 10 different names, and he must be deceived because a
trillion dollars are spent on it and this money is not paid by the companies,
it is paid by those who buy the product due to the advertising.
This insensitive world that spends one trillion
dollars each year on the military — it’s already two trillion — this
insensitive world that extracts various trillions of dollars a year from the
impoverished masses, from the immense majority of this planet’s inhabitants,
remains indifferent when it is told that around 100,000 people have died, among
them maybe 25,000 or 30,000 children, or that there are 100,000 injured, and
the large majority is suffering from bone fractures in their arms and legs of
which barely 10% have been operated on, that there are children with mutilated
limbs, and young people, women and men, old people.
This is the kind of world we are living in. It
is not a world full of goodness, but a world full of egoism. It is not a world
of justice, but one full of exploitation, abuse and pillage, where millions of
children die every year -and they could be saved, just because they are lacking
a few cents worth of medicine, or some vitamins or re-hydration salts and a few
dollars worth of food, enough for them to live. They die every year due to
injustice, almost as many as died in that colossal war that I mentioned a few
minutes ago.
What kind of world is this? What kind of world
is this where a barbaric empire proclaims its right to launch pre-emptive
attacks on 70 or more countries, and is capable of bringing death to any corner
of the globe, using the most sophisticated weapons and killing techniques? It’s
a world where brutality and force prevail, with hundreds of military bases on
the entire planet. There is one of these on our soil, where they arbitrarily
intervened after the Spanish colonial power could no longer stand by itself,
and when hundreds of thousands of our country’s dearest sons — in a population
of hardly a million — had perished in a long war lasting almost 30 years. And
they left us with the revolting Platt Amendment, attached to an equally
repugnant resolution that treacherously gave them the right to intervene in our
country whenever they considered there to be a lack of order.
More than a century has gone by and this piece
of our territory is still forcibly occupied today bringing shame and horror to
the world when it is known to have been turned into a torture center, where
hundreds of people pulled in from different parts of the world are kept in
detention. They do not take them to their own country because there may be laws
that would make things difficult for them to illegally hold these people by
force, kidnapped for years, overriding any legal procedure, and to the
amazement of the entire world, these people are being subjected to sadistic and
brutal torture. The world learned of this only when in
New things come up every day. Recently, the
press reported that the
Which of us, which of you, which of our
compatriots would quietly admit to a story of torturing even one citizen, in
spite of thousands of barbaric acts of terrorism perpetrated against our
country, in spite of the thousands of victims of the aggression of that empire
that has blockaded us for the last 45 years and has tried to suffocate us by
whatever means possible? And now these scoundrels are saying — as one of them
recently did before the overwhelming vote of 182 UN members, with one
abstention— that the difficulties are a result of our failure, and that great
accomplice of the bandit, which is the pro-Nazi state of Israel supports the
blockade. We must call it that, because those who commit such crimes are doing
so in the name of a people that for more than 1500 years endured persecution
and were victims of the most atrocious crimes committed during World War II.
The people of
Even today, the empire is threatening to attack
We know that country very well. It is a country
with 70 million inhabitants bent on its industrial development and believing,
quite correctly, that it is a great crime to use its gas or oil reserves to
feed the potential of thousands of millions of kilowatt hours urgently needed
by this
In 30 more years, oil reserves will run dry.
Presently, 80% of oil is in the hands of
The day is far when hydrogen may become the
ideal fuel, through still emerging technologies. Meanwhile, mankind has reached
a certain level of technical development and cannot live without fuel. This is
one present problem.
Our Minister of Foreign Affairs has just visited
Iran, since Cuba will be the venue of the next Non-Aligned Countries meeting
within a year, and Iran is demanding its right to produce nuclear fuel just
like any industrialized nation and not be obliged to destroy the reserves of a
raw material, which can be used not only as an energy source but also as a raw
material for numerous products such as fertilizers, textiles and many others
currently used worldwide.
That’s the way of the world. Let’s see what
happens if they decide to bomb
We have a different type of nuclear weapon: it’s
our ideas. We possess a weapon as powerful as nuclear power and it is the
immense justice for which we are struggling. Our nuclear weapon is the
invincible power of moral weapons. That is why we have never even considered
producing them, nor have we ever considered seeking biological weapons, what
for? It is to the weapons that defeat death, that defeat AIDS and cancer that
we dedicate our resources. That bandit -I can’t recall the name of that guy
they appointed, was it Bolton, Bordon, whatever — the
man who represents the United States at the United Nations, a super-liar, the
shameless liar who fabricated the idea that Cuba was doing research in
biological warfare in the Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering Center.
They have also accused us of collaborating with
Those impertinent liars! Everybody knows that
even the CIA discovered that what the current
Everyday that gentleman who rules the
I was speaking to you about the prisons in
various countries, secret prisons where they send their kidnapped victims on
the pretext of conducting a war against terrorism. It is not only at Abu-Ghraib and Guantánamo, but
anywhere in the world you can find a secret prison where defenders of human
rights are tortured. They are the same people who order their little lambs to
vote in
But that’s not all. This morning there was news
about the use of live phosphorus in Fallujah. It is
there that the empire discovered that a nation, to all intents and purposes
unarmed, could not be defeated and the invaders found themselves in the
situation of not being able to leave or to stay. If they leave, the combatants
would return; if they stay, these troops would be required in other locations.
Over 2,000 young
Don’t you think for one minute that they have
abundant reserves of US troops. Every day less
Americans enlist, even when enlisting in the army has become an employment
opportunity. The ones who enlist are the unemployed and very often they try to
enlist greater numbers of Afro-Americans to fight their unjust war. However,
news is coming out that fewer Afro-Americans are enlisting in the army, despite
their high levels of unemployment and their marginalization, because they know
full well that they are being used as cannon fodder. In the ghettos of
They are chasing after Latinos, immigrants, who
cross the border trying to escape hunger; this is a border where more than 500
emigrants die every year, many more in only 12 months than those who died
during the 28 years of the Berlin Wall.
The empire talked about the Berlin Wall every
day; not one word is spoken about the wall between
Live phosphorus in Fallujah!
That’s what the empire secretly does. When it became known, the
There is news like this every day, and all of
these things are part of life, all of these things are part of our world. Just
look at the enormous difference between now and those days when we came to the
University brimming with ideals, full of dreams and good will even though we
lacked the experience of a profound ideology and the ideas that are accumulated
over the passage of years. Young people entered this University exactly like
that. It must be remembered that this University was not for the poor, it was
for the middle class, for the rich, although young people tended to rise above
class ideas and many of them were capable of struggling, as in fact they did
throughout the history of
Eight students were executed in 1871. They were
like the seeds of the noblest of sentiments and of the rebellious spirit of our
people which showed their indignation at this colossal injustice. Today we
commemorate the deaths of nine students, who were no different from them,
murdered by the Nazis in
Our youth always keeps alive the memory of those
medical students and of all those students who fought against tyrannical and corrupt
governments. Mella was one of them, also coming from
the middle class because the children of farmers who
could neither read nor write, were unable to attend high school, let alone
enter university.
As the son of a landowner, I was able to finish
sixth grade, and when I graduated from seventh grade, I could enroll in a
senior high school.
If you couldn’t attend high school, you couldn’t
go on to university. The children of farmers or workers, living at the sugar
mills or in a municipality (unless it was a municipality in
I could come to
My own case was like that of many others, I
mentioned Mella. I could have mentioned Guiteras, or Trejo who died in one of those demonstrations
on September 30, fighting against Machado. I could mention names like those
that you listed at the opening of this event.
Before the Revolution, there were always many
noble students opposing the Batista tyranny and willing to make sacrifices,
willing to die. And so, when the Batista tyranny returned with a vengeance,
many students fought and many students died, and that young man from Cardenas, Manzanita as he was called, always smiling, always jovial,
always affectionate with everyone, became well-known for his bravery, his integrity
as when he descended the university stairs, facing the water hose of the fire
trucks, or the police. That is how all of them came to be known.
If you visit the house where [José Antonio] Echevarria lived — José Antonio, we’ll call him — you’ll
see that it is a good house, an excellent house. You could see how the students
were often oblivious of their social or class origins; at that age of so many
hopes and dreams.
At that university, there was only one medical
faculty, and one teaching hospital, yet, many students
received prizes and awards, first prize in medicine and even in surgery without
ever having operated on anybody.
Some made an effort; they were active and made
contact with a professor who helped them, taking part in his practice or in
some hospital. That’s how there were good doctors, not a huge numbers of good
doctors -certainly there was a huge number of doctors who wanted to travel to
the United States — they were unemployed and with the triumph of the
Revolution, that’s where they went, straight to the USA and Cuba was left with
half of all her medical doctors, 3,000 of them, and 25% of her professors. We
started at that point, until we got to where we are today, standing up almost
like the capital of world medicine.
Today, our people have at their disposition at
least 15 doctors for every one that remained in the country, and they are much
better distributed.
I wanted to bring up the differences from the
year when I entered university; what was our country like then? We should ask
ourselves that question and meditate on it. What is our country like today, in
all areas?
I was speaking about Barberan
and Collar disappearing in their light plane full of gasoline tanks, because
that’s what you had to do in those days; they took off, and left almost in the
same way that we did in Mexico in 1956; “if we set out, we arrive; if we
arrive, we enter; if we enter, we win,” we said then. It seems like other men
before us undertook something as audacious as that, when they crossed the
I was speaking of a ship that set sail; this was
like a ship setting sail a long time ago, a small plane that seemed to be
powered by an elastic band. Maybe you have seen those little planes which you
wind up an elastic band and then you let go and they take off and land. When
our Revolution triumphed in this hemisphere, right beside the empire and
surrounded, with a few exceptions, by the empire’s satellites, we started on a
very difficult journey. Now it is different times, quite a few years after we
entered the university.
We came to the university at the end of 1945 and
we began the armed struggle in Moncada on July 26th,
1953, only eight years later, and the Revolution triumphed five years, five
days and five months after Moncada, after a long
journey by way of prison, exile and fighting in the mountains. It was a
relatively short time historically speaking, comparing it to earlier struggles
that were so hard and difficult on our people. There were two stages: coming to
the University, leaving it and the coup d’état on March 10, 1952.
The stage when we began the struggle is where we
will start now. We set off, we attempted to set off,
not even being too knowledgeable about the laws of gravity. We headed upwards,
struggling against the empire which was already the most powerful one but at a
time when another super-power also existed. And we continued marching upwards,
gaining experience, seeing our people and the Revolution gain in strength,
until this point where we are today.
I wish I had more time to speak to you, but this
moment now is without precedent. It is a time that is different from all the
others. It is nothing like it was in 1945; it is nothing like it was in 1950
when we graduated, but we had all those ideas that I mentioned that day, when I
affirmed with love, respect and the utmost affection, that I came to this
University with a rebellious spirit, with some elemental ideas of justice, then
here I became a revolutionary, I became a Marxist-Leninist and I acquired the
ideas that I have never abandoned, nor have I ever been tempted to do so, not
in the least. For that reason, I dare say that I will never abandon them.
In a spirit of confessions, I could say that
when I finished studying in this university, I thought I was very revolutionary
and basically, I was just starting on a much longer path. If at that time I
felt that I was a revolutionary or a socialist, if I had absorbed all the ideas
that made me who I am, and I could be nothing other than a revolutionary. I
assure you today, in all modesty, that I feel ten times, twenty times, even a
hundred times more revolutionary than I was then. (applause)
If at that time I was willing to give up my life, today I am a thousand times
more willing to give up my life for the revolution. (applause)
One is willing to give up one’s life for a noble
idea, for an ethical principle, for a sense of dignity and honor, even before
one becomes a revolutionary. Tens of millions of men died on the battlefields
of World War I and in other wars, impassioned by a symbol, by the beauty of a
flag, by the emotional strains of an anthem like “La Marseillaise” was in its
revolutionary time although it later became the anthem of the French colonial
empire. In the name of that colonial empire and for a new distribution of the
world, millions of Frenchmen died en masse in the trenches of World War I. Man
is willing to die, to consciously and voluntarily give up his life; he does not
fight out of instinct like so many animals fight instinctively moved by the
laws of nature. Man is a complete creature, I mean both men and women, and more
often one needs to include women. Yes, I have my reasons but I don’t know if I’ll
have the time to tell you all of them. But the human being is the only one
capable of consciously rising above all instincts, even though man is a
creature of instincts, of egoism. Man is born egotistical, a result of the
conditioning of nature. Nature fills us with instincts; it is education that
fills us with virtues. Nature makes us do things instinctively; one of these is
the instinct for survival which can lead to infamy, while on the other side,
our conscience can lead us to great acts of heroism. It doesn’t matter what
each one of us is like, how different we are from each other, but when we unite
we become one.
It is amazing that in spite of the differences
between human beings, they can become as one in a single instant or they can be
millions, and they can be a million strong just through their ideas. Nobody
followed the Revolution as a cult to anyone or because they felt personal
sympathy with any one person. It is only by embracing certain values and ideas
that an entire people can develop the same willingness to make sacrifices of any
one of those who loyally and sincerely try to lead them toward their destiny.
You are constantly reading the works of the
great thinkers, you are constantly reading history. In our country’s history
you read the works of Martí, you read the works of
many distinguished patriot and in the history of the world and in the history
of the revolutionary movements you read the theoreticians, those great
theoreticians who never faltered in their revolutionary principles. It is the
ideas that bring us together, ideas make us a combatant people on a collective
and not just an individual basis; ideas make us a mass of revolutionaries.
Then, when all of the forces unite, then the people can never be defeated, and
when the number of ideas grows, when the number of ideas and values to be
defended grows and multiplies, that is when a people can truly never be
defeated.
And so, when we remember our comrades, and we
see the youth who are taking on such important tasks; many of the others were
leaders in this university and have behind them many years of struggle; some
have more than 50, others might have more than 40 and today each one has his
responsibility; many of them are students, others come from humble backgrounds,
I see them all here today, those who were at Moncada,
those that came on the Granma, fought
in the Sierra Maestra and participated in all the
battles; I see them all here, each one of them, defending a cause, a flag.
I see, for example our dear comrade Alarcón. I remember him because here we have been speaking
of the struggle for the five imprisoned heroes, and he has been their
indefatigable champion for justice. This was the task given him by the
Revolution and he has shouldered the responsibility with his talent and in his
capacity as President of the National Assembly.
I see comrade Machadito,
a former doctor, but not an old doctor, who was with us in the mountains. I see
Lazo, Lage and Balaguer, I see many more out there, I still have a good
sight (laughter)/ I think I see Saez, I think we can
see the Minister of Higher Education, I think I can see Gomez, with a few more
pounds perhaps, and further along, I see Abel, with a biblical name, who has
just come back from Mar del Plata where he waged a glorious battle.
Look at this world and see all the changes, all
the aims we are pursuing today. Look at the strategies that are being designed,
leading us into the strategies of the world. We are a tiny country, 90 miles
away from the colossal empire, the most powerful empire ever in the history of
the world. Forty five years have passed and there it is, farther away than ever
from the possibility of forcing the Cuban nation to its knees, the same nation
they humiliated and offended for some time. (Applause) Once the US owned
everything in Cuba: the mines, hundreds of thousands of the best hectares of
land; the ports and its facilities; the electrical system, transportation,
banking, commercial activities, etc. and the idiots believe that they will
return here and that we will call on them on bended knees: “Come and save us
again, Oh Saviors of the World! Come and we shall give you everything we have,
again, this university too, so that you can put in 5,000 instead of half a
million students; half a million is too much and for your mentality, you would
like to see us unemployed and hungry so that filthy capitalism can function
because it is only with a reserve corps of unemployed that it can function;
come back and make the ranks of our illiterate unemployed grow and stand in
lines out by sugarcane fields, with nobody bringing them water to drink, or
food to eat, or housing, or transportation. Look for them, see if you can find
them because here are their children, hundreds of thousands of them studying in
the universities” (Applause)
I saw it with my own eyes,
nobody told me about it, I saw it hardly 48 hours ago. I saw it there at the
Convention Center, first a group of a few hundred, dressed in their blue
T-shirts; I saw it in the young people who graduated as social workers, and
today they are al, without exception, university students, from the first to
the fifth year of their courses, after a year of intensive study to become
social workers, after several years studying for this profession, first there
were 500 and now there are 28,000.
I think it was Agramonte,
others say it was Cespedes, who responded to the
pessimists when he had just 12 men with him: “I don’t care about those lacking
in confidence, because with these 12 men I can make a nation.” If a nation can
be made with 12 men, how many times greater than 12 men are we today? And 12
men, many times multiplied, armed with ideas, knowledge, culture, knowing all
about the world, knowing about history, geography, about the struggles, because
they possess what we call a revolutionary conscience, which is the sum total of
many consciences, it is the sum total of a humanist conscience, the conscience
of honor and dignity and the best values that man can grow. This nation is born
of love for the homeland and love for the world; and we cannot forget that the
homeland is humanity, a statement made more than a hundred years ago. Homeland
is humanity, and we must repeat that every day, when someone forgets those
living in
That is all that the infamous empire and its
repugnant system can show as a result of a history where the species set out on
a long march for a just society that has not been attained over thousands of
years, which is the very short, relatively well-known history of a species in
its quest for a just society. And they have always been as far away from that
society as we are close to it today, that is, closer to that just society we
want to construct. And I dare say that regardless of the many flaws we still
have, of our errors and inefficiencies, this is the society which in all human
history comes closer to being described as a just society.
Where is justice that I cannot see it? I cannot
see it because that one over their earns twenty, thirty times more than me as a
doctor, or more than me as an engineer, or more than me as a university
professor. Where is justice? And, why is this happening? What does the other
produce? How many does he educate? How many does he heal? How many are made
happy with his knowledge, his books and his art? How many does he make happy by
building a home? How many does he make happy by growing something to eat? How
many does he make happy by working in factories, in industries, in the
electrical system, in the drinking water system, in the streets, on the power
grids, looking after communications or printing books? How many?
We must to say that there are several dozens of
thousands of parasites who produce nothing and just take that individual
driving a vintage car from Havana to Guantánamo,
buying and stealing fuel all along the way, who charged one of those young
students 1000 pesos, 1200 pesos, when he had to travel just at a time when
transportation difficulties were at their greatest. He knows his ways that
alongside those highways, full of pot-holes in many places and missing a lot of
signal, things that couldn’t be finished for a variety of reasons, because of
resources we lack, for conditions we still haven’t been able to fix, for lack
of controls over the managers and other staffs.
Yes, we have to bear that in mind and not forget
it, for we are faced with a great battle, which we must begin to undertake. We
shall undertake it and we will win. That’s what is most important.
Yes, we are very much aware of this, and we
think about this more than about anything else: our flaws, our mistakes, our
inequalities, our injustice.
I wouldn’t dare to mention this subject here if
I was not firmly convinced and sure that we are quickly getting closer to
reducing them and to obliterating them so that, barring world catastrophes and
colossal wars, we can truly accomplish something. Listen to this well: our
country’s citizens, who at one time suffered a 10%, 15%, 20% or more rate of
unemployment, our citizens who at one time numbered one million illiterate
people, some being totally illiterate and some being semi-illiterate, up to 90%
of the population, this nation today, and in a very near future, will have
every one of her citizens living fundamentally on their work and their pensions
and retirement incomes.
Never forget those who for years were our
working class, going through decades of sacrifice, suffering the attacks of
mercenary bands in the mountains, invasions like Girón,
thousands of acts of sabotage that killed our sugar cane workers, our
industrial and factory workers, those in the merchant marine or in the fishing
industry, those who were suddenly attacked with cannons and bazookas, only because
they were Cuban, only because they wanted to be independent, only because they
wanted to improve the lot of our people; and there were the bandits, doing as
they pleased, those bandits recruited and trained by the CIA. Some are
criminals, some are terrorists who blew up planes in mid-air or attempted to
blow them up, careless of how many would die, and those over there who
organized attacks of every kind and organized acts of terrorism against our
country.
Did the empire change in any way? I ask you, “little
Bush,” where is Mr. Posada Carriles, what have you
done with that nice gentleman who despite his shameful actions keeps trying to
have the empire on a tight rein? When are you going to answer that very simple
question which we have asked you so many times? Where and how did Posada Carriles enter the
Who welcomed him? Who gave their permission? Why
is he strolling the streets of
The authorities of our sister country, Mexico,
haven’t had the time either -yes, of course, they are very busy— to answer the
question; it’s not asking too much, sir, to say whether Posada Carriles, such a naïve kid, naïve and innocent, took that
ship from that port, just as Cuba has charged.
They have a lot of nerve, these people, telling
all those lies; and if you ask them one little question, a simple little query,
they take months and months and they still have no answer, not one word. Months
went by and they didn’t know where their man Posada was.
That young bright girl, what’s her name? The
girl who is the Secretary of State (Laughter) Condoleezza or Condoliza? OK, Countess Rice (Laughter) She doesn’t know
anything either, doesn’t have a clue; and the spokespersons don’t know
anything, either; they haven’t lied, they haven’t sinned one little bit, they
are pure and deserve our congratulations and the trust of the entire world.
Of course, it’s a lie that they tortured
anybody; it’s a lie that they were the accomplices of terrorism; it’s a lie
that they invented terrorism; it’s a lie that they used torture anywhere; it’s
a lie that they used live phosphorus in Fallujah. Or
rather, they say it’s true, but it’s legal, very legitimate and terribly decent
to use live phosphorus. So who are they trying to scare?
We were witness to the colossal battle fought in
Speaking of history, never before in the history
of this hemisphere did such a battle take place, one that resembled the battle
waged by that sad-faced gentleman, not because of any connection with
Cervantes, but because that gentleman was grimacing, he was bored. They put him
to bed at midnight and the world may fall apart; on any given day, the planes
can take off from the aircraft carriers and drop bombs on that bandit territory
which disturbed the slumber of the horseman who holds the reins of the empire,
and while he sleeps, the horse wanders wherever it wants and it could be that,
as the horseman sleeps, the horse is more aware of the empire’s destiny than
his master who had to go to bed early. (applause)
It’s really a pity that we can’t delay his
awakening just a bit longer, because the world could be a better place.
And that’s how it all goes. We have seen many
things that cannot be forgotten.
Some have been asking whether
Apparently, some thought, or pretended to think,
that there were no Cubans at Mar del Plata, that a first-class Cuban
revolutionary force was not present in the glorious march in which thousands of
world citizens, and mainly Argentines, took part; those who were offended by
the emperor’s parked aircraft carriers, his army, his renting hotels and hiring
thousands of police officers. Nobody was going to do anything to him
physically, really, what they wanted was that someone would throw a rotten egg
at him. No, really, I think that would have been an honor he doesn’t deserve
(laughter).
The highly civilized Argentineans, together with
the increasingly expert and aware citizens of our hemisphere, where the imposed
order is not only untenable but beyond salvage, know exactly what they are
doing. They said that it would be a peaceful demonstration, that not a blade of
grass would be disturbed. This mass of people, coming together under the cold
drizzle, marching for hours to the stadium and making their presence felt in
that stadium, taught an unforgettable lesson to the empire, because they showed
that the people know what they are doing and, they who know what they’re doing,
march straight to victory. Those who do not know what they are doing, are
crushed by the people.
We don’t want to give the empire any excuse to
put on a little show. We shall see who is going to check-mate in this 50-piece
chess game.
When I use the word “empire,” I am not referring
to the American people, make sure you understand me well. The American people
will salvage many of the ethical values, many of the forgotten principles. They
will adapt to the world we live in, if this world can save itself, and this
world must save itself. Everyone should struggle and we should be the first in
that struggle for the salvation of the world. Ideas are our invincible weapons.
Some speak of the battle of ideas, that battle
of ideas which we have been waging for several years now and which is becoming
a battle of ideas throughout the world. These ideas will triumph, these ideas
must triumph. Let’s carry this message, let’s open the eyes of a humanity that
seems condemned to extinction. It won’t be eternal, as it is very likely that
even the light of the Sun will go out one day. It is almost certain that there
will be no way to move living, solid matter to a distance that is light years
away from Earth; the laws of physics are much more rigorous, much more exact than
historical or social laws.
In any case, I believe that this humanity and
all the great things it is capable of creating must be preserved while it is
still possible to do so. A humanity that doesn’t care about the preservation of
its species would be like the young student or leader, who knows that his life
is very limited to just a few short years and, nevertheless, worries only about
his own existence.
I have mentioned the names of a few comrades
present here today, some are older, some are not so old, but we never know how
long we have left. In no way do I think that any of them wants to save himself
without considering the fate of this admirable and marvelous nation. Yesterday,
it was but a seed and today it is a mighty tree with deep roots. Yesterday, it
was filled with noble potential and today it is filled with true nobility.
Yesterday, it dreamed of knowledge and today that knowledge is real, when we
are just beginning in this huge university that today is
Just look how new cadres are springing up, young
cadres. There is Enrique who is leading a small army of 28,000 social workers,
plus the 7,000 who are still in school perfecting their skills in that noble
profession.
As you know, we are presently waging a war
against corruption, against the re-routing of resources, against thievery, and
there is this force which we didn’t have before we started with the battle of
ideas, one designed to wage this battle.
I am going to say something, just to see if it
will raise the sense of honor of the construction workers because when they
want to be heroic, they are. But don’t you think for a moment that stealing
resources and materials is just a present-day illness, nor is it an exclusive
phenomenon of the Special Period. The Special Period aggravated it, because in
this period we saw the growth of much inequality and certain people were able
to accumulate a lot of money.
I recall, we were
building an important biotechnological center in Bejucal.
There was a little cemetery close by. I was making my rounds, and one day I
passed by the cemetery. There I saw a colossal market where the construction
crew, both the foremen and many of the workers, had put up a market selling
cement, steel rods, wood, paint, you name it, all kinds of construction
materials.
You know that construction has always been a
very serious problem. We have resources now; sometimes there have been
shortages, but now we have the possibility of improving the situation of
construction materials. However, it’s tragic the dilemma with the workers, the
weaknesses of the foremen, and of others in leading positions.
But this is nothing new. In the times I’m
referring to, we needed 800 kilograms of cement to produce a ton of concrete;
it was good quality concrete, the kind needed to put up floors or columns, and
it was supposed to last much longer than El Morro
castle and La Cabana fortress. Well then, they should use only around 200
kilograms. See the wastage, the re-routing of resources, see the larceny.
In this battle against vice there will be no
truce for anyone and we shall be thoroughly scrupulous. We will appeal to
everyone’s sense of honor. We are sure of one thing; every human being
possesses a healthy dose of honor. When one looks in the mirror, one is not
always the harshest of judges, even though, in my opinion, the first
responsibility of a revolutionary is to be extremely severe with oneself.
We are speaking of criticism and self-criticism,
that’s true, but our criticisms tend to be almost grouping criticisms; we never
resort to criticism in a wider circle, we never resort to criticism on a larger
scale.
For example, if an official from Public Health
fudges the data documenting the existence of the Aedes
Aegypti mosquito, he is summoned, he
is criticized. I know some people who say: “Yes, of course, I criticize myself.”
And with that they are content. What a laugh! They are actually happy. So, you
criticize yourself, and what about all the harm you have caused and all the
millions that were lost because you were careless or acted incorrectly?
Criticism and self-criticism, it’s all very
good, as it did not exist in the past. However, if we are going to war we need
weapons of greater caliber; we must carry out criticism and self-criticism in the
school room, in the party cells and then outside the party cells, in the
municipality and finally in the entire country.
Let’s make use of that sense of honor which,
undoubtedly, we all have, because I know many who are
what we call “shameless” people, and they truly are shameless but when in some
local newspaper they report what this individual has done, they are filled with
shame.
The thief deceives, and the person who deserves
to be criticized for some lapse and he is deceitful, he is also a liar.
The Revolution has to use these weapons, and we
shall use them whenever necessary! It shouldn’t have to be necessary. The
Revolution will establish the necessary controls.
Many have been quite pleased with the way things
have been going, as the song goes: “And how are you?” This is a question we
could well ask of the folks who were going around with their little hose,
putting gasoline into their big old cars, or receiving cash from that new rich
who wasn’t even willing to pay for the gasoline he was using.
Judge for yourselves whether what I am saying
describes the reality of today; the general state of disorder, not just in
this, but in other things as well, with losses of millions of dollars, maybe 80
-listen, 80 is a huge bunch of millions! — it could
even be 160 or 200 million dollars. Can you even conceive of what 200 million
dollars mean? You’ve studied math. You’ve heard of the universities throughout
the country, right? Yes or no? You are university leaders, and all the students
have their rights, in some form or another, all kinds: regular day students,
night students, students of this or of that. Do you know how many university
students there are today? If you don’t know, we can analyze it. I arrived here
today, asking for data: let’s see, tell me the exact number, 360,000. Yes,
360,000 as a result of the universalization of higher
education.
No doubt Vecino knows.
Don’t get upset, Vecino, when I ask you for these
figures, if you don’t know them, don’t worry about it.
How many regular day students are there in all
the schools of higher education in the country, including the military?
If he doesn’t know, someone must know.
(Someone tells him: 230,000)
Enrique, does it match with your figures?
(Enrique explains the distribution of the
students’ figures.)
Yes, 500,000, but we have to keep on adding.
Those are the students in the universalization program, adding the regular day students,
these two figures, that’s what I was talking about, it’s
500,000.
But there are other categories, I have them
here.
(Enrique explains that the figure includes
associate professors, adding up to 75,000, together with 25,000 university
professors, coming up with the sum of 100,000)
Here it says it’s subdivided: “141,000 students
in the regular day courses.”
Do we all agree on this?
“One hundred and forty thousand students are
studying in the courses for workers.”
Are these the same ones, or not? Are they
included in the 360,000? They are included in the 360,000 of the universalization program. Is that correct, or not?
(Enrique explains that it is independent, that
there is the regular day course, the workers’ course and the universalization.)
You mean the regular day group? (It is explained
that this is the figure they are talking about).
There are courses for workers who already attend
university; when they enter university I think they add to the figure of
360,000. Then, there are 32,000 students in distance education. What category
are those in? Are they in the 360,000? They’re not in the regular day group,
they’re not in the workers group, yet they are students. This educational group
exists.
Fine, let’s go with the most conservative
figure, which is enough for my purpose here.
Today, there are more than 500,000 university
students.
In addition, you know that we already have 958
university campuses. There’s the reason why you, the FEU (University Student
Federation), are already out there in the municipalities, where a total of 45
university courses are offered, and each year it grows. There are 169 municipal
university campuses run by the Ministry of Higher Education; 130 university
campuses in the “Alvaro Reinoso” area; of these, 84
are located in the sugar mills communities and a lot of these are included in
the earlier figure; there are 18 located in prisons, campuses for higher
education that have an enrolment of 594 in undergraduate programs in
socio-cultural studies, not that many yet; 240 INDER (Sports Federation)
university campuses, 19 in prisons where they are studying as well, with an
enrolment of 579, where 200 have just finished the first year. This is new,
too: university campuses in the prisons. We also have 169 municipal university
campuses for public health, 1,352 campuses in the polyclinics, health units and
blood banks, in all these places they are studying various
public health related courses.
There are almost 100,000 professors, full
professors and associates. Many who were part of the bureaucracy in the sugar
mills and in other areas are today teaching courses as associate professors;
thus, the number of professors at the higher level has grown. The two groups
-and I am not even mentioning the other university workers— students and
professors combined, add up to a total of about 600,000. Among the students,
more than 90,000 were young people who were neither attending school nor
employed, many of them from poor backgrounds, and today they are showing
excellent results in their university studies.
Shall I ask some questions or shall I go, more
or less, by the data I have?
I’ve been asking about the cost, the budget for
these higher education centers, right up to the last minute tonight. Carlitos handed me a figure, I believe it said 830. Vecino should know, because he is up on this data. Do you
recall that one, Vecino?
(Vecino says that in
last year’s course, it was 230 million pesos.)
No, I wish! There’s a figure that someone should
know.
Look here, this is our Ministry of Finance. That
was 2004 and I was asking about 2005, there has been an enormous growth. Last
year’s figures don’t help me much, Vecino.
Well, what’s happening to Vecino, happens to all of
us, and it’s a life or death matter. A few days ago, I was standing before a
group of 200 university professionals, excellently prepared individuals, and I
asked them: “Which of you can tell me your household’s electrical bill?” Listen
to this, comrades. How many do you think answered me? Just guess, use your
logic.
What do you think? You just spoke here. And he’s
very smart, all of you are smart, but some of you are smarter. How many do you
think answered my question, among those 200 university professionals? (He tells
him: 100)
What do you think? Do you know how much
electricity you use? (He indicates that he has some idea) What’s your idea?
Tell me in pesos and in kilowatt. (Laughter) No, wait, even more; can you tell
me how many incandescent bulbs you have, what brand is your refrigerator, what
is your TV set (black and white or in color) and how old it is, what kind of
fan you have, how much water you boil each day, what do you boil it in, do you
have liquefied gas supplied by pipes, kerosene or liquefied gas supplied in
small containers. No, I don’t want to ask you that question, be careful, I just
wanted to know how many out of the 200 knew what their electric bill was.
You, you’re laughing, let’s see, and make a
guess, an estimate.50, 70, 120. (Someone says it’s the
third) And what about you? (He says, at least 100) You
must be thinking about how much you use, just in case you are asked, but I’m
not going to ask you. (Laughter)
Do you know how many of the 200 were able to
answer? You know how many? 0.0000 to the infinite
power. You’ve studied some math, you can understand that: no-one, not one
single person.
I think that all our people should meditate on
that for a while.
Can I ask you a question? Why did that happen?
Come on, we need to think about this. We have said that we must change the
world, that we must save it, that we are living in a
world in its critical hour and very close to a tragic finale; I’m not
exaggerating here just to impress you. That could happen when you are all
younger than I am now. I am speaking for all of you, for your children, your
siblings, whether they are younger or older. It’s never been proven, throughout
the brief history of man, not the savage history but from the time it was a man
and developed a mental capacity but still did not live in society, nor had he
developed writing or a rudimentary technology.
You need to think. What kind of university
leaders are you? Carlitos, where did this group that
can’t tell me why those 200 university professionals weren’t able to answer the
question about energy consumption come from? How long do you need to meditate
on this? How about a minute? Would that be long enough? (One comrade explains
that the reason is because the Cuban family can afford their electrical bill,
unlike in other places where people have to be more vigilant about energy
consumption.)
And you, what do you think? (He suggests that no
university professor ever has to worry about paying the electrical bill).
What do you think? (The answer is that this
happens because the bill is so insignificant.)
What do you think? (Another believes that the
revolution subsidizes a large portion of our expenses and that saving is a
concern.)
Fine, I’m going to ask you another question. You
are zeroing in on the exact answer, at least one that I can agree with, and I’m
not alone in my opinion. There are several questions that could complicate the
matter some more, but we must make the people think. We have to call upon all
our honest compatriots, even the dishonest ones, because after all there could
be some dishonest individual who will come up with the truth, saying: “This is
the reason.” There are many. Simply stated, electricity is practically a gift,
and I can prove it to you.
Afterwards, we might have other questions. How
much are we earning? And if the question deals with how much we are earning, we
might begin to understand the dream of everyone being able to live on their
salary or on their adequate pension.
Let’s add a bit more to this: consider the case
of two sisters. One of them was a teacher and now the two are living together,
having some problems, difficulties, earning a pension of 80 pesos because years
ago, the salaries were much lower. And then there were periods of: “I’ll pay
you for overtime, I’ll pay you because it is after hours, I’ll pay you because
it is night-time, I’ll pay you extra because you had
to work on a Sunday.” None of this touched on the basic salary. It affected the
teacher’s take-home pay, but not the actual teacher’s salary or the subsequent
pension, according to the laws. Many of these laws were outdated and we have to
begin to get rid of them. I can assure you that we have become aware of this.
The entire life is a learning process, right up to our last breath.
Many things become clear at a certain time, and
thinking of a million different subjects, one can become distracted and not
notice a certain phenomenon, such as the raises in personal salaries at the
outset of the Special Period: these were implemented following these norms and
not following a basic salary guideline. And so there was no hesitation,
recently, when the worker’s minimum pension was raised to 150 pesos. The lady
was earning 80 pesos, 50 was the minimum in a category, in another it would be
190 and in yet another it would be 230. So now, imagine if you will, that
teacher who had worked for 40 years, before the farmers’ free market came into
being and the intermediaries attacked the Republic. Because everyone knows very
well that the farmer does go there to sell three pounds of rice. The farmer is
not a merchant, he is a producer. The other one will have a truck because he
stole it, or because he bought it, or because he bought it with stolen money,
or because he put the motor in, for many reasons.
This is not speaking badly about the Revolution,
this is in fact speaking very well of the Revolution, because we speak of a
Revolution that can discuss all this and can grab the bull by the horns, even
better than the Spanish bull-fighter. That one will take a red cloth, he’ll
close his eyes and sometimes he’ll give it the coup de grace, pierce it with a
pointed stick and infuriate the bull; but we have to take the bull by the horns
in order to win the prize.
I’ve never been a fan of bull-fighting, even
though I did read Hemingway. When I was in
I recall that at the beginning of the
Revolution, one of us, I can’t remember who it was, started to talk about
bull-fighting. We were somewhat ignorant about the subject, because we had seen
it done in
You are laughing, I’m glad because you are
encouraging me to go on.
Here is a conclusion I’ve come to after many
years: among all the errors we may have committed, the greatest of them all was
that we believed that someone really knew something about socialism, or that
someone actually knew how to build socialism. It seemed to be a sure fact, as
well-known as the electrical system conceived by those who thought they were
experts in electrical systems. Whenever they said: “That’s the formula,” we
thought they knew. Just as if someone is a physician. You are not going to debate
anemia, or intestinal problems, or any other condition with a physician; nobody
argues with the physician. You can think that he is a good doctor or a bad one,
you can follow his advice or not, but you won’t argue with him. Which of us
would argue with a doctor, or a mathematician, or a historian, or an expert in
literature or in any other subject? But we must be idiots if we think, for
example, that economy is an exact and eternal science and that it existed since
the days of Adam and Eve, and I offer my apologies to the thousands of
economists in our country.
All sense of dialectics is lost when someone
believes that today’s economy is identical to the economy 50 or 100 or 150
years ago, or that it is identical to the one in Lenin’s day or to the time
when Karl Marx lived. Revisionism is a thousand miles away from my mind and I
truly revere Marx, Engels and Lenin.
One day I said: “I became a revolutionary in
this university” but it was because I came in contact with those books. Well
before I had committed myself, without having read any of those books, I was
questioning capitalist political economy. Even at that time, it all seemed
irrational to me; and I took a political economy course in first year, taught
by Portela, 900 mimeographed pages, really difficult,
almost everyone failed. What a holy terror, that professor!
It was an economy that explained the laws of
capitalism and examined the various theories about the origin of value; it also
mentioned the Marxists, the Utopians, the Communists, in short, every economic
theory. But once I began to study the political economy of capitalism, I began
to have great doubts, I began to question all that, because I had grown up on a
large rural estate and I remembered things, I had spontaneous ideas, just as any
other utopian in this world.
Then, once I learned what utopian communism was,
I realized that that’s what I was a utopian communist because all my ideas took
off from the idea: “This is not good, this is bad, this is a crime. How can we
possibly have an overproduction crisis and hunger at the same time, when there
is more coal, more cold, more unemployed, because
there is more capacity to create wealth? Wouldn’t it be simpler to produce and
distribute the wealth?”
Just as Karl Marx thought in the period of the Critique
of the Gotha Program, it seemed like limits for
abundance were inherent in the social system; it seemed that just as production
forces developed, they could produce everything that the human being needed to
satisfy all his essential requirements almost limitlessly, be they material,
cultural, etc.
We have all read that Program, and it is
certainly very respectable. It established with total clarity the difference in
his concept between socialist distribution and communist distribution. Marx didn’t
like to play the prophet or paint pictures of the future; he was very serious,
and would never have done that.
When he wrote political books like The 18th Brumaire and the Civil War in France, he was a
genius with a crystal clear interpretation. His Communist Manifesto is a
classic. You can analyze it and be more or less satisfied with this and with
that. I moved on from utopian communism to a communism that was based on
serious theories of social development such as dialectic materialism. There was
a lot of philosophy, much fighting and arguing. But of course, it is important
to pay due attention to different philosophical tendencies.
In our real world, which must be changed, every
revolutionary tactician and strategist has the obligation to conceive of a
strategy and a tactic that will lead to the fundamental objective, to change
the real world. No divisive tactic or strategy can be a good one.
I had the privilege of meeting the followers of
the Liberation Theology once when I visited Allende
in
The world is desperately crying out for unity
and if we cannot achieve a minimum of unity, we are not going to go anywhere.
Yesterday, in a meeting with the representative
of the Holy See in our country, on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of
uninterrupted Cuba-Vatican relations, I was saying that one of the things I
most appreciated about John Paul II was his ecumenical spirit. I attended
religious schools from first grade until my last year, the schools of the De La
Salle Brothers and the Jesuits; it was all religious and we had to go to Mass
every day. I don’t criticize anyone who wants to go to Mass, but I am against
forcing someone to attend every day; that’s what happened to me.
Yesterday, I was also talking respectfully and
in a good spirit to the bishops about many of these subjects; I recalled what I
had said about ecumenism and I remembered that in my day I had witnessed a war
to death, of all religious faiths fighting against each other. The Catholics
were against the Jews, the Protestants, the Muslims, and everyone was against
the other, to speak of one to the other was akin to speaking of the devil.
Many years later, I was quite surprised; I
believe it was following the Council held in
Just imagine many powerful churches, the
Catholic Church, all the other Christian churches, the Muslim faith. We
ourselves are observing extremely interesting things, things we didn’t know
about the very powerful cultures, beliefs and customs in the Muslim faith,
because our doctors are over there in a Muslim country, saving lives. They
treat us with great affection and respect. I won’t go into more detail, only to
say that these are things that have a great impact. There are many very strong
religions and some of them are 2500, 3000 years old, some of them are a little
younger at 2000 years and others are only hundreds of years old.
This is a good example, because if religious
sentiment is unable to be united, despite their various ethical ideals, or
moral values or religious aims of any one religion, then unity can never be
attained if seven, eight, ten or more churches struggle against each other, all
of them refusing to talk to one another.
I have a very clear idea on this subject;
ethical values are essential. Without ethical values, there can be no
revolutionary values.
I don’t know why the communists were credited
with the philosophy of the end justifying the means, and sometimes one even
asks oneself why the communists didn’t defend themselves from that accusation
of the end justifying the means. My explanation is that it is due to historical
reasons. There was an enormous influence exerted by the first socialist state
and by the first true socialist revolution born in a feudal country that still,
by and large, has feudal customs and habits and a large percentage of
illiteracy; but it was the first working class revolution springing from the
ideas of Marx and Engels and developed by the other
great genius, Lenin.
Above all, Lenin studied State issues; Marx did
not speak of the worker-peasant alliance because he lived in a country that had
a highly developed industrial base; Lenin recognized the under-developed world,
he was aware of the country where 80 to 90 percent were peasants, and even though
it had considerable strength in its railroad workers and in some other
industries, Lenin saw with utmost clarity the necessity to forge a
worker-peasant alliance. No one before had spoken of this; they had
philosophized, but they hadn’t talked about this. The first socialist
revolution, the first real attempt at a just and egalitarian society, takes
place in a huge semi-feudal, semi-under developed country. None of the previous
societies slave-based, feudal, medieval or anti-feudal, bourgeois, or capitalist
could ever propose the existence of a just society even though much was said
about liberty, equality and fraternity.
Throughout history, the first serious human
attempt to create the first just society began less than 200 years ago; the Communist
Manifesto was written in 1850 and in 45 years, yes, in 45 more years, it
will be 200 years old. After it was written, the evolution of revolutionary
thinking could be appreciated.
One could never have arrived at a strategy
through dogma. Lenin taught us a lot, because Marx taught us to understand
society. Lenin taught us to understand the State and the role of the State.
All these historical factors had a tremendous
influence on revolutionary thinking, and of course there were abusive
practices, at times even repugnant ones.
This is what gave rise to the slanderous
accusation that for communists “the end justifies the means.” I have reflected
a great deal about the role of ethics. What is the ethic of a revolutionary?
All revolutionary thinking begins with a bit of ethics; some values acquired
from parents, others from teachers, but no one is born with these ideas. No one
is born with the gift of speech, either; someone has to teach us to speak. The
influence of the family is huge.
Upon studying the cases of young people who go
to prison between the ages of 20 and 30, we see where they came from, the
cultural level of the parents and we note that this has a decisive influence.
Such an influence in fact, that during the battle of ideas, after all kinds of
sociological research on this subject, we reached the conclusion that crime in
It was astounding to see how very few children
of university professionals and intellectuals turned to a life of crime. It was
likewise incredible to see the numbers coming from economically disadvantaged
families that lacked a cultural base. Another problem was of great influence:
the disintegration of the family cell in the low income family with an inferior
cultural level. Some children ended up staying with neither the father nor the
mother, but with an aunt or a grandmother who might have health related
problems or something else. This would have a noteworthy influence upon the
future of the child.
It was then that we began using university
brigades to visit the poorest of our districts, and we decided to mobilize
7,000 students for that. These were the students who later received a diploma,
signed by me in a plane, coming back from
It was then that we discovered, for example, the
case of a working mother, earning a salary, with a severely mentally
handicapped and bed-ridden child who needed constant care. Some family member
would look after the child while the mother was at work. One day, the family
member left, or died, and that woman was forced to choose between the job,
which supported her, or the care of her child.
I’d like to tell you that we decided that every
woman in similar circumstances ought to have the possibility to choose,
according to her job and according to the needs and importance of her work for
society, whether to receive a salary so that she could look after her child, or
the State would pay someone a salary to care for the child while she was at
work. This is just one example among many.
The student brigades also helped in saving the
lives of persons who, for example, were going to commit suicide due to mental
illness or depression or some other reason. We learned so many things! There
were about 20,000 or 30,000 people older than 60 who lived alone and didn’t
even have a bell to let someone know that they might have a chest pain or some
other health problem. Such was our society.
We looked into the income these people were
receiving from a pension or from social security. Much of the data doesn’t even
appear in any statistic, or census. We kept on discovering more and more,
accomplishing things and forging ideas. We put together more than 100 social
programs, many of which have come to fruition a while ago. We haven’t
publicized all that we have accomplished. What glorious days those were!
Starting basically with the groups of young people and with the support of the
Party and all the institutions, we developed that battle of ideas around the
return from the
We shall always be grateful for the
circumstances that accelerated our knowledge of society and our learning
process. I think that we would not be doing what we are doing today if it had
not been for that experience.
We created the first course for social workers.
We needed to know what the minimum salaries were. I would like you to know that
the minimum salary increase was made after we had crossed the country from end
to end. Social assistance was one third of everything that was established that
year, taking it up to 129 pesos on average. When the pensions were increased,
the effect was much stronger as the minimum pension was raised to 150, to 190
in the following category and 230 in the one following that. The minimum salary
was also substantially raised.
We were speaking of the importance of the
ethical factor. We would have to research the reasons for the confusion. I
believe that historical events influenced the idea that for a communist the end
justifies the means. There were international events that were difficult to
understand — I’ve mentioned them on more than one occasion — in spite of
everything, there was the precedent of